Faced with the German demands, the Bolsheviks accepted their terms at the final Treaty of Brest-Litoŭsk, which was signed on 3 March 1918. For the German Empire, Operation Faustschlag achieved one of their strategic plans for World War I, to create a German-centered hegemony of buffer states, called Mitteleuropa. Support of local nationalist groups alienated by Bolsheviks was key, thus, when four days after Minsk was occupied by the German Army, the disbanded Belarusian National Council declared itself as the sole authority in Belarus, the Germans stood by, and recognised the declared Belarusian Democratic Republic on 25 March.