Using the documents provided, determine if America

1
Using the documents provided, determine if
Americas entry into the war inevitable?

1. How did this event contribute to the US entering
   the war
2. Overall, what was one of the main reasons the
   United States entered into the war? How is this
   different from the reasons of the other
   participants?

2

1. If you take these two documents in context
   together, what is the message?
2. What do you think is going to happen?

These 2 notices appeared alongside each other in American Newspapers
Notice! Travelers intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travelers sailing in the war zone on ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk. Imperial German Embassy Washington D.C.
SOURCE Cunard Lines poster with German Embassy warning notice, 1915.
3
http//www.natick.k12.ma.us/winston_blackburn/Lus
itania
4

• Sussex Pledge
• May 14, 1916
• The Sussex Pledge was made by Germany to the
  United States in response to President Woodrow
  Wilson threatening war after several passenger
  ships and armed merchant ships were sunk. Germany
  wanted to avoid the US being drawn into the war
  so it pledged that
• Passenger ships would not be targeted
• Merchant ships would not be sunk until the
  presence of contraband had been established, if
  necessary by a search of the ship
• Merchant ships would not be sunk without
  provision for the safety of passengers and crew.
• The pledge was rescinded (ended) in January 1917
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ImageU-47s.jpg

5

1914 1915 1916 1917 1918
To Submarines 3 396 964 2,439 1,035
To Surface Craft 55 23 32 64 3
To Mines 42 97 161 170 27
To Aircraft --- --- --- 3 1
Allied Neutral Ships Lost During Word War I

SOURCE Table from The World War I Source Book by Philip J. Haythornthwaite.
6
The Zimmerman Telegram was a coded telegram
dispatched by the Foreign Secretary of the German
Empire, Arthur Zimmermann, on January 16, 1917,
to the German ambassador in Mexico, Heinrich von
Eckardt, This Telegram was intercepted and
decoded by the British Government. It was then
delivered by the British Foreign Minister Balfour
to the US Ambassador in Britain and then sent to
President Woodrow Wilson

1. What is the purpose of the telegram? What are the
   Germans hoping their ambassador in Mexico will
   achieve?
2. Why do you think they want to achieve this goal?
3. What other nations do the Germans suggest the
   Ambassador contacts? Why?
4. Why do you think the British would give this
   intercepted message to the Americans?

7
Speech Before Congress, April 2, 1917 (Woodrow
Wilson) .It is a war against all nations.
American ships have been sunk, American lives
taken, in ways which it has stirred us very
deeply to learn of, but the ships and people of
other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk
and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way
there has been no discrimination. The challenge
is to all mankind. Each nation must decide for
itself how it will meet it. The choice we make
for ourselves must be made with a moderation of
counsel and a temperateness moderation of
judgment befitting our character and our motives
as a nation. We must put excited feeling away.
Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious
assertion of the physical might of the nation,
but only the vindication of right, of human
right, of which we are only a single champion.
This cartoon was in response to continued German
u-boat attacks at sea in World War I, and
features President Woodrow Wilson. (March, 21,
1917)

1. What does President Wilson say is the real reason
   the United States should declare war?
2. In looking at the cartoon, what might others
   think is the real excuse the USA is using to join
   the war effort?

http//history1900s.about.com/library/photos/blyww
i4.htm