What is the main reason the United States entered the war according to Wilson?

War broke out in Europe in the summer of 1914, with the Central Powers led by Germany and Austria-Hungary on one side and the Allied countries led by Britain, France, and Russia on the other. At the start of the war, President Woodrow Wilson declared that the United States would be neutral. However, that neutrality was tested and fiercely debated in the U.S.

Submarine warfare in the Atlantic kept tensions high, and Germany’s sinking of the British ocean liner Lusitania on May 7, 1915, killed more than 120 U.S. citizens and provoked outrage in the U.S. In 1917, Germany’s attacks on American ships and its attempts to meddle in U.S.-Mexican relations drew the U.S. into the war on the side of the Allies. The United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917.

Within a few months, thousands of U.S. men were being drafted into the military and sent to intensive training. Women, even many who had never worked outside the home before, took jobs in factories producing supplies needed for the war effort, as well as serving in ambulance corps and the American Red Cross at home and abroad. Children were enlisted to sell war bonds and plant victory gardens in support of the war effort.

The United States sent more than a million troops to Europe, where they encountered a war unlike any other—one waged in trenches and in the air, and one marked by the rise of such military technologies as the tank, the field telephone, and poison gas. At the same time, the war shaped the culture of the U.S. After an Armistice agreement ended the fighting on November 11, 1918, the postwar years saw a wave of civil rights activism for equal rights for African Americans, the passage of an amendment securing women’s right to vote, and a larger role in world affairs for the United States.

As you explore the primary sources in this group, look for evidence of the different roles U.S. citizens played in the war effort, as well as the effects of the war on the people of the United States.

To find additional sources, visit the Library of Congress World War I page. You can also search the Library’s online collections using terms including World War I or Great War, or look for specific subjects or names, such as Woodrow Wilson, doughboys, trench warfare, or “Over There.”

Woodrow Wilson hoped not to spend too much presidential time on foreign affairs. When Europe plunged into war in 1914, Wilson, who like many Americans believed in neutrality, saw America's role as that of peace broker. The sinking of the passenger liner Lusitania by a German U-boat helped to shatter that hope.

Wilson demanded an apology from Germany and stayed his neutral course as long as possible. Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare, however, was an intolerable affront to America's dignity and honor. At the start of 1917, British intelligence intercepted the Zimmerman telegram, a secret German communication to Mexico promising United States territory to Mexico in return for supporting the German cause. On April 2, 1917, Wilson finally asked Congress for a formal declaration of war.

The task Wilson faced was how to mobilize an unprepared America. The government could ask for volunteers and institute a draft to build up the army. But convincing Americans to support the war and feel the will to fight was more difficult. The war effort required propaganda. Wilson launched the Committee for Public Information (CPI), employing a legion of artists and the formative Hollywood film industry to churn out pamphlets, movies and posters depicting Germans as the savage Hun. James Montgomery Flagg drew his famous image of Uncle Sam pointing at the viewer -- the classic "I Want You" army recruitment image. Anything German became suspect - be it a last name, sauerkraut, or Beethoven.

As 1917 came to a close, the European Allies, their forces depleted, faced a German offensive designed to win the war before the American troops could arrive. On the Eastern Front, Russia compounded the problem. An ally under the Tsar, it now collapsed in revolution. Its new Bolshevik government sued for peace with Germany. Making matters worse, the Bolshevik leader V. I. Lenin ordered published the Tsar's secret treaties, agreements on how Germanyís possessions were to be divided. To many it was evidence that the war was not about democracy, only the expansion of the Allied countries's imperial ambitions.

To counteract this impression, Wilson brought forth his Fourteen Points, a program for a world without imperialism or secret treaties, where self-determination and democracy would flourish, and where the voices of weak nations would be heard as loudly as those of the strong. In Wilson's imagined future, the league of Nations - a global covenant among nations - would peaceably settle future conflicts.

To President Wilson, the tens of thousands of American troops who crossed the Atlantic to fight alongside the Allies were the battering ram for his Fourteen Points. When Germany, its forces in disarray, offered to end the war on the basis of Wilson's world changing plan, his representative, Colonel Edwards House, made the president's position clear to the Allies. They could accept the armistice terms, or America would consider a separate peace with Germany. War-weary, the European Allies gave in.

Celebrations erupted around the world as the bloodiest war in the history of mankind came to an end on November 11, 1918.

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