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“HE KEPT US OUT OF WAR!” A COUNTERFACTUAL LOOK AT AMERICAN HISTORY WITHOUT THE FIRST WORLD WAR

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2017

Manfred Berg
Manfred Berg*
Affiliation:
Heidelberg University
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

One hundred years after President Woodrow Wilson led Americans into the Great War, this essay ponders various counterfactual scenarios based on the assumption that the United States had not become a belligerent power in 1917. The methodological introduction makes a case for counterfactual analysis as a useful and indeed indispensable tool of historians. The second part demonstrates that contemporaries, including Wilson himself, did not consider American entry into the war a foregone conclusion. The third section looks at the possible consequences of continued American neutrality on the international position of the United States, while the fourth part focuses on the question which major domestic developments would have been unlikely had America remained neutral. Had the United States stayed out of the Great War, America's international role in the postwar world would not been very different from what it actually was in the 1920s, but the nation would have been spared the spasms of war hysteria that altered domestic politics.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , January 2017 , pp. 2 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2017 

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References

NOTES

1 Baker, Ray Stannard, Woodrow Wilson: Life and Letters, vol. 6 (New York: Doubleday, 1937), 257–58Google Scholar; Newton D. Baker to Ray S. Baker, Aug. 6, 1928, reel 71, Ray S. Baker Papers (RSB), Library of Congress, Manuscript Division (LC MD); Memorandum of Conversation with George Creel, May 23, 1932, reel 73, RSB; Link, Arthur Stanley, Wilson: Campaigns for Progressivism and Peace 1916–1917 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965), 108–12Google Scholar.

2 An Address to the Senate, Jan. 22, 1917, Link, Arthur Stanley, ed., The Papers of Woodrow Wilson (PWW), vol. 40 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966–1994), 533–39Google Scholar; Count Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff to Robert Lansing, Jan. 31, 1917, PWW, vol. 41, 74–79.

3 For the historiography on Wilson's neutrality policy, see Doenecke, Justus D., “Neutrality Policy and the Decision for War” in A Companion to Woodrow Wilson, ed. Kennedy, Ross A. (New York: Wiley & Sons, 2013), 243–69Google Scholar; Cobb quoted in Link, Wilson: Campaigns for Progressivism and Peace, 398–99; An Address to a Joint Session of Congress, Apr. 2, 1917, PWW, vol. 41, 519–27, 526.

4 Capozolla, Christopher et al. , “Interchange: World War I,” Journal of American History 102:2 (2015): 463–99, 488–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar. However, none of the participants raises the scenario of continued U.S. neutrality.

5 Oakeshott, Michael, “Historical Continuity and Causal Analysis” in Philosophical Analysis and History, ed. Dray, William H. (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 193–212, esp. 206–7 (quotes)Google Scholar.

6 Evans, Richard J., Altered Pasts: Counterfactuals in History (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2014)Google Scholar, see esp. chs. 1 and 2. Evans's book is mostly a response to the introduction and case studies in Niall Ferguson, ed., Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals (London: Picador, 1997).

7 See Lebow, Richard Ned, “Counterfactuals, History and Fiction” in Historical Social Research—Historische Sozialforschung 34:2 (2009)Google Scholar, special issue: Counterfactual Thinking as a Scientific Method—Kontrafaktisches Denken als wissenschaftliche Methode, ed. Wenzlhuemer, Roland (Köln: Zentrum für Historische Sozialforschung, 2009), 57–73, 62Google Scholar.

8 Evans, Altered Pasts, 113–17, 40–41, 110–12. I admit that counterfactual scenarios pertaining to the end of the Weimar Republic have continued to fascinate me ever since I wrote my master thesis on the topic in 1984.

9 Weber, Max, “Objektive Möglichkeit und adäquate Verursachung in der historischen Kausalbetrachtung” in Max Weber: Gesammelte Aufsätze Zur Wissenschaftslehre, ed. Winckelmann, Johannes (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1988), 266–90Google Scholar; see also Ringer, Fritz, “Max Weber on Causal Analysis, Interpretation and Comparison,” History and Theory 41 (May 2002): 163–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Weber's essay was originally published in 1906. He built on the work of Johannes von Kries, a physiologist and psychologist interested in probability theory.

10 Lebow, “Counterfactuals,” 57.

11 Weber, “Objektive Möglichkeit,” 276. It may be added that Weber's model laid the groundwork for the proposition that all historical explanations entail general laws, at least implicitly. This concept, developed by Karl Popper and Carl-Gustav Hempel, became known as the “covering law model”; see Dray, William H., Laws and Explanation in History (London: Oxford University Press, 1957), 1 Google Scholar.

12 Evans, Altered Pasts, 112.

13 Weber, “Objektive Möglichkeit,” 287.

14 Evans, Altered Pasts, 124. Surprisingly, Evans bolsters his conclusion with a quote from Weber's essay on objective probability, without acknowledging that Weber actually made a case for counterfactual analysis.

15 Wenzlhuemer, Roland, “Counterfactual Thinking as a Scientific Method” in Historical Social Research—Historische Sozialforschung 34:2 (2009)Google Scholar, special issue: Counterfactual Thinking as a Scientific Method—Kontrafaktisches Denken als wissenschaftliche Methode, ed. Wenzlhuemer, Roland (Köln: Zentrum für Historische Sozialforschung, 2009), 27–54, 30–33, 39Google Scholar.

16 See my essay, Berg, Manfred, “Der 11. September—Eine Historische Zäsur?,” Zeithistorische Studien 8:3 (2011): 463–74Google Scholar.

17 See, e.g., Winston Churchill's account of the German spring offensive of 1918, Churchill, Winston S., The World Crisis: 1916–1918. Part Two (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1927 Google Scholar; Collector's Edition: Norwalk, CT: The Eastern Press, 1991), 404–28.

18 Lebow, “Counterfactuals,” 60, briefly hints at the contrast but does not fully ponder its implications.

19 Clark, Christopher M., The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 (London: Allen Lane, 2012), 562 Google Scholar. For a concise account of the crisis and the leadership of Kennedy and Kruschev, see Hershberg, James G., “The Cuban Missile Crisis” in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, eds. Leffler, Melvyn and Westad, Odd Arne (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 65–87 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Weber, “Objektive Möglichkeit,” 287–89; Fogel, Robert, Railroads and American Economic Growth: Essays in Econometric History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1964)Google Scholar.

21 Ferguson, Virtual History, Introduction, 86; see also Wenzlhuemer, “Counterfactual Thinking as a Scientific Method,” 40–41. Italics in original.

22 See, e.g., Kornblith, Gary J., “Rethinking the Coming of the Civil War: A Counterfactual Exercise,” Journal of American History 90:1 (2003): 76–105 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Kornblith assumes that Henry Clay had been elected president in 1844, instead of James Polk. He then asserts that Clay would not have annexed Texas and waged no war against Mexico. Fair enough, but the next steps already appear less persuasive: no overturning of the second party system, no Civil War, and slavery persisting into the twentieth century.

23 Interestingly, this revisionism has recently made a comeback among popular American writers; see, e.g., Pines, Burton Y., America's Greatest Blunder: The Fateful Decision to Enter World War One (New York: RSD Press, 2013)Google Scholar; Powell, Jim, Wilson's War: How Woodrow Wilson's Great Blunder Led to Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and World War II (New York: Crown Forum, 2005)Google Scholar.

24 In my doctoral dissertation I have demonstrated the considerable success of Weimar foreign policy in revising the Versailles Treaty in lockstep with U.S. desires for peaceful change. See Berg, Manfred, Gustav Stresemann und die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika: Weltwirtschaftliche Verflechtung und Revisionspolitik, 1907–1929 (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 1990)Google Scholar.

25 See Ferrell, Robert H., Woodrow Wilson and World War I, 1917–1921 (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), 8–12 Google Scholar.

26 See Wilson's letter to William Harding, Nov. 26, 1916, PWW vol. 40, 77–80; on the background, see Cooper, John M., “‘The Command of Gold’ Reversed: American Loans to Britain, 1915–1917,” Pacific Historical Review 45:2 (1976): 209–30, 222–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; An Appeal for a Statement of War Aims, Dec. 18, 1916, PWW vol. 40, 273–76; German answer, Dec. 26, 1916, ibid., 331; Allied answer, Jan. 10, 1917, ibid., 439–42; An Address to the Senate, Jan. 22, 1917, ibid., 533–39.

27 From the Diary of Colonel House, Feb. 1, 1917, PWW vol. 41, 86–89; An Address to a Joint Session of Congress, ibid., 283–87.

28 A Memorandum by Robert Lansing, Mar. 20, 1917, PWW vol. 41, 436–44, 444; An Address to a Joint Session of Congress, Apr. 2, 1917, ibid., 519–27, 526; Boghardt, Thomas, The Zimmermann Telegram: Intelligence, Diplomacy, and America's Entry into World War I (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2012)Google Scholar; Carlisle, Rodney P., Sovereignty at Sea: U.S. Merchant Ships and American Entry into World War I (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2009)Google Scholar; Cooper, John Milton, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009), 382–85Google Scholar.

29 Roosevelt quoted in Wilson Link, Campaigns for Progressivism and Peace, 392; on Roosevelt's attitude toward the war and Wilson, see Ambrosius, Lloyd E., “The Great War, Americanism Revisited, and the Anti-Wilson Crusade” in A Companion to Theodore Roosevelt, ed. Ricard, Serge (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 468–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kitchin quoted in Keith, Jeanette, Rich Man's War, Poor Man's Fight: Race, Class, and Power in the Rural South During the First World War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 13–14 Google Scholar.

30 Gregory, Ross, The Origins of American Intervention in the First World War (New York: W. W. Norton, 1971), 130–39, 136Google Scholar.

31 Bryan's letter of resignation, June 9, 1915, PWW vol. 33, 375–76; Wilson's letter to Bryan, June 7, 1915, ibid., 349.

32 Tucker, Robert W., Woodrow Wilson and the Great War: Reconsidering America's Neutrality, 1914–1917 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2007), 84–87 Google Scholar.

33 Wilson's letter to William Joel Stone, Feb. 24, 1916, PWW vol. 36, 213–14. Wall Street Banker Thomas W. Lamont later conceded that all Americans had benefited from the war boom, but denied that lobby groups had any influence on Wilson. Lamont to Ray Stannard Baker, Mar. 20, 1916, RSB reel 78.

34 For a comprehensive account of the German American tug-of-war over Germany's submarine warfare, see Doerries, Reinhard R., Imperial Challenge: Ambassador Count Bernstorff and German-American Relations, 1908–1917 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), 99–140 Google Scholar.

35 See Tooze, Adam, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916–1931 (London: Penguin, 2014), 52–55 Google Scholar.

36 Letter from James Gerard to Edith Wilson, Apr. 26, 1927, RSB reel 75; on the debates within the German leadership, see Jarausch, Konrad H., The Enigmatic Chancellor: Bethmann Hollweg and the Hubris of Imperial Germany (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1973), 295–302 Google Scholar.

37 German Ambassador Count Bernstorff to Robert Lansing, Jan. 31, 1917, PWW vol. 41, 74–79.

38 Tucker, Woodrow Wilson and the Great War, 204; for similar assessments, see Doenecke, Justus D., Nothing Less Than War: A New History of America's Entry into World War I (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2011), 307 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cooper, “The Command of Gold” Reversed, 228.

39 Tooze, The Deluge, 56–58.

40 See Tucker, Woodrow Wilson and the Great War, 221.

41 For an account of the political debates on unrestricted submarine warfare in Germany, see Berg, Gustav Stresemann und die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika, 46–69.

42 See Christopher Capozolla et al., “Interchange: World War I,” 490–91, with a critical perspective on overemphasizing the impact of American belligerency.

43 Cooper, “The Command of Gold” Reversed, 228, 230.

44 The standard account of German war aims is Fischer, Fritz, Germany's War Aims in the First World War (London: Chatto and Windus, 1967)Google Scholar. See also Berg, Gustav Stresemann und die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika, 38–46, for the war aims of a German nationalist.

45 See the reports of Ambassador Gerard on German public opinion, Feb. 10, 11, 14, 1915 Department of State, ed., Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) 1915, Supplement, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1928, 101–4.

46 On the extent of Allied purchases and loans in the United States before 1917, see the Statement by J.P. Morgan & Co., Jan. 7, 1936, RSB reel 78.

47 Seymour, Charles, ed., The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, vol. 1 (London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1926–1928), 298–99Google Scholar; Ferrell, Woodrow Wilson and World War I, 9.

48 A Memorandum by Herbert Bruce Brougham, Dec. 14, 1914, PWW 31, 458–60.

49 Strachan, Hew, The First World War: To Arms (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 991–92Google Scholar.

50 “Secret Document Reveals Britain's Darkest Hour,” Current History XXII, July 1925, 513–530, 519, copy in RSB box 134.

51 Clemenceau quoted in: From the Diary of Colonel House, Apr. 28, 1919, PWW vol. 58, 185–87; An Address to a Joint Session of Congress, Jan. 8, 1918, PWW vol. 45, 534–39; on Allied reservations about the Fourteen Points, see Colonel House to Wilson, Oct. 31, 1918, FRUS 1918 supplement 1, vol. 1, 425–27.

52 Clemenceau quoted in: Soutou, Georges-Henri, “French War Aims and Strategy” in The Purpose of the First World War, ed. Afflerbach, Holger (Berlin—München: De Gruyter-Oldenbourg, 2015), 29–44, 42Google Scholar; on Wilson's resistance against the French plans to annex the Saar valley and the Rhineland, see Mantoux, Paul and Link, Arthur, eds., The Deliberations of the Council of Four (March 24–June 28, 1919), vol. 1 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 55–64 Google Scholar; on Wilson's threats to leave the conference, see From the Diary of Dr. Grayson, PWW vol. 57, 50–52; Cooper, Woodrow Wilson, 488, 492–93.

53 Kolb, Eberhard, Der Frieden von Versailles (München: C. H. Beck, 2011), 103–4Google Scholar; for a comprehensive account of German hopes for a “Wilsonian Peace” and subsequent accusations of betrayal against the President, see Schwabe, Klaus, Woodrow Wilson, Revolutionary Germany, and Peacemaking, 1918–1919: Missionary Diplomacy and the Realities of Power (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985)Google Scholar.

54 See, e.g., An Address to the Senate, July 10, 1919, PWW vol. 61, 426–36; An Address to the Columbus Chamber of Commerce, Sept. 4, 1919, PWW vol. 63, 7–18; for a defense of League critics, see Lodge, Henry C., The Senate and the League of Nations (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925)Google Scholar; 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), XIII, 6–7, 179CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 See Berg, Gustav Stresemann und die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika, 103–41; see also Costigliola, Frank, Awkward Dominion: American Political, Economic, and Cultural Relations with Europe, 1919–1933 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984)Google Scholar.

56 Afflerbach, Holger, “… eine Internationale der Kriegsverschärfung und der Kriegsverlängerung … War Aims and the Chances for a Compromise Peace During the First World War” in The Purpose of the First World War, ed. Afflerbach, Holger (Berlin—München: De Gruyter-Oldenbourg, 2015), 237–54, 238–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 Thompson, John A., Woodrow Wilson (London: Longman, 2002), 141 Google Scholar.

58 An Appeal to the American People, Aug. 18, 1914, PWW vol. 30, 393–94; An Address to the Senate, Jan. 22, 1917, ibid., vol. 40, 538; Tooze, The Deluge, 58.

59 James Gerard to Ray S. Baker, Nov. 4, 1935, RSB reel 75.

60 James Gerard to Robert Lansing, Dec. 26, 1916, PWW vol. 40, 331; William Graves Sharp to Robert Lansing, Jan. 10, 1917, ibid., 439–42.

61 Soutou, “French War Aims and Strategy,” 36–39; Peace Resolution of the German Reichstag, July 19, 1917, Michaelis, Herbert and Schraepler, Ernst, eds., Ursachen und Folgen. Vom deutschen Zusammenbruch 1918 und 1945 bis zur staatlichen Neuordnung Deutschlands in der Gegenwart. Eine Urkunden- und Dokumentensammlung, vol. 2 (Berlin O. J., 1958ff), 37–38 Google Scholar. The Resolution, however, only opposed “forcible annexations,” thus leaving open the possibility of a referendum by the population of Alsace-Lorraine.

62 On the war aims and strategies of all belligerent powers, see the various contributions in Afflerbach, The Purposes of the First World War; obviously my list of problems echoes the territorial issues that Wilson later addressed in his Fourteen Points of Jan. 1918, see An Address to a Joint Session of Congress, Jan. 8, 1918, PWW vol. 45, 534–39.

63 An Address in Washington to the League to Enforce Peace, May 27, 1916, PWW vol. 37, 113–16; An Address to the Senate, Jan. 22, 1917, ibid., vol. 40, 536.

64 Tooze's characterization of the United States as a “novel kind of super state, exercising a veto power over the financial and security concerns of the other major states of the world,” strikes me as exaggerated for the World War One era. Cf. The Deluge, 8.

65 See Jay Winter's reflections in Christopher Capozolla et al., “Interchange: World War I,” 490–91.

66 “Political transformation,” see Capozolla, ibid., 495.

67 Wiebe, Robert H., The Search for Order, 1877–1920 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1967), 293 Google Scholar; for a view of progressivism that emphasizes its democratic potential and its survival in social movements from below, see Dawley, Alan, Changing the World: American Progressives in War and Revolution (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), 297–330 Google Scholar.

68 Brownlee, Elliot W., “The New Freedom and Its Evolution” in A Companion to Woodrow Wilson, ed. Ross A. Kennedy Wiley-Blackwell Companions to American History, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), 106–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 123–27 (quotes); McGerr, Michael, A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America (New York: Free Press, 2003), 315 Google Scholar.

69 See Jennifer Keene in Christopher Capozolla et al., “Interchange: World War I,” 492, 498–99; for an excellent analysis of the roots of coercion in the spirit of voluntarism, see Capozzola, Christopher, Uncle Sam Wants You. World War I and the Making of the Modern American Citizen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

70 An Address to a Joint Session of Congress, Apr. 2, 1917, PWW vol. 41, 526; Two letters to Joseph Tumulty, Apr. 10, 1918, ibid., vol. 47, 311; on the extent and impact of the anti-German hysteria, see Wüstenbecker, Katja, Deutsch-Amerikaner im Ersten Weltkrieg: US-Politik und nationale Identitäten im Mittleren Westen (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2007), 245–304 Google Scholar; Tolzmann, Don H., ed., The Anti-German Hysteria of World War One (München: Saur, 1995)Google Scholar.

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74 An Address to the Senate, Sept. 30, 1918, PWW vol. 51, 158–61; Steinson, Barbara J., “Wilson and Woman Suffrage” in A Companion to Woodrow Wilson, ed. Kennedy, Ross A. ( New York: Wiley & Sons, 2013), 343–63, 359–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

75 Welskopp, Thomas, Amerikas große Ernüchterung: Eine Kulturgeschichte der Prohibition (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag, 2010), 26–29, 28Google Scholar; McGirr, Lisa, The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State (New York: W. W. Norton, 2016)Google Scholar, esp. XVI–XXII, 31–37, passim.

76 Daniels, Roger, Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life, 2nd ed. (New York: Perennial, 2008), 276–84Google Scholar; Dawley, Changing the World, 290–91.

77 I acknowledge that such a conclusion may betray the normative bias of someone who likes a drink every now and then.

78 Link, Campaigns for Progressivism and Peace, 399.

79 Ibid.

80 From the Diary of Henry Fountain Ashurst, Oct. 14, 1918, PWW vol. 51, 338–40, 339.

81 See, e.g., An Address to the Columbus Chamber of Commerce, Sept. 4, 1919, PWW vol. 63, 7–18.