WW I: U.S. Evolution From Neutral to Joining Allies

After maintaining neutrality for the first three years of the war, the United States decided to formally enter the First World War on 6th April 1917. Beginning their position with predictable, traditional neutrality when the war broke out in 1914, the United States evaded war in accordance with their long-running central theme in foreign policy, avoiding ‘entangling alliances’. The complex set of circumstances that eventually led to the involvement of America in the First World War, results in there being no singular culprit or simple explanation for their original non-involvement transforming into a fairly unprecedented attack on the German forces. However, as a result of a long battle of Woodrow Wilson’s conscience concerning peace ideals, developing sympathies with Britain and a growing intolerance for increasingly belligerent German military tactics as the war progressed, an association with the Allied forces became ever more likely. On 2nd April 1917, President Wilson finally made an address to a joint session of Congress requesting a declaration of war against Germany, and that the United States should shed their neutrality and enter world war.