A man for all seasons: Woodrow Wilson, transatlantic relations and the war against militarism

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/11/17/op-ed-president-obama-and-chancellor-merkel-future-transatlantic.

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This line of thinking would eventually lead to the US neutrality Acts of the 1930s see: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/neutrality-acts.

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This was demonstrated by the outrage that surrounded the sinking of the Lusitania see: Thomas A. Bailey ‘The Sinking of the Lusitania’, The American Historical Review, 41, no. 1 (1935): 54–73 and its long lasting effects inCrossRefGoogle Scholar

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Although this government was itself to fall to the communist revolution in October/November at the time of the American declaration of war all of the major allied powers were democracies. Also it is important to note that the term ‘democratic’ in reference to the provisional government is a liberal interpretation of the termGoogle Scholar

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Indeed Wilson ran on a peace platform during the 1916 election: see Arthur S. Link, Wilson: Confusion and Crisis (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964)Google Scholar

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As an associate power the United States retained more independence of action than the Allied powers. The United States was not at war with the Ottoman Empire and could conclude a separate peace with Germany if it chose to do so.Google Scholar

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On this point Wilson was successful as it is now received convention that treaties should be public see G.R. Berridge, Diplomacy: Theory and Practice (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 72.Google Scholar

It was popular at the time to blame the European arms race and the failure of deterrence for the conflict. For discussion of the validity of this idea see: Theresa Clair Smith, ‘Arms Race Instability and War’, The Journal of Conflict Resolution, 24, no. 2 (1980): 253–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Indeed on the run up to World War Two we see secret clauses in the Ribbentrop-Molotov packed to divide Poland between the USSR and Nazi Germany. Gabriel Gorodetsky ‘The Impactof the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact on the Course of Soviet Foreign Policy’, Cahiersdu Monde russe et soviétique, 31, no. 1 (1990): 27–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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The Napoleonic period gives a good comparison as this was the last major European conflict which leads to American belligerence with a European great power since the War of 1812 discussed previously. Spain having fallen out of the great power ranks by the time of the Spanish American War. The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars can be consider to have been between 1792 and 1815.Google Scholar

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This is of course what happened when the debt was effectively written off by the Hoover moratorium in 1931. Herbert Hoover ‘Statement on the Moratorium on Intergovernmental Debts and Reparations. July 6, 1931’, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=22735 (accessed June 20, 2013).

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