Woodrow Wilson

C

Death of Mrs. Wilson and Remarriage

Wilson suffered a severe personal loss on August 6, 1914, with the death of his wife. Combined with the sickness and tension that plagued him, her death was almost more than he could endure. He sought solace in more intensive work and leaned heavily on his few friends. In the following year he met the Southern Edith Bolling Galt, the widow of a Washington jeweler. She and Wilson were married on December 18, 1915.

D

Approach of War

D

1

Attempts to Preserve Neutrality

World War I began in Europe in 1914. It started as a war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia following the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the thrones of Austria and Hungary. The war eventually became a global war involving 32 nations. The Allies and the Associated Powers eventually had 28 nations, including the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Italy, and the United States. They opposed the coalition known as the Central Powers, consisting of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria. When the war began, Wilson immediately announced that the United States would be neutral in the struggle, and he urged Americans to be neutral in fact as well as in name. Indeed, there was no other stand possible in a country as divided in its sympathies as the United States at that time. Some 63 peace organizations flourished, including the wealthy Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, attracting many influential educators and editors. Thousands of housewives and workers signed petitions in favor of peace. Moreover, the war seemed too remote from U.S. affairs to affect them significantly.

Wilson's sympathies were naturally with the Allies, especially Britain, but he did not want his personal feelings to influence his decisions. The war filled him with genuine horror. The United States had a duty to keep itself “intact,” for it “would have to build up the nations ravaged by war.” However, his efforts to remain neutral were thwarted by his friends and advisers. His ambassador to the United Kingdom, Walter Hines Page, took pride in his Southern ancestors, admired the British upper classes, and assumed that their cause favored democracy. With British ships in control of the sea lanes, Page defended British policies to Wilson. These policies involved preventing shipments of goods and materials to Germany and demanding them for Britain. Page minimized the rough treatment that British sea captains gave U.S. exporters and insisted that the British were not confiscating the cargoes but were purchasing them.

Colonel House influenced Wilson's views on the war. Although he had no office, he was able to bypass the Department of State and to portray U.S. policy to Wilson according to his view of what it should be. Wilson permitted House to travel abroad freely and to discuss issues with high-ranking British and German officials. House was thus able to leave foreign governments with such impressions as he personally preferred. His accounts of these discussions influenced Wilson's thinking and ultimately his decisions.

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D

2

Neutrality Program

Anti-German propaganda early in the war cost the Germans any possibility of creating a movement favoring intervention on their side, and German sympathizers mainly argued for peace. Early in the war, House tried to get all warring nations to preserve the freedom of the seas, which would have permitted U.S. ships to travel unhindered. American businesses could thus have fed the United Kingdom and delivered goods to Germany. Such an agreement, however, would have forced Britain to give up its greatest asset, control of the sea, and it was coldly received by the British.

Realizing how divided the Americans were, the British encouraged Wilson's neutrality, but they were able also to perceive the value of U.S. mediation, which would involve the United States more intimately in European affairs. The problem lay in determining the conditions of mediation. Germany, with its battle lines in French and Belgian territory, was ready to accept mediation from a position of strength. Therefore Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, the British ambassador to the United States, on behalf of his government rejected House's mediation by stating that “Germany must be punished before peace is made.”

D

3

Sinking of the Lusitania

Germany, despite its strong position in the land war, still had somehow to curb the flow of goods to Britain. Since Germany's surface navy had been quickly bottled up, its only weapons were its submarines, called U-boats.

On February 4, 1915, the German government announced that British waters would henceforth be considered a war zone, meaning neutral ships in such areas could be attacked by U-boats. Wilson now made the crucial distinction that would thereafter dominate U.S. opinion. He agreed that the Allies had been uncooperative but emphasized that they had not threatened the lives of neutrals. Wilson warned that he would hold the Germans strictly accountable for their actions.

It was only a matter of time before Germany's expanded submarine campaign resulted in tragedy. On May 7, 1915, the British liner Lusitania was sunk at sea by a German U-boat. Among the more than 1100 dead were 128 Americans. In the United States there was an outburst of horror and condemnation of Germany. Wilson responded by stressing the need for fair warnings that would preserve lives. However, he would not insist that the British stop carrying war materials on ships that also carried passengers, and he would not restrict the right of Americans to travel. All of this, Secretary of State Bryan believed, could lead to war. On June 8, 1915, he resigned his position and was succeeded by Robert Lansing, who saw the matter as Wilson did.

Pacifists, those who opposed war or any type of violence on principle, were dissatisfied with Wilson's unclear policies, but those who embraced the British cause were outraged. Theodore Roosevelt became their most influential voice. He believed Wilson's response to the Lusitania and other sinkings, including that of the Arabic in August 1915 and of the Sussex in March 1916, was completely wrong. He thought Wilson should have armed the country and demanded full satisfaction from Germany under threat of war.

D

4

Preparedness

On June 17, 1915, at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, the League to Enforce Peace was organized with the encouragement of ex-President Taft. Although the organization's long-range goal was peace, Taft himself observed that military strength might be required “to frighten nations into a use of rational and peaceful means.”

Wilson moved slowly toward preparedness, finally speaking out on January 27, 1916, on the need for a larger army and navy. He emphasized that they would be used for peace. In a later address to the League to Enforce Peace he promised that the United States was willing to join any reasonable association of nations formed in order to defend the right of peoples to govern themselves (self-determination), to be respected as nations, and to be secure against aggressors. He thus announced the American purpose was not limited to the protection of U.S. rights in the current crisis but as including protection of the rights of all nations.

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