UNITED STATES ENTERS WORLD WAR I
On January 31, 1917, however, the German government resumed un- restricted submarine warfare . After five U .S . vessels were sunk, Wilson on April 2, 1917, asked for a decla- ration of war . Congress quickly ap- proved . The government rapidly mobilized military resources, indus- try, labor, and agriculture . By Octo- ber 1918, on the eve of Allied victory, a U .S . army of over 1,750,000 had been deployed in France .
In the summer of 1918, fresh American troops under the com- mand of General John J . Pershing played a decisive role in stopping a last-ditch German offensive . That fall, Americans were key partici- pants in the Meuse-Argonne of- fensive, which cracked Germany’s vaunted Hindenburg Line .
President Wilson contributed greatly to an early end to the war by defining American war aims that characterized the struggle as be- ing waged not against the German people but against their autocratic government . His Fourteen Points, submitted to the Senate in January 1918, called for: abandonment of se- cret international agreements; free- dom of the seas; free trade between nations; reductions in national ar- maments; an adjustment of colonial claims in the interests of the inhabit- ants affected; self-rule for subjugated European nationalities; and, most importantly, the establishment of an association of nations to afford “mutual guarantees of political inde- pendence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike .”
In October 1918, the German gov- ernment, facing certain defeat, ap- pealed to Wilson to negotiate on the basis of the Fourteen Points . After a month of secret negotiations that gave Germany no firm guarantees, an armistice (technically a truce, but actually a surrender) was concluded on November 11 .
THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
It was Wilson’s hope that the final treaty, drafted by the victors, would be even-handed, but the passion and material sacrifice of more than four years of war caused the European Allies to make severe demands . Per- suaded that his greatest hope for peace, a League of Nations, would never be realized unless he made