Since the days of George Washington’s Farewell Address, U.S. foreign policy had confined itself to Latin America and Asia. Europe appeared just too messy with all its empires, ethnic divisions and competing interests that regularly led to armed conflict and bloodshed.

   But throughout the last twenty years this principle caused the United States to disregard the mounting crisis in Europe and to forget that their security was due to the British control of the Atlantic. They failed to acknowledge that even in their ‘fool’s paradise’, every event in America’s main export markets was an event rele- vant to everyone who held stakes in these markets. So President Wilson declared during the Austrian-Serbian crisis of June 1914 that there was nothing the United States could possibly do and - without a role in European affairs - would leave it to the Europeans to sort out.[149]  But the European nations had entangled themselves too deep in the fate of other countries; the complex alliance structures and the hurt
nationalistic sentiments and feelings of revenge impaired a rational assessment of the situation.
On July 28, 1914 war broke out and by autumn 1914 all of the European powers were involved in the fighting; the Entente-Powers Britain, France and Russia faced the Central Powers Germany and Austria-Hungary.

   Wilson immediately issued a declaration that Americans should be „neutral in fact as well as in name,(...) impartial in thought as well as in action.“[150]  He did want no part in the European folly but certainly knew well that the nation was far from impartial. England had been the homeland of millions of families and a great part of the nation felt sympathy for the shared culture, law system and parliamen- tary democracy that opposed the German autocrats.
And the British Empire was the most important buyer of American goods and largest investor in the U.S. But strong minorities had other feelings; German Americans, the single largest group of immigrants, still felt close to the nation they had left, the Irish could not feel sympathy for the British and their liberty when they thought back to the oppression in their homecountry, Russian Jews still hated the czar’s regime for the pogroms it had supported and Swedes remembered the traditional fear of Russian expansionism. Both sides in the immigrants’ nation
were assaulted by heavily financed propaganda campaigns that spread news of the other side's atrocities.[151]

   Wilson himself opposed German militarism and appreciated the common Anglo- Saxon heritage. He was surrounded mostly by pro-British advisers; only secretary of state William J. Bryan had a quite neutral position. Nevertheless the president was determined not to let himself get wound up in some European war, he was con- cerned with Mexico and his chances for re-election.[152]

   The British had closed off the routes to the continent by a blockade to cut supplies for the Central Powers. Americans acknowledged Britain’s right to stop and search neutral ships for contraband (material of possible use for warfare). But the flexible interpretation of ‘contraband’ by the British held more and more goods from getting to Germany. Starting in February 1915, Germans retaliated with a submarine cam- paign against ships of the allied and neutral nations going to Britain in order to make the British lift the blockade. But in contrast to the British sea blockade, Wilson considered submarine warfare an illegal and uncivilized means of retaliation. Then on May 7, the German ‘Huns’ sank the passenger ship ‘Lusitania’ that was carrying ammunition to Britain. Although the German government had publicly warned before not to board the ship, 128 Americans died in the attack that killed altogether 1200 passengers. The American public was outraged about this atrocity. President Wilson demanded that the German government pledge to never again sink a liner, after all, Americans were to be free to take any passenger ship they wanted. But a request from Bryan to protest against the British blockade as well and forbid the transport of contraband on passenger ships he declined. The secretary of state re-
signed, stating that the United States were leaving its impartial position. He was succeeded by Robert Lansing, who favored the support for the Allies. After Ger- many had sunk another British liner, the new secretary of state warned that the U.S. might join the war; the Kaiser’s government pledged to stop attacking passenger ships.[153]

   Since the outbreak of war in Europe, an increase in exports to the warring nations had helped to soften a depression that had just set in. But the cash reserves of the Europeans were heavily strained by the costly all-out war and soon even the credits from U.S. bank did no longer suffice. The only way to raise more money would be by floating loans on the U.S. public market. Then, however, the American signers of those loans would be exceptionally interested in the borrower nation winning the war, the public might be deeply split Wilson feared. But the economic need to do business with the European nations seemed overwhelming and after long delibe- rations, Wilson allowed loans for the warring parties to be floated. Over the
next years, trade with and loans to the Allied powers mounted to some billion dollars, whereas the Central powers raised only some million dollars and the trade with them steadily decreased due to the British blockade. Economic interest had by now tied the Americans closer and closer to the Allies.[154]  The loans furthermore reinforced the very reason for possible entanglement: ammunition transports over the Atlantic that were prey for German submarines.[155]

   The public was already split into a broad peace movement and active interven- tionists. The former consisted of pacifists, progressive reformers, socialists, women’s rights supporters, and industry tycoons like Andrew Carnegie and Henry Ford who rallied in a Non-Partisan League that saw the U.S. drawn into the conflict against the will of the people. The latter had a strong position in the Senate and were led by the ever-present Theodore Roosevelt who loudly articulated the need to smash the German threat to international peace.[156]

   To appease interventionist sentiments that he feared might lead Roosevelt back to power, who in his eyes was himself a menace to peace, Wilson started a ‘prepared- ness campaign’ that would train young American males for possible combat and slowly built up an arsenal. In Wilson’s opinion, a position of power would be best able to support his attempts of mediation between the Allies and Germany. But he wanted to remain neutral, because only if neutral could he end the war and lead the world to a just ‘peace without victory’.

   After Germany had sunk a French passenger ship, they gave in to American pressure and suspended the ‘unrestrained submarine warfare’ in May 1916. But at this time relations to the Allies severed when they agreed at the Paris Economic Conference that after the war they would shut themselves off from American eco- nomic competition by high tariffs and government control over their markets. Wilson was infuriated, as this agreement was directly aimed at his project of an open and stable post-war world and threatened to crush at once access of U.S. products to some of their most important markets. He was now convinced that it was a necessity to attend the peace conference to influence the creation of open markets, economic competition and reduced government involvement. To ensure the United States position no matter how the war would end and be able to push through its interests afterwards, Wilson had Congress approve of a massive enlar- gement of the Navy.

   In autumn 1916 Woodrow Wilson ran for second term as president. The slogan that was written across posters everywhere in the country was ‘He Kept Us Out Of War’. But Wilson already warned that Americans could not much longer remain neutral in a world war and instead preached how the post-war world was to be secured by a ‘League of Nations’ that would render war obsolete for all times.[157]

   In the greatest conflict of nations so far, Wilson had tried to keep the United States neutral and out of the conflict. But the situation of being a world power and the economic and political entanglements that necessarily amount out of it had drawn the nation closer and closer to the conflict. Wilson did not want total isolation but neither did he want full intervention. But his own, idealistic ‘war aims’ and desire to be God’s great peacemaker had pulled Wilson off the middle way of neutrality. His determination to remake the world into a peaceful place, would make him go to war first.