WWI, Why America?

[germanos]

one or more "unprovoked" attack(s) on the US or its citizens that only war could resolve

Is there any other reason why a country would go to war?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ned


Looks like Teddy was reading the London or NY Times. His views are very consistent with the prevailing propaganda.

So, LoTM, since you choose to believe the propaganda, I assume your choice is not other, but 3: The Huns are barbaric and must be destroyed.

No, Teddy was probably motivated, as he usually was by geopolitical considerations. Interestingly, not only TR, but folks like Cabot Lodge, who were later opposed to the League of Nations, were also pro-war. Wilson had been the dove, though thats often forgotten.

Whats also forgotten is that folks like TR, Lodge, etc were quite nervous about German naval expansion, the growing German position in the Pacific and China, as well as German ambitions elsewhere. The prospect of a Europe dominated by a growing and aggressive Germany, was not ideal to them. This was not due to anglophilia (TR sympathized with the Boers, for ex) or Germanophobia (despite TRs typically rousing speeches) but for reasons of realpolitik.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Ned
Dauphin, or even read, you might add.

I suspect you Brits had us sized up just right. We are ingnorant savages that are suckers for helping the underdogs. Well, just serve up poor, poor Belgium, crushed by the iron boot of the Hun who held babies high in triumph, skewered on the ends of their blood-drenched bayonets.

I think your own government did that just fine, then as now, vis a vis Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. Or was it the British 45 min dossier and Nigerian uranium that made y'all go to war?

[lord of the mark]

http://www.firstworldwar.com/battles/louvain.htm

judging by the above, I think Saddam would have found the German behavior in Belgium just peachy.

[Ned]

Below is a trailer from the movie "Merry Christmas" where you get a bit of a Scot bishop exhorting the troops to "kill the Hun." He protrays the war as a war to "save freedom." Elsewhere in the movie, little British kids sing songs about killing the Huns, all of them.

Very much the propaganda that swayed so many Americans to hate the Germans at the time. Hate.

I had some Germans friends whose parents lived at that time. So I got the message almost first hand. It was not a pleasant time to be German in America. People should know more about this.

http://www.sonyclassics.com/joyeuxnoel/trailer.html

[Ned]

LoTM, Strange that TR should worry so so so much about the German fleet when the Brits at that time ruled the waves.

(His concerns sound more like Churchill's concerns, do they not?)

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Ned
Below is a trailer from the movie "Merry Christmas" where you get a bit of a Scot bishop exhorting the troops to "kill the Hun." He protrays the war as a war to "save freedom." Elsewhere in the movie, little British kids sing songs about killing the Huns, all of them.

Very much the propaganda that swayed so many Americans to hate the Germans at the time. Hate.

http://www.sonyclassics.com/joyeuxnoel/trailer.html

Using a film made in 2005 as evidence. Please wait while I use 300 to explain to you the battle of Thermopylae.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Ned
LS, I share your views.

*Stuie's opinion of LS drops significantly.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ned
LoTM, Strange that TR should worry so so so much about the German fleet when the Brits at that time ruled the waves.

(His concerns sound more like Churchill's concerns, do they not?)

cause the US and UK had achieved a strategic reconciliation in 1893 (or so). The US and UK also shared a common approach to China. In any case UK was a status quo power, mainly interested in keeping its current empire, while Germany was a rising power, and thus more threatening.

[Ned]

LotM, here is the journal of an American diplomat who was actually at Louvain. He witnessed some firefights with civilians and the Germans systematically burning the town, but no mass slayings or evidence of same.

The whole diary is replete with reporters and others traveling throughout the German-held Belgium. They are stopped. Their papers are checked. But never do any of them witness a civilian being mistreated let alone shot for no reason.

http://www.greatwardifferent.com/Great_War/Belgium/Diary_01.htm

There is no confirmation that any non combatants were deliberately harmed by the Germans anywhere in that diary.

That said, I do not doubt that the civilians who were shooting at the Germans were executed if they were caught.

http://www.greatwardifferent.com/Great_War/Belgium/Diary_01.htm

[Ned]

Originally posted by Dauphin




Using a film made in 2005 as evidence. Please wait while I use 300 to explain to you the battle of Thermopylae.

If you want evidence, just see the link in the OP.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Stuie
*Stuie's opinion of LS drops significantly.

*Stuie's sarcasm detector is teh broken

[Ned]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


cause the US and UK had achieved a strategic reconciliation in 1893 (or so). The US and UK also shared a common approach to China. In any case UK was a status quo power, mainly interested in keeping its current empire, while Germany was a rising power, and thus more threatening.

Threatening?

When did Germany ever utter anything threatening towards the US before 1914?

What US possessions did Germany threaten?

If TR actually believed that Germany posed a military threat to the US that had to be dealt with by destroying her in war, then TR was certifiably nuts.

[Barnabas]

Wasnt it Germany attacking USA ships? and I mean really attacking, not like the incident used to justify the spanish american war.

[BeBMan]

The true reason was of course that nobody liked the Prussian Pickelhaube.