He declared that every great people "should be assured a direct outlet to the sea," and that "no nation should be shut away from free access to the open paths of the world's commerce." He added: "The freedom of the seas is the sine qua non of peace, equality, and coöperation." This problem, he said, was closely connected with the limitation of naval armaments. "The question of armaments, whether on land or sea, is the most immediately and intensely practical question connected with the future fortunes of nations and of mankind."
The Russian revolution, which came in March, 1917, and resulted in the overthrow of the Czar's government, cleared the political atmosphere for the time being, and enabled President Wilson in his address to Congress on April 2 to proclaim a war of democracy against autocracy. The new Russian government repudiated all imperialistic aims and adopted the formula: "Self-determination, no annexations, no indemnities." Poland was given her freedom and the demand for Constantinople was abandoned. The Allies were thus relieved from one of their most embarrassing secret treaties.
Even after America entered the war, President Wilson continued to advance the same ideas as to the ultimate conditions of peace. His attitude remained essentially different from that of the Allies, who were hampered by secret treaties wholly at variance with the President's aims. In his war address he declared that we had "no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their government acted in entering this war." Prussian autocracy was the object of his attack. "We are now about to accept gauge of battle with this natural foe to liberty and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to check and nullify its pretensions and its power. We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretense about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them."
About the time that the United States declared war, Austria and Germany began another so-called "peace offensive." Overtures were made by Austria to France in March, and in August the Pope made a direct appeal to the Powers. This move was unmasked by President Wilson in a public address at the Washington Monument, June 14, 1917. "The military masters under whom Germany is bleeding," he declared, "see very clearly to what point fate has brought them: if they fall back or are forced back an inch, their power abroad and at home will fall to pieces. It is their power at home of which they are thinking now more than of their power abroad. It is that power which is trembling under their very feet. Deep fear has entered their hearts. They have but one chance to perpetuate their military power, or even their controlling political influence. If they can secure peace now, with the immense advantage still in their hands, they will have justified themselves before the German people. They will have gained by force what they promised to gain by it—an immense expansion of German power and an immense enlargement of German industrial and commercial opportunities. Their prestige will be secure, and with their prestige their political power. If they fail, their people will thrust them aside. A government accountable to the people themselves will be set up in Germany, as has been the case in England, the United States, and France—in all great countries of modern times except Germany. If they succeed they are safe, and Germany and the world are undone. If they fail, Germany is saved and the world will be at peace. If they succeed, America will fall within the menace, and we, and all the rest of the world, must remain armed, as they will remain, and must make ready for the next step in their aggression. If they fail, the world may unite for peace and Germany may be of the union."
The task of replying to the Pope was left by the Allied governments to Wilson, who was not hampered by secret treaties. In this remarkable document he drove still further the wedge between the German people and the Kaiser. "The American people have suffered intolerable wrongs at the hands of the Imperial German Government, but they desire no reprisal upon the German people who have themselves suffered all things in this war which they did not choose. They believe that peace should rest upon the rights of peoples, not the rights of Governments—the rights of peoples great or small, weak or powerful—their equal right to freedom and security and self-government and to a participation upon fair terms in the economic opportunities of the world, the German people of course included if they will accept equality and not seek domination."
In conclusion he said: "We cannot take the word of the present rulers of Germany as a guarantee of anything that is to endure, unless explicitly supported by such conclusive evidence of the will and purpose of the German people themselves as the other peoples of the world would be justified in accepting. Without such guarantees, treaties of settlement, agreements for disarmament, covenants to set up arbitration in the place of force, territorial adjustments, reconstitutions of small nations, if made with the German Government, no man, no nation could now depend on. We must await some new evidence of the purposes of the great peoples of the Central Powers. God grant it may be given soon and in a way to restore the confidence of all peoples everywhere in the faith of nations and the possibility of covenanted peace."
Early in November, 1917, the Kerensky Government was overthrown in Russia and the Bolsheviki came into power. They at once proposed a general armistice and called upon all the belligerents to enter into peace negotiations. The Central Powers accepted the invitation, and early in December negotiations began at Brest-Litovsk. The Russian peace proposals were: the evacuation of occupied territories, self-determination for nationalities not hitherto independent, no war indemnities or economic boycotts, and the settlement of colonial questions in accordance with the above principles. The Austrian minister, Count Czernin, replied for the Central Powers, accepting more of the Russian program than had been expected, but rejecting the principle of a free plebiscite for national groups not hitherto independent, and conditioning the whole on the acceptance by the Allies of the offer of general peace. The conference called on the Allies for an answer by January 4. No direct reply was made to this demand, but the Russian proposals had made a profound impression on the laboring classes in all countries, and both Lloyd George and President Wilson felt called on to define more clearly the war aims of the Allies.
In a speech delivered January 5, 1918, Lloyd George made the first comprehensive and authoritative statement of British war aims. He had consulted the labor leaders and Viscount Grey and Mr. Asquith, as well as some of the representatives of the overseas dominions, and he was speaking, he said, for "the nation and the Empire as a whole." He explained first what the British were not fighting for. He disclaimed any idea of overthrowing the German Government, although he considered military autocracy "a dangerous anachronism"; they were not fighting to destroy Austria-Hungary, but genuine self-government must be granted to "those Austro-Hungarian nationalities who have long desired it"; they were not fighting "to deprive Turkey of its capital or of the rich and renowned lands of Thrace, which are predominantly Turkish in race," but the passage between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea must be "internationalized and neutralized." The positive statement of aims included the complete restoration of Belgium, the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France, rectification of the Italian boundary, the independence of Poland, the restoration of Serbia, Montenegro, and the occupied parts of France, Italy, and Rumania, and a disposition of the German colonies with "primary regard to the wishes and interests of the native inhabitants of such colonies." He insisted on reparation for injuries done in violation of international law, but disclaimed a demand for war indemnity. In conclusion he declared the following conditions to be essential to a lasting peace: "First, the sanctity of treaties must be reëstablished; secondly, a territorial settlement must be secured, based on the right of self-determination or the consent of the governed; and lastly, we must seek, by the creation of some international organization, to limit the burden of armaments and diminish the probability of war."
On January 8, 1918, three days after Lloyd George's speech, President
Wilson appeared before both Houses of Congress and delivered the most
important of all his addresses on war aims. It contained the famous
Fourteen Points:
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 the public view.