United States History
Section II
Part A 1. When World War I broke out, the United States declared its policy of neutrality. To what extent did the United States follow a policy of neutrality between 1914 and 1917?

On April 6 of 1917 America officially entered WWI as an ally power after much vouching of their neutrality. Up to that point many government officials preached to America the great strategy of neutrality especially the president of the time Wilson. At the beginning of WWI in 1914 America did stick to practiced isolationists point of view but as the war progressed and German aggression increased the American extent of neutrality decreased leading to their eventual entrance into the war. Germany blamed much of Britain’s …show more content…

It basically implied that even if it was an American ship trading with Britain, Germany would be aggressive. This of course made sense as a war strategy because they can’t have an endless amount of supplies flooding in to Britain when they are getting so little but for the U.S. they had to trade with Britain because it played an important role in the economic stability. In 1915, Germany sunk the Lusitania an American ship killing passengers. The American people were outraged for a time until they found out the Lusitania was actually giving ammunition to Britain (Document F). Though this soothed the citizens anger a bit they’re blood still boiled underneath. They did not believe it was far for Germany to treat them so hostilely. After all they were just trying to keep they’re economy afloat and seeing as it was impossible to trade with Germany they traded with Britain. To this point the United States was still not in the war. However, after two other major events involving German aggression the United States attitude would change completely about neutrality during WWI. One of these events was Germany declaring unrestricted submarine warfare February 1, 1917. After, the Sussex and Lusitania incidents with Germany already under their belts America felt this was a direct threat pushing even further away from their faith in neutrality. However, the straw that broke the camel’s back on the