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August 27, 1917: President Wilson Responds to the Peace Plea of Pope Benedict

Eventually President Wilson would incorporate parts of the peace plan, go here to read about it, Pope Benedict proposed on August 1, 1917 in his Fourteen Points Peace Plan, but on August 27, 1917 Wilson formally rejected the Pope’s Plan:

AUGUST 27, 1917

To His Holiness Benedictus XV, Pope:

In acknowledgment of the communication of Your Holiness to the belligerent peoples, dated August 1, 1917, the President of the United States requests me to transmit the following reply:

Every heart that has not been blinded and hardened by this terrible war must be touched by this moving appeal of His Holiness the Pope, must feel the dignity and force of the humane and generous motives which prompted it, and must fervently wish that we might take the path of peace he so persuasively points out. But it would be folly to take it if it does not in fact lead to the goal he proposes. Our response must be based upon the stern facts and upon nothing else. It is not a mere cessation of arms he desires; it is a stable and enduring peace. This agony must not be gone through with again, and it must be a matter of very sober judgment that will insure us against it.

His Holiness in substance proposes that we return to the status quo ante bellum, and that then there be a general condonation, disarmament, and a concert of nations based upon an acceptance of the principle of arbitration; that by a similar concert freedom of the seas be established; and that the territorial claims of France and Italy, the perplexing problems of the Balkan States, and the restitution of Poland be left to such conciliatory adjustments as may be possible in the new temper of such a peace, due regard being paid to the aspirations of the peoples whose political fortunes and affiliations will be involved.

It is manifest that no part of this program can be successfully carried out unless the restitution of the status quo ante furnishes a firm and satisfactory basis for it. The object of this war is to deliver the free peoples of the world from the menace and the actual power of a vast military establishment controlled by an irresponsible government which, having secretly planned to dominate the world, proceeded to carry the plan out without regard either to the sacred obligations of treaty or the long-established practices and long-cherished principles of international action and honor; which chose its own time for the war; delivered its blow fiercely and suddenly; stopped at no barrier either of law or of mercy; swept a whole continent within the tide of bloodпїЅnot the blood of soldiers only, but the blood of innocent women and children also and of the helpless poor; and now stands balked but not defeated, the enemy of four-fifths of the world. This power is not the German people. It is the ruthless master of the German people. It is no business of ours how that great people came under its control or submitted with temporary zest to the domination of its purpose; but it is our business to see to it that the history of the rest of the world is no longer left to its handling.

To deal with such a power by way of peace upon the plan proposed by His Holiness the Pope would, so far as we can see, involve a recuperation of its strength and a renewal of its policy; would make it necessary to create a permanent hostile combination of nations against the German people who are its instruments; and would result in abandoning the newborn Russia to the intrigue, the manifold subtle interference, and the certain counter-revolution which would be attempted by all the malign influences to which the German Government has of late accustomed the world. Can peace be based upon a restitution of its power or upon any word of honor it could pledge in a treaty of settlement and accommodation?

Responsible statesmen must now everywhere see, if they never saw before, that no peace can rest securely upon political or economic restrictions meant to benefit some nations and cripple or embarrass others, upon vindictive action of any sort, or any kind of revenge or deliberate injury. The American people have suffered intolerable wrongs at the hands of the Imperial German Government, but they desire no reprisal upon the German people who have themselves suffered all things in this war which they did not choose. They believe that peace should rest upon the rights of peoples, not the rights of GovernmentsпїЅthe rights of peoples great or small, weak or powerfulпїЅtheir equal right to freedom and security and self-government and to a participation upon fair terms in the economic opportunities of the world, the German people of course included if they will accept equality and not seek domination.

The test, therefore, of every plan of peace is this: Is it based upon the faith of all the peoples involved or merely upon the word of an ambitious and intriguing government on the one hand and of a group of free peoples on the other? This is a test which goes to the root of the matter; and it is the test which must be applied.

The purposes of the United States in this war are known to the whole world, to every people to whom the truth has been permitted to come. They do not need to be stated again. We seek no material advantage of any kind. We believe that the intolerable wrongs done in this war by the furious and brutal power of the Imperial German Government ought to be repaired, but not at the expense of the sovereignty of any peopleпїЅrather a vindication of the sovereignty both of those that are weak and of those that are strong. Punitive damages, the dismemberment of empires, the establishment of selfish and exclusive economic leagues, we deem inexpedient and in the end worse than futile, no proper basis for a peace of any kind, least of all for an enduring peace. That must be based upon justice and fairness and the common rights of mankind.

We cannot take the word of the present rulers of Germany as a guaranty of anything that is to endure, unless explicitly supported by such conclusive evidence of the will and purpose of the German people themselves as the other peoples of the world would be justified in accepting. Without such guaranties treaties of settlement, agreements for disarmament, covenants to set up arbitration in the place of force, territorial adjustments, reconstitutions of small nations, if made with the German Government, no man, no nation could now depend on. We must await some new evidence of the purposes of the great peoples of the central powers. God grant it may be given soon and in a way to restore the confidence of all peoples everywhere in the faith of nations and the possibility of a covenanted peace.

Robert Lansing,
Secretary of State of the United States of America

Woodrow Wilson and Pope Benedict would meet in Rome on January 4, 1919, Wilson becoming the first sitting President to meet a pope.

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Don L
Don L
Sunday, August 27, AD 2017 3:53am

This one piece of writing could easily command an entire year’s college course and even then, just scratch the surface of what’s buried within.
Thanks for posting it Don.

William P. Walsh
William P. Walsh
Sunday, August 27, AD 2017 10:09am

It appears that President Wilson wanted no less than regime change for Germany. He got it and more. The “Great War” brought world-wide regime change, and not for the better. Armistice notwithstanding, there is a sense that the “War to End All War” is a never ending war, and the “Status Quo Ante Bellum” is lost forever. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus….

Mary De Voe
Sunday, August 27, AD 2017 1:06pm

War, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse can never go away until mankind reconciles itself with God. There is no peace of Christ without self-defense.

Jim Woodward
Jim Woodward
Sunday, August 27, AD 2017 1:26pm

AMEN!!! I couldn’t have said it better…(obviously!). I would just add Austria-Hungary to that.

Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Sunday, August 27, AD 2017 6:17pm

Germany needed “regime change”. It’s past time to put the blame on the German Government and their expansionisim that existed through the 19th and 20th centuries. It was the Kaiser that called the Polish people dirty dogs that should just die. Was Poland supposed to stay a permanently submerged nation in the so called quest for peace? I say NO and the people who disagree can pound sand.

The submerged nations – Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, etc. were free of empire. It was the Germans who didn’t deal with Hitler when he was a troublemaker in the 1920s and it was the Germans who put that evil party in power. The Germans helped Lenin get back to Russia and gave him money and other support to overthrow the czar.

Jim I am no fan of the Hapsburgs. They get a lot of sympathy/praise/accolades in certain Traditionalist circles but I share none of it.

Jim Woodward
Jim Woodward
Thursday, August 31, AD 2017 3:12pm

OK Pen, a bit to digest there so I’ll just cover your points one by one. You said put the blame on Germany for its expansionism. Let’s keep this point confined to the 19th and early 20th centuries; to what expansionism are you referring? You forget that Imperial Germany was a federation of approx 30 independent constitutional polities that had a common foreign policy and imperial administration. The only obvious expansion was the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine as a buffer against France. Wilson effected regime changes in all the Germanies, replaced by an unpopular, illegitimate political construct in Weimar. Did anything good come of that?
You mentioned that dirty dog thing before; no surprise that people have prejudices. That was one of the few things Bismarck and Wilhelm had in common, a disdain for those Polish Prussians who’d remained catholic. Really, so what? Did that represent suppression? All countries, except the USA and…Austria-Hungary!!!, preferred homogeneity in culture and religion. Did this wish directly affect Poles as Poles, or Poles as Catholics?
There was a Polish political party in the Reichstag which allied with the Catholic Centre Party to pass Tirpitz’s first Navy Law. Doesn’t sound like a suppressed minority does it? Did injustices occur? Yeah, and they happen here in the USA as we speak!
The “submerged nations?” Hungary and Czechoslovakia? You’ve forgotten that the former, as ‘Transleithania,’ the amalgam of the semi-autonomous Hungarian crown lands, was the political equal with Cisleithania, which were the Habsburg lands of the former Holy Roman Empire. Franz Ferdinand blamed the independent gov’t of Hungary for preventing greater power for the local Slav diets as most of those races were under Hungary’s rule. You’ve also forgotten Czechoslovakia was an arbitrary political construct which has since dissolved because it was forced on those two groups. The Baltic states were under Russian rule, so….
Now, there were plans by Germany to liberate Russian Poland with possible union with the Austrian, but what could come of that short of a victory? And, there is no evidence I know of that the Poles were unhappy under Habsburg rule. If there is, please let me know; I don’t have all the answers.
Wasn’t John Paul ll’s father a long-serving non-com in the AH army? If he was disillusioned, he would have left the army after his five year stint, no?
As for the rise of Hitler, yes his party made inroads due to the economic misery caused by poor governing by decree, and the strictures of the Versailles treaty. Primarily, the gross underestimations of Hitler led von Papen to make a devil’s pact with him to convince Hindenburg to offer the chancellorship, long story short….
Yes, the Prussian Gen’l staff allowed Lenin to get to Russia against the advice of Kaiser Karl, hence the circuitous route his train took as the AH gov’t refused to let the sealed train through their lands.
We can agree to disagree about the legacy of the last polity that tried to rule by the catholic ideal. Karl is on the way to sainthood; will you have none of that too???

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