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against Prussian militarism in the name of humanity and civilisation; they emphasise the right of small nations to self-determination, as was done previously by English and French Ministers and statesmen. The specific political demands are: Belgium, Serbia, and Montenegro must be restored by Germany; the occupied territories of France, Russia and Roumania must be evacuated and given a just compensation. Territories and provinces that have been taken from the Allies in the past by violence and against the will of the population must be returned; this must be interpreted primarily as the solution of the Alsace-Lorraine problem, but it also applies to the Danes of Schleswig. In the East, Poland must be united and liberated; the nationalities of Austria-Hungary must also be liberated from foreign domination—the Italians, Slavs, Roumanians and Czecho-Slovaks. Turkish rule in Europe must cease to exist, because it is foreign to Western civilisation; nations subjected to the bloody tyranny of the Turks shall be liberated.
The Allies thus insist on the re-organisation of Eastern Europe and Europe in general; nationalities must be respected and freedom of economic development fully secured to all nations, great and small. International treaties will guarantee territorial and seacoast boundaries against unjust attacks. The Allies adopt as a matter of principle the formation of a League of Nations.
8b. Soon after the receipt of the Allied Note, President Wilson in the name of the American people (April 5th, 1917) declared war against Germany. Since that day, as he has pointed out, he has pronounced and even before that, general conditions of peace.
President Wilson interprets very effectively the leading principles of the American democracy. The principles by which America was nurtured (Inaugural Address, March 5th, 1917) are the principles of liberated humanity; the chief basis of peace is the actual equality of nations as well as the principle that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, or, as he states it in his message to Russia (June 9th, 1917), no people shall be forced under that sovereignty under which it does not wish to live.
In substance President Wilson thus reiterated the famous Gettysburg Speech of Lincoln (November 10th, 1863): “That these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that the government of the people, for the people and by the people shall not perish from the earth.” Both Lincoln and Wilson repeat the principles of the American Declaration of Independence, July 4th, 1776.
Mr. Wilson formulated the conditions of peace with more detail in an address before the Congress, January 8th, 1918, one year after the Note of the Allies; his proposal contains fourteen demands:—
I. Peace must be negotiated in the open, without secret international agreements; diplomacy must act in public.
II. Unconditioual freedom of navigation upon the seas beyond the territorial limits.
III. Removal, as far as possible, of all economic barriers.
IV. General disarmament.
V. Adjustment and division of colonies; the interests of the inhabitants should be given the same consideration as to the interests of the states claiming the colonies.
VI. Evacuation of Russian territory; Russia is to settle her own political system, and as far as necessary, should receive all possible assistance. “The manner in which sisterly nations treat Russia will be the proof of good will.”
VII. Belgium must be evacuated and restored.
VIII. French territory should be evacuated and restored and the wrong done to France in 1871 by Prussia in the case of Alsace-Lorraine should be righted.
