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Woodrow Wilson did not want war.<\/p>\n
When World War I erupted in Europe in 1914, the 28th U.S. president pledged neutrality, in sync with prevailing American public opinion.<\/p>\n
But while Wilson tried to avoid war for the next three years, favoring instead a negotiated collective approach to international stability, he was rapidly running out of options. Tensions heightened as Germany tried to isolate Britain in 1915 and announced unrestricted attacks against all ships that entered the war zone around the British Isles.<\/p>\n
In early April 1917, with the toll in sunken U.S. merchant ships and civilian casualties rising, Wilson asked Congress for \u201ca war to end all wars\u201d that would \u201cmake the world safe for democracy.\u201d A hundred years ago, on April 6, 1917, Congress thus voted to declare war on Germany, joining the bloody battle\u2014then optimistically called the \u201cGreat War.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe U.S. declaration of war, in essence, was a recognition of the fact that Germany had chosen to impose a very risky gamble on the U.S.\u2014risky for Germany, but the only way they thought they could obtain the victory they needed at home,\u201d says Ä¢¹½´«Ã½ associate professor of political science Hein Goemans<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n A specialist in international relations and conflict, Goemans is the author of War and Punishment: The Causes of War Termination and the First World War<\/em> (Princeton University Press, 2000). Since then, he has also coauthored a book on leaders and war initiation, Leaders and International Conflict <\/em>(Cambridge University Press, 2011).<\/p>\n