United States considers War, 1915:

When war broke out, people in the United States tended to believe that Europeans had gone mad. They saw their nation as more sensible and above the Old World conflicts and wars. They wished their nation remain uninvolved, and this was the position of most of Congress and of the President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson.

When news of the war began arriving in the United States it was largely from British and French sources, with an anti-German point of view, including descriptions of German retaliations against Belgians. Some sympathy for Belgium arose among Americans. The British were more skilled than the Germans in explaining their reasons for going to war, and in the United States Germany was being portrayed as a militarist and autocratic nation influenced by various chauvinistic German writers such as Bernhardi and Teitschke, the nihilist Nietzsche, and other minority viewpoints made to represent the German character.

By September 1914, Germany's success in invading France, in contrast to France's failure in invading Germany, added to Germany's appearance as the aggressor, and in September, when the French rallied and drove the Germans back at the Battle of the Marne, many Americans were sympathetic with the French.

The former U.S. President, Theodore Roosevelt, a winner of the Noble Peace prize, was sorry that he was no longer President, believing he would be better than Woodrow Wilson in guiding the nation and the world, and he expressed his opinion, published The Outlook on September 23, that in the United States sympathy for Belgium was "very real," but he cautioned against U.S. intervention and described Germany as having been compelled to violate Belgian territory "by the iron law of self-preservation."

By now freedom to trade was becoming an issue. International agreements created by the Declaration of London in 1909 had attempted to clarify the issue of naval blockades during wartime. It gave belligerents the right to receive food and raw materials in wartime, and it gave belligerents the right to seize contraband: guns, shells, infantry equipment and other such equipment. The United States believed it had the right to carry on normal trade with Germany, while Britain began confiscating goods being sent to Germany - not altogether successfully. And in violation of international agreements, Britain included food being sent to Germany as contraband.

The British continued to be concerned with opinion in the United States and did what it could short of creating a serious break with the United States. Britain defended its confiscations as within the bounds of international law. It apologized for its actions against U.S. shipping, and it declared its acceptance of the Declaration of London except for a couple of "modifications," which were made by expanding the definition of contraband.

The British succeeded in cutting trade between the United States and Germany, and the U.S. economy suffered, especially the cotton industry which normally sold much of its crop to Germany. Soon, however, the United States was selling war supplies to the Allies, which alarmed those wishing the United States to remain neutral.

The Royal British Navy dominated the surface of the oceans, while the Germans had a few submarines. A German submarine sank a British merchant vessel on October 20, 1914, off the coast of Norway, after having surfaced to warn the British crew. The British navy could confiscate goods, pay for the goods and let the ship go its way. The German navy was at a disadvantage: with submarines the only way to blockade goods was to sink the ship carrying the goods.

Britain began arming its merchant ships and ordering its merchant ships to fire on surfacing submarines, which put an end to the chivalry of German submarine captains surfacing their ship to warn crews that they were about to attack. The first ships non-warships sunk without warning were the Tokomaru and Ikaria, liners belonged to an enemy power, the Japanese, sunk on January 30, 1915, in the English Channel. And other such sinkings soon followed. On February 4, Germany declared the waters around Great Britain a war zone. In that zone, German submarines had permission to sink all enemy merchant ships and the ships of neutral powers that were taking supplies to enemy powers. These measures, declared the German government, were justified because Germany was fighting for its life.

On March 1, Britain and France declared themselves free to detain and take to port any ship carrying goods to Germany. This, they explained, was in retaliation for Germany making the waters around Great Britain a war zone. Germany pursued its retaliation against the British and French blockade. In March they sank the British steamship Falaba off the coast of Africa, killing 111 people, including one American. Some in the United States spoke of the wickedness of German warfare. Some others, including Secretary of State Bryan, argued that Americans could avoid traveling on the ships of the warring nations and did so at their own risk. President Wilson did not take the position of one side or the other. He agonized over the ambiguities.

The Germans sank more ships, and on May 1, off the southwestern tip of Britain, a German submarine torpedoed the American merchant ship Gulflight, killing three Americans. That same day, a British liner, the Lusitania set sail for England. Warnings from the German embassy in Washington D.C. had been published in New York newspapers, stating that war existed between Britain and Germany and that the Lusitania, would be a legitimate target when it reached the war zone in waters adjacent to the British Isles. Various Americans who wished to sail on the Lusitania ignored the warnings. President Wilson was aware of the warning but chose not to restrict Americans from traveling on the ship.

The Lusitania was a luxury liner that had been built in part with government money and obliged to serve the country in time of war. In addition to passengers, the Lusitania was carrying munitions. When it arrived in British waters a German submarine sank it, and 1,198 people died, including 128 Americans. In Britain and the United States, people were outraged. American newspapers stated as fact that no war material had been aboard the Lusitania. The secondary explosion of munitions on board was erroneously described as a second torpedo. Newspaper editors described submarine warfare as cruel and barbaric – too barbaric ever to be employed by Americans.

In Germany, people responded with joy to the news of the Lusitania's sinking. The newspaper of Germany's Catholic Center party, the Kölnische Volkszeitung, saw the sinking as "a success of moral significance." It pointed to the English effort at blocking and starving the German people and described Germany as "more humane." It wrote:

We simply sank an English ship with passengers, who, at their own risk and responsibility, entered the zone of operations.

There was an inclination to focus on a single person as the source of evil, and many made that person Wilhelm II, known also as the Kaiser. Cartoons in U.S. newspapers depicted him as Satan and described him as bloodthirsty. Some newspaper editors called for war against Germany. The sinking of the Lusitania was a turning point in American opinion about the war. By now, the emotionally volatile Theodore Roosevelt had changed his opinion about the war, and he too called for war against Germany. Joining Roosevelt was his friend, the Republican minority leader of the U.S. Senate, Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts.

Roosevelt was hostile toward President Wilson and his Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan. While a candidate for vice president back in 1900, Roosevelt had defended the U.S. war for the Philippines while the Democrat candidate, Bryan, had vociferously opposed U.S. imperialism. Roosevelt had run against Wilson for the presidency in 1912, and Wilson had angered Roosevelt just after he had taken office in 1913 by apologizing to Colombia and offering Colombia 25 million dollars as compensation for Roosevelt's seizure of its territory: Panama. And now, in 1915, Roosevelt perceived Wilson to be continuing his streak of weakness, and, in his personal correspondence, Roosevelt called Bryan a "prize idiot" and Wilson a "jackass."

Many in the U.S. liked Roosevelt, but the majority of U.S. citizens still opposed going to war, influenced in part by their having read about the horrors of trench warfare in Europe. Many Americans looked to Wilson to keep a cool head and to keep them out of "the mess" in Europe. And a majority in Congress went along with this opinion.

President Wilson was opposed to taking the U.S. into war but he was also afraid of appearing weak, and as a good Presbyterian he was also inclined toward a moral interpretation of events. He described the sinking of the Lusitania as inhumane, and he threatened that if such sinkings continued the U.S. would respond with war. He sent Germany a measured and limited demand: that it end its submarine warfare against unarmed merchant ships. Wilson's Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan was displeased, fearing that Wilson's message to Germany would lead to war, and in June he resigned.

On August 19, in the Irish Sea, a German submarine, the U-24, sank an unarmed British liner, the Arabic, killing forty-four passengers and two U.S. citizens. Later that day, a surfaced German submarine, the U-27, shelled a cargo ship, the Nicosian, carrying mules from New Orleans to England. An armed British merchant ship, the Baralong, flying the U.S. flag, approached the submarine. Crewmen aboard the Baralong lowered the U.S. flag and raised the British flag. British marines began firing upon the Germans. Twelve submarine crewmen jumped into the sea, and the marines fired upon them, killing six. The other six fled to the Nicosian and took refuge in its engine room. The marines found them and killed all six. Germany's ambassador to Washington protested the British use of the American flag and the murder of German sailors. But it was the killing of the two Americans who had been aboard the Arabic that aroused Americans and concerned President Wilson. Wilson continued to keep what some have described as a cool head. He repeated his opposition to the United States being drawn in to "the contest" in Europe. It was, he said, the "...worse thing that could happen to the world." And he announced also that he was "too proud to fight." Wilson's words enraged Theodore Roosevelt, who had been connecting a willingness to fight with pride, and Roosevelt suggested that Wilson was a coward.

Road to War: America, 1914 - 1917, by Walter Millis, p. 79.

Wilson favored neutrality, but he was pursuing a course that can be described as less than commanding. He was biased, believing that Britain represented democracy and Germany autocracy, and he accepted the view of his aide, Colonel House, that if Germany won the war it would alter the course of civilization and "make the United States a military nation." [note] The United States was on a course toward joining the war on the side of those with whom they traded and, in the case of Britain, had a common language. Wilson could have been more forceful in upholding his nation's right to trade with Germany, including delivering food. In exchange for deliveries of food he probably could have won an end to the sinking merchant and passenger ships. And a little more force might have prevented the greater violence that followed.

Following the sinking of the Arabic, Wilson sent an appeal to Germany. Kaiser Wilhelm was attached to his navy and concerned about its reputation and his honor. The killing of civilians, he said, appauled him. In September, the Kaiser responded to Wilson's appeal by ordering submarines to return to surfacing to war merchant ships that they were attacking. Germany's admirals refused and withdraw their submarines from active duty. Germany's Admiral Tirpitz as annoyed at what he thought was the Kaiser's timidity. He wished Wilhelm would stop interfering in the war effort, and he favored transferring command of the government to Field Marshall Paul von Hindenburg.

Thanks to the Kaiser, Wilson had scored a diplomatic victory. Meanwhile the issue of preparedness for war was being raised – led by Roosevelt. Roosevelt claimed that a better-armed Britain would have been able to deter Germany in August 1914. He warned that if the United States failed to make adequate preparations for war, what had happened to the Belgian cities of Antwerp and Brussels would surely happen to cities from New York to San Francisco – as if Germany, bogged down just a short distance from its own border on the Western Front was not finding war in Europe enough of a challenge.

Military preparedness was more popular than actually going to war, and President Wilson took up the challenge, presenting to Congress on December 7, 1915, a program to substantially increase the size of the U.S. Army and Navy. Pacifists to the left of Wilson, who had been his political allies, became alarmed. A majority in Congress supported Wilson's program, while a few of the more aggressive and partisan of the Republicans joined Roosevelt in claiming that Wilson's proposals were not enough.

Recommended Books

Kaiser Wilhelm II, Chapter 8, by Christopher M. Clark, 2000.

The First World War: A Complete History, by Martin Gilbert, 1996.

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The United States Considers War in 1915