Big Four (World War I)
The Big Four or the Four Nations refer to the four top Allied powers of World War I[1] and their leaders who met at the Paris Peace Conference in January 1919.
He renewed the dispirited morale of France, persuaded the allies to agree to a unified command, and pushed the war vigorously until the final victory.
Leading the French delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, Clemenceau insisted on Germany's disarmament and was never satisfied with the Versailles Treaty.
His father, a landed gentleman, delayed venturing out to register his son's birth for fear of Giuseppe Garibaldi's 1,000 patriots who had just stormed into Sicily on the first leg of their march to build an Italian state.
He demanded the fulfilment of the "secret" Treaty of London of 1915, by which the Allies had promised Italy ample territorial compensation in Dalmatia for its entry into World War I.
"Even then no solution satisfactory to Italy was found"; Orlando resigned and the treaties he negotiated were signed by Francesco Saverio Nitti and Giovanni Giolitti.
In early 1917 Berlin decided to launch all-out submarine warfare designed to sink American ships bringing supplies to Britain; in the Zimmermann Telegram it proposed a military alliance with Mexico to fight a war against the US.
The nation was poorly armed when it went to war in April 1917, but it had millions of potential fresh soldiers, billions of dollars, and huge supplies of raw materials needed by the Allies.
A Presbyterian of deep religious faith, Wilson appealed to a gospel of service and infused a profound sense of moralism into his idealistic internationalism, now referred to as "Wilsonianism".
Wilsonianism calls for the United States to enter the world arena to fight for democracy, and has been a contentious position in American foreign policy.
[9] At one point Orlando temporarily[10] pulled out of the conference because Italian demands were not met, leaving the other three countries as the sole major architects of the talk, referred to as the "Big Three".
