Why did America intervene in WW1?
Re: Why did America intervene in WW1?
National Pride. The German were not be deferential to the US and treating like a tin pot state. The blatantly lied and broke US trust over the telegram stuff, and we warned about sinking shipping and carried on. To a large extent this sort of behavior was unacceptable, the US had a real ego, other states were meant to understand and not tread blatantly on US interests. Like Japan taking control in china against the US "open door" policy. The US had a right to trade and sail on the sea, if the Germans didnt accept that what was the US going to do just take that or assert it's strength? I'm rambling but my point is the US isnt that different from the other states in 1914, when national pride insisted that national interests had to protected. It was a stub to the US national honor, that it's interests has to be respected, ultimately the only way was force. Not the only factor, but a psychological factor, also the administration was sick of being lied to.
Re: Why did America intervene in WW1?
I’ve never quite understood what the ‘provocation’ actually was. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. They didn’t send a telegram to Mexico about bombing Pearl Harbor.The United states has suffered worse provocations without using them as a casus belli.
Beyond – the navy planners were just filing plans to have them. The German navy had a habit of making war plans that were more paperwork than real.I am currently watching Strachan's "The First World War" series and he said that in 1903, the German Navy was asked to come up with a plan for a naval assault on the Eastern Seaboard of the US, including landing German troops in Boston and New York! How's that for delusionary
Re: Why did America intervene in WW1?
It is this behavior by Wilson, Glen, which makes me suspect he was merely bidding his time until "the Germans did something intolerable." In the Summer of 1916 the politics of the moment dictated Wilson be the man who kept us out of war (but allowed the nation to profit to the extent it pulled out of the recession it had been in since his inauguration).
Re: Why did America intervene in WW1?
I've no doubt that Wilson made a pretext out of the Zimmerman Telegram. Democracies don't go to war over telegrams; they go to war over tangible actions. Since Mexico was not going to war with the US under any circumstances, it is specious for Wilson to pretend that Zimmerman's folly posed any type of security threat to the United States - which would be the only valid reason for war. No security threat = pretext. And since Wilson had sought another pretext than unrestricted submarine warfare, he proves that he himself did not view the U-boats as a cause for war.
As it was a pretext, then your theory that the Americans and the British collaborated to that end is feasible, though only a footnote because it is unprovable.
As it was a pretext, then your theory that the Americans and the British collaborated to that end is feasible, though only a footnote because it is unprovable.
Re: Why did America intervene in WW1?
Certainly it is unproveable given these are the kinds of things few people write down. By the same token careful examination of the same evidence can lead to new understanding of why events unfolded as they did.
Wilson is publically portrayed as a man who is too idealistic to succeed. During the war he tells Europe's leaders he will negotiate a peace without winners, and stands publically by America's freedom of the seas and right to trade with all nations. But he makes no demand on Britain for the American ships and cargos seized simply because they were not in route to Britain or France. In the spring of 1915 he decries the loss of life from the Lusitania and forces Germany to abandon its rather succcessful uboat campaign, the only counter the Fatherland has to Britain's increasingly draconian distant blockade. Flipping to the other side without damaging trade relations with the Allies, In the summer of 1916, he boards the presidential yacht to personally escort the experimental cargo submarine Deutschland to international waters, foiling the British destroyers waiting for it just beyond in the open ocean off Chesapeake Bay. But while his is returning to Washington via the Potomac, he is informed that Black Tom has blown up and the cause of the explosions are German agents operating out of the German Consulate. He directs the federal investigators in New York to tell the Times that it was an industrial accident, not German sabotage. His presidential campaign platform for the election two and a half months later is simply that he's the man who kept us out of war.
The moment his second term was secured he began accellerating American preparations for joining the Allies. In January, 1917 Pershing's Punitive Expedition to Mexico is recalled to the United States. Also in January the Zimmerman Telegram is sent to Bernsdorff in New York, via the the AT&T Cable tapped by Room 40. Bernsdorff forwards it to Mexico's German Ambassador via the same cable system. In February Germany announces it's USW program, a fact already known to the gents in Room 40 in January due to the Zimmerman Telegram. The first of March the infamous telegram is printed in newspapers across the United States. It is unlikely all Wilson knew is what he read in the Times.
He demanded war on 4 April,1917 because the Germans announced a return to unrestricted submarine warfare against Allied shipping around the British Isles two months earlier, and because a month earlier the national newspapers printed a telegram from the tapped cable Wilson gave to Germany which had the German Foreign Secretary asking the President of Mexico to make war on the United States. Did Wilson have a slow fuse or was he gauging public support before taking action?
Wilson is publically portrayed as a man who is too idealistic to succeed. During the war he tells Europe's leaders he will negotiate a peace without winners, and stands publically by America's freedom of the seas and right to trade with all nations. But he makes no demand on Britain for the American ships and cargos seized simply because they were not in route to Britain or France. In the spring of 1915 he decries the loss of life from the Lusitania and forces Germany to abandon its rather succcessful uboat campaign, the only counter the Fatherland has to Britain's increasingly draconian distant blockade. Flipping to the other side without damaging trade relations with the Allies, In the summer of 1916, he boards the presidential yacht to personally escort the experimental cargo submarine Deutschland to international waters, foiling the British destroyers waiting for it just beyond in the open ocean off Chesapeake Bay. But while his is returning to Washington via the Potomac, he is informed that Black Tom has blown up and the cause of the explosions are German agents operating out of the German Consulate. He directs the federal investigators in New York to tell the Times that it was an industrial accident, not German sabotage. His presidential campaign platform for the election two and a half months later is simply that he's the man who kept us out of war.
The moment his second term was secured he began accellerating American preparations for joining the Allies. In January, 1917 Pershing's Punitive Expedition to Mexico is recalled to the United States. Also in January the Zimmerman Telegram is sent to Bernsdorff in New York, via the the AT&T Cable tapped by Room 40. Bernsdorff forwards it to Mexico's German Ambassador via the same cable system. In February Germany announces it's USW program, a fact already known to the gents in Room 40 in January due to the Zimmerman Telegram. The first of March the infamous telegram is printed in newspapers across the United States. It is unlikely all Wilson knew is what he read in the Times.
He demanded war on 4 April,1917 because the Germans announced a return to unrestricted submarine warfare against Allied shipping around the British Isles two months earlier, and because a month earlier the national newspapers printed a telegram from the tapped cable Wilson gave to Germany which had the German Foreign Secretary asking the President of Mexico to make war on the United States. Did Wilson have a slow fuse or was he gauging public support before taking action?