The Challenge of Neutrality

Despite the loss of American lives on the Lusitania, President Wilson stuck to his policy of neutrality in Europe’s escalating war: in part out of moral principle, in part as a matter of practical necessity, and in part for political reasons. Few Americans wished to participate in the devastating battles that ravaged Europe, and Wilson did not want to risk losing his chance at reelection in 1916 by ordering an unpopular military intervention. Wilson’s “neutrality” did not mean isolation from all warring factions, but rather open markets for the United States and continued commercial ties with all belligerents. For Wilson, the conflict did not reach the threshold of a moral imperative for U.S. involvement as it was largely a European affair between countries with whom the United States wished to maintain working relations. In his message to Congress in 1914, the president noted that “Every man who really loves America will act and speak in the true spirit of neutrality, which is the spirit of impartiality and fairness and friendliness to all concerned.”^[1]

It was unclear, however, what “neutrality” meant in a world of closely interconnected economies. Ties to the British and French proved strong, and those nations obtained far more loans and supplies than the Germans. In October 1914, President Wilson approved commercial credit loans to the combatants, which made it increasingly difficult for the nation to claim impartiality as war spread through Europe. Trade and financial relations with the Allied nations ultimately drew the United States further into the conflict. American diplomatic tradition avoided formal alliances, and the Army seemed inadequate for sustained overseas fighting. However, the United States outdistanced the nations of Europe in one important measure of world power: by 1914, the nation held the top position in the global industrial economy. The United States was producing slightly more than one-third of the world’s manufactured goods, roughly equal to the outputs of France, Great Britain, and Germany combined.

“Wilson—He kept us out of the war!”

Wilson understood that he was already looking at a difficult reelection bid. He had only won the 1912 election with 42 percent of the popular vote, and likely would not have been elected at all had Roosevelt not come back as a third-party candidate to run against his former protégé Taft. Wilson felt pressure from all different political constituents to take a position on the war, yet he knew that elections were seldom won with a campaign promise of “If elected, I will send your sons to war!” Facing pressure from some businessmen and other government officials who felt that the protection of America’s best interests required a stronger position in defense of the Allied forces, Wilson agreed to a “preparedness campaign” in the year prior to the election. This campaign included the passage of the National Defense Act of 1916, which more than doubled the size of the army to nearly 225,000, and the Naval Appropriations Act of 1916, which called for the expansion of the U.S. fleet, including battleships, destroyers, submarines, and other ships.

As the 1916 election approached, the Republican Party hoped to capitalize on the fact that Wilson was making promises that he would not be able to keep. They nominated Charles Evans Hughes, a former governor of New York and sitting U.S. Supreme Court justice. Hughes focused his campaign on what he considered Wilson’s foreign policy failures, but even as he did so, he himself tried to walk a fine line between neutrality and belligerence, depending on his audience. In contrast, Wilson and the Democrats capitalized on neutrality and campaigned under the slogan “Wilson—he kept us out of the war.” The election itself remained too close to call on election night. Only when a tight race in California was decided two days later could Wilson claim victory in his reelection bid, again with less than 50 percent of the popular vote.

Figure 1. The Washington Herald reports on Woodrow Wilson’s reelection in November 1916, and notes that Republicans will file lawsuits to protest the results.

Despite his victory based upon a policy of neutrality, Wilson would find true neutrality a difficult challenge. Several factors pushed Wilson, however reluctantly, toward the inevitability of American involvement.

The Push Toward War

A key factor driving U.S. engagement was economics. Great Britain was the country’s most important trading partner, and the Allies as a whole relied heavily on American imports dating from the earliest days of the war. Indeed, the value of all exports to the Allies quadrupled from $750 million to $3 billion in the first two years of the conflict. At the same time, the British naval blockade meant that exports to Germany all but ended, dropping from $350 million to $30 million. Likewise, numerous private banks in the United States made extensive loans—in excess of $500 million—to England. J. P. Morgan’s banking interests were among the largest lenders, due to his family’s connection to the country.

Another key element in the decision to go to war was the deep ethnic divisions between native-born Americans and more recent immigrants. For those of Anglo-Saxon descent, the nation’s historic and ongoing relationship with Great Britain was paramount, but many Irish-Americans resented British rule over their place of birth and opposed support for the world’s most expansive empire. Millions of Jewish immigrants had fled anti-Semitic pogroms in Tsarist Russia and would have supported any nation fighting that authoritarian state.

Russian jews in America

Figure 2. Fiddler on the Roof tells the story of a Jewish family living in the Pale of Settlement area of Russia before being forced away at the end of the story, headed for America.

In 1964, the musical Fiddler on the Roof opened on Broadway to rave reviews. It was one of the longest-running Broadway shows in history with over 3,000 performances. The 1971 film adaptation also captivated audiences. However, the history of the Russian Jews depicted in the show and film is less well-known.

Fiddler on the Roof is based on a book written in 1894 by Sholem Aleichem, a Jewish playwright from Russia. In 1905, Aleichem fled Russia with his family to avoid the wave of violent pogroms. Much like the book’s protagonist, Tevye the Milkman, Aleichem lived in the “Pale of Settlement” in Imperial Russia. The Pale was a portion of Russia along the western border where Jewish people were permitted to live, although they were mostly confined to rural areas and could not move to large cities.

In 1881, the Russian Tsar Alexander II was assassinated by revolutionaries. Anti-Semitic groups circulated rumors that the attack had been carried out by Jews and that the Russian state had authorized violence against them in retaliation. The resulting pogroms resulted in the deaths of 40 Jews, while the following wave of assaults between 1903-1906 killed over 2,000 Russian Jews.

Many of the Russian Jews who fled the pogroms made their way to America, including Sholem Aleichem. Between 1909 and 1910, nearly half of the 1 million Jews who immigrated to the U.S. were from Russia^[2].

Over 2 million Jews came to America between the late 19th century and 1924, when the Immigration Act of 1924 limited resettlement in accordance with a quota system. Most settled in the New York metropolitan area, establishing one of the world’s major centers of Jewish culture. In 1915, the circulation of the daily Yiddish newspapers was half a million in New York City alone, and 600,000 nationally. In addition thousands more subscribed to the numerous weekly papers and the many magazines in Yiddish (a West Germanic language mixed with Hebrew elements).

Remember that many of the Jewish people who came to America immediately before World War I had left Russia under the threat of violence or because of the Tsar’s expulsion order. When the U.S. entered the war as Russia’s ally, they found themselves torn, much as German immigrants did. The unique ethnic and national makeup of America’s “melting pot” had a profound effect on public opinion about the war.

German Americans saw their nation of origin as a victim of British and Russian aggression and a French desire to settle old scores, whereas immigrants from Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire were mixed in their sympathies for the old monarchies or ethnic communities that these empires suppressed. For interventionists, this lack of support for Great Britain and its allies among recent immigrants only strengthened their conviction.

Germany’s use of submarine warfare also played a role in challenging U.S. neutrality. After the sinking of the Lusitania, and the subsequent August 30 sinking of another British liner, the Arabic, Germany had promised to restrict their use of submarine warfare. Specifically, they promised to surface and visually identify any ship before they fired, as well as permit civilians to evacuate targeted ships. Instead, in February 1917, Germany intensified their use of submarines in an effort to end the war quickly before Great Britain’s naval blockade starved them out of food and supplies.

Figure 3. “The Temptation,” which appeared in the Dallas Morning News on March 2, 1917, shows Germany as the Devil, tempting Mexico to join their war effort against the United States in exchange for the return of land formerly belonging to Mexico. The prospect of such a move made it all but impossible for Wilson to avoid war. (credit: Library of Congress)

The German high command wanted to continue unrestricted warfare on all Atlantic traffic, including unarmed American freighters, in order to cripple the British economy and secure a quick and decisive victory. Their goal was to bring an end to the war before the United States could intervene and tip the balance in this grueling war of attrition. In February 1917, a German U-boat sank the American merchant ship, the Laconia, killing two passengers, and in late March, quickly sank four more American ships. These attacks increased pressure on Wilson from all sides, as government officials, the general public, and both Democrats and Republicans urged him to declare war.

The Zimmerman Telegram

The final element that led to American involvement in World War I was the so-called Zimmermann Telegram. In January 1917, British intelligence intercepted and decoded a top-secret telegram from German foreign minister Arthur Zimmermann to the German ambassador to Mexico, instructing the latter to invite Mexico to join the war effort on the German side, should the United States declare war on Germany. It further went on to encourage Mexico to invade the United States if such a declaration came to pass, as Mexico’s invasion would create a diversion and permit Germany a clear path to victory. In exchange, Zimmermann offered to return to Mexico land that was previously lost to the United States in the Mexican-American War, including Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.

The likelihood that Mexico, weakened and torn by its own revolution and civil war, could wage war against the United States and recover territory lost in the Mexican-American war was remote at best. But combined with Germany’s unrestricted use of submarine warfare and the sinking of American ships, the Zimmermann Telegram made a powerful argument for a declaration of war. The outbreak of the Russian Revolution in February of 1917 and the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in March removed an important moral objection to entering the war on the side of the Allies, since many Americans found the idea of fighting alongside the authoritarian Russian state to be distasteful.