Wilson's Fourteen Points are proposals made by the President of the United States Thomas Woodrow Wilson in view of the Allied victory in the First World War. The purpose of these proposals was to define the war aims of the Allies and to lay the foundations for a just and lasting peace. Formulated by the American president in a speech addressed to the United States Congress on January 8, 1918, the principles contained in the "fourteen points" were largely taken up in the constitutive charter of the League of Nations.
Wilson, a progressive president
Democratic Governor of New Jersey in 1911, presidential candidate of November 1912, Thomas Woodrow Wilson triumphed over Republican Theodore Roosevelt and was re-elected in 1916. He thus remained President of the United States from 1913 to 1921. Inside, his administration, placed under the slogan of "New Freedom", was marked by numerous democratic reforms and by an extension of the powers of the federal government:establishment of a federal income tax , direct election of senators by universal suffrage, federal organization of credit, strengthening of antitrust legislation, women's right to vote.
Most of his foreign policy was occupied by the First World War and its aftermath. A long-time supporter of neutrality, he nevertheless decided on the entry into the war of the United States alongside the Allies after Germany had declared total submarine warfare, which was very damaging to North American trade. The spirit of crusade for the freedom that he wanted to give to war was found in the Fourteen Points of his speech of January 8, 1918, which underlined in particular the right of peoples to self-determination.
Wilson's Fourteen Points
In the perspective of the outcome of the First World War, the President of the United States made a speech at the beginning of 1918 during a session of the American Congress. In fourteen points, it summarizes the various measures to be put in place to return to peace and preserve it. The idealistic inspiration of Wilson's remarks is widely acclaimed and gives the President a position of moral leadership among Allied officials.
These "fourteen points" were:1) renunciation of secret diplomacy; 2) freedom of the seas; 3) removal of economic barriers; 4) arms reduction; 5) equitable readjustment of colonial possessions; 6) evacuation of Russian territory by the Germans; 7) evacuation of Belgium by the Germans; 8) evacuation of German-occupied France and restitution of Alsace-Lorraine; 9) rectification of the Italian borders in accordance with the clearly recognizable limits of nationalities”; 10) autonomous development of the peoples of Austria-Hungary; 11) evacuation from Romania, Serbia, Montenegro and Serbia's access to the sea; 12) autonomous development of the non-Turkish peoples of the Ottoman Empire and free passage through the Straits; 13) creation of an independent Poland with free access to the sea; 14) creation of a League of Nations.
These fourteen points were supplemented, during the year 1918, by other declarations of President Wilson, in particular the declaration of July 4, 1918 on the "four goals of war” of the Allies. Wilson specified in particular that no question of territory or sovereignty could be settled without the free consent of the populations concerned. It is on this basis that the German government of Max of Baden asked for peace, in a message to the American president (night of October 3 to 4, 1918).
14 point consequences and destiny
However, the fourteen points had not been accepted without reluctance by the Allied governments:they were already bound by secret engagements concluded during the war, without taking into account in the opinion of the populations, in particular by the famous Treaty of London of April 1915 which promised Italy important positions in the Balkans (Albania) and in Asia Minor. During the peace conference, when Italy demanded the application of the Treaty of London, Wilson resolutely opposed it. On the other hand, Germany maintained that the principle of the free determination of peoples, laid down by Wilson, had been violated by the Allies, who attached West Prussia and Posnania to Poland without consultation, and who, despite the desire expressed then by the Austrians, forbade the union of Germany and Austria.
Even if some of Wilson's proposals met with opposition from European winners because they contradicted their particular interests and the agreements made between them during the war (notably the first point), the fourteen points, which set out the expectations of the United States after its engagement in the war, are largely repeated thereafter. On the one hand, during the armistice signed between the belligerents at Rethondes (Compiègne forest) on November 11, 1918 and on the other hand, at the Peace Conference which opened in Paris in January 1919, where the fourteenth point of Wilson's program materializes in the creation of the League of Nations (SDN).
Thomas Woodrow will receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919, but the US Senate will refuse to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and join the League of Nations, returning to its traditional isolationism.
To go further
- The Damnation of Woodrow Wilson, by André Bayens. Xenia, 2014.
- Woodrow Wilson and World Peace, by George Davis. Nabu press, 2010.
- The Treaty of Versailles, by Jean-Jacques Becker. What do I know, 2019.