tilities ceased twenty-three were at war with Germany and her allies; four had severed diplomatic relations with them; two had joined Germany and Austria-Hungary, and seventeen (including Luxemburg) had remained neutral.

After over four years of the most costly war in human life and treasure that the world has ever witnessed, the first visible break in the lines of the opposing belligerents came when Bulgaria surrendered under an armistice on September 29, 1918.2 Turkey followed suit on October 31, 1918,3 and Austria-Hungary did likewise on November 4, 1918. These desertions from the "unholy alliance," coincident with the continued military successes of the Allies on Germany's western front, produced immediate results in the latter country. A mutiny, starting at Kiel on November 5th, quickly developed into a Socialist revolution throughout the Empire. On November 9th, Kaiser William fled to Holland, where he signed a formal act of abdication on November 28th. On November 11th representatives of a new "People's Government" in Germany signed an armistice with the Allies pending the conclusion of peace, under the provisions of which Germany was made impotent to restore her shattered military power in order to oppose the terms of peace that might be decided upon by her former victims and present conquerors, to right, as far as possible, the many wrongs she has committed, compensate the numerous injuries she has inflicted, repair the inestimable damage she has done, and give bond, with ample securities, for her good conduct in the future.

In the words of President Poincaré of France, in welcoming the delegates at the opening of the preliminary peace conference at Paris, the German Empire, born in injustice, and consecrated by the theft

2 For a summary of the terms of the armistice with Bulgaria, see the New York Times, October 18, 1918.

3 For the text of the armistice with Turkey, see Pamphlet No. 133 of the American Association for International Conciliation, New York.

4 For the official text of the armistice with Austria, see SUPPLEMENT to this JOURNAL, p. 80.

5 See a Documentary History of the German Revolution in Pamphlet No. 137 of the American Association for International Conciliation.

6 For the official text of the armistice with Germany, see SUPPLEMENT to this JOURNAL, p. 97.

of two French provinces, was vitiated from its origin, and has ended in opprobrium.

The proposals for peace which led up to the cessation of hostilities under the armistice with Germany were initiated by that government a week after the defection of Bulgaria. On October 6, 1918, the German Government requested the President of the United States to take steps for the restoration of peace and to invite all the belligerents to delegate plenipotentiaries for the purpose of taking up negotiations upon the basis of the program laid down by President Wilson in his message to Congress on January 8, 1918, and in his subsequent pronouncements, particularly in his address of September 27, 1918. President Wilson's program of January 8, 1918, since commonly referred to as the "Fourteen Points," was as follows:

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.

IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.

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.

VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory, and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest coöperation of the other nations in 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.

VII. 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.

VIII. 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.

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 of 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 portions 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 the correspondence which followed between President Wilson and the German Government, the latter stated that it "accepted the terms laid down by President Wilson in his address of January the eighth and in his subsequent addresses as the foundations of a permanent peace of justice," and that "consequently, its object in entering into discussions would be only to agree upon practical details of the application of these terms."' 8 After receiving assurances as to the right of the then German Government to speak for the German people and the agreement of the Central Powers immediately to withdraw their forces everywhere from invaded territory, the President transmitted his correspondence with the German authorities to the governments with which the United States is associated, with the suggestion that, if those governments were disposed to effect peace upon the terms and principles indicated, the military advisers of the Associated Governments submit the terms of such an armistice as would fully protect the interests of the peoples involved and insure to the Associated Governments the unrestricted power to safeguard and enforce the details of the peace to which the German Government had agreed. After giving careful consideration to the correspondence, the Allied Governments declared their willingness to make peace with Germany on the terms of peace laid down in the President's address to Congress of January, 1918, and the principles of settlement enunciated in his subsequent addresses, with the following qualifications:

Clause two, relating to what is usually described as the freedom 7 President Wilson's Foreign Policy-Messages, Addresses, Papers. Edited by

J. B. Scott. New York: Oxford University Press. 1918, pp. 359-362.

8 Note of October 14, 1918, together with text of this entire correspondence, printed in SUPPLEMENT to this JOURNAL, p. 85 et seq.

of the seas, is open to various interpretations, some of which they could not accept. They must, therefore, reserve to themselves complete freedom on this subject when they enter the peace conference.

Further, in the conditions of peace, laid down in his address to Congress of January 8, 1918, the President declared that invaded territories must be restored as well as evacuated and freed. The Allied Governments feel that no doubt ought to be allowed to exist as to what this provision implies: By it they understand that compensation will be made by Germany for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allies and their property by the aggression of Germany by land, by sea, and from the air.

The President transmitted this acceptance, which was in the form of a memorandum, to Germany on November 5, 1918, stating that he was in agreement with the interpretation set forth in the paragraphs above quoted. At the same time he notified the German Government that Marshal Foch had been authorized by the Government of the United States and the Allied Governments to receive properly accredited representatives of the German Government and to communicate to them the terms of an armistice. Six days later the armistice was signed. Its principal stipulations required Germany immediately to evacuate all invaded countries, to repatriate the inhabitants of such countries, to evacuate the countries on the left bank of the Rhine, to repatriate, without reciprocity, all American and Allied prisoners of war, to abandon the treaties of Bucharest and BrestLitovsk and supplementary treaties, and to surrender a large amount of military equipment and material and the greater part of the German navy, including airships and submarines, and to immobilize the balance. It further stipulated for the continuance of the Allied blockade of Germany. The armistice was made for thirty days, and was renewed in December, January and February, with certain modifications insisted upon by the Allies to insure the observance of the original terms and maintain the military status quo.

With the view of laying down the conditions of peace to be offered to Germany and her allies, the five Great Powers, namely, the United States of America, the British Empire, France, Italy, and Japan, summoned the Preliminary Peace Conference, which met at Paris on