American entry into World War I

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The United States entered World War I on April 6, 1917, more than two and a half years after the war began in Austria-Hungary. Apart from an Anglophile element urging early support for the British and an anti-tsarist element sympathizing with Germany's war against Russia, American public opinion had generally reflected a desire to stay out of the war. Over time, especially after reports of German atrocities in Belgium in 1914 and after the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in a torpedo attack by a submarine of the Imperial German Navy off the southern coast of Ireland in May 1915, Americans increasingly came to see Imperial Germany as the aggressor in Europe. When the country was at peace, American banks made huge loans to the Entente powers (Allies), which were used mainly to buy munitions, raw materials, and food from across the Atlantic in North America from the United States and Canada. Although president Woodrow Wilson made minimal preparations for a land war before 1917, he did authorize...

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