World War I
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....It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance....To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other.
Woodrow Wilson, Address to Congress seeking Declaration of War, April 2, 1917 |
![]() When Congress approved President Wilson's request for a declaration of war against Germany and its allies, the U.S. military capability was so weak, with an army of only some 107,000 soldiers, that the Germans had little to fear from American intervention in the stalemate in Europe. But the nation rapidly mobilized; in the month after Wilson's war message, he signed the Selective Service Act imposing a draft of all men between the ages of 21 and 31. By the end of the war, some 24 million men had registered with local draft boards, about 23 percent of the U.S. population, and some 4 million were mobilized, with about half that number sent to the battlefields in France where 53,000 were killed.
Patriotic support for the War was strong following Wilson's decision, but vocal opposition continued. The Espionage Act, signed by the President on June 15, made it a crime to say anything to discourage enlistment in the armed forces and barred disclosures of information on ship movements or other actions affecting mobilization. Senator La Follette of Wisconsin, one of the six Senators who voted against the war resolution, also opposed the draft and argued that wealthy individuals and corporations should pay the costs of a war which he contended was mainly for their benefit. Pro-war newspapers and groups supported resolutions introduced in the Senate to expel him for treason, but La Follette eloquently defended the right to dissent in a famous speech delivered on the Senate floor. See Robert M. La Follette, Senate Speech on Free Speech in Wartime, October 6, 1917 |
Some labor leaders and minority activists also questioned the justification for entering the European conflict. Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist Party's presidential candidate in 1916, was sentenced under the Espionage Act to ten years in prison for interfering with recruitment in a speech. "Wars throughout history," Debs declared, "have been waged for conquest and plunder.... And that is war, in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles." Debs's conviction was upheld in 1919 by the United States Supreme Court in its decision in Debs v. United States; he served over two and a half years in prison (during which time he received over a million votes as the Socialist Party's 1920 presidential candidate) until President Harding, on Christmas Day, 1921, commuted his sentence to time served. A. Philip Randolph, the African-American civil rights and labor activist, urged resistance through his Harlem-based newspaper, The Messenger, writing that "no intelligent Negro is willing to lay down his life for the United States as it now exists."
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The U.S. declaration of war also came shortly after the Russian participation in the war collapsed with the fall of the Tsarist government and the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, with the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin later seizing power on the night of November 6-7. The new Bolshevik government was later forced to accept the German terms in the Brest-Litovsk Treaty signed on March 3, 1918, in which Russia surrendered control of the Ukraine, Finland, Poland, the Caucasus, and the Baltic provinces. Germany then was able to shift more of its forces to fight on the Western front against the American, French and British troops.
The first American troops arrived in France in June 1917, but their presence would not be fully felt until 1918, when the infusion of soldiers, weapons, ammunition, aircraft and other supplies would become important factors in the decisive shift on the battlefield, which led to mounting German losses. In the fall, poltical pressure grew within Germany for an end to the conflict. In October, Germany and Austria sent peace notes to President Wilson requesting an armistice, and Turkey signed a separate peace at the end of the month. On November 11, two days after the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II, an armistice was signed. The Germans and their allies had hoped that the peace would be framed on the relatively moderate terms that Wilson had outlined in his Fourteen Points Address delivered to Congress in January 1918, in which he called for a peace of reconciliation based on democracy and self-determination for the disputed regions in Europe, without annexations or indemnities, as well as the establishment of postwar League of Nations to resolve future disputes without war. |
In December, Wilson became the first President to leave the country while in office when he left for France aboard the S.S. George Washington to open the Paris Peace Conference. The Germans and their allies had hoped that the peace would be framed on the relatively moderate terms Wilson had outlined in his Fourteen Points Address delivered to Congress in January 1918, in which he called for a peace of reconciliation based on democracy and self-determination for the disputed regions in Europe, without annexations or indemnities, as well as the establishment of postwar League of Nations to resolve future disputes without war. Wilson's moderate stance, however, was largely rejected by British Prime Minister Lloyd George and French Premier Georges Clemenceau, who sought to punish Germany and destroy any potential for German rearmament. While Wilson was able to soften some of the more extreme punitive measures proposed by the British and French and also gained their support for the creation of a League of Nations, he was unable to persuade them to resist imposing harsh sanctions on Germany.
Wilson headed home in February, allowing others to work out the details of the agreement, later returning to France to sign the final accord as the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919. In addition to endorsement of the formation of the League of Nations incorporated in the document, the Treaty provided that Germany accepted responsibility for starting the war; surrendered Alsace-Lorraine to France; demilitarized the Rhineland; placed the Saar industrial region under French control for 15 years; ceded land to Poland; gave up its overseas colonies; restricted its armed forces to 100,000 personnel; and paid $33 billion in reparations to the Allies. The punitive terms of the Treaty, particularly the damage its provisions caused to German national pride and to its economy, have been cited by leading historians as key factors contributing to the rise of the Nazis during the 1930s. |
![]() In an attempt to generate public support, Wilson embarked on a speaking tour of the western states, traveling over 8,000 miles and making over 40 speeches. After delivering a speech on September 25 in Pueblo, Colorado, he collapsed, and was quickly returned by train to Washington, where he suffered a severe stroke in the White House on October 2 which paralyzed his left side. Access to the president and news of his true condition was closely guarded by his wife Edith, who evidently made substantive decisions issued in his name during the most critical period of the Senate debate over the Treaty. On November 19, the Senate rejected the Treaty with the Lodge reservations by a 39-55 vote and then also rejected the original Treaty by a vote of 38 to 53.
....For the next three or four days the White House was like a hospital. There were all kinds of medical apparatus and more doctors and more nurses. Day and night this went on. All the while the only answer one could get from an inquiry as to his condition was that it 'showed signs of improvement.' No details, no explanations. This situation seemed to go on indefinitely. It was perhaps three weeks or more before any change came over things. I had been in and out of the room many times during this period and I saw very little progress in the President's condition. He just lay helpless. True, he had been taking nourishment, but the work the doctors had been doing on him had just about sapped his remaining vitality. All his natural functions had to be artificially assisted and he appeared just as helpless as one could possibly be and live. Account of period immediately following President Wilson's stroke by White House chief usher Irwin Hood "Ike" Hoover, see President Wilson Suffers a Stroke, 1919 |
In February 1920, the Senate voted to reconsider the Treaty shortly after England and France declared that they would be willing to accept the Lodge reservations. Wilson, however, continued to reject the reservations, and the Treaty again failed in a 49-35 vote on March 19. A joint resolution approved in May by the Congress ending the war was vetoed by the President. It would not be until after Wilson left office that U.S. participation in the war officially ended, when President Harding signed in July 1921 another joint resolution passed by the Congress, which was followed by the ratification of separate treaties with Germany, Austria, and Hungary.
Wilson's health prevented him from taking an active role in the 1920 campaign, which Republican Warren G. Harding would win in defeating Democratic candidate James M. Cox. The Republicans also gained substantial Congressional majorities. In the House, their margin of 237 seats to 191 for the Democrats during Wilson's last two years in office grew to an overwhelming 300 to 132 in the 67th Congress sworn in as he left office. In the Senate, the narrow 49 to 47 majority the Republicans gained in 1919 went to a comfortable 59 to 37 balance in 1921. Wilson retired to Washington, D.C., where he passed away in 1924. |