To expose the insincerity of Germany's pretensions of liberality in her peace offers to Russia and thus bring Russia back into partnership with the democracy of the Allies, which she showed symptoms of abandoning. To show the agreement of the United States with the speech of Lloyd-George and to develop further the principles of world peace for which America stood. The Entente Allies welcomed the President's pronouncement as putting the seal of American approval on their war aims, as reiterated by Lloyd-George, and as committing the United States to the Allied cause till it was won. The necessity for any restatement of war aims by the United States was regarded as a question for the President to determine, and he had done so at a time when the need was clearly urgent in Great Britain. Hence his address, echoing and, indeed, amplifying that of Lloyd-George, buttressed British solidarity on the war by definitely establishing an abiding Anglo-American Entente while the war lasted. Far from opening a way to peace, the Papal and Lansdowne pleas produced a sequence of utterances which were in effect renewed war declarations from the spokesmen of the Allies. Lord Lansdowne sought a reiteration of war aims as a basis for peace negotiations. President Wilson's answer to that suggestion was not confined to a reassertion of America's war objects. While the dove of peace was fluttering a pair of weak wings he went to Congress (December 4, 1917) and called for war against Austria-Hungary to remove an "embarrassing obstacle" in the conduct of hostilities against Germany. "Austria-Hungary," he told Congress, "is for the time being not her own mistress, but simply the vassal of the German Government. We must face the facts as they are and act upon them without sentiment in this stern business. "The Government of Austria-Hungary is not acting upon its own initiative or in response to the wishes and feelings of its own peoples, but as the instrument of another nation. We must meet its force with our own and regard the Central Powers as but one. The war can be successfully conducted in no other way. The same logic would lead also to a declaration of war against Turkey and Bulgaria. They also are the tools of Germany. But they are mere tools and do not yet stand in the direct path of our necessary action." Both branches of Congress responded by passing a joint war resolution with only one dissentient House vote, and on December 7, 1917, war with Austria-Hungary was declared.