Wilson's Fourteen Points: Opportunity for a new world order

Wilson's “Fourteen Points”

1. Open covenants of peace and abolition of secret diplomacy.
2. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas.
3. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers.
4. Reduction of national armaments.
5. A free and impartial adjustment of all colonial claims.
6. The evacuation of all occupied Russian territories.
7. Restoration of Belgian independence.
8. Evacuation of all French territory and the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France.
9. Readjustment of the frontiers of Italy along clear lines of nationality.
10. Autonomy for the peoples of Austria-Hungary.
11. Restoration of Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro, with access to the sea for Serbia.
12. Autonomy for the peoples of the Ottoman Empire and free passage through the Dardanelles and the Bosporus.
13. Erection of a free Polish state, independent of Germany and Russia and with access to the sea.
14. A “general association of nations” for the peaceful regulation of international disputes (a League of Nations).

Thomas Woodrow Wilson
1856–1924; 28th President of the USA (1913–21).

Wilson belonged to the Democratic Party. From 1890 on, he was Professor of Law and Political Economy at the University of Princeton. From 1910 to 1912, he was Governor of the State of New Jersey; then in 1913, he was elected the 28th President of the United States. At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, he initially proclaimed the neutrality of the USA, However, when Germany announced its policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, he declared war against Germany on 16 April, 1917.

At the Parisian Peace Conferences in 1919, Wilson was able to realize his democratic peace programme (→ Fourteen Points) only to a limited degree. Moreover, in 1920, the US Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and the membership in the League of Nations. In 1919, Wilson received the Nobel Peace Prize.

(more information in the Lexicon under “Wilson” and “Fourteen Points”)