I must admit, I still don’t understand why America decided to get involved in WWI. The Germans weren’t all that bad in that war—and had they won, surely Hitler would have never risen to power.
That is a very good point.
If you check out the Zimmerman Telegram you will also find out the ‘real’ reason behind our entry into the war. Germany was conspiring with Mexico (we had just fought them) to try to get them and Japan to attack us. It was causus beli for war. But we couldn't say the REAL reason, because it would reveal that the British had broken the German code.
We had damn good reasons to enter the war.
The problem was the Treaty of Versailles that imposed a ‘peace’ on Germany that was tantamount to economic slavery in perpetuity. Germany had to get out of the ‘peace’ treaty, even if it had to fight the entire world to do it. Hitler capitalized upon this historic reality to catapult himself into power.
Quite simple really. The Allies controled the seas (trade). Not permitted to trade with the Central Powers we traded exclusively with the Allies and extended them unimaginable amounts of credit. American leaders assumed we simply could not afford to let the Central Powers win. Ironically the Allies never paid those debts in any case.
Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare drew us in. Up until the ‘unrestricted’ policy was announced we were as mad at the British as the Germans because of their surface blockade of the North & Baltic seas. The only way Germany could retaliate was by a submarine blockade, and unfortunately, that inevitably meant sinking US ships.
Unrestricted warfare plus the Zimmerman telegram, which detailed German efforts to convince Mexico to invade us, were darn good reasons. The foolishness of the Treaty of Versaille and Hitler’s subsequent rise has no bearing on whether entering the war was proper or not.
Perhaps the Zimmerman Telegram?