America’s Entry Into the War Was Not That Reluctant
The assertion that wars are deliberately instigated by the rich in order to line their pockets is often overblown and overly simplistic. While moneyed interests and war profiteers have all too often made a killing from wars, they have seldom – other than the occasional gunboat diplomacy incident to collect debts in the 19th century – been the proximate cause of major conflicts. Major wars, especially in the modern era, are too complex and their causes too varied for such simplistic explanations.
However, as with most generalities, there are exceptions that prove the rule, and the United States’ entry into World War I might have well been just such an exception. American bankers and moneyed interests actually did play a key role in pushing a great power into a major conflict, specifically in to protect their pocketbooks and financial interests.
The conventional narrative is that America was reluctantly dragged into WWI, mainly because of Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare. The Germans then made things worse when a Foreign Office higher up, Arthur Zimmerman, proposed a military alliance with Mexico against the US, promising Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico in exchange.
While the preceding were certainly factors in America’s joining the war in 1917, an even greater preceding factor was that important American financial interests had strongly backed the Entente Powers with loans. By 1916, Britain was nearly broke, and without further collateral. However, a consortium of American banks, led by JP Morgan, bailed out the British with a massive unsecured loan.
American bankers had favored the Entente from the start, but from that point on, their solvency and future survival depended on an Entente victory. Otherwise, their unsecured debt would go up in smoke, and so would the lenders’ fortunes. A concerted PR effort went into high gear to sway the American public, and by 1917, said public was ready for a crack at the Germans.