Digital History (2024)

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The United States Enters the War:	Previous	Next
Digital History ID 3476

President Wilson was reluctant to enter World War I. When the War began, Wilson declared U.S. neutrality and demanded that the belligerents respect American rights as a neutral party. He hesitated to embroil the United States in the conflict, with good reason. Americans were deeply divided about the European war, and involvement in the conflict would certainly disrupt Progressive reforms. In 1914, he had warned that entry into the conflict would bring an end to Progressive reform. "Every reform we have won will be lost if we go into this war," he said. A popular song in 1915 was "I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier."

In 1916, President Wilson narrowly won re-election after campaigning on the slogan, "He kept us out of war." He won the election with a 4,000 vote margin in California.

Toward Intervention

Shortly after war erupted in Europe, President Wilson called on Americans to be "neutral in thought as well as deed." The United States, however, quickly began to lean toward Britain and France.

Convinced that wartime trade was necessary to fuel the growth of American trade, President Wilson refused to impose an embargo on trade with the belligerents. During the early years of the war, trade with the Allies tripled.

This volume of trade quickly exhausted the Allies' cash reserves, forcing them to ask the United States for credit. In October 1915, President Wilson permitted loans to belligerents, a decision that greatly favored Britain and France. By 1917, American loans to the Allies had soared to $2.25 billion; loans to Germany stood at a paltry $27 million.

In January 1917, Germany announced that it would resume unrestricted submarine warfare. This announcement helped precipitate American entry into the conflict. Germany hoped to win the war within five months, and they were willing to risk antagonizing Wilson on the assumption that even if the United States declared war, it could not mobilize quickly enough to change the course of the conflict.

Then a fresh insult led Wilson to demand a declaration of war. In March 1917, newspapers published the Zimmerman Note, an intercepted telegram from the German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmerman to the German ambassador to Mexico. The telegram proposed that Mexico ally with Germany in the event that the United States entered the war against Germany. In return, Germany promised to help Mexico recover the territory it had lost to the U.S. during the 1840s, including Texas, New Mexico, California, and Arizona. The Zimmerman Note and German attacks on three U.S. ships in mid-March led Wilson to ask Congress for a declaration of war.

Wilson decided to enter the war so that he could help design the peace settlement. Wilson viewed the war as an opportunity to destroy German militarism. "The world must be made safe for democracy," he told a joint session of Congress. Only 6 Senators and 50 Representatives voted against the war declaration.

FAQs

What is the meaning of digital history? ›

Digital history is the use of digital media to further historical analysis, presentation, and research. It is a branch of the digital humanities and an extension of quantitative history, cliometrics, and computing.

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Is digital history a good source? ›

Digital History acts like an online museum of historical works, but also includes a broad collection of reference tools including original documents, teachers' tools and transcripts as well as audio of book talks given by important historians. The enormous array of resources is impressive--at first.

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Is digital history a database? ›

Digital history not only involves the accumulation and dissemination of historical knowledge and facts using digital tools (think of databases, online syllabi, historical search engines, digitized archives, and the like), but it can also mean producing historical narratives that use or even rely on digital technology.

What are digital sources in history? ›

Digital history involves the use of digital tools to:

Research, analyse, and visualize patterns in historical information. • Present research findings and historical narratives in an enriched content format that is both informative and entertaining.

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Why is digital history important? ›

For the most part, these first four qualities of digital media provide what we might call quantitative advantages—we can do more, reach more people, store more data, give readers more varied sources; we can get more historical materials into classrooms, give students more access to formerly cloistered documents, hear ...

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Who started digital? ›

Claude Shannon, a Bell Labs mathematician, is credited for having laid out the foundations of digitalization in his pioneering 1948 article, A Mathematical Theory of Communication. The digital revolution converted technology from analog format to digital format.

What are examples of digital data? ›

Digital data is all information that is shared using technological devices. Data includes photos, videos, text-based files, electronic books, and newspapers.