Introduction
According to (Thomas, 2004), although the First World War began in 1914, America had decided to stay out of this war as she thought that, by engaging in it, the nations dignity would be lowered. America isolated itself as it considered taking the position of keeping and maintaining peace among the warring parties. At that particular time, America was under the reign of Woodrow Wilson as the president. Wilson wanted to secure American presidency during the next elections and used neutrality policy to gain popularity as the ideal president for America which he truly did. However, there were attempts from the warring parties that were aimed at engaging America in war. Germany put a lot of effort in trying to provoke America and after several attempts, she finally succeed in 1917 when America decided to get into war.
Events That Led America into the First World War
One of the events that led America into the First World War was when a liner belonging to the British was sunk by the U-boat belonging to Germans. However, President Wilson declined demands from Roosevelt and other Americans who thought that this was some form of piracy and would have been a good reason to fight against Germany. Wilson insisted that America would be going against the country’s human rights as well as international law if she got involved in submarine warfare. Another event that led America into war was the explosion of Black Tom which took place in 1916. The explosion was considered as a sabotage of ammunition supplies of America which was conducted by Germans. Germans had found that, America was supplying some weapons to some of its allies for use in war. Therefore, they plotted a plan to destroy the ammunition supplies so that they could not be used against them by allies. Before the attack, ammunitions had been put ready waiting to be shipped to Britain. Information licked to Germans who used some two guards to cause an explosion that would destroy the weapons and their supplies. The explosion not only destroyed the supplies but also caused great damages in the adjacent areas (Thomas, 2004).
According to (Fort, 2006), after destroying Black tom, Germany arranged another plot to attack the Kingsland. This was a company that was located in Montreal which was involved in the transportation of shells and ammunitions. Germans saw Kingsland as a threat because; ammunition factories used the company to transport weapons that were to be used to fight against them. Their plan was to explode it and it succeeded since there was an explosion that was fiercer than the one they had caused at Black Tom. Hinsch who was a leader of the group that was carrying out the sabotage asked Thorne whose real name was Thummel to seek employment at Kingsland. Thorne succeeded and was given the task of managing the human resource department as an assistant. He took advantage of his position to hire some other operatives who were sent to him by Hinsch their leader. The crew carried on their plan whose climax was an explosion that destroyed the company.
Another event that provoked America was a telegram where Berlin was requesting Mexico to be part of Germans ally against America in case America decided to get involved in war. This telegram provoked America’s President Wilson, which made him decide that America should get involved in the First World War against Germany (Fort, 2006).
Conclusion
Evidence shows that, America had used so much effort to keep the policy where it isolated itself from war and maintained a neutral stand. However, Germany did not seize to provoke America as it considered it as an enemy even though it was not directly involved in war. The fact that America supplied ammunitions to parties that were against Germany was enough reason to worry about. Germany finally managed to directly engage America in the First World War which was its main objective. (Fort, 2006)
References
- Thomas J. (2004): The Illusion of victory: Perseus Books Group pp. 12-15
- Fort J. (2006): Britain and America in the Great War: George H. Doran Company pp23-26