Central Powers

The Central Powers (German: Mittelmchte; Hungarian: Kzponti hatalmak; Turkish: ttifak Devletleri or Balama Devletleri; Bulgarian: , Tsentralni sili) were one of the two warring factions in World War I (191418), composed of Germany, AustriaHungary,
[1]

the Ottoman

Empire and Bulgaria (hence

also

known

as

the Quadruple

Alliance (German: Vierbund)). This alignment originated in the alliance of Germany and Austria-Hungary, and fought against the Allied Powers that had formed around the Triple Entente. The Central Powers regarded the assassination of Austro-Hungarian Archduke Francis Ferdinand by several militants as being an act supported by the Kingdom of Serbia, and given an unwillingness of Serbia to fully comply with Austro-Hungarian demands for a full investigation of Serbian complicity in the assassination, war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia was justified. This resulted in war with Russia, which opposed Austro-Hungarian intervention and supported Serbia, and ignited several alliance systems to bring the major European powers into a major war.

Fourteen Points
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The "Fourteen Points" was a statement given on the 8th of January, 1918 by United States President Woodrow Wilson declaring that World War I was being fought for a moral cause and calling for postwar peace in Europe. Europeans generally welcomed Wilson's intervention, but his main Allied colleagues (Georges Clemenceau of France, David Lloyd George of Great Britain, and Vittorio Emanuele Orlando of Italy) were skeptical of the applicability of Wilsonian idealism.[1] The U.S. had joined the Allies in fighting the Central Powers on April 6, 1917. Its entry into the war had in part been due to Germany's resumption of submarine warfare against merchant ships trading with France and Britain. However, Wilson had not entered into the war with any affinity with the long-festering almost tribal disputes between the Allies and Germany; if America was going to fight, he would try to unlink the war to nationalistic disputes or ambitions. The need for high aims was made more important, when after the fall of the Russian Regime, the Bolsheviks disclosed secret treaties made between the allies. Wilson's speech also responded to Vladimir Lenin's Decree on Peace of November 1917, immediately after the October Revolution, which proposed an immediate withdrawal of Russia from the war, calling for a just and democratic peace that was not compromised by territorial annexations, and led to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on March 3, 1918. The speech made by Wilson on January 8, 1918 laid out a policy (free trade, open agreements, democracy and self-determination). The Fourteen Points speech was the only explicit statement of war aims by any of the nations fighting in World War I. Some belligerents gave general indications of their aims, but most kept their post-war goals private. The Fourteen Points in the speech were based on the research of the Inquiry, a team of about 150 advisors led by foreign-policy advisor Edward M. House, into the topics likely to erect in the anticipated peace conference.