Versailles Treaty?

Question

What are the 14 points of the treaty?

Answer 1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles

The Fourteen Points were listed in a speech delivered by President Woodrow Wilson of the United States to a joint session of the United States Congress on January 8, 1918. In his speech, Wilson intended to set out a blueprint for lasting peace in Europe after World War I. The idealism displayed in the speech gave Wilson a position of moral leadership among the Allies, and encouraged the Central Powers to surrender.

The speech was delivered over 10 months before the Armistice with Germany ended World War I, but the Fourteen Points became the basis for the terms of the German surrender, as negotiated at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 and documented in the Treaty of Versailles. However, only four of the points were adopted completely in the post-war reconstruction of Europe, and the United States Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles.

Fourteen Points
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 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. This also said that this safety would be kept in place for years to come.
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 good will, 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 recognizable 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. Romania, 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.

Answer 2

The Versailles Treaty - the 14 points are what U.S President Woodrow Wilson suggested to prevent further war in Europe and to resolve some of the divisions that had led to the First World War.

1. Establishment of League of Nations - to openly discuss peace intiatives, prevent war (Open covenants of peace)

2. Freedom of the seas - open 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 Equality in trade - The removal of all economic barriers

4. Reducing armaments - prevent arms races that had been one of the causes of the first world war.

6. Self-Determination for the European colonies

7. The sovereignty of Russian Territory to be restored. Although Victorious against Russia, Germany would have no territorial claims to Russian territory.

8. Belgium - one of the countries to be turned into a bloody battlefield during the war, to have its sovereignty restored.

9. French territory restored - including the Alscae-Lorraine teritory taken from France by Germany in 1871.

10. The Quetion of Italy to be resolved - Italy's borders to be established and agreed to

11. The Austria-Hungary Empire to be disassembled and freedom to be given to the nations of Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored;
One of these countries, Serbia, to be established.

12. The Ottoman Empire - to be disbanded. The nation of Turkey to be established with the Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire. But the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule would be given autonomous development - ie Armenia. This was a big question that had led to the First and Second Balkan wars. The Balkans / Ottoman rule one of the causes of the First World War.

13. The Independence of Poland - Poland to be separated from Russian / German control.

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. This would lead to the establishment of the League of nations[1]