Wilson's Fourteen Points: a Path to Peace or to Renewed Conflict
Wilson's Fourteen Points were a decent attempt at peace and restitution after the Great War; however, there were many inherent problems with the Wilsonian agenda. These problems were caused by many things, including Allied bias, American ambition, and Western European dominance. While trying to fix many problems in Europe, the Fourteen Points mainly concentrated on the things that were important to the Allied powers: France was bent on revenge, Great Britain was looking to further its power over the seas, and America was keen on becoming an even more powerful trade nation.
The Allied Powers made it very hard for Germany and Austria and the newly formed countries in
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Allowing the union of Austria and Germany would only make Germany stronger, something France especially did not want. Self-determination was also used against Germany in other ways. By allowing Poland to become a country with access to the sea, Germany would be split in half, and former German territory would now be known as the Polish Corridor. Territory was also taken away from Germany to create the nation of Lithuania.
The war had other consequences for Germany besides loss of territory. Germany was punished tremendously by the Wilsonian agenda and, ultimately, the Treaty of Versailles. Although Germany was seen as the main aggressor in World War I, they were only upholding an alliance, as did every other European country involved in World War I. In losing the war, Germany was subjected to the harsh will of neighboring France, whose ego, still bruised from the Franco-Prussian War could now be healed. France used the Fourteen Points to try and "undo, what, since 1870 the progress of Germany had accomplished" (Keynes pp 2). This included taking back the disputed regions of Alsace-Lorriane, returning the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein to Denmark, demilitarizing the country, which included the dismantling of rail roads, taking away all colonial holdings as well as the new territories Germany had acquired from Russia
President Wilson's own ineptitude and stubbornness is what led to the Senate's defeat of the Treaty of Versailles, rather than the strength of the opposing forces. Even Wilson's closest and most trusted advisors could not sway his stance. Wilson was strong in his stance and incorporated the idea of the 14 points. While it is true that opposing forces contributed to defeat the treaty, it was Wilson's unmovable position that led to its ultimate defeat in the Senate.
Major problem developed after the Turkey's revolution, Austria's power position was threatened by the expansion in the Balkans, and also left Austria occupying Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Novibazar. This left Austria a need to find new bordering allies, and Germany could use that to avoid potential threats from France. Their alliance, and Austria's unique political system, caused a situation where Germany may need to intervene in situations outside of its own interests, which in a way happened. For the most part, Austria-Hungry did well as a nation, but foreign interests and pressures from Germany would lead the pack into an optimistic failure. Optimism and poor predictions were a few of the things that hit the two countries hard. Failing to predict Great Britain's involvement could have been one of their greatest failures, but perhaps Great Britain not disclosing their plans to get involved is what led to the disaster as well.
There were many territorial changes to Germany after the war, due to the treaty. The most relevant one was the decision to give Poland a coastline, the Polish Corridor. This was a piece of land running through the centre of Germany, splitting
The source is a speech delivered by Woodrow Wilson on January 8th 1918; the speech was delivered among Woodrow’s fellow congressmen in the American congress. However, the speech was not written purely by Wilson, During World War I, Walter Lippmann became an adviser to President Woodrow Wilson and assisted in the drafting of the speech. The several points covered in Wilson’s speech aimed to resolve territorial issues in Europe, as well as improving post-war American diplomacy. To achieve this Wilson supported the League of Nations which was set up following the end of war. The speech therefore was not focused purely for American congress, but instead the International stage.
World War I was a period when countries faced economic, political, social, and cultural problems, which threatened the survival of democracy and freedom and needed a fast and effective resolution which was presented to the world by Woodrow Wilson called the Fourteen Points. The Fourteen Points offered the world a democratic resolute, that was effective, reliable and a basis for long lasting peace, unlike the Treaty of Versailles which was a non democratic approach to the problem since it contained a war-guilt clause which forced Germany to admit sole responsibility for starting World War I, although other European nations had been guilty of provoking diplomatic crises before the war, also the treaty excluded Russia which was a major
Germany’s loss of territory was a major cause of the war. In document A the map referencing German territorial losses depicts the land lost after World War I. The Germans were forced to return Alsace-Lorraine back to France, the Polish Corridor was given to Poland and Danzig became a free city. Germany lost their territory along with the resources within the area such as coal and iron. Because of their loss in resources, their economy continued to decline as their reparations remained unpaid. In addition, in document A, Adolf
At the end of world war I, the European countries got together to decide what Germany's punishments should be after losing the war. The terms that they came up with were nearly impossible for Germany to meet, these terms included Germany to pay in gold, in land, in resources, and to reduce military strength. Also they had to take full responsibility for causing world war I.
President Wilson was determined to achieve peace. He based his peacemaking efforts in the academic argument Fourteen Points. Ideas of freedom of the seas, internationalism and justice for all were embedded in his idealistic approach, in an attempt to making long lasting peace.
Germans lost some parts of their land as a consequence from the Treaty Versaille. They lost Polish Corridor, a part East Prussia, Alsace, Lorraine, a part of Denmark. The loss of Polish Corridor caused difficulty to the Germans because it splits the country so they no longer have common territory. Also Polish Corridor was a port city and they lost it. It became difficult
The Fourteen Points were distributed all over the world. On November 5, Wilson delivered the peace plan to the German government (http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1234.html). The Germans surrender November 11,1918 and expect a peace treaty under Wilson’s Fourteen Points. The war was now over. Many lives were loss because of the war. There was disease and starvation that killed ten million civilians. In addition, ten million soldiers were killed (http://www.polytechnic.org/faculty/gfeldmeth/chart.ww1.html).
The Fourteen Points was a speech that was given by Woodrow Wilson to be used as peace negotiations after World War I. Woodrow Wilson was president at the time and the speech was broadcasted all over the world. There were fourteen points given in the speech, as the name implies. This was actually pretty unsuccessful because many of the countries wanted to punish Germany more so they only kept one point, the final one. This point established a league of nations.
“The representatives in the Congress of Vienna wanted to prevent France’s aggression by surrounding France with stronger nations, restore balance of power, so no country would be a threat to others and restore Europe’s royal families to the thrones they head held before Napoleon’s coquets” (Beck, 239). In order to make the weak nations around France stronger, the former Austrian Netherlands and Dutch Republic were united to form the Kingdom of the Netherlands. “Group of 39 German states were loosely joined as the newly create German confederation, dominate by Austria. Leaders of Europe wanted to weaken France, but also didn’t want to leave it powerless. If they did, the French might rebel to take revenge but if France became weaker and was broken up, another country might become so strong that it would threaten them all. France remained a major but diminished European powers” (Beck, 239). Nevertheless, not all-important decisions were made by the great powers.
The first point on Wilson’s 14 point plan was that nations should not have any secret treaties or alliances with other nations. This is an important point in the plan, because if it were followed through with it could possibly prevent many wars afterwards. That is, of course, if the nations
In the early months of 1918, the dynamics of The Great War ravaging Europe changed dramatically. On March 3rd, Germany and the Russian Bolsheviks signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, officially ending Russia’s involvement in the war and freeing Germany’s forces previously occupied on the Eastern Front . That same month, Germany launched an extensive attack in France along the Somme River, knocking a devastating blow to the Allies. By the summer of 1918, the United States had escalated it’s involvement in the war, sending over mass amounts of troops and coordinating with European powers to essentially back the German offensive into a position of little advancement. As Germany recognized its failing position in the war, the officials in the German High Command began quietly pursuing negotiations of peace and cease fire, not from their European counterparts, but from American President Woodrow Wilson . Germany was hoping to benefit from President Wilson’s ideals of peace and justice for all, ideals he had laid out publicly that year in a January speech outlining his “blueprint for a new democratic world order.” These Fourteen Points became the cornerstone of Wilson’s contribution to the peace negotiations following the armistice that ended the war in November of 1918. Focusing on the belief that an established system of democracy, communication and peace would prevent further atrocities like World War I, the Fourteen Points centered on equal representation and opportunity
Assess the impact of Woodrow Wilson’s fourteen points on the Paris Peace Settlement and determine whether Wilson was successful in his goals.