Download America Enters WWI

 Americans
wanted to stay neutral and
keep European problems in Europe
 The Great War wasn’t threatening
American lives or property
 Woodrow Wilson won re-election in 1916
with the phrase, “He kept us out of war”
 Britain
made use of its naval strength and
created a blockade around the German
coast preventing supplies from getting
through
• Caused a famine in Germany
 Germany
responded to blockade with a
counter-blockade by U-boats
(unterseeboot), German submarines




Germans used U-boats to
sink British ships that
brought supplies to
England and France
Germans sank Lusitania –
British ocean liner with
128 Americans on it
American opinion turned
against Germans
Germany continued to
attack all ships, Allied or
neutral, that they found in
British waters
 British
spies intercepted a telegram from
Germany to Mexico
 The telegram proposed an alliance
between Mexico and Germany and
promised that if war with the U.S. broke
out, Germany would help Mexico regain
territory it lost to U.S.
 Shortly afterwards, U.S. Congress
declared war on Germany
 U.S. was not prepared for war
• Only 200,000 men in the armed forces at the
time
• Few officers had combat experience; last
American war was Spanish-American, 1898
 Selective
1917
Service Act passed by Congress in
• Required men ages 18 and above to register for
military draft
• Helped U.S. fill armed services with 3 million
men

America convinced Britain
to try the convoy system in
response to German U-boat
attacks
• Destroyer ships escorted
merchant ships back and
forth across Atlantic in
groups in order to protect
them from U-boats

American troops
• Nicknamed doughboys
because they cleaned their
white belts with pipe clay, or
“dough”
• Contributed new enthusiasm
to the war effort
 WWI
saw the first
large-scale use of
weapons that would
become standard in
modern war
 Airplanes first used
to scout battlefields
 Later used to shoot
down other planes
 Finally used against
regular soldiers
 First
used to attack and clear barbed wire
and machine gun nests
 Tanks
divided among men to support them
• Lessened their impact
• Had to stay with infantry – couldn’t go ahead
• Couldn’t combine firepower
 Later, tanks
used in groups to punch holes
and move into the rear of the enemy
 Tanks and planes reintroduced mobility to
warfare
 Shell
Shock Complete mental,
emotional, and physical breakdown of a
soldier put under too much stress
 Soldiers don’t get used to combat – stress
wears on them to the breaking point –
only treatment is to remove the soldier
from the stressful situation
 Today, called post-traumatic stress
disorder

Disease caused by
standing in cold wet
trenches for long
periods of time
• Wet feet get infected
and rot
• End result was
sometimes amputation,
as feet would get
gangrene
• Prevented by keeping
feet dry, clean, and
changing socks often
American enthusiasm played a major role in
Allied victories
 Tanks and planes reintroduce mobility and
decisiveness to warfare – this advantage helped
Allies win
 November 3, 1918 – Austria-Hungary
surrendered, and Germans revolted against their
government

• Overthrew the Kaiser (like a king) and set up a republic
• November 11, 1918 – Germans signed armistice
• Final death toll due to war was about 22 million