The US Involvement in WWI - Essay Example

It was not the 1898 American-Spanish War per se – is generally considered an amateurish enterprise and even comic opera at times – but rather the far-reaching implications that made the historians call it “the pivotal event of a pivotal decade” (Herring 309). The easy victory achieved by the US forces in Cuba not only provoked the biting remark that “God looked after drunkards, babies and Americans”, but also encouraged President McKinley in sending a naval squadron under Admiral Dewey to steam to the Philippines (Herring 316). Thus, as a consequence of the war, the US acquired strategic overseas possessions in the Pacific, most notably Hawaii and the Philippines – as well as considerable influence in the Caribbean, reaffirming their convictions of national destiny (Herring 326, 335). The 1901 treaty with Great Britain – by then preoccupied with its own imperial war and European issues as well – which allowed the United States to build, operate, and fortify a canal giving them easier access to the Pacific, thus abrogating the 1850 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, appeared an indubitable sign not only of America’s increasing weight in world affairs but also of its appetite for active participation in world politics (Herring 326-327). The US involvement in China in 1900 – the China Relief Expedition and the Open Door Notes – further reinforced America’s sense of rising greatness (see Herring 335).

A Prelude to War – Internal and External Influences
Between 1900 and 1912, the US’ mainland territory exceeded three million square miles, plus the new overseas empire, which covered some 125 000 square miles; with a population of over seventy-seven million in 1901 and almost eight million immigrants who entered the US during Roosevelt’s presidency alone (Herring 339). Gould writes, for example, that New York “had more Italians than Naples, more Germans than Hamburg… and more Jews than the whole of western Europe” (36). Some of these ethnic groups more often than not played a part in US foreign relations.

In economic terms, with per capita income being the highest in the world and a favorable trade balance which allowed massive foreign investments – some 3.5 billion dollars by 1914 – the US appeared even more of a great power than its size and population suggested (Herring 340).
While America’s internal political life had been centered around adaptation to these new environments, the general mood of that time could be best described as “unbounded optimism and unalloyed exuberance”, as well as steady faith in “their way of doing things” (Herring 340-1). Woodrow Wilson’s words of 1906 - “the shores of Asia and then Autocratic Europe shall hear us knocking at their back door, demanding admittance for American ideas, customs and arts” (Link 16:341, also cited in Herring 341) – might tell the whole story. On the other hand, despite the influx of immigrants on a massive scale, the popular Anglo-Saxon notion that Americans and Britons are superior in intellect, morality, and industry is believed to have made some Americans take pride in the glory of the British Empire; moreover, they dreamt that one day they would supplant it (Herring 305; see above). One of those hailing the advance of the Anglo-Saxon civilization as a worldwide movement was Theodore Roosevelt, who also believed that the traditional aversion to interference in European matters limited his freedom of action (Herring 347). He built on precedents set by the McKinley administration in order to establish the so-called ‘imperial presidency’ (Herring 346).

Another important factor, which contributed to America’s participation in the Great War, was the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. A Britain’s admirer, lacking experience in diplomacy and being blinded by his certainty of America’s destiny, Wilson was fascinated by “the challenge of leading a great nation in tumultuous times” (Herring 381); on the other hand, he believed the power of the president in foreign policy to be “absolute“, expanding presidential authority even beyond the precedents set by Theodore Roosevelt (Herring 381).

Conclusion
Although the imperial expansion in the late nineteenth century could be considered a major antecedent of America’s involvement in the First World War, there is a variety of factors that heavily contributed to that development. Among these factors should be distinguished the US commercial and financial interests, the sense of kinship and cultural identity, particular leadership of the country, personified by Roosevelt and Wilson, as well as the American lives lost due to German attacks on British, French and American ships.