Germany -- Politics and government -- 1888-1918; William II, German Emperor, 1859-1941; World War, 1914-1918
Personally I do not believe that the American people would have
consented to this; American women particularly would not have
participated in the denial of President Wilson's Fourteen Points, if
they could have been enlightened at that time as to the facts. America,
more than other countries, had been misled by English propaganda,
and therefore allowed President Wilson, who had been provided with
unprecedented powers, to act on his own initiative at Paris--in other
words, to be beaten down on his Fourteen Points. Just as Mr. Wilson
omitted mention, later on, of the English blockade, against which he
had protested previously, so also he acted with regard to his Fourteen
Points.
The German Government had accepted Wilson's Fourteen Points, although
they were severe enough. The Allies likewise had accepted the Fourteen
Points, with the exception of those on reparations and the freedom of
the seas. Wilson had guaranteed the Fourteen Points.
FOURTEEN POINTS ABANDONED
I fail to find the most important of them in the Versailles instrument,
but only those expressing the Entente's policy of violence, and
even part of these in a greatly falsified form. Relying on Wilson's
guaranty, Germany evacuated the enemy territory occupied by her and
surrendered her weapons--in other words, made herself defenseless. In
this blind confidence and the abandonment of the Fourteen Points on the
one side, and in the outbreak of the German revolution on the other,
lies the key to our present condition.
According to Turner, the Fourteen Points, as far back as the drawing up
of the armistice terms, were, to Wilson, no more than a means of making
Germany lay down her arms; as soon as this end was achieved he dropped
them.
Already a very large part of the American people has arrayed itself
against Mr. Wilson and is unwilling to be discredited along with him. I
am not dreaming of spontaneous American help for Germany; all I count
upon is the sober acknowledgment by the American people that it has to
make good the gigantic wrong done Germany by its former President. For
the atmosphere of a victory does not last forever, and later on, not
only in Germany, but elsewhere, people will remember the unreliability
of the American President and look upon it as American unreliability.
That is not a good thing, however, for the American people. To have
the policy of a nation branded with the stigma of unreliability is not
advantageous. When judgment is passed hereafter on American policy,
people will forget that Mr. Wilson, unversed in the ways of the world,
was trapped by Lloyd George and Clemenceau.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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