United States History
Introduction
World war I was a truly a world-wide war. In world war 1, two groups were allied against each other that is triple entente which includes countries like France, Russia, and the United Kingdom and central powers which includes Germany and Austria-Hungary. Everyone around across the globe thought that the war would be fast and conclusive, rather, it becomes a prolonged war of attrition, with the armed soldiers fighting fiercely moving the battles lines by meager inches. Woodrow Wilson, the president of the United States sought to maintain United States neutrality but he was unable to retain the United States out of the World war, largely due to the escalation of German aggression.
The hope of the US president for his country was compromised by the attempt of Germany to quarantine the British Isles (Connolly, 2017). One of the closest trading partners of the United States of America was Britain and discomfort was built between Germany and United States when multiple ships that belonged to the United States traveling to Britain were submerged by the German mines (2017). In the year 1915, numerous newspapers published a warning by the German embassy Washington that Americans that were traveling on the British ships in the war areas were doing so at their own risk. In the same year, may 7, an ocean liner owned by Britain was ruined by a German submarine without any prior notification just near the Ireland coast (2017). Out of two thousand passengers, one thousand two hundred and one were murdered inclusive of one hundred and twenty-eight Americans.
Furthermore, in November, a liner owned by Italy was submerged by a U-boat without any prior notification (Connolly, 2017). Two hundred and seventy-two people lost their lives including twenty-seven Americans. The opinion of the public in the United States of America started to turn irreversibly against Germany. In March, four merchant ships belonging to the United States were sunk by Germany and on the second of April, the United States President Wilson appeared before Congress and declared war against Germany (2017). On 4th April, the Senate cast votes of eighty-two to six for the declaration of war against Germany. After two days, the House of Representatives permitted the declaration of war against Germany by three hundred and seventy-three votes to fifty, and the United States of America officially entered World War I (2017).
More than one million men and twenty thousand women were recruited in the armed forces. Some of the Americans thought were opposing the entry of United States into the war, numerous people had a belief that they had a civic duty of supporting the war effort. The government of United States publicity was used in mobilizing the American community via the appeals to partisanship and civic duty by connecting the democracy of the United States with the support for the Western Europe democracies (Brewer, 2019). After four years of war, America’s entry of well-equipped forces into the battle was a huge turning point in the war. When the war was finally over in the year 1918, more than two million American soldiers had aided the Warfield of Western Europe and about fifty thousand of those people had were killed (2019).
Reference
Connolly, K. (2017). America’s Bloody History from World War II to the Civil Rights Movement. Enslow Publishing, LLC.
Brewer, S. A. (2019). To win the peace: British propaganda in the United States during World War II. Cornell University Press.