In a message to Congress on January 8, 1918, US President Thomas Woodrow Wilson presented a peace program that set out the principles of establishing a lasting and just world order after the victory of the Allies in the First World War.
The presented program became known as ‘Wilson’s 14 points’ and became the basis for a truce signed on November 11, 1918 in Compiègne, which ended military operations during the First World War. Wilson’s postulates were also enshrined in the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles of June 28, 1919.
The program provided for new rules in international relations, amongst other things it provided for the creation of the League of Nations as an institution whose goal was to ensure lasting peace and international cooperation.
From the Polish point of view the most important was Point 13, which provided for the creation of an independent Polish state with free access to the sea. Pursuant to the plan, the reborn, politically and economically independent Republic was to be established “in territories inhabited by the undeniably Polish population,” and its territorial integrity “should be guaranteed by international conventions.”
Source: Poland MFA
08.01.2018