IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.
X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity for autonomous development.
XI. Russia, 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 the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.
XII. The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nations which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity for autonomous development, and 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 covenants.
XIV. A genuine association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity of great and small states alike.
At the session of the supreme council on February 1, 1919, a decision was reached concerning the German colonies and the conditions were later confirmed by the covenant of the League of Nations.
President Wilson presided at the opening meeting of the League of Nations Commission on February 3, 1919, held at the residence of Colonel Edward House in Paris. The United States was represented by Mr. Wilson, Colonel House, and Mr. Miller, technical expert. Lord Robert Cecil and General Christian Smuts represented Great Britain; for France, Leon Bourgeois and Ferdinand Larnaude; for Italy Premier Orlando, and for Japan Baron Chinda; also delegates from Belgium, Serbia, Brazil, Portugal, and China.
The discussion in which Mr. Wilson took a leading part was not general but specific, as the printed text of the agreed plan for the formation of the League of Nations was before the meeting.
On the same date important committees on reparation, ports, waterways and railways held their first formal meetings. The French and British presented a program recognizing the right of nations to control international waterways and international railways, which was accepted by the commission.