We must make the world safe for democracy. This is what Woodrow Wilson said before entering WWI. The war first started because a man named Gavrilo Princip shot the archduke of Austria-Hungry, Franz Ferdinand and his wife, causing Austria-Hungry to go into war with Serbia. Sides were formed into the Central Powers – Germany, Austria-Hungry, and the Ottoman Empire and the Allies – Russia, Great Britain, France, and Italy. The United States should have joined WWI because of Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare and the alliance system.
Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare had caused many problems because they were targeting innocent ships. Unrestricted submarine warfare was the sinking of any ship in a certian area without warning. Germany was doing this so food and supplies couldn’t get to Great Britain. This is what happened to a passenger ship called the Lusitania. On May 7, 1915, it was shot down and 1,198 people died, including 128 Americans. Germany claimed that it was carrying ammunition for Great Britian. It turned out that it had been, but that didn’t account for all of the lives lost. If the US didn’t enter the war, what could have happened if the Germans kept up this warfare? Many more innocent people would have been killed; the US needed to do something.
The alliance system is another reason the United States should have joined WWI. The Zimmerman Telegram was a telegram sent from Germany to Mexico requesting an alliance. Germany’s plan was to have Mexico take out the United States so the Central Powers wouldn’t have to fight against them in the war. Mexico’s part of the deal was that when they win, as Germany was sure they would, they would regain their territory of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. But before Mexico could recive the telegram, Britian intercepted it and told the United States. After this the US should have definitely entered the war on the Allies’ side because of the Lusitania and the Zimmerman Telegram. It would have been easy to join the Allies because the United States traded with Great Britain and France more. If the US didn’t enter the war, what would Germany have done if they won? If the United States entered, the Allies would win because they would be sending fresh troops and supplies to the Western Front, ending the war quickly.
People who didn’t think that the United States should go into war would have said that many lives would be lost. They also said that the US would lose too much money. More lives and money would have been lost if the US didn’t enter the war when it did. The war would have kept going on and no one would have won for another few years. Another reason people might have thought the United States should stay out of war was because the people of the US were isolationalists, which means they wanted to stay out of European affairs. But soon the French and British people would be asking the US to join the war whether or not the US people are isolationalists.
The United States should have entered the war. Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare had to be stopped. The Allies needed help if they were going to defeat the Central Powers. Both of those problems could have been fixed if the US entered the war. The US entered WWI in 1917 and luckily the war ended a year later in 1918, due to the help we provided