President
Wilson offered a plan for lasting peace which the warring nationsespecially
Germanygrasped at. Wilson went to Versailles to make peace, armed with
these principles. He discovered, unhappily, that after all the blood and treasure
that had been spilt, the nations were not prepared for so altruistic a solution
to the conflict, and most of the points were lost.
- 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 associating 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 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 Deeds 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.
- 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 opportunity of 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; ad 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 Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other
nationalities which are now tinder 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.
- 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.
- 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.
In regard to these essential
rectifications of wrong and assertions of right we feel ourselves to be intimate
partners of all the governments and peoples associated together against the
Imperialists. We cannot be separated in interest or divided in purpose. We stand
together until the end. . . .
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