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The first world war is really the beginning point of the modern American Army.
A soldier today would recognize the battlefield of the first world war
where as a soldier in say even as late as the 1890s would be very confused
so it's really the origin point of what we consider modern conventional warfare
One of the reasons why the American public has such a difficulty
understanding the war is because they don't really know why we joined
There is no great spark there is no Pearl Harbor moment what happens is the war breaks
out in August of 1914 it's a conflict between the great European empires it is
an outgrowth of an international diplomatic system that is based upon
competition that we want to stay out of American relations with Europe were very
different than they are today we had a much closer connection with the French
stemming from both of our revolutions the relations between the United States
and the rest of the continent were fairly strained. There are a lot of
divisions this is a time when a lot of Americans are immigrants either first or
second generation and they hold a lot of ties to Europe
President Woodrow Wilson decided to support a position of neutrality he argued that the
United States as a neutral country was free to essentially go about its business
trading with either side and that we would not show favor to one or the other
Wilson's call to the American public is that he wanted them to be neutral in
thought as well as deed. The British have a very different idea of this.
They very quickly establish a blockade of Germany
So there is actually a very natural evolution of American relations in terms of economics during the war where we
start supplying the Allies and have a much larger trade relationship with the
Allies than we do with the Central Powers by virtue of the blockade and
also by virtue of the sophisticated economic system already operating within Britain.
They start running out of money they start loaning giving huge loans to
their allies over the course of the war what we see is that the United States
starts to fill that gap and starts to provide more and more credit to the
Allies and in fact the United States by the time will you go into the war has
supplanted Great Britain as the international creditor
It's going to impact Wilson's thinking is going to give him influence over what
the Allies do
When he talks about advocating for peace without victory he actually means a
peace based upon mutual agreement or one side does not gain to the disadvantage
of another that in fact they all come together and create an equitable peace
He changes due to what he perceives as the growing threat of Imperial Germany
Probably the most important action that Germany takes that leads directly to the
United States being involved in the war is the usage of what's called
unrestricted submarine warfare
it is a type of commerce rating if a combatant
was going to target an enemy's commerce typically what you would do is you would
intercept the vessel on the high seas you would stop it you would indicate
that you were going to sink it and you would allow the crew to depart
One of the problems with this is that the U-boats are very vulnerable on the
surface and the British are going to start arming merchant vessels
So the Germans decide instead that they're going to declare that any vessels
found within a certain zone around the British Isles are fair game
they will not surface they will go ahead and just fire upon them and sink them
and this is seen as as really an affront to international law the most famous
thinking is of course the Lusitania
when the Germans sank the Lusitania
killing over a thousand people including over 100 Americans
the American public is horrified President Wilson is very angry of course
several months later the Germans sink another vessel and killing a couple more Americans
and the United States threatens to suspend diplomatic relations with Germany
Germany at this point makes a decision makes a strategic decision
that they are not willing to risk war against the United States at
this point so in fact they make a pledge and they agree that they will suspend
unrestricted submarine warfare and they do.
Circumstances are going to change very rapidly in 1917
The Germans looking at the strategic situation that they're
facing in the war make a determination. The German Navy essentially argued that
if they resumed unrestricted sub or fair they can sink enough British shipping to
knock the British out of the war before the United States can transport an army to Europe
this kind of sets in motion the events that are going to lead to the United States declaring war.
The other big element will be the Zimmermann telegram
So the German Foreign Office starts to think about ways how this anticipated
American intervention can be counteracted. They come up with Mexico.
Mexico was a neutral country at the time was riven by civil war but nevertheless it was a
neutral country so the German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmerman decides to
make an alliance offer to Mexico and he tells the Mexicans we intend to
declare unrestricted submarine warfare. If the United States indeed then
declares war against us we make you an offer
you go ahead declare war on the United States we'll help you we'll give you
money some other unspecified support the Germans were then hoping well even if
the United States declares war on us all their troops will be tied up on the
border with Mexico and therefore this American intervention into the war won't matter.
Normally, and in peacetime, they would have sent this message by submarine cable
The problem was that in 1914 when the war broke out the Royal
Navy had retrieved this German submarine cable and had destroyed it.
They came up with a pretty ingenious solution they enlisted the help of the Americans.
There was still an American Embassy in Berlin, so the German Foreign Office approached
the American Embassy in Berlin and asked them, " well, you know, can you help us we
have an important message for our ambassador in Washington and we can't relay
this by cable because the evil british have cut that cable?"
So the American embassy then sent this message on their own cables, from Berlin, to the
State Department Washington DC not knowing what was in there.
Well what neither the Americans nor the Germans knew was that the British was
intercepting all American traffic that was going through London as this message
was routed through the American Embassy in London.
They wanted to know what the Americans were thinking you know there were neutrals but an important neutral
so this Zimmermann telegram as it then became known
almost by accident landed in the lap of British naval intelligence they
decrypted it they saw very quickly this is not an American message this is a
German message, a very interesting German message, they see this as very explosive
and they would like to give this to the Americans, but they can't do it at this
point because the Americans would probably ask, "this is very interesting
but where did you get this message from?" and the British can't really say, "well,
you know, we're routinely reading your traffic." So they also then retrieve the
second message that the German ambassador from Washington sends to Mexico City.
This is the copy they then give the American ambassador in London
with the not entirely true, but also not untrue, explanation that this message was obtained in Mexico City.
Wilson had still viewed the international system as the
main culprit for the war, however, he looks at unrestricted submarine warfare
he looks at the Zimmermann telegram, he looks at Germany's militaristic nature
and he sees in Germany an autocracy and he sees Germany as a threat to
international peace, he sees Germany as a threat to democracy.
In Wilson's war message, he specifies very clearly that the United States is going to wage war
against the government of Imperial Germany not against the German people
and that we are waging war against what he sees as an autocratic, militaristic
dictatorial regime that is a a threat to international peace,
and that the German government has to be checked. So the object is not necessarily
to defeat the German people. It's not to annihilate Germany as a country. It is to
defeat and overthrow German autocratic regime and make it so that democracy can spread.