United States during World war 1
The United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, nearly three years after World War I started.
A ceasefire and Armistice was declared on November 11, 1918.
Before entering the war, the U.S. had remained neutral, though it had been an important supplier to the United Kingdom, France, and the other Allied powers.
The U.S. made its major contributions in terms of supplies, raw materials, and money, starting in 1917.
American soldiers under General of the Armies John Pershing, Commander-in-Chief of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), arrived at the rate of 10,000 men a day on the Western Front in the summer of 1918. During the war, the U.S. mobilized over 4 million military personnel and suffered 110,000 deaths, including around 45,000 who died due to the 1918 Spanish influenza outbreak (30,000 before they even reached France).
The war saw a dramatic expansion of the United States government in an effort to harness the war effort and a significant increase in the size of the U.S. Armed Forces.
After a relatively slow start in mobilizing the economy and labor force, by spring 1918, the nation was poised to play a role in the conflict.
Under the leadership of President Woodrow Wilson, the war represented the climax of the Progressive Era as it sought to bring reform and democracy to the world, although there was substantial public opposition to U.S. entry into the war.
Contents 1 Entry 2 Neutrality 3 Public opinion 4 Preparedness movement 4.1 Democrats respond 4.2 National debate 5 War declared 6 Home front 6.1 Food 6.2 Finance 6.3 Labor 6.3.1 Women and labor 6.4 Propaganda 6.5 Children 7 American military 7.1 Women in the U.S. military 7.2 Impact of US forces on the war 8 After the war 9 See also 10 References 11 Further reading 11.1 Historiography and memory 12 External links Entry Main article:
American entry into World War I
The American entry into World War I came on April 6, 1917, after a year-long effort by President Woodrow Wilson to get the United States into the war.
Apart from an Anglophile element urging early support for the British, American public opinion sentiment for neutrality was particularly strong among Irish Americans, German Americans, and Scandinavian Americans, as well as among church leaders and among women in general.
On the other hand, even before World War, I had broken out, American opinion had been more negative toward Germany than towards any other country in Europe.
Over time, especially after reports of atrocities in Belgium in 1914 and following the sinking of the passenger liner RMS Lusitania in 1915, the American people increasingly came to see Germany as the aggressor.
1917 political cartoon about the Zimmermann Telegram published in the Dallas Morning News As U.S. President, it was Wilson who made the key policy decisions over foreign affairs: while the country was at peace, the domestic economy ran on a laissez-faire basis, with American banks making huge loans to Britain and France — funds that were in large part used to buy munitions, raw materials, and food from across the Atlantic.
Until 1917, Wilson made minimal preparations for a land war and kept the United States Army on a small peacetime footing, despite increasing demands for enhanced preparedness.
He did, however, expand the United States Navy.
In 1917, with the Russian Revolution and widespread disillusionment over the war, and with Britain and France low on credit, Germany appeared to have the upper hand in Europe,
while the Ottoman Empire clung to its possessions in the Middle East. In the same year, Germany decided to resume unrestricted submarine warfare against any vessel approaching British waters; this attempt to starve Britain into surrender was balanced against the knowledge that it would almost certainly bring the United States into the war.
Germany also made a secret offer to help Mexico regain territories lost in the Mexican–American War in an encoded telegram known as the Zimmermann Telegram, which was intercepted by British Intelligence.
Publication of that communique outraged Americans just as German U-boats started sinking American merchant ships in the North Atlantic.
Wilson then asked Congress for “a war to end all wars” that would “make the world safe for democracy”, and Congress voted to declare war on Germany on April 6, 1917.
On December 7, 1917, the U.S. declared war on Austria-Hungary.
U.S. troops began arriving on the Western Front in large numbers in 1918.
Neutrality I am neutral but not afraid of any of them 1915 After the war began in 1914, the United States proclaimed a policy of neutrality despite President Woodrow Wilson’s antipathies against Germany.
Early in the war, the United States started to favor the British and their allies with 1452 soldiers stationed in Europe.
President Wilson aimed to broker a peace and sent his top aide, Colonel House, on repeated missions to the two sides, but each remained so confident of victory that they ignored peace proposals.
When the German U-boat U-20 sank the British liner Lusitania on 7 May 1915 with 128 US citizens aboard, Wilson demanded an end to German attacks on passenger ships, and warned that the US would not tolerate unrestricted submarine warfare in violation of “American rights” and of “international obligations.”
Wilson’s Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, resigned, believing that the President’s protests against the German use of U-boat attacks conflicted with America’s official commitment to neutrality.
On the other hand, Wilson came under pressure from war hawks led by former president Theodore Roosevelt, who denounced German acts as “piracy”, and from British delegations under Cecil Spring Rice and Sir Edward Grey.
U.S. Public opinion reacted with outrage to the suspected German sabotage of Black Tom in Jersey City, New Jersey on 30 July 1916, and to the Kingsland explosion on 11 January 1917 in present-day Lyndhurst, New Jersey.
Crucially, by the spring of 1917, President Wilson’s official commitment to neutrality had finally unraveled.
Wilson realized he needed to enter the war in order to shape the peace and implement his vision for a League of Nations at the Paris Peace Conference.
