![[picture: French troopers driving back Germans, near Marne, 1918]](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090510083731im_/http://www.nps.gov/archive/elro/images/nara_ww1_28-0822a.jpg)
World
War I, or The Great War, began when a Serbian nationalist
assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian-Hungarian
throne, and his wife, Sophie, in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914.
Within two months, Austria-Hungary and Germany (the Central
Powers) were at war with Russia, France, Great Britain,
and Italy (the Allied Powers). By the time the armistice
was signed, November 11, 1918, 20 million people had been
killed (including 113,000 U.S. soldiers) and 20 million
people wounded. The modern world had never seen such horror
(poisonous gas, trench warfare, improved technology and
new weapons).
Tensions in Europe were very high before the archduke's
assassination. The Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary
and Italy) and
the Triple Entente (France, Russia and Great Britain) struggled
to maintain a balance of power. However, three elements
undermined
this fragile co-existence. Both alliances had countries
committed to building empires and their competing desire
to annex territory
in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East increased their distrust
of one another. Industrialization allowed a rapid increase
in
military and naval equipment. And finally, many of the
ultraconservative governments faced strong internal challenges
from liberals and
socialists.
America had a history of noninvolvement in European wars
and, during Woodrow Wilson's
first term, tried to remain neutral. The Atlantic Ocean
separated the U.S. from the war and its large immigrant
population (one-third of the U.S. population according to
the 1910 census) encouraged Americans not to take sides.
On February 19, 1915, Germany announced that it would begin
a submarine campaign against all enemy ships. President
Wilson said the U.S. would hold Germany strictly "accountable"
for its actions. The following month, Great Britain announced
that it would blockade all ships carrying goods for Germany,
including ships owned by neutral nations that were sailing
in the Atlantic Ocean and North Sea. On March 8, 1915, a
German submarine sank the Lusitania (which was
carrying American weapons to Britain), killing 128 Americans
(who had been warned not to travel on the ship).
Pressure on Wilson to keep the U.S. out of the war increased.
Wilson demanded that German submarines not sink ships
until
they had been boarded and searched (an unreasonable request
since submarines could easily be sunk and were too small
to carry civilian passengers) and the campaigned for reelection
with the slogan "He Kept Us Out of War." Germany sunk
three more American ships. The British leaked the Zimmerman
telegram
(a dramatic German scheme to get Mexico to invade Texas
and New Mexico) to the American press to pressure America
to enter the war.
On April 2, 1917, Wilson asked Congress to declare war,
arguing "the world must be made safe for democracy." Wilson
reorganized the federal government to coordinate almost
every phase of the war: production of weapons and war materials
(the War Industries Board), workers (the War Labor Board),
and transportation (the Railway Board). Franklin
D. Roosevelt, as assistant secretary of the navy,
became very involved in the ship production and the drafting
of
sailors. In May 1917, General John Pershing led American
troops into horrific battles at Cantigny and Belleau
Wood.
By June, Pershing joined with British and French troops
and helped coordinate an attack along a 200-mile front.
The combined allied armies pushed the Central Powers out
of the Argonne Forest and back into Belgium and Germany.
Germany asked Wilson to negotiate a truce October 16, 1918
and the armistice was signed November 11, 1918. Fighting
stopped at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the
eleventh month and is remembered every year on November
11th, now called Veteran's Day.
World War I stunned America. Anti-German feelings ran high
and inspired a propaganda campaign that often turned into
a witch hunt (the First Red Scare). Many Americans rejected
the positive view of human nature they held before the war
and, reeling from the economic and emotional depression
the war inflicted, embraced a foreign policy that would
not involve the U.S. in foreign conflicts. The war also
spurred a world-wide peace movement and helped U.S. women
secure the vote.
ER spent the war in Washington, observing FDR's naval policies,
working in a Red Cross canteen for soldiers passing through
Washington's Union Station, and lobbying for better medical
care for wounded and shell-shocked soldiers. She accompanied
FDR on his 1919 tour of French battlefields and, haunted
by what she saw, returned to the U.S. determined to work
with peace organizations.
Learn
more about Eleanor Roosevelt and World War I
For more information on World War I, see the following
sites:
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