Abandoning American Neutrality

Woodrow Wilson and the Beginning of the Great War, August 1914 – December 1915

R. Floyd

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137334121
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

During the first 18 months of World War I, Woodrow Wilson sought to maintain American neutrality, but as this carefully argued study shows, it was ultimately an unsustainable stance. The tension between Wilson's idealism and pragmatism ultimately drove him to abandon neutrality, paving the way for America's entrance into the war in 1917.

1

“An Awful Cataclysm”

July 1914–September 1914

They don’t want peace on the continent—the ruling classes do not. But they will want it presently and then our opportunity will come—your opportunity to play an important and historic part.

—US Ambassador Walter Hines Page to President Wilson, August 2, 19141

In the early months of the Great War the purview and direction of Anglo-American diplomacy was cloudy because the United States and Great Britain confronted a multitude of complex issues that muddled their relationship. Each state had to orchestrate strategies for protecting its own economic and political well-being. For the Wilson administration, safeguarding American interests meant declaring neutrality, calling for mediation among the belligerents, and trying to convince Great Britain to accept existing international accords that secured neutral commerce. Protecting US trade, however, was not simple because Britain’s plan for conducting its war effort was not compatible with America’s interests. Britain could not avoid interference with US exports because it was committed to preventing Germany from purchasing goods that would help its military campaign. The Royal Navy’s decision to cut off German trade would become a serious issue of contention for Washington and the American people. Additionally, as Wilson soon discovered, his country’s economic and ancestral associations with Europe prevented his office from steering clear of the conflict. Instead the president and his advisors found themselves deeply immersed in global affairs. The ties between the Old and New World led to confusion over how to pursue relations that achieved political and fiscal objectives while minimizing the risk of diplomatic confrontation.

In the spring of 1914, President Wilson sent his friend and confidant Colonel Edward House to Europe in an effort to diffuse the rising tension that was engulfing the continent. House, who had first met Wilson during his bid for the Democratic Party’s 1912 presidential nomination, was the president’s closest advisor. He preferred to remain outside the official cabinet but wielded enormous influence in Washington because Wilson trusted House’s political judgment.2 After traveling to Berlin, House informed the president that problems had reached a point where the European powers could not find a solution on their own. The colonel insisted that the situation demanded outside mediation. He thought he had already made a small “dent . . . [s]ufficient enough to start a discussion in London,” but “[u]nless someone acting for you can bring about an understanding, there is some day to be an awful cataclysm. No one in Europe can do it. There is too much hatred, too many jealousies.”3 The colonel saw an opportunity for Wilson to become an influential international leader by mediating a resolution to the escalating European crisis. During the remaining days of his trip, House continued working to keep the water from boiling over, but he was fighting a losing battle.

House was not alone. The American ambassador to London, Walter Hines Page, believed that only an intervention by the United States could restore tranquility between the European countries. He communicated to the president that “they don’t want peace on the continent—the ruling classes do not. But they will want it presently and then our opportunity will come—your opportunity to play an important and historic part.”4 With Wilson’s approval, Page offered the services of the United States government to London in hope that it might accept American mediation. Page, however, was not an objective bystander. Not only did he wish for an Allied victory, he also believed that Britain was fighting to protect what he considered the civilized world from German militarism. Thus Page developed a close relationship with British statesmen, and throughout his tenure as ambassador he tried to persuade Wilson to support Britain.5

When the war came in August of 1914, Page told Wilson that it had occurred because of German and Russian aspirations. “It’s the Slav and the German. Each wants his day, and neither has got beyond the stage of tooth and claw.” While the conflict was not as simple as Page’s derogatory statement suggests, the July Crisis, which could have been a regional conflict over control of the Balkans, blossomed into a world affair. After the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, Germany offered Vienna a “blank check” of support to deter Russia from aiding Serbia. The kaiser and his advisors assumed St. Petersburg was unprepared to go to war. Events immediately surrounding Austria-Hungary’s July 28 declaration of war on Serbia, however, proved Germany wrong. When Russia mobilized its forces, Germany’s fears that the 1894 Franco-Russian alliance would force Berlin into a two-front war convinced the German high command to mobilize against both Russia and France. France in turn mobilized with the misplaced belief that because of improved relations with Britain established through the 1904 Entente Cordiale and the 1912 naval accords, which shifted the Royal Navy to the North Sea and left France to guard the Mediterranean, Britain would come to its aid against Germany. Thus in the confusion of late summer the major powers on the European continent prepared for battle.6

On August 1, Germany declared war on Russia. The following day when German troops marched west on their way to take Paris, government officials in London realized that they had to respond considering Berlin’s next move was undoubtedly a move into neutral Belgium. Prime Minister Henry Asquith’s cabinet met to discuss their options. While they did not want a German victory to upset the balance of power on the continent, the majority of the cabinet opposed going to war simply to aid France. Neither the 1904 Anglo-French Entente nor the 1907 accord with Russia, which unofficially established the Triple Entente, included a binding commitment to send the British Army to France in the case of war with Germany and thus were not military alliances. Herbert Samuel, president of the Board of Trade, asserted that “we are not entitled to carry England into war for the sake of our goodwill to France, or for the sake of maintaining the strength of France or Russia against that of Germany or Austria.”7 To Samuel, and many others in the cabinet, the only reasons for war would be to prevent Germany from violating Belgium’s neutrality and, more important, taking control of the eastern shore of the English Channel. The cabinet agreed that a German presence in Britain’s home waters was unacceptable.8

On August 3, the day Germany officially declared war on France, the cabinet met again and decided to send a note to Berlin demanding that Belgium’s neutrality be respected. The next day, British leaders learned that German troops were already marching across the country. Britain followed up with a second letter requiring Germany to withdraw by midnight, but Germany did not intend to pull its soldiers back. As a result, Whitehall decided to go to war and began preparations for sending the small British Expeditionary Force of four divisions to France.9

Wilson grew increasingly apprehensive as the events unfolded. He told House that “the pressure and anxiety of the last week have been the most nearly overwhelming that I have yet had to carry.” The president assumed there must be a divine explanation for why the war started despite their efforts. God must have a reason for the onslaught, “we must face the situation in the confidence that Providence has deeper plans than we could have possibly laid ourselves.”10

Wilson’s interpretation of morality and the law, along with a desire to increase US prestige and economic prosperity guided his foreign policy. The son of a Presbyterian minister, Wilson was a devoutly religious man who claimed he had the responsibility to do God’s work on earth. Writing during his undergraduate years at Princeton, Wilson expressed in an essay titled “Work Day Religion” that “[w]ith all this diligence and earnestness we should perform every act as an act which we shall someday be made to render a strict account, as an act done either in the service of God or that of the Devil.”11 Wilson’s convictions moved him to follow a Calvinist moral code that he applied to men and states alike, a position he carried into the political arena.

From an early age, Wilson aspired to enter politics, trained himself to become strong in “the art of persuasion,” and focused his studies in law and political science.12 Making a connection between religion and politics, Wilson regarded the presidency as a pulpit from which he could direct national and world affairs. In 1912, Wilson asserted that because the United States was a world power the “[p]resident has, of necessity, become the guiding force in the affairs of the country.”13 Similar to Robert Lansing, Wilson was also a student of the law. Having taught the subject from 1892 to 1894 as a professor at Princeton, Wilson concluded that international law was always changing and was “a body of abstract principles founded upon long established custom.”14 On many occasions he used the law to protect American interests and often interpreted international precedents to favor the United States. His world-view influenced his conception of neutrality and, aptly regarded by his contemporaries as the “schoolmaster in politics,” the president held the conviction that his approach to diplomacy was right and everyone else was wrong.15

Wilson’s stress over the burgeoning war was compounded by the recent loss of his wife, Ellen, who had been diagnosed with Bright’s disease in early spring and died on August 6. She was the most important person in his life. They met right before Wilson entered graduate school at Johns Hopkins University and were married almost immediately. After her death, Wilson stated that “[w]henever I tried to speak to those bound to me by affection and intimate sympathy it seemed as if a single word would open the flood-gates and I would be lost to all self-control.”16 He had depended on Ellen’s emotional support and companionship and her passing left a major void in his life. For weeks afterward, Wilson wrote letters to friends expressing his sorrow. It was in his work that he found solace. In a letter to House on August 17, Wilson stated, “It seemed for a time as if I would never get my head above the flood that came upon me, but the absolute imperative character of the duties I have to perform had been my salvation.” Writing days later, he added “my great safety lies in having my attention absolutely fixed elsewhere than upon myself.”17

Considering the perception that he held of his own role in the world, and the grief he experienced over his wife’s death, Wilson focused intently on promoting the United States as a mediator for the warring parties. Thus on August 4, he sent letters to all heads of state, including Tsar Nicholas II, Emperor of Austria-Hungary Franz Josef I, German Kaiser Wilhelm II, King George V of England, and President Raymond Poincare of France, stating that the United States deemed it a “privilege and duty to offer its friendship and welcomed an opportunity to act in the interest of European peace, either now or at any other time that might be more suitable.”18

That same day, Wilson announced his country’s intention to remain neutral. The president and his cabinet reasoned that if the United States was to be a fair mediator it would have to be nonaligned. He believed his country could not officially back one belligerent or the other and expect the Europeans to allow him to broker a peace.

Maintaining neutrality was not simply a matter of diplomacy. The administration fully understood the traditional American view of distant wars. The public perceived the conflict as a foreign affair that was none of its business. For more than a century, US citizens had watched as armies wrecked the European continent. The wars of the French Revolution and Napoleonic era drained continental resources and devastated the populations of many powerful countries. In 1914, many Americans continued to heed George Washington’s warning against entangling the United States in long-term alliances. During Washington’s farewell address, he warned his people not to become embroiled in European political and military dealings. He feared that foreign alliances could draw the young country into conflicts that might damage if not halt its growth. Washington declared that “permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated.” In the midst of the French Revolution, Washington realized that taking sides could tear the country apart and that allying with France or Britain could subjugate the United States to one or the other’s wishes. He claimed that supporting one side over another could make the United States “in some degree a slave” to foreign influences. Americans, he argued, should focus on economic relations with Europe and avoid political alliances because there were very few similarities between US and European politics. The interests of countries such as Great Britain and France forced them into “frequent controversies” that Washington argued his country could and should avoid.19

Adhering to a policy of avoiding political alliances did not mean refraining from all interaction with the rest of the world.20 Like Wilson, many Americans favored one belligerent over the other. According to the New York Times, more than 300,000 people filled Times Square on August 5 to read the “red-lettered” bulletins that the paper posted in its windows listing the declarations of war. Many in the crowd cheered when they learned of Britain’s decision for war against Germany. Soon others shouted their approval after Berlin acted in kind.21 The United States was a very diverse place with a multitude of cultures, languages, and ethnic backgrounds. Predictably it split over whom to support. According to the 1910 US Census, of the 101,115,000 people living in the United States, over 13,515,886 were born overseas. Of this number, 2,501,333 were born in Germany. Another 5,781,437 were native-born second-generation German-Americans, making them the largest immigrant group in the country, followed by 4,504,360 Irish-Americans; 2,541,649 Russian-Americans; 2,322,442 English-Americans; and 2,098,360 Italian-Americans.22

The Wilson administration feared that the multicultural nation could erupt in violence if it did not place US interests ahead of those of other countries. In an effort to ensure unity among native and nationalized citizens alike, Wilson took an additional step when he appealed to the American people on August 18. He asserted that Americans’ actions and opinions could influence US involvement in the war more than any other factor and called on them to keep their country’s interests at heart. “Every man who really loves America,” the president wrote, “will act and speak in the true spirit of neutrality, which is the spirit of impartiality and fairness to all concerned.” To respond differently would threaten the security of the country. Concluding his message, Wilson insisted, “The United States must be neutral in fact as well as in name during these days that are to try men’s souls.”23

Americans, he asserted, must do more than simply comply with the legal definition of neutrality. The president asked the people to remain loyal only to the United States and place all other affiliations and sympathies aside. Many citizens praised Wilson’s call to maintain the spirit of neutrality—a message that was initially more than simple rhetoric. He and his cabinet worked to assure that the government abided by the pronouncement. This was especially true of Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan. The “Great Commoner,” appointed to the position because of his lifelong work for the Democratic Party, was a pacifist. Sitting prominently on his desk was a paperweight that he had specially made to remind him and others that violence was not a solution to the world’s problems. Bryan commissioned an artist to melt down a sword and reshape it in the form of a plowshare. Engraved on the face of his small monument to peace read “Nothing is final between friends” and the bible verse “They shall beat their swords into plowshares. Isaiah 2:4.” To the secretary, very little, if anything, was worth the bloodshed and destruction that came with war. He believed that the best way to end confrontations was through talking and compromise.24

Like Wilson, Bryan hoped the United States could be a moral leader that used its resources to uplift the world. The secretary also wanted his country to avoid the entangling web of alliances and international relationships that might destroy what he perceived as American idealism. To do this, Bryan expected the United States to lead by example rather than by direct involvement overseas.25 This mindset drove his view that the Oval Office should remain impartial. Only then could the government find a way to save the world from itself.

A week prior to Wilson’s speech, Bryan acted to preserve American neutrality by opposing the issuance of bank loans to belligerent powers. On August 10, Bryan wrote the president that the French had contacted the Morgan Company of New York about a loan and J. P. Morgan wanted to know if the government had any objections. The secretary said he had spoken with State Department Counselor Lansing and the two found no legal objections to the loan. However, Bryan asserted that there was another concern they needed to consider. Approving international loans to belligerents could have a detrimental effect on American neutrality.

Bryan offered several other reasons why he opposed loaning money to belligerents. “Money,” he argued, “is the worst of all contrabands because it commands everything else.” Without funding, the warring states would have less capital available to purchase weapons and supplies. By denying loa...