American President Woodrow Wilson unveiled his 14-point peace plan in a speech before both houses of Congress. The central provisions of the scheme were a German retreat from all territories occupied during the world war and from France in 1871; self-determination of various peoples in the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, and the establishment of a Polish state. The last clause in the plan prescribed the formation of a general organization of nations that would assure peaceably the independence and sovereignty of states large and small.
