By the end of 1916, it was apparent to all the belligerents, Allies and Central Powers alike, that their war had settled into an increasingly violent and bloody stalemate. Hundreds of thousands of troops on both sides were being sacrificed and untold billions of treasure wasted in a hopeless struggle. Three enormous battles—Verdun and the Somme in the west and Brusilov’s Offense in the east—had been fought for little or no gain, and at sea a single encounter off the Jutland Peninsula between the Royal Navy and the German High Seas Fleet had changed nothing.
The Allies were running out of money. The Central Powers were running out of food. In London and Paris, the hope lay in somehow getting America to come to the rescue. In Berlin, the aim was more concrete: to break the stranglehold of the British blockade. For over a year, since the crisis over the sinking of the Lusitania, Germany had voluntarily limited the use of the U-boat, her most effective naval weapon, solely out of the fear that continuing the unrestricted submarine campaign would bring America into the war. But Germany had continued building more submarines, and with the new year the admirals, backed enthusiastically by the Kaiser, prepared to return to their earlier practice of unrestricted warfare regardless of the possible threat of American intervention. The high command estimated that the new campaign would force Britain to sue for peace within six months, and they were no longer concerned that the U-boats might bring America into the war. They estimated—quite accurately, as it turned out—that it would take America at least eighteen months to fully mobilize her huge industrial potential and put her on a wartime footing, by which time the Allies would have long since capitulated.
It was agreed that the planned return to unrestricted submarine warfare would be implemented on February 1, 1917. To maximize its effect, the German ambassador in Washington was instructed not to inform President Wilson of the new strategy until the last day of January. At the same time, the German foreign minister, Arthur Zimmermann, was instructed to explore the possibility of an alliance with Mexico, which could provide Germany with a Western Hemisphere base of operations, and would in any case serve as an important distraction to the United States, forcing her to deal with an enemy much closer to home.
As ordered, Count von Bernstorff delivered the unwelcome news to the president on January 31; and just three days later, the merchantman Housatonic became the first American victim of the revived policy. A furious Wilson ordered the German ambassador sent home, but took no other immediate action. Only Congress had the power to declare war, and he was not yet ready to ask it to go that far. The president was willing to pursue certain steps that were clearly defensive in nature, most notably the arming of American merchant ships so they could protect themselves against U-boat attacks. The shipowners were clamoring for such guns, and while the White House was eager to supply them—along with Navy gun crews to man them—there was a significant constitutional problem that stood in the way. By law, the government could neither sell nor give naval guns to the shipowners without congressional approval, and there was a small group of strongly anti-war senators that was determined to filibuster such a move.
Roosevelt was eager to find a way around the problem, and on the day after his return from the Caribbean he took the train to New York to discuss it with the shipowners. Out of those meetings he came up with what looked like a simple way around the need for congressional approval, which he outlined in a memo to Josephus Daniels on February 10:
“After my investigations in New York yesterday, it is clear that American ships cannot get guns suitable for arming themselves except from the government, and I believe the position of the American Line is well taken—that they cannot square it with their conscience to let their passenger ships leave New York without some protection, either convoyed or armed.… I have talked to Admiral Earle and find that we have no authority to sell serviceable ordnance material [but under] the law, however, guns may be loaned provided a suitable bond be given.” Since the Navy would not surrender ownership of the guns, there was no need for congressional action. The matter could be taken care of with an executive order from the president.
Twenty-three years later, this deceptively simple solution would be the genesis of one of FDR’s most far-reaching innovations in the early part of World War II, the proposal that led to the Lend-Lease Act.
As the crisis over the U-boats deepened and the likelihood of war increased, Roosevelt became a dynamo of activity. His skill at cutting red tape became almost legendary within the Navy Department. By then, everyone knew about his success with the Chilean nitrate deal; but in the three weeks following his return from the Caribbean, he far surpassed that record, placing orders for millions of dollars of war goods—guns, ammunition, depth charges, and other equipment— before Congress had even appropriated the money. “From February 6 to March 4,” he claimed proudly in 1920, “we in the Navy committed acts for which we could be, and may be yet sent to jail for 999 years. We spent millions of dollars, which we did not have—forty millions on one contract for guns alone to be placed on ships to fight subs. We had only 100 ships and a 1,000 were needed.… We went to those whom we had seen in advance and told them to enlarge their plants and send us the bills.”
Ever mindful of Admiral Mahan’s principles, FDR was also worried about the scattered Navy. “I was Acting Secretary of the Navy and it was the first week in March,” he would recall. “I went to see the President and I said. ‘President Wilson, may I request your permission to bring the Fleet back from Guantanamo, to send it to the Navy Yards and have it cleaned and fitted out for war and be ready to take part in the War if we get in?’ And the President said, ‘I am very sorry, Mr. Roosevelt, I cannot allow it.’ But I pleaded and he gave me no reason and said, ‘No, I do not wish it brought north.’ So, belonging to the Navy, I said, ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ and started to leave the room. He stopped me at the door and said, ‘Come back.’ He said, ‘I am going to tell you something I cannot tell to the public. I owe you an explanation. I don’t want to do anything … by way of war preparations that would allow the definitive historian in later days to say that the United States had committed an unfriendly act against the Central Powers.’” Wilson told FDR he wanted history “to show that war had been forced upon us deliberately by Germany.”
Roosevelt could take what comfort he could from the president’s statement, which made it clear that Wilson had had an important change of heart. He was no longer thinking about avoiding the war, but only about how to arrange America’s entry into it.
Meanwhile, the British government had come across evidence that would make any American attempts to remain neutral virtually impossible. On January 16, 1917, British intelligence had intercepted a coded cable from the German Foreign Office and had sent it immediately to the British Naval Intelligence team in Room 40 at the Admiralty for decryption. It was from the German foreign secretary, Arthur Zimmermann, and was addressed to the German embassy in Washington, with instructions that it be forwarded to the German ambassador in Mexico City. In short order, the British had decoded enough of the message to recognize that it was diplomatic dynamite of such transcendent international importance that it could provide the means of bringing the United States into the war. Feverishly they set about completing the decryption, and by February 19 they had the complete text, in which Zimmermann instructed his ambassador in Mexico City to seek an alliance with the Mexican government as well as with Japan, and offering to provide material aid in helping Mexico regain territory it had lost in its war with America in 1848.
In clear, unequivocal terms it laid out a proposal for precisely the alliance that America’s military leaders had been worried about for years, and which had been elevated to a major worry ever since the Magdalena Bay issue had surfaced in 1912. On February 23, British foreign minister Balfour met with the American ambassador in London, Walter Hines Page, and presented him with the original cyphertext, the decoded message in German, and the English translation:
We intend to begin on the first of February unrestricted submarine warfare. We shall endeavor in spite of this to keep the United States of America neutral. In the event of this not succeeding, we make Mexico a proposal of alliance on the following basis: make war together, make peace together, generous financial support and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The settlement in detail is left to you. You will inform the [Mexican] President of the above most secretly as soon as the outbreak of war with the United States of America is certain and add the suggestion that he should, on his own initiative, invite Japan to immediate adherence and at the same time mediate between Japan and ourselves. Please call the President’s attention to the fact that the ruthless employment of our submarines now offers the prospect of compelling England in a few months to make peace. Signed, ZIMMERMANN.
Here it was all in one ominous package: Germany, Japan, and Mexico in league against the United States. The stunned ambassador immediately notified the White House.
At first, there were suspicions in Washington that the Zimmermann telegram might be a clever forgery designed by the British to bring America into the war; but once its authenticity was confirmed, Wilson released the text to the public, where it created a predictable uproar. There were angry editorials from coast to coast and cries for war from every constituency, and if Wilson had been looking for an excuse to go to war, he now had it. But despite his own fury at the Germans, Wilson refused to act.
Wilson’s ineffectual and timid lack of forceful response to the Zimmermann telegram angered and infuriated Roosevelt. Even FDR’s suggestion for arming American merchant ships by loaning naval guns to the shipping lines had been ignored. Instead, Wilson had allowed the issue to founder in the Senate, where as predicted, four senators who opposed the move were filibustering against it. Roosevelt’s diary on March 9 expresses his frustrations. “White House statement that W. has power to arm and inference that he will use it. JD says he will by Monday. Why doesn’t the president say so without equivocation?”
Wilson was actually moving faster than Roosevelt realized. Recent steps taken by the Imperial German government had convinced him that it was dominated by iron-willed Junker militarists who would not be satisfied by a victory over the Allies, but would see it only as an encouragement to further adventurism. He now believed that Germany must be stopped, even if it meant America going to war. He could no longer hide behind the fact that he had just won reelection on the claim that “he kept us out of war.”
On the afternoon of March 20, 1917, after three more American merchant ships had been sunk with heavy loss of life, Wilson convened his cabinet to deliberate the issue of war or peace. After laying out the options, he solemnly asked each member in turn what he would recommend. All of them, even Josephus Daniels, with tears brimming in his eyes, called for war.
Two other factors may have helped the agonized president come to a decision. One was the fact that only days before, the Czar of Russia had been overthrown in a liberal revolution by a faction led by Alexandr Kerensky. The argument that the Allies represented the democratic nations of Europe had always been questionable as long as the despotic Czar held power in Russia, but the ascension of a new government, based on democratic principles, made it much easier for Wilson to support the Allied cause.
The other factor—and the one that would have particularly appealed to Wilson’s strong ego—was the recognition that only by entering the war would the president have a major voice in the peace treaty that would eventually end it. Wilson was determined that the war should be brought to a close in a “peace without victory,” as he had proclaimed in his inaugural address only weeks earlier, and he was convinced that only he had the vision and the influence to bring about such a treaty. On March 21, the day following the fateful cabinet meeting, he called Congress into an extraordinary session to be held on April 2, “to receive a communication concerning grave matters of national policy.”
Both Eleanor and Franklin were thrilled by the president’s change of heart. The president was to address both houses of Congress, and it seemed everyone in Washington wanted to be there. FDR, as assistant secretary of the Navy, was guaranteed a seat with Josephus Daniels and the rest of the Cabinet directly below the Speaker’s dais; but Eleanor, who was equally anxious to attend, had no official status, and it was only after considerable string-pulling and horse-trading that Franklin was able to obtain a place for her in the visitors’ gallery.
Together, they were chauffeured through the drizzle to the Capitol early in the evening of April 2, and found their way to their respective seats. The chamber was crowded and expectant, and responded enthusiastically to the president when he arrived. All were aware of the importance of his speech, and most were supportive. The president, unsmiling, laid out the arguments against the German provocations, and made the case that “the world must be made safe for democracy.”
The Roosevelts, along with almost the entire Congress, interrupted the speech time and again with cheers and applause. Prominent statesmen wept. Wilson closed by calling for a declaration of war against Germany, and the Congress rose almost as one to applaud him as he departed, still unsmiling. Franklin D. Roosevelt, standing by the steps, nodding to acquaintances and waiting in the crowd for his wife, was deeply stirred. Once again, President Wilson had come around to his point of view.