Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points: A (rejected) path to peace
On the 8th of January 1918, then United States President Woodrow Wilson declared his plan for peace after the aftermath of the First World War (U. S. News and World Report). The outline of the report was prepared by Colonel Edward M. House, a long time confidante of Wilson (U. S. News). House’s group, collectively known as “The Inquiry”, was tasked in assimilating and evaluating both the Allied nations’ position and that of American policy that were to crop up in the peace summit with the other nations (U. S. News).
In the speech, Wilson delved into what he believed as the prime triggers of the world conflagration (U. S. News). Wilson called for a decrease in the arms of countries, ending clandestine agreements and adjudication of the colonial issues among the nations, and an “open seas” policy (U. S. News). But his plans were meet with heavy resistance, sometimes outright hostility (Michael Streich). In his response to the Wilson proposals, French President Georges Clemenceau became theological in his resistance (Streich).
He averred that even if God did give the Ten Commandments, they were rejected by man, and the Fourteen Points were likely to meet the same fate (Streich). The interests of the Allies confirmed the rejection that would befall the proposal. The Allies rejected the proposal in that they were more interested in regaining what they had lost to Germany during the war (U. S. News). Most of the points in Wilson’s treaty were thrown out of the discussion and were just bent on seeking retribution against Germany (U. S. News).
But the conference did adopt the call for the establishment for a world group to safeguard security across the globe as established in the Versailles accord (U. S. News). Though Wilson mounted a relentless initiative to get the treaty ratified by the United States Senate, the accord was not adopted and the country did not gain membership in the world body, then known as the League of Nations (U. S. News).
Reacting to the Senate rejection, Wilson predicted that the world will be embroiled in another global conflict, which history chronicles as World War 2 (U. S. News). Works Cited Streich, Michael. “Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points”. <http://modern-us-history. suite101. com/article. cfm/woodrow_wilsons_fourteen_points> U. S. News and World Report. “President Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points”. <http://www. usnews. com/usnews/documents/docpages/document_page62. htm>
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