AMERICA'S GREATEST BLUNDER: The Fateful Decision to Enter World War One
Entering World War One against Germany was America’s greatest blunder of the 20th century. America had no reason to join the devastating and stalemated three-year-old European struggle. The two million doughboys, as they affectionately were called, whom America sent to the Western Front shattered the battlefield stalemate and won the war. This allowed Britain and France to impose a devastating peace on Germany, thus igniting toxic German cries for revenge.

Absent America’s entry into the war, the exhausted belligerents almost certainly would have been forced—by the mounting food and other shortages on their home fronts, by their looming economic bankruptcies, by the plunging morale and rising restlessness of their populations and by the fast-dwindling supply of fresh manpower for their armies—to drag themselves, however distastefully, to a negotiating table. There they would have ended the conflict as all of Europe’s continent-wide wars had been ended since the Thirty Years War of 1618-1648, by compromises and tradeoffs. There would have been no victor, no vanquished, no punishing Versailles Treaty, no reparations, no German demands for revenge – and thus no Hitler and surely no World War Two and even no Cold War.

The tale of how America stumbled into the war is told by America’s Greatest Blunder. It chronicles how America abandoned sensible neutrality, how British anti-German propaganda in America succeeded and German propaganda failed, how America mobilized an army of millions while igniting “white hot” fervor of patriotism at home to back the war, how America’s doughboys won the war, why the armistice and peace broke America’s promises to Germany and how the war could have ended differently had America not entered.

But, of course, America did enter and so doing helped launch the young century on its course of decades of unprecedented violence.

In the pages of America’s Greatest Blunder you’ll find…

Why and how America and President Woodrow Wilson abandoned neutrality and slid into World War One
Why Germany was not threatening America’s security
How America and its two million Army and Marine Corps doughboys won the war
Why, without America’s entry into the war, there would have been a negotiated, compromise peace. There would have been no victor, no vanquished, no punishing Versailles Treaty, no German demands for revenge and thus no Hitler and surely no World War Two and even no Cold War.
How the doughboys were formed into the huge American Expeditionary Force – the AEF – and trained for combat on the Western Front, fighting what became the legendary battles of Cantigny, Belleau Wood, St. Mihiel and the brutal Meuse-Argonne
How Britain and France tried to take away control of U.S. troops from American commander in chief General John J. Pershing
How America mobilized its economy for the war
Why the fighting may have ended too soon for America and General Pershing
Why Germany launched submarine warfare
Why the Armistice and Versailles Treaty broke America’s promises to Germany
How British anti-German propaganda in America succeeded (deceiving and misleading Americans) while German propaganda failed
How Woodrow Wilson at the Versailles Conference was outmaneuvered by Britain’s David Lloyd George and France’s Georges Clemenceau
Why Germans trusted America and Woodrow Wilson
Why Woodrow Wilson at times favored a battlefield deadlock rather than a British/French victory
How America’s victory set the 20th century on its tragic course
1117110401
AMERICA'S GREATEST BLUNDER: The Fateful Decision to Enter World War One
Entering World War One against Germany was America’s greatest blunder of the 20th century. America had no reason to join the devastating and stalemated three-year-old European struggle. The two million doughboys, as they affectionately were called, whom America sent to the Western Front shattered the battlefield stalemate and won the war. This allowed Britain and France to impose a devastating peace on Germany, thus igniting toxic German cries for revenge.

Absent America’s entry into the war, the exhausted belligerents almost certainly would have been forced—by the mounting food and other shortages on their home fronts, by their looming economic bankruptcies, by the plunging morale and rising restlessness of their populations and by the fast-dwindling supply of fresh manpower for their armies—to drag themselves, however distastefully, to a negotiating table. There they would have ended the conflict as all of Europe’s continent-wide wars had been ended since the Thirty Years War of 1618-1648, by compromises and tradeoffs. There would have been no victor, no vanquished, no punishing Versailles Treaty, no reparations, no German demands for revenge – and thus no Hitler and surely no World War Two and even no Cold War.

The tale of how America stumbled into the war is told by America’s Greatest Blunder. It chronicles how America abandoned sensible neutrality, how British anti-German propaganda in America succeeded and German propaganda failed, how America mobilized an army of millions while igniting “white hot” fervor of patriotism at home to back the war, how America’s doughboys won the war, why the armistice and peace broke America’s promises to Germany and how the war could have ended differently had America not entered.

But, of course, America did enter and so doing helped launch the young century on its course of decades of unprecedented violence.

In the pages of America’s Greatest Blunder you’ll find…

Why and how America and President Woodrow Wilson abandoned neutrality and slid into World War One
Why Germany was not threatening America’s security
How America and its two million Army and Marine Corps doughboys won the war
Why, without America’s entry into the war, there would have been a negotiated, compromise peace. There would have been no victor, no vanquished, no punishing Versailles Treaty, no German demands for revenge and thus no Hitler and surely no World War Two and even no Cold War.
How the doughboys were formed into the huge American Expeditionary Force – the AEF – and trained for combat on the Western Front, fighting what became the legendary battles of Cantigny, Belleau Wood, St. Mihiel and the brutal Meuse-Argonne
How Britain and France tried to take away control of U.S. troops from American commander in chief General John J. Pershing
How America mobilized its economy for the war
Why the fighting may have ended too soon for America and General Pershing
Why Germany launched submarine warfare
Why the Armistice and Versailles Treaty broke America’s promises to Germany
How British anti-German propaganda in America succeeded (deceiving and misleading Americans) while German propaganda failed
How Woodrow Wilson at the Versailles Conference was outmaneuvered by Britain’s David Lloyd George and France’s Georges Clemenceau
Why Germans trusted America and Woodrow Wilson
Why Woodrow Wilson at times favored a battlefield deadlock rather than a British/French victory
How America’s victory set the 20th century on its tragic course
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AMERICA'S GREATEST BLUNDER: The Fateful Decision to Enter World War One

AMERICA'S GREATEST BLUNDER: The Fateful Decision to Enter World War One

by Burton Yale Pines
AMERICA'S GREATEST BLUNDER: The Fateful Decision to Enter World War One

AMERICA'S GREATEST BLUNDER: The Fateful Decision to Enter World War One

by Burton Yale Pines

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Overview

Entering World War One against Germany was America’s greatest blunder of the 20th century. America had no reason to join the devastating and stalemated three-year-old European struggle. The two million doughboys, as they affectionately were called, whom America sent to the Western Front shattered the battlefield stalemate and won the war. This allowed Britain and France to impose a devastating peace on Germany, thus igniting toxic German cries for revenge.

Absent America’s entry into the war, the exhausted belligerents almost certainly would have been forced—by the mounting food and other shortages on their home fronts, by their looming economic bankruptcies, by the plunging morale and rising restlessness of their populations and by the fast-dwindling supply of fresh manpower for their armies—to drag themselves, however distastefully, to a negotiating table. There they would have ended the conflict as all of Europe’s continent-wide wars had been ended since the Thirty Years War of 1618-1648, by compromises and tradeoffs. There would have been no victor, no vanquished, no punishing Versailles Treaty, no reparations, no German demands for revenge – and thus no Hitler and surely no World War Two and even no Cold War.

The tale of how America stumbled into the war is told by America’s Greatest Blunder. It chronicles how America abandoned sensible neutrality, how British anti-German propaganda in America succeeded and German propaganda failed, how America mobilized an army of millions while igniting “white hot” fervor of patriotism at home to back the war, how America’s doughboys won the war, why the armistice and peace broke America’s promises to Germany and how the war could have ended differently had America not entered.

But, of course, America did enter and so doing helped launch the young century on its course of decades of unprecedented violence.

In the pages of America’s Greatest Blunder you’ll find…

Why and how America and President Woodrow Wilson abandoned neutrality and slid into World War One
Why Germany was not threatening America’s security
How America and its two million Army and Marine Corps doughboys won the war
Why, without America’s entry into the war, there would have been a negotiated, compromise peace. There would have been no victor, no vanquished, no punishing Versailles Treaty, no German demands for revenge and thus no Hitler and surely no World War Two and even no Cold War.
How the doughboys were formed into the huge American Expeditionary Force – the AEF – and trained for combat on the Western Front, fighting what became the legendary battles of Cantigny, Belleau Wood, St. Mihiel and the brutal Meuse-Argonne
How Britain and France tried to take away control of U.S. troops from American commander in chief General John J. Pershing
How America mobilized its economy for the war
Why the fighting may have ended too soon for America and General Pershing
Why Germany launched submarine warfare
Why the Armistice and Versailles Treaty broke America’s promises to Germany
How British anti-German propaganda in America succeeded (deceiving and misleading Americans) while German propaganda failed
How Woodrow Wilson at the Versailles Conference was outmaneuvered by Britain’s David Lloyd George and France’s Georges Clemenceau
Why Germans trusted America and Woodrow Wilson
Why Woodrow Wilson at times favored a battlefield deadlock rather than a British/French victory
How America’s victory set the 20th century on its tragic course

Product Details

BN ID: 2940149052257
Publisher: RSD Press
Publication date: 10/29/2013
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 452
File size: 1 MB

About the Author

In writing America’s Greatest Blunder, Burton Yale Pines mobilizes his decades observing policy-making and historical crises. Initially trained as a historian at the University of Wisconsin (Madison), where he taught undergraduates, he later joined Time Magazine, reporting from Germany, Viet Nam, Chicago and Vienna, where he was East European Bureau Chief. Then, as a Time editor, he chronicled much of the Cold War. Later, for more than a decade in Washington as a think tank executive, he witnessed first-hand the making of foreign policy and national security policy.

He is a three-time winner of the New York Newspaper Guild’s "Page One Award for Excellence in Journalism” and is the author of Back to Basics (William Morrow, 1982) and Out of Focus (Regnery-Gateway, 1992). His op-ed essays on foreign policy and national defense policy have appeared in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and other national publications. He grew up in Chicago, attended Nicholas Senn High School and now lives in Manhattan.

He can be reached at .
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