THE RIGHTEOUS CAUSE WAS SOVEREIGNTY, NOT TRANSNATIONALISM:

Historians today conventionally speak of a "short 20th century" extending from 1914 to 1991--bracketing, in other words, the unspeakably violent and ideological era that saw two world wars and the Cold War. Historians invariably trace the origins of those horrors to the human, economic, social, and cultural destruction of the Great War, which shattered the liberal myths of progress as well as the balance of power that had prevailed for a century before 1914.

The carnage of the Great War hurled its disoriented survivors into a moral vacuum that totalitarian movements such as communism and fascism exploited. Mix in the effects of an economic cataclysm, the Great Depression that began in late 1929 and enervated the democracies even as it energized the dictatorships, and the coming of a Second World War in 1939 was just a matter of time. That crescendo of violence gave birth to a bipolar world dominated by rival empires, each with its own universal ideology and armed with nuclear weapons.

The trends of the 20th century can be made to appear inevitable and humanity subject to cruel fate. But what if we err to think it can all be traced back to 1914? What if the subsequent calamities really trace back to 1917 and the foolish American decision to join the Great War? [...]

 

[Niall Ferguson's] own contribution was a 52-page speculation entitled, "The Kaiser's European Union: What if Great Britain Had Stood Aside in August 1914?" It cogently argued that if Britain had not gone to war or else limited itself to a naval war of defense--options seriously considered by the cabinet of Prime Minister Herbert Asquith in 1914--the result would have been a German victory, but one that the still-mighty British Empire could have lived with. A German-dominated Mitteleuropa under the Kaiser's constitutional monarchy would not, Ferguson speculated, have differed so much from the European Union of today. And the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany would not have existed at all.

Let that serve as a model for our own (much briefer) inquiry into Woodrow Wilson's decision to lead the United States into the First World War. For President Wilson not only considered, but really made, "alternative choices" for two-and-a-half years before changing his mind and with it  the whole course of American, European, and world history in the "short 20th century." [...]

Over those weeks of early 1917, Wilson famously agonized until, by the end of March, he made up his mind to wage war. For all the historical debate over the issue, "one incontrovertible fact remains: the United States entered World War I because Woodrow Wilson decided to take the country in."[7] Moreover, he made that personal, unforced choice to preach a crusade for liberal internationalism under the worst possible circumstances.

By the spring, Wilson knew or should have known that prominent Senators led by Henry Cabot Lodge (R-Mass.) were hostile to his League of Nations idea. He knew the Allied powers led by Britain and France were hostile to most of the liberal principles he would espouse in his Fourteen Points. He knew that most of the points, not least national self-determination, were inapplicable  in much of Europe where ethnic groups were hopelessly mixed, much less in the colonial world, where nationalism was still in its infancy and the imperial rulers were now Wilson's allies. He knew that the vast majority of Germans, however war-weary, remained loyal to their emperor. He knew that to maximize his leverage at the peace conference the United States must wage a total ground war, not a limited naval war. He also knew in advance that war would undermine his domestic agenda, violate civil liberties, and unleash Americans' most bigoted instincts.

Nevertheless, Wilson chose to flip Washington's biggest "Thou shalt not"--meddle in Europe's broils--into "Thou must," and to demand that all Americans fall into line.[8] Most damning of all, Wilson knew well, unlike overconfident Europeans in 1914, exactly how hellish this war had become.[9]

Here are the four options the President had in mid-1917: 1) He could have kept the United States neutral, accepting the risk of a German victory. 2) He could have justified total war, but on the realistic grounds of preserving the European balance of power and thus U.S. security.  3) He could have gone to war over neutral rights, as in 1812, and waged a naval campaign rather than shipping an army to France. Or 4) he could preach a crusade, a holy "war to end all war," enthrall Americans with that fantasy, and hope to persuade or cajole Europeans to convert as well.

Ferguson and others have speculated that the first option might have been best. The Kaiser was not Hitler after all, and after their sacrifices in a total war the Germans themselves would likely have demanded democratic reforms. Moreover, a German victory in the Great War might well have meant no fascism, no World War II, no Holocaust, and no Cold War.

Henry Kissinger and others have speculated that the second option (which was Theodore Roosevelt's preference) might have been best, with Americans helping to restore a balance of power on terms the Allies, the Germans, and the U.S. Senate could grudgingly have accepted.

Scholars such as myself have speculated that the third choice might have been best since a naval war would have been vastly cheaper in money, blood, and damage to civic values, would have given both sides a powerful new incentive to end the carnage, and would left Europe's Great Powers to hammer out a compromise peace. 10] As we know, Wilson chose the fourth option--presumably because he had persuaded himself that God was calling America to  redeem the  horrible war by turning it into a "war for righteousness." Liberal Protestant clergy, previously divided over the war, turned zealous. Celebrity pastor Lyman Abbott thought it "more than a coincidence" that the Senate went to war on Good Friday. He called Germany heathen, America righteous, and the war the climactic chapter in God's plan for redemption.

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