for the first three years of world war one the united states did very little its position towards the great war was one of annoyed neutrality and whilst it was seen as a problem it was not seen as america's problem yet despite the war not directly affecting the us woodrow wilson declared war on germany in april of 1917 and joined the side of the antant but given how easy it would have been for the us to sit it out this raises an obvious question why did the united states join world war one to begin when the
great war broke out in europe the us's response was oh good another one because to many american politicians and the american public at large europeans were always fighting over something often over silly things like royal titles tiny strips of land or some irrelevant imperial holding somewhere across the pacific and this conflict was seen as no different which meant that many americans weren't interested in getting involved this worked well for america and importantly president wilson who was much more concerned with getting re-elected in late 1916. to do this he needed the support of the german-american and
irish-american populations who supported the central powers and he also needed the protestants living across the eastern seaboard which supported the anton and to win their votes he promised that the u.s would never enter the war but he also talked about how uncle germany was being at that point but as you'll know six months after he won re-election toward the us went so why well to start public opinion has slowly shifted from who cares to not germany over the past year this was mostly down to germany's long-term goals largely being will dominate europe and also because
of germany resuming unrestricted submarine warfare which could target american vessels and also the zimmermann telegram in which the german empire asked mexico to invade the united states which was something not well received by the american public now history buffs amongst you will know that the american public wanting something does not mean that the american government is going to do it and one of the most pressing reasons for wilson to go to war was money american business was making quite a lot of money from the war since exports to britain france and italy had increased massively
which is one of the reasons that unrestricted submarine warfare angered the us government so much less exports meant less taxes and governments like taxes another monetary reason was loans the us government had lent the untaunt nations a lot of money a lot and conquered defeated nations aren't exactly able to pay that money back which helped took the american leadership into going to war and another reason was that the american government simply didn't know what would happen if germany won britain was europe's greatest power at that point and whilst the americans didn't exactly love them they
understood them whereas germany was the offspring of prussia and to them was an ambitious militaristic state which if victorious would inevitably clash with the u.s somewhere and so to wilson's government dealing with germany now would rid the world of an autocratic threat in the future and this view of america siding with the right nations was an extremely important one since most americans were equally as disgusted by the autocratic russian empire as they were by the german one well good news because they just dropped out to try their hands at the whole civil war thing and
with russia gone this meant that for americans the war now had a right side and a wrong side and there wasn't much time for america to join if the right side was going to win and with public pressure growing wilson went to congress to ask that it make a declaration of war against germany and this declaration was voted for overwhelmingly thereby bringing the united states into world war one and honestly ruining the kaiser's day i hope you enjoyed this episode and thank you for watching with a special thanks to my patrons james bissonette mr wolfe
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