To the Last Man - Jeff Shaara [5]
Across the Atlantic Ocean, one great variable remains. President Woodrow Wilson declares immediately that his nation shall follow a course of neutrality. Wilson’s principles are born of his own personal, somewhat pacifist philosophy, as well as the political reality that the United States is indeed a melting pot of cultures and ethnicities that include significant numbers of citizens (and voters) sympathetic to every side of the war. Throughout the country, the propaganda wars heat up and violence breaks out between ethnically diverse groups fiercely loyal to their homelands. But many Americans are simply bystanders, intently watching from afar what is unfolding in Europe. Most Americans want no part of what they see as a European problem, and they support Wilson’s declaration of neutrality. But the public perceptions begin to shift, the result of the intense propaganda campaigns waged by both sides. It is the British who prove to be more effective at stating their case. Americans also have difficulty accepting German rationalizations for their unprovoked invasion of Belgium, made worse by the German army’s crushing blow to the Belgian army’s attempts to defend their own territory. Then, the Germans make a monumental strategic mistake. On May 7, 1915, a German submarine off the Irish coast fires two torpedoes at the opulent ocean liner Lusitania, which sinks in twenty minutes. Nearly twelve hundred people lose their lives, including one hundred twenty-four Americans. Though the Germans claim, with some accuracy, that the Lusitania was carrying arms as well as passengers, the attack is seen as an unjustifiable atrocity. For the first time, the war has struck directly and blatantly at American interests.
Though most Americans are still opposed to active involvement in the war, some have already taken a stand, and they travel to Europe to make some direct contribution to a cause they feel is worth fighting for. In the American military, there is a blossoming awareness that if the United States should join the war, there is a desperate need for modernization and preparation of an army that, for a generation, has had little to do but chase banditos in Mexico.
JOHN J. PERSHING
Born 1860, in Laclede, Missouri. While still in his late teens, he shows a passion for teaching and passes the required examinations that grant him a teaching certificate. Though younger than some of his students, he gains their respect as a young man of discipline, who will tolerate no bullying and no one’s laziness toward his studies. At age twenty-one, he takes the examination for the United States Military Academy at West Point, believing that a West Point education will give him the foundation he will need to build a solid career in teaching. Though he has no expectations of becoming a soldier, at West Point he is surprised to find himself drawn to a career in the military. He finds enormous inspiration from the study of military history and heroes, most notably Ulysses Grant, and graduates Class of 1886, thirtieth in his class, out of seventy-seven.
Pershing accepts the most sought-after route available to a young officer, that of cavalry. His first assignment is with the Sixth Cavalry, which places him at Fort Bayard, New