Negotiating Peace after WWION-Level and Modified World History
(Paraphrased Primary Source documents)
the FOURTEEN POINTS President Woodrow WiIson put forth his Fourteen Points proposal for ending the war in a speech on January 8, 1918. In it he established the basis of a peace treaty and the foundation of a League of Nations.
We entered this war because certain problems occurred in the world that really affected each of our countries, and which we felt needed to be dealt with. As a result, we are not demanding certain things just for ourselves; we want the world to be safe to live in, for peaceful countries to be able to be free and determine things for themselves, and for aggressive countries to be dealt with quickly, effectively, and fairly. This will benefit all of the people in the world equally, and we need to remember that unless we treat other countries fairly, then they will not treat us fairly. Therefore, restoring the worlds peace is important to everyone, and as we see it, this is the only way to do that:
1. All agreements between countries should be open and public.
2. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, unless the League of Nations has decided that certain areas should be closed in order to enforce peace.
3. The removal of all economic barriers and the establishment of equal trade among all the nations who belong to the League of Nations.
4. National armaments will be reduced as much as possible while still keeping enough for national safety.
5. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon the principle of self-determination--that in deciding who should rule each area, the people who live in each area should be consulted.
6. We should also apply this principle of self-determination (as mentioned in point 5) to Russia. We have to be careful with Russia, because if the other nations of the world dont support self-determination while the Bolsheviks are trying to take over, there could be huge problems.
7. Belgium should also have self-determination.
8. The Germans should give back all of the territory they took from France in the Franco-Prussian War, and make peace with France, so that no one else in the world needs to worry about those two countries going to war again.
9. Italys borders should be fixed so that everyone who feels himself to be Italian in nationality should live in the country of Italy.
10 - 12. All of the different nationalities in Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire should also have self-determination, and if they wish to form their own nation-states, the League of Nations should support them and make sure no one attacks them while they are setting up their independent countries.
13. Poland needs to be restored (remember it was divided among Russia, Prussia, and Austria in 1795) and given self-determination and protection.
14. A League of Nations, which is an international organization that would make sure that all arguments and disputes among nations are settled fairly and without resorting to war, should be set up.
excerpts from the TREATY of VERSAILLES On June 28,1919, the Allied powers, represented by the Big Four Woodrow Wilson of the US, David Lloyd George of England, Georges Clemenceau of France, & Vittorio Orlando of Italy presented the Treaty of Versailles to Germany for signature. The following are the key territorial and political clauses.
Article 22. Some places in the Ottoman Empire will now be put under the mandate, or control of certain European countries. The European countries should guide them on the road to independence.
Article 42. Germany is forbidden to construct any forts near the Rhine river.
Article 45. Germany has to give France access to all of the coal mines in the Saar region in order to make up for war damages.
Article 49. Germany has to allow the League of Nations to take control of the government of the Saar region, and in fifteen years, the people who live in the Saar will be allowed to determine whether they want to be part of France or part of Germany.
Article 51. Germany has to give back the territory it took from France in the Franco-Prussian War, the Alsace-Lorraine.
Article 119. Germany has to give all its colonies over to the League of Nations.
Article 159. The German military forces shall be demobilized and reduced.
Article 160. By a date which must not be later than March 31, 1920, the German Army can not have more than seven divisions of infantry and three divisions of cavalry, or more than 100,000 men. The Army can only be used within the borders of Germany.
Article 231. Germany accepts the responsibility for causing all the loss and damage to Allied governments and the people who live in those countries.
Article 232. The Allies realize that Germany does not have enough money to pay for all of the damages it did during the war. Regardless, Germany still has to figure out a way to make up for everything it destroyed during the war.
Negotiating Peace after WWIPre-AP World History (Original Primary Source Documents) the FOURTEEN POINTS President Woodrow WiIson put forth his Fourteen Points proposal for ending the war in a speech on January 8, 1918. In it he established the basis of a peace treaty and the foundation of a League of Nations.
We entered this war because violations of right had occurred which touched us to the quick and made the life of our own people impossible unless they were corrected and the world secured once for all against their recurrence. What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression. All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us. The program of the world's peace, therefore, is our program; and that program, the only possible program, as we see it, is this:
I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understanding of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.
II. 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.
III. 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.
IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.
V. 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.
VI. 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 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.
VII. 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.
VIII. 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.
IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.
X. 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.
XI. 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.
XII. The Turkish portions 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.
XIII. 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.
XIV. 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....
excerpts from the TREATY of VERSAILLES On June 28,1919, the Allied powers, represented by the Big Four Woodrow Wilson of the US, David Lloyd George of England, Georges Clemenceau of France, & Vittorio Orlando of Italy presented the Treaty of Versailles to Germany for signature. The following are the key territorial and political clauses.
Article 22. Certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory [i.e., a Western power] until such time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory. Article 42. Germany is forbidden to maintain or construct any fortifications either on the left bank of the Rhine or on the right bank to the west of a line drawn 50 kilometers to the East of the Rhine.
Article 45. As compensation for the destruction of the coal mines in the north of France and as part payment towards the total reparation due from Germany for the damage resulting from the war, Germany cedes to France in full and absolute possession, with exclusive right of exploitation, unencumbered and free from all debts and charges of any kind, the coal mines situated in the Saar Basin....
Article 49. Germany renounces in favor of the League of Nations, in the capacity of trustee, the government of the territory defined above.
At the end of fifteen years from the coming into force of the present Treaty the inhabitants of the said territory shall be called upon to indicate the sovereignty under which they desire to be placed.
Alsace-Lorraine. The High Contracting Parties, recognizing the moral obligation to redress the wrong done by Germany in 1871 both to the rights of France and to the wishes of the population of Alsace and Lorraine, which were separated from their country in spite of the solemn protest of their representatives at the Assembly of Bordeaux, agree upon the following....
Article 51. The territories which were ceded to Germany in accordance with the Preliminaries of Peace signed at Versailles on February 26, 1871, and the Treaty of Frankfort of May 10, 1871, are restored to French sovereignty as from the date of the Armistice of November 11, 1918. The provisions of the Treaties establishing the delimitation of the frontiers before 1871 shall be restored.
Article 119. Germany renounces in favor of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers all her rights and titles over her overseas possessions.
Article 156. Germany renounces, in favor of Japan, all her rights, title and privileges . . . which she acquired in virtue of` the Treaty concluded by her with China on March 6, 1898, and of all other arrangements relative to the Province of Shantung.
Article 159. The German military forces shall be demobilized and reduced as prescribed hereinafter
Article 160. By a date which must not be later than March 31, 1920, the German Army must not comprise more than seven divisions of infantry and three divisions of cavalry. After that date the total number of effectives in the Army of the States constituting Germany must not exceed 100,000 men, including officers and establishments of depots. The Army shall be devoted exclusively to the maintenance of order within the territory and to the control of the frontiers. The total effective strength of officers, including the personnel of staffs, whatever their composition, must not exceed four thousand....
Article 231. The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies.
Article 232. The Allied and Associated Governments recognize that the resources of Germany are not adequate, after taking into account permanent diminutions of such resources which will result from other provisions of the present Treaty, to make complete reparation for all such loss and damage. The Allied and Associated Governments, however, require, and Germany undertakes, that she will make compensation for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allied and Associated Powers and to their property during the period of the belligerency of each as an Allied or Associated Power against Germany.
Name: ________________________________ Seat #: _____ NEGOTIATING PEACE AFTER WWIOn-Level, Modified, or PRE-AP the Fourteen Points Choose any six of the enumerated (numbered) items to summarize in your own words. Item # Summary Item # Summary
Determine which of the MAIN causes of World War I each of the Fourteen Points addresses, and fill out the chart below. (Hint: one item may address more than one cause.) Militarism Alliances Imperialism Nationalism Fourteen Points Item #
the Treaty of Versailles 1. Which articles of the treaty deal with the military threat of Germany, and how?
2. Which articles of the treaty take land or colonies away from Germany, and to whom were they given instead?
3. Which articles of the treaty simply assign blame to Germany?
4. Which articles of the treaty are aimed at gaining money or other forms of reparations from Germany? Name: __________________________ Seat #: _____ Negotiating Peace after WWI: Venn Diagram Use the text from the Fourteen Points & the Treaty of Versailles to fill in the Venn Diagram. Pre-AP must have fifteen elements (bullets) overall. LIST & DESCRIBE for full credit!
