The United States had no process in place to build a mass army, supply it, transport it and fight it. Both the country and the Army were absolutely unprepared for what was going to happen. Army was a constabulary force of 127,151 soldiers. "That meant building an Army and engaging the enemy on the Western Front."ĭoing that was no simple task. "For the United States to have a voice at the peace table, it had to make a significant contribution to the war effort," Neumann said. They saw the war as an inferno that would topple empires so democracy and the will of the people could triumph. Still others believed that going to war had to mean something greater than simply returning to the status quo on the continent, Neumann said. Others felt it was all right to help France, but not to help Great Britain, he said. Some Americans believed that because a naval provocation led to the war, the proportional response would be a naval campaign against Germany.
#Aftermath of ww1 germany series#
Neumann, who edited a series on the Army during World War I, said it wasn't a done deal that Americans would go to France to help man the Western Front. "The United States was in it, but they had to define what 'it' meant," said Brian Neumann, a historian at the Army's Center of Military History. President Woodrow Wilson, who had just been re-elected under the slogan "He Kept Us Out of War," felt he had no other option.Ĭongress provided the then-astronomical sum of $3 billion to build a million-man Army. leaders regarded as war on civilians, led to this juncture. But German unrestricted submarine warfare, which U.S. The United States had avoided being drawn into what was then known as "The Great War," which had been raging in Europe since 1914. That was the headline screaming from newspapers around the country on April 6, 1917, as the United States declared war on the German empire. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL 4 / 4 Show Caption + Hide Caption – (Photo Credit: U.S.
Army) VIEW ORIGINAL 3 / 4 Show Caption + Hide Caption – (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL 2 / 4 Show Caption + Hide Caption – (Photo Credit: U.S. 1 / 4 Show Caption + Hide Caption – (Photo Credit: U.S.
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