He was a prominent academic in the field of law and political economy prior to his election victory. As President he carried out a series of successful administrative and fiscal reforms. He initially kept the USA out of World War I, but, following the German reintroduction of unrestricted submarine warfare, entered the war on the Allied side in April 1917. Wilson’s conditions for a peace treaty, as set out in his ‘Fourteen Points’ speech (1918), and his plan for the formation of the League of Nations were crucial in the international negotiations surrounding the end of the war, and he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919. However, he was unable to obtain the Senate’s ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, his health collapsed, and he retired from politics.