The British put forward 'democratic' war aims, offering the idea of some sort of self-determination for the nationalities within the Austro-Hungarian and Turkish Empires, attempting to appeal to the German people over the heads of the Imperial government. The US President, Woodrow Wilson, went much further. In his 14 points of January 1918, Wilson announced a liberal internationalist agenda that was revolutionary in its implications.
Based on the encouragement of democracy and nationalism, accompanied by liberal capitalism, Wilson's timing was perfect. The old European empires were under strain, and would soon collapse. The Bolsheviks seized power in Russia only weeks before the 14 Points speech, and Marxist-Leninism was to prove a powerful, similarly universalist, rival to liberal democracy for the rest of the 20th century.
Far from being fought over trivial issues, World War One must be seen in the context of an attempt by an aggressive, militarist state to establish hegemony over Europe, extinguishing democracy as a by-product. To argue that the world of 1919 was worse than that of 1914 is to miss the point. A world in which Imperial Germany had won World War One would have been even worse.http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/origins_05.shtml
Far from being fought over trivial issues, World War One must be seen in the context of an attempt by an aggressive, militarist state to establish hegemony over Europe, extinguishing democracy as a by-product. To argue that the world of 1919 was worse than that of 1914 is to miss the point. A world in which Imperial Germany had won World War One would have been even worse.http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/origins_05.shtml
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