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I.
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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.
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II.
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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.
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III.
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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.
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IV.
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Adequate guarantees given and taken that national
armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent
with domestic safety.
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V.
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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.
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VI.
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The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a
settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will
secure the best and freest cooperation of the other
nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered
and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent
determination of her own political development and
national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into
the society of free nations under institutions of her own
choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of
every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The
treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the
months to come will be the acid test of their good will,
of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from
their own interests, and of their intelligent and
unselfish sympathy.
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VII.
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Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be
evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the
sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other
free nations. No other single act will serve as this
will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the
laws which they have themselves set and determined for
the government of their relations with one another.
Without this healing act the whole structure and validity
of international law is forever impaired.
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VIII.
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All French territory should be freed and the
invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France
by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine,
which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly
fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may
once more be made secure in the interest of all.
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IX.
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A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be
effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.
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X.
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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.
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XI.
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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.
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XII.
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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.
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XIII.
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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.
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XIV.
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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.
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