The year began with an important step in the political course of the war.
On January 8, President Woodrow Wilson issued his Fourteen Points in an
address to a joint session of Congress. Without consulting the British,
French, or Italian governments, the American leader set down the principles
for a future peace settlement. He pointed to such goals as freedom of the
seas and a postwar international organization of the world's countries. The
speech likely reflected Wilson's belief that only a peace of reconciliation
could be a lasting one. More immediately, however, his views countered the
call by the new Communist government of Russia for an end to the war on
radical terms; and Wilson may have hoped his speech could persuade Russia
to remain in the war. It also served a purpose in domestic politics, providing
Wilson's liberal supporters with an idealistic goal to justify the political
repressions and other pains the government was inflicting on the nation in
order to fight the war effectively. The speech was equally important for what
it did not include. There was no mention of placing severe penalties on the
Central Powers. Thus, the Fourteen Points aimed—successfully, it turned
out—at undermining morale and the will to continue the war in the Central
Powers. As historian Harvey DeWeerd has argued, the speech served "to
prepare the minds of the German people to expect a tolerable peace despite
their military defeat."
World History
