![]() Without a clear attack against the United States to galvanize the public, Wilson argued that the nation had to defend itself from increasing German aggression. Therefore, when Wilson decided on Apto ask Congress for a declaration of war, a significant segment of the population still needed convincing. ![]() Yet opposition to entering the war remained strong in rural areas where traditional distrust of Wall Street created suspicions of a “rich man’s war, poor man’s fight.” German Americans and Irish Americans also opposed entering the war, believing an Allied victory would only strengthen the British Empire. The evolving naval war also impacted the United States, most famously when 128 Americans perished after a German submarine torpedoed the British passenger ship Lusitania in 1915.īy 1917 most Americans favoured the Allied side. Americans donated widely to help civilians caught up in the maelstrom of war, while banks lent freely to the Allies so they could purchase food, raw materials and munitions in the United States. Thousands of Americans either volunteered to fight in foreign armies or travelled overseas to work in humanitarian relief campaigns. ![]() Not all Americans heeded the president’s request. Aware that the nation’s population included many first- and second-generation immigrants from both the Central Powers and the Allied nations, Wilson worried that bitter divisions over the war might rip the country apart. When the European war began in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson announced that the United States would remain neutral. United States of America and the First World War
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