10. Freest opportunity for the autonomous development of the peoples of Austria-Hungary.
11. Evacuation of Rumania, Servia and Montenegro, with access to the sea for Servia, and international guarantees of economic and political independence and territorial integrity of the Balkan States.
12. Secure sovereignty for Turkey’s portion of the Ottoman Empire, but with other nationalities under Turkey’s rule assured security of life and opportunity for autonomous development, with the Dardanelles permanently opened to all nations.
13. Establishment of an independent Polish State, including territories inhabited by indisputably Polish population, with free access to the sea and political and economic independence and territorial integrity guaranteed by international covenant.
14. General association of nations under specific covenants for mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to large and small states alike.
This was the programme laid down for the attainment of peace and was accepted by both sides, the Allied powers as well as Germany and Austria-Hungary.
The total disregard of the Fourteen Points in the peace treaty proved a grievous disappointment to the majority of the thinking people of America. In the final analysis of the work of the Paris peace conference it was found that we had achieved not a single point of our programme, except as to the last provision, from which evolved the so-called League of Nations, subsequently defeated in the Senate.
Instead of “open covenants openly arrived at,” the treaty was made in secret conference; we did not gain the freedom of the seas, but helped Great Britain to strengthen her command of the seas by eliminating her greatest rival; we witnessed no removal of economic barriers—not even among the Allies, as the President himself recommended an American tariff on dyes; disarmament was decreed for Germany and Austria only; self-determination of small nations became a dead letter at once as to Ireland, German Austria, the German Tyrol, Danzig, Egypt, India, the Boers, Korea, Persia, andnumerous others, especially where the question involved the self-determination of Germans; Hungary’s borders were at once invaded by Rumania, Serbia and Czecho-Slovakia; Russia was not permitted to determine her own fate, as Kolchak was formally recognized and supported by the powers; Belgium remains a vassal of England and France; in addition to righting the wrong of 1871 by the recession of Alsace-Lorraine, the Saar Valley was taken away from Germany and a plebiscite was ordered in Schleswig, Silesia, and German-Poland under the guns of the Entente; Italy’s borders were not readjusted along national lines, for the Brenner Pass, the Voralsberg, parts of Dalmatia and a lease on Fiume provided; the autonomous development of Austria-Hungary was interpreted to mean that the German-speaking part of Austria was forbidden to unite with Germany; the independence of the Balkan States was made subject to the invisible government of the Big Four; autonomy for Turkish vassal states and the internationalization of the Dardanelles was construed to mean that these States should become mandatories of the Allies and the strait to be under Allied control; Polish freedom celebrated its advent with Jewish pogroms, while the League of Nations became a league of victors, in which Japan was bribed to enter by the cession to her of the Shantung peninsula.
“Germany has accepted President Wilson’s fourteen points,” said Dr. Mathias Erzberger, “but so have the Allies.”
That President Wilson fully recognized his responsibility and that of his European associates under the Fourteen Points is shown by his own statement. On December 2, 1918, he said in addressing Congress: