The Lusitania incident revealed how woefully inadequate early American responses like giving aid to French children or pledging to reconstruct the library at Louvain had been. While Americans had been focusing on reconstruction and aid, the German war machine had been taking steps to move the bloodshed closer to America’s own shores. An ever-growing number of Americans saw the Lusitania as a symbol of a newer and more immediate threat from Germany to their own security, liberty, and prosperity. One rural newspaper in Iowa wrote that the Lusitania had revealed some stark truths, most notably that “Germany intends to draw this country into the war.” Although it stopped short of urging that the administration declare war, it clearly stated that any further hostile actions “will mean war with Germany and, serious as such [a] conclusion may be, ought to mean war.” In the American heartland and in the South, no less than on the East Coast, the Lusitania sinking led to much harsher feelings toward Germany and a greater willingness to see the Wilson administration take a firmer stand.

Michael S. Neiberg is the inaugural chair of War Studies in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the United States Army War College.

Image: President Woodrow Wilson asking Congress to declare war on Germany, causing the United States to enter World War I. Wikimedia Commons/Library of Congress