The text of the 14 Points addresses issues which are today widely accepted. Many have been embraced by Europe within the structure of the European Union. Thet were in Europe at the time warmly received by the European public, but in fact highly controversial when it came to implementing them. German would ask for an armistice based on the Fourteen Points. Wilson believed the Fourteen Points would stabilize Europe and reduce tensions. As it worked out, however, the Fourteen Points actually increased tensions and played a role in the avent of World War II.
1. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.
2. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.
3. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an
equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating
themselves for its maintenance.
4. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the
lowest point consistent with domestic safety.
5. A free, open-minded and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based
upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of
sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the
equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.
6. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent
determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a
sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing;
and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may
herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to
come will be the acid test of their goodwill, of their comprehension of her needs as
distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.
7. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any
attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations.
No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in
the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their
relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of
international law is forever impaired.
8. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong
done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled
the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may
once more be made secure in the interest of all.
9. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognisable lines of nationality.
10. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see
safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous
development.
11. Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored;
Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several
Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established
lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and
economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be
entered into.
12. The Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure
sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be
assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of
autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free
passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.
13. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories
inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure
access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity
should be guaranteed by international covenant.
14. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the
purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.
HBC
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Last updated: 5:57 PM 8/18/2018