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Despite the fact that Wilson had just won re-election in 1916
based on a platform of keeping the United States out of war,
by april...
...by april of...
...nineteen...
...seventeen,
the administration had decided that Germany had gone too far, and in
particular had gone too far with the unrestricted submarine warfare
so this right over here is a picture of President Wilson on april second
1917 giving a war message to Congress as to why the U.S.
needs to declare
war on Germany,
and april fourth
Congress passes the resolution to declare war, and the President
approves it on april sixth, so by early april
the United States
was at
war with Germany. Which is a good time to start thinking about why did all of this happen.
Now, the things that are typically cited, and these are the things that are
uh... inflamed public opinion in the U.S. and that many of which were cited
by President Woodrow Wilson,
and in this tutorial, that this is part of, a kind of can of men at work,
I've put the entire text of his speech, which I highly recommend reading,
to see all of the things that President Wilson cited in his speech.
But just as a summary of that, the things that tend to get cited most often
are the unrestricted submarine warfare,
on the part of Germany,
unrestricted...
...submarine...
...warfare, and particular cases are, the most cited example of that is the sinking of
the Lusitania.
The Germans stopped doing that for a little under two years, but then
as we enter into 1917
they began doing it again.
And...
it also made the Americans quite angry to realize that the Germans were trying
to enside the Mexicans against them, so you have
the Zimmermann...
you have the Zimmermann telegram
the Zimmermann..
...telegram,
is also a reason that the Wilson administration and why people
in general were
fairly angry about things.
Now on top of that
there were, there were atrocities committed by the Germans in their march
through Belgium as they were trying to execute on the Schlieffen plan.
So belgian..
...belgian...
...atrocities, and these were early in the war, at nineteen forty, which
immediately made many Americans kind of not like what's going on,
belgian atrocities.
And to put on top of that, the British were able to
leverage the belgian atrocities, to fairly, to execute...
uh...a fairly effective propaganda campaign uh... in America.
Now on top of that, and this is something that Wilson
speaks very strongly about in his speech, is the notion of fighting for Democracy
fighting...
...for...
...fighting for Democracy.
And what you have here, and in the First World War,
the central powers, you're talking about the German Empire, you're talking about the
Austro-hungarians,
these are monarchies, these are, emperors were controlling it, and even
though the UK, the United Kingdom was nominally a kingdom
it was really a democracy,
at least for those who could vote, we're not talking about the entire British Empire.
So the UK...
is functionally a democracy,
...democratic...
and so was the third: French republic.
...and so was...
...and so was France.
So there's this argument that the U.S.
is fighting for
the represent... the representation of people.
Now,
there is a more cynical argument, that some people have made, and I think it's
reasonable to give that due time,
and one of the cynical arguments, or the more cynical arguments, is that the U.S.
had close financial and trade ties
to Britain, not to mention cultural ties,
...financial ties to...
...the British.
On top of that
you have very successful British propaganda
the... one talking about the atrocities in Belgium, which did actually happen
but the British
were able to exploit this as a propaganda machine,
...successful propaganda, but they also spread
rumors that after the sinking of the Lusitania, that
the Germans had their school's children celebrating, and these were all made up,
...propaganda.
And then
a more cynical view of why the U.S. entered the war,
and this is true of probably most wars,
is that there's a lot of
lobbying on the part of war profiteers.
War...
...profiteers. In fact in little orphan Annie Daddy Warbucks, the main reason why
his last name is "Warbucks" is because he made...
...he made his fortune
as a war profiteer during World War One. War profiteers these are people who
might be selling arms to
the Allies, or who might sell arms to the U.S. Government if the U.S. were to get
into a war, that might somehow supply the troops and includes
uh... potentially focus on Wall Street, there were significant lending to the Allies
and mainly the Allies, not to the central power,
and so the view is that the Allies win, those loans are going to be made good.
And I have the entire text of the speech from...
..senator George Norris who was one of five senators, oh sorry... one of six senators
to vote against the resolution to go to war, there were fifty represent...
fifty representatives who also voted against it, this is a little excerpt but also
in this tutorial I have the full text of the speech in a highly, highly, highly
uh... recommended reading that, along with Wilson's text of his speech
to Congress in his war... in his war message.
But I'll just read this part because it does, I think,
point out that the U.S. from the beginning did have by the seas
that were more pro-British, and the so this is part of the speech:
"The reason given by the President and asking Congress to declare
war against Germany
is that the German government has declared certain war zones within which,
by the use of submarines, she sinks without notice american ships and
destroys american lives.
The first war zone was declared by Great Britain.
She gave us and the world notice of it on the fourth day of november 1914.
The zone became effective november fifth 1914, this zone so declared
by Great Britain covered the whole of the North Sea.
The first german war zone was declared on the fourth day of february 1915,
just three months after the british war zone was declared
Germany gave fifteen days notice of the establishment of her zone which became
effective on the eighteenth day of february 1915.
The german war zone covered the english channel
and the high sea waters around the british isles.
It is unnecessary to cite authority to show that both of these orders
declaring military zones were illegal and contrary to international law.
It is sufficient to say
that our government has officially declared both of them to be illegal.
and has officially protested against both of them.
The only difference
is that in the case of Germany we have persisted in our protest
while in the case of England we have submitted". I encourage you once again
to read to read the text of both Wilson's speech
and...
uh... and...
...and senator Norris's speech
and come up to your... with your own decisions,
there might be a little bit of both.