America has joined forces with the Allied Powers, and what we have of blood and treasure are yours. Therefore it is that with loving pride we drape the colors in tribute of respect to this citizen of your great republic. And here and now, in the presence of the illustrious dead, we pledge our hearts and our honor in carrying this war to a successful issue. Lafayette, we are here!
—Col. Charles E. Stanton, July 4, 1917
Senate Joint Resolution declaring war with Germany
Stanton’s quote would come some months later, but a century ago, on April 6, 1917, the U.S. formally entered World War I on the side of the Allied Powers against Germany. The reference, of course, is to the Marquis de Lafayette, a General in the Revolutionary War and instrumental in obtaining the aid from France that secured our independence from the British. We were, in a sense, repaying the favor by coming to the aid of France in its hour of need.
World War I has been eclipsed in our public mind by World War II — which had more in the way of dramatic action and a better “good guys versus bad guys narrative.” But I tend to think that World War I is more instructive of how the world and the world at war really works. The mix of justified motives, crass self-interest, and inertial drift into horror is how wars seem to usually work. And it’s hard to overstate the horror of this war. War has always been plenty awful, but in World War I, we truly industrialized it. Human bodies were just fodder for the mechanical grinder. If you want an accessible but in depth historical overview of the War, I highly recommend Dan Carlin’s Blueprint for Armageddon series. His description of the hardships of trench warfare was particularly gripping.
World War I had been ravaging Europe since 1914. The U.S. had stayed out of the conflict. Public opinion was divided on which side it supported and whether to go to war or not. President Wilson campaigned for re-election in 1916 on the basis of having kept us out of war. But, as Germany became more desperate, it took measures that alienated the U.S. The 1915 sinking of the Lusitania, with U.S. passengers aboard, and the January 1917 Zimmerman telegram (promising Mexico its old U.S. territory if it went to war with the U.S. in the event that it broke its neutrality) are usually cited as instrumental in shifting public opinion and drawing the U.S. into the war. It seems that Wilson also thought entering the war was necessary if the U.S. was to have a role in shaping the eventual peace. Compared to the other countries involved, the U.S. got off relatively lightly in terms of casualties, with 116,000 killed and 200,000 wounded. Entry into the war had a profound impact on the U.S. at home:
The home front saw a systematic mobilization of the entire population and the entire economy to produce the soldiers, food supplies, munitions, and money needed to win the war. Although the United States entered the war in 1917, there had been very little planning, or even recognition of the problems that the British and other Allies had to solve on their home fronts. As a result, the level of confusion was high in the first 12 months, then efficiency took control.[28]
Propaganda poster in World War I
The war came in the midst of the Progressive Era, when efficiency and expertise were highly valued. Therefore, the federal government set up a multitude of temporary agencies with 500,000 to 1,000,000 new employees to bring together the expertise necessary to redirect the economy into the production of munitions and food necessary for the war, as well as for propaganda purposes
In Indiana, and in the country generally, entry into World War I blunted the Progressive movement. Political interest was turned to campaigns for war support and “let loose a patriotic but intolerant spirit that demanded conformity and unanimity.”
Eugene Debs, the labor leader hailing from Terre Haute, was arrested on June 16, 1918 after he made a speech in Canton, Ohio, urging resistance to the draft. Charged with 10 counts of sedition, Debs was sentenced to 10 years. At his sentencing hearing, he made his famous statement:
Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
President Wilson was happy to let him sit in jail, writing, “While the flower of American youth was pouring out its blood to vindicate the cause of civilization, this man, Debs, stood behind the lines sniping, attacking, and denouncing them….This man was a traitor to his country and he will never be pardoned during my administration”
World War I gave a boost to the long active Prohibition movement. Among other things, grain used for brewing was needed for the troops, and a lot of the brewers were German. There was a lot of anti-German sentiment in the nation, generally, and in Indiana. (For example,Germany, Indiana in Fulton County was renamed “Pershing.”) Former governor Frank Hanly was active on the lecture circuit, advocating prohibition. In 1918, he railed against the brewers, saying Hoosier Brewers had “the arrogance of the Hun.”
In 1918, the State passed state-wide prohibition. And, in 1919, it ratified the Eighteenth Amendment. Said Billy Sunday, famous evangelist and former baseball player at that time based in Winona Lake, Indiana:
The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon only be a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and corn-cribs. Men will walk upright now; women will smile, and the children will laugh. Hell will be forever for rent.
The jails did not close down, but many of the brewers did, among them Thieme and Wagner in Lafayette, Terre Haute Brewing Company, Madison Brewing Company, Peru Brewery and Tell City Brewing. There was a lot of corruption in Indiana, as elsewhere. As Prohibition wore on, the prohibitionists would make common cause with the Ku Klux Klan who shared their conservative politics and would use the machinery of the old White Cap organization, the Horse Thief Detective Association to enforce the prohibition laws.
Following the war which, itself, was hot on the heels of the Progressive movement and the Industrial Revolution, Americans generally and Hoosiers in particular would be bone weary of change raising the appeal of a return to “normalcy” and giving rise to the Klan who promised a return to the good old days.
But I suppose I digress. A century ago today, we were gearing up for war. Many of the most significant consequences would be unintended.
I’m a history buff, and for the past 3 years I’ve been doing a lot of WWI reading. I second your recommendation on Dan Carlin’s “Blueprint for Armageddon” podcast/audio book as a great work on the war that requires no prior knowledge.
I believe that WWI, rather than WWII, was THE watershed historical event of the 20th century, setting the stage for almost all the major international issues from that time at least until the fall of the Soviet Union.
Without WWI, there would have been no Russian revolution in 1917, and no communist seizure of power there. At the end of WWI Marshal Foch, the Eisenhower of the First World War, observed of the Treaty of Versaille “This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years”. His words were prophetic, as Germany invaded Poland starting WWII almost exactly 20 years later. Indeed, without WWI, there would have been no Nazi party in Germany, no Fascist party in Italy, to beat the war drums in the ‘30s..
The world without WWI would not have been a utopia, Western Imperialism had already sown the seeds of the various colonial wars, particularly in the Middle East and Africa, which haunt us today. But we wouldn’t have had the horrible loss of life, probably something between 80 and 100 million people total that perished in the two world wars.
I also think World War I did a lot to “flatten” the gap between the aristocracy and the commoners in Europe outside of Russia. (And, it did a lot to suck wealth out of Europe and transfer it to the U.S.) England, France, and Germany were in an existential struggle and were, therefore, willing to spend whatever it took to preserve their existence. That meant a lot of aristocratic wealth got sucked dry.
Great post and Replies. I see WWI as the beginning of the 20th century and it well could be the watershed moment in the 20th Century. British Field Marshall Archibald Wavell, said about that treaties to end the ‘war to to end all wars’ was the “peace to end to end all peace.” David Fromkin’s book about the end of the Ottoman Empire and the British/French division of much of the mideast is also a good read about post-WWI. I read the book right after the Bush misadventure into Iraq. Many of the current mideast problems find their roots in the post-WWI division.
The Jean Renoir 1937 film “The Grand Illusion” a film about WWI aristocratic officers escaping from a German POW camp addresses the winding up of aristocracy.
The points about Prohibition in the wake of WWI are also interesting. Many of the soldiers returning from WWI had seen Paris and liked the wine. When they returned many were not happy that they had sacrificed in a war and came home to prohibition.
“A century ago today, we were gearing up for war. Many of the most significant consequences would be unintended.” Consequences are often unanticipated. But the precipitating events of such consequences are predictable and can be anticipated. Incompetent, uninvested,mercurial leadership. Populations mislead about reasonable expectations. Economic and cultural revanchism. Ginned-up notions of nationalism. Hints of bigotry and racism. The old standbies noted by Samuel Johnson, “the insolence of wealth and the arrogance of power.”
And paraphrasing Alistair Cooke of Masterpeice Theater, a failure to recognize that we are not the chosen race.
Have you been to the WWI national museum in Kansas City (MO)? I have no idea why it is there and not in DC. On a recent trip to KC we wanted to go, but were told by those who have been there that it really requires a 2-day visit, so we are planning another trip to KC. Can anyone really spend that much time immersed in the tragedy of WWI? About to see.