Woodrow Wilson: Address to Congress Leading to a Declaration of War against Germany

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

In paragraph 1 Wilson stresses that he is calling Congress into extraordinary session concerning a grave matter that needs immediate action. In paragraph 2 he notes his address to Congress on February 3, 1917, in which he announced that Germany has resumed unrestricted submarine warfare against both neutral and Allied shipping as of February 1. For the past nine months Germany had been most cautious. On April 26, 1916, because of the Sussex crisis, Ambassador Bernstorff learned from Berlin that the Imperial Government might be prepared to conduct all submarine operations according to the rules of cruiser warfare, and Germany made a formal pledge to this effect on May 4. That is, Germany would not sink passenger vessels and would give due warning to all other vessels that would not resist capture or attempt to escape.

Between June 1 and September 24, German submarines had sunk 277 vessels of all nationalities. Sixty-six neutral vessels were included, fifteen of which were reportedly sunk without warning, and eighty-four lives were lost. Hence, while the Germans were avoiding attacks on passenger steamers, they were constantly violating the law of the seas with respect to other ships. In fact, during the week before the presidential election of November 1916, reports reached the State Department concerning the sinking of the following Allied ships: Rowanmore, Marina, Rievaulx Abbey, Strathtay, Antwerpian, and Arabia. All were sunk in accordance with the rules of cruiser warfare, but all had Americans onboard.

In announcing Germany's “new policy” of unrestricted submarine warfare on January 31, 1917, Wilson charges that Germany has “swept every restriction aside,” ruthlessly sinking “vessels of every kind, whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, their destination, their errand.” Even hospital ships and those sending relief supplies to occupied Belgium were not exempt. He expresses incredulity that such deeds would be performed by “any government that had hitherto subscribed to the humane practices of civilized nations” but finds himself forced to conclude that “German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind.”

Wilson then accuses Germany of violating international law. Here he is referring to the long-honored obligation of a warship to “visit and search”—that is, to board the neutral or enemy merchant ship and make provision for the safety of noncombatants before sinking any craft. Because of their limited space, submarines were unable to operate in this manner. They possessed thin hulls and were forced to sail at a slow speed; surfacing would expose them to being rammed by an enemy merchant or passenger ship. Their tight quarters would prevent them from picking up any survivors. Moreover, given the nature of such sea warfare, submarines would themselves be put in danger were they to take the time to discern enemy ships carrying contraband from those that did not. By the beginning of 1917 Wilson was not totally inflexible, recognizing Germany's right to attack armed ships or belligerent merchantmen while still sparing passenger ships.

He asserts, “Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people cannot be.” Here he recognizes that the British had stopped American ships carrying goods bound for the Central powers, seizing and holding their cargoes. At the same time, he stresses that Germany had committed the more heinous offense of killing passengers and merchant seamen.

Paragraph 3 accuses Germany of waging “war against all nations,” as American merchant ships were being sunk and “American lives taken.” Wilson's definitive biographer, Arthur S. Link, finds that Wilson would have acquiesced had Germany limited its U-boat attacks to armed ships or belligerent merchantmen while sparing passenger ships and continuing cruiser-type operations against neutral merchantmen. In short, he would have accepted a violation of the Sussex pledge. What Wilson would not tolerate was the waging of naval warfare upon peaceful neutral shipping.

Although Wilson does not mention any craft by name, at the time of his address several vessels had been sunk. First was the Housatonic, hit on February 3 off the Isles of Scilly near the tip of southwestern Britain. The German U-boat gave warning, and no lives were lost. On February 12 the schooner Lyman M. Law was struck off the coast of Sardinia; however, warning was again given, and no lives were lost. By this time American commercial ships were fearful of venturing on the high sea; goods marked for export started piling up in warehouses.

On March 14 news reached the United States that a German U-boat, without warning, had sunk the Algonquin, an American steamer bound for London, sixty-five miles west of the British Isles. Although there was no loss of life and survivors were rescued after twenty-seven hours, the British historian Patrick Devlin writes, “It was not the most ruthless use of the submarine, but it was indubitably an overt act” (p. 663). Two days later, the Vigilancia, bound for Le Havre with a general cargo, was torpedoed without warning off Britain's southwest coast. Fifteen crewmembers were drowned while launching lifeboats, while the rest landed in the Isles of Scilly two days later, suffering greatly from exposure. On March 17 the City of Memphis was sunk off the coast of Ireland, though in this case the ship had been warned and there were no casualties. On March 18 the Illinois met with the same fate, being attacked off Alderney in the English Channel near France. There were no deaths; one crewmember was wounded. By now Wilson is convinced that Germany intends to destroy all commerce and human life in the broad war zones. Still, in his war message, the chief executive endorses restraint and says, “We must put excited feeling away.” The United States would not be motivated by revenge or sheer demonstration of physical might, but rather by “the vindication of the right, of human right, of which we are only a single champion.”

In paragraph 4 Wilson explains why his policy of armed neutrality, proposed on February 26 and implemented on March 12, could not work. In letters to several people late in March, he had claimed that any defense of neutral rights must involve attacking submarines on sight, which is “practically to commit an act of war” (Link, 1965, p. 412). Now in his address to Congress, he notes that the Germans had intimated they would treat American armed merchantmen as pirates. Therefore, armed neutrality “is practically certain to draw us into the war without either the rights or the effectiveness of belligerents. There is one choice we cannot make, we are incapable of making: we will not choose the path of submission.” At exactly this point Chief Justice Edward D. White led the assemblage in widespread applause. Continuing, Wilson contends that Germany's assault upon American lives and property so flagrantly denied American rights that only war could alleviate the situation. At stake are “the most sacred rights of our Nation and our people,” for “the wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs; they cut to the very roots of human life.”

In paragraph 5 Wilson comes to the crux of the entire address. He calls upon Congress to recognize that a state of war already exists between the United States and Germany. Contrary to myth, Wilson is not asking Congress to declare war. His close adviser, Colonel Edward M. House, told the president several days previously that if Wilson left a declaration up to the Congress, he would simply create “acrimonious debate” (Seymour, p. 404). The chief executive asks that the nation be put immediately on a war footing. By the time Wilson spoke of America's duty to “bring the Government of the German Empire to terms and end the war,” the entire chamber again burst into applause.

Paragraphs 6 to 8 develop the need for quick mobilization. Necessary steps include extending “the most liberal financial credit” to the Allies, fully equipping the navy, and adding 500,000 men to the army, preferably chosen through “universal liability to service.” To prevent inflation, the war should be financed by taxes rather than through vast war loans. Wilson then moves to the need to supply the Allies with all needed materials. In paragraph 9 he outlines his war aims. After referring to his speeches of January 22, February 3, and February 26, 1917, he calls for vindicating “the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power.” He accuses “autocratic governments backed by organized force” of ignoring the will of their people in their efforts to “menace” the “peace and freedom” of the world's peoples. “Nations and their governments” must be held to the same “standards of conduct and responsibility” to which one holds individuals.

Wilson develops this notion in paragraph 10, where he denies that the German people were responsible for a conflict that, in reality, was “waged in the interests of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their fellow men as pawns and tools.” Paragraph 11 centers on German espionage and sabotage efforts within the United States. Wilson speaks in general terms, though sufficient incidents had taken place to cause alarm. Unaccountable factory explosions had taken place, including a dozen in DuPont properties during 1916 alone. Two arms plants at Bridgeport, Connecticut; munitions works at the Bethlehem Steel plant at Newcastle, Pennsylvania; and a war materiel depot at Black Tom Island in New York Harbor were also hit. In April 1916 eight men were arrested in New Jersey on a charge of placing firebombs in the cargoes of ships sailing from American ports. The attempted assassination of the financier J. P. Morgan, Jr., whose firm negotiated major Allied loans, added to general public alarm. Such activities were impossible, Wilson claims in his war address, when a public demands full disclosure concerning the activities of its government.

In paragraph 12 Wilson calls for a “a steadfast concert for peace” manifested in a “partnership of democratic nations,” though he expresses himself in extremely vague terms, such as “a league of honor, a partnership of opinion.” On May 27, 1916, in a speech before the League to Enforce Peace, he had been far more concrete, endorsing a “universal association of the nations” to maintain the freedom of the seas and “to prevent any war begun either contrary to treaty covenants or without warning and full submission of the causes to the opinion of the world—a virtual guarantee of territorial integrity and political independence.”

The president then turns abruptly in paragraph 13 to the Russian Revolution of March 1917. Triggered by bread riots on February 24 in the Russian capital of Petrograd (the former Saint Petersburg), the rebellion toppled the whole czarist government in four days. A provisional government was formed that proclaimed civil liberties, announced a program of far-reaching social reforms, and sought to prosecute the war with renewed vigor. Wilson is delighted that he would not have to experience the embarrassment of having a despotic czarist regime as an ally. He claims that Russia had always been “democratic at heart, in all the vital habits of her thought, in all the intimate relationships of her people.” The recently deposed Romanov government “was not in fact Russian in origin, character, or purpose.” The president reveals himself as markedly ignorant of Russia's military weakness and widespread peace sentiment, factors that would trigger the Bolshevik Revolution in November 1917.

Paragraph 14 returns to the matter treated in paragraph 11, that of German espionage. Although Wilson mentions no names, he refers to “official agents of the Imperial Government.” In December 1915 both the military attach Captain Franz von Papen and the naval attach Captain Karl Boy-Ed were deported on the ground that they were involved in espionage activities. Doctor Heinrich F. Albert, commercial attach of the German embassy who directed German espionage in the United States, was also expelled from the United States once the American Secret Service, following him in July 1915 in Manhattan, snatched a briefcase full of incriminating data. The “intercepted note to the German Minister at Mexico City” obviously refers to the Zimmermann Telegram.

In paragraph 15 Wilson returns to the matter of American war aims, this time supplying more detail. He begins his presentation by claiming that the mere existence of Imperial Germany, a “natural foe to liberty,” in itself threatened the world's democracies. In contrast, the United States would be fighting for “the ultimate peace of the world”; “the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included”; and the “rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience.” Upon the words “The world must be made safe for democracy,” Senator John Sharp Williams of Mississippi began clapping, a move soon imitated by the entire chamber.

Paragraph 16 assures the world that the United States sought no spoils—to use Wilson's language, “no conquest,” “no dominion,” “no indemnities,” and “no material compensation.” Its only goal was to advance “the rights of mankind.” Wilson then turns in paragraph 17 to the question of Austria-Hungary, Germany's leading ally. Because the Austrian government had not engaged in submarine warfare against Americans, he sought to postpone any declaration of war against it. At the same time, because Austria had endorsed the German U-boat effort, he could not receive Austria's ambassador-designate, Count Adam Tarnowski. He stresses again that the United States has been forced to enter the war, for “there are no other means of defending our rights.”

In paragraph 18 Wilson affirms his friendship for the people of Germany, while making an implicit juxtaposition between people and rulers. He then moves to the sensitive matter of the German-American community, which in 1917 was a distinct entity carefully preserving its own identity. The 1910 census marked well over eight million people either born in Germany or possessing a German parent, a sum composing nearly 10 percent of America's total population. They were disproportionately located in such major northern cities as New York, Chicago, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and St. Louis; read about five hundred German language newspapers; and were organized in such groups as the National German-American Alliance. The president calls upon his fellow Americans to extend their friendship to this group, most of whom were “as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other fealty or allegiance.” Yet if “a lawless and malignant few” acted disloyally, they would face a “stern repression.”

Paragraphs 19 and 20 show Wilson warning of the “many months of fiery trial and sacrifice” lying ahead. He then concludes on a lofty note, saying that American blood was being shed for democracy as a form of government, the rights of small nations, and “a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.” His final sentence, “God helping her, she can do no other,” paraphrased Martin Luther's famous defense at the Diet of Worms in 1521.

Additional Commentary by Tom Lansford, University of Southern Mississippi

Although Wilson continued to prefer a peaceful resolution of the tensions between the United States and Germany, war became inevitable. German submarines were sinking an increasing number of American merchant vessels. Four U.S. merchant ships were sunk in March, with the loss of fifteen Americans. These losses and the Zimmermann telegram had finally swayed public and congressional opinion. On April 2, 1917, Wilson addressed a special session of Congress and asked for a declaration of war. He begins by condemning Germany’s use of unrestricted submarine warfare. He notes that ships from neutral countries, including the United States, had been attacked in violation of international law, and he describes the practice as “warfare against mankind.” The president states that he had initially hoped that armed neutrality would deter German aggression, but that effort had failed. Consequently, Wilson explains that he had no choice but to ask Congress for a declaration of war.

Wilson then speaks about the effect of the war on the United States, both domestically and in terms of the nation’s external affairs. He states that the United States would have to embark on a major mobilization of both its military forces and industrial capacity. The president also stresses the need for the United States to help its allies by granting them credits and by providing supplies and armaments. Wilson strongly cautions the country not to finance the war through loans and instead asks Congress to enact “well-conceived taxation” to pay for the coming expenses.

The president reminds Americans that the war should be considered a fight not against the German people but rather against a tyrannical government that did not faithfully represent the interests of Germans. Wilson cites the Zimmermann telegram as an example of the unscrupulous nature of the German regime. To preserve national unity, Wilson also warns Americans not to mistrust their fellow citizens of German origin. In the most famous quote from the address, the president declares that “the world must be made safe for democracy” to prevent future global wars. The line became one of the nation’s wartime slogans. He asserts that the United States did not seek territorial or other gain from involvement in the conflict. Instead, the country sought only to secure the rights and freedoms of all people, including democracy, self-determination, and the sovereignty of “small nations.”

Congress declared war on April 6. The United States entered the war at a critical time and had a major impact on the conflict. Germany and Austria had inflicted major defeats on the British and Italians, and Russia’s involvement in the war was tenuous. (Russia’s Communist regime would negotiate a separate peace with Germany in 1918.) Within a few months of America’s entry into the conflict, losses from German submarine warfare had been cut in half and badly needed supplies were flowing into Great Britain. The United States embarked on a massive wartime industrial program that included dramatic increases in shipbuilding and armaments production. Congress authorized conscription, and the U.S. military forces grew to more than 4.3 million. U.S. troops were instrumental in stopping a major German offensive in March 1918 and had a hand in the Allied counteroffensive that inflicted a major defeat on German forces. By the autumn the Central powers sought a negotiated end to the war.