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122-671: The United States had joined the Triple Entente in fighting the Central Powers on April 6, 1917. Its entry into the war had in part been due to Germany's resumption of submarine warfare against merchant ships trading with France and Britain and also the interception of the Zimmermann Telegram . However, Wilson wanted to avoid the United States' involvement in the long-standing European tensions between

244-513: A parliamentary democracy . The USPD was instrumental in the creation of the 2½ International in 1921. Over time, the political differences between SPD and USPD dwindled. Following the assassination of foreign minister Walther Rathenau by right-wing extremists in June 1922, the two parties' factions in the Reichstag formed a common working group on 14 July 1922. Two months later on 24 September,

366-603: A French puppet state under a permanent French military occupation. Marshal Ferdinand Foch , France's most respected and honored general, argued that the French needed control of the Rhineland in order to stand a chance of victory in another war with Germany, which Foch believed to be inevitable as the Allies had defeated, but not destroyed Germany as a great power. In Foch's viewpoint, France's need for sécurité took precedence over

488-659: A city whose population was 90% German unwillingly into Poland. An impasse emerged at the Paris peace conference with Clemenceau and Wilson supporting the Polish claim to Danzig while Lloyd-George maintained that the city should remain within Germany. James Headlam-Morley of the British delegation came up with the compromise of making Danzig into a Free City that would belong to neither Poland nor Germany. The Treaty of Versailles imposed

610-586: A distinction between Germany's "criminal" government and the German people. At least part of the distinction was due to his knowledge of the political crisis in Germany. In 1914, the majority of the Social Democrats (SPD) – the largest party in the Reichstag – supported the war, believing the government's statements that Russia was about to attack Germany. The SPD joined the other Reichstag parties in

732-414: A lasting peace would require "saving the free peoples of the world from the menace and the actual power of a vast military establishment controlled by an irresponsible government" that wanted to "dominate the world". Notably, Wilson was vague about what he considered to be a "stable and enduring peace" other than it required the defeat of Germany. Wilson in his speeches and letters was always careful to make

854-640: A major public statement of war aims, it became the basis for the terms of the German surrender at the end of the First World War . After the speech, House worked to secure the acceptance of the Fourteen Points by Entente leaders. On October 16, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson and Sir William Wiseman , the head of British intelligence in America, had an interview. This interview was one reason why

976-597: A member of the League of the Three Emperors , an alliance in 1873 with Austria-Hungary and Germany. The alliance was part of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck 's plan to isolate France diplomatically; he feared that France's revanchist aspirations might lead it to attempt to regain its 1871 losses stemming from the Franco-Prussian War . The alliance also served to oppose such socialist movements as

1098-689: A plan to protect the Armenians after the hoped for Allied victory, even though the United States was not at war with the Ottoman Empire. The parts of the 14 Points relating to the Near East where the emphasis was upon protecting minority rights were at least in part designed to rebut the criticism that the Wilson administration was indifferent to the genocide being waged in Anatolia. The purpose of

1220-409: A position which conceded as much to the Allies as it could, but took away the poison.... It was all keyed upon the secret treaties." In the speech, Wilson directly addressed what he perceived as the causes for the world war by calling for the abolition of secret treaties, a reduction in armaments , an adjustment in colonial claims in the interests of both native peoples and colonists, and freedom of

1342-449: 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,

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1464-565: A split in the party in 1917. She became a leader in the creation of the USPD's women's movement. Following the Januarstreik in January 1918, a strike demanding an end to the war and better food provisioning that was organized by revolutionaries affiliated with the USPD and officially supported by the party, the USPD quickly rose to about 120,000 members. The USPD reached a settlement with

1586-527: A topic of debate among historians. The German-born American historian Gerhard Weinberg noted that the entire question of the "justice" of the Treaty of Versailles as a source of European discord is irrelevant. Weinberg noted that the vast majority of Germans in the interwar period believed that their country had actually won World War One with the Reich only being defeated by the alleged " stab-in-the-back " that

1708-485: A waste of American resources. Wilson argued that Germany was an advanced, industrial nation while the Ottoman Empire was a backward nation with almost no modern industries, and as such the defeat of Germany would automatically lead to the defeat of the Ottoman Empire. Both Roosevelt and Cabot Lodge argued in various speeches and columns that the United States had a moral duty to stop the Armenian genocide by declaring war on

1830-522: 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 people of Austria-Hungary , whose place among

1952-527: The Burgfrieden ("peace-within-a-castle-under-siege") in which the parties agreed not criticize the government in its handling of the war. The SPD made it clear, however, that their support was for a defensive war only and that they opposed a war of conquest. From the beginning, the left wing of the Social Democrats opposed the war on the grounds that the German working class had no quarrel with

2074-530: The 1898 U.S. annexation of the Philippines whilst condemning the rebellion of the Philippine nationalist Emilio Aguinaldo , and strongly believed that the U.S. was morally obliged to impose Western ways of life and governance on such countries, so that eventually they could govern independently. In Germany, the 14 Points became a symbol of the promised basis of the peace after the war and, throughout

2196-486: The American Revolution ) would be sympathetic towards the goals and aspirations they held. A common belief among anti-colonial nationalist leaders was the U.S., once it had assisted them in gaining independence from colonial rule or foreign influence, would establish new relationships which would be more favorable and equitable than what had existed beforehand. However, the nationalist interpretations of both

2318-523: The Anglo-German naval arms race . The mission was a failure because the Germans attempted to link a "naval holiday" with a British promise to remain neutral if Germany should become engaged in a war where "Germany could not be said to be the aggressor." Zara Steiner says, "It would have meant abandoning the whole system of ententes which had been so carefully nurtured during the past six years. There

2440-653: The Baghdad Railway , which would help German expansion in the Near East . The coming into being of the entente did not necessarily fix a permanent division into two opposing power blocs. The situation remained flexible. The alignment of the Russian Empire with Europe's two largest power centres was controversial on both sides. Many Russian conservatives distrusted the secular French and recalled British past diplomatic manoeuvres to block Russian influence in

2562-467: The Central Powers to surrender in the expectation of a just settlement. The German government rejected the 14 Points as the basis of a peace settlement. The duumvirate that ruled Germany that consisted of Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff were supremely confident that the offensive planned for March 1918 code-named Operation Michael would win the war. The German spring offensive of 1918 did make gains, but fell far short of being

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2684-607: 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

2806-770: The Dual alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary was concluded in October 1879 and with Italy in May 1882. The situation in the Balkans, especially in the wake of the 1885 Serbo-Bulgarian War and the 1878 Treaty of Berlin , which made Russia feel cheated of its gains made in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877/78, prevented the League from being renewed in 1887. In an attempt to stop Russia from allying with France, Bismarck signed

2928-653: The Entente cordiale . The Tangier Crisis later encouraged co-operation between the two countries from their mutual fear of apparent German expansionism. Britain, traditionally having control of the seas, by 1909 saw the German navy as a serious threat to its Royal Navy. Britain was well ahead in terms of Dreadnought technology and responded with a major building program. They built a Royal Navy that Germany could never rival. The British sent war minister Lord Haldane to Berlin in February 1912 to reduce friction stemming from

3050-584: The First International , which the conservative rulers found unsettling. However, the League faced great difficulty with the growing tensions between Russia and Austria-Hungary , mainly over the Balkans , where the rise of nationalism and the continued decline of the Ottoman Empire made many former Ottoman provinces struggle for independence. To counter Russian and French interests in Europe,

3172-632: The German Empire and the Weimar Republic . The organization was established in 1917 as the result of a split of anti-war members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), from the left of the party as well as the centre and the right. The organization attempted to chart a course between electorally oriented reformism on the one hand and Bolshevist revolutionism on the other. After several splits and mergers,

3294-564: The Near East . In turn, prominent French and British journalists, academics, and parliamentarians found the reactionary tsarist regime distasteful. Mistrust persisted even during wartime, with British and French politicians expressing relief when Tsar Nicholas II abdicated and was replaced by the Russian Provisional Government after the February Revolution in 1917. An offer of political asylum for

3416-421: The Reich economic control of Poland and that for Poland to be truly independent required that Danzig go to Poland. At the peace conference, Wilson explained that what he meant by Poland having "free and secure access to the sea" in point 13 was that Danzig should go to Poland. Clemenceau likewise supported the Polish claim to Danzig, but Lloyd George was stoutly opposed as he argued that it would be unjust to force

3538-538: The great powers ; if America was going to fight, he wanted to try to separate that participation in the war from nationalistic disputes or ambitions. The need for moral aims was made more important when, after the fall of the Russian government , the Bolsheviks disclosed secret treaties made between the Allies. Wilson's speech also responded to Vladimir Lenin's Decree on Peace of November 1917, immediately after

3660-480: The "wrong" side of the frontier. Before 1914, Germany had 1 million Poles living within its borders; after 1918 Poland had 1 million Germans living within its borders. Before 1914, Eastern Europe had dominated by the three great empires, namely the Austrian, Russian and German empires with the first two being supra-national states where the focal point in the state ideologies was loyalty to the ruling families, namely

3782-710: The 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries that many Russians complained that it was the Baltic German aristocracy who ruled them rather than vice versa. Triple Entente The Triple Entente (from French entente [ɑ̃tɑ̃t] meaning "friendship, understanding, agreement") describes the informal understanding between the Russian Empire , the French Third Republic , and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland . It

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3904-607: The Allied leaders were only self-interested. The publication was especially embarrassing for the Allies as the former government of Russia had signed no secret treaties with Germany, the Austrian empire, and the Ottoman Empire, and thus the war aims of the Central powers remained secret. Lenin accused the Allied leaders of being selfish while presenting himself as an idealist who sought the betterment of ordinary people by rejecting imperialism. Wilson, similar to other world leaders, feared

4026-640: The Armenian genocide together with the related genocides against the Pontic Greeks and the Assyrians was to achieve the "homogenization" of Asia Minor. Colonel House advised Wilson that the genocidal "homogenization" of Anatolia required an American response, writing to the president: "It is necessary to free the subject races of the Turkish empire from oppression and misrule. This implies at very least autonomy for Armenia". House wrote in his diary: "After

4148-538: The British empire and the United States, under which Anglo-American forces would come to France's aid in the event of German aggression. However, the British acceptance of the alliance was made conditional upon the American acceptance of the alliance, and the United States Senate voted against the alliance with France, thus rendering the proposed Anglo-American-French alliance null and void. Clemenceau and

4270-553: The British under Admiral Limpus, et al., the French, and the Germans to reorganize and modernize the Ottoman armed forces, would come to control the Dardanelles , a vital trade artery that carried two-fifths of Russia's exports. There was also Russia's recent rivalry with Austria-Hungary over the spheres of influence in the Balkans and after the Reinsurance Treaty was not renewed in 1890, Russian leaders grew alarmed at

4392-631: The Catholic Centre Party and various left-liberal parties in July 1917 for the Reichstag Peace Resolution , which called for a negotiated peace without annexations. The resolution was only symbolic with no binding power over the government, but it was an important step towards the Reichstag developing a voice for peace and for parliamentarization. President Wilson subsequently initiated a secret series of studies named

4514-591: The Central Powers and which was more vague in its promises to the non-Turkish subjects of the Ottoman Empire. The Fourteen Points in the speech were based on the research of the Inquiry , a team of about 150 advisers led by foreign-policy adviser Edward M. House , into the topics likely to arise in the anticipated peace conference . The immediate cause of the United States' entry into World War I in April 1917

4636-510: The Comintern would allow the party to implement its socialist ideals. Ultimately, the proposition to join the Comintern was approved at a party convention in Halle in October 1920 by 237 votes to 156, with various international speakers including Julius Martov , Jean Longuet and Grigory Zinoviev . The USPD split up in the process, with both groups seeing themselves as the rightful USPD and

4758-487: The Fourteen Points and Wilson's views regarding colonialism proved to be misguided. In actuality, Wilson had never established a goal of opposing European colonial powers and breaking up their empires, nor was he trying to fuel anti-colonial nationalist independence movements. It was not Wilson's objective or desire to confront European colonial powers over such matters, as Wilson had no intention of supporting any demands for self-determination and sovereignty that conflicted with

4880-467: The Fourteen Points as the basis for negotiating the Treaty of Versailles , which ended the war. In his speech to Congress, President Wilson declared fourteen points which he regarded as the only possible basis of an enduring peace: I. 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

5002-510: The Fourteen Points, he also had more practical objectives in mind. He hoped to keep Russia in the war by convincing the Bolsheviks that they would receive a better peace from the Allies, to bolster Allied morale, and to undermine German war support. The address was well received in the United States and Allied nations and even by Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin , as a landmark of enlightenment in international relations. Wilson subsequently used

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5124-537: The Fourteen Points. The speech was delivered 10 months before the Armistice with Germany and became the basis for the terms of the German surrender, as negotiated at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. The speech was widely disseminated as an instrument of Allied propaganda and was translated into many languages for global dissemination. Copies were also dropped behind German lines, to encourage

5246-536: The French soldiers while waving about tricolores . At the Paris peace conference, both Wilson and Lloyd George supported Clemenceau's demand for the reunion of Alsace-Lorraine with France. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France. Under the terms of the Treaty of Locarno in 1925, Germany accepted as permanent the Franco-German border established by the Treaty of Versailles and renounced its claim upon Alsace-Lorraine. At

5368-432: The German government accepted the Fourteen Points and the stated principles for peace negotiations. The report was made as negotiation points, and the Fourteen Points were later accepted by France and Italy on November 1, 1918. Britain later signed off on all of the points except the freedom of the seas . The United Kingdom also wanted Germany to make reparation payments for the war, and thought that should be added to

5490-640: The House of Habsburg and the House of Romanov. The German-speaking element formed the dominant group in the Austrian empire while the way that the Russian empire defined loyalty to the House of Romanov as the main criterion had allowed the Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans) under Russian rule to flourish. In Imperial Russia, a disproportionate number of the civil servants, policemen, diplomats and military officers were Baltic German noblemen to such an extent that in

5612-647: The Inquiry , primarily focused on Europe, and carried out by a group in New York which included geographers, historians and political scientists; the group was directed by Edward M. House . Their job was to study Allied and American policy in virtually every region of the globe and analyze economic, social, and political facts likely to come up in discussions during the peace conference. The group produced and collected nearly 2,000 separate reports and documents plus at least 1,200 maps. Walter Lippmann of "the Inquiry" defined

5734-566: The Inquiry's general secretary, Walter Lippmann , and his colleagues, Isaiah Bowman , Sidney Mezes , and David Hunter Miller . Lippmann's draft territorial points were a direct response to the secret treaties of the European Allies, which Lippmann had been shown by Secretary of War Newton D. Baker . Lippmann's task, according to House, was "to take the secret treaties, analyze the parts which were tolerable, and separate them from those which were regarded as intolerable, and then develop

5856-476: The International's 21 conditions of entry, Crispien and Dittmann opposed them, leading to a controversial debate over joining the Comintern to break out in the USPD. Many members felt that the necessary requirements for joining would lead to a loss of the party's independence and a perceived dictate from Moscow while others, especially younger members such as Ernst Thälmann , argued that only the joining of

5978-526: The Kaiser to bring about democratic reforms as a way to ensure the responsibility for the defeat fell on the shoulders of others. Ludendorff in particular gave a somewhat distorted version of the 14 points as a way to entice Prince Max of Baden to form a new government that would seek an armistice. Indeed, in a note sent to Wilson, Prince Maximilian of Baden , the German imperial chancellor , in October 1918 requested an immediate armistice and peace negotiations on

6100-526: The October Revolution in 1917. The speech made by Wilson took many domestic progressive ideas and translated them into foreign policy ( free trade , open agreements , democracy and self-determination ). Three days earlier United Kingdom Prime Minister Lloyd George had made a speech setting out the UK's war aims which bore some similarity to Wilson's speech but which proposed reparations be paid by

6222-421: The Ottoman Empire. Roosevelt in his popular newspaper column in the Kansas City Star that was nationally syndicated accused Wilson of crying "crocodile tears" over the Armenian genocide as he maintained that if he was still president the United States would have already ended the genocide. In response to such criticism, Wilson had asked Colonel House and the authors of "the Inquiry" such as Lippmann to come up with

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6344-404: The Paris peace conference in 1919, Clemenceau wanted to see the Rhineland severed from Germany. The Rhineland with its steep hills and the broad Rhine river formed a natural defensive barrier and Clemenceau insisted that France needed the Rhineland to have sécurité after the war. Ideally, Clemenceau wanted to see the Rhineland annexed to France, but was willing to accept having the Rhineland became

6466-400: The Romanovs was even withdrawn by the British king for fear of popular reaction. Also, France never brought up the subject of asylum with the deposed tsar. Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany The Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany ( German : Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands , USPD ) was a short-lived political party in Germany during

6588-411: The Russian-owned Chinese Eastern Railroad. This won the new Bolshevik regime much prestige in China, to the discomfort of the other powers that held extraterritorial rights there. The publication of the secret treaties relating to Europe, Africa, China and the Near East caused the governments of Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan much embarrassment at the time as the secret treaties made it appear that

6710-404: The SPD as the German Revolution began and even became part of the government in the form of the Rat der Volksbeauftragten ( Council of the People's Deputies ), which was formed on 10 November 1918 and mutually led by Ebert and Haase during the German Revolution. However, the agreement did not last long as Haase, Wilhelm Dittmann and Emil Barth left the council on 29 December 1918 to protest

6832-416: The SPD's use of military force during the sailors' uprising in Berlin. At the same time, the Spartakusbund, led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht , separated from the USPD in order to merge with other left-wing groups and form the Communist Party of Germany ( Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands , KPD). During the elections for the National Assembly on 19 January 1919 from which the SPD emerged as

6954-409: The Treaty of Versailles has been vastly exaggerated, noting that Germany lost far more land to Poland under the Oder-Neisse line , imposed in 1945, than the Reich had lost to Poland under the Treaty of Versailles, yet the Oder-Neisse line did not cause another war. In 1991, Germany signed a treaty with Poland under which the Oder-Neisse line was accepted as the permanent German-Polish frontier, despite

7076-446: The Treaty of Versailles imposed on Germany, especially the Polish Corridor, were universally viewed in Germany as "unjust" and a "national humiliation". The way that different peoples in Eastern Europe were mixed together in a patch-work of different pockets made it very difficult for the Allies to divide up the German-Polish border in a manner consistent with the principles of the 14 points as inevitably some people ended up being struck on

7198-492: The Treaty of Versailles was really the monstrous "unjust" peace treaty that Germans had claimed it to be. Under the terms of the armistice of 11 November 1918, the French occupied Alsace–Lorraine . The French wasted no time in promptly proclaiming the reunion of Alsace-Lorraine with France. Many of the Alsatians had been unhappy under German rule, and the French troops who marched into Alsace-Lorraine in November 1918 were greeted as liberators with large crowds coming out to cheer

7320-423: The Turkish paragraph had been written, the President thought it might be more specific and that Armenia, Mesopotamia and other parts be mentioned by name. I disagreed with this, believing that what was said was sufficient to indicate this, and it finally stood as framed".Though the genocidal policies of the Committee of Union and Progress regime were not referenced by name in the 14 Points, the emphasis on protecting

7442-411: The USPD was founded at a conference in Gotha , with Hugo Haase as the party's first chairman. The Spartakusbund also merged into the newly founded party, but it retained relative autonomy. To avoid confusion, the existing SPD was typically called the Majority Social Democratic Party of Germany ( Mehrheits-SPD or MSPD, majority-SPD) from then on. Luise Zietz was one of the main agitators in favor of

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7564-416: The United States in 1918, and that Nazi Germany would do the same. Weinberg noted that for German elites, not just Hitler, it was the alleged "stab-in-the-back" of 1918 that explained the German defeat, and it was taken for granted that the German military was invincible and could never be defeated provided the alleged "internal" enemies such as the Jews were dispatched first. Weinberg wrote the "harshness" of

7686-438: The basis of the Fourteen Points. In Asia Minor, the 14 Points caused some confusion as the Muslim peoples living there defined themselves in terms of religion rather than language and ethnicity. Almost all of the Kurdish population of Anatolia at the time defined themselves as Muslims rather than as Kurds, and were loyal to the Sublime Porte under the grounds that Sultan-Caliph was the supreme leader of all Muslims worldwide. There

7808-422: The compromise solution of severing Danzig from Germany to become the Free City of Danzig , a city-state in which Poland had certain special rights. German public opinion did not accept the loss of Danzig along with the loss of the so-called Polish Corridor and Upper Silesia to Poland, and for the entirety of the interwar period, it was common for Germans to speak of the "open wound in the East". The eastern borders

7930-526: The country's diplomatic isolation and joined the Franco-Russian Alliance in 1894. France developed a strong bond with Russia by ratifying the Franco-Russian Alliance, which was designed to create a strong counter to the Triple Alliance. France's main concerns were to protect against an attack from Germany and to regain Alsace-Lorraine. In the last decade of the nineteenth century, Britain continued its policy of " splendid isolation ", with its primary focus on defending its massive overseas empire . However, by

8052-404: The decision for war in 1914. But the naval competition nonetheless created an atmosphere of mutual hostility and distrust, which circumscribed the space for peaceful diplomacy and public recognition of shared interests, and helped to pave the twisted road to war in Europe." The Entente, unlike the Triple Alliance and the Franco-Russian Alliance, was not an alliance of mutual defense and so Britain

8174-463: The decisive victory that Hindenburg and Ludendorff had expected. By the summer of 1918, the Allies were winning the war and on 28 September 1918 Ludendorff advised the Emperor Wilhelm II that the Reich was defeated and the best that the Germany can now hope to achieve would be an armistice that preserved Germany as a great power. Neither Hindenburg nor Ludendorff intended to take any responsibility for their failures as generals and rather cynically forced

8296-508: The diplomatic waste paper basket. Most of these fourteen points... would be interpreted... to mean anything or nothing." Senator William Borah after 1918 wished "this treacherous and treasonable scheme" of the League of Nations to be "buried in hell" and promised that if he had his way it would be " 20,000 leagues under the sea ". Wilson's speech regarding the Fourteen Points led to unintentional but important consequences in regards to countries which were under European colonial rule or under

8418-524: The early 1900s, the German threat had increased dramatically, and Britain thought it was in need of allies. London made overtures to Berlin which were not reciprocated, so London turned to Paris and St. Petersburg instead. In 1904, Britain and France signed a series of agreements, the Entente cordiale , mostly aimed toward resolving colonial disputes. That heralded the end of British splendid isolation. France and Britain had signed five separate agreements regarding spheres of influence in North Africa in 1904,

8540-406: The end of secret diplomacy. Lenin repudiated the foreign policy of Imperial Russia, and published the secret treaties that the former regime had signed with the Allies under which the Allies had envisioned extensive territorial changes and divided much of the world up into spheres of influence. Lenin surrendered all Russian extraterritorial rights and concessions in China with the notable exception of

8662-405: The expulsion of the group from the SPD on 24 March 1916. To be able to continue their parliamentary work, the group formed the Social Democratic Working Group ( Sozialdemokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft , SAG). Concerns from the SPD leadership and Friedrich Ebert that the SAG was intent on dividing the SPD then led to the expulsion of the SAG members from the SPD on 18 January 1917. On 6 April 1917,

8784-546: The former president Theodore Roosevelt and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge for his unwillingness to ask Congress to declare war on the Ottoman Empire. In a foreshadowing of the "Germany First" strategy of World War Two, Wilson and other senior figures in his administration argued that the United States should commit its power to defeat the German Empire first and that any operations against the Sublime Porte would be

8906-606: The humiliating Russo-Japanese War , a cause of the Russian Revolution of 1905 , and the apparent transformation into a constitutional monarchy. Although it was perceived as useless during the war with Japan , the alliance was valuable in the European theatre to counteract the threat of the Triple Alliance. Tomaszewski describes the evolution of the triple entente relationship from the Russian standpoint during

9028-428: The immediate end of the war on the basis of the restoration of pre-1914 status quo , Wilson in a letter to the pontiff on 27 August 1917 rejected the pope's call for peace as he wrote: "Our response must be based on stern facts and upon nothing else...America wanted not a mere cessation of arms, but a stable and enduring peace". Wilson argued that he was rejecting the pope's peace message on moral grounds as he argued that

9150-757: The importance of the alliance system as one of the causes of World War I . During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, Prussia and its allies defeated the Second French Empire , resulting in the establishment of the Third Republic. In the Treaty of Frankfurt , Prussia forced France to cede Alsace-Lorraine to the new German Empire , souring subsequent relations. France, worried about the escalating military development of Germany, began building up its own war industries and army to deter German aggression. Russia had previously been

9272-426: The influence of European countries. In many of the Fourteen Points, specifically points X, XI, XII and XIII, Wilson had focused on adjusting colonial disputes and the importance of allowing autonomous development and self-determination . This drew significant attention from anti-colonial nationalist leaders and movements, who saw Wilson's swift adoption of the term "self-determination" (although he did not actually use

9394-441: The interests of the victorious Allies. In reality, Wilson's calls for greater autonomous development and sovereignty had been aimed solely at European countries under the rule of the German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. He did not explicitly outline this, although it is clear that his calls for greater sovereignty in these regions was in an effort to try and destabilise those enemies' empires. President Wilson's ambitions for

9516-632: The international arena. In November 1917, the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin overthrew the Russian Provisional Government in Petrograd . The next day, Lenin issued the Decree On Peace which called for the immediate end to the war on the basis of a "just and democratic peace", which he defined as "a peace without annexations or indemnitees"; national self-determination in place of the traditional power politics; and

9638-402: The international order created by the Treaty of Versailles, and the question of the "injustice" of the Treaty of Versailles was irrelevant as a challenge would have been made even if the Treaty of Versailles had been more favorable to Germany. The Dolchstoßlegende claimed that Germany had decisively defeated the combined forces of France, the British empire and the United States in 1918 and it

9760-597: The interwar period, it was common in Germany to attack the Treaty of Versailles as illegitimate, with the argument being made that it was contrary to the 14 Points. Notably, Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles , which would become known as the War Guilt Clause, was seen by the Germans as assigning full responsibility for the war and its damages on Germany; however, the same clause was included in all peace treaties and historian Sally Marks has noted that only German diplomats saw it as assigning responsibility for

9882-514: The largest factions in the new Reichstag , second only to the SPD (21.7%). During that period, the USPD briefly published a newspaper, Arbeiterpost . In 1920, four delegates from the USPD ( Ernst Däumig , Arthur Crispien , Walter Stoecker and Wilhelm Dittmann ) attended the 2nd World Congress of the Comintern to discuss participating in the Comintern . Whilst Däumig and Stoecker agreed with

10004-502: The last part of the organization was terminated in 1931 through merger with the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (SAPD). On 21 December 1915, several SPD members in the Reichstag , the German parliament, voted against the authorization of further credits to finance World War I , an incident that emphasized existing tensions between the party's leadership and the pacifists surrounding Hugo Haase and ultimately led to

10126-414: The main American war aim as "the disestablishment of a Prussian Middle Europe" and to find a way to prevent Germany from being "the master of the continent" after the war. The Armenian genocide that began in April 1915 attracted much media attention in the Allied nations at the time, and throughout the summer and fall of 1917 Wilson had been the subject of fierce criticism by Republican politicians such as

10248-500: The moment if he was going to avoid being eclipsed by Lenin's competing program for the postwar world". On 5 January 1918, the British prime minister David Lloyd George gave a speech in London stating that the British war aims were "self-determination" for the subject peoples of the Austrian and Ottoman empires. The speech, known as the Fourteen Points, was developed from a set of diplomatic points by Wilson and territorial points drafted by

10370-462: The nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to 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

10492-513: The other French leaders always felt that France had been "cheated" as the French made major concessions to the Anglo-American viewpoint in return for alliances that proved to be an illusion. Under the Treaty of Versailles, the Rhineland remained part of Germany, but was made into a permanent demilitarized zone and the French were allowed to occupy the Rhineland until 1935, through in fact the French occupation ended early in June 1930. One of

10614-566: The other one as being outcast. On 4 December 1920, the left wing of the USPD with about 400,000 members merged into the KPD, forming the United Communist Party of Germany ( Vereinigte Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands , VKPD) while the other half of the party, with about 340,000 members-including three quarters of the USPD's 81 Reichstag members-continued under the name USPD. Led by Georg Ledebour and Arthur Crispien , they advocated

10736-521: The parties officially merged again after a joint party convention in Nürnberg , adopting the name of United Social Democratic Party of Germany ( Vereinigte Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands , VSPD) which was shortened again to SPD in 1924. Elements of the USPD continued as an independent party led by Georg Ledebour and Theodor Liebknecht , who refused to work with the SPD, but it never attained any significance again. The party got 20,275 votes in

10858-401: 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

10980-578: The period 1908 to 1914 as a progression from a shaky set of understandings that withstood various crises and emerged as a fully-fledged alliance after the outbreak of World War I. In 1907, the Anglo-Russian Entente was agreed, which attempted to resolve a series of long-running disputes over Persia , Afghanistan and Tibet and end their rivalry in Central Asia , nicknamed The Great Game . and helped to address British fears about

11102-404: The political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into. XII. The Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Ottoman rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development , and

11224-470: The populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable 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 of

11346-400: The possibility of Communist revolutions inspired by the Russian example breaking out elsewhere, and offered his set of idealistic war aims to challenge Lenin's claims to the moral high ground. When drafting the 14 Points alongside his close adviser and friend, Colonel House, Wilson mostly spoke about Russia. The American historian N. M. Phelps wrote that in January 1918 Wilson "...needed to seize

11468-410: 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

11590-627: The purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike. Wilson at first considered abandoning his speech after Lloyd George delivered a speech outlining British war aims, many of which were similar to Wilson's aspirations, at Caxton Hall on January 5, 1918. Lloyd George stated that he had consulted leaders of "the Great Dominions overseas" before making his speech, so it would appear that Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Newfoundland were in broad agreement. Wilson

11712-537: The rights of minorities under the Sublime Porte together with what was described with some understatement as the "undoubted security of life" was an implicit response to such policies. The studies culminated in a speech by Wilson to Congress on January 8, 1918, wherein he articulated America's long-term war objectives. The speech was the clearest expression of intention made by any of the belligerent nations, and it projected Wilson's progressive domestic policies into

11834-471: The rights of the Rhinelanders for self-determination. As the Rhineland was overwhelmingly German in population and its people did not wish to be severed from Germany, both Wilson and Lloyd George were completely opposed to Clemenceau's plans for the Rhineland, which they claimed would create "an Alsace-Lorraine in reverse" with the Rhinelanders being placed unhappily under French rule. Wilson in particular

11956-433: The seas . Wilson also made proposals that would ensure world peace in the future. For example, he proposed the removal of economic barriers between nations, the promise of self-determination for national minorities, and a world organization that would guarantee the "political independence and territorial integrity [of] great and small states alike" – a League of Nations . Though Wilson's idealism pervaded

12078-405: The secret Reinsurance Treaty with Russia in 1887. This treaty assured that both parties would remain neutral if war broke out. The growing rapprochement between Russia and France and Bismarck's exclusion of Russia from the German financial market in 1887 prevented the treaty from being renewed in 1890, ending the alliance between Germany and Russia. After the forced resignation of Bismarck in 1890,

12200-527: The start of World War I in 1914, all three Triple Entente members entered it as Allied Powers against the Central Powers : Germany , Austria-Hungary , the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria . On September 4, 1914, the Triple Entente issued a declaration undertaking not to conclude a separate peace and only to demand terms of peace agreed among the three parties. Historians continue to debate

12322-450: The strongest party with 37.9% of the votes, the USPD only managed to attract 7.6%. Nevertheless, the party's strong support for the introduction of a system of councils ( Räterepublik ) instead of a parliamentary democracy attracted many former SPD members and in spring 1920 the USPD had grown to more than 750,000 members, managing to increase their share of votes to 17.9% during the parliamentary elections on 6 June 1920 and becoming one of

12444-428: The term in the speech itself) as an opportunity to gain independence from colonial rule or expel foreign influence. Consequently, Wilson gained support from anti-colonial nationalist leaders in Europe's colonies and countries under European influence around the globe who were hopeful that Wilson would assist them in their goals. Around the world, Wilson was occasionally elevated to a quasi-religious figure; as someone who

12566-517: The territorial losses being far greater than those imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. Weinberg also noted that the Allied leaders at the Paris peace conference of 1919 imposed the Minorities treaty on Poland, intended to protect the rights of Poland's Volksdeutsche (ethnic German) minority whereas, in 1945, all of the Germans living in the lands assigned to Poland were forcibly expelled from their homes forever, leading him to ask rhetorically if

12688-416: The third world were rather to attempt to influence its development in order to transform it from 'backward' to 'sophisticated', the aim being to incorporate it into the commercial world, so that the U.S. could further benefit from trade with the global south. Furthermore, Wilson did not believe the third world was ready for self governance, asserting that a period of trusteeship and tutelage from colonial powers

12810-577: The thorniest issues at the Paris peace conference was the status of Danzig (modern Gdańsk , Poland). Point 13 called for a reborn Polish state that would have "free and secure access to the sea". Danzig was a deep water port located where the Vistula river flows into the Baltic sea, making it the principal port where goods both came in and out of Poland. Roman Dmowski the chief the Polish delegation, argued that allowing Danzig to remain with Germany would give

12932-428: The war. The Allies would initially assess 269 billion marks in reparations . In 1921, this figure was established at 192 billion marks. However, only a fraction of the total had to be paid. The figure was designed to look imposing and show the public that Germany was being punished, but it also recognized what Germany could not realistically pay. Germany's ability and willingness to pay that sum continues to be

13054-446: 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

13176-619: The working classes of France, Britain and Russia. In 1917, the party split over the issue of the war, with the anti-war faction forming the Independent Social Democratic Party . By then, the Majority Social Democrats were also becoming increasingly disenchanted, as discussions about the war often centered on annexations, making it apparent that the allegedly defensive war was in fact a war of conquest. The Majority Social Democrats voted with

13298-420: The year, Wilson sketched out his vision of an end to the war that would bring a "just and secure peace," not merely "a new balance of power." Congress had declared war on Germany on 9 April 1917 and until the 14 Points, Wilson's statements about American war aims had been rather vague, mostly limited to statements about being for democracy and against aggression. When Pope Benedict XV in a 1917 speech called for

13420-538: The young Kaiser Wilhelm set out on his imperialist course of Weltpolitik ("world politics") to increase the empire's influence in and control over the world. Russia had by far the largest manpower reserves of all the six European powers, but it was also the most backward economically. Russia shared France's worries about Germany. Additionally, the Russians feared that the Ottomans, who had received assistance from

13542-577: Was a key part of building a coalition as France took the lead in creating alliances with Japan, Russia, and (informally) with Britain. Japan wanted to raise a loan in Paris, so France made the loan contingent on a Russo-Japanese agreement and a Japanese guarantee for France's strategically vulnerable possessions in Indochina. Britain encouraged the Russo-Japanese rapprochement. Thus was built the Triple Entente coalition that fought World War I. At

13664-484: Was an agent of salvation and a bringer of peace and justice. During this 'Wilsonian moment', there was considerable optimism among anti-colonial nationalist leaders and movements that Wilson and the Fourteen Points were going to be an influential force that would re-shape the long established relationships between the West and the rest of the world. Many of them believed that the United States, given its history (particularly

13786-795: Was built upon the Franco-Russian Alliance of 1894, the Entente Cordiale of 1904 between France and Britain, and the Anglo-Russian Entente of 1907. It formed a powerful counterweight to the Triple Alliance of the German Empire , the Austro-Hungarian Empire , and the Kingdom of Italy . The Triple Entente, unlike the Triple Alliance or the Franco-Russian Alliance itself, was not an alliance of mutual defence. The Franco-Japanese Treaty of 1907

13908-617: Was confusion on the part of both the Allies and the Kurds themselves if the Kurds were one of the "non-Turkish" groups promised autonomy in the Ottoman Empire by the 14 points. Theodore Roosevelt , in a January 1919 article titled, "The League of Nations", published in Metropolitan Magazine , warned: "If the League of Nations is built on a document as high-sounding and as meaningless as the speech in which Mr. Wilson laid down his fourteen points, it will simply add one more scrap to

14030-555: Was free to make its own foreign policy decisions in 1914. As British Foreign Office Official Eyre Crowe minuted, "The fundamental fact, of course, is that the Entente is not an alliance. For purposes of ultimate emergencies, it may be found to have no substance at all. For the Entente is nothing more than a frame of mind, a view of general policy which is shared by the governments of two countries, but which may be, or become, so vague as to lose all content". Russia had also recently lost

14152-419: Was no German concession to counter the fear of German aggression." Essentially, the British reserved the right to join whatever country was attacking Germany even if Germany did not start the conflict, dooming the talks to failure. According to German historian Dirk Bönker, "To be sure, the [naval] race was decided early on; political leaders and diplomats learned to bracket it as an issue, and it did not cause

14274-586: Was only at the moment of victory that Germany had been "stabbed-in-the-back" by the November revolution . Weinberg noted that pervasiveness of the Dolchstoßlegende was such that it explained the flippant way that Hitler declared war on the United States in 1941 with the full support of the Wehrmacht elite because it was genuinely believed by all of the German elites that Imperial Germany had crushed

14396-412: Was persuaded by his adviser House to go ahead, and Wilson's speech overshadowed Lloyd George's and is better remembered by posterity. The speech was made without prior coordination or consultation with Wilson's counterparts in Europe. Clemenceau , upon hearing of the Fourteen Points, was said to have sarcastically proclaimed, "The good Lord had only ten !" ( Le bon Dieu n'en avait que dix ! ). As

14518-445: Was required to manage such a transition. Wilson viewed this approach as essential to the 'proper development' of colonised countries, reflecting his views about the inferiority of the non-European races. Moreover, Wilson was not by character or background an anti-colonialist or campaigner for rights and freedoms for all people, instead he was also very much a racist, a fundamental believer in white supremacy . For example, he had supported

14640-409: Was strongly for the Rhineland remaining part of Germany and he threatened several times to have the American delegation walk out of the peace conference if Clemenceau persisted with his plans for the Rhineland. Under strong Anglo-American pressure, the French were forced to accept that the Rhineland would remain part of the Reich . As a consolation prize, Clemenceau was offered a military alliance with

14762-407: Was the German announcement of renewed unrestricted submarine warfare and the subsequent sinking of ships with Americans on board. But President Wilson's war aims went beyond the defense of maritime interests. In his War Message to Congress, Wilson declared that the United States' objective was " to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world ." In several speeches earlier in

14884-500: Was the November Revolution of 1918. Weinberg wrote that there was nothing the Allies could have done to reconcile those Germans who believed in the Dolchstoßlegende that Germany had actually won the war in 1918 with the reality of their defeat. Weinberg wrote that given the way that the majority of Germans believed in the Dolchstoßlegende that it was inevitable that Germany would have made some sort of challenge to

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