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The US and issues surrounding WW1 - Coggle Diagram
The US and issues surrounding WW1
Reasons for neutrality
Public opinion
The prevailing mood in the US was that the war in Europe had nothing to do with them
There was a widespread feeling that
war was wrong and achieved little
On 29 Aug 1914, 1500 women marched down 5th 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 campaings against the war
Wilsonianism
Wilson himself sought neutrality, seeing himself as an honest broker who could negotiate a peace settlement
This was consistent with Wilsonianism, the phrase that describes how he tried to impart moral and Christian principals to his diplomacy
In his Declaration of Neutrality of 19 Aug 1914 he offered to mediate
This was a declaration to Congress in which he warned US citizens against taking sides in WW1
He was desperate not only for the US to stay out, but for the conflict to end
Wilson was guided by Christian morals, despite the number of times he had intervened in Latin America.
He also feared the war could escalate and the US be sucked in, so he was anxious from the start to support the movement
If the US was to have influence in peace-making, it would need to be beyond reproach in its neutrality
Tensions concerning neutrality
Pro-British feeling
While Wilson genuinely sought neutrality he, and many of his advisers, actually favoured the Allies, and the British in particular
This was in part due to Wilson's natural preferences for British culture and customs
He maintained all his life fond memories of cycling around the English Lake District as a young man and saw Britain as a centre of civilisation and decency
Anti-German feeling
Wilson agreed with his advisers, that Germany posed a threat to US interests and it would be better to help the Allies fight the Germans now than have the US possibly have to fight them one day
The US had confrontations with Germany in Samoa in 1889 and Wilson worries about Germany's growing interests in Latin America, especially mexico
There was also considerably anti-German propaganda in the popular press
Stories of German atrocities on the Western Front in Europe abounded such a raping nuns in Belgium, spearing babies on bayonets and wholesale murder of civilians
There was little truth in these allegations, bu that hardly mattered, the Hun were depicted as cruel and bestial
To a certain extent, Wilson partiality affected the judgement of his administration
Despite the genuine desire for US neutrality and a fair peace settlement, Wilson policies were never really neutral as such and always favoured the Allies
Trade
By 1914, the US was one of the worlds 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 the preventation of trade with any of the counties at war because of the complications it could cause
Others argued its continuation would bring prosperity to the US as all sides needed to but US goods because of the demands of war