Prelude to the Zimmerman Telegram
In the last two blog series, I’ve been exploring how Germany could’ve potentially won an early victory via the Schlieffen Plan in 1914. If that had happened, I looked at the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian Empires and what that outcome could’ve meant for them.
Now, I want to turn my attention to the United States. Already a nation transformed since the American Civil War and Reconstruction, the United States went from an agrarian, commercial republic to the world’s leading industrialized nation.
The numbers exemplify this:
In 1870, the U.S. produced less than 2 million tons of pig iron and almost a third of a million tons of steel; by 1913, it produced 31.5 million tons of pig iron and 31.8 million tons of steel.
In 1869, there were thirty thousand miles of railway in the U.S. By 1920, there were a quarter of a million.
In 1880, American refineries produced 26 million barrels of oil; in 40 years, this would rise to 442 million.
In 1866, the nation’s wheat fields produced 9.9 bushels per acre. By 1898, it had increased by 15.5, and the total acreage devoted to wheat tripled.
World War I further transformed the country in ways that had far-reaching impacts that we still see today. However, for the purposes of this discussion, I want to provide some context on how the United States became involved in the war before exploring what a German victory in 1914 could’ve potentially meant for the nation.
While America’s entanglement in World War I is a conversation that really needs multiple books to explore in-depth, I intend to do my best to provide a summary of this history in these blogs, focusing here in this first one on three key areas: the control of information, the question regarding modern naval warfare, and U.S. economic support for the war.
The American Public’s Sentiments Toward the War in Europe
Even after the outbreak of war, Americans largely viewed the conflict in Europe as a symptom of the Old World. With their emperors and royal families, Americans thought it resulted from their decadence. They wanted nothing to do with the war. However, the other nations knew how important having America as an ally would be, and many tried to find ways to stay, at the very least, on good terms with it. However, Britain was one of the nations that decided to do more than that because it knew its resources would be vital to the Entente’s side.
In an interesting parallel today with the fight over free speech and control over information regarding the war in Ukraine, the British intended to control what was coming out of Europe to America about the conflict. On 4 August 1914, the British sent the ship Teconia, a cable layer, into the North Sea. Its mission was to sever Germany’s five underwater communications cables, including the two that connected Berlin to New York.
From that day on, European news could only reach America via Paris or London. Both were running censorship offices to stop any reporting “unacceptable” to the Triple Entente. In other words, they wanted to dictate the narrative to America to influence its view on the war and have them favor their side. To illustrate this impact, G.J. Meyer, in his book The World Remade: America in World War I, wrote:
“As early as August 6, The New York Herald was running a story—improbably on its face and never substantiated—about German soldiers firing at Belgian soldiers being carried on Red Cross stretchers. This set the pattern for what was to follow.”
Finding data on the American Public’s opinion at this time is difficult. The first Gallup poll wasn’t done until the 1936 presidential election. Anecdotally, you can look at the newspapers and the propaganda that the American public was consuming during the war (as illustrated above). Combined with the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915, public opinion supposedly started to shift (that’s what most say on the matter, at least), yet one must consider the platforms of the 1916 presidential election. Woodrow Wilson won his reelection with slogans such as “America First” (which should sound familiar to Americans today) and “He kept us out of the war.”
So, at best, we can say that America was divided on the matter, perhaps favoring the Entente more than Germany and the Central Powers, especially after the sinking of the Lusitania. Even before that, the Wilson administration was unhappy about how the war was being waged on the high seas. That leads me to my next point.
The Struggle Over Naval Warfare Law
America’s first step into the conflict had to do with the war on the high seas being waged by Britain and Germany. The most authoritative statement on what modern naval warfare should look like was developed and released in the Declaration of London of 1909. It upheld a key distinction between two types of contraband: absolute and conditional. Absolute contraband was cargo for military use, such as ammunition and weapons. Conditional contraband included food, clothing, fuel, and other items that could be used for civilian or military purposes.
When asked if they would uphold the Declaration of London, Germany said they would if their opponents did the same. Britain replied that it would but with certain “amendments.” These amendments would prove quite significant. In other words, it would only uphold items until it was no longer advantageous. One of Britain's proposed amendments or modifications was reclassifying food as Absolute contraband.
In response, an interesting exchange occurred between Woodrow Wilson, Robert Lansing (the State Department counselor and future Secretary of State), and Wilson’s backroom advisor and friend, Colonel Edward House (Colonel was an honorific; he had no military background). Colonel House is an interesting figure I don’t have time to cover here fully (I highly recommend you read Meyer’s book I referenced earlier if you want to learn more about this particular event).
House had traveled across Europe, and every nation welcomed him, given his access to the Wilson Administration. As such, House understood what Lansing’s draft response to Britain, specifically on contraband, would’ve done—created panic and a crisis with Anglo-American relations. Lansing was offended by Britain's infringing on America’s right to free trade. He drafted a proposal as such, which Wilson then passed on to House.
House then took that draft and discussed it not with Lansing or then Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan but with British ambassador Sir Cecil Spring-Rice. What came out of this meeting was a neutered version of the proposal that basically signaled to Britain that America would not challenge Britain’s amendments.
This gave Britain a free pass to stop cargo heading to the Central Powers. They would go as far as mining the North Sea, which would sink more neutral ships than they would German submarines, the Unterseeboote, which would become known as U-boats. Britain planned to overcome the trench slugfest the war had turned into by starving their enemies.
One thing that could’ve changed America’s mind was the hit the economy took. 13% of America’s exports had gone to the Central Powers. With the British blockade, that dried up, hurting the economy so badly that Wall Street shut down for four months. But what made up for that loss was the increase in orders from the Entente nations in all matters of items that would support the war effort (as Meyer points out, the irony of this is that Wilson had rejected sending supplies to the forces fighting Mexico’s civil war; it’s unclear why the administration was comfortable contradicting this logic as a “neutral nation” by supplying the Entente).
These events backed Germany into a corner. They had no recourse to influence and change the situation on the high seas. All they had left were their new, untested weapons—their U-boats. Unrestricted submarine warfare and the Zimmerman Telegram that we’ll discuss later would lead to America’s involvement in the war. But if not for these events, there was another incentive to get involved. And that was the money America was loaning to support the war.
American Monetary Support for the Entente
The U.S. would become inextricably tied to the war’s outcome due to the financial investments that it would make. Once more, as Secretary of State, Bryan would accurately predict that investing in one particular side would inevitably create pressure to support that side further because “The value of securities would be directly affected by the result of the war.”
Yet, America’s neutrality would become a perception rather than a reality, especially after the floodgates opened for investment. Morgan and Company would become Britain and France's appointed U.S. purchasing agent, brokering half of Entente purchases and making $30 million in commissions over four years. Lending on a massive scale would follow.
Between 1914 and 1918, the Entente took a total of $16 billion in foreign credit (compared to what the U.S. dollar is worth today, that would translate to $333 billion today). That was as much as the British foreign capital stock before the war. The United States was the top creditor, lending $7 billion in total, giving $3.7 billion to Britain, $1.9 billion to France, and $1 billion to Italy. Britain and France would also lend money, mainly to Russia, Italy, France (from Britain), Belgium, and other smaller allies.
Bryan would also say, “Money is the worst of all contrabands because it commands everything else. I know of nothing that would do more to prevent war than an international agreement that… neutral nations would not loan to belligerents.” Yet again, we find more parallels to what’s happening today, but I digress.
In the next blog, we will take a closer look at the events that led to America’s entry into the war on 4 April 1917. Then, in part 3, we’ll look at the aftermath of the war, the Great Depression, and what could’ve happened to the trajectory of the U.S. if Germany had won an early victory in 1914.
Read Next Blog Series (Coming Soon)
Sources:
Meyer, G.J. The World Remade: America in World War I. New York, Bantam Books, 2016.
Images:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Colonel_Edward_Mandell_House.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Famous_Living_Americans_-_William_Jennings_Bryan.jpg
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