Woodrow Wilson's peace plan?

Question

Explain the the elements of Woodrow Wilson's peace plan. Which of the 14 Points were included in the peace treaty. Why was it so difficult to implement the vision of Woodrow Wilson?

Answer 1

The Europeans (France, Great Britain, and to some extent Orlando of Italy) were insulted by the idea that the US, which came late into the war, and had the least amount of casualties, would dictate any kind of treaty terms.

David Lloyd George of Britain, George Clemenceau of France, and Vittorio Orlando of Italy had there way with Woodrow Wilson. Wilson had not real international diplomacy experience and the walked all over him. They considered him an ignorant American...a new worlder trying to control the long standing empires of Great Britain and France, and the rest of Europe.

They included his idea of the League of Nations and the idea of self-determination (which was ignored arbitrarily where it would weaken Germany, Austria and Turkey. Some examples were the creation of the British and French Mandates in the Middle East and the creation of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and the Polish Corridor. if anything the Treaty of Versailles excerbated the Nationalist problems that helped cause World War I.

In addition, lawmakers at home in the US Congress refused to sign on or agree to the Final Treaty and the US never endorsed nor participated in the League of Nations. The most powerful industrial nation in the world refused to join the international peace keeping body. Imagine if the US had joined, would the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, or the Italian invasion of Ethiopia have occured with little or no reaction by the League of Nations?

Sadly, the United States fell into isolation again and things worsened when the Great Depression began and the reparation issues, which Wilson opposed, began to draw Europe into a global depression as well.

It was not until the late 1930s when Roosevelt realized that War might be the only way to truly end the US Great Depression did we diplomatically maneuver Japan into a position to attack us in the Pacific and began to arm Britain with our Lend-Lease and Cash and Carry programs.

So yeah, the failure of Woodrow Wilson to get his 14 Points introduced and acted upon in the Treaty of Versailles was a huge mistake.

Answer 2

Only the last point, the 14th, was implemented after the war in the form of League of Nations. Wilson had a difficult time pushing his 14 points because the US had entered the war late and England and France felt he shouldn't have much to do with the peace treaty. They had fought the war the longest, they had lost the most, they deserved to write the conditions for the peace. Wilson's ideas were too tolerant towards Germany and focused on improving world conditions, preventing another war, and England and France were more focused on hurting Germany, preventing another war by making sure Germany could not start one. Wilson also had many enemies in Congress so the treaty was not approved by Congress and the US did not join the League of Nations. Without the support of the US, and with the appeasement policy of Europe toward Hitler, Wilson's League of Nations failed miserably.

Answer 3

First it was hard for Wilson impletment them because of Congress. Congress wanted the US to be isolationist again after the war. Also Wilson, after he was at Versaillies, contracted inlfuenza. He was in no position to get the Allies to agree with his ideas. He just gave in to everyone.

Answer 4

The Fourteen Points. Designed to make Wilson look the great international statesman on the world stage.

Answer 5

his 14 points. and the league of nations. i think the people in the treaty didnt agree on it because clemenceau (of france) and others wanted germany to be demilitarized and pay economically.

Answer 6

President Wilson's Address to Congress, January 8, 1918:
. . . . No statesman who has the least conception of his responsibility ought for a moment to permit himself to continue this tragical and appalling outpouring of blood and treasure unless he is sure . . that the objects of the vital sacrifice are part an d parcel of the very life of Society and that the people for whom he speaks think them right and imperative as he does. It will our wish and purpose that the processes of peace, when they are begun, shall be absolutely open and that they shall involve and permit henceforth no secret understandings of any kind. . . . We entered this war because violations of right had occurred which touched us to the quick and made the life of our own people impossible unless they were corrected and the world secure once f or all against their recurrence. What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression. All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us. The program of the world's peace, therefore, is our program; and that program, the only possible program, as we see it, is this:

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.

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.

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 associatring themselves for its maintenance.

Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.

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.

The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest co-operation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrrassed 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.

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.

VIII. 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.

A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality

The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunityof autonomous development.

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.

The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman [Turkish] Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule [i.e., Kurds, Arab peoples, Armenians and some Greeks] should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Darrdanelles [namely, the straits leading from the Black Sea approaches to international waters] should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.

XIII. 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.

XIV. 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.


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