Why fourteen points failed

Though it was intended to encompass all nations, many never joined, or their time as part of the league was short. The most conspicuous absence was the United States. When the league was born in January , neither Germany nor Russia was permitted to join.

The league was further weakened when major powers, such as Japan and Italy, left in the s. The second important weakness grew from the contradiction between the idea of collective security that formed the basis of the league and international relations between individual states.

Finally, the League of Nations lacked any type of armed forces of its own and depended on the Great Powers to enforce its resolutions, which they were unwilling to do. Its two most important members, Britain and France, were reluctant to use sanctions and even more reluctant to resort to military action on behalf of the league as pacifism had become a strong force among the people and the leaders of the two countries in the aftermath of World War I.

The two-thirds majority needed to pass the treaty was not obtained. Senate after the election of , but its members were divided into multiple positions on the Treaty of Versailles and, subsequently, the League of Nations. Among the American public, Irish Catholics and German Americans were intensely opposed to the treaty, claiming it favored the British. One bloc of Democrats strongly supported the Treaty of Versailles, even with reservations added by Lodge.

The largest bloc, led by Lodge, wanted a treaty with reservations, especially on Article X, which involved the power of the League of Nations to make war without a vote by the U.

The Irreconcilables were bitter enemies of President Wilson, and he launched a nationwide speaking tour in the summer of to refute them. However, Wilson collapsed midway through the tour with a serious stroke that effectively ruined his leadership abilities. It was not until July 21, , that Harding signed into law the Knox-Porter Resolution drafted by Congress, which formally ended hostilities between the United States and the Central powers. The United States was the only major power to emerge from World War I in a position of relative economic strength, putting America in the best position to intervene in international disagreements with potential for war.

Therefore, the U. The irony of the large, wealthy nation whose president first proposed the league failing to join its ranks was not lost on other countries and was a major reason the league did not become the great diplomatic clearing house Wilson envisioned.

The league cannot be labeled a failure, however, as it laid the groundwork for the United Nations, which replaced the League of Nations after World War II and inherited a number of agencies and organizations founded by the league.

Privacy Policy. Skip to main content. World War I: — Search for:. Diplomacy and Negotiations at the End of the War. Following its surrender, the Austro-Hungarian Empire failed to unite its people and split into Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. When Germany surrendered, U. President Woodrow Wilson demanded that Germany accede to the terms of the Fourteen Points, which required the return of conquered territory to Russia and France.

Germany saw the terms as harsh, while the Allies found them too lenient. Fourteen Points : A speech given by U. The address was intended to assure the country that the Great War was being fought for a moral cause and to lay out a vision for global postwar peace.

Key Takeaways Key Points The Fourteen Points speech delivered by Woodrow Wilson to a joint session of Congress was meant to assure the country that the Great War was being fought for the moral cause of postwar peace in Europe.

Believing that the Fourteen Points would offer fair terms for peace, the German Imperial Chancellor Maximilian of Baden requested an armistice in October The fighting came to an end on November 11, The Fourteen Points were the basis of negotiation between the defeated Central powers and the victorious Allies at the Paris Peace Conference of Allied leaders were skeptical of Wilsonian idealism, and Britain refused to agree to some of the conditions, such as allowing free navigation of the seas, and insisted Germany should pay reparations.

The final peace settlement of the war, the Treaty of Versailles, required Germany to pay huge sums for war reparations. Signed on June 28, , exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the treaty ended the state of war between Germany and its coalition and the Allied powers led by France, Britain, and the United States. Georges Clemenceau : — A French journalist, physician, and statesman who served as the prime minister of France from to and again from to Paris Peace Conference : A meeting of the Allied victors and the defeated Central powers to set the terms of the armistice ending World War I and to establish a postwar peace plan based on U.

The peace conference resulted in the Treaty of Versailles, which contained a punitive war-guilt clause declaring Germany guilty of initiating the war, requiring the German government to pay the cost of the war to the victors, and severely crippling the German military. The Republican criticism, in other words, was not that the League of Nations embroiled Americans too much in the outside world, but that it failed to so comprehensively and effectively enough. In part these provisions reflected a free-standing progressive agenda pursued for its own sake, but the real motivation was to reduce domestic tensions which might lead to international tension and even war.

The president soon ran into serious trouble at home. He lost control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate in the mid-term Congressional elections. This put a question mark over US participation in the peace treaty and the projected League of Nations Covenant, both of which could be signed by the president but required ratification by the Senate with a two-thirds majority. Irish Americans, for example, could not forgive Wilson for speaking of self-determination, yet failing to insist on Irish independence at Versailles, while Italian Americans felt that Italy had been territorially short-changed.

The most serious resistance to the League, however, came from the Republican Party, the traditional standard-bearer for American internationalism. Critics such as the former Senator and Secretary of War Elihu Root were concerned that the rhetorical flourish of Wilsonianism masked a weak and ineffective treaty.

They proposed amendments by which member states undertook to submit all disputes, including those involving vital national interests, to bind- ing international arbitration; the draft and final Covenant failed to require this. In particular, the Republicans demanded concrete security guarantees for France against Germany, which Wilson was very reluctant to give.

Wilson, however, refused to countenance any change to his beloved charter and the battle lines were drawn. The League treaty not only went down to defeat in the Senate, where it failed to secure a two-thirds majority, but the Democrats were worsted in the presidential election thanks not least to the votes of hyphenated Americans—mainly Irish, German, and Italian—outraged by Versailles.

The United States became neither a member of the League of Nations, nor a signatory and thus a guarantor of the Versailles settlement. On January 8, , African American men gain the right to vote in the District of Columbia despite the veto of its most powerful resident, President Andrew Johnson. The Republican-controlled senate overrode Johnson by a vote of three years before a constitutional amendment It was the only time in U. It was the third time that the law caught up to El Chapo, a figure whose crimes, influence and mystique rival those of Pablo Escobar.

Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. One of the most widely ridiculed and memorable gaffes in the history of the United States Presidency occurred in Japan on the evening of January 8, , when President George H. Bush vomits on the Prime Minister of Japan. Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa was hosting a dinner for Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in the history of California, takes his place on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on January 8, The first and, for years, most visible openly gay politician in America, Milk was a longtime activist and pioneering Just two weeks after the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, U.

In September , an impressive American naval victory on Lake Champlain forced invading British forces On January 8, , Gabrielle Giffords, a U. Six people died in the attack and another 13, including Over 2, dignitaries, including President John F. What did Germany lose in the Treaty of Versailles? What were the weaknesses of the treaty?

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