Woodrow Wilson's Speech Before World War I

This document is a speech that was given by the president of The United States, Woodrow Wilson on January 8th, 1918. This speech was an address to congress as well as the rest of world, most importantly the countries involved in the war, about not only the U.S. war aims, but also Wilson’s plan to create a lasting peace. In Wilson’s speech, he addressed what he believed had caused the war, as well as what he believed would prevent another great war from ever happening again. A few important takeaways that Wilson stated in his fourteen points for lasting peace included that there must be no secret treaties, there must be freedom of the seas, must be freedom of trade, must allow sovereignty to ethnic groups in the now former Austria Hungary, must
These terms chosen by Woodrow Wilson were well thought out by himself, and quite specific in order to prevent such a catastrophe of a war from ever happening again.
Wilson stated in the speech he no longer wanted countries to form secret alliances because that was one of the many catalysts that started the war in the first place. Before WWI Germany, Italy, and Austria Hungary had an alliance with each other while France had an alliance with Britain, Russia, and Italy. Many of these alliances were done behind closed doors, causing countries to be pulled into nearly any kind of conflict. Wilson did not want this same problem to ever happen again, therefore it was addressed in his war aims. Wilson addressed, in point VIII, the need for sovereignty of Alsace-Lorraine and the freeing of French territory. The loss of Alsace-Lorraine by France during the Franco-Prussian war caused a grudge between Germany and France. By giving this land back, Wilson wanted to ease tensions. This request was well received by the French people. To create a lasting peace that Wilson, and the rest of the world, wanted so bad, he believed there should be no reparations
Wilson believed this was needed in order to prevent grudges to be held, much how the prior conflicts of WWI had caused tensions to rise. Wilson even said in his speech, directed toward Germany, “We do not wish to injure her or to block in any way.” This point made by Wilson was especially appealing to Germany, due to them being the losers of the war, and in response to this Germany wanted to sign an armistice under these guidelines. Points XIII and XIV are also very important in this speech, and it calls for the allowance of independence of certain ethnic areas, more specifically in Austria Hungary. The start of WWI was partially caused by the Balkan wars in which certain ethnic groups wanted sovereignty from Austria-Hungary, specifically Serbia. Austria-Hungary of course did not approve of this split during the Balkan Wars, resulting in tensions/conflict. Wilson addressed this issue of self determination through the last two points of his speech in order to prevent any wars in hopes of sovereignty. The response to this point resulted in the Czechs declaring the formation Czechoslovakia, the creation of Yugoslavia by the Croats & Slovs, and the independence of Hungary. Objections to this