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Ghastly Victories: The United States in the World Wars

A TL by RamscoopRaider

Part II: Wilson’s folly

The United States must be neutral in fact as well as in name...We must be impartial in thought as well as in action-Woodrow Wilson, August 19th 1914

There is a price which is too great to pay for peace, and that price can be put in one word. One cannot pay the price of self-respect-Woodrow Wilson, February 1st 1916

The supreme test of the nation has come. We must all speak, act, and serve together- Woodrow Wilson, April 15th 1917

FOLLY, n. That "gift and faculty divine" whose creative and controlling energy inspires Man's mind, guides his actions and adorns his life-Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

A fool who knows his foolishness is wise at least to that extent, but a fool who thinks himself wise is a fool indeed-Siddhartha Gautama, the Dhammapada

The first Degree of Folly, is to conceit one’s self wise; the second to profess it; the third to despise Counsel-Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanac

For fools rush in where angels fear to tread-Alexander Pope, an Essay on Criticism



…The Great war began as most American Wars to date had, with the United States completely unprepared for a war. The United States Army was small and lacking in modern equipment, it would require the absorption of hundreds of thousands of new recruits merely to deploy its existing formations, let alone newly raised ones. The Navy was better off, having adequate manpower for its existing ships, but its strength was only near adequate in Battleships and submarines, having invested most of its peacetime construction funds in the former as their long building times would prevent rush building during war. Still they would need a crash building program of escorts to deal with the demands of the war and their veteran crews be dispersed to crew hordes of auxiliaries and armed merchantmen. Despite this the Navy was able to play an important role almost from the beginning of the war, even the small number of escorts it had being enough to allow the Entente to start running convoys in the North Atlantic. The Army was not so lucky and would not have significant combat formations in place until October.

American entry was immediately decisive on the economic front, within eight weeks the Entente’s financial difficulties were solved by a flood of American loans unshackled from the constraints of collateral or security. The blockade, which had until this point leaked considerably became almost airtight as the United States was able to stop blockade runners before they left port, rather than having to run them down in the North Sea. The promise of postwar American loans was perhaps the only thing that prevented the ruling Socialist Revolutionary party in Russia from starting negotiations with the Germans in early summer of 1917, according to certain exiled politicians in the aftermath of the war…

…American entry proved absolutely critical in the terms of Entente morale. It was American entry that allowed the French to deal with their mutinies before they weakened the frontline against the Germans. One could imagine that something similar may have eventually happened with the British had they continued their headlong attacks without American entry. Certainly, the morale boost of American entry was necessary for the Italians, who by far had the greatest number of executions for discipline issues, one can only imagine what may have happened in the fall of 1917 otherwise. And of course, one must not forget the Russians, without the morale boost of American entry the infamous July Days may have come in June, or even May…

-Excerpt from The Loss of Innocence: America in the Great War, Harper & Brothers, New York 2014


…Woodrow Wilson is usually placed at or near the bottom of lists of American Presidents by most orthodox historians. Primarily this is due to his being president when the United States entered World War One, though in recent years criticism of his civil rights record has been an increasing part of the ranking. His good decisions, such as his reforms of the civil service are forgotten. While the latter certainly cannot be denied the former cannot be solely considered his fault.

The Orthodox argument was that Wilson was uniquely responsible for dragging the United States into the war, which goes with the popular view of the war as “Wilson’s Folly”. That he was seen as personally week, for not responding forcefully enough to German provocations led them to take the strength United States in contempt. That he did not do nearly enough to strengthen the United States, further driving the Germans to see the United States as weak. Finally, his Anglophilia led the Germans to believe that the United States would inevitably enter the war, thus there was no reason to avoid provocations of the United States.

This view ignores the fact that the Germans had an equal or greater say in the matter. That they had the ultimate choice in whether the United States would enter the war or not. They made the choice to give the United States provocations that could not be ignored. This choice can be shown to be far more a product of their biases, errors and incompetence than anything that Wilson did. A similar argument is made about the events of the following decades being his responsibility, again however others had a much greater say in things turning out as they did.

This view also places Wilson as uniquely terrible. This excludes the role many of his subordinates had in creating the situation in question, such as Robert Lansing, where at most he was guilty of inadequate supervision. Wilson’s relevant personal views were not as far outside of the mainstream of the American elite as one would be led to believe by orthodox history.

In short, this paper intends to show that while Wilson was certainly a subpar President he was not in the same category as James Buchanan, where he is often placed...


-Excerpt from Revisionist Viewpoints in History Volume XXIX, University of California Press: Berkley, 2019


…While Dragutin Dimitrijević, better known as Apis, had earned lasting infamy with the killing of Alexander I of Serbia, and worldwide infamy with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand it was the assassination of Peter I and Crown Prince Alexander, as well as the surrounding events that earned Apis and the Black Hand their place as the most legendary group of Assassins in history.

Unlike the other two regicides Apis was responsible for this one was not a carefully planned action but rather an act of desperation. Apis had been considered a political liability for some time by the Serbian government in exile, especially the regent Crown Prince Alexander, as his presence made the Entente seriously uncomfortable. Unfortunately, the clique of ultranationalist military officers that surrounded him made him very difficult to remove. In 1917 Political pressure from their Entente allies grew to deal with them as secret negotiations with the Central Powers indicated that a guarantee of no Serbian agitation in Austria-Hungary was necessary. The Serbian government in exile could not resist this pressure for long and in May of 1917 the Regency council, based in Entente occupied Albania, began planning to quietly arrest Apis and his associates.

This news was leaked to Apis before it could be implemented. Apis and his associates viewed this as a betrayal of the Serbian people by the Serbian Government. Apis decided that they had to kill the regency council, blame the Austrians and take control of the government to prevent such a betrayal from taking place. To do so he had Gavrilo Princip, one of the backup assassins for Franz Ferdinand, deliver a bomb inside a briefcase into a meeting of the regency council where the King was present on June 1st. Princip eagerly volunteered for the task once explained to him, despite knowing it was a suicide mission.

What Apis did not know was the topic of the meeting, which was in fact the arrest of himself and his associates. As such when Princip walked into the meeting and blew himself up, taking with him the majority of the regency council, including the crown Prince and the King, Apis and his associates were already being arrested.

It is here that Apis truly became a legend, as he escaped while being dragged to an impromptu prison from his quarters. Following his escape, he was never seen again, and his body never found. This is why he often appears so often as a villain in fiction, this sense of mystery…


-Excerpt from A History of Assassination, American Youth Press, New York, 2001


…The Valona coup while not successful induced a great deal of confusion among the Serbian government and military. Conflicting stories, about it being a domestic coup or an Austrian bombing circulated. The Serbian military quickly edged into a so called royalist and so-called nationalist faction, the former believed it was a coup, while the latter insisted there was no coup. Formations jockeyed for position and a minor degree of fighting broke out.

To prevent the situation from deteriorating the Italians were forced to deploy additional troops to Albania to both keep the Serbs separated and to fill in for units that had left the lines until the situation could be resolved. As it was only the relative passivity of the Bulgarians prevented a setback in the Albanian front before the Italians arrived in force in late June. The diversion of troops would prove important later when…


-Excerpt from European Wars for Americans, Harper & Brothers, New York, 2004