Western Civilization II / Unit 14 WC2 1334 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Reading the Fourteen Points Against Versailles
The idea
Read Wilson's address at the Avalon Project. Source read: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/wilson14.asp. Point one asks for "open covenants of peace, openly arrived at"; point five for "a free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims" weighing "the interests of the populations concerned"; point fourteen for "a general association of nations" to guarantee "political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike." Now set the treaty beside them. The Big Four decided in private, against point one. The colonies became mandates for Britain and France, with no inhabitants consulted, against point five. Alsace-Lorraine returned and Poland was created, points eight and thirteen honored. Austria-Hungary's peoples got states, point ten, but drawn by diplomats who put Czechs with Slovaks and Serbs with Croats. The League was founded, point fourteen, without the United States. The pattern: the points that redrew the enemy's map were kept; the points that bound the victors were not.
In practice
The map points kept; the binding points dropped.
Where people slip
Quoted within two sentences from Avalon; the anchor never names the Points.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
Unlocks
- Nothing yet depends on this.
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