uncertainty, and everybody listened to them, not only because the President was the authorized exponent of a great nation, of a powerful people, but because he represented an inexhaustible source of vitality in the midst of the ravages of violence and death. President Wilson's messages have done as much as famine and cruel losses in the field to break the stubborn resistance of the German people. If it was possible to obtain a just peace, why go to the bitter end when defeat was manifestly inevitable? Obstinacy is the backbone of war, and nothing undermines a nation's power of resistance so much as doubt and faint-heartedness on the part of the governing classes.

[Footnote 1: "President Wilson's State Speeches and Addresses," New
York, 1918.]

President Wilson, who said on January 2, 1917, that a peace without victory was to be preferred ("It must be a peace without victory"), and that "Right is more precious than peace," had also repeatedly affirmed that "We have no quarrel with the German people."

He only desired, as the exponent of a great democracy, a peace which should be the expression of right and justice, evolving from the War a League of Nations, the first milestone in a new era of civilization, a league destined to bind together ex-belligerents and neutrals in one.

In Germany, where the inhabitants had to bear the most cruel privations, President Wilson's words, pronounced as a solemn pledge before the whole world, had a most powerful effect on all classes and greatly contributed towards the final breakdown of collective resistance. Democratic minds saw a promise for the future, while reactionaries welcomed any way out of their disastrous adventure.

After America's entry in the War, President Wilson, on January 8, 1918, formulated the fourteen points of his programme regarding the finalities of the War and the peace to be realized.

It is here necessary to reproduce the original text of President Wilson's message containing the fourteen points which constitute a formal pledge undertaken by the democracy of America, not only towards enemy peoples but towards all peoples of the world.

These important statements from President Wilson's message have, strangely enough, been reproduced either incompletely or in an utterly mistaken form even in official documents and in books published by statesmen who took a leading part in the Paris Conference.

It is therefore advisable to reproduce the original text in full:

1st. Honest peace treaties, following loyal and honest negotiations, after which secret international agreements will be abolished and diplomacy will always proceed frankly and openly.

2nd. Full liberty of navigation on the high seas outside territorial waters, both in peace and war, except when the seas be closed wholly or in part by an international decision sanctioned by international treaties.

3rd. Removal, as far as possible, of all economic barriers and establishment of terms of equality in commerce among all nations adhering to peace and associated to maintain it.

4th. Appropriate guarantees to be given and received for the reduction of national armaments to a minimum compatible with internal safety.

5th. A clear, open and absolutely impartial settlement of all colonial rights, based on a rigorous observance of the principle that, in the determination of all questions of sovereignty, the interests of the populations shall bear equal weight with those of the Government whose claims are to be determined.

6th. The evacuation of all Russian territories and a settlement of all Russian questions such as to ensure the best and most untrammelled co-operation of other nations of the world in order to afford Russia a clear and precise opportunity for the independent settlement of her autonomous political development and of her national policy, promising her a cordial welcome in the League of Nations under institutions of her own choice, and besides a cordial welcome, help and assistance in all that she may need and require. The treatment meted out to Russia by the sister nations in the months to come must be a decisive proof of their goodwill, of their understanding of her needs as apart from their own interests, and of their intelligent and disinterested sympathy.

7th. Belgium, as the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and reconstructed without the slightest attempt at curtailing the sovereign rights which she enjoys in common with other free nations. Nothing will be more conducive to the re-establishment of confidence and respect among nations for those laws which they themselves have made for the regulation and observance of their reciprocal relations. Without this salutary measure the whole structure and validity of international law would be permanently undermined.

8th. All French territories will be liberated, the invaded regions reconstructed, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871, in the question of Alsace-Lorraine, and which has jeopardized the peace of the world for nearly half a century, must be made good, so as to ensure a lasting peace in the general interest.

9th. The Italian frontier must be rectified on the basis of the clearly recognized lines of nationality.

10th. The people of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and maintained, should come to an agreement as to the best way of attaining their autonomous development.

11th. Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro are to be evacuated and occupied territories restored: a free and secure access to the sea for Serbia; mutual relations between the Balkan States to be determined on a friendly basis by a Council, following the lines of friendship and nationality traced by tradition and history; the political and economic integrity of the various Balkan States to be guaranteed.

12th. A certain degree of sovereignty must be assigned to that part of the Ottoman Empire which is Turkish; but the other nationalities now under the Turkish regime should have the assurance of an independent existence and of an absolute and undisturbed opportunity to develop their autonomy; moreover the Dardanelles should be permanently open to the shipping and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.

13th. An independent Polish State should be founded, comprising all territories inhabited by peoples of undoubtedly Polish nationality, with a free and secure access to the sea and its political and economic independence and territorial integrity guaranteed by international agreements.

14th. A League of Nations must be formed with special pacts and for the sole scope of ensuring the reciprocal guarantees of political independence and of territorial integrity, in equal measure both for large and small States.

The Peace Treaty as outlined by Wilson would really have brought about a just