Lesson 4: Fighting for Peace: The Fate of Wilson's Fourteen Points

In January 1918, Woodrow Wilson unveiled his Fourteen Points to the U.S. Congress. The speech was a natural extension of the proposals he had offered in his "Peace without Victory" address and his request for a declaration of war. Presuming an Allied victory, the President proposed freedom of the seas and of trade, arms reductions, and fair settlement of colonial claims and possessions. He insisted that "open covenants of peace, openly arrived at," must be the benchmark of postwar negotiations. He suggested that a repentant and reformed Germany would not be oppressed, but rather welcomed into the international community. That community, Wilson concluded, would be bound together in a league of nations devoted to collective security and spreading democracy.

Although the Allied powers cautiously agreed to use the Fourteen Points as a treaty template, the circumstances of the war and the specific postwar aims of numerous nations combined to make a formidable obstacle. In 1915, the secret London agreements had proposed ceding the German territory of the Saar (rich in coal) to France, and South Tyrol, controlled by Austria-Hungary, to Italy. Japan hoped to take German claims in the North Pacific and China, while Great Britain hoped to secure claims in Africa and south of the equator in the Pacific.

By the war's end, in November 1918, these tensions had mounted. France and Great Britain both wanted Germany to pay extensive war reparations. Great Britain, with an eye toward protecting its far-flung empire, also resisted freedom of the seas. Wilson hammered out a compromise. Together, the Allies would precisely define "freedom of the seas," and Germany would have to pay some reparations. Meanwhile domestic political tensions were rising. In the midterm elections, Republicans gained control of Congress. Nevertheless, Wilson opted only for token Republican representation on the U.S. delegation headed to Paris, the site of the postwar peace proceedings, which began in January 1919. This snub did not pass unnoticed by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (R-Mass.), who now chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The proceedings were raucous and confusing. Wilson, who had rejected advice that he might better fulfill his Fourteen Points by remaining in Washington, immersed himself in the day-to-day negotiations. His greatest challenge was the spirit of vengeance that animated the other Allied leaders. Not only did they want to punish Germany, they also wanted to use victory to obtain new territory in Europe and to divvy up Germany's colonial possessions. Wilson struggled to balance pragmatism and idealism. On the colonial question, he agreed to substitute the "mandate system" for full and fair self-determination. Under this system, the Allied powers assumed governing control over the colonies of Germany and areas such as Syria and Lebanon that had belonged to the Ottoman Empire. The expectation was that the Allied powers would eventually free their "mandates." He also accepted the transfer of some one million square miles of territory between nations; in return, the covenant of the League of Nations was embedded into the Versailles Treaty.

In June 1919, Germany's defiant representatives, who had been excluded from the proceedings, grudgingly signed the Versailles Treaty. Wilson's decision to now present the Versailles Treaty to the Senate as a fait accompli was quite risky. Republican doubts about the League had hardened; indeed, a group of Senators known as the "Irreconcilables," led by William Borah of Idaho, had proclaimed they would not support American membership in the League. Much opposition resulted from Article Ten of the League's covenant, which committed nations to the protection of the territorial integrity of all other members. This seemed to undermine Congressional authority to declare war, though the precise obligations of the United States were not clear. Lodge and the "Reservationists" were, at least initially, ready to act on the Versailles Treaty if Wilson separated the covenant. They also seemed willing to accept U.S. membership provided Congress kept the power to decide whether or not the United States would intervene militarily on behalf of the League. But Wilson refused to yield, as did Lodge and his allies. The debate over the League spilled over onto the 1920 presidential campaign, and while the election of Republican Warren G. Harding, who declared his opposition to the League, cannot be assessed only as a referendum on Wilsonian diplomacy, it was clear that the American public had grown weary of crusades, domestic and international. The United States never joined the League, finally ending the official state of war with Germany in the summer of 1921 through the Treaty of Berlin.

For an overview of the League of Nations and the Versailles Treaty, visit From Revolution to Reconstruction. For another EDSITEment lesson plan on this subject, see The Debate in the United States over the League of Nations: League of Nations Basics.

• This lesson may be used in sequence with the other plans in this unit on Wilsonian foreign policy, or it may be used in conjunction with the lessons in the EDSITEment curriculum unit The Debate in the United States over the League of Nations. While this lesson concentrates on Wilson's Fourteen Points, the Paris Peace Proceedings, and the Versailles Treaty, the other lessons focus on domestic political and public reaction to the League of Nations. See The Great War: Evaluating the Treaty of Versailles.
• Bookmark or print out the referenced websites. You should also bookmark or print the Text Document that accompanies this lesson and distribute the relevant pages to your students as handouts. The Text Document provides excerpts of the online documents used in this lesson, thus allowing your students to read only the pertinent portions of the source.
• For the card game in Activity 3, cut out the cards found on pages 12-20 of the Text Document and place them in two decks—one called "Wilson's Fourteen Points" (consisting of the cards on pages 12-16 of the Text Document) and the other called "Versailles Treaty" (consisting of the cards on pages 17-20 of the Text Document).

Analyzing primary sources—To provide your students with the skills needed to examine primary sources, you may find it helpful to visit the Learning Page from the Library of Congress. In particular, students may find the Mindwalk activity useful in preparing to work with primary sources. At the National Archives website, the Educator Resources provides worksheets to practice analysis of various primary sources, including photographs.

Another exercise involving interpretation of historic photographs can be found at History Matters.

Activity 1. The Fourteen Points

In the first activity, the students will read Wilson's Fourteen Points and determine how the points reveal Wilson's foreign policy goals. Divide the class into groups of three or more, and then distribute copies of an abridged version of the Fourteen Points. This address is available in its complete form at the EDSITEment-reviewed site The Avalon Project, but excerpts may be found on pages 1–3 of the Text Document. In addition, give each group a copy of the worksheet on page 4 of the Text Document. This worksheet provides capsule summaries of four goals of Wilsonian foreign policy. In their groups, students will create a poster-size concept map that matches each of the Fourteen Points to one of the four goals. (See Text Document for more detailed instructions.)

To help students identify the locations mentioned in the document, they should be directed to the following map of Europe in 1914 (picture), accessible via the EDSITEment-reviewed site History Matters. Either photocopy and distribute the map to the students, or project an image onto a screen in the classroom.

Activity 2. Allied Reactions to the Fourteen Points

In the second activity, students will divide into two teams, A and B. Each team will further divide into small groups (depending on class size). Team A groups will study documents 1–3; Team B groups will read documents 4–6. In presentations to the rest of the class, the groups for both teams will answer this question: how supportive of the Fourteen Points were the other Allied nations? All groups will be required to use historical evidence from their sources to support their answer.

Excerpts of the documents, and specific questions to be answered, may be found on pages 6–9 of the Text Document. Team A groups should receive pages 5–6, while Team B groups get pages 7–9.

• Photograph of devastation in Belgium 
• Allied conditional acceptance of Fourteen Points, November 5, 1918 (from the EDSITEment-reviewed Great War Primary Documents Archive)
• French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau's opening remarks, January 18, 1919 (excerpted). From the EDSITEment-reviewed resource First World War.com
• French President Raymond Poincare's opening remarks to the Paris Peace Conference, January 18, 1919 (excerpted). From the EDSITEment-reviewed resource First World War.com
• British observer Sisley Huddleston's description of the conference, January 18, 1919 (excerpted). From the EDSITEment-reviewed resource First World War.com
• Excerpt of report from the Commission to Determine War Guilt, May 6, 1919. From the EDSITEment-reviewed resource First World War.com

Activity 3. The Fourteen Points and the Treaty of Versailles

The third and final activity is a card-based game in which students attempt to match up Wilson's Fourteen Points to specific terms of the Versailles Treaty. Complete rules of the game may be found on pages 10–11 of the Text Document—these should be handed out to students. In addition, students should have access to maps showing the boundaries of Europe both before and after World War I. Such maps may be found at the site of the United States Military Academy at West Point, accessible via History Matters. Copies of the map may be distributed to the students, or they may be projected onto a screen for the class to view.

Pages 12–20 of the Text Document contain a total of 26 cards—15 marked "Wilson's Fourteen Points," and 12 marked "Versailles Treaty." Divide the students into two teams; give each member of the first team a card from the "Wilson's Fourteen Points" deck, and give each member of the second a card from the "Versailles Treaty" deck.

Begin by asking a student holding the lowest-numbered "Versailles Treaty" card to stand and read his or her card aloud. At that point any member of the "Fourteen Points" team who believes that his or her card pertains to that particular clause of the Versailles Treaty should also stand and read the contents of his or her card, and explain why it fits. If more than one student from the "Fourteen Points" team responds, the teacher should lead a brief discussion (no more than five minutes) before asking the class to decide which of the cardholders has the closest connection to the Versailles peace term. If a geographic location is mentioned on any of the cards, ask the students to note that location on the map.

Each time that a member of the "Fourteen Points" team is matched up with a member of the "Versailles" team, that pair should write the contents of their cards on the board. The game continues until each member of the "Versailles" team has read his or her card, and has been matched with a member of the "Fourteen Points" team. At this point there should still be three members of the latter team who have not read aloud the contents of their cards. They should do so now.

To conclude the activity, teachers should lead students in a discussion touching on the following questions:

• Which parts of the Fourteen Points were represented in the Versailles Treaty?
• Which parts of the Fourteen Points were dealt with only partially in the Treaty?
• What parts of the Fourteen Points were ignored completely in the Treaty?
• If you were a believer in Wilsonian foreign policy, would you support the Treaty of Versailles? Why or why not?

After completing this lesson, students should also be able to write brief (1-2 paragraph) essays answering the following questions:

• How did the Fourteen Points promote Wilsonian ideas?
• How did the Versailles Treaty affect the boundaries of Europe?
• How well did the Versailles Treaty represent the Fourteen Points?

Students should be able to identify and explain the significance of the following:

• Fourteen Points
• Paris Peace Conference
• Versailles Treaty
• international collective security
• League of Nations

Finally, students should be able to locate the following on a blank map of Europe:

• Belgium
• Alsace-Lorraine
• Saar basin
• Czechoslovakia
• Poland

• Wilson's lost battle to secure Senate ratification of the Versailles Treaty could be a student research topic. The National Park Service provides a guided reading of relevant sources
• Also available are graphic items related to the League of Nations, including a map of the member states
• The American Memory project at the Library of Congress offers an online collection of recordings of speeches for and against the League of Nations (click on the link to "League of Nations—United States")
• The most common criticism of the Treaty of Versailles was that it was overly harsh, and that it therefore violated the spirit of Wilson's Fourteen Points. Two examples of this may be found at the EDSITEment-reviewed resource First World War.com. One is the official German protest to the terms of Versailles, while the other is an editorial from a Dutch newspaper critical of the treaty. Students might be asked whether or not they agree with these assessments.
• The influence of Wilson's Fourteen Points can be traced using the National Archives Teaching with Documents unit on Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill; it outlines the similarities between the 1941 Atlantic Charter and the Fourteen Points.
• Using primary sources available at the Truman Presidential Library, students could research the influence of the Fourteen Points and Wilsonian foreign policy (especially an active role for the United States) on the formation of the United Nations in 1945.

Selected EDSITEment Websites

• Avalon Project at Yale Law School
  • Wilson's Fourteen Points (January 1918)
  • Versailles Treaty
• Digital History
  • Images of American Political History
    • Photograph of devastation in Belgium
• Great War Primary Documents Archive
  • Allied conditional acceptance of Fourteen Points
• History Matters
  • Campaign Atlases, U.S. Military Academy at West Point
    • Europe, 1914 (picture)
    • Europe, 1919 (picture)
• First World War.com
  • French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau's opening remarks
  • German protest of peace terms
  • Dutch editorial criticizing Versailles Treaty
  • Excerpt of report from the Commission to Determine War Guilt
• National Park Service, Links to the Past
  • Woodrow Wilson: Prophet of Peace
• American Memory Project, Library of Congress
  • American Leaders Speak: Recordings from World War I and the 1920 Election
• National Archives Educator Resources
  • Documents Related to Churchill and FDR
• Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum
  • Truman and the United Nations