0.3 Great war (part ii)  (Page 5/16)

Those ideas came from the work of academics: a group of men that Wilson called “The Inquiry.” Meeting in secret at the offices of the American Geographic Society in New York City, these scholars researched and discussed various post-war options for Europe. The Inquiry is very much the forerunner to today’s Think Tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the Pew Research Center. “We are skimming the cream of the younger and more imaginative scholars,” declared Walter Lippmann, the 28-year-old Harvard graduate who recruited the scholars and managed the Inquiry in its formative phase. “What we are on the lookout for is genius—sheer, startling genius, and nothing else will do.”

The suggestions, ideas, and conclusions of the Inquiry culminated in fourteen particular ideas that Wilson publicly unveiled in early January of 1918 in what is called the “Fourteen Points Address.” Reminding the joint session of Congress that the US got involved in the war not only to protect American liberties at home but also to spread American liberties throughout the world, Wilson envisioned a world “made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression.”

Wilson called for international trade unrestricted by law or tariffs, an end to secret treaties and military alliances, and an end to colonialism. The world would be made safe through vigilant international cooperation. As he described it in the final of his fourteen points, “A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.”

England and France (the two allies who fought the longest and sacrificed more in both material and human lives) did not great Wilson’s ideas for a new world order with open arms. For example, Arthur Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary and one-time Prime Minister, seemed to be uninterested in any sort of negotiated settlement, instead calling for Germany to provide England and France with “unconditional restoration and reparation” of all taken, plundered, and destroyed lands. Neither did the Belgian Prime Minister accept Wilson’s extensive plan. Baron Charles de Broqueville merely demanded “reparation for damages and guarantees against repetition of the aggression.” Earlier, Wilson had called for “peace without victory” which meant that the Allies did not need to crush Germany. The Inquiry and Wilson might have underestimated the Allies’ desire to punish Germany and so Wilson was out of step with his European counterparts regarding diplomatic goals.

The Peace to End All Peace

Russia had quit the war prematurely and had thus signed its own peace treaty with Germany. Known as Brest-Litovsk, Russia essentially ceded lands (such as the Ukraine, the Baltic states, Finland, the Caucasus Mountains and Poland) to Germany in exchange for the removal of German troops from Russian soil. However, six days before the Armistice, German officials repudiated the March 3 ^rd , 1918 treaty.