Today, dear readers, is the 100th anniversary of the official US entrance into the First World War.

I say official, because the US had been involved in the war from the very beginning, sending arms to both the Allies and the Central Powers, attempting to make diplomatic incursions that would end hostilities, and delivering food to refugees in Belgium and elsewhere.  Nevertheless, the American government was aware that a significant percentage of the voting public were immigrants–German immigrants, who still had strong ties to their homeland; Irish immigrants whose opinions about Britain were not high, especially after the failure of the Easter Rising in 1916; Scandinavian immigrants whose families had suffered as a result Russian imperial rule.  Though the war itself was far from America’s shores, it was very close to many Americans hearts.

In 1915, Woodrow Wilson’s campaign hinged on the fact that he hadn’t gotten the US involved in the war (in a very strict military sense).  But a combination of events in 1917 spelled the end of American “neutrality”, and launched the war that would change American engagement in the world forever.

The Russian Revolution, which began in March, had forced the Tzar Nicholas II to abdicate, and put a form of representative government in charge of the Russian Empire.  For Wilson, who had often publicly denounced monarchical rule in general, and the 300-year-old Romanov Dynasty in particular, having a representative government in place made it easier for the US to make overtures to Russia–also, his very very strong desire to ensure that the country didn’t fall into the hands of Socialists or Communists made him very eager to make as many overtures, offers of help, and assistance as possible.  Furthermore, the increasingly hostile practices of the German Navy, particularly its submarines, had, for some times, turned American favor against the German Army.  For the record, the sinking of the Lusitania was not the reason the US got involved in the war.  The Lusitania sank in 1915.  And people weren’t happy about it, but they weren’t willing to risk their children’s lives because of it.  Not by a long shot.

Finally, it was becoming clear, even by 1917, that the alliance between Imperial Germany and Austria-Hungary, the alliance that made up the Central Powers, were not doing well.  They were–and had been–considerably outnumbered, and the British blockade of German ports meant that people on the German home-front were beginning, quite literally, to starve.  American imports to Germany had dropped considerably over time, and the resultant increase in imports to the Allies (largely comprised of Great Britain, France, and Russia), had helped considerably in terms of feeding the troops.

In early 1917, Germany decided to resume all-out submarine warfare on every commercial ship headed toward Britain again (they had employed and revoked the policy several times over the course of the war).  They also sent what we now call “The Zimmerman Telegram” to Mexico, stating that if Mexico allied with Germany and declared war on the United States, Germany would help Mexico reclaim the land it had lost when Texas succeeded.  The German diplomat who allegedly sent the telegram, was Zimmerman.  There is still debate in some quarters as to whether the telegram was sent in good faith or if Germany, who knew its telegram lines were being monitored by the Allies, knowingly attempted to provoke the United States into declaring war in a rather badly judged act of hubris.

Either way, using the Zimmerman Telegram as proof of Germany’s claims on US territory, Woodrow Wilson went to Congress on April 4 and requested a declaration of war against Imperial Germany and its Allies.  On April 6, that declaration was formally made.

Though, as I noted, Germany would almost certainly have had to admit defeat regardless of the US intervention, the influx of some 1 million US soldiers and all their weaponry and, perhaps most importantly, all their food, certainly tipped the scales in the Allies favor.  The US Army was only involved in a few battles in 1918, since it took some considerable time to organize and train 1 million men….Americans, however, had been involved in the war via the French Legion, the Red Cross, the British Army, which permitted foreign pilots to enlist, and other organizations, from the war’s outset.

So while the war itself was perhaps not a watershed event for the US, the aftermath definitely was.  Woodrow Wilson (declared that he alone) was in charge of the Peace Treaty that ended with the Treaty of Versailles.  His policies (and phenomenal blunders), along with the fury of the British and French diplomats, who had lost land, their health, their children, and their fortunes, combined, essentially, to create the world that we have today.  The modern Middle East was created as a result of the Treaty of Versailles.  The Russian government (which did indeed become Socialist/Communist in the end of 1917) was barred from the Peace Talks, informally launching the Cold War that…from which we seem to have not yet escaped.  The US made huge loans to both the Allied and Central Powers during the war, and when the US went off the common gold standard after the war, it put each indebted nation even that much further in debt as a result, leading to the rise of America as a world power.

But, 100 years ago, that was all in the future.  100 years ago today, men and women were preparing to sail across the ocean to a land many had never before seen, to be part of a cause that was nebulous, at best.  And today, we remember them, and the legacy they left, not only to us, but to the world.

Alan Seeger, a midwesterner who had attended Harvard, had been serving with the French Foreign Legion years before the US involvement with the war.  In 1916, just before his death, he wrote a poem to commemorate his fallen comrades.  Lines from that poem are carved into the Memorial to American Volunteers, at Place des États-Unis, Paris (the artist used Seeger himself as a model for the soldier).  Today, we share a bit of that poem with you, as a way to commemorate what began today, and to ponder where it yet may lead.

Ode in Memory of the American Volunteers Fallen for France