Produced by Anne Storer, Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net TEXTBOOK EDITION THE YALE CHRONICLES OF AMERICA SERIES ALLEN JOHNSON EDITOR GERHARD R. LOMER CHARLES W. JEFFERYS ASSISTANT EDITORS WOODROW WILSON AND THE WORLD WAR A CHRONICLE OF OUR OWN TIMES BY CHARLES SEYMOUR 1921 [Illustration] TORONTO: GLASGOW, BROOK & CO. NEW YORK: UNITED STATES PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION, INC. _Copyright, 1921, by Yale University Press_ Printed in the United States of America +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Transcribers note: In this plain text the breve has been rendered as [)c]| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ CONTENTS I. WILSON THE EXECUTIVE Page 1 II. NEUTRALITY " 27 III. THE SUBMARINE " 47 IV. PLOTS AND PREPAREDNESS " 71 V. AMERICA DECIDES " 94 VI. THE NATION IN ARMS " 116 VII. THE HOME FRONT " 150 VIII. THE FIGHTING FRONT " 192 IX. THE PATH TO PEACE " 228 X. WAYS OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE " 254 XI. BALANCE OF POWER OR LEAGUE OF NATIONS? " 281 XII. THE SETTLEMENT " 310 XIII. THE SENATE AND THE TREATY " 330 XIV. CONCLUSION " 352 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE " 361 INDEX " 367 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WORLD WAR CHAPTER I WILSON THE EXECUTIVE When, on March 4, 1913, Woodrow Wilson entered the White House, the first Democratic president elected in twenty years, no one could have guessed the importance of the role which he was destined to play. While business men and industrial leaders bewailed the mischance that had brought into power a man whose attitude towards vested interests was reputed none too friendly, they looked upon him as a temporary inconvenience. Nor did the increasingly large body of independent voters, disgusted by the "stand-pattism" of the Republican machine, regard Wilson much more seriously; rather did they place their confidence in a reinvigoration of the Grand Old Party through the progressive leadership of Roosevelt, whose enthusiasm and practical vision had attracted the approval of more than four million voters in the preceding election, despite his lack of an adequate political organization. Even those who supported Wilson most whole-heartedly believed that his work would lie entirely within the field of domestic reform; little did they imagine that he would play a part in world affairs larger than had fallen to any citizen of the United States since the birth of the country.