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America Enters the War
President Woodrow Wilson pledged to keep America out of the war. But his stance of non-intervention was severely tested on May 7, 1915, when a German submarine sank the British ocean liner RMS Lusitania. Of the 139 Americans on board, 128 perished. Germany had declared the seas around the United Kingdom a war zone, and felt justified in attacking ships believed to be bringing supplies to support the Allied war effort. The Lusitania was indeed carrying munitions, although the British denied this at the time.
Wilson demanded an end to attacks on neutral passenger ships, and the Germans complied for a time, only targeting ships that were clearly British. But in January 1917, Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic shipping lanes. This action, and the American response of outrage to the discovery of the Zimmermann Telegram, a secret communication from Germany to Mexico proposing a military alliance, prompted President Wilson to reverse his 1916 re-election campaign promise to keep the country out of the conflict.
The United States entered the war on April 6, 1917, with troops arriving in Europe in early 1918. The infusion of fresh American forces helped carry the war-weary Allies to victory. |