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The Lusitania ship, by the way, was secretly loaded with American munitions bound for Britain- this was why the Germans sank it.. The doomed ship's passengers didn't have any inkling they were carrying munitions. When the ship much later was found and excavated, the truth came out. A National Geographic article in the 1990s explained all this.
Its true that the ship was carrying munitions, the submarine that sunk it had no way to know that. Any ship that came into the exclusion zone around the UK was attacked, the Lusitania was huge which probably drew attention to it. Whether the ship was carrying weapons or not was really besides the point, it was traveling into an area that Germany had specifically warned they were liable to attack; including taking out newspaper advertising to that effect in the US.
There is a great irony in that Wilson proclaimed the sinking a terrible immorality. Thirty years later the US was firebombing German and Japanese cities and launching massive submarine campaigns against Japan.
I recently read this theory. The US had been lending so much money to the Allies, that when things seemed their worst , Wilson decided that if Germany won, we would never get the money back and that was one consideration for entering the War.
Nar. As of April 1917 all loans to the Allies had been secured on Allied (mainly British) property in the US or Canada, ie beyond the reach even of a victorious Germany. So American lenders would not have lost their money, regardless of the war's outcome.
By November 1916, all the available collateral was tied up, and further loans, if any, would have to be unsecured. But when the House of Morgan attempted to promote one, the Federal Reserve Board, with President Wilson's approval, issued a strong warning to US citizens about the inadvisability of subscribing to such loans. Wilson, IOW, was aware of the risk of America becoming financially 'tied' to the Allies in the way you describe - and was taking steps to prevent it.
The first unsecured loan to Britain was not made until May 1917, a month after the US declaration of war.
Its true that the ship was carrying munitions, the submarine that sunk it had no way to know that. Any ship that came into the exclusion zone around the UK was attacked, the Lusitania was huge which probably drew attention to it. Whether the ship was carrying weapons or not was really besides the point, it was traveling into an area that Germany had specifically warned they were liable to attack; including taking out newspaper advertising to that effect in the US.
There is a great irony in that Wilson proclaimed the sinking a terrible immorality. Thirty years later the US was firebombing German and Japanese cities and launching massive submarine campaigns against Japan.
Our values changed quickly.
The Germans published a notice that the Lusitania could be a target, Wilson wanted a pretext to enter the war.
Its true that the ship was carrying munitions, the submarine that sunk it had no way to know that. Any ship that came into the exclusion zone around the UK was attacked, the Lusitania was huge which probably drew attention to it. Whether the ship was carrying weapons or not was really besides the point, it was traveling into an area that Germany had specifically warned they were liable to attack; including taking out newspaper advertising to that effect in the US.
There is a great irony in that Wilson proclaimed the sinking a terrible immorality. Thirty years later the US was firebombing German and Japanese cities and launching massive submarine campaigns against Japan.
Our values changed quickly.
The morality of starving populations into submission or gassing troops is not far removed from firebombing cities in a total war.
Total war is a horrible prospect, but when faced with it you must be prepared to fight it or face the inevitable.
I have read that the only loans repaid to the US from the First World War were from Finland. I always wondered if that was true.
As I understand it, Finland was to only country to repay in full. Other countries did repay for a time, but at various points stopped repaying when their economies ran into trouble. I'm a bit vague about the dates involved, but would guess that most of the defaulting was in the 1930s, when the Depression set in.
I should also guess that the secured loans were probably paid off first. Certainly that's how I'd have done it were I running the British Treasury. But by the end of WW1 those were a relatively modest part of the total indebtedness. The unsecured loans made after April 1917 were much larger.
The Germans published a notice that the Lusitania could be a target, Wilson wanted a pretext to enter the war.
Then why did he not go to war until two years after the Lusitania sinking? By April 1917 the Lusitania was ancient history
As late as Jan 1917, Wilson was 'backpedalling' on his initial insistance that even armed merchantmen should not be attacked without warning; much to the distress of his (far more pro-Allied) Secretary of State, Robert Lansing. They were still exchanging memos about it when the German Ambassador rendered the question moot by notifying them of unrestricted warfare against all merchantmen, whether armed or not.
Patrick J Devlin, 'Too Proud to Fight - Woodrow Wilson's Neutrality' gives an excellent account of it all.
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