Fourteen Points — statement of principles for peace that was to be used for peace negotiations in order to end World War I
Wilson's Fourteen Points defined U.S. war aims and laid the ideological groundwork for the Paris Peace Conference and the League of Nations.
Key Facts
- Date of speech
- January 8, 1918
- Number of principles
- 14
- Speaker
- President Woodrow Wilson
- Audience
- United States Congress
- Research team size
- ~150 advisers (the Inquiry)
- U.S. entry into WWI
- April 6, 1917
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare and the intercepted Zimmermann telegram drew the United States into World War I in April 1917. Wilson sought to define a moral and ideological basis for U.S. participation, distinct from European nationalist rivalries, especially after Bolshevik disclosures of secret Allied treaties undermined the Allies' stated war aims.
On January 8, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson addressed the U.S. Congress, presenting fourteen principles for a just and lasting peace. These included open diplomacy, freedom of the seas, self-determination of peoples, arms reduction, and the creation of a general association of nations. The speech drew on research by a team of roughly 150 advisers known as the Inquiry and responded directly to Lenin's Decree on Peace.
Though Wilson's Allied counterparts — Clemenceau, Lloyd George, and Orlando — were skeptical of his idealism, the Fourteen Points became a reference framework at the Paris Peace Conference. They influenced the eventual terms of the Treaty of Versailles and provided the conceptual basis for the League of Nations, though many of Wilson's specific principles were only partially realized in the final settlement.
Belligerents & Mobilization Analysis
Side A
1 belligerent
Woodrow Wilson, Georges Clemenceau, David Lloyd George, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando.
Side B
1 belligerent