confident that Woodrow Wilson’s passion for neutrality would keep the United States from entering the war. Wilson’s diplomatic outrage had been received in Germany for what it was: words. No matter how much the American president objected to German policy, no one in the German High Command believed that Wilson could be pushed to violate his campaign promises to the American people. Wilson’s reelection had been energized by his steadfast declaration that America was “too proud to fight,” and Wilson himself believed that the American people respected him because, as his campaign banners had boldly proclaimed, “He kept us out of war.” With the effectiveness of the British stranglehold on German shipping, drastic measures were required to relieve the pressure on the German people, and reluctantly, the kaiser had finally agreed to resume Germany’s policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. The decision was made public in January 1917, and President Wilson had received word that any shipping bound for ports in England or France would be subject to the wrath of German U-boats. Wilson realized that the consequences of Germany’s decision were inevitable. The threat to American shipping would once again put civilians at risk, and the chances had greatly increased that another catastrophe like the Lusitania could occur at any time. Though Wilson still insisted there could be a diplomatic solution, privately he recognized that the American public had become increasingly skeptical of his stance. Wilson’s continuing reliance on diplomacy delighted the German High Command. Confident now that the American government could be relied on to avoid entering the war at any cost, the kaiser’s ministers had continued to push their own aggressive agenda. On March 1, Germany’s Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmerman sent a telegram to German ambassador Bernstorff in Washington, informing Bernstorff of the specific details of the kaiser’s decision to resume the torpedoing of neutral supply ships. But Zimmerman’s note also included details of a proposal that Germany intended to offer the government of Mexico. Should Mexico agree to an alliance with the kaiser, that nation would reap the spoils of the inevitable German victory, including the annexation of significant amounts of American territory, the lands that Mexico had lost in the Mexican War seventy years earlier. Zimmerman’s telegram was intercepted, and the details were revealed to the American public. Though Zimmerman was given the opportunity to defuse the situation, to deny that the telegram was legitimate, to calm any fears that his government would so antagonize the United States with such a flagrantly ridiculous threat, the Germans instead trumpeted the telegram’s accuracy. Wilson’s hopes for a peaceful resolution to the Great War were swept away by public outrage over Germany’s clumsy maneuvering. In Washington, even the most fervent advocates of diplomacy understood what the Zimmerman note represented to the American people: it was the final straw.
On April 2, the gathering clouds of war finally extinguished the hopes of the pacifist influences in Washington. Woodrow Wilson submitted his declaration of war to Congress, and four days later, Congress overwhelmingly approved. To the surprise of the kaiser’s ministers, and to the desperate relief of Britain and France, the United States had finally entered the war.
War is the only place where a man truly lives.
—GEORGE PATTON
FORT SAM HOUSTON, NEAR SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS—MAY 1917
THE LAST AMERICANS HAD BEEN WITHDRAWN FROM THE FRUSTRATING morass that had become the expedition to Mexico. Throughout the furious pursuit of Pancho Villa, Pershing had answered to his immediate superior, General Frederick Funston. But Funston had suddenly died, and the War Department ordered Pershing to leave his command post at Fort Bliss and transfer himself and his staff to San Antonio to take Funston’s place. To his officers, the move was logical, a reward for Pershing’s capable service in Mexico, and certainly, the men in Washington knew that Funston