What were some of Wilson's ideas for creating a lasting peace after world war 1?

Answer 1

Wilson wanted a world governing organization which would have the ability to settle international disputes and rivalries and to intervene to stop war. He wanted commissions to peacefully determine if disputed regions would be independent or part of one country or another. He wanted large language and culture-based areas to be independent countries with self-government.

Many of these things came to pass: The League of Nations was founded; a commission held negotiations and plebecites to settle ownership of Alsace-Lorraine, Croatia, etc. Countries including Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, and others were formed around language and cultural lines.

Some things did not come true: The League of Nations never had any power because the very country that proposed it never joined it! Some countries were set up as ill-thought marriages (Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia) and Germany was not permitted to incorporate all of the major German-speaking regions. Poland was granted a vast area of Ukranian and Byelorussian population. All of these mistakes came back to create the Russian-Polish war (1920-21) and the second World War. Some, like the breakups of the Slavic countries, even outlasted WWII.