Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points (1918)
The programme of the world's peace, therefore, is our programme; and that programme, the only possible programme, as we see it, is this:
. . .
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.
Use the excerpt to answer the question.
Which of Wilson’s points DIRECTLY addresses the event that started Europe on the path to war in 1914?
A.
Point VII
B.
Point VIII
C.
Point IX
D.
Point X
B. Point VIII addresses the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which was one of the main causes of tension between France and Germany leading up to World War I.
The correct answer is B. Point VIII.
Point VIII directly addresses the event that started Europe on the path to war in 1914. It specifically mentions the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine. This refers to the annexation of the Alsace-Lorraine region by Germany following the Franco-Prussian War, which was one of the major causes of tension between the two countries and eventually led to the outbreak of World War I.