National Self-Determination during the Great War

Abstract

Hostilities began on 4 August 1914. But it was not long before the euphoric belief took hold that ‘it would all be over by Christmas’. Thoughts therefore rapidly turned to outlines of possible peace terms. In fact the war dragged on mercilessly for four years, the fighting paralleled by the continual search for acceptable peace formulae, known as ‘war aims’. Many of these proposals incorporated the concept of national self-determination until it became enshrined in Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points, the basic agenda for the post-war peace conference.