A significant factor was Wilson's health. In the midst of the struggles at Princeton, Wilson suffered a stroke in May 1906 that left him with recurring blindness in the left eye. It was a sign of the progressive cerebral vascular disease that he had developed from about 1896 onwards. It would appear that Wilson also had a series of psychosomatic illnesses in his childhood. In 1913 he suffered a bad bout of neuritis and he also had constant digestive problems. It is generally suggested that the 1906 stroke made Wilson hypersensitive and far more intolerant and suspicious of others. His stamina and his memory were both fading by 1918.
Wilson's world view is best characterised as that of a ‘progressive internationalist’. He believed that the United States should aspire to moral leadership in international affairs in a kind of ‘missionary’ diplomacy. He also felt that he was almost divinely ordained to provide such global leadership. Carried away by the occasion – he explained to Edith that his heart was in a ‘whirl’ because she had just asked what his intentions were towards her – Wilson proclaimed in a speech at Philadelphia in May 1915 that America was ‘too proud to fight’ for there was ‘such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right’.8 Similarly, in calling on Congress to declare war on 2 April 1917, Wilson not only claimed that the world must be made ‘safe for democracy’. He also indicated that the US sought no gains, indemnities or compensation in ensuring that the ‘rights’ of mankind ‘have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them’.9 Precisely the same sentiments underlined his speech on the Fourteen Points on 8 January 1918, namely that the world should be ‘fit and safe to live in’, that all peoples ‘are in effect partners in this interest’, and that the US saw ‘very clearly that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us’.10 Wilson, though, was quite prepared to resort to force in what he rationalised as American national interests, intervening in Haiti in 1915, the Dominican Republic in 1916, and in Mexico in both 1914 and 1916.
In a speech Wilson composed in 1916 but never went on to deliver, he conceived the aim of a ‘far-sighted statesman’ should be to use the destruction and suffering of the war as an ‘object less for the future’, thereby demonstrating that war could not be ‘a means of attaining national ambitions’. In May that same year he also set down some principles for the State Department as a basis for peace, namely mutual guarantees of political independence, territorial integrity, economic freedoms and limitation of armaments.11 In his annual message to Congress on 4 December 1917, Wilson suggested that the US would talk peace with a government that truly represented the German people, and that there should be no vindictive action, no annexations, no contributions and no punitive indemnities.
In the light of the events in Russia in November 1917, Wilson crystallised his thoughts through conversations with the Serbian minister in Washington, Milento Vesni, and the British naval attaché, William Wiseman. He valued Wiseman's views rather more than those of the British ambassador, Sir Cecil Spring Rice, whom Wilson felt to be too close to the Republicans. House brought the report of the Inquiry – ‘The Present Situation: The War Aims and Peace Terms It Suggests’ – on 4 January 1918. Walter Lippmann, a journalist who was acting as an assistant to the Secretary of War, had been the principal author of the report. House urged Wilson to take the initiative and demonstrate that the US was prepared to state its war aims as a means of encouraging progressives in Britain and France, and uniting Americans who wanted an idealistic settlement. House and Wilson talked until 2230 hours, Wilson continuing to work on the speech after House left. They resumed next morning and, using his portable typewriter, Wilson prepared a summary of the points he wished to make. House grouped them and numbered them.
Most attention was paid to the statement on Russia. Both men knew from a discussion with the Provisional Government's former Washington ambassador, Boris Bakhmetiev, that if the Bolshevik call for peace was simply ignored, it would strengthen the Bolsheviks. Alsace-Lorraine was also a delicate issue, House initially suggesting it not be mentioned at all, but they agreed on a formula. Wilson's call for freedom of the seas was another point of difficulty but, at House's urging, Wilson made it a strong statement irrespective of what British views might be. In all, the drafting took two hours before lunch.
Wilson decided to contact the British Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, indicating that he felt compelled to issue a statement, and trusting no British statement would conflict with his views. Before this could be sent, news arrived of Lloyd George's Caxton Hall speech, of which Wilson had not received prior notice. Wilson felt initially that he could not now make his statement, but House argued that Lloyd George had cleared the air. His speech bore general comparison to Wilson's ideas. Wilson therefore proceeded, working on the final draft on the morning of 6 January. He discussed it with House that afternoon and they slept on some possible amendments, especially on freedom of the seas. After lunch on Monday, 7 January, they added a few qualifications on freedom of the seas and Alsace-Lorraine. For the first time the Secretary of State, Lansing, was called in at 1500 hours and he suggested minor changes to the wording. A new version was prepared by a stenographer, which Wilson checked, and the speech was sent off to the Government Printing Office for a reading copy. Tumulty hastily arranged a joint session of Congress for 1230 hours on 8 January, so hastily indeed that three cabinet members and several foreign diplomats did not hear of it. Wilson had been adamant that the press should not learn of his speech in advance.
Wilson's speech, received with frequent applause and a standing ovation at the end, came on the very day the Kaiser formally ordered preparations for the German spring offensives. The speech was delivered in the expectation that the negotiations at Brest Litovsk had broken down, and that the Bolsheviks would remain in the war. It was aimed, therefore, as much at the Bolsheviks as at the Germans, as well as at what might be characterised as liberal progressive opinion within the Entente. The first half of the speech concentrated on Russia and Wilson's own denunciation of ‘secret diplomacy’, before he turned to his fourteen points. Austria-Hungary would not be dismembered. Germany would not be deprived of its status as a great power, though occupied territory would need to be evacuated including the two provinces of Alsace-Lorraine taken from the French in 1871. Equally, Britain and France would not be able to realise their economic and territorial aims, and Wilson's general principles would impact more on Britain than Germany.
The first four of Wilson's principles were general in nature. Rejecting ‘secret’ diplomacy, Wilson endorsed freedom of navigation on the seas, free trade and reduction of armaments. He believed that secret diplomatic deals had caused the war and that such a prohibition would prevent another. Wilson principally meant lower tariffs rather than free trade as such, hoping thereby to meet some of the French demands that German trade be carefully controlled after the war. Freedom of the seas, however the wording had been qualified, would never be acceptable in time of war to a maritime power such as Britain.
The fifth point – the adjustment of colonial claims in the interests of the populations concerned – was anathema to Britain, France and Japan. It could only be effectively applied to German overseas colonies, thus giving recognition to allied territorial claims. Restoration of occupied territory formed the basis for points six to eight, though, again, Belgium claimed territory that would secure it a better strategic frontier line for future defence. The restoration of Alsace-Lorraine to France also implied that there would be no plebiscite on self-determination here irrespective of its real identity after over forty years of German colonisation. Alsace was largely German speaking. Russia, over which Wilson could have little influence, would be left alone once the German presence had been removed, with the exception of the territory to be given to an independent Poland.
The thorny issue of self-determination underpinned points nine to thirteen. In effect, Wilson promised only autonomy for those within Austria-Hungary at this
stage, though he did endorse an independent Poland. Similarly, only autonomous development was envisaged for the subjects of the Ottoman Empire. Romania, Serbia and Montenegro would be restored and relationships in the Balkans determined by ‘friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality’. Nothing was said with respect to French ambitions for possession of the Rhineland. It was Italian claims that were most challenged by Wilson's insistence on the frontier being determined along recognisable lines of nationality. By so doing, Wilson effectively rejected the wider Italian territorial claims enshrined in the 1915 Treaty of London.
Wilson's fourteenth and last point was the establishment of a post-war League of Nations. He ended with the rhetorical flourish that the American people were ready for justice and freedom so that, ‘The moral climax of this the culminating and final war for human liberty has come, and they are ready to put their own strength, their own highest purpose, their own integrity and devotion to the test.’12
In the United States the speech was welcomed even by parts of the Republican press. On 10 January, a joint statement in Britain by the Labour Party, TUC and the Co-operative Parliamentary Representation Committee endorsed it, as did the French Left. In Russia, Lenin had it printed in Izvestiya. Where it mattered, the reception was more disappointing. The British and French press were less enthusiastic, and much of the Italian press was hostile. In France, L’ École de Paris commented that the fourteen points were ‘in those blissful realms where all the friends of humanity have tried to build the Salento of their dreams’.13 Lloyd George and Clemenceau gave the speech only a lukewarm welcome. Lloyd George told the Italian prime minister, Vittorio Orlando, that his own speech at Caxton Hall did not affect the provisions of the Treaty of London. Curiously, perhaps, Wilson had greater impact in Germany and Austria-Hungary. Czernin responded by accepting the general principles but refused the possibility of making territorial concessions to Italy, Serbia, Romania and Montenegro, though Emperor Karl conceded the need for internal autonomy.
In Germany, the chancellor, Georg von Hertling, was more grudging, recognising that acceptance would require too great a territorial sacrifice to make the proposals acceptable to the military leadership. Consequently, he rejected them in a speech to the Reichstag Central Committee on 24 January, while contriving somehow to accept those principles that were most favourable to Germany. He suggested, for example, that Britain should give up Aden, the Falklands, Gibraltar, Hong Kong and Malta. As far as he was concerned, the ongoing negotiations with the Bolsheviks were of no concern to the western allies. Hertling also claimed that the annexation of Belgian and French territory was not part of any German war-aims programme, though no territory would be surrendered. Hertling's response dismayed the German Left, and contributed to the upsurge in strikes in January 1918.
On 11 February 1918 Wilson outlined ‘Four Principles’, repeating his Fourteen Points in general form, in an attempt to exploit the apparent divisions between Czernin and Hertling. Czernin's speech was welcomed but Hertling's condemned as contrary to the Reichstag Peace Resolution. Nonetheless, Wilson also explicitly warned his allies that territorial settlements had to be in the interests of the populations concerned. All 'well-defined aspirations’ needed to be satisfied as far as possible, though this left room for manoeuvre.14 In response, in the Reichstag on 25 February, Hertling signalled acceptance of an independent Poland but that it would need to offer territorial compensation to Germany. He also suggested, bizarrely, that the continuing advance of German forces on the Eastern Front represented ‘rescue operations undertaken in the name of humanity’.15 Karl accepted the Four Principles on 18 February but rejected the Fourteen Points, rendering the response largely meaningless. Ultimately, negotiations with Vienna conducted through King Alfonso XIII of Spain led nowhere. The dialogue ended with the Treaty of Brest Litovsk signed between Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Bolsheviks on 4 March, by which Germany achieved sweeping territorial gains. Ironically, the terms of Brest Litovsk did considerably more than Wilson's Fourteen Points to win the support of the political Left in the West for continuing the war.
With the start of the German spring offensive on 21 March 1918, Wilson's despair was expressed in an address at Baltimore on 6 April. Only force would now suffice to end the war: ‘There is, therefore, but one response possible from us: Force, Force to the utmost. Force without stint or limit, the righteous and triumphant Force which shall make Right the law of the world, and cast every selfish dominion down in the dust.’16 At Mount Vernon on 4 July, Wilson's ‘Four Additional Points’ emphasised that the necessary victory must be used for the higher purpose of destroying arbitrary power, settling territorial claims according to the wishes of peoples, respecting international law, and establishing an international organisation. There was a final summing up in New York on 27 September in which Wilson proclaimed ‘Five Particulars’ for a peace settlement: equal justice, no special interests overriding the common good, no secret treaties, no selfish economic combinations, and free disclosure of international agreements.
It has been suggested rightly of the Fourteen Points that the ‘long-term repercussions exceeded their immediate effects’.17 Nonetheless, when the Germans first applied for an armistice in October 1918, they did so on the basis of the Fourteen Points. Receiving the initial German request on 3 October 1918, Wilson demanded clarification. He did not consult his allies in doing so. Entente political leaders drew up a brief list of eight conditions intended to prevent the Germans using an armistice as a temporary breathing period. The terms included German evacuation of occupied French and Belgian territory, and retirement behind the Rhine, thus also vacating Alsace-Lorraine and the Rhineland. The allied Supreme War Council then formulated suitable terms on 8 October, a process not completed until 4 November largely through the desire of the allied supreme commander, Ferdinand Foch, and the British Admiralty to impose more severe conditions. As it was, Clemenceau and Lloyd George were wary of an armistice on the basis of Wilson's Fourteen Points, and Wilson conceded a French occupation of the Rhineland to achieve agreement on the broad principles. The South African member of the British War Cabinet, Jan Smuts, also convinced his colleagues that an armistice now would forestall greater American dominance of the peace process if the war continued into 1919.
In the meantime, Wilson hardened his position on Germany in response to the possibility of strong gains by the Republicans in the upcoming mid-term congressional elections, and to the loss of the liner Leinster to a German submarine on 12 October. Wilson's second note on 14 October was something of a shock for the German leadership in demanding absolute guarantees to maintain the present military supremacy of the allies. A third note on 23 October also made it clear that an armistice must make resumption of the war by Germany impossible, and that peace terms must bring about the end of Prussian militarism. Emperor Karl also appealed to Wilson for peace on the basis of the Fourteen Points, but Wilson replied only through Berlin. In any case, Wilson had indicated on 19 October that his tenth point, concerning Austria-Hungary, had already been superseded by events within the empire. With the exception of accepting freedom of the seas or a minimum level of reparations, Lloyd George and Clemenceau agreed to Wilson's armistice terms. They did so, however, only when House arrived in London for talks between 29 October and 4 November, in which he threatened that Wilson was prepared to consider negotiating a separate peace.
While the armistice terms of 11 November 1918 were far harsher than the Germans had anticipated, it is important to emphasise that they had not surrendered unconditionally. So far as they were concerned, they had accepted a military armistice on the basis of the Fourteen Points. Since Entente troops only occupied the Rhineland, and they did not parade through Berlin as German troops had through Paris in 1871, it was never brought fully home to the German people that they had been defeated. Hence the subsequent shock in Germany at the terms imposed in the Paris peace conference, which convened on 18 January 1919.
The Making of the First World War Page 27