WHY DID THE U.S. ENTER WORLD WAR I? Carl J. Strikwerda Presented at Lancaster.history.org, April 13, 2017

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1 1 WHY DID THE U.S. ENTER WORLD WAR I? Carl J. Strikwerda Presented at Lancaster.history.org, April 13, 2017 This April marks 100 th anniversary of U.S. entry into World War I. U.S. entry was a turning point in the War, in American history, and, in some ways, world history. It was controversial then, and it has continued to be down to the present. U. S. entry into the War marks the entrance of the U.S. into world politics, and it begins a debate that we are still engaged in today on how the U.S. should be involved in the rest of the world. Can we shut out demands for involvement in the rest of the world even though we are the biggest economy in the world and are connected to almost every nation on the globe? If we are involved, should we be trying to stop conflicts that threaten peace and security even if that means trying to control other nations? Or, is it realistic for us to try to cooperate with other nations in some kind of alliance or international organization even if it means giving up some of our national independence and risks being dragged into more conflicts? These are not easy choices. Americans in 1917 faced them. We face them today. Let s look at the choices that they faced and see what we can learn from them.

2 2 First, we need to look at the situation in early 1917 when the U.S. faced the choice of intervention or non-intervention. Why had the War reached a point where the U.S. played such a decisive role whether it stayed out of the War or entered the War? Second, why was the decision to intervene so controversial then and often now? Third, what were the effects of U.S. intervention? Finally, are there any lessons for us today in this story from 100 years ago? So, first, we need to look at the situation in early 1917 when the U.S. faced the choice of intervention or non-intervention. The War by early 1917 had reached a point of stalemate; neither side was able to win a decisive victory. Why? First, it was an industrial war, in fact, the first industrial war. Industrial warfare meant that, given the technology of the time, the defensive had a large advantage. Artillery had advanced far beyond mobility. About 70 percent of casualties in the War came from artillery. Until the end of the war, there was no way to attack quickly and not get slaughtered by artillery and machine guns. So, decisive battles were hard to achieve. A second reason for the stalemate was that it was a nationalist war. Nationalism meant that governments had mobilized their populations, and it was incredibly difficult to tell them they were going to settle for a negotiated peace. Nationalist wars lead to expectations of victory. The only place where there was a war of some mobility was in Russia, the one great power which was the least industrialized and where nationalist support for the government was the weakest: by 1917, Russia was gradually being beaten by the Germans. But it was not going down quickly. Meanwhile, on the Western Front, Germany and its opponents

3 3 were relatively well-matched. In terms of manpower and industrial resources, the Allies Britain and France had the advantage, but the defensive edge meant that Germany was able to hold them at bay. Because this was an industrial war, the so-called home front a term created in World War I played a huge role. Whichever side could produce the greatest amount of artillery, machine guns, ammunition, barbed wire, sandbags, and food to keep its armies in the field would probably win. Here, the Allies had two huge advantages. The Allies had more industrial strength than Germany and Austria-Hungary. In addition, Britain, with the world s largest navy, blockaded Germany. Germany, which before the War had depended on food and raw materials imported from other countries, suffered terribly from the blockade. 600,000 people in Germany may have died from malnutrition during the War. German industry and German soldiers lacked many crucial supplies by The stalemate between Germany and the Allies and Britain s blockade sets the stage for why the question of whether or not the U.S. would intervene in the War is so momentous. By 1917, neither side can win, but Germany is slowly defeating Russia, but Germany is also slowly being starved itself of supplies to fight an industrial war. And yet, neither side dares compromise. Both fear that a negotiated settlement would leave them the clear loser and would probably not be accepted by their people. At the same time, both sides worry that their people cannot go on much longer. In 1917, there are mutinies in the French, Italian, and Russian armies, and strikes and food riots in almost every country. By 1917, the two sides had become like two weary boxers, both hoping to land a knock-out blow before they topple over from exhaustion. U.S. intervention became a vital issue when Germany s new supreme military leaders, Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, decided on a bold strategy for all-out victory. They would finally knock Russia out of the War which would enable them to move troops to the West and defeat the Allies there. At the same time, they would undercut Britain s blockade and undermine the Allies industrial advantage. They would do

4 4 this by unleashing unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic, sinking any ship supplying Allied industry, including ships of neutral countries. Hindenburg and Ludendorff knew that unrestricted submarine warfare meant sinking ships from the largest neutral country, the U.S., which was the largest supplier of the Allies. But they were willing to take the risk that the U.S. might enter the War. The U.S. had an army smaller than that of almost any European country. Any newly-created U.S. army would have to be transported through a submarine-infested north Atlantic. And Germany might well win the War before the U.S. could make a difference. So, why was the U.S. decision to intervene so controversial and why is it still controversial? If the U.S. intervened in the War, it would be breaking with a century of relative isolation and it would be doing so on the basis of a relatively thin rationale for war, especially the biggest war in human history. When the War broke out, the Woodrow Wilson administration first tried to maintain neutrality, but it gradually allowed U.S. industry to become a major supplier for the Allies. By 1915, Wilson allowed U.S. banks to loan hundreds of millions of dollars in order for the Allies to buy ammunition, food, and weapons in the U.S. Meanwhile, because of the British blockade, Germans had little access to American industry s bounty. U.S exports grew almost ten times between 1913 and 1917, from $691 million to $6.3 billion, almost all of it to the Allies. Germany s only effective weapon to stop the U.S. and other neutrals from supplying Britain was the use of submarines. The German navy was not a match for the British surface fleet. Submarines were a new weapon, they had hardly been used in naval combat, and there was little precedent in international law for how submarine warfare should be carried out. Submarines, it turned out, could only be effective by staying submerged as much as possible and sinking ships via torpedoes. Submarines are incredibly lethal weapons submerged. On the surface,

5 5 submarines are incredibly vulnerable to surface ships or from the air. So, Germany unleashed its submarines in what, at the time, seemed a frightening, almost terroristic way, sinking ships without warning. When the Germans sunk the British liner Lusitania on May 7, 1915 and 1,198 people drowned, including 128 Americans, the reaction in the U.S. was one of horror and indignation. It may be hard for us now to recapture the feeling but it was a bit like the reaction to German diplomats and journalists, and many pro-german leaders and thoughtful neutral observers in the U.S., argued that the Lusitania had carried munitions, Americans had been warned against traveling in a war zone around Britain, and Britain s blockade of Germany was as unlawful as German submarine warfare. Nonetheless, the sentiment in the U.S. became more and more hostile to Germany and pro-allied. In reaction to the U.S. government s strong protests, Germany restricted its submarine warfare from mid-1915 to 1917 to attacking only Allied ships, but the pressure to reverse this and go back to unrestricted submarine warfare become more intense all the time. But pro-allied sentiment in the U.S. was not the same as pro-war. The majority of Americans throughout 1915 and 1916 opposed intervention in the War. Why should American boys fight and die for the British empire? was a common question, especially in the Midwest and West where there had long been populist suspicion of British investors and banks. There were also strong groups who were even pro-german or anti-allies, for different reasons German-Americans, obviously, but also, Irish, and Jews. Woodrow Wilson ran for re-election in November, 1916 in part on the slogan, He Kept Us Out of War. So, why did Wilson go to Congress only a few months later in April and ask for a declaration of war? And why was he able to get overwhelming support for the War? Only six senators and 50 members of the House voted against the declaration. On one level, Germany changed the situation by declaring unrestricted submarine warfare around the British Isles to begin February 1, It also foolishly floated a secret plan to entice Mexico to attack the U.S. and reconquer its lost provinces in what

6 6 is the Southwest. This plan became public when the British intercepted and translated the so-called Zimmerman Telegraph. Germany appeared to many Americans as a threat to the U.S. itself. At the same time, the czarist government of Russia was overthrown in March, 1917, and replaced, for eight months by a self-proclaimed parliamentary government. As long as Russia, with its autocratic government, had been one of the Allies, it had been hard to make the argument that the Allies were fighting for democracy. Still, the U.S. rationale for war was in some ways weak. The official declaration of war says that the Imperial German government has committed repeated acts of war against the Government and the people of the United States. Other than U.S. ships and citizens in a war zone thousands of miles away, the U.S. was not being attacked. Senator George Norris of Nebraska who opposed the declaration stated, both Great Britain and Germany have, on numerous occasions since the beginning of the war, flagrantly violated in the most serious manner the rights of neutral vessels and neutral nations under existing international law. The British carried out their blockade by stopping neutral ships of all kinds, far from Germany. International law required that they stop and search ships close to Germany s coastline, which the British declined to do in order not to fight the German navy. In order to make a convincing case for war, Wilson argued that Germany had revealed itself as a threat to democracy, peace, and, thus, to American security. The U.S. was to fight for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German people included: for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world must be made safe for democracy. Fundamentally, I would argue, Wilson believed that the U.S. and its vital interests were threatened by Germany and that the U.S. needed to defend Western Europe against Germany s conquest in order to defend the U.S. In other words, Wilson s rhetoric was idealistic but the much of the logic

7 7 behind it was realist: it was not in America s interests to have a dominant great power control Europe that was opposed to the U.S. I would argue that Wilson also acted because he believed that it was essential that the U.S. participate in any peace treaty. Wilson knew that Britain and France were imperialist powers who had only grudgingly embraced more liberal war aims under the pressure of stalemate. Wilson had sincerely tried to encourage peace negotiations before 1917 with the hope of influencing a more just and permanent settlement. By April, 1917, the only way, he concluded, that he could influence the peace settlement was by entering the War. The controversy that continues over U.S. entry is rooted in the weak legal case that Wilson had for war and in his blaming Germany and not Britain for violating international law. What s more, those who believe that the U.S. could have and should have avoided taking responsibility for Europe s troubles blame U.S. entry for much of the turmoil that followed the War, including the failed Treaty of Versailles and the coming of the Second World War. It is sometimes argued that if the U.S. had not intervened, Germany and the Allies would have had to settle for a negotiated peace, one that would have been preferable to the flawed Versailles Treaty. Personally, I doubt that. I see no reason why Germany or the Allies would have been moderate at the negotiating table. One or the other side would have won the War. Germany, we know, imposed harsh terms on both Russia and Rumania who it defeated. As bad as the Versailles Treaty was, it may well have been more moderate than what either side would have imposed on the other. In this sense, Wilson may have been right that the U.S. should be at the peace conference to try to create a stable, longterm peace, even if, in the end, he failed to achieve this. Third, what were the effects of U.S. intervention? The effects of U.S. entry into the War were decisive. The Allies suddenly had recourse to almost unlimited supplies of food, munitions,

8 8 ships, and, most importantly, money with which to fight the War. Germany was deprived of even the sliver of American trade that had slipped through neutral European countries. The U.S. Navy, which had recently surpassed the German navy to become the second largest in the world, helped the British navy protect convoys of freighters and thereby defeated the German U-boat campaign. Not a single U.S. troop ship was sunk by the U-boats. The U.S. Army took over a year to be organized, trained, and deployed in France, and the Germans had their greatest advances of the War in the spring of 1918 when they attacked in the socalled Michael or Ludendorff offensive on the Western Front. Nonetheless, the Germans lacked supplies, tanks, planes, and reserves, and beginning in July, 1918, the Americans helped the veteran British and French push back the Germans until they sued for an armistice in November. At the 11 th hour of the 11 th day of the 11 th month, the guns fell silent. Entry into the War fundamentally changed U.S. politics and society, often in troubling ways. The ambivalence about the War before April, 1917, was matched by the nationalist enthusiasm for the War once the U.S. entered. Everything German became suspect, often in silly ways, such as sauerkraut becoming Liberty Cabbage, places like New Berlin becoming Marne, and the German language, the most common language in the U.S. after English, not being taught. 100 percent Americanism was a common slogan. Some of this enthusiasm was coerced. The U.S. government created a Committee on Public Information that produced millions of pieces of propaganda, showed newsreels in theatres, and sent speakers everywhere. Germany became a monster, intent on massacre, and the focus of evil. Many Socialists, anarchists, and pacifists, otherwise law-abiding, were arrested and imprisoned, often only for their views. At the same time, much of the war enthusiasm was genuine, with Americans believing that the U.S. could win the War and, in Wilson s words, create a world safe for democracy. The War also vastly expanded the federal government: wartime powers and bureaucracy were the blueprints for the New Deal and the huge military establishment that we have known since the beginning of the Cold War.

9 9 U.S. entry put the U.S. and Woodrow Wilson in a decisive position to influence the peace treaty to conclude the War. Wilson s Fourteen Points called for self-determination, freedom of the seas, disarmament, and a League of Nations, ideals which electrified the world. It was on the basis of the Fourteen Points that Germany sought an armistice in October, 1918, and the German people overthrew their militarist imperial government in November. Tragically, the Versailles Treaty treated Germany as though it was inherently an enemy power, and the harsh treatment of Germany made the ensuing peace after the War extraordinarily difficult to maintain. Wilson compounded the tragedy by stubbornly refusing to compromise even with U.S. senators who supported the Treaty and the League of Nations but wanted modifications. Wilson thereby ensured that the opponents of the Treaty won enough votes to reject the Treaty. The U.S. never joined the League whose architect was the U.S. president. In the 1920s, there was a natural reaction against the idealism that Wilson had encouraged to fight the War. Many Americans believed that they had been misled into entering the War, or they blamed the Europeans for their difficulty in creating a stable peace in the 1920s and early 30s. Nationalist fervor led Americans to expect victory, not a Europe in which they had to be patiently involved in order to ensure a stable long term peace. U.S. entry and the disillusionment of the 1920s and early 30s had another long range effect: in the long run, looking back on this troubled history led another generation of U.S. leaders to take a diametrically opposed route to world problems after NATO, the UN, the World Trade Organization, and all of the other international organizations that define much of the world s international relations today are a product of the lessons of U.S. entry and its aftermath. Finally, are there any lessons for us today in this story from 100 years ago?

10 10 It is extremely difficult for a major economic power, especially if it is a relatively open society, to avoid involvement in the rest of the world. But being involved in the rest of the world is never easy. World politics is a complex place. It is dangerous to employ simplistic slogans to mobilize a population. The inevitable disillusionment leads to cynicism and can undermine the support in a democracy for even legitimate defense of national security or well-thought out solutions for world problems. The decision to enter in hostilities is fundamental for democracy. Wilson s decisions were complicated, fraught with legal ambiguity, and frequently not transparent. Why the U.S. was fighting the War and what our aims were crucial issues that were not debated and understood as they should have been. But we have not progressed much in this area since then; indeed, one could argue that we have regressed and desperately need to re-open issues of war and peace in our national debate. And, if we are going to be involved in the wider world, and if we are not simply to employ military solutions blindly, we need to understand what our national goals are for a better world, one in which we and as many of the world s nations as possible can live in peace and prosperity. Wilson, with all of his flaws and they were huge at least at his best had a vision for a cooperative world order. His vision failed. Later visions have been much more successful, but the challenges to those remain. We should learn from history but believe that we can also change it. Thank you.