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Submarine warfare in the Atlantic kept tensions high, and Germany’s sinking of
the British ocean liner Lusitania on May 7, 1915, killed more than 120 U.S.
citizens and provoked outrage in the U.S. In 1917, Germany’s attacks on American
ships and its attempts to meddle in U.S.-Mexican relations drew the U.S. into the
war on the side of the Allies. The United States declared war on Germany on April
6, 1917.

Within a few months, thousands of U.S. men were being drafted into the military
and sent to intensive training. Women, even many who had never worked outside
the home before, took jobs in factories producing supplies needed for the war
effort, as well as serving in ambulance corps and the American Red Cross at home
and abroad. Children were enlisted to sell war bonds and plant victory gardens in
support of the war effort.

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Wilson, as president, made virtually all the key decisions over foreign policy.
While the country was at peace, American banks made huge loans to Britain and
France, which were used mainly to buy munitions, raw materials, and food from
across the Atlantic. Until 1917, Wilson made minimal preparations for a land war
and kept the United States Army on a small peacetime footing, despite increasing
demands for enhanced preparedness. He did, however, expand the United States
Navy. The United States sent more than a million troops to Europe, where they
encountered a war unlike any other—one waged in trenches and in the air, and one
marked by the rise of such military technologies as the tank, the field telephone,
and poison gas. At the same time, the war shaped the culture of the U.S. After an
Armistice agreement ended the fighting on November 11, 1918, the postwar years
saw a wave of civil rights activism for equal rights for African Americans, the
passage of an amendment securing women’s right to vote, and a larger role in
world affairs for the United States.)

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By January 1917, however, the situation in Germany had changed. During a

wartime conference that month, representatives from the German Navy convinced
the military leadership and Kaiser Wilhelm II that a resumption of unrestricted
submarine warfare could help defeat Great Britain within five months. German
policymakers argued that they could violate the “Sussex pledge” since the United
States could no longer be considered a neutral party after supplying munitions and
financial assistance to the Allies. Germany also believed that the United States had
jeopardized its neutrality by acquiescing to the Allied blockade of Germany.