of January. It was a striking bid for peace, which indeed was not
far away and it ultimately formed the general basis of the peace terms
actually drafted. But it contained nothing new. Its definition of the
conditions of peace was vague; its formulation of principles followed
exactly along the lines developed by President Wilson ever since he had
adopted the idea of a League of Nations founded upon international
justice. His summing up of the main principle underlying his whole policy
was merely the echo of his speeches for the past twelve-month: "The
principle of justice to all peoples and nationalities, and their right to
live on equal terms of liberty and safety with one another, whether they
be strong or weak." The importance of the speech does not lie in its
novelty but in its timeliness. It came at a moment when the world was
anxiously listening and the undeniable idealism of its content assured to
President Wilson, at least temporarily, the moral leadership of mankind.
Unfortunately as the event proved, it promised more than could ever be
secured by any single man. The President was to pay the price for his
leadership later when he encountered the full force of the reaction.

As a step toward immediate peace the speech of the Fourteen Points
failed. What might have been the result had von Hertling, Chancellor of
Germany, and Czernin, in Austria, possessed full powers, it is difficult
to say. But the military masters of Germany could not resist the
temptation which the surrender of Russia brought before their eyes. By
securing the eastern front and releasing prisoners as well as troops
there, they would be able to establish a crushing superiority in the
west; France would be annihilated before the American armies could count,
if indeed they were ever raised. Hence the heavy terms of Brest-Litovsk
and Bucharest and the preparations for the great drive of March. As
Wilson said, "The tragical circumstance is that this one party in Germany
is apparently willing and able to send millions of men to their death to
prevent what all the world now sees to be just." Thus Germany lost her
last chance to emerge from the war uncrushed.

The ruthless policy followed by Ludendorff and his associates gave the
President new opportunities to appeal to the peoples of the Central
Empires. He incorporated in his speeches the phrases of the German
Socialists. "Self-Determination" and "No annexations and no indemnities"
were phrases that