World War I

President Woodrow Wilson after the
Versailles Peace Conference, 1919

Think IconRead the following quotation from President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points. Keep in mind that these opening statements were written during peace negotiations after World War I.

“It will be our wish and purpose that the processes of peace, when they are begun, shall be absolutely open and that they shall involve and permit henceforth no secret understandings of any kind. The day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by; so is also the day of secret covenants entered into in the interest of particular governments and likely at some unlooked-for moment to upset the peace of the world.”

Think about answers to the following questions:

  • What do you think Wilson meant?
  • After the Great War, how do you think the relationships between involved countries changed?