I Dont Think The USA Should Have Entered WW I
We accomplished nothing except to insure the defeat of Germany, which enabled England & France to economically ruin Germany and lay the groundwork for Hitler.
shareYou are right, of course. I have read about WWI and at its root it just looks like one big European food fight. Since so many European countries were empires with holdings across the world, that food fight spread to the new world. The War itself was silly, but once German subs started targeting American ships I don't think Wilson had much choice but to fight back. Of course there have always been the suspicions that the British framed the Germans as to the communiques that implied they were trying to stir up trouble between Mexico and the U.S. The British wanted us in the war on their side.
shareThe Germans gave the USA fair warning regarding unrestricted submarine warfare. The USA should have suspended shipping. Regarding the Zimmerman telegram issue where Germany attempted to persuade Mexico to keep the USA busy in a border war over Texas , New Mexico and California; that was reason for a serious dialog between Mexico and the USA, not for the USA to send an entire army to Europe to pull British and French chestnuts out of the fire.
It can be said that WW II was part of the same war, so in sense, Americas involvement in WWI was responsible for WW II.
You could also say that the US gave the German Empire fair warning: unrestricted submarine warfare was to be regarded as a violation of neutrality and a casus belli.
And if you're going to intrigue with a foreign country to entice it into war with a neutral power, you should expect the neutral power to resent it. This is especially true considering the bad blood that had existed in the previous five years or so between the US and Mexico.
Reaper, you're the only poster on this thread so far who seems to understand the realities of history.
If the Germans wanted the US to stay out of the war they should not have invoked unrestricted submarine warfare, sinking even neutral (mainly American) vessels, or tried to entice Mexico into starting a war with the US, with the promise of regaining its lost territories as an inducement. Both were clear acts of aggression that are astounding in their stupidity. What would the Germans think the US would do -- stand idly by while our commerce was stifled, our citizens murdered and a war with another power instigated?
World War I was a foolish conflict, but the state of mind of all the European powers at the turn of the century was that a war of some kind was inevitable: it was only a question of when. People greeted the war in 1914 with wild enthusiasm because all the pent-up longings for a fight were unleashed at once. No one had a clue what they were letting themselves in for. It took on a life of its own that led to 10-20 million dead and millions more maimed and devastated. For one poster to call this a "food fight" is a pretty inane and demeaning comment considering the horrors inflicted during that war.
Britain and France certainly wanted American intervention by 1915 or 1916 but they didn't have to invent incidents to get America in. German espionage and violations of international law did that. The Zimmermann telegram was not a fake, it was a real German plot. Supposedly neutral but pro-Germany Sweden allowed German agents to use its diplomatic pouches to carry stolen documents out of the country. Of course, the British routinely violated American neutrality as well: the Lusitania carried three German agents illegally arrested by the British in New York and imprisoned on the ship for transport for trial in the UK; the three drowned when the ship was sunk. The British used their contacts with American financiers, manufacturers and politicians to obtain money and materials for their war effort. This kind of thing was par for the course during the war.
"Should" the US have entered the war? The real question is whether it could have stayed out. If Germany had won we might have avoided Hitler but the result would have been German domination of much of the world and left us at the mercy of a dictatorial imperial power, and sooner or later a second world war would have erupted anyway.
WWI was a bad and pointless war that left chaos in its wake. It's been said WWI was the opening act of a European civil war that lasted until 1945...or maybe 1990. After the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919 the French commander Marshal Foch said, "This is not peace. It is an armistice for 20 years." It was an eerily perfect prediction, but by 1914 the world had reached a state where no major power could remain uninvolved in a conflict whose participants controlled or dominated most global commerce, military and geopolitical matters -- particularly when those participants were so determined to force America's hand.
The ultimate legacy of WW1 is the twin nightmares of German Nazism and Soviet Communism, the most destructive forces in the annals of world history.
All sides involved with the fighting had no conception of what they were in for because the last "world war" had been the Napoleonic wars a century earlier which were also the last wars of the pre-Industrial age. Ships and armies in Napoleon's time basically moved at the same rate of speed at they did in the time of ancient Rome. Now however for the first time there was a war fought in the Industrial Era with weapons of a different kind and in an age where the goals were no longer the old rules of "balance of power" but war of a far more destructive nature. Populations naviely thought the tools of the Industrial age would mean shorter wars instead of what came.
As for Wilson, the only argument based on how events played out is whether America should have approached involvement in the war from Wilson's "idealistic" standpoint or the "realist" vision of Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt. The one thing I must say about the film that badly dates it today is that increasingly, Wilson is now seen as the obstinate man who destroyed his own League of Nations through his foolishness and that Henry Cabot Lodge was not the villain he was made out to be for so long. In truth, Wilson should have resigned the Presidency after his stroke and allowed his supporters to compromise with the "reservationists" led by Lodge. Of course even had this happened, you still likely would not have prevented WW2 because an America in the League was not apt to be any more active in foreign affairs than they already were in the 1920s under the three GOP presidents.
I agree with your analysis of the thinking (to put it loosely) among the peoples of Europe prior to the war, in so far as their inability to understand how the nature of warfare had changed in the industrial age. But I doubt that the "only" argument vis-a-vis Wilson and WWI is whether the US should have approached it in Wilson's idealistic manner or TR's supposedly more "realistic" one, but that aside, one can see pitfalls in either approach.
Wilson's idealism set the stage for a massive public disillusionment after Versailles failed to deliver the kinds of reforms Wilson had fought for. Though Wilson is attacked for his obstinacy over the Treaty, and to a point legitimately, it must also be remembered that he did indeed compromise many of his principles during the haggling over it (for example, the principle of national self-determination), and paid a price for this too. His stubbornness ultimately settled on the League of Nations, and getting the Treaty, flawed as it was, ratified by the Senate so that the U.S. would enter the League.
Lodge may not have been a "villain", but he remained obstinately opposed to American entry into the League and along with most Republican senators demanded so many reservations that the Treaty would have been effectively eviscerated as far as any useful involvement by the United States was concerned. Many Republicans were even more close-minded than Lodge (or Wilson); the leading Treaty opponent, William E. Borah of Idaho, said on the Senate floor, "If the Savior of man were to revisit the Earth and declare for the League of Nations, I would oppose it." At best, the GOP would have accepted a League with so little U.S. involvement and so little authority that it would have been scarcely different than defeating the Treaty outright proved to be. In fact, arguably the League was better off with no American participation than having a disinterested U.S. presence and and even greater institutional paralysis than what ultimately developed.
I thoroughly disagree that Wilson should have resigned to allow his supporters to salvage the League. (This is separate from the issue of whether Wilson should have resigned just for health reasons.) A President Thomas Marshall would never have had the energy, talent or political capital, or perhaps even the inclination, to have pushed through the League, and few people regarded Marshall as any kind of effective leader. Wilson's and the League's supporters would have been left both demoralized and leaderless by his resignation, and his opponents would have been immeasurably strengthened; the Treaty's defeat would have been even more certain. There is certainly no evidence to think otherwise.
It's basically a moot point as to how Teddy Roosevelt's manner of bringing the U.S. into war would have played out, for the simple reason that Roosevelt wasn't President during the war. More to the point is how Charles Evans Hughes would have managed U.S. entry into the war had he won in 1916, for no one has ever disputed that at some point Hughes would have taken us into the war himself. Hughes was no Roosevelt, and was embarrassed by TR's bellicosity and violent personal attacks on Wilson during the 1916 campaign, to which he later attributed his narrow defeat. Hughes would probably have approached the issue with a mixture of Wilson's idealism and Roosevelt's "realism" (the latter a debatable characterization), which in the end might have served the nation and the world better -- incorporating just enough idealism that would have borne some tangible results, yet enough hard-headed realism to have dealt more firmly on some issues.
In any case, a touch of hesitancy in plunging into war is not a bad thing. Had Roosevelt been President in 1915, he would surely have brought the U.S. into the war over the sinking of the Lusitania (assuming he hadn't pushed us in in 1914), and there's no way of knowing how long the war might have been, or what would have come of it. By the time America actually came in in 1917, the combatants were exhausted, to the point of revolution in Russia. In 1915, the various powers were still fresh and strong enough to have sucked American power into the fray without the relatively decisive impact and quick resolution that did occur by 1917-1918. The war might have dragged on for two or three years anyway, with essentially the same results that in fact did occur. "Realism" would have had its detrimental apects, not least in the cost of more American lives.
As to Nazism and Communism, these might have arisen regardless of when the war occurred -- Communism certainly, as it had long existed before 1914. By the advent of the 20th century it was generally expected that there would be a European war sooner or later. In the early 1910s, many in Germany -- and Britain -- believed that by 1920 Germany would have surpassed Britain as an industrial power, and assumed that a war would await that event. Whether, or when, Nazism and Communism would have risen to power is unknowable. As the product of one diseased mind, Nazism would likely never have evolved (though its close colleague, Fascism, probably would have) had Germany won the war, and almost certainly not if that war hadn't occurred until the 1920s. Communism might have gained power in Russia simply on the basis of the ongoing Tsarist tyranny and widespread poverty; WWI didn't cause Communists to seize power, it provided the underlying circumstances for them to do so. I don't agree that the rise of both tyrannies was "the ultimate legacy of WWI", though I agree that these were the two most wide-ranging results. But the war had many other legacies, some of less drastic but equally great impact over the long term. Whether we would have avoided one or both without a First World War can never be known, let alone proven.
Incidentally, I don't know that I'd call the Napoleonic wars "world wars". Many years ago I decided that the Seven Years War (1756-1763) really constituted the First World War, with fighting in Europe, North America, India, across the oceans, and in various other locales. I was happy to subsequently learn that no less a personage than Winston Churchill thought the same thing, referring to that conflict as the true "World War I".
I'll have to defer a detailed response for another time, hob, but I would categorize the Napoleonic Wars as a "world war" in the sense that ultimately America's own War of 1812 with Britain was itself a direct byproduct of the European conflict which made it indirectly more than just a pure European struggle.
I certainly don't see Thomas Marshall as one who could have been a bold leader, but he certainly couldn't have been worse as a League spokesman than an invalid Wilson was, who thanks to his wife also became isolated from Colonel House and Secretary of State Lansing, both of whom were in favor of compromise. A practical alliance with Lodge and the reservationists was the only realistic chance of isolating the William Borah faction.
I agree that Wilson should have had Lodge involved from the first (even the movie makes this point, in one of its few, albeit veiled, criticisms of Wilson), but while a compromised Treaty might have gotten through, its viability is much open to question.
Also, don't forget that as 1920 approached the Republicans sensed the growing isolationist sentiment in the country and began moving away from any support for the Treaty, even with reservations. Senator Warren G. Harding, for one, had endorsed the Treaty and League in 1919, but as his dark horse campaign for President loomed, reversed himself by the end of the year and became anti-League. He wasn't alone. (Harding's good-natured wish "to do good" in this realm later manifested itself when he did conclude separate peace treaties with the successors to the former Central Powers, brought the U.S. into the World Court, hosted the Washington Naval Conference, and took other steps to have some American involvement with the international community...much to the fury of the Borahs in the Senate.)
An invalid, incommunicado Wilson was still a better spokesman for the League than a weak, non-committal Marshall would have been. It's a question of whether an ineffective figurehead vs. a "man behind the curtain" presented the stronger symbol. Marshall might have compromised, but as I said, with the mood of the nation shifting away from internationalism, 1920 looming and the Democrats almost literally on the run with a weak, lame-duck chief executive, without a power base or institutional loyalties, succeeding a resigned failure, the Treaty would almost certainly have lost in the Senate anyway.
But I've increasingly come to believe that American membership in the League would not have been decisive anyway. We would have treated it in the off-hand, non-binding way most European powers did in the 20s and 30s, and been as unwilling to expend blood or treasure on enforcing sanctions against Germany, Italy or Japan as Britain and France were. Our isolationism would have insured we kept our involvement perfunctory and at arm's length. Little of any practical import would have been changed with U.S. membership in the LoN. We'd still have ended up fighting the same war of 1939-1945.
I took your point about the Napoleonic wars, but the extra-European fighting was limited and a by-product of the main theater of war on the Continent. This in contrast to the Seven Years War, which saw heavy fighting on many fronts all around the globe.