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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 September 2018
This article analyzes Woodrow Wilson's view of the First World War's implications for U.S. national security and the way in which he related the balance of power between the belligerents at different points in time to his diplomatic objectives. It approaches this topic, which is a subject of much debate among historians, by comparing Wilson's view of the war from late 1914 to early 1915 with that of his secretary of state, William Jennings Bryan, and by examining how those perceptions shaped the response of the two leaders to the sinking of the Lusitania. Bryan and Wilson both wanted the United States to stay out of the war, both wanted the United States to mediate an end to it, and both of them saw mediation as a doorway to reforming international politics. Unlike Bryan, however, Wilson saw Germany as a potential threat to the United States and paid close attention to the balance of power between the Allies and Central Powers; he specifically believed that the Allies were likely to win the war. These views led Wilson to reject Bryan's advice to de-escalate the Lusitania crisis and to adopt a much more confrontational policy toward Germany, one of the most consequential decisions Wilson made in the neutrality period.
1 For historians suggesting that Wilson paid little attention to the war's relationship to U.S. national security, see, for example, Link, Arthur S., Woodrow Wilson: Revolution, War, and Peace (Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1979)Google Scholar; Floyd, M. Ryan, Abandoning Neutrality: Woodrow Wilson and the Beginning of the Great War, August 1914–December 1915 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cooper, John M. Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography (New York: Vintage, 2009)Google Scholar; and Doenecke, Justus D., Nothing Less Than War: A New History of American Entry into World War I (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For examples of scholars who perceive some degree of strategic calculation in Wilson's diplomacy, see Hannigan, Robert E., The Great War and American Foreign Policy, 1914–24 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Ninkovich, Frank, The Wilsonian Century: U.S. Foreign Policy since 1900 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999)Google Scholar.
2 Bryan, William Jennings, “A False Philosophy,” Commoner 15 (July 1915): 7Google Scholar; Bryan, , “The War in Europe and Its Lessons for Us,” Commoner 15 (Nov. 1915): 14Google Scholar.
3 Bryan to Woodrow Wilson, Sept. 19, 1914, in The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, ed. Link, Arthur S. et al. , 69 vols. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966–94), 31:56–57Google Scholar; Bryan to Wilson, Dec. 1, 1914, Papers of Woodrow Wilson, 31:378–79. The Papers of Woodrow Wilson will henceforth be abbreviated PWW.
4 Bryan to Woodrow Wilson, Sept. 19, 1914, PWW 31:56–57; Bryan to Wilson, Dec. 1, 1914, PWW 31:378–79.
5 For Bryan's position just before and during the Lusitania crisis, described in this and the following paragraph, see Bryan to Wilson, Apr. 19, 1915, PWW 33:28–29; Bryan to Wilson, Apr. 23, 1915, PWW 33:66–67; Bryan to Wilson, May 9, 1915, PWW 33:134–35; Bryan to Wilson, May 12, 1915, PWW 33:165–67; Bryan to Wilson, May 12, 1915, PWW 33:173; Bryan to Wilson, May 13, 1915, PWW 33:185; Bryan to Wilson, May 14, 1915, PWW 33:192–93; Bryan to Wilson with enclosures, May 16, 1915, PWW 33:206–9; Bryan to Wilson with enclosures, June 2, 1915, PWW 33:310–13; Bryan to Wilson, June 3, 1915, PWW 33:321–25; Bryan to Wilson, June 5, 1915, PWW 33:344; Bryan to Wilson, June 7, 1915, PWW 33:351–55.
6 See Kennedy, Ross A., The Will to Believe: Woodrow Wilson, World War I, and America's Strategy for Peace and Security (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2009), 32–33Google Scholar; Knock, Thomas J., To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 34–47Google Scholar; Link, Revolution, War, and Peace, 21–46.
7 For Wilson's first two notes to Germany, see Wilson to Bryan with enclosure, May 12, 1915, PWW 33:174–78; Bryan to Wilson with enclosures, June 7, 1915, PWW 33:355–60. See also Wilson to Bryan, May 13, 1915 (three letters), PWW 33:181–85; Wilson to Bryan, May 14, 1915 (two letters), PWW 33:191, 194–95; Wilson to Bryan, May 20, 1915, PWW 33:223–24; Wilson to Bryan, June 5, 1915, PWW 33:345.
8 For the leading historian making the flexibility argument, see Link, Arthur S., Wilson: The Struggle for Neutrality, 1914–1915 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1960), 450Google Scholar; Link, Revolution, War, and Peace, 40–42. Wilson's most prominent recent biographer follows Link's interpretation; see Cooper, John. M. Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1983), 291Google Scholar. For Wilson's views after Bryan's resignation and Wilson's third note to Germany, see Wilson to Robert Lansing, July 13, 1915, PWW 33:499–500; Wilson to Edward M. House, July 14, 1915, PWW 33:505; Wilson to Lansing, July 21, 1915, PWW 33:545–48. On the position of other neutrals, see Bailey, Thomas A. and Ryan, Paul B., The Lusitania Disaster: An Episode in Modern Warfare and Diplomacy (New York: Free Press, 1975), 39Google Scholar. On Bryan and Mexico, see Bryan to Wilson, June 3, 1915, PWW 33:324. Bailey and Ryan also point out the administration's travel warning on Mexico; see Lusitania Disaster, 68–69.
9 Sir Cecil Spring Rice to Sir Edward Grey, Sept. 3, 1914, PWW 30:472. For other early statements along these lines, see House to Wilson, Aug. 22, 1914, and Wilson to House, Aug. 25, 1914, PWW 30:432–23, 450; Wilson to Grey, Aug. 19, 1914, PWW 30:403; House Diary, Aug. 30, 1914, PWW 30:462; Spring Rice to Grey, Sept. 8, 1914, PWW 31:14. These views were consistent with anxiety about German ambitions in Latin America that Wilson expressed before the war began. See Oswald Garrison Villard Diary, Aug. 14, 1912, PWW 25:24.
10 House Diary, Sept. 30, 1914, PWW 31:109 and see Charles W. Eliot to Wilson, Aug. 6, 1914, PWW 30:353–54; House Diary, Nov. 25, 1914, PWW 31:355; House Diary, Dec. 3, 1914, PWW 31:385; A Memorandum by Herbert Bruce Brougham, Dec. 14, 1914, PWW 31:459. For early February 1915, see Axson, Stockton, Brother Woodrow: A Memoir of Woodrow Wilson, ed. Link, Arthur S. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), 193Google Scholar; and see also Knock, To End All Wars, 35. For June 16, 1915, see Link, Arthur S., Wilson: Campaigns for Progressivism and Peace, 1916–1917 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965), 81Google Scholar. For the November House-Wilson conversation, see House Diary, Nov. 4, 1914, PWW 31:265. Historians who discount Wilson's security concerns lean heavily on this comment by Wilson on Nov. 4. See, for example, Tucker, Robert W., Woodrow Wilson and the Great War: Reconsidering America's Neutrality, 1914–1917 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2007), 4, 9–10, 46, 80, 88–89Google Scholar; Thompson, John A., The Roots of America's Global Role: A Sense of Power (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2015), 63Google Scholar. For historians who suggest Wilson's comments about Germany were only outbursts associated with Germany's initial offensive, see Link, Struggle for Neutrality, 51–52; Doenecke, Nothing Less Than War, 22; Tucker, Woodrow Wilson and the Great War, 88–89.
11 House to Wilson, Sept. 18, 1914, PWW 31:45; House Diary, Sept. 28, 1914, PWW 31:94–95; Link, Struggle for Neutrality, 205; House Diary, Nov. 8, 1914, PWW 31:282; Wilson to Walter Hines Page, Nov. 10, 1914, PWW 31:294; House Diary, Dec. 3, 1914, PWW 31:285; A Memorandum by Herbert Bruce Brougham, Dec. 14, 1914, PWW 31:458–59; Diary of Chandler Parsons Anderson, Jan. 9, 1915, PWW 32:44–50; Wilson to Edith Bolling Galt, Aug. 18, 1915, PWW 34:242–43.
12 Link, Struggle for Neutrality, 202–31; Kennedy, Will to Believe, 72–73; House to Wilson, Mar. 29, 1915, PWW 32:455–56; Wilson to House, Apr. 1, 1915, PWW 32:462.
13 Wilson to Bryan, Apr. 27, 1915, PWW 33:81–82. See also Wilson to Bryan, Apr. 28, 1915, PWW 33:85.
14 Page to Wilson, May 8, 1915, PWW 33:130 and see Wilson to Bryan, May 10, 1915, PWW 33:139. On Wilson's concern about Germany trying to force him to confront Britain on the blockade, see Wilson to House, May 20, 1915, PWW 33:223; Wilson to Bryan, May 20, 1915, PWW 33:223–24.
15 For a recent interpretation stressing the significance of America's economic interest in trade with the Allies, see Floyd, Abandoning Neutrality. On Britain's interference with American trade, see Wilson to House, Oct. 23, 1914, PWW 31:214; Wilson to Bryan with enclosures, Jan. 22, 1915, PWW 32:100–102; Lindley Miller Garrison to Wilson with enclosure, Mar. 20, 1915, PWW 32:404–8; Wilson to Bryan, Mar. 24, 1915, PWW 32:424–25; Wilson to House, May 5, 1915, PWW 33:105.
16 Bryan to Wilson, April 19, 1915, PWW 33:28; Count Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff to the German Foreign Office, June 2, 1915, PWW 33:318. For more on the submarine-food proposal, see Link, Struggle for Neutrality, 325–26, 332–40, 392–95.
17 On Wilson's focus on American passengers on belligerent ships, see Carlisle, Rodney, Sovereignty at Sea: U.S. Merchant Ships and American Entry into World War I (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2009), 20–21Google Scholar; Bailey and Ryan, Lusitania Disaster, 309; Bryan to Wilson, June 3, 1915, PWW 33:323. On Britain's minefield, see Bailey and Ryan, Lusitania Disaster, 31–32; Coogan, John. W., The End of Neutrality: The United States, Britain, and Maritime Rights, 189–−1915 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981), 203–7Google Scholar; Lansing to Bryan, Feb. 18, 1915, in Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States: The Lansing Papers, 1914–1920 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1939), 1:37–38Google Scholar.
18 Wilson to Bryan, June 7, 1915, PWW 33:349. On Bryan's perception of public opinion, see Bryan to Wilson, Apr. 23, 1915, PWW 33:66; Bryan to Wilson, June 5, 1915, PWW 33:344. Historians emphasizing the importance of Wilson's perception of public opinion include Bailey and Ryan, Lusitania Disaster, 333; Thompson, Roots of America's Global Role, 68; Cooper, Wilson, 285–94.
19 Wilson to Edith Bolling Galt, June 8, 1915, PWW 33:366. Wilson seemed relieved the next day when press opinion assailed Bryan's resignation. See Wilson to Galt, June 9, 1915, PWW 33:377–78.
20 See Wilson to House, Oct. 4, 1915, PWW 35:19; Lansing to Wilson, Sept. 12, 1915, PWW 34:454; Wilson to Lansing, Sept. 13, 1915, PWW 34:460. For a detailed narrative of the Arabic episode and the January 1916 “modus vivendi” on armed ships, see Link, Struggle for Neutrality, 551–87, 653–81; Link, Arthur S., Wilson: Confusions and Crises, 1915–1916 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964), 142–46Google Scholar.
21 See Link, Confusions and Crises, 146–94, 222–79.
22 See Link, Confusions and Crises, 144, 167-94 and Link, Struggle for Neutrality, 598–628.
23 On Wilson's continuing apprehension of Germany, see Wilson to Lansing with enclosure, July 31, 1915, PWW 34:4–4-8; Wilson to House, Aug. 4, 1915, PWW 34:79; House to Wilson, Aug. 10, 1915, PWW 34:158–59; Wilson to Galt, Aug. 19, 1915, PWW 34:257–58; Wilson to Galt, Aug. 22, 1915, PWW 34:290; Wilson to William Gibbs McAdoo with enclosure, Aug. 19, 1915, PWW 34:248–49; House Diary, Sept. 22, 1915, PWW 34:506; House Diary, Nov. 28, 1915, PWW 35:258–60; House Diary, Dec. 15, 1915, PWW 35:356; Lansing to Wilson, Jan. 24, 1916, PWW 35:517–18; Wilson to Lansing, Jan. 24, 1916, PWW 35:519; House Diary, May 3, 1916, PWW 36:597. On German subversion in the United States, see Link, Struggle for Neutrality, 645–51. On doubts about the Allied ability to win, see House Diary, Oct. 8, 1915, PWW 35:43–44; Wilson to House with enclosure, Oct. 18, 1915, PWW 35:80–82. On the early 1916 mediation discussions, see the Oct. 8 and 18, 1915, citations above and House to Wilson, Jan. 30, 1916, PWW 36:52; House to Wilson, Feb. 3, 1916, PWW 36:122–25; House to Wilson, Feb. 15, 1916, PWW 36:180; House Diary, Mar. 6, 1916, PWW 36:262; Link, Confusions and Crises, 101–41. See also Lansing to Wilson, Aug. 20, 1915, PWW 34:264–65; Wilson to Lansing, Aug. 21, 1915, PWW 34:271; Wilson to Galt with enclosure, c. Aug. 23, 1915, PWW 34:298–99; Wilson to Galt, Aug. 18, 1915, PWW 242–43; Lansing to Wilson, Feb. 5, 1916, PWW 36:133–34; House to Wilson, Feb. 15, 1916, PWW 36:180; Link, Confusions and Crises, 142–64.
24 Kennedy, Will to Believe, 88–90, 96–97; Link, Campaigns for Progressivism and Peace, 10–38, 65–80.
25 Kennedy, Will to Believe, 96–99; Link, Campaigns for Progressivism and Peace, 165–289.
26 On Germany's submarine decision making, see Watson, Alexander, Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I (New York: Basic Books, 2014), 226–41Google Scholar; Birnbaum, Karl E., Peace Moves and U-Boat Warfare: A Study of Imperial Germany's Policy towards the United States, April 18, 1916–January 9, 1917 (New York: Archon Books, 1970)Google Scholar.
27 For this paragraph and the next, see Kennedy, Will to Believe, 1–24.
28 Wilson quoted in Link, Campaigns for Progressivism and Peace, 399 and see 399–400. See also Cooper, Wilson, 382–83 and n. 51, 642.
29 For the 1930s, see Kennedy, Ross A., “The Ideology of American Isolationism, 1931–1939,” Cercles 5 (2002): 57–76Google Scholar; Jonas, Manfred, Isolationism in America, 1935–1941 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1966)Google Scholar. On Roosevelt and Truman, see Leffler, Melvyn P., A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992)Google Scholar. For Truman, see also Hogan, Michael J., A Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State, 1945–1954 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000)Google Scholar.