American Entry into World War I

After added than two and a half years of efforts by President Woodrow Wilson to retain the United States out of the battle, the United States entered World War I in April 1917. Apart from an Anglophile element advocating early support for the British and an anti-Tsarist part sympathizing with Germany's war against Russia, public opinion in the United States mirrored that of the president: support for neutrality was powerful among Irish, German, and Scandinavian Americans, as well as between church privileged and females in general. On the other hand, even earlier World War I, American perception of Germany was generally more negative than that of any other European country. After stories of German atrocities in Belgium in 1914 and the loss of the passenger liner RMS Lusitania in 1915, American civilians began to perceive Germany as the invader in Europe.

While the nation was at concord, American banks provided massive loans to the Entente forces, primarily used to purchase weapons, raw materials, and food from across the Atlantic. Wilson made only rudimentary preparations for a land conflict, but he did authorize the U.S. Navy to embark on a considerable shipbuilding program. In 1916, the president was re-elected by a razor-thin margin on an anti-war ticket. With Russia in turmoil and the other Entente countries short on cash, Germany appeared to have the upper hand in Europe in 1917, while the Ottoman Empire, Germany's ally, held on to territory in modern-day Iraq, Syria, and Palestine. However, by this time, an Entente economic embargo and naval blockade had caused fuel and food shortages in Germany, prompting Germany to begin unrestricted submarine warfare. Although the German high command recognized that sinking American-flagged ships would almost likely bring the United States into the war, the goal was to cut the transatlantic supply chain to Britain from other nations.

In an encoded cable known as the Zimmermann Telegram, intercepted by British intelligence, Germany also offered a secret promise to help Mexico reclaim territory lost during the Mexican–American War. The release of that message enraged Americans at the same time as German submarines began sinking American cargo ships in the North Atlantic. Wilson then requested a war to end all wars to make the globe safe for democracy, and Congress agreed on 6 April 1917 to declare war on Germany. In the summer of 1918, under the command of General John J. Pershing, American troops launched significant combat operations on the Western Front.

Naval Blockade

Britain's vast Navy was deployed to prevent cargo ships from entering German ports, primarily by interrupting them in the North Sea between Scotland and Norway's shores. The longer sea approaches to Britain and France, their distance from German harbors, and the reduced size of Germany's surface navy made it more difficult for Germany to respond. Instead, German submarines sat waiting for merchant ships bound for British and French ports, then sank them.

Business Considerations

The start of the war in Europe coincided with the end of the American Recession of 1913–1914. Exports to belligerent countries jumped from $824.8 million in 1913 to $2.25 billion in 1917 in the first four years of the war. During the same period, loans from American financial institutions to Allied nations in Europe surged considerably. The end of this period saw a surge in economic activity as government resources helped private-sector production. Industrial production climbed by 32%, and GNP increased by nearly 20% from 1914 and 1917. In the United States, gains in industrial production endured the war. Even later the war ended in 1918, the capital build-up that enabled American industries to source combatants and the American Military caused in a higher long-run output rate.

In the year 1913, J. After his father, J.P. Morgan, died, P. Morgan, Jr. took over the House of Morgan, an American investment bank with independent banking operations in New York, London, and Paris. Morgan, Pierpont. From the foundation of the war in 1914 until America's entry in 1917, the House of Morgan aided Britain and France in their wartime financing. J.P. After successful lobbying by the British ambassador, Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, Morgan & Co., the House of Morgan's bank in New York, was named as the chief financial agent to the British government in 1914. Later, the same bank would play a similar role in France, providing substantial financial aid to warring nations. By soliciting funds from American investors, J.P. Morgan & Co. became the principal issuer of loans to the French administration. After prime issuing of debt in American markets, Morgan, Harjes, the House of Morgan's French affiliated bank, controlled most of the wartime financial dealings between the House of Morgan and the French government. As the combat fumed on with no end in sight, tensions between the House of Morgan and the French government grew. As a result, France's government can borrow from other sources, resulting in higher lending rates and a decline in the franc's value. J.P. Morgan & Co. continued to assist the French government financially after the war, in 1918, through monetary stabilization and debt relief.

The financial activities of American banks in Europe produced a lot of friction between Wall Street and the U.S. government because America was still a declared neutral state. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan was a staunch opponent of financial support for warring states, and in August 1914, he proposed a prohibition on loans to belligerents. He informed President Wilson that refusing to lend to any belligerent would inevitably speed the war's end. When France contended that it was legal to buy American goods, it was also lawful to take out credit on those purchases, Wilson agreed at first. Still, he reversed himself when France stated that it was also permitted to take out credit on those purchases if it was legal to buy American goods. Following negotiations with the Anglo-French Financial Commission, J.P. Morgan offered loans to France, including one in March 1915 and another joint loan to Britain and France in October 1915. The latter amounted to US$500,000,000. Although the U.S. government believed that prohibiting such financial aid would speed the conclusion of the war and save lives, little was done to enforce the loan embargo, owing in part to pressure from Allied nations and American commercial interests.

During the Great Depression of 1913–1914, the American steel industry encountered challenges and dwindling revenues. However, once the war in Europe began, the increasing demand for weapons of the war ushered in a time of enhanced productivity that helped many U.S. industrial enterprises escape the recession's low-growth environment. The growing demand for arms in other countries benefited Bethlehem Steel in particular. Before the United States entered into the war, these corporations had total trade with sovereign clients worldwide. However, following President Wilson's declaration of war, the corporations were subjected to U.S. Trade Commission-imposed price limits to ensure that the U.S. military had access to the essential munitions.

Bethlehem Steel produced 65,000 pounds of forged military items and 70 million pounds of armour plate for Britain and France by the conclusion of the war in 1918, as well as 1.1 billion pounds of steel for ammunitions and 20.1 million rounds of weaponry. In addition, Bethlehem Steel took advantage of the home arms industry, producing 60% of all American weaponry and 40% of all artillery shells used throughout the war. Despite pricing limits and a smaller profit margin on manufactured items, income from wartime sales propelled the company to third place in the country's manufacturing industry. In 1939, Bethlehem Steel re-established itself as the principal arms supplier to the United States and other allies.

Views of the Elites

The Non-Interventionists were the first, a loosely linked and politically diverse anti-war movement that aimed to keep the U.S. out of the war entirely. Members of this group viewed the war as a conflict between Europe's imperialist and military great powers, whom they viewed as corrupt and undeserving of support. Others objected to moral reasons, such as pacifists. Republicans like former Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, industrialist Henry Ford, and publisher William Randolph Hearst; Republicans like Wisconsin Senator Robert M. La Follette and Nebraska Senator George W. Norris; and Progressive Party activist Jane Addams were among the prominent leaders.

The Socialists, led by Eugene V. Debs, their perennial presidential candidate, and movement veterans like Victor L. Berger and Morris Hillquit, were fervent antimilitarists and opposed any U.S. engagement, characterizing the war as a "capitalist war" that American workforces should avoid. After the United States came in the war in April 1917, however, a schism arose between the anti-war Party and a pro-war party of Socialist writers, journalists, and intellectuals led by John Spargo, William English Walling, and E. Haldeman-Julius. To boost the war effort among their fellow Social Democrats, this group created the rival Social Democratic League of America.

The more moderate Liberal-Internationalists came next. This dual-party group unwillingly supported a declaration of war against Germany, with the postwar objective of constructing collective international security mechanisms to peacefully resolve future global conflicts and promote liberal democratic values more broadly. Awared groups such as the League to Enforce Peace supported this group's viewpoints. President Woodrow Wilson, his influential adviser Edward M. House, former President William Howard Taft, renowned inventor Alexander Graham Bell, Wall Street tycoon Bernard Baruch, and Harvard University President Abbott Lawrence Lowell were adherents.

Then there was the "Atlanticists," as they were known. Since the sinking of the Lusitania, they have fought vehemently for American engagement in the war. Their main political goal was to prepare the United States for a conflict with Germany and to form a long-term military alliance with the United Kingdom. Ex-President Theodore Roosevelt, Major General Leonard Wood, protuberant attorney and Representative Joseph Hodges Choate, ex Secretary of War Henry Stimson, reporter Walter Lippman, and Statemen Henry Cabot Lodge, Sr. of Massachusetts and Elihu Root of New York were among those who supported the Preparedness Movement and were strong among the Anglophile establishment.

Parties

The lack of involvement of political parties in the evolution of American public opinion was a surprise element. The Republican nominee, Charles Evans Hughes, insisted on minimizing the war issue.

The Socialist Party talked about how they wanted to make the world a better place. The European battle was termed an imperialist war by socialist rhetoric. It received 2% of the vote in 1916 for Eugene V. Debs, who blamed capitalism for the war and pledged uncompromising resistance. Its advertising claimed that a bayonet was a weapon with a worker on each end. However, when the war broke out, roughly half of the Socialists, led by Congressman Meyer London, backed the decision and supported pro-Allied initiatives. The rest, led by Debs, remained ideologically opposed and adamantly opposed. Many socialists were investigated due to the 1917 Espionage Act, and many were incarcerated on suspicion of treason, including Debs. This would only fuel resentment of the American administration among Socialist, anti-war parties.

Workforces, Farmers, and African Americans

The working class was quiet, and ethnic divisions were standard. Working men and farmers were not particularly interested in the arguments over war preparations at the start of the conflict. Despite the protests of Socialist union organizers, Samuel Gompers, the president of the AFL labour movement, decried the war in 1914 as unnatural, unjustifiable, and unholy. By 1916 he was assisting Wilson's limited preparedness program. In 1916, labour groups backed Wilson on domestic concerns but remained silent on the war.

The war initially disrupted the cotton market; the Royal Navy blocked exports to Germany, and prices plummeted from 11 cents per pound to barely 4 cents per pound. To prevent losing Southern support, the British intended to raise the price to ten cents by 1916. Cotton growers appear to have followed the rest of the country is moving from neutrality to involvement. Farmers in the Midwest, particularly those of German and Scandinavian ancestry, were generally hostile to the war. Isolationism developed prevalent in the Midwest, and other remote rural communities also saw no need for war.

The African-American society did not take a firm stance in either direction. W. E. B. A month after Congress declared war, Du Bois urged African-Americans to fight alongside the rest of the globe to achieve a world free of conflict. When the war broke out, and black men were enlisted, they set out to attain equality. Many had hoped that the community's participation in overseas war activities would result in civil rights at home. Instead, many African-Americans were impatient of waiting for their rights as American citizens to be recognized when such civil liberties were still denied.

South

Poor rural whites in the South and border areas were adamantly opposed to the war. In rural Missouri, for example, skepticism of major Eastern powers was concentrated on the possibility that Wall Street would drive the United States into war. Poor white farmers across the South cautioned each other that a wealthy man's war meant a poor man's fight, and they didn't want anything to do with it. Christians linked with the Groups of Christ, the Holiness movement, and Pentecostal churches were antiwar. Virginia Democrat Congressman James Hay was the prominent head of the House Committee on Military Affairs.

Many educated, urban, middle-class southerners supported the war effort and served on mobilization committees. Many whites in rural southern areas, on the other hand, were opposed to the war. Those in the north with more formal education were more inclined to support the war, while those in the South with less proper education were more expected to oppose it. Letters to newspapers containing spelling or grammatical errors were overwhelmingly opposed to the war, whilst letters with no spelling or grammatical errors were massively in favour of the war. Texas and Georgia led the southern states in terms of volunteerism when the war broke out. Texas had 1,404 people, Georgia had 1,397, Louisiana had 538, Tennessee had 532, Alabama had 470, North Carolina had 353 people, Florida had 316, and South Carolina had 225. Except for Mississippi firebrand James K. Vardaman, every southern Senator voted in favour of entering the war. By chance, certain southern regions were more supportive of intervention than others. Before conscription, Georgia had the most volunteers per capita of any state in the union and the highest percentage of pro-British periodicals before America entered into the war. During the decades preceding the conflict and during the early stages of the war, five competing newspapers covered the Southeast Georgia region, all of which were outspokenly Anglophilic. All five also drew attention to German atrocities committed during the rape of Belgians and the assassination of Edith Cavell. Other pro-British periodicals with statewide distribution, such as The Outlook and The Literary Digest, had disproportionately high distribution in every region of Georgia and the northern Alabama region around Huntsville and Decatur.

Central Tennessee was likewise a strong supporter of American involvement in the war. It was customary to write letters to newspapers expressing pro-British, anti-German, or pro-interventionist sentiment. Between October 1914 and April 1917, at least one of these three sentiments appeared in letters to Tennessee newspapers concerning the war. Over half of the letters in the Tennessee regions of Cheatham Region, Robertson Region, Sumner Region, Wilson Region, Rutherford Region, Williamson Region, Maury Region, Marshall Region, Bedford Region, Coffee Region, and Cannon Region have all three elements. There was widespread support in South Carolina for America's entry into the war. Greenville, Spartanburg, and Columbia had begun advocating for army training camps in their communities, led by Governor Richard I. Manning, for both economic and patriotic reasons, in preparation for American entrance into the war. In 1914, Charleston impounded a German cargo, and when the freighter's skeleton crew attempted to block Charleston harbor, they were all apprehended and imprisoned. Charleston was engulfed in battle fever from that moment forward. Charleston and the low state coastal regions to the South of Charleston were all gripped by pro-British and anti-German feelings in 1915, 1916, and early 1917.

German Americans

By this time, most German Americans had very tenuous ties to Germany; yet, they were frightened of retaliation if the United States joined the war. Almost no one advocated intervention on Germany's behalf, instead advocating neutrality and praising German culture. However, when more countries became involved in the conflict, the English-language press began to back Britain, while the German-American press urged neutrality while maintaining Germany's position. The Germans in Chicago pushed hard to secure a complete ban on all arms transfers to Europe. In 1916, massive crowds gathered in Germania, Chicago, to commemorate Kaiser Wilhelm II's birthday, which had not been done before the war. In early 1917, German Americans continued to push for neutrality but declared that they would be loyal to the United States if a fight broke out. They had been virtually shut out of the national debate on the matter by this point. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, German-American Socialists vigorously campaigned against the war's entry.

Christian Churches and Pacifists

Most religious leaders, except for the Episcopalians, and leaders of the women's movement, favoured pacifism. Methodists and Quakers, for example, were outspoken opponents of the war. In his call for religious support, President Wilson, a devout Presbyterian, frequently framed the conflict in terms of good and evil. Pacifists such as Jane Addams, Oswald Garrison Villard, David Starr Jordan, Henry Ford, Lillian Wald, and Carrie Chapman Catt made a deliberate effort. Their purpose was to support Wilson's efforts to get the belligerents to the negotiating table to bring the war to an end. Finally, in 1917, Wilson persuaded some of them that they required to assist what he assured would be a combat to end all conflicts to be genuinely anti-war.

Following the declaration of war, the more liberal faiths, which had adopted the Social Gospel, called for a fight for righteousness to help improve all humankind. According to one part of American exceptionalism, God had selected America as his vehicle to bring redemption to the globe. The American Catholic bishops were largely silent on the topic of intervention. Millions of Catholics lived in both warring zones, and Catholic Americans' attitudes about American engagement in the war tended to be divided along ethnic lines. Multiple parishes served a single ethnic group, such as Irish, German, Italian, Polish, or English, in predominantly Catholic towns and cities in the East and Midwest at the time. Catholics of Irish and German ancestry in the United States were the most vocal opponents of involvement. Pope Benedict XV attempted to broker a truce on multiple occasions. Both the Allies and the Germans resisted his efforts, and the Vatican maintained a strict neutrality stance throughout the war.

Jewish Americans

Few Jewish Americans supported American entrance into the war between 1914 and 1916. With a Jewish population of 1.5 million, New York City was a hotbed of antiwar activity, much of it organized by labour unions on the political left, who were opposed to a war they saw as a conflict between multiple significant powers. Nevertheless, during the war years, specific Jewish communities banded together to help Jewish communities in Eastern Europe ravaged by combat, starvation, and the Russian and Austro-German armies' scorched earth practices.

The tsarist regime in Russia was of particular concern to Jewish Americans because of its history of allowing and encouraging pogroms and anti-Semitic legislation. However, the fall of the tsarist monarchy in March 1917 eliminated a significant roadblock for many Jews who refused to support American involvement in the war on the Russian Empire's side. In New York City, the draft proceeded smoothly, and left-wing opposition to the war mostly dissipated after Zionists realized they could use the war to demand a state of Israel.

Irish Americans

Irish-American Catholics were the war's most influential home opponents. They were uninterested in the continent but were indifferent about assisting the United Kingdom because it had recently enacted the Ireland Act 1914, which granted Irish Home Rule. The Act was, however, put on hold until the war was over. Irish Volunteers should first help America's pro-Allied war operations, according to John Redmond and the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP); his political opponents believed that it was not the time to back Britain's endeavor to strengthen and expand her empire. The attacks on the IPP and the pro-Allied press demonstrated a firm belief that a German victory would expedite the establishment of an independent Irish state. Instead of supporting intervention on behalf of the Germans, Irish American leaders and groups emphasized the importance of maintaining American neutrality. However, more excellent communication between militant Irish nationalists and German agents in the United States has further heightened worries about Irish Americans' primary sympathies. Despite this, nearly 1,000 Irish-born Americans died while serving in the U.S. military during WWI. The Easter Rising in Dublin was crushed within a week in April 1916,, and its leaders were killed by firing squad. The rebellion was portrayed in the mainstream American press as naive and misguided, with suspicions that it was partly orchestrated and planned by the Germans. Nevertheless, the popular mood remained overwhelmingly pro-Entente.

Irish-Americans subjugated the Democratic Party in many large cities, and Wilson had to consider their political views. The United States was affected by Irish-American political efforts to define its war objectives independent from its allies, largely self-determination for Europe's numerous states and ethnic groups. Wilson promised to encourage Irish independence in exchange for their support of his war programs, but his unwillingness to back them in 1919 upset the Irish-American community after the war. Wilson considered the Irish situation only as an internal matter. He did not see the conflict and turmoil in Ireland as similar to what other European ethnicities were experiencing due to World War I. The evolution of the Irish Race Conventions provides a sense of the conflicting and shifting viewpoints that existed during the war.

Pro-Allied Immigrants

Some British migrants were actively involved in the intervention effort. For example, Chicago's prominent businessman, Samuel Insull, a London native, generously gave money, propaganda, and means for recruits to join the British or Canadian forces. Insull was in charge of the Illinois State Council of Defense after the U.S. entered the war and arranged the state's mobilization.

Eastern European immigrants were usually more concerned with politics in their native countries than with politics in the United States. Slavic immigrants' spokesmen thought that an Allied victory would bring the independence of their homeland. Many liberal and nationalist Hungarian immigrants who wanted an independent Hungary distinct from the Austro-Hungarian Empire advocated for the war. It linked itself with the Atlanticist or Anglophile section of the community. This community was predominantly pro-British and anti-German. Albanian-Americans in Boston, for example, lobbied for participation in the war and were largely pro-British and anti-German, as well as confident that the war would result in an independent Albania free of the Ottoman Empire.

Wisconsin has the status of being the utmost isolationist state due to the significant number of German-Americans, socialists, pacifists, and others who lived there; however, enclaves within the state, such as Green Bay, were an exception. Green Bay had a considerable number of pro-Allied immigrants, including the country's largest Belgian community. As a result, anti-German and pro-war feelings were much more significant in Green Bay than in the rest of the country. In Alaska, a sizable Serbian-American community was likewise enthusiastic about America's participation in World War I. Thousands of Serbian migrants and Serbian-Americans agreed early to join the United States Army shortly after the declaration of war in Alaska, which was at the time a territory after the community had been outspoken in support of America's involvement in the war before this. As a result, many Serbian Americans chose to fight overseas during WWI, with many coming from Alaska.

Widespread Pacifism

Henry Ford aided the pacifist cause by supporting a large-scale private peace expedition aboard the "Peace Ship," including several activists and academics. In 1915, Ford chartered the ship and invited notable peace activists to accompany him to Europe to meet with leaders on both sides. He planned to generate enough media attention to persuade the belligerent countries to organize a peace conference and negotiate a cease-fire. Unfortunately, the press extensively derided the "Ship of Fools," as the venture was dubbed. The cruise was hampered by infighting among the campaigners, mocking from the press contingent aboard, and influenza. A stressed and physically ill Ford abandoned the mission and returned to the United States four days later the ship arrived in neutral Norway; he had proved that his modest efforts produced nothing.

German Agents

Heinrich Albert, the German embassy's commercial attaché, abandoned his suitcase on a train in New York City on 24 July 1915, and it was scooped away by an alert Secret Service agent, Frank Burke. Wilson allowed the contents to be published, indicating a systematic effort by Berlin to finance sympathetic media while preventing British procurement of war equipment. In addition, Debonnaire Franz Rintelen von Kleist, Berlin's chief intelligence agent, was spending millions to fund sabotage in Canada, stir up tensions between the U.S. and Mexico, and provoke labour protests. As Americans were increasingly concerned about the susceptibility of a free democracy to subversion, Germany took the fall. Indeed, in 1916–1919, one of the most common anxieties among Americans of all stripes was that spies and saboteurs were lurking around every corner. This mindset was instrumental in instilling fear of Germany and suspicions of anyone of German ancestry who could not "show" complete devotion.

By 1915, Americans had become significantly more interested in the war. Because of the fatalities of American civilians, the sinking of the Lusitania had a significant impact on public opinion. As a result, a considerable preparedness movement arose that year. Proponents believed that the U.S. needed to build up strong naval and land forces right away for defensive objectives, with the implicit assumption that America would fight sooner or later. Preparedness was spearheaded by General Leonard Wood, former President Theodore Roosevelt, former Secretaries of War Elihu Root and Henry Stimson, and many of the country's most influential financiers, manufacturers, lawyers, and scions of famous families.

Furthermore, an "Atlanticist" foreign policy establishment arose, consisting primarily of upper-class lawyers, bankers, intellectuals, and politicians from the Northeast, all of whom were committed to Anglophile internationalism. Paul D. Cravath, one of New York's top corporate lawyers, was the representative. When the war broke out, Cravath was in his mid-fifties, and it acted as an epiphany for him, inspiring an interest in international politics that dominated the rest of his career. He was a fervent Anglophile who passionately backed American intervention in the war and thought that postwar international organization would be guided by close Anglo-American cooperation.

The Preparedness movement took a "realistic" view of world events, believing that economic might and military might be more important than ideological crusades for causes such as democracy and national self-determination. They repeatedly emphasized the weakness of national defences, demonstrating that America's 100,000-man Army, even when supplemented by 112,000 National Guardsmen, was outmanned by Germany's Army, which was derived from a smaller population, by a factor of 20 to one. Similarly, in 1915, the armed forces of the United Kingdom and its Empire, France, Russia, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Belgium, Japan, and Greece were all much larger and more experienced than the United States military. To them, reform meant UMT (Universal Military Training). They proposed a national service program that would force the 600,000 men who turn 18 each year to undertake six months in military training before being assigned to reserve units. The regular Army would essentially serve as a training organization.

Antimilitarists said that the idea would make America seem like Germany, which demanded two years of military service. Advocates countered that military service was a fundamental obligation of citizenship and that without the unity offered by such service, the country would fragment into rival ethnic groupings. UMT, according to one spokesman, will become a true melting pot, with the heat intense enough to fuse the ingredients into a single mass of Americanism. They also promised that the discipline and training would result in a better-paid workforce. But, at the time, there was a lot of anti-military sentiment. Thus the initiative didn't get approved. When Stimson was Secretary of War during World War II, he suggested a similar idea of universal peacetime duty, but he was defeated.

The Preparedness movement demonstrated its commitment by establishing and funding its summer training camps in Plattsburgh, New York. Other locations, where 40,000 college graduates became physically fit, learned to march and shoot, and eventually provided a wartime officer corps cadre. Labour unions suggested that talented working-class youth be brought to Plattsburgh, but they were ignored. The Preparedness movement was alienated from the working classes and the majority of small-town America's middle-class leadership. That had little use for the National Guard, which it considered politicized, localistic, insufficiently armed, ill-trained, too prone to idealistic crusading (as against Spain in 1898) and lacking international knowledge. On the other hand, the National Guard was well entrenched in state and municipal politics, with members representing a wide range of American culture. In certain northern states, the Guard was one of the few institutions that admitted blacks on an equal footing.

The Preparedness movement was viewed as a danger by the Democratic Party. Roosevelt, Root, and Wood were all candidates for the Republican presidential nomination. More quietly, the Democrats were steeped in localism, which valued the National Guard, and voters were already hostile to the wealthy and powerful. Wilson was able to divert the Preparedness soldiers by working with the Democratic-controlled Congress. Army and Navy chiefs were compelled to testify before Congress that the country's military was in outstanding condition.

In truth, neither the Army nor the Navy was prepared to fight. Wilson had been using the Navy's good ships to threaten Mexico, and the fleet's readiness had worsened as a result. Texas and New York, the two newest and largest battleships had never fired a gun before, and the sailors' morale was low. In addition, when compared to the British and German navies, it was outmanned and outgunned. The air forces of the Army and Navy were both small. Despite the influx of new weapon systems developed by the British, Germans, French, Austro-Hungarians, Italians, and others during the European conflict, the Army paid little attention. It didn't study trench warfare, poison gas, heavy artillery, or tanks, for example, and was completely unaware of the rapid evolution of aerial combat. In 1915, the Democrats in Congress attempted to slash the military budget. The Preparedness movement successfully leveraged the outrage over the sinking of the Lusitania in May 1915, pushing the Democrats to promise military and naval enhancements. Wilson, who was less afraid of the Navy, accepted a long-term construction program to bring the fleet up to par with the Royal Navy by the mid-1920s, though this would not happen until World War II.

Size of the Military

Throughout the decades leading up to the war, the United States had stood aloof from the European powers' armaments competition. In 1916, the American Army had just over 100,000 active-duty soldiers. By that period, the French, British, Russian, and German militaries had all fought combats. More than 10,000 men were killed in a single day, and campaigns with total casualties exceeding 200,000. To put it another way, the whole U.S. Army, as it stood on the verge of involvement, could be spread out in a single week of the violence that has defined the conflict thus far. As a result, a military that could command respect was becoming increasingly important to Americans.

Navy

The readiness and capability of the United States Navy have been a source of contention. The military was only prepared for an enemy fleet attempting to occupy New York harbor at a time when the German combat fleet was caged up by the Royal Navy, according to the press at the time. Josephus Daniels, the Secretary of the Navy, was a pacifist journalist. He had expanded the Navy's instructional resources and made the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, a mandatory experience for aspiring admirals. However, his moralistic measures alienated the officer corps, such as no drinking in the officers' mess, no darkening at the Naval Academy, and extra chaplains and YMCAs. As a newspaperman, Daniels understood the significance of publicity. In 1915, he established the Naval Consulting Board, which Thomas Edison chaired, to seek the counsel and expertise of top scientists, engineers, and business people. It popularized technology, naval expansion, and military readiness, and it received much media attention.

By 1916, a new component had emerged: American nationalism and a sense of national self-interest. The staggering casualty estimates in Europe were depressing; two massive wars each claimed over a million lives. This war would be a watershed moment in world history. Every attempt to find a peaceful solution failed.

Decision Making

According to Kendrick Clements, bureaucratic decision-making was a significant factor in the U.S. declaring war on Germany and aligning itself with the Allies. One of the first faults made by the U.S. bureaucracy during the war, he claims, was the State Department's demand that Germany's submarines follow archaic 18th-century sailing laws. And in doing so, the United States effectively gave Germany the option of whether or not to enter the war. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan was out of contact with the State Department for the majority of the fall of 1914, leaving the more conservative Robert Lansing in charge of American foreign affairs at the time. One of these choices was made to hear British complaints that the Germans were sending communications to their battleships through American radio towers. Britain destroyed all cable lines running out of Germany, including the trans-Atlantic cable, just before the war began in 1914. German embassies were allowed to utilize U.S. cable lines for genuine diplomatic business by the U.S. government. Germany stated that the towers were required for effective communication between the U.S. and Germany. Lansing retaliated by demanding both parties to provide copies of the messages they delivered over the buildings to the U.S. Navy. The cables were still usable by the French and British, ensuring that Germany would be the only belligerent necessary to send signals to the U.S. This, and other seemingly insignificant decisions made by Lansing at the time would add up to a shift in American support for the Allies.

Zimmermann Telegram

Germany sought new allies, particularly Mexico, after deciding on unrestricted submarine warfare in January 1917. On 16 January 1917, German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann issued the Zimmermann Telegram to Mexico. Zimmermann asked Mexico to join a war against the U.S. if the U.S. waged war on Germany, knowing their hatred towards America since the 1848 Mexican Cession. Germany agreed to fund Mexico's bills and assist it in reclaiming the land that the U.S. had violently seized in 1848. The present-day states of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, roughly half of New Mexico, and a quarter of Colorado were included in these territories. British intelligence intercepted and decrypted the message, who then passed it on to the Wilson administration. On 1 March, the White House would make it public. As the Germans began destroying American ships, outrage rose, even as isolationists in the Senate staged a filibuster to prevent legislation arming American commercial ships to defend themselves.

Sinking of American Merchant Ships

Kaiser Wilhelm II pressed the issue in early 1917. On 31 January 1917, he announced his intention to target neutral commerce in a specified combat zone, which triggered the United States' entry into the conflict. From 3 February 1917 through 4 April 1917, Kaiser Wilhelm II sank ten American commerce ships. When Wilson petitioned Congress for a declaration of war on 2 April 1917, an outraged mainly public supported him. On 6 April 1917, a Joint Session authorized it, and Wilson signed it the next day.

Table: American-Registered ships sunk 3 February, 1917-April 4, 1917

Historians like Ernest R. May have looked at the process of America's admission into the war as a case study in how public opinion shifted dramatically over three years. Most Americans called for neutrality in 1914, seeing the war as a terrible mistake and vowing to stay out. By 1917, the public was equally convinced that war was both necessary and wise. During the debate, military commanders had little to say, and military considerations were hardly brought up. Instead, morality and future visions were at the heart of the discussion. The consensus was that America held a moral superiority as the only big nation dedicated to the ideas of liberty and democracy. By avoiding the squabbles of conservative empires, it retained those ideas, which the rest of the world would eventually admire and emulate. In 1917, this long-term plan faced a serious risk of succumbing to powerful forces opposed to democracy and freedom in the short term. Religious leaders, women, and public personalities like long-time Democratic leader William Jennings Bryan, who served as Secretary of State from 1913 to 1916, all backed moralism. The most significant moralist of all was President Woodrow Wilson, who dominated decision-making to such an extent that the conflict has been dubbed "Wilson's War" from an American perspective.

Wilson secured the backing of most moralists in 1917 when he declared war to make the world safe for democracy. He said that now was the moment to fight if they sincerely believed in their values. The question then became whether Americans would battle for what they were passionate about, and the response was a resounding "Yes." The Spirit of 1917, which recalled the Spirit of '76, helped to mobilize some of this mindset.

Antiwar campaigners at the time and in the 1930s claimed that there must have been hidden reasons underneath the mask of moralism and idealism. Some speculated on a plot involving New York City bankers who held $3 billion in war loans for the Allies or steel and chemical companies that sold armaments. The interpretation was popular among left-wing Progressives led by Wisconsin Senator Robert La Follette and the Democratic agricultural wing, including the House Ways and Means Committee chairman. He was a staunch opponent of the war, and when it came, he altered the tax laws to ensure that the wealthy paid the highest taxes. Neutrality rules were enacted in the 1930s to avoid financial entanglements from drawing the country into a conflict. Bryan became the first Secretary of State to resign in protest in 1915, believing Wilson's pro-British attitudes had excessively impacted his decisions.

Historian Harold C. Syrett, on the other hand, claims that business favoured neutrality. According to other historians, the pro-war movement was fueled by disdain for what Germany had done, particularly in Belgium, and its threat to American ideals. As the Germans killed people, including English nurse Edith Cavell, Belgium maintained widespread sympathy. Herbert Hoover, an American engineer, spearheaded a private relief effort that received general support. New weapons that the Americans deemed repulsive, including poison gas and aerial bombardment of innocent civilians as Zeppelins rained bombs on London, added to the tragedies in Belgium. Even anti-war activists did not argue that Germany was blameless, and pro-German scripts were met with disapproval.

The moralist theory was attacked by Randolph Bourne, who claimed it was used by American intellectual and power elites, such as President Wilson, to justify going to war unnecessarily. He claims that the war drive began with the Preparedness movement, which was sponsored by big business. While the large industry would not go much further than Preparedness since it would benefit the most from neutrality, the movement would eventually morph into a war cry, driven by war-hawk intellectuals under the garb of moralism. Bourne believes that the ruling class knew exactly what going to war would entail and how much it would cost American lives. Therefore, if American elites could present the country's role in the war as heroic, they might be able to persuade the country's isolationist people that the war is justifiable.

The U-boats (submarines) that sank the Lusitania and other passenger ships without notice in 1915 dominated American sentiments toward Germany. Americans saw this as an awful affront to humanity and an indecent assault on America's rights as a neutral country. Germany agreed to halt after repeated diplomatic complaints. However, in 1917, Germany's military leadership concluded that the public employment of submarines was necessary for military purposes. The Kaiser's advisers believed that America was economically powerful but militarily weak to make a difference. Twenty years after World War I, 70% of Americans questioned agreed that America's involvement in the conflict was a mistake.

Germany

Wilson sought a special joint session of Congress on 2 April 1917 to declare war on Germany, adding, "We have no selfish ends to serve." To make the struggle seem more appealing, he framed it in idealistic terms, claiming that it would make the globe safe for democracy and, later, that it would be a war to end all wars. Wilson acknowledged that the United States had a ethical obligation to join the battle. The world's destiny was being decided on the battlefield, and the American national interest required a voice. Wilson's assessment of the situation was widely praised, and it has influenced America's position in international and military affairs ever since. Wilson feared that if the Central Powers triumphed, the United States would suffer disastrous consequences. Germany would have dominated the continent and, possibly, the seas. Latin America could have quickly fallen under the influence of Berlin. The dream of democratization, liberalism, and independence would have been dashed. If the Allies had triumphed without assistance, however, there was a risk that they would split up the world without consideration for American commercial interests. To offset the challenge posed by American businessmen, they were already planning to utilize government subsidies, tariff walls, and regulated markets. According to Wilson, the solution was a third option: a peace without triumph.

Congress declared war on 6 April 1917. Senators Harry Lane, William J. Stone, James Vardaman, Asle Gronna, Robert M. La Follette, Sr., and George W. Norris voted against the motion in the Senate, which passed 82 to 6. The proclamation passed 373 to 50 in the House, with senior Democrat Claude Kitchin voting against it. Jeannette Rankin was another opponent, voting against the admission into both World Wars I and II on her own. The West and Midwest provided nearly all of the opposition.

Austria-Hungary

On 7 December 1917, the United States Senate declared war on Austria-Hungary, citing the country's severance of diplomatic relations with the U.S., its use of unrestricted submarine warfare, and its alliance with Germany. A vote approved the declaration of 365 to 1 in the United States House of Representatives. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and former President Theodore Roosevelt put pressure on President Wilson, demanding that the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria be declared at war as Germany's allies. The decision to go to war against Germany's other allies was postponed following more talks.