On January 31, 1917, however, the German government resumed
unrestricted submarine warfare. After five U.S. vessels were
sunk, Wilson on April 2, 1917, asked for a declaration of war.
Congress quickly approved. The government rapidly mobilized
military resources, industry, labor, and agriculture. By October
1918, on the eve of Allied victory, a U.S. army of over
1,750,000 had been deployed in France.
In the summer of 1918, fresh American troops under the command
of General John J. Pershing played a decisive role in stopping a
last-ditch German offensive. That fall, Americans were key
participants in the Meuse-Argonne offensive, which cracked
Germany's vaunted Hindenburg Line.
President Wilson contributed greatly to an early end to the war
by defining American war aims that characterized the struggle as
being waged not against the German people but against their
autocratic government. His Fourteen Points, submitted to the
Senate in January 1918, called for: abandonment of secret
international agreements; freedom of the seas; free trade
between nations; reductions in national armaments; an adjustment
of colonial claims in the interests of the inhabitants affected;
self-rule for subjugated European nationalities; and, most
importantly, the establishment of an association of nations to
afford "mutual guarantees of political independence and
territorial integrity to great and small states alike."
In October 1918, the German government, facing certain defeat,
appealed to Wilson to negotiate on the basis of the Fourteen
Points. After a month of secret negotiations that gave Germany
no firm guarantees, an armistice (technically a truce, but
actually a surrender) was concluded on November 11. |
