United States to entrer World War I...
Item # 726943
March 22, 1917
EVENING TRIBUNE, San Diego, March 22, 1917
* World War I - WWI
* Prelude to America entering
* Nice headline for display
The front page has a nice banner headline in red lettering: "NEUTRALS OFFER TO MEDIATE" with subhead. (see images) Nice for display. This was a about two weeks before the United States entered the war.
Surprisingly this issue is in good condition being from the "wood pulp" era. Very hard to find issues that are not totally fragile from this era in paper.
Complete with 16 pages, small library stamp within the masthead, a little irregular along the spine, generally very nice.
Background: The pivotal threshold of March 22, 1917, marks the definitive, behind-the-scenes collapse of American neutrality and a critical turning point in World War I, signifying the moment the United States irrevocably committed to global intervention. Following years of strict isolationism, President Woodrow Wilson’s geopolitical stance was completely shattered by Germany’s resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare on February 1 and the explosive public revelation of the Zimmermann Telegram, which exposed a German plot to entice Mexico into invading the U.S. Just two days prior, on March 20, Wilson’s Cabinet had voted unanimously that neutrality was no longer viable after German U-boats ruthlessly sank unarmed American merchant ships like the City of Memphis and the Vigilancia. By March 22, the illusion of "armed neutrality"—the idea that American ships could defend themselves without a formal declaration of war—was discarded as functionally impossible. On this exact day, Wilson was privately drafting his historic war message to Congress, transitioning the conflict from a European territorial dispute into a moral crusade to "make the world safe for democracy." This shift fundamentally altered the global landscape, as the impending American entry fractured the remaining neutral bloc across Europe and Latin America, injected vital economic and military lifelines into a depleted Allied war effort, and ultimately ended over a century of American isolationism, cementing the United States' emergence as a dominant, interventionist global superpower.
* World War I - WWI
* Prelude to America entering
* Nice headline for display
The front page has a nice banner headline in red lettering: "NEUTRALS OFFER TO MEDIATE" with subhead. (see images) Nice for display. This was a about two weeks before the United States entered the war.
Surprisingly this issue is in good condition being from the "wood pulp" era. Very hard to find issues that are not totally fragile from this era in paper.
Complete with 16 pages, small library stamp within the masthead, a little irregular along the spine, generally very nice.
Background: The pivotal threshold of March 22, 1917, marks the definitive, behind-the-scenes collapse of American neutrality and a critical turning point in World War I, signifying the moment the United States irrevocably committed to global intervention. Following years of strict isolationism, President Woodrow Wilson’s geopolitical stance was completely shattered by Germany’s resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare on February 1 and the explosive public revelation of the Zimmermann Telegram, which exposed a German plot to entice Mexico into invading the U.S. Just two days prior, on March 20, Wilson’s Cabinet had voted unanimously that neutrality was no longer viable after German U-boats ruthlessly sank unarmed American merchant ships like the City of Memphis and the Vigilancia. By March 22, the illusion of "armed neutrality"—the idea that American ships could defend themselves without a formal declaration of war—was discarded as functionally impossible. On this exact day, Wilson was privately drafting his historic war message to Congress, transitioning the conflict from a European territorial dispute into a moral crusade to "make the world safe for democracy." This shift fundamentally altered the global landscape, as the impending American entry fractured the remaining neutral bloc across Europe and Latin America, injected vital economic and military lifelines into a depleted Allied war effort, and ultimately ended over a century of American isolationism, cementing the United States' emergence as a dominant, interventionist global superpower.
Category: The 20th Century
