Coming to a close in favor of Allied & Associated powers President Wilson laid down the conditions of peace known as the 'Fourteen Points' in an address to the congress on January 8, 1918, Historical importance attaches to theses points since it was on their basis that Germany agreed to surrender. These points may briefly be described as such:
- Open Covenants of peace openly arrived at.
- Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas outside territorial water alike in peace & in war.
- The removal of all economic barriers & the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all nations.
- Adequate guarantees given & taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.
- A free open-minded & absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims.
- Belgium must be evacuated & restored.
- All French territory should be freed & restored Germans should give back Alsace & Lorraine to France.
- Russian territory should be evacuated & restored.
- A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected among clearly recognizable line of nationality.
- The people of Austria & Hungary should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous development.
- Romania, Serbia & Montenegro should be evacuated.
- The Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secured sovereignty. The Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships & commerce of all nations under international guarantees.
- An independent polish state should be erected.
- A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence & territorial integrity to great & small states alike.
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