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The Election of President Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson was elected president in 1912 after serving only two years as governor of New Jersey. President of Princeton University from 1902 until his election as New Jersey governor, Wilson succeeded in his campaigns for both governor and president with significant aid from practical political organizers. -
The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand: The Outbreak of WW1
"Wreckage after bomb explosion in Sarajevo." (Top) "Arrest of Govrilo Princip." (Bottom). July 18, 1914. Arizona Republican (Phoenix, AZ), Image 6. Chronicling America: -
America Proclaims Neutrality in World War 1
Wilson’s initial hope that America could be “impartial in thought as well as in action” was soon compromised by Germany’s attempted quarantine of the British Isles. Britain was one of America’s closest trading partners, and tension arose between the United States and Germany when several U.S. ships traveling to Britain were damaged or sunk by German mines. -
The battle of the Marne
After invading neutral Belgium and advancing into northeastern France by the end of August 1914, German forces were nearing Paris, spurred on by punishing victories that forced five French armies into retreat after the Battles of the Frontiers at Lorraine, Ardennes, Charleroi and Mons. In anticipation of the German attack, the anxious French government appointed the 65-year-old General Joseph-Simon Gallieni as the military governor of Paris. -
The Sinking of the Lusitania
Lusitania, owned by the Cunard Shipping Line, was launched in 1906 to carry passengers on transatlantic voyages. The British Admiralty subsidized the ship’s construction with the understanding it would be pressed into military service if war broke out. After World War I began in 1914, Lusitania remained a passenger ship, although it was secretly modified for war. -
The Battle of the Verdun
World War I battles often started with tactical objectives and devolved into bloody stalemates, but most historians believe that Verdun was intended to be a “meat grinder” from the very beginning. In late-1915, German General Erich von Falkenhayn wrote a memorandum to Kaiser Wilhelm II in which he argued that the war would only be won by inflicting mass casualties on the French army and sapping its will to fight, which would then force the British to sue for peace. -
The Sussex Incident
The attack prompted a U.S. threat to sever diplomatic relations. The German government responded with the so-called Sussex pledge (May 4, 1916), agreeing to give adequate warning before sinking merchant and passenger ships and to provide for the safety of passengers and crew. Ultimately, the German high command came to see this policy as impracticable, and the pledge was upheld only until February 1917, when unrestricted submarine warfare was resumed. -
The Battle of the Somme
began as an Allied offensive against German forces along the Western Front of World War I, near the Somme River in France. The battle turned into one of the most bitter, deadly and costly battles in all of human history, as British forces suffered more than 57,000 casualties—including more than 19,000 soldiers killed nearly five months later, more than 3 million soldiers on both sides had fought in the battle, and more than 1 million had been killed or wounded -
The Re-Election of President Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson regarded himself as the personal representative of the people. “No one but the President,” he said, “seems to be expected … to look out for the general interests of the country.” He developed a program of progressive reform and asserted international leadership in building a new world order. In 1917 he proclaimed American entrance into World War I a crusade to make the world “safe for democracy.” -
The Interception of the Zimmermann Telegram
The Zimmermann Telegram galvanized American public opinion against Germany once and for all. The telegram was considered perhaps Britain’s greatest intelligence coup of World War I and, coupled with American outrage over Germany’s resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare, was the tipping point persuading the U.S. to join the war. -
Russia Pulls out of World War 1
World War I saw the crumbling of empires, and among those to collapse was the Russian empire of Czar Nicholas II. When Nicholas declared war against Germany and Austria-Hungary in July 1914, he was the absolute ruler of a realm of nearly 150 million people that stretched from Central Europe to the Pacific and the edge of Afghanistan to the Arctic. -
The United States Enters World War 1
When World War I broke out across Europe in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the United States would remain neutral, and many Americans supported this policy of nonintervention. -
The Espionage Act
the Espionage Act broadly sought to crack down on wartime activities considered dangerous or disloyal, including attempts to acquire defense-related information with the intent to harm the United States, or acquire code and signal books, photographs, blueprints, and other such documents with the intention of passing them to America’s enemies. -
The Passing of the Sedition Act
Along with the Espionage Act of the previous year, the Sedition Act was orchestrated largely by A. Mitchell Palmer, the United States attorney general under President Woodrow Wilson. The Espionage Act, passed shortly after the U.S. entrance into the war in early April 1917, made it a crime for any person to convey information intended to interfere with the U.S. armed forces’ prosecution of the war effort or to promote the success of the country’s enemies. -
The Selective Service Act
The Selective Service System and the registration requirement for America’s young men provide our Nation with a structure and a system of guidelines which will provide the most prompt, efficient, and equitable draft possible, if the country should need it. America’s leaders agree that despite the success of the All-Volunteer Force, registration with Selective Service must continue as a key component of national security strategy. -
The landing of the American Expeditionary Force in France
One of U.S. General John J. Pershing’s first duties as commander of the American Expeditionary Force was to set up training camps in France and establish communication and supply networks. Four months later, on October 21, the first Americans entered combat when units from the U.S. Army’s First Division were assigned to Allied trenches in the Luneville sector near Nancy, France. Each American unit was attached to a corresponding French unit. -
The Fourteen Points by President Wilson
When war broke out in Europe in 1914, the United States vowed to remain neutral. The American people had no interest in becoming entangled in European alliances and empires. President Woodrow Wilson, a progressive Democrat, won reelection in 1916 on the slogan “He kept us out of war.” -
The Begging of the Spanish Flu Epidemic
The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1919 was the deadliest pandemic in world history, infecting some 500 million people across the globe—roughly one-third of the population—and causing up to 50 million deaths, including some 675,000 deaths in the United States alone. The disease, caused by a new variant of the influenza virus, was spread in part by troop movements during World War I. -
The Battle of Argonne Forest
Building on the success of earlier Allied offensives at Amiens and Albert during the summer of 1918, the Meuse-Argonne offensive, carried out by 37 French and American divisions, was even more ambitious. Aiming to cut off the entire German 2nd Army, Allied Supreme Commander Ferdinand Foch ordered General John J. Pershing to take overall command of the offensive. Pershing’s American Expeditionary Force -
Armistice Day Ends World War 1
At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the Great War ends. At 5 a.m. that morning, Germany, bereft of manpower and supplies and faced with imminent invasion, signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiégne, France. The First World War left nine million soldiers dead and 21 million wounded, each losing nearly a million or more lives. In addition, at least five million civilians died from disease, starvation or exposure. -
The Paris Peace Conference & Treaty of Versailles
signed in 1919 at the Palace of Versailles in Paris at the end of World War I, codified peace terms between Germany and the victorious Allies. The Treaty of Versailles held Germany responsible for starting the war and imposed harsh penalties on the Germans, including loss of territory, massive reparations payments and demilitarization. Far from the “peace without victory” that U.S. President Woodrow Wilson had outlined in his famous Fourteen Points in early 1918. -
The Declaration of New Unrestricted Submarine Warfare by Germany
Unrestricted submarine warfare was first introduced in World War I in early 1915, when Germany declared the area around the British Isles a war zone, in which all merchant ships, including those from neutral countries, would be attacked by the German navy. A string of attacks on merchant ships followed, culminating in the sinking of the British ship Lusitania by a German U-boat on May 7, 1915.