America and World War I

“Over There”—by George M. Cohan

Over there, over there,
Send the word, send the word over there -
That the Yanks are coming,
The Yanks are coming,
The drums rum-tumming ev'rywhere.
So prepare, say a pray'r,
Send the word, send the word to beware.
We'll be over, we're coming over,
And we won't come back till it's over over there.

World War I was by many measures the worst war in the history of the world. It certainly was the worst for the fighting men, who for four long years existed in unthinkable conditions of deprivation, fear, discomfort and death. Millions of men lived in trenches and holes in the ground, with only the rarest of opportunities to spend the night in untroubled sleep, in a clean bed, with normal sanitary facilities and decent food. The fighting itself, rather than being long periods of boredom interspersed with short bursts of terror, was more like long periods of intermittent fear interwoven with sustained periods of unspeakable violence. Millions of men died horrible deaths, and many millions of others were wounded physically and mentally and spiritually to depths from which it was almost impossible to recover, Casualties in a single day of fighting often rose to the tens of thousands.

The French, on whose soil the worst of the war was fought, can be said never to have fully recovered from the conflict. They lost half a generation of young men, and memories of that conflict, along with its successor, World War II, are still rooted deeply in the French psyche.

The Germans, Austrians, British, Russians and Italians also suffered grave damage and irreplaceable loss. Comparing relative suffering through comparative statistics is an empty exercise; every nation involved suffered immensely. There were no real victors.

For America the war was relatively brief, and the casualties, while large, could not be compared with those of the other major nations. For America, however, the Great War was a turning point: for the first time American soldiers in significant numbers crossed the Atlantic to fight in a foreign war; for the first time America became deeply embroiled in European affairs; for the first time an American president helped shape the fate of a postwar world. For the first time America was part of the Western family of nations in the fullest sense, and the impact of the two million soldiers who fought in France remained for decades. President Wilson and the diplomats who negotiated the peace treaty in Versailles in 1919 changed the course of American diplomacy forever.

Neutral Rights

When war broke out in August 1914, President Wilson, consistent with what he perceived to be the national mood about such things, quickly issued a proclamation of neutrality calling for Americans to be neutral not only in their actions, but also in their thoughts, a very difficult task, given that about one-third of all Americans had very close ties to the Old World. As news from the warring nations reached this country, however, Americans found it difficult to ignore the reports of atrocities, the massive slaughters on the battlefields, the terrifying new weapons and the huge personal and social costs of the conflict of a magnitude never before seen. Both sides—the Allies, Great Britain and France; and the Central Powers, Germany and Austria—began economic warfare that soon affected the United States. Before long American cargoes were being captured, merchant ships diverted, and many of the older practices of war such as had drawn us into the conflict in 1812 against Great Britain arose once more.

The American Civil War had seen advances in weaponry that soon began to redefine methods of ground combat; but the technology that affected the battlefields by the time World War I broke out was of a very different order of magnitude. Machine guns, barbed wire, poison gas, mechanized vehicles, long-range artillery, tanks, and aircraft were just some of the implements of war that transformed the battlefield.  But the weapon that most directly affected America's entry into the war was “undersea boat” (U Boat) or submarine. Fragile and not very maneuverable, submarines on the surface of the water were almost defenseless even against armed merchant ships since they could easily be rammed and sunk. Thus the tactics which evolved called for submarines to shoot first and ask questions later; the traditional practice of firing warning shots and threatening the neutral vessel with a boarding party was no longer viable. Soon many ships were sunk, and civilian passengers were lost, including a number of Americans.

The most famous sinking was that of H.M.S. Lusitania in May 1915. The Germans had placed notices in American newspapers warning civilians to stay out of the war zone the Germans had declared around the British Isles. When the Lusitania sailed she was outwardly a passenger ship, but her hold contained a large cargo of ammunition bound for Great Britain. The great ship was spotted off the Irish coast by a German submarine, and a single torpedo sent the Lusitaniato the bottom in 18 minutes.  Over 1,100 passengers perished, including 114 Americans. Although many were outraged for humanitarian reasons, the United States did not immediately decide to go to war. Soon thereafter, however, President Wilson called upon the Germans to cease unrestricted submarine warfare—that meant to stop sinking without warning ships which might be carrying neutral civilian passengers, and the Germans, not wanting to draw America into the war, consented.

Looking back from our perspective beyond the history of Nazi Germany, it is hard for Americans today to imagine that early in the last century we might well have gone to war on the side of Germany against England and France, countries we now consider longtime friends. Yet in the early days of the war, British handling of neutral rights also angered the Americans, just as it had under the tenure of President Madison before the War of 1812. In addition, the background issues of World War I were little known to most Americans. Dealing with a huge influx of immigrants, ongoing industrialization, labor disputes and the great reform movement of the Progressive Era, Americans were little interested in foreign affairs, even after the successful Spanish-American War. When World War I broke out in 1914, the attitude of the typical American was probably something on the order of, “There they go again!”—although Europe had been relatively peaceful for the previous century.

This situation prevailed until after the election of 1916. Prior to that election Woodrow Wilson had pursued his progressive goals and had become an effective leader in domestic issues. In foreign policy, as has been seen in his actions regarding Mexico and South America, he was something of an idealist, and certainly an interventionist. Nevertheless, his lofty attitudes toward the European conflict seemed to sit well with Americans, and in the election campaign of 1916 the slogan that brought Wilson victory was, “He kept us out of war.” While that was technically true, Wilson himself knew that the Germans could drawn us into war at any time, which they did.

Summary of the Conflict prior to American Entry

As mentioned above, the technology of the weapons of World War I far outstripped traditional military tactics and made old practices irrelevant and deadly.  The German General staff had devised a plan which might have brought a swift conclusion to the war, but they failed execute it, and within months of the outbreak of fighting between Germany, France and Great Britain the western front settled into a stalemate fought across trenches that stretched from the Swiss border to Belgium.

The armies were huge: the Germans mobilized 5 million men and 4 million Frenchmen were available for the conflict.  Russia had even more but were slow to mobilize.  The principle of mass was still seen as the key to victory, but the new weapons—machine guns, barbed wire, artillery, hand grenades, poison gas—made mass attacks a little more than suicide charges.  In between the fruitless attacks the soldiers had to endure the horrors of the trenches; during the heat of summer in the wet and cold of winter millions of men lived in holes in the ground.  In addition to the terror of enemy artillery, soldiers had to endure mud, disease, rats, heat and cold, stench, gas, constant fear, and shell shock. A British staff officer from London visiting the front broke down in tears and said, "My God, have we sent men to fight in this!”

Throughout 1914, 1915 and 1916 the fighting raged on both Eastern and Western fronts.  In September 1914 the first Battle of the Marne was fought with 1,000,000 men participating on each side of the line. Within a matter of days the Allies lost 250,000 men, the Germans more. This was the most decisive battle since Waterloo. Afterwards the trenches extended from Switzerland to the North Sea/English Channel, and for the next four years neither side was able to break the other.

The Naval War in 1914. Sea power, unappreciated by the French, soon began to make itself felt. The British and German navies fought it out on just about every ocean of the world—colonies would become bargaining chips later. By the end of 1914 Great Britain was in command of the seas, and a naval blockade soon began to pinch the Central Powers; the German submarine, “U-Boat” was the only effective weapon left to the Germans.

The Russians advanced rapidly westward to assist their French allies in 1914 but were if decisively defeated by the Austrians at Lemberg and the Germans at Tannenberg. The Germans defeated the Russian army decisively, taking 90,000 prisoners; the results could have been worse for the Russians, who were poorly led and equipped. German General Ludendorff took command, with Field Marshall Hindenburg as the nominal head, and cut off the Russian “steamroller.” The Russians had terrible counterintelligence, sent teletype messages in the clear so they could be intercepted, etc. The German General Staff had greatly overestimated the military power of the Russians, whose vast numbers proved ineffective in modern war.

By end of 1914 it was apparent that huge economic resources had been expended, and much more would be required. It had become a war of money and supplies, which affected, among other things, the position of America. Prewar economists were “dumbfounded,” according to Liddell hart

1915. The German strategy for 1915 was to hold the French and the British in the West, achieve a decisive victory in East and knock Russia out of the war. Renewed offensives in the West, however, included the battles of Ypres and Artois. Poison gas was used for first time by both sides, but it was hard to use effectively because of wind shifts, etc. Still, it was a horrifying weapon, and thousands of soldiers coughed out their lives. The French mounted major offensives in the summer and fall. There were huge costs, but no results, except recriminations among the British and French generals who blamed each other for the failures.

The invasion of Gallipoli in the Dardanelles, the Strait between Greece and Turkey, was Winston Churchill's brainchild. His idea was to assist Russia, open a second front, and use the “indirect approach” to get at the “soft underbelly” of Europe. There was much resistance to the plan, but it was overcome. A huge expeditionary force landed in the Dardanelles, but it got stranded and eventually had to withdraw. Many thought Churchill was finished.

In 1915 Italy turned sides and declared war on Austria. Italy wanted territory, and to regain her “historic traditions.” The Italian commander lost over 250,000 men by December to the Austrians waiting in the mountains with their machine guns. By August 1917 the Italians had fought 11 “Battles of the Isonzo River”—and were still on the Isonzo.

In the East the Russians tried to defend against a German offensive, but the Germans won a major battle, taking another 90,000 prisoners at Masurian Lakes. The Russians advanced against the Austrians, but from June though September the Germans broke through, and the whole Russian front was soon in a state of collapse. Russia lost 2 million men, half of them captured. Facing critical shortages of supply, the Russian army was no longer a serious threat. At the same time, the coming Communist revolution was undermining Russian unity and demoralizing the Russian army.

Fighting also occurred in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia. The British needed to protect their source of oil supplies in the Persian Gulf region. In 1916 Colonel Thomas E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”) emerged as a spectacular war hero. Serbia was also conquered by Germany and Austria in 1915-16. (See the film “Lawrence of Arabia” with Peter O'Toole.)

Net result of 1915 fighting: 600,000 German casualties, 1,300,000 French, 279,000 British with “no appreciable shift in the lines.”

1916. It was now thought that the Western front was crucial and that the allied effort should be focused there. The Germans reversed their 1915 strategy and tried to crack the Western front, thinking that the French had suffered huge losses and might crack under a strong blow. The year marked the first appearance of tanks, created as mobile pillboxes to serve as a countermeasure against machine guns and barbed wire, which had chewed up men by the thousands. Major battles included Verdun and the Somme. At the Somme a seven-day artillery bombardment was followed by an attack on a 14-mile front. The deadly machine gun led to 60,000 British casualties (19,000 killed) in one day. Total losses in the campaign reached about 600,000 on each side. A French counterattack to retake ground lost in Verdun offensive cost about 500,000 losses on each side.

The Battle of Jutland in 1916 was the high point of the war at Sea.  The British fleet numbered 151 vessels, the German fleet 99. The fighting went on for two days and a night, and the British lost 14 ships, the Germans 11, but the results were negligible in terms of the overall war effort.

In 1917 the United States entered the war as the situation of the Allies was growing increasingly worse. The Battles of Passchendaele and Cambrai, in which the Americans did not participate as troops did not begin to arrive until late in the year, saved the French army but otherwise produced no positive results  

In 1917 the Germans provided safe passage for Lenin from Switzerland to Russia in the hope that a communist revolution would permanently removed Russia for the war.  The Germans got their wish and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on March 3, 1918, ending the fighting on the Eastern front. 

America Goes to War

The costs of the war, as has been stated elsewhere, were horrendous. Soldiers died by the tens of thousands; millions of bullets and artillery shells were fired; poison gas and barbed wire, the machine gun and heavy artillery made the life of the infantryman a hellish nightmare, as well as the miles of trenches with very poor sanitation another comfort facilities. By 1917 both sides had bled and suffered almost unbearably—it seemed as though the carnage would never and end. Germany finally decided to try one big push. Russia, apparently neutralized by both the ineffectiveness of the Tsarist army and by the impending Bolshevik Revolution, was no longer a serious factor in the East. So the German high command decided to focus attention upon the West and planned a huge offensive for 1917 and 1918 to try to end the war once and for all. As part of that plan, they made a decision to resume unrestricted submarine warfare.

When news of the German decision reached Washington, President Wilson was pushed to his limit, and the situation was exacerbated by the infamous Zimmermann telegram, in which the foreign ministry in Berlin instructed its minister in Mexico to approach the Mexican government and urge them to join Germany in a fight against the United States, in exchange for which they would help Mexico redeem the territory they had lost to the United States as a result of the Mexican War—that is, most of the southwestern United States, including California. British intelligence had broken the German codes and thus had the Zimmermann message, which they withheld, not wanting to reveal their coup. But they finally decided that having the United States in the war was more important than guarding intelligence secrets, and the message was forward to Washington.

Reluctantly, President Wilson went before Congress and asked for a declaration of war. He told Congress, “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.” His speech was greeted with applause, causing him to remark to an aide that he found it strange that men would applaud a decision which would send thousands of other men to their deaths.

In order to get a good feel for President Wilson’s handling of the war issue, one should read carefully the excerpts from his statements and speeches, including his Neutrality Address, the Fourteen Points, his Peace without Victory speech and his War Message, all contained in the Appendix.

Over There

Once having declared war, the United States mobilized four million men and sent two million of them to fight in France. Although the French were desperate because of near mutinies and desertions and wanted to feed the American soldiers into the lines piecemeal, General John J. Pershing, the American commander, insisted that American units fight together under American leaders. Eventually 42 American divisions took part in the conflict, entering fighting in significant numbers in the summer of 1918. Although untested, the Americans quickly grasped the tempo of modern warfare and became a significant factor in holding back and eventually repelling the German onslaught.

By late September and early October, 1918, the Germans, although still on French soil, were in full retreat, and the end of October the German high command sued for peace based upon Wilson's 14 Points. Thus, although the Americans had participated in the war for only the few final months of the long and terribly bloody four-year conflict, they made a significant contribution to the outcome of the war. It is entirely feasible that the Germans would have won had the Americans stayed out.

By 1918 the U.S. Army had grown from 200,000 to 4 million men. Some two million reached Europe with no casualties, a credit to the U.S. Navy, which had mobilized 800,000 men. The U.S. dispatched 42 Army Divisions of 26,000 to France—a total of 1 million combat soldiers.

German General Ludendorff tried to end the war with a massive campaign before Americans got into the fight. The Germans launched their Great March Offensive in 1918, breaking  through in several locations. Paris was bombarded by artillery from a distance of 65 miles, and over 800 were killed in that city.

In the summer of 1918 American soldier and Marines entered the fight at Chateau-Thierry and participated in the 2nd Marne counteroffensive. Later that summer nine American divisions took part in the Meuse-Argonne campaign, and the Allies began to advance across the entire western front. Although new to the action, American combat troops fought fiercely. The Germans called American Marines “Teufelhunden”—“Devildogs”—and American soldiers were seen by the Germans as men who would smile one minute and bayonet an enemy the next. Without doubt the fresh American forces turned the tide.

General Ludendorff, his armies reeling, feared for the worst, and Germany sued for peace under President Wilson’s points. Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated and fled to Holland, where he died in 1941. At the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month—November 1918—the guns fell silent and the lights went on again all over Europe. But there was little joy, only relief.

World War I on the Home Front

When he set out to create an army “to make the world safe for democracy,” Wilson kept his progressive ideals in mind. He worried about Americans’ willingness to accept the war, and he did everything possible to sell the war to the American people. He instituted a draft rather than relying on volunteers, simply because it was more efficient. He created a Committee on Public Information that provided for posters bearing patriotic mottoes, speeches in theaters, and so on. Wilson also called for legislation to prevent dissent and sabotage—the Espionage Act, the Trading with the Enemy Act, and the Sedition Act. Civil libertarians have found such measures excessive, but they are typical in time of war. The American people probably supported the war far more willingly that Wilson imagined, perhaps because he had doubted the wisdom of taking America in for so long himself. In any case American civilians got into the war mood with a vengeance, making life difficult for German-Americans and anyone who seemed less than patriotic.

Despite progress made in American military organization since the time of the Spanish-American war, America was in many ways ill-prepared to enter the First World War. Army-Navy cooperation was not all that it should have been, yet, despite the submarine threat, the Navy transported 2 million American soldiers to Europe without losing a single man to enemy action. (I have in my possession letters from my father, written while he was in training at Plattsburgh, New York, prior to heading to France in 1917. In those letters he reports using makeshift equipment, including make-pretend vehicles and brooms for weapons. He wrote to his parents that the only decent weapon they had was the French 75 mm howitzer.)

The United States was a nation of huge industrial power. For example, there were as many miles of railroads in United States as in most of the rest of the world combined. The United States mobilization effort that followed America's entry into the war was stupendous. A War Industries Board was created under the direction of Bernard Baruch, and although the United States government left the ownership and direct management of industrial affairs in private hands, it oversaw the efforts of American industry and oriented them toward the war effort. In coordinating the mobilization effort the government also took control of communication and transportation, including railroads, telephone and telegraph. While not totally abandoning the traditional American practice of laissez-faire, the government nevertheless took far more control of American business than it ever had done in peacetime.

A serious matter facing the allies was the supply of food. At the time the United States entered the war, Great Britain was perilously close to running out of food for its civilian population while desperately trying to keep its troops supplied. The administration of American food production was turned over to Herbert Hoover, and his task was monumental. As an accomplished engineer and superb manager, Hoover managed to increase American food production enormously, increasing the amount of bread, meats and other commodities by large amounts. The American people were encouraged to voluntarily support Hoover's food program by observing wheatless Mondays, meatless Tuesdays, pork-free Thursdays, and so on. People were also asked to plant victory gardens and reduce their use of electric power. The need for more food also furthered the cause of prohibition as crops were diverted from the production of alcohol to the production of bread. Hoover's program to prevent starvation in Belgium was later recognized for its humanitarian contribution.

The government also went out of its way to try to control public opinion. A committee on public information was created under the leadership of Chairman George Creel. Artists were mobilized to design posters, and 75,000 amateur and professional speakers were organized as “four-minute men” to encourage the public to buy war bonds, support the draft and help with food production programs. They spoke in churches, movie houses, and other gatherings in an attempt to mobilize support for the war. German-Americans bore the brunt of much of the public opinion mobilization effort, as anything German became out of bounds. Even violinist Fritz Kreisler was booed when he appeared on the concert stage, and German-American clubs had to change their names.

People who spoke German stopped using it in the streets for fear of reprisals. One German American citizen was stripped naked, wrapped in an American flag, and lynched in St. Louis, Missouri. Finally, a Sedition Act was passed in 1918 that made it illegal to “write or print any disloyal, profane, scurrilous or abusive language intended to cause contempt scorn or disrepute regarding the government of the United States." Many who protested the war were jailed, a direct slap against America's traditional position of freedom of speech. Labor leader Eugène Debs was jailed for a speech in which he questioned whether America's war effort was in the best interests of American workers. The freedoms for which President Woodrow Wilson professed to be fighting were in fact jeopardized on the home front, but since this was America's first involvement in a major European war, the American people acquiesced in many of these measures.

The Treaty of Versailles

During World War I soldiers died at the average rate of about 6,000 per day for 4 years, 3 months. There were also nearly 10 million prisoners.

TOTAL COSTS: 10,000,000 Killed, 20,000,000 wounded + several million civilians. Total dead = 14,667,443. COST: $180 BILLION direct, 151 BILLION indirect. Long-term, psychological damages incalculable.

The war made massive economic planning necessary—massive industrial mobilization was necessary to support the war effort. Rapid inflation and severe economic impact were results—huge national debts caused higher taxes for years. Severe morale problems arose among civilians. For much of the war rigid censorship was imposed, and people at home first began to realize the impact of the war when trainloads of coffins and cars filled with thousands of wounded soldiers began to arrive at the terminals in Berlin, Paris and London.

As horrible as it was, the conflict would be resumed two decades later.

Progressive Era Home | Updated September 4, 2007