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IX. Italian frontiers shall be established in accordance with clearly-known racial boundaries.
X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we desire to see secured and safeguarded, should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous development.
XI. Roumania, Serbia and Montenegro should be evacuated and occupied territory restored; Serbia should have a free and secure access to the sea. The relations of the Balkan States should be regulated in accordance with political and racial principles given by history; political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the Balkan States should be assured by international treaties.
XII. Turkey should have its territorial integrity guaranteed; but the other nationalities under Turkish rule should receive guarantees of secure life and autonomous development without any interference. The Dardanelles should be permanently opened for ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.
XIII. There should be erected a Polish State, containing territories inhabited by indubitably Polish population. Free and secure access to the sea should be given, political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be secured by international agreement.
XIV. A general association of nations must be created securing material and political independence and territorial integrity for great and small states alike.
President Wilson agreed as to general principles with the note of the Allies; in details there were differences, especially with reference to Austria-Hungary, the Balkans and Turkey. Here President Wilson has been much more conservative than the Allies, but he came near to them in several of his later statements. In his address to Congress, February 11, 1918, he emphasized the principle that territorial changes must be made in the interests of the people, and not of the enemy states; and all well-defined national aspirations should be granted the fullest satisfaction, in so far as they would not introduce new or prolong old elements of struggle and dissension that would endanger the peace of Europe and of mankind.
President Wilson (address to Congress December 4, 1917) admitted that America did not seek to impair and rearrange the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy; but the Government, through Secretary Lansing, declared its interest in the national aspirations of the Czecho-Slovaks and Jugoslavs and, later, supplemented the indefinite text as against Austrian and German interpretations by the more definite declaration that it meant thereby the independence of these nations.[1]
President Wilson is well aware that the integrity of Austria-Hungary is equivalent to German victory. For on the one side this integrity would make impossible the President’s own program as far as it relates to Italy and
- ↑ Secretary Lansing’s statement, May 29, 1918:—“The Secretary of State desires to announce that proceedings of the Congress of Oppressed Races of Austria-Hungary which was held in Rome in April, have been followed with great interest by the Government of the United States, and that the nationalistic aspirations of the Czecho-Slovaks and Jugoslavs for freedom have the earnest sympathy of this Government.”Secretary Lansing’s statement, June 28, 1918:—“Since the issuance by this Government, on May 29, of the statement regarding the national aspirations for freedom of the Czecho-Slovaks and Jugoslavs, German and Austrian officials and sympathisers have sought to misinterpret and distort its manifest interpretation. In order that there may be no misunderstanding concerning the meaning of the statement, the Secretary of State has to-day further announced the position of the United States Government to be that all branches of the Slav race should be completely freed from German and Austrian rule.”
