Help! First World War..?

Question

The United States entered the first First World War not "to make the world safe for democracy" as President Wilson claimed, but to safeguard American economic interests. Assess the validity of this statement.

Answer 1

they want mexico to join them and the US didnt like it

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

Mostly True.

While making the world safe for Democracy was a laudable goal, and while it's true that the main Allied powers (Great Britain, France, and the United States) were Democracies, and the main Central Powers (Germany, Turkey, and Austria-Hungary) were Autocratic, the basic fact of the matter is the United States went to war to defend our trading partners and cultural allies, and to ensure that commerce on the high seas was available to all countries. Making the world safe for Democracy does make better headlines, however.

When reviewing the earlier neutrality agreements of the Wilson administration, the main points were essentially used as a safeguard for American commerce and American interests. A vast majority of America's trading partners happened to be on the Allied side, and common ancestry of much of the US population provided large amounts of sympathy for France and Britain. As a result of a British blockade of the continent, very little trading was done with the Germans or Turks.

While the sinking of the Lusitania was a flashpoint for entry into the war, it should be noted that the Lusitania did actually contain the contraband weapons that the Germans claimed it did. Whether the Americans were aware of this fact is in dispute, but recent exploration of the sunken ship shows rows of explosives that somehow escaped the German torpedos.

While I'm not saying that the United States entered the war for purely financial and trading reasons, the financial and commercial interests of the United States put it on a collision course with two groups that were in a death struggle. It was naive for us to think that we would not be pulled into the fight if we got too close, which in fact, we did.

Answer 4

I thought it was because we were going to remain neutral but then we found out that Mexico had gotten a letter from the Axis saying that they could have Texas back so we went to war.

Answer 5

The United States so far had pursued a policy of isolation, avoiding participation in the conflict whilst trying to broker a peace. This resulted in an increase in tensions with both Berlin and London. When a German U-boat sank the British liner Lusitania in 1915, a large passenger liner with 128 Americans aboard, the United States President Woodrow Wilson vowed "America was too proud to fight", and demanded an end to attacks on passenger ships. Germany complied. Wilson unsuccessfully tried to mediate a compromise settlement. Wilson also repeatedly warned that America would not tolerate unrestricted submarine warfare, as it was in violation to American ideas of human rights. Wilson was under great pressure from former president Teddy Roosevelt, who denounced German "piracy" and Wilson's cowardice. In January 1917, the Germans announced they would resume unrestricted submarine warfare. Berlin's proposal to Mexico to join the war as Germany's ally against the U.S. was exposed in February, angering American opinion. (see Zimmermann Telegram). After German submarines attacked several American merchant ships, sinking three, Wilson requested that Congress declare war on Germany, which it did on April 6, 1917.[10] The U.S. House of Representatives approved the war resolution 373-50, the U.S. Senate 82-6, with opposition coming especially from German American districts such as Wisconsin. The U.S. declared war on Austria-Hungary in December 1917.

The United States was never formally a member of the Allies but an "Associated Power". Significant numbers of fresh American troops arrived in Europe in the summer of 1918, arriving at the rate of around 10,000 men per day. Germany miscalculated that it would be many more months before large numbers of American troops could be sent to Europe, and that, in any event, the U-boat offensive would prevent their arrival. In fact, not a single American infantryman lost his life due to German U-boat activity[citation needed].

The United States Navy sent a battleship group to Scapa Flow to join with the British Grand Fleet, several destroyers to Queenstown, Ireland, and several submarines to the Azores and to Bantry Bay, Ireland, to help guard convoys. Several regiments of U.S. Marines were also dispatched to France. However, it would be some time before the United States would be able to contribute significant personnel to the Western and Italian fronts.

The British and French wanted the United States to send its infantry to reinforce their troops already on the battle lines, and not waste scarce shipping on bringing over supplies. Because of this, the Americans primarily used British and French artillery, aircraft and tanks. However, General John J. Pershing, American Expeditionary Force (AEF) commander, refused to break up American units to be used as reinforcements for British Empire and French units (though he did allow African American combat units to be used by the French). Pershing ordered the use of frontal assaults, which had been discarded by that time by British Empire and French commanders because of the large loss of life sustained throughout the war.
Economics and manpower issues
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased for three Allies (Britain, Italy, and U.S.), but decreased in France and Russia, in neutral Netherlands, and in the main three Central Powers. The shrinkage in GDP in Austria, Russia, France, and the Ottoman Empire reached 30 to 40%. In Austria, for example, most of the pigs were slaughtered and, at war’s end, there was no meat.

All nations had increases in the government’s share of GDP, surpassing fifty percent in both Germany and France and nearly reaching fifty percent in Britain. To pay for purchases in the United States, Britain cashed in its massive investments in American railroads and then began borrowing heavily on Wall Street. President Wilson was on the verge of cutting off the loans in late 1916, but with war imminent with Germany, he allowed a massive increase in U.S. government lending to the Allies. After 1919, the U.S. demanded repayment of these loans, which, in part, were funded by German reparations, which, in turn, were supported by American loans to Germany. This circular system collapsed in 1931 and the loans were never repaid.

One of the most dramatic effects was the expansion of governmental powers and responsibilities in Britain, France, the United States, and the Dominions of the British Empire. In order to harness all the power of their societies, new government ministries and powers were created. New taxes were levied and laws enacted, all designed to bolster the war effort; many of which have lasted to this day.

At the same time, the war strained the abilities of the formerly large and bureaucratised governments such as in Austria-Hungary and Germany. Here, however, the long-term effects were clouded by the defeat of these governments.

Families were altered by the departure of many men. With the death or absence of the primary wage earner, women were forced into the workforce in unprecedented numbers. At the same time, industry needed to replace the lost laborers sent to war. This aided the struggle for voting rights for women.

As the war slowly turned into a war of attrition, conscription was implemented in some countries. This issue was particularly explosive in Canada and Australia. In the former it opened a political gap between French-Canadians — who claimed their true loyalty was to Canada and not the British Empire — and the English-speaking majority who saw the war as a duty to both Britain and Canada. Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden pushed through a Military Service Act that caused the Conscription Crisis of 1917. In Australia, a sustained pro-conscription campaign by Prime Minister Billy Hughes, caused a split in the Australian Labor Party and Hughes formed the Nationalist Party of Australia in 1917 to pursue the matter. Nevertheless, the labour movement, the Catholic Church and Irish nationalist expatriates successfully opposed Hughes' push to introduce conscription, which was rejected in two plebiscites.

In Britain, rationing was finally imposed in early 1918 and was limited to meat, sugar and fats (butter and oleo), but not bread. The new system worked smoothly. From 1914 to 1918 trade union membership doubled, from a little over four million to a little over eight million. Work stoppages and strikes became frequent in 1917-18 as the unions expressed grievances regarding prices, liquor control, pay disputes, “dilution”, fatigue from overtime and from Sunday work, and inadequate housing. Conscription put into uniform nearly every physically fit man, six million out of ten million eligible in Britain. Of these, about 750,000 lost their lives and 1,700,000 were wounded. Most deaths were to young unmarried men; however, 160,000 wives lost husbands and 300,000 children lost fathers. [Havighurst p 134–5]