The United States in World War I - Essay Example

Later in 1917, America joined the war as they declared war against the Germans. This paper will discuss how the United States joined the war and how it participated in the war. Participation of United States in World War One Since Wilson was a peaceful man, he speedily announced that the United States was neutral in the war, and that it was to remain that way. However, it became very hard and complex for the United States to follow this path of neutrality. In this regard, the Americans could not ignore the development of the war even before joining it officially1.

Even though the United States did not join the war immediately it commenced, it is evident that it had prepared for the war early in 1914. In this case, one of the largest ammunition merchants based in the United States, Bethlehem Steel, ordered millions of armoury from the British government. These included millions of weaponry shells, in addition to ten 500-ton submarines. Bethlehem continued with the construction of such alien vessels though they were against the law2. This armoury development continued through to 1915, where the U.S. armoury industry continued to develop, with support form western allied nations.

In the meantime, Germany and Britain acted against the operations of the United States, which greatly angered the then president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson3. . This is one of the operations that the Germans carried out in which president Wilson highly tolerated the Germans and acted with much patience and restraint. Most people believed that the president would declare war on Germany due to its constant attacks5. The Germans continued upsetting the Americans and on January 31, 1917, they resumed unhampered submarine conflict.

This operation by the Germans saw the sinking of several U.S vessels, which angered Wilson further. Due to this, President Woodrow pushed for a declaration of war against Germany on April 2, 1917. This was the first time during the war period that United States officially joined the war and the house of Congress approved the move speedily6. After the declaration, most Americans did not receive and embrace the move. Few weeks following the declaration, out of a pool of ten million people, only 73, 000 men volunteered to join the army for the preparation of the war7.

By the time the United States joined World War in April 1917, the warfare had been intense in Europe for almost three years. The first instance when the United States contributed to the war was in Marshal Foch’s Allied counter-offensive commenced in July 1917. In this encounter, the Americans played a very significant role. Later in September the same year, the U.S first army of approximately 20 segments won a major victory in the St Michael salient8. The American Expeditionary force (AEF’s) was the major force employed to handle the operations of the First World War.

This force first displayed the American flag in May 1917 to indicate that America was fully part of the war. Once, these forces