https://padlet.com/20harpna/j4c043lil3p5 Made with joy en-us 2018-02-21 03:49:54 UTC 2018-02-21 04:09:01 UTC hello@padlet.com 20harpna https://padlet.com/20harpna/j4c043lil3p5/wish/233592894 The Fourteen Points were listed in a speech delivered by President Woodrow Wilson of the United States to a Joint session of the Congress on January 8, 1918. In his speech, Wilson intended to set out a blueprint for lasting peace in Europe after World War I. The idealism displayed in the speech gave Wilson a position of moral leadership among the Allies, and encouraged the Central Powers to surrender.]]> 2018-02-21 03:52:37 UTC https://padlet.com/20harpna/j4c043lil3p5/wish/233592894 20harpna https://padlet.com/20harpna/j4c043lil3p5/wish/233593021 The speech was delivered over 10 months before the Armistice with Germany ended World War I, but the Fourteen Points became the basis for the terms of the German surrender, as negotiated at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 and documented in the Treaty of Versailles. However, only four of the points were adopted completely in the post-war reconstruction of Europe, and the United States Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles.]]> 2018-02-21 03:53:38 UTC https://padlet.com/20harpna/j4c043lil3p5/wish/233593021 20harpna https://padlet.com/20harpna/j4c043lil3p5/wish/233593117 The Fourteen points represents the pinnacle of progressivist foreign policy, but also its weakness. The idealism of Wilson's points would ultimately prevail not in the League of Nations but in its successor, the United Nations. Unfortunately, there was no basis in the fourteen points that would inspire nations to forgo their own national interests, a challenge that continues to plague the United Nations.]]> 2018-02-21 03:54:16 UTC https://padlet.com/20harpna/j4c043lil3p5/wish/233593117 20harpna https://padlet.com/20harpna/j4c043lil3p5/wish/233593260 The speech contained the highest ideals, reforming foreign policy on moral and ethical grounds, rather than pure self-interest. It was widely disseminated as an instrument of propaganda, to encourage the Allies to victory. Copies were also dropped behind German lines, to encourage the Central Powers to surrender in the expectation of a just settlement. Indeed, a note sent to Wilson by Prince Maximilian of Baden, the Chancellor of Germany, in October 1918 requested an immediate armistice and peace negotiations on the basis of the Fourteen Points.]]> 2018-02-21 03:55:03 UTC https://padlet.com/20harpna/j4c043lil3p5/wish/233593260 20harpna https://padlet.com/20harpna/j4c043lil3p5/wish/233593334 The speech was made without prior coordination or consultation with Wilson's counterparts in Europe. As the only public statement of war aims, it became the basis for the terms of the German surrender at the end of the First World War, as negotiated at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 and documented in the Treaty of Versailles. Opposition to the Fourteen Points among British and French leaders became clear after hostilities ceased.]]> 2018-02-21 03:55:33 UTC https://padlet.com/20harpna/j4c043lil3p5/wish/233593334 20harpna https://padlet.com/20harpna/j4c043lil3p5/wish/233593485 France had suffered very heavy casualties during the war (some 1.24 million military and 40,000 civilians dead). Much of the war had been fought on French soil, so French Prime Minister Clemenceau's government wanted punitive reparations to both punish Germany and rebuild France. France wanted to be given control of many of Germany's factories. Coal from the Ruhr industrial region was transported to France by train. Clemenceau also wanted to protect secret treaties and impose naval blockades around Germany so that France could control trade imported to and exported from the defeated country.]]> 2018-02-21 03:56:49 UTC https://padlet.com/20harpna/j4c043lil3p5/wish/233593485 20harpna https://padlet.com/20harpna/j4c043lil3p5/wish/233593552 France also wished for Germany’s military to be not only weakened for the time being, but permanently so, never to be able to invade France again. Territorially, France felt that Germany should be punished. They demanded the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France, but also the demilitarization of the Rhineland to act as a buffer zone against future attacks. Furthermore, Germany’s colonies should be taken from her and distributed between the victors.]]> 2018-02-21 03:57:17 UTC https://padlet.com/20harpna/j4c043lil3p5/wish/233593552 20harpna https://padlet.com/20harpna/j4c043lil3p5/wish/233593714 This mixture of mutual interests versus national interest ultimately meant that Wilson was forced to compromise on many of his ideals to ensure that his most important point, the establishment of the League of Nations, was accepted. In the end, the Treaty of Versailles went far beyond the proposals in the Fourteen Points. The resulting bitterness in Germany is generally acknowledged as creating the conditions for the disintegration of the Weimar Republic and the rise of fascism in the 1930s.]]> 2018-02-21 03:58:19 UTC https://padlet.com/20harpna/j4c043lil3p5/wish/233593714 20harpna https://padlet.com/20harpna/j4c043lil3p5/wish/233594214 Start reading from the bottom 'The League of Nations' should be the last thing you read.]]> 2018-02-21 04:01:47 UTC https://padlet.com/20harpna/j4c043lil3p5/wish/233594214