American Involvement in World War One

When the War began in 1914, the United States took a neutrality stance and continued to trade with the countries on both sides of the conflict. Although very quickly the Germans began to implement their war policy of Unrestricted submarine warfare. Where they would use U-Boats to attack a ship that wasn’t German which included ships with American civilians inside. This caused the sinking of British ship Lusitania which was a civilian ship was shot down by German U-Boats and the ship was carrying 128 American.

This caused Woodrow Wilson the American president at the time to send a strongly worded letter to Kaiser Wilhelm the leader of Germany at the time. This lead to strict regulation on the use of U-Boat to the point that it wasn’t worth using. This lasted about two years but then the military higher-ups convinced the government to reinstate the U-Boat attacks, which they did.

Later on, during the war, Germany decided to reinstate the U-Boat attacks saying that it was not worth the disadvantage they got while fighting just to please the United States. Saying We have been challenged to fight to the end. We accept the challenge. We stake everything, and we shall be victorious. This increased tensions between Germany and the United States and it pushed the US closer to the Triple Entente. What pushed them over the cliff was when they offered to help mexico take over the land that the US had taken from them in the past. The message was intercepted by Britain and they relayed the information to the US ambassador in London.

This was considered unacceptable and US president Woodrow Wilson asked congress to give him permission to join the war. Soon after  the Germans lost the war, this was maybe the biggest mistake they made during the war!

4 thoughts on “American Involvement in World War One”

  1. One reason the American public found the Zimmerman Telegram very alarming would have to do with a very important belief called Manifest Destiny. It was belief brought up in the 1840s that America was destined by God to expand westward. It was also used to justify the wars against Mexico. It’s much easier to see from this why many Americans and the President were angered by the telegram. Some Historians find it one of the major reasons why the US joined WW1.

  2. You wrote a good summary describing the lead-up to the US; entry in WWI. I like the reference to Wilson’s communications with Kaiser Wilhelm, as that provided context regarding the American reaction. As you discussed Woodrow Wilson’s statements and actions during the war, it would’ve also been helpful for the reader to see the German point of view. Perhaps you could’ve added declarations made by the Kaiser or the German ambassador.

  3. I think that you show good historical context and do a good job presenting the information in consecutive order. I think the switching between historical perspectives could be shown slightly differently but other than that I think they are good perspectives.

  4. In what ways might the chronology of information presented be more clear? It seems a bit jumpy as written.

    Other than indirect mention of Wilson and Kaiser, there does not seem to be a focus on historical perspectives. What was the goal of this blog post in relation to the assignment? What are some possible ways of making perspective more explicit?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *