to one another
determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines
of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the
political and economic independence and territorial integrity of
the several Balkan States should be entered into.

_Autonomy in Turkey_

12 THE TURKISH portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be
assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are
now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of
life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous
development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a
free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under
international guarantees.

_For an Independent Poland_

13 AN INDEPENDENT Polish State should be erected which should
include the territory inhabited by indisputably Polish populations,
which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea and
whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity
should be guaranteed by international covenant.

_League of Nation_

14 A GENERAL association of nations must be formed under specific
covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guaranties of
political independence and territorial integrity to great and small
States alike.

But the war did not go on into 1919. If America could contribute no
aircraft and guns to the campaign of 1918, she could at least
contribute men. The emergency of March and April brought forth a
prodigious effort, and soldiers began to be shipped across the Atlantic
by hundreds of thousands. By July 4 there were a million, before the
end of the year over 2,000,000; and they could fight. At the end of the
Summer the Germans realized that the war was lost; and realizing it,
they turned back to President Wilson's mediation which they had
rejected eighteen months before, and to the Fourteen Points which had
been looked on so coldly in the previous Winter.

The first move was made by the Austrians, who on Sept. 15 proposed a
conference for a "preliminary and non-binding" discussion of war aims.
The President refused the next day, with the observation that America's
war aims had been stated so often that there could be no doubt what
they were. But it was evident that more peace proposals would follow,
and on Sept. 27 the President delivered an address in the Metropolitan