#605 World War I

President Woodrow Wilson spoke before a joint session of Congress on 2 April 1917.

Preparation:

• Assignment #605.

Background on Wilson:

• From 1860 to 1912, only one Democrat had been elected president (Grover Cleveland in 1884 and 1892).
• Woodrow Wilson elected 1912 with less than 50% of vote after Republicans split between the Progressive Party (Theodore Roosevelt) and the Republican Party (William Taft).
• Wilson was a Democrat from New Jersey, but he won the support of many Progressives because he opposed political machines.
• As President, he signed some progressive reforms, like the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, and the creation of the Federal Trade Commission.
• However, he invited controversy because of his views on race. He supported segregation, and even had a screening of “Birth of a Nation” (a film that celebrated the KKK) in the White House.
• In 1914, President Wilson faced the greatest foreign policy challenge of his administration: the outbreak of the Great War in Europe.​

How did WWI begin?
Source: “How and why did the First World War start?” The Week (31 May 2016).

As you read the following passage, consider:

• How and why could a teenage assassin operating on the margins of Europe spark a "World War"?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of the United States involving itself in this conflict?

​

The simplest answer is that the immediate cause was the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the archduke of Austria-Hungary. His death at the hands of Gavrilo Princip – a Serbian nationalist with ties to the secretive military group known as the Black Hand – propelled the major European military powers towards war.

The events that led up to the assassination are significantly more complicated, but most scholars agree that the gradual emergence of a group of alliances between major powers was partly to blame for the descent into war.

By 1914, those alliances resulted in the six major powers of Europe coalescing into two broad groups: Britain, France and Russia formed the Triple Entente, while Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy comprised the Triple Alliance.

As these countries came to each other's aid after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, their declarations of war produced a domino effect. These are some  key developments:

• June 28, 1914 - Gavrilo Princip assassinates Franz Ferdinand.
• July 28, 1914 - Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia.
• August 2, 1914 - Ottoman Empire (Turkey) and Germany sign a secret treaty of alliance.
• August 3, 1914 - Germany declares war on France.
• August 4, 1914 - Germany invades Belgium, leading Britain to declare war on Germany.
• August 10, 1914 - Austria-Hungary invades Russia.

As the war progressed, further acts of aggression drew other countries, including the United States, into the conflict. Many others, including Australia, India and most African colonies, fought at the behest of their imperial rulers.
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The Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophia moments before their assassination in 1914.

Source: Encyclopedia Britannica.

Wilson: For and Against Entry

As you read each passage, consider:

• What does Wilson accuse Germany of doing? Do you think this is a good reason to go to war? What additional information would you need to have before making a decision?
• Re-read the last two paragraphs of the 1917 speech. Why do you think Wilson added these paragraphs? How do you think these words made Americans feel?
• Review the Constitutional process for declaring war. What role does the president play in that process?

​Document A: President Woodrow Wilson, in a speech before Congress, August 19, 1914.

The people of the United States are drawn from many nations, and chiefly from the nations now at war. It is natural and inevitable that some will wish one nation, others another, to succeed in the momentous struggle.

Such divisions among us would be fatal to our peace of mind and might seriously stand in the way of our duty as the one great nation at peace, the one nation ready to play a part of mediator and counselor of peace.

The United States must be neutral in fact, as well as in name, during these days that are to try men's souls. We must be impartial in thought, as well as action.

Document B: President Woodrow Wilson, in a speech before Congress, April 2, 1917.

Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people cannot be. The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind.

The German policy has swept every restriction aside. Ships of every kind, whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, their destination, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom of the ocean without warning. American ships have been sunk, American lives taken.

I advise that the Congress declare the recent actions of the Imperial German Government to be, in fact, nothing less than war against the Government and people of the United States.

Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved.

The world must be made safe for democracy. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek not material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of
the champions of the rights of mankind.

It is a fearful, but right thing to lead this great peaceful people to war. We shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts – for democracy, for the right of [people] to have a voice in their own government, for the rights and liberties of small nations.

A Historian's View
Source: Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States (New York: HarperCollins, 2003).

Consider:

• How did your prediction about historical interpretation match Zinn’s account? Was it similar? Different? How so?
• Why does Zinn suggest that Wilson had a “flimsy” case for war? What might have been a more compelling reason in Zinn’s view?
• What evidence does Zinn provide to support his claims that the United States was motivated by other reasons (besides German attacks on U.S. ships)?
• Do you find Zinn’s argument convincing? Why or why not?

President Woodrow Wilson had promised that the United States would stay neutral in the war. . . . But in April of 1917, the Germans had announced they would have their submarines sink any ship bringing supplies to their enemies; and they had sunk a number of merchant vessels. Wilson now said he must stand by the right of Americans to travel on merchant ships in the war zone. . . .

As Richard Hofstadter points out (The American Political Tradition): “This was rationalization of the flimsiest sort. . . . The British had also been intruding on the rights of American citizens on the high seas, but Wilson was not suggesting we go to war with them. . . .

The United States claimed the Lusitania carried an innocent cargo, and therefore the torpedoing was a monstrous German atrocity. Actually, the Lusitania was heavily armed: it carried 1,248 cases of 3-inch shells, 4,927 boxes of cartridges (1,000 rounds in each box), and 2,000 more cases of small-arms ammunition. . . . The British and American governments lied about the cargo. . . .

Prosperity depended much on foreign markets, it was believed by the leaders of the country. In 1897, private foreign investments of the United States amounted to $700 million dollars. By 1914, they were $3.5 billion. . . .

With World War I, England became more and more a market for American goods and for loans at interest. J.P. Morgan and Company acted as agents for the Allies and when, in 1915, Wilson lifted the ban on private bank loans to the Allies, Morgan could now begin lending money in such great amounts as to both make great profit and tie American finance closely to the interest of a British victory in the war against Germany.

Homework: #606.