With a PoD after the year 1890, ruin American-German relations to the extent that American military planners will prepare for a war with Germany, and public opinion will strongly support going to war against Germany if a Great War breaks out.
This is almost a DBWI! American opinion (which in the decades after the ACW was quite sympathetic to Prussia/Germany) grew more and more suspicious of Germany and its alleged designs in the Western Hemisphere after 1900. Naval planners did see Germany as the most likely enemy--although incredibly enough they thought that Great Britain might back Germany in a German-American war! To quote an old soc.history.what-if post of mine:
***
I suggest you read Holger H. Herwig, *Politics of Frustration: The United States in German Naval Plannning 1889-1941* (Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown 1976). As the title indicates, it deals primarily with German plans for a possible war with the US but it includes the other side (US plans for a possible war with Germany) as well. Rather remarkably, US naval planners not only anticipated a US-German war but expected that Britain might even tacitly support Germany (pp. 98-105):
"Two cardinal points emerged in the United States Navy's deliberations at the turn of the century: belief in Germany's hostile intention to set foot in the Western Hemisphere, and in her challenge to the United States for control of the world's major markets. Both points forced upon the Reich the role of America's most probable future opponent. Whenever German warships appeared in Latin American waters, there arose in the public press in the United States a swarm of articles accusing Germany of the most dastardly intentions in that region. Scientific expeditions, hydrographic surveys, commercial ventures, steamship sailings, and cordial diplomatic visits were all viewed with a skeptic eye. Technological developments such as increased cruising radius resulting from expanded coal bunker facilities served only to revise strategic considerations, not devalue them. Thus the threat of future German coaling stations in the Caribbean receded in American planning only to be replaced by the fear of direct invasion.
"The actual planning of operations in the event of war with Germany rested with the Navy's General Board, founded in March 1900 after the Spanish-American War. Its function was to prepare strategic and operational war plans, and to recommend size, composition and distribution of the fleet - in short, a combination of Germany's Naval Office and Admiralty Staff. Although the board's relation with other naval organizations was not clearly defined and its role under the civilian secretary one of advising and not ordering, Admiral Dewey's seventeen-year tenure as presiding officer (until his death in January 1917) gave it a strong voice in naval policy. The admiral was joined on the board by the president of the Naval War College, the chief of the Bureau of Navigation, and the chief of the Office of Naval Intelligence as ex-officio members; especially talented officers were placed on the board as their services were required. Some of the more prominent among the latter were Admiral Royal B. Bradford, Captain A. S. Crowninshield, Admiral Bradley A. Fiske, Captain Nathan Sargent, Admiral Charles Sperry, Admiral Henry C. Taylor, Admiral Richard Wainwright, and Captain Asa Walker. And when the General Board in October 1903 called for a naval construction program by 1919 consisting of forty-eight battleships and twenty-four armored cruisers - compared with Germany's planned total in 1920 of thirty-eight battleships and twenty-two battle cruisers - no one doubted that this fleet was designed primarily to provide the United States Navy with a safe margin of superiority over Germany.26
"Naval construction and commercial competition were inseparable components for men such as Roosevelt, Lodge, and Dewey. Captain Sigsbee of Naval Intelligence in December 1902 expressed this view: 'Since the United States, Great Britain and Germany are competing for world trade, it is natural to compare our Navy with the Navies of those nations.' The problem was that Great Britain's Royal Navy could not be matched for decades to come; Germany, on the other hand, offered 'a fair comparison.'27 Partly from 'active fear' and partly from 'lack of confidence,' American naval officers constantly eulogized the fighting power and efficiency of the German navy. In March 1902 Captain Sigsbee had estimated that the built German naval strength was fully 50 percent greater than that of the United States Navy.28 And Commander William H. Beehler, naval attache' in Berlin, spoke publicly of 'thirty first-class battleships' that made Tirpitz's fleet 'three times as strong as the United States Navy,' an observation that drew a start from the Kaiser: 'I say! Damn it, those I would like to see!'29
"But there were also those who viewed already greater horizons. Captain Richmond Hobson, a widely known veteran of the Spanish-American War, bluntly stated in 1902 that the United States would have to possess by 1930 a fleet equal in size to that of all the other navies of the world combined.30 Captain Sigsbee also had illusions of naval grandeur: 'I do not understand why Germany should be used to fix the limit. We should be at least twice as strong. Double Germany in sea power, for Germany is an inland country of Europe."31 The thought would have moved Tirpitz to the point of panic. And when Ambassador Count Paul von Metternich cabled from London that President Roosevelt desired a navy 'not the biggest, but as efficient as any,' Wilhelm II disagreed: 'No! He did mean the biggest!'32
"The General Board's planning against Germany proceeded slowly because numerous obstacles had to be overcome. In the first place, the United States Navy simply did not possess officers with sufficient academic training or the staff experience required for systematic planning. Until 1913 it had been content to muddle through on a day to day basis. 'War plans,' Professor Warner R. Schilling suggests, were 'miscellaneous collections of information about foreign nations' and 'suggestions or the fleet commanders.' No systematic planning guided naval policy. Ten years passed between the time the General Board defined American naval needs to be a fleet equal or superior to Germany's and the time when the Board made a systematic study of the problem of a German-American war."33 Secondly, the board constantly complained that the Navy did not receive its proper share of federal funds and favor. In February 1913 it expressed its feelings on this matter to Secretary of he Navy Josephus Daniels: 'The fleet as it exists . . . is the growth of an inadequately expressed public opinion . . . and has followed the laws of expediency and of the temporary passing passion of non-understanding political parties."34 Finally, the fleet of forty-eight capital ships created on paper in 1903 had not materialized rapidly enough to justify far-reaching planning by the General Board. The board was disappointed even in its highest and most enthusiastic patron, President Roosevelt. The latter, as we have seen, in December 1901 had received Congressional approval for the construction of thirty-one warships, and in December 1905 he decided that the navy could get by adequately with the twenty-eight battleships and twelve armored cruisers then either in commission or under construction. Although this figure fell far short of the board's demand of October 1903 for forty-eight battleships and twenty-four armored cruisers, the President remained adamant in his belief that 'at least in the immediate future' no further new construction 'beyond the present number of units' was required. The forty armored ships would place the United States Navy second only to France and Great Britain, and approximately equal to Germany.35 Moreover, the board's decision in September 1905 to construct the new dreadnought battleships merely aggravated the acute budgetary difficulties that the navy constantly faced in both houses of Congress.
"That the Navy General Board still deemed it necessary to draw up a war plan against Germany when most of these hurdles had been overcome by 1913 shows the very seriousness with which the possibility of war with Germany was treated in Washington. It seems to indicate that the American contingency war plan was not merely the result of 'routine considerations'-words that the German naval historian Walther Hubatsch adopted to defuse Germany's Operations Plan 111.36* A 'routine plan' would have been comprehensible at the time of the Samoan tangle; by 1913, after fifteen years of confrontation and suspicion, such reasoning simply does not suffice.
"In fact, the period from about 1900 to 1913 was filled with growing anxiety of German intentions in the Western Hemisphere and corresponding strategic planning. Germany's increasing isolation in Europe and her decision by 1906 to cancel Operations Plan III, of which the United States Navy could hardly be aware, did not in the least relax American apprehensions and fears of German operations in American waters. The high priest of navalism, Alfred Thayer Mahan, expanded on this point in 1906, at the very moment when Admiral Buchsel transformed the German contingency plan into a theoretical exercise:
"'Germany is desirous of extending her colonial possessions. Especially is it thought that she is desirous of obtaining a foothold in the Western Hemisphere, and many things indicate that she has her eyes on localities in the West Indies, on the shores of the Caribbean, and in parts of South America. It is believed in many quarters that she is planning to test the Monroe Doctrine by the annexation or by the establishment of a protectorate over a portion of South America, even going to the extent of war with the U.S. when her fleet is ready.'37
"Concrete expression of this residual fear had been rendered by the Naval War College in the summer of 1903, when it studied the possibility of a German-American war in the Far East. American officers opted for a concentration of their fleet in the Atlantic rather than the Pacific, denoting the former as the more sensitive danger point. Even a war over possession of the Philippines would necessitate a recall of American capital ships to the Atlantic Ocean. These findings were seconded that same year by the Naval War Game Society of Portsmouth, Great Britain, and clearly reveal the American fear of a German invasion of the Western Hemisphere. Moreover, when civil disturbances in Panama erupted against Colombian rule in 1903, the United States Navy immediately directed its envoy in Berlin to maintain a close scrutiny of German naval movements; it feared that Germany might seize this opportunity to make her move in the West Indies.38
"The General Board shared this stance. In June 1904 it joined with army leaders in studying the likelihood of attack by a European naval power if the United States should be tied down in Latin America. 'Most probable cause of war would be some act or purpose undertaken by a European power which conflicted with the policy enunciated by President Monroe.' By December 1905 Admiral Dewey had made the basic strategic decision to concentrate American battleships in the Atlantic, a clear indication that Germany rather than Japan ranked as the most probable future opponent. The following year the board once more ruled that Germany posed the greatest threat to the United States. American planners were absolutely certain that the Reich planned to seize territory in the Western Hemisphere the moment her fleet was ready. And in 1909 the board yet again depicted Germany as its 'most formidable' enemy, pointing out that she had replaced the United States as second among the world's naval powers.39
"Incredibly, the United States Navy appears not to have given any credence to diplomatic events in Europe between 1897 and 1913. If in 1906 her planners had counted on 'passive, if not active assistance' from Great Britain in the event of a German attack on the Monroe Doctrine,40 by 1913 the General Board viewed the situation much more pessimistically, deciding to rely solely upon its own strength and resources. In all probability the turbulence of international events since 1897 - the Spanish-American War of 1898, the Boer War (1899 - 1902), the intervention in China (1900 - 1901) to put down the so-called Boxer rebellion, the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), the First Moroccan Crisis (1905), the Anglo-French-Russian Entente (1907), the Second Moroccan Crisis (1911), and the First Balkan War (1913) - obfuscated the German dilemma in Europe and encouraged American planners not to rely on any aid or forces other than their own. Otherwise their deliberations between 1910 and 1913, culminating in the Black War Plan, make little sense.
"In 1910 the General Board reviewed the various factors that pointed to Germany as America's primary adversary. The Reich's population was increasing at an alarming annual rate of 900,000. Therefore, she would soon have 'outgrown her borders.' The only available areas of territorial expansion lay in the temperate zones of Latin America. But the Monroe Doctrine blocked her path in this direction. Thus Germany, the 'uneasy state of Europe,' and the United States were of necessitv on a collision course. The board could see no other possible adversaries in Europe. Russia was totally ignored. France was regarded as being 'unusually friendly.' And Great Britain possessed sufficient naval bases and sea power and was most vulnerable to American might in Canada.41
"Captain Fiske reminded his fellow board members that 'wealth and power' were the prizes at stake. Like his German counterparts, he was utterly convinced that economic competition would eventually lead to war. 'There is no rivalry more bitter than trade rivalry. There is nothing more dangerous to peace. There is nothing for which men will fight more savagely than for money.' 42
"Other portents also loomed. Mahan pointed out in 1909 that the fuel capacity of German capital ships was constantly being increased, thus indicating operations outside European waters. The Office of Naval
Intelligence reported that in 1911 Germany would possess ten dreadnoughts while the United States had only four in service, and that Tirpitz's four new battle cruisers were without equal in the United States Navy. The Army and Navy Register in 1912 drew the conclusion that German naval superiority would make 'European defiance of our tradition [Monroe Doctrine] complete and effective.' Commander William S. Sims, an outspoken advocate of Anglo-Saxon solidarity, saw only one solution. In 1910, during a speech in London's Guildhall, he advocated an Anglo-American alliance by promising the British every man, every ship, and every dollar of the United States if that island empire were threatened seriously by Germany.43 But naval planners in Washington preferred their own solution: a contingency war plan designed to meet a German invasion of the Western Hemisphere. In fact, there were published around this time several books that were clearly anti-German in content: Lewis Einstein *American Foreign Policy* (1909), Herbert Croly *The Promise of American Life* (1909), Homer Lea *The Day of the Saxon* (1912), Roland G. Usher *Pan-Germanism* (1913), and Admiral Dewey's *Autobiography* (1913). Franklin D. Roosevelt, upon becoming assistant secretary of the navy in 1913, quickly found that 'the Power that we were building to guard against was Germany.'44
"In Germany, Vice Admiral von Diederichs had played a major role in the formulation of Operations Plan III against the United States; in 1913 Admiral Dewey presided over the General Board that developed the Black War Plan against Germany. [The board used color codes for its first two war plans: black for Germany and orange for Japan (1911).] Thus the 'men of Manila' carried out their antagonisms and animosities on the drawing boards of the naval staffs. The American planners believed that Great Britain would look upon a German attack on the Monroe Doctrine with sympathy and offer passive support because she stood to gain the most from a clash between her two main commercial rivals. Britain, the United States Navy officers calculated, would 'effectually provide against the interference of other interested European powers,' leaving Germany free to make war with the certainty that her rear is safe from attack.'45 There appeared no prospect of succor from any European power:
'The United States has already differences with Russia; the French criticise our methods freely and are in sympathy with British European policy; it is too soon after the Spanish-American war to expect sympathy from Spain; Italy is in accord with France and England upon certain international issues, and Austria with Germany.'
"The planners' horizon was a deep black. 'The United States is therefore isolated and can count upon no active friend in Europe whose interests coincide with hers.' Admiral C. E. Vreeland of the General Board cautioned the House Naval Affairs Committee that no reliance could be placed on existing diplomatic alignments because they could change within the year.46 Hence, despite the turn of events in Europe since 1897, American naval leaders still thought in 1913 in terms of an isolated German-American war. "The key to this seemingly incredible belief lies in the deep-rooted economic Darwinism that the board's planners had inherited from Mahan..." In other words, the reasoning went, Germany and Britain were economic rivals of the US, so why shouldn't Britain welcome Germany challenging the Monroe Doctrine?
