US Neutrality, 1914–17 (AQA A-Level History): Revision Notes
US Neutrality, 1914–17
When the First World War began in August 1914, the United States maintained a position of neutrality that lasted until April 1917. This period witnessed substantial changes in American foreign policy under President Woodrow Wilson, as the nation moved from declaring non-involvement to eventually entering the conflict against Germany. Understanding this shift requires examining Wilson's ideological approach to foreign affairs, the domestic and international pressures that shaped American policy, and the maritime disputes that ultimately undermined neutrality.
This three-year period of neutrality was marked by increasing tensions as the United States attempted to balance its economic interests, ideological commitments, and the realities of a global conflict that would eventually draw the nation into war.
Wilson's approach to foreign policy
Moral diplomacy
Wilson and his Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, held a conviction that America bore a duty to better the lives of people in other nations by serving as a model for them to follow. They promoted what became known as moral diplomacy – a foreign policy approach grounded in the belief that contact with the United States could only benefit others, that America held moral superiority over other nations, and that American diplomacy operated according to noble and benevolent principles. This represented Wilson's ideological framework for international relations, though later events revealed it to be somewhat contradictory in practice.
The administration demonstrated this approach when it provided Colombia with $20 million in reparations (war damages paid by a defeated country) to compensate for the role the USA had played in encouraging Colombians to rebel from Colombian rule in 1903. However, Wilson subsequently ordered interventions in Latin America on numerous occasions. This continued and expanded the policies of Roosevelt and Taft, which Wilson had opposed before taking office.
The Contradiction in Wilson's Foreign Policy
While Wilson championed moral diplomacy and opposed imperialism before taking office, his administration actually intervened more extensively in Latin America than previous presidents. This contradiction between idealistic rhetoric and interventionist practice became a defining feature of Wilson's foreign policy.
Wilson's idealism in Latin America
Wilson stated upon entering office that future cooperation in Latin America would only be possible with 'just' government. The implication was that he would oppose military dictatorships and pursue a revival of the Roosevelt Corollary to new heights. The goal in Latin America became to support orderly processes of government based upon law rather than arbitrary or irregular forces. Wilson went further, declaring his intention to teach South American Republics to elect good leaders. One of his envoys, Walter H. Page, stated in an unguarded moment that US forces would 'shoot men until they learn to vote and rule themselves'.
Though this may appear unrealistic in the context of international relations, Wilson's idealism did produce some results:
- He fought against special concessions, insisting that Congress repeal the 1912 Act exempting US coastal shipping from paying tolls to the Panama Canal.
- US interests built highways, bridges, airfields, hospitals and schools and established telephone services throughout Latin America.
Wilson's Interventions in Practice
Wilson ordered interventions in Latin America because he believed the countries where the USA intervened were badly governed or corrupt. He held the conviction that the USA had a moral obligation to compel them to improve, or else to take them over for the benefit of local populations.
Wilson's major interventions included:
- Haiti (1915) – After a revolution, the USA invaded, restored order and effectively supervised the running of the country, with troops remaining until 1934.
- Dominican Republic (1915) – Placed under US military government following revolutions (which Wilson viewed as the least harmful solution), with troops remaining until 1924.
- Nicaragua – US military occupation continued from 1912–25 and 1926–33.
Despite these interventions, Wilson involved the USA more extensively in foreign affairs than any previous president in the nation's history.
The onset of war in 1914
At the onset of war in August 1914, the USA appeared to adopt neutrality which was maintained until April 1917, when it entered the war as an associated power (a nation not formally allied to other countries fighting against a common enemy, therefore having independence as to military strategy and in subsequent peace settlements) on the side of the Allies (the countries fighting against Germany including Britain, France, Belgium and Russia). During the 1916 presidential elections, Wilson campaigned to keep the USA out of war, yet within months of his electoral victory he had joined the conflict.
The term "associated power" was significant – it allowed the USA to maintain its distinct identity and independence in military strategy and peace negotiations, reflecting Wilson's desire to remain somewhat separate from the European alliances even while fighting alongside them.
Reasons for neutrality
The USA attempted to remain neutral in August 1914 for various reasons, including the weight of public opinion and Wilson's own ideological beliefs.
Public opinion
The prevailing mood in the USA held that the war in Europe had nothing to do with them. A widespread feeling existed that wars were wrong and achieved little. On 29 August 1914, 1,500 women marched down Fifth Avenue in New York in black robes to the beat of drums to protest the war. Various influential leaders including Wilson's Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan began to organise campaigns against the war. The American public generally opposed involvement in what they perceived as a European conflict.
Wilsonianism
Wilson himself sought neutrality. He regarded himself as an honest broker who could negotiate a peace settlement. This was consistent with Wilsonianism – the phrase describing how he tried to impart moral and Christian principles to his diplomacy.
To succeed in this and gain the trust of all parties he had to be beyond reproach in terms of neutrality. In his Declaration of Neutrality of 19 August 1914, he offered to mediate. This was a declaration to Congress in which he warned US citizens against taking sides in the First World War. He was desperate not only for the USA to stay out, but for the conflict to end. Wilson was guided by a sense of Christian morality which found war abhorrent, despite the number of times he had intervened in Latin America. Wilson feared the war could escalate and the USA be drawn in, so he was anxious from the start to support moves to end the conflict.
Wilson's Neutrality Strategy
If the USA was to have influence in peace-making, it would need to be beyond reproach in its neutrality. Wilson's desire to serve as mediator required maintaining credibility with all sides, which meant avoiding any actions that could be perceived as favoring one side over the other.
Tensions concerning neutrality
Neutrality proved difficult to maintain due to pro-British and anti-German sentiments, issues of trade, and disputes around freedom of the seas.
Pro-British feeling
While Wilson genuinely sought neutrality, he and many of his advisers actually favoured the Allies, and the British in particular. This preference stemmed partly from Wilson's natural affinity for British culture and customs. He maintained fond memories of cycling around the English Lake District as a young man and saw Britain as a centre of civilisation and decency. This cultural connection influenced his supposedly neutral stance.
Anti-German feeling
More substantially, Wilson agreed with his advisers, particularly his close friend Colonel Edward House and Robert Lansing (Legal Adviser to the State Department, and from June 1915, Secretary of State) that Germany posed a threat to US interests and it would be better to help the Allies fight the Germans now than have the USA possibly have to fight them alone one day. The USA had confronted Germany in Samoa in 1889, and Wilson worried about Germany's growing interests in Latin America, especially Mexico.
Wilson's Attack on German-Americans (December 1915)
In his message to Congress in December 1915, Wilson attacked German-Americans for disloyalty to the USA, reflecting the growing anti-German sentiment within his administration and the broader American public.
In his State of the Union Address to Congress on 7 December 1915, Wilson stated that grave threats against national peace and safety had been expressed within US borders. He condemned citizens born under other flags but welcomed under American naturalisation laws, who had poured the poison of disloyalty into the arteries of national life, sought to bring the authority and reputation of the US Government into contempt, to destroy industries through their destructive purposes, to strike at them, and to manipulate politics through the uses of foreign intrigue. They had formed plots to destroy property, entered into conspiracies against the neutrality of the Government, and sought to influence every confidential transaction of the Government or private interests alien to US concerns.
Anti-German propaganda in the popular press reinforced these sentiments. Stories of German atrocities on the Western Front in Europe abounded, including accounts of raping nuns in Belgium, spearing babies on bayonets and wholesale murder of civilians. That there was little truth in any of these allegations hardly mattered; the Hun (derogatory term for Germans, derived from Huns, a warlike tribe renowned for their cruelty and barbarism in the fifth century) was depicted as cruel and bestial.
The Reality of Wilson's "Neutrality"
Wilson's partiality affected the judgement of his administration. Despite the genuine desire for US neutrality and a fair peace settlement, Wilson's policies were never truly neutral and always favoured the Allies. This fundamental contradiction would ultimately make American entry into the war on the Allied side almost inevitable.
Trade
The Allies benefited far more than the Central Powers (Germany and its allies such as Austria-Hungary and Turkey) from trade with the USA.
By 1914, the USA was one of the world's major trading nations. In that year it exported $549 million worth of goods to Britain and showed a trading surplus of over $300 million. It also sold over $344 million worth of goods to Germany, with a trading profit of $154 million. Some Americans favoured preventing trade with any of the countries at war because of the complications it could cause. Others argued its continuation would bring prosperity to the USA as all sides needed to buy US goods because of the demands of war.
The government wanted to maintain trade if only because it received 40 per cent of its revenues from the tariff, and loss of trade could see a $60 to $100 million deficit in government spending over income. This economic reality made complete neutrality practically impossible.
Wilson followed the rules of international law, which stated that neutrals could sell to countries at war. Trade favoured the Allies much more than the Germans, in part because of the effectiveness of the British blockade of Germany (British naval blockade to prevent goods leaving and entering German ports). Trade with the Allies, much of which was in munitions (weapons and ammunition), stood at $3.2 billion by 1916. This was ten times that of trade with the Central Powers. By 1916, US trade with Germany was only one per cent of what it had been in 1914. In its trade policies therefore the USA could hardly be seen to be neutral – it was selling far more to the Allies than to the Central Powers.
Economic Ties That Bound
In addition, the Allies had borrowed nearly $7 billion from the USA by the end of hostilities in 1918, which they would need to repay after the war. Eventually, by the time of the peace settlement, Allied war debts to the USA amounted to $10.5 billion.
These massive loans created a powerful economic incentive for the USA to ensure Allied victory – an Allied defeat would likely mean these debts would never be repaid.
Freedom of the seas
The laws of the sea allowed countries at war to blockade enemy ports, as the British were doing to German ports, and seize cargo classified as 'contraband' – which could be loosely defined as anything useful to the enemy. At first this caused conflict between Britain and the USA because, during the early stages of the war, Britain began seizing US ships and confiscating their cargoes destined for neutral ports even on occasion when they only carried foodstuffs. Britain declared many commodities, including food and textiles, as contraband and blacklisted foreign firms who traded with the Central Powers. The situation seemed similar to the British blockade during the Napoleonic wars, which had led to the 1812 war between Britain and the USA.
Wilson could justifiably have made far more of a protest because British actions of seizing neutral ships verged on illegality. However, Wilson faced the dilemma that whilst the British actions might have been unfair on neutral nations, he nevertheless wanted the Allies to win the war.
The Critical Difference in British and German Actions
It was true that American crews seized by the British were treated with courtesy, and there was no loss of life. This was in contrast with the German development of submarine warfare in which vessels might be attacked without warning and loss of life was considerable.
This distinction became crucial in shaping American public opinion and Wilson's response to maritime violations by each side.
Unrestricted submarine warfare, February–August 1915
In February 1915, Germany declared British waters a war zone and reserved the right to sink any ships en route to Britain, including those flying the flags of neutral countries. They would deploy their new submarine fleet to destroy merchant ships containing essential supplies as they crossed the Atlantic Ocean. This policy of unrestricted submarine warfare (attacking any ship en route to an enemy port) was Germany's attempt to break the deadlock of trench warfare (the defensive network on the Western Front in which millions died) in Western Europe by wresting control of the seas from Britain and starving her into surrender.
The Lusitania incident
Wilson immediately responded by warning Germany he would hold them responsible for the loss of any American lives on ships sunk by Germany. Nevertheless, in May 1915, the Germans sank the British ship the Lusitania, with 128 Americans among the 1,200 dead. Wilson issued a strong protest, demanding that Germany abandon the policy. Bryan resigned as Secretary of State over the uneven handling of the issue. He argued that Wilson did not protest British violations in seizing neutral ships as described above, although many historians have noted that these did not result in American deaths. Germany was surprised by Wilson's vehemence, particularly after their well-publicised warnings.
The Lusitania Crisis
The sinking of the Lusitania represented a turning point in American public opinion toward Germany. The death of 128 Americans shocked the nation and made it increasingly difficult for Wilson to maintain a position of strict neutrality. Wilson's strong protest and Germany's eventual backing down demonstrated that German actions, unlike British violations, carried the risk of drawing America into the war.
Some Americans felt unrestricted submarine warfare was a reasonable tactic, and the answer was to ensure that US ships and civilians weren't heading to Britain. Wilson's Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, actually said that merchant ships carrying war supplies couldn't rely on the presence of women and children to protect them from attack, by which he meant they could not expect to be safe from attack simply because they carried women and children, almost as defensive shields. Ships were vulnerable to attack whoever might be among their passengers. The German Embassy took out advertising campaigns in the USA to warn Americans not to travel to Britain.
Germany abandons unrestricted submarine warfare
Nevertheless, after another British ship, the Arabic, was sunk in August 1915 with the deaths of two Americans, Germany agreed to abandon unrestricted submarine warfare. From now on, submarines would only attack ships after giving due warnings and ensuring their crew and passengers had been placed in lifeboats.
This abandonment of unrestricted submarine warfare proved to be temporary. Germany would resume the policy in 1917, a decision that would directly lead to American entry into the war.
Remember!
Key Points to Remember:
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Wilson promoted moral diplomacy and idealism in foreign policy, yet intervened extensively in Latin America despite claiming to oppose such actions.
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US neutrality from 1914–17 was influenced by public anti-war sentiment and Wilson's desire to act as an honest broker, but was compromised by pro-Allied sympathies and substantial economic ties with Britain and France.
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Trade patterns heavily favoured the Allies: by 1916, US trade with the Allies reached $3.2 billion (ten times that with the Central Powers), and the Allies had borrowed nearly $7 billion from the USA by 1918.
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The British blockade of Germany and disputes over freedom of the seas created tensions with both sides, but Wilson protested more strongly against German submarine warfare because it resulted in American deaths.
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The sinking of the Lusitania in May 1915, killing 128 Americans, forced Germany to temporarily abandon unrestricted submarine warfare in August 1915, though this proved to be a temporary measure.