When Wilson drops the words "conquest and aggrandizement" (Intro.2), he's talking about imperialism. It's pretty hard to define that word, but Wilson's two-part phrase gets the job done.
Basically, an imperial nation is trying to make itself larger and more powerful.
Imperialism was all the rage during the 1800s. Britain created an empire that spread all over the world. Meanwhile, the U.S. expanded its territory to the West, often violently conquering or assimilating Native Americans. By 1918, however, Woodrow Wilson decided that imperialism was out of style.
With the various territorial arrangements, calls for self-determination, and guarantees of sovereignty in the Fourteen Points, he wanted to convince everyone to be happy with what they had. Instead of, you know, pushing it to the limit.
Questions About Imperialism
- What do you think makes a nation an empire?
- Are empires always a bad thing, or can they be benevolent?
- Do you consider the United States an empire? What about back in 1918?
- Wilson's idea of self-determination suggested that empires and their subjects should both have a say in what happens when an empire is broken up. Does this seem ethical to you?
Chew on This
World War I did not end with the dissolution of all the world's empires—only the ones that ended up losing.
For the time, Woodrow Wilson's view of the rights of conquered people was progressive, even though it appears less so today.