Wilson's Fourteen Points Speech

President Wilson addressed Congress laying out his Fourteen Points as the basis for a just peace: freedom of the seas, self-determination of peoples, open diplomacy, arms reduction, and a League of Nations. The speech became the framework for armistice negotiations and the Paris Peace Conference. Germany ultimately agreed to an armistice based on the Fourteen Points, but felt betrayed when the final Treaty of Versailles departed significantly from Wilson's principles.