6.3.12 F.1 Analyze the causes and aftermath of WWI including The League of Nations and the effects of the Versailles Conference on Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East
6.4.12 I.6 Analyze President Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points" address to Congress and explain how it differed from proposals by French and British leaders for a treaty to conclude WWI.
II. Essential Questions:
1) What is self-determination?
2) Who deserves it?
III. Introduction
The conclusion of World War I brought with it a host of new ideas as the world grappled with the human, economic, and psychological toll exacted by the conflict. As the war neared its end, US President Woodrow Wilson addressed the Congress with what came to be known as his “Fourteen Points,” where among other things, he elaborates the ideological basis for a League of Nations to ensure the future peace of the world. This idea of mutually assured security was ahead of its time, and while the League was subsequently adopted by European nations, it was changed from its original form, and indeed the US Senate effectively precluded our nation’s membership in the organization.
The “Fourteen Points” address also elaborated on a new conception of self-determination for the world’s peoples. Besides specific points concerning specific European nations, Wilson also described a world where different peoples were imagined as separate nations. The colonial holdings of Western nations were to be reassessed, having the opinions of the native population taken into account in deciding forms of government and rule.
However, despite the ideals set down in the Fourteen Points, the end of WWI saw a renewed effort by Western powers to colonize large parts of the globe, some previously under the control of wartime rivals. The former holdings of the Ottoman Empire were divided into “mandates,” a new term that avoided calling the territories colonies, but in practice extended imperialism from its existing locations into new ones. The colonial holdings in Africa were not given any more ability to self-govern than they had been given before the war, and when some did, they instituted policies of disenfranchisement for their native non-white populations, such as in South Africa. Even majority white colonies such as Australia and New Zealand were not given independence until 1931.
This did not stop the world’s peoples from asserting themselves in the quest for self-determination. Indeed, some peoples resisted colonial intervention and succeeded. The former Ottoman general Mustafa Kemal successfully defeated French, Greek, and British forces to gain control over what is modern Turkey. Indians began a long road of political resistance that culminated under the leadership of Mohandas Gandhi.
The United States was not immune from this renewed imperialist spirit, and despite Wilson’s ideals on self-determination, the US intervened militarily into other countries several times during and after the war. The US landed troops in Mexico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Panama, and Cuba between 1914 and 1918, and actually landed troops in Russia towards the tail end of the Russian Revolution in order to back White Russian troops against the Communists. These policies were still enacted on a more limited basis after Wilson by later presidents. There was obviously a good deal of conflict in the mind of someone like Woodrow Wilson, who could simultaneously prescribe a new world of popular independent and simultaneously intervene with force into the domestic politics of neighboring countries, much less colonies.
IV. First Order Document - Wilson's Fourteen Points, January 8th, 1918
We entered this war because violations of right had occurred which touched us to the quick and made the life of our own people impossible unless they were corrected and the world secure once for all against their recurrence. What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression... The program of the world's peace, therefore, is our program; and that program, the only possible program, as we see it, is this:
I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.
II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.
III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.
V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.
IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.
X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development.
XI. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.
XII. The Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.
XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.
XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.
In regard to these essential rectifications of wrong and assertions of right we feel ourselves to be intimate partners of all the governments and peoples associated together against the Imperialists. We cannot be separated in interest or divided in purpose. We stand together until the end.
V. Second Order Documents
The Balfour Declaration, 1926
The Balfour Declaration, among other things, declared equality for certain British colonial governments, effectively opening the door to Australian independence.
The Sykes-Picot Agreement, 1916
The Sykes-Picot Agreement was made during WWI between Britain and France to put a plan in place for the future shape of the Middle East.
It is accordingly understood between the French and British governments:
That France and Great Britain are prepared to recognize and protect an independent Arab states or a confederation of Arab states (a) and (b) marked on the annexed map, under the suzerainty of an Arab chief. That in area (a) France, and in area (b) Great Britain, shall have priority of right of enterprise and local loans. That in area (a) France, and in area (b) Great Britain, shall alone supply advisers or foreign functionaries at the request of the Arab state or confederation of Arab states.
That in the blue area France, and in the red area Great Britain, shall be allowed to establish such direct or indirect administration or control as they desire and as they may think fit to arrange with the Arab state or confederation of Arab states.
That in the brown area there shall be established an international administration, the form of which is to be decided upon after consultation with Russia, and subsequently in consultation with the other allies, and the representatives of the sheriff of Mecca.
VI. Third Order Documents
"Mexican Federales fighting in the street during capture of Veracruz by Americans," 1914
American troops were sent to Veracruz, Mexico in 1914 to depose the president and capture a key port.
Calvin Coolidge, Intervention into Nicaragua, address to the 69th Congress, 1927
The United States cannot, therefore, fail to view with deep concern any serious threat to stability and constitutional government in Nicaragua tending toward anarchy and jeopardizing American interests, especially if such state of affairs is contributed to or brought about by outside influences or by any foreign power. It has always been and remains the policy of the United States in such circumstances to take the steps that may be necessary for the preservation and protection of the lives, the property, and the interests of its citizens and of this government itself. In this respect I propose to follow the path of my predecessors.
Consequently, I have deemed it my duty to use the powers committed to me to ensure the adequate protection of all American interests in Nicaragua, whether they be endangered by internal strife or by outside interference in the affairs of that republic.
Full Rights Denied Kenya Colony Indians, New York Times, 1923
London, July 24 - In a Parliamentary paper issued tonight the Government communicates its decision on the long-disputed question of the status of Indians in Kenya Colony.
The decision has been awaited with intense interest in India, as it is regarded as affording a test case governing the status of Indian immigrants in all parts of the British Empire. It is a frank compromise and is expected to be received with great dissatisfaction in India.
The Indians had claimed complete equality of treatment in all respects with both Europeans and natives... The Government's memorandum at the outset says that Kenya is African territory and that the interests of natives must be paramount, and when these interests and the interests of immigrant races conflict the former must prevail.
VII. Activity
1) Pre-reading activity: Students will be asked to fill in a half sheet of paper at the start of class answering the following questions:
Are all peoples capable of ruling themselves?
What defines "a people?"
Are some peoples more deserving of self-rule than others?
Can nations be allowed to rule themselves badly?
2) The whole class will read Wilson's Fourteen Points and be directed to focus on the clauses regarding colonial holdings as well as territories of the former Central powers. Background information will be on the board. Students will answer as many of the following questions as possible:
A. Identify the document
1. Author
2. Title
3. Date
4. Type of document
B. Analyze the document
1. Main idea
2. Relationship to the other documents to be studied
3. Preceding conditions that motivated the author
4. Intended audience and purpose
5. Biases of the author
6. Questions to ask the author
C. Historical context
1. Important people/events/ideas of the time
2. National: people, events, and ideas
3. World: people, events, and ideas
3) The class will be divided into small groups and asked to look at either the Balfour Declaration excerpt or the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Each group will be responsible for asking questions amongst themselves, researching these documents of the web, and asking questions of the instructor to answer the same list of questions as above. These small groups then present to the class, taking note of differing opinions on the documents.
4) The class will be asked to find images, articles, documents, or letters that ask further questions about the idea of self-determination. If certain documents cannot be found, extras will be provided. Students will write a short description about what their document implies about the status of self determination in the post-WWI world, and report their findings to the class.
5) Students will revisit their pre-reading sheets, taking the opportunity to change answers where they feel their opinions have evolved.
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