How Did Woodrow Wilson Want To Be Neutral

In the document, the main key person is President Thomas Woodrow Wilson. At the start of the Great War in 1914, Woodrow Wilson did not want to get involved with the war in Europe. When the war broke out, President Wilson gave a speech to Congress on August 19, 1914, and in his speech he said “The United States must be neutral in fact as well as in name during these days that are to try men’s souls” (Harkins 96). He was against going to war. President Wilson wanted to have the United States remain neutral and was able to have it remain neutral during his first term in office as president. In fact, when Woodrow Wilson ran for president against Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes in the presidential election of 1916, he ran on the slogan
Woodrow Wilson would end up winning the presidential election of 1916 and would become the first Democrat to be elected for two consecutive terms since Andrew Jackson in 1832. However, things would change in 1917 when a German telegram was intercepted by Great Britain. The telegram was a threat to the United States. On April 2, 1917, President Wilson gave an address to Congress and asked them to declare war on Germany. In his address, “Germany’s violation of its pledge to suspend unrestricted submarine warfare in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean, as well as its attempts to entice Mexico into an alliance against the United States, as his reasons for declaring war” (history.state.gov). After the United States had declared war on the Imperial German Empire on April 6, 1917, they began to build up its military. To help build up the military, President Woodrow Wilson passed the Selective Service Act. President Wilson would also appoint General John J. Pershing to lead the United States during the
During the Great War, the government of the Imperial German Empire made an agreement known as the Sussex Pledge, which put restrictions on which ships German submarines were not allowed to sink. As the war went on in Europe, Arthur Zimmermann tried to send a telegram to Venustiano Carranza, the president of Mexico. This telegram is famously known as the Zimmermann Telegram. The telegram that Arthur Zimmermann sent stated “It is our purpose on the 1st of February to commence the unrestricted U-boat war” (Harkins 102). The purpose of the telegram was to keep the United States neutral and to get Mexico to attack the United States to keep them from joining the war. The telegram would eventually be intercepted by Great Britain and sent to the United States. According to an article on the Zimmermann Telegram by Michael S. Neiberg, he mentions that “Once the Germans learned that their codes and ciphers were no longer secure, they would stop using them…” Arthur Zimmermann would eventually resign from his position in the Imperial German government towards the end of 1917. One of the reasons for his resignation was the famous telegram he sent. Richard von Kühlmann would replace Arthur Zimmermann. What makes the Zimmerman Telegram historically significant is that it caused the United States to join the Great