XI.

Involvement in European Affairs

While the United States focused on Latin America and its interests in the Pacific, affairs in Europe reached a crisis level. Despite its expanding presence overseas, in the early 20th century the United States remained a relative newcomer in international affairs, especially in places where national interest was not clearly apparent. Even prominent Americans displayed their inexperience. “Where are the Balkans?” William Jennings Bryan asked an American diplomat when he stopped by the U.S. embassy in Turkey in 1906. Bryan, despite his eminence as a two-time presidential candidate and future secretary of state, revealed a common American ignorance of crises in Europe.

Only eight years later, the century’s first great war started in the Balkans, the powder keg of Europe, but few of Bryan’s contemporaries knew or cared about places such as Serbia or Montenegro, which seemed inconsequential to the vital interests of the United States. Brand Whitlock, then the U.S. minister to Belgium, later wrote that he “had never heard of Sarajevo” and “had not the least idea of where it was in the world, if it was in this world.” When World War I began in Europe, most Americans were puzzled and just wanted to stay out of it, but the growing prominence of American power made involvement in major conflicts almost inevitable.