World War I Quotes
They Said It
| "He kept us out of war." - Democratic slogan used on behalf of President Wilson during the 1916 presidential election.15 |
| "The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them. [...] It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts—for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free." - President Woodrow Wilson, Address to Congress, April 2nd, 1917.16 |
| "This is not peace. It is an armistice for 20 years." - French Marshall Ferdinand Foch, Supreme Allied Commander during World War I, upon seeing the final draft of the Treaty of Versailles.17 |