It has been mentioned here a few times that the US never declared war on the Ottoman Empire during World War I. However, I would like to explain here in more detail why it did not do so, before speculating on what would have happened if it did.
There were certainly people who urged such a declaration of war, for two reasons. First, they thought it was inconsistent for the US--and disloyal to its allies--for the US to fight Germany but not the other Central Powers, which they saw as tools of Germany. Second, they thought that the Turkish regime was especially reprehensible because of its massacres of Armenians, and that the asserted moral basis of the war--to "make the world safe for democracy"--would be undermined if the US did not fight Turkey.
Most notable among the advocates of war with Turkey was Theodore Roosevelt. In an editorial entitled "A Fifty-Fifty War Attitude," written for the *Kansas City Star* on November 20, 1917, he criticized the US failure to go to war with Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire. (The US was to declare war on Austria-Hungary the following month.) TR argued that "Germany's allies are her mere tools...Under these conditions it is a grave offense against our allies not to declare war on all of Germany's allies." Specifically on Turkey he wrote:
"Turkey has been and is the tool of Germany, but Germany has permitted her on her own account to perpetrate massacres on the Armenian and Syrian Christians which renders it little short of an infamy now to remain at peace with her. It is hypocritical to express sympathy with the Armenians and appoint messages to be read in the churches about them and yet refuse to do the only thing that will permanently help them which is to declare war on Turkey." http://books.google.com/books?id=fkEOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA55
In March, 1918, TR echoed the theme, this time adding "Bolsheviki at Home and Abroad" to the list of villains and suggesting that Wilson was "coddling" the Bolsheviks:
"The Bolsheviki have concluded a peace with Germany which includes handing back to the Turks, or, in other words, plunging back into brutal savagery, a district in Asia in which there are multitudes of Armenians and other Christians. Our Government has been derelict in its duty to the Armenians, to the Christians of Syria, and to the Jews of Palestine, by its failure to declare war on Turkey...." http://books.google.com/books?id=fkEOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA119
Nor was TR alone. Michael B. Oren quotes Henry Cabot Lodge as saying that "I should be sorry as an American...if when this war ends..we should appear at the great council of nations as still a friend of Turkey." Congressman Frederick Gillett of Massachusetts (who would become Speaker in 1919) said that "Turkey's course during the war has been so contemptible that I do not think we should hesitate...in declaring war against her." True, these were Republicans; but the Democratic Speaker of the House, Champ Clark agreed that "The present anomalous situation...is perfectly demoralizing. It is ridiculous to fight one half of the enemy and not the other half." (Quoted in *Power. Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present,* p. 343, which also states that "The *New York Times* [in November 1917 on the eve of the US declaration of war against Austria-Hungary] speculated that there was scarcely a single congressman or senator in favor of maintaining peace with the Turks."
So *if* Wilson had requested a declaration of war against Turkey it seems likely he could have gotten it, either in April 1917 or in early December 1917 when the US finally declared war on Austria-Hungary and some members of Congress wanted to add Turkey. The question is why he did not ask for it. In his speech requesting a declaration of war in April, he went out of his way to disclaim any intention of fighting Germany's allies:
"I have said nothing of the governments allied with the Imperial Government of Germany because they have not made war upon us or challenged us to defend our right and our honor. The Austro-Hungarian Government has, indeed, avowed its unqualified endorsement and acceptance of the reckless and lawless submarine warfare adopted now without disguise by the Imperial German Government, and it has therefore not been possible for this Government to receive Count Tarnowski, the Ambassador recently accredited to this Government by the Imperial and Royal Government of Austria-Hungary; but that Government has not actually engaged in warfare against citizens of the United States on the seas, and I take the liberty, for the present at least, of postponing a discussion of our relations with the authorities at Vienna. We enter this war only where we are clearly forced into it because there are no other means of defending our rights." https://books.google.com/books?id=cgtWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA43
See this summary in Robert L. Daniel, "The Armenian Question and American-Turkish Relations, 1914-1927," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 46, No. 2. (Sep., 1959):
"When the United States entered the war in April, 1917, the administration had to reappraise its policy. Turkey, as one of the Central Powers, might properly have been included in the declaration of war. Armenian, Serbian, and Greek groups in the United States hoped for American intervention, but President Wilson was initially disposed to dismiss Turkey, along with Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria, as mere tools of the Germans, relatively blameless for their belligerency, and unable to harm the United States. The British, French, and Italian governments, as well as the Supreme War Council, urged him to join them in the war against Turkey; and Lansing reported that all the Republican and many of the Democratic members of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations favored such a move. In time, even the President admitted that it would be a logical step; yet he never asked for a declaration of war on Turkey.
"Adherence to this course was unquestionably made easier by the absence of provocation from the Turks. Early in 1917, the Ottoman minister of foreign affairs expressed to Ambassador Abram I. Elkus, who had succeeded Morgenthau, the earnest desire of his government that Turkey and the United States might continue to enjoy friendly relations even if the United States should go to war with Germany. When Turkey did officially sever diplomatic relations with the United States, on April 20, 1917, it was clear that the step had been taken only under duress from Germany. Thereafter the Turkish government was extremely careful to avoid any act that might give offense to the United States, and this fact was repeatedly stressed by American opponents of war with Turkey. Within the United States one of the most important manifestations of a desire to prevent a declaration of war against Turkey in 1917 and 1918 came from the leaders in the efforts to provide relief for the Armenian victims of Turkish persecution. Beginning in 1917, James L. Barton, foreign secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and director of the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, carried on a quietcampaign to inform relief workers, the press, Congress, and the StateDepartment that war with Turkey would bring no advantages and manydisadvantages. Militarily, it was pointed out, such a war would in no way hasten the end of the struggle in Europe, because a military attack on Turkey could not be undertaken without weakening the war effort against Germany. Diplomatically, a declaration of war would tend to bind Turkey and Germany closer at a time when the two seemed to be drifting apart. To these arguments was added the humanitarian consideration that adoption of a war resolution would halt the American relief work and would subject American mission property in Turkey to destruction or expropriation.
"In the congressional debates on a proposed war resolution opponents of the measure echoed Barton's arguments, without revealing his authorship, to show that war against Turkey would not further American interests. Secretary Lansing likewise followed the Barton argument in advising the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations that a declaration of war would have an adverse effect on the relief work and mission property in Turkey. Of greater significance, however, for the influence of the relief committee was its apparent ability to reach the ear of President Wilson. Cleveland H. Dodge, a major figure in American philanthropy in the Near East, was a long-time personal friend of the President, and as American entry into the war became imminent Wilson confided to Dodge that he hoped to 'manage things so prudently' that the lives of Americans in the Near East would not be endangered. Although this was no explicit pledge to avoid a Turkish war, it implied such a policy.
"In contrast, efforts to bring about a declaration of war on Turkey were never well organized. The periodical press made no comment on the issue and the newspaper press did little more than report such congressional debates as took place. The lack of public discussion would seem to suggest that most Americans felt that they had discharged their responsibilities toward the Armenians through the activities of the relief organizations. An attempt was made by members of Congress to include Turkey in the original declaration of war in April, 1917, but in the absence of a positive recommendation from the President no action was taken, and the question remained dormant until the following November, when Wilson asked for a declaration of war against Austria-Hungary. In answer to proposals that Turkey be included, he explained that while a declaration of war against Turkey might appear logical, certain controlling reasons--which he did not state--made such a declaration 'undesirable.' There was some grumbling in Congress, but the subject was quickly dropped. When the issue was revived in the spring of 1918, it was clear that the sponsors of the war resolution were using it mainly to attack Wilson...."
People like TR scorned Dodge's "protect the missionaries" rationale for avoiding war with Turkey. TR replied to Dodge that "The presence of our missionaries, and our failure to go to war, did not prevent the Turks from massacring between half a million and a million Armenians, Syrians, Greeks and Jews--the overwhelmingly majority being Armenians. Our declaration of war now will certainly not do one one-hundredth part of the damage already done by our failure to go to war in the past; and it will enable us to render service of permanent value for the future, and incidentally to take another step in regaining our self-respect." http://www.armenian-genocide.org/roosevelt.html
Also, not everyone agreed that there was nothing the US could do militarily about the Turks without weakening the struggle against Germany, or that a US declaration of war on Turkey would draw the Turks and Germans closer together. "Elkus was confident that Turkey's major cities could be easily bombarded from the sea and the empire swiftly invaded. 'Turkey is the weakest link in the chain of the Central Powers, and...is on the verge of a breakdown,' he essayed. 'The people of Turkey only want some such excuse...to compel [them to sign] a separate peace.' Some senior American generals agreed, stressing the many political and military advantages the country would achieve by contributing forces to the Middle Eastern theater." Oren, p. 342.
So suppose that Wilson had decided in favor of war and Congress agreed. The main reason given by those who today think this should have been done is that the US was weakened at Versailles in the discussion of what to do with the Turkish Empire by the fact that it had not declared war on Turkey and had virtually no troops in the Middle East, while the other Allies had hundreds of thousands of troops there. Indeed, the US was not a signatory to the Treaty of Sevres--even though it had an obvious interest in the area, if for no other reason than that the recent war had shown the importance of petroleum for the Navy and for industry.
However, one has to ask: Would the US position in the Middle East really have been made stronger by a declaration of war against Turkey? I have my doubts. First of all, simply declaring war does not mean that there would be a great number of American troops there. The US had enough delays getting troops to western Europe, where the supply lines were shorter, and it was obviously more urgent for the US to help save Paris than to fight in the Middle East. Second, even if there had been US troops in the Middle East, it is not clear how much leverage they would give the US unless American opinion backed *keeping* them there, which seems unlikely. The Treaty of Sevres, after all, was stillborn; it took years of further fighting to determine the ultimate borders of Turkey. (These were formalized at Lausanne in 1923, with the US represented only by unofficial observers.) I don't see the American people as being in any mood to fight the Kemalists in the early 1920's. Nor do I think the idea of a US mandate for Armenia would have been any more likely to go into effect if the US had previously been at war with Turkey. What President Harding was to write to Secretary of State Hughes in 1923 would still have been true: "The most ardent supporters of the Armenians in America would hesitate to sanction armed warfare in order to establish a separate territory for the Armenians." Quoted in Oren, p. 395 As for Elkus's argument that a US declaration of war would lead Turkey to seek a separate peace, this, even if true, ignores the question *on what terms?* It is hard for me to see Turkey, even if faced with a US declaration of war or even such a declaration accompanied by a substantial US military presence in the Middle East, agreeing to a peace based on genuine self-determination--the kind of peace that Wilson is so often blamed for not bringing to the Middle East. Such a peace would have meant the dismemberment of the Turkish Empire just as much as Versailles and Sevres. Nor, of course, would such a peace have been acceptable to Great Britain and France, which had their own interests in the area...
One other point: Given that it seems to have been mostly (though not exclusively) Republicans who were pressing for a declaration of war with Turkey, does that mean that if Hughes were elected, he would have supported such a declaration? (Or were the Republicans so anti-Turkish in OTL just because Wilson did *not* want war with Turkey?)
There were certainly people who urged such a declaration of war, for two reasons. First, they thought it was inconsistent for the US--and disloyal to its allies--for the US to fight Germany but not the other Central Powers, which they saw as tools of Germany. Second, they thought that the Turkish regime was especially reprehensible because of its massacres of Armenians, and that the asserted moral basis of the war--to "make the world safe for democracy"--would be undermined if the US did not fight Turkey.
Most notable among the advocates of war with Turkey was Theodore Roosevelt. In an editorial entitled "A Fifty-Fifty War Attitude," written for the *Kansas City Star* on November 20, 1917, he criticized the US failure to go to war with Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire. (The US was to declare war on Austria-Hungary the following month.) TR argued that "Germany's allies are her mere tools...Under these conditions it is a grave offense against our allies not to declare war on all of Germany's allies." Specifically on Turkey he wrote:
"Turkey has been and is the tool of Germany, but Germany has permitted her on her own account to perpetrate massacres on the Armenian and Syrian Christians which renders it little short of an infamy now to remain at peace with her. It is hypocritical to express sympathy with the Armenians and appoint messages to be read in the churches about them and yet refuse to do the only thing that will permanently help them which is to declare war on Turkey." http://books.google.com/books?id=fkEOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA55
In March, 1918, TR echoed the theme, this time adding "Bolsheviki at Home and Abroad" to the list of villains and suggesting that Wilson was "coddling" the Bolsheviks:
"The Bolsheviki have concluded a peace with Germany which includes handing back to the Turks, or, in other words, plunging back into brutal savagery, a district in Asia in which there are multitudes of Armenians and other Christians. Our Government has been derelict in its duty to the Armenians, to the Christians of Syria, and to the Jews of Palestine, by its failure to declare war on Turkey...." http://books.google.com/books?id=fkEOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA119
Nor was TR alone. Michael B. Oren quotes Henry Cabot Lodge as saying that "I should be sorry as an American...if when this war ends..we should appear at the great council of nations as still a friend of Turkey." Congressman Frederick Gillett of Massachusetts (who would become Speaker in 1919) said that "Turkey's course during the war has been so contemptible that I do not think we should hesitate...in declaring war against her." True, these were Republicans; but the Democratic Speaker of the House, Champ Clark agreed that "The present anomalous situation...is perfectly demoralizing. It is ridiculous to fight one half of the enemy and not the other half." (Quoted in *Power. Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present,* p. 343, which also states that "The *New York Times* [in November 1917 on the eve of the US declaration of war against Austria-Hungary] speculated that there was scarcely a single congressman or senator in favor of maintaining peace with the Turks."
So *if* Wilson had requested a declaration of war against Turkey it seems likely he could have gotten it, either in April 1917 or in early December 1917 when the US finally declared war on Austria-Hungary and some members of Congress wanted to add Turkey. The question is why he did not ask for it. In his speech requesting a declaration of war in April, he went out of his way to disclaim any intention of fighting Germany's allies:
"I have said nothing of the governments allied with the Imperial Government of Germany because they have not made war upon us or challenged us to defend our right and our honor. The Austro-Hungarian Government has, indeed, avowed its unqualified endorsement and acceptance of the reckless and lawless submarine warfare adopted now without disguise by the Imperial German Government, and it has therefore not been possible for this Government to receive Count Tarnowski, the Ambassador recently accredited to this Government by the Imperial and Royal Government of Austria-Hungary; but that Government has not actually engaged in warfare against citizens of the United States on the seas, and I take the liberty, for the present at least, of postponing a discussion of our relations with the authorities at Vienna. We enter this war only where we are clearly forced into it because there are no other means of defending our rights." https://books.google.com/books?id=cgtWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA43
See this summary in Robert L. Daniel, "The Armenian Question and American-Turkish Relations, 1914-1927," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 46, No. 2. (Sep., 1959):
"When the United States entered the war in April, 1917, the administration had to reappraise its policy. Turkey, as one of the Central Powers, might properly have been included in the declaration of war. Armenian, Serbian, and Greek groups in the United States hoped for American intervention, but President Wilson was initially disposed to dismiss Turkey, along with Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria, as mere tools of the Germans, relatively blameless for their belligerency, and unable to harm the United States. The British, French, and Italian governments, as well as the Supreme War Council, urged him to join them in the war against Turkey; and Lansing reported that all the Republican and many of the Democratic members of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations favored such a move. In time, even the President admitted that it would be a logical step; yet he never asked for a declaration of war on Turkey.
"Adherence to this course was unquestionably made easier by the absence of provocation from the Turks. Early in 1917, the Ottoman minister of foreign affairs expressed to Ambassador Abram I. Elkus, who had succeeded Morgenthau, the earnest desire of his government that Turkey and the United States might continue to enjoy friendly relations even if the United States should go to war with Germany. When Turkey did officially sever diplomatic relations with the United States, on April 20, 1917, it was clear that the step had been taken only under duress from Germany. Thereafter the Turkish government was extremely careful to avoid any act that might give offense to the United States, and this fact was repeatedly stressed by American opponents of war with Turkey. Within the United States one of the most important manifestations of a desire to prevent a declaration of war against Turkey in 1917 and 1918 came from the leaders in the efforts to provide relief for the Armenian victims of Turkish persecution. Beginning in 1917, James L. Barton, foreign secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and director of the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, carried on a quietcampaign to inform relief workers, the press, Congress, and the StateDepartment that war with Turkey would bring no advantages and manydisadvantages. Militarily, it was pointed out, such a war would in no way hasten the end of the struggle in Europe, because a military attack on Turkey could not be undertaken without weakening the war effort against Germany. Diplomatically, a declaration of war would tend to bind Turkey and Germany closer at a time when the two seemed to be drifting apart. To these arguments was added the humanitarian consideration that adoption of a war resolution would halt the American relief work and would subject American mission property in Turkey to destruction or expropriation.
"In the congressional debates on a proposed war resolution opponents of the measure echoed Barton's arguments, without revealing his authorship, to show that war against Turkey would not further American interests. Secretary Lansing likewise followed the Barton argument in advising the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations that a declaration of war would have an adverse effect on the relief work and mission property in Turkey. Of greater significance, however, for the influence of the relief committee was its apparent ability to reach the ear of President Wilson. Cleveland H. Dodge, a major figure in American philanthropy in the Near East, was a long-time personal friend of the President, and as American entry into the war became imminent Wilson confided to Dodge that he hoped to 'manage things so prudently' that the lives of Americans in the Near East would not be endangered. Although this was no explicit pledge to avoid a Turkish war, it implied such a policy.
"In contrast, efforts to bring about a declaration of war on Turkey were never well organized. The periodical press made no comment on the issue and the newspaper press did little more than report such congressional debates as took place. The lack of public discussion would seem to suggest that most Americans felt that they had discharged their responsibilities toward the Armenians through the activities of the relief organizations. An attempt was made by members of Congress to include Turkey in the original declaration of war in April, 1917, but in the absence of a positive recommendation from the President no action was taken, and the question remained dormant until the following November, when Wilson asked for a declaration of war against Austria-Hungary. In answer to proposals that Turkey be included, he explained that while a declaration of war against Turkey might appear logical, certain controlling reasons--which he did not state--made such a declaration 'undesirable.' There was some grumbling in Congress, but the subject was quickly dropped. When the issue was revived in the spring of 1918, it was clear that the sponsors of the war resolution were using it mainly to attack Wilson...."
People like TR scorned Dodge's "protect the missionaries" rationale for avoiding war with Turkey. TR replied to Dodge that "The presence of our missionaries, and our failure to go to war, did not prevent the Turks from massacring between half a million and a million Armenians, Syrians, Greeks and Jews--the overwhelmingly majority being Armenians. Our declaration of war now will certainly not do one one-hundredth part of the damage already done by our failure to go to war in the past; and it will enable us to render service of permanent value for the future, and incidentally to take another step in regaining our self-respect." http://www.armenian-genocide.org/roosevelt.html
Also, not everyone agreed that there was nothing the US could do militarily about the Turks without weakening the struggle against Germany, or that a US declaration of war on Turkey would draw the Turks and Germans closer together. "Elkus was confident that Turkey's major cities could be easily bombarded from the sea and the empire swiftly invaded. 'Turkey is the weakest link in the chain of the Central Powers, and...is on the verge of a breakdown,' he essayed. 'The people of Turkey only want some such excuse...to compel [them to sign] a separate peace.' Some senior American generals agreed, stressing the many political and military advantages the country would achieve by contributing forces to the Middle Eastern theater." Oren, p. 342.
So suppose that Wilson had decided in favor of war and Congress agreed. The main reason given by those who today think this should have been done is that the US was weakened at Versailles in the discussion of what to do with the Turkish Empire by the fact that it had not declared war on Turkey and had virtually no troops in the Middle East, while the other Allies had hundreds of thousands of troops there. Indeed, the US was not a signatory to the Treaty of Sevres--even though it had an obvious interest in the area, if for no other reason than that the recent war had shown the importance of petroleum for the Navy and for industry.
However, one has to ask: Would the US position in the Middle East really have been made stronger by a declaration of war against Turkey? I have my doubts. First of all, simply declaring war does not mean that there would be a great number of American troops there. The US had enough delays getting troops to western Europe, where the supply lines were shorter, and it was obviously more urgent for the US to help save Paris than to fight in the Middle East. Second, even if there had been US troops in the Middle East, it is not clear how much leverage they would give the US unless American opinion backed *keeping* them there, which seems unlikely. The Treaty of Sevres, after all, was stillborn; it took years of further fighting to determine the ultimate borders of Turkey. (These were formalized at Lausanne in 1923, with the US represented only by unofficial observers.) I don't see the American people as being in any mood to fight the Kemalists in the early 1920's. Nor do I think the idea of a US mandate for Armenia would have been any more likely to go into effect if the US had previously been at war with Turkey. What President Harding was to write to Secretary of State Hughes in 1923 would still have been true: "The most ardent supporters of the Armenians in America would hesitate to sanction armed warfare in order to establish a separate territory for the Armenians." Quoted in Oren, p. 395 As for Elkus's argument that a US declaration of war would lead Turkey to seek a separate peace, this, even if true, ignores the question *on what terms?* It is hard for me to see Turkey, even if faced with a US declaration of war or even such a declaration accompanied by a substantial US military presence in the Middle East, agreeing to a peace based on genuine self-determination--the kind of peace that Wilson is so often blamed for not bringing to the Middle East. Such a peace would have meant the dismemberment of the Turkish Empire just as much as Versailles and Sevres. Nor, of course, would such a peace have been acceptable to Great Britain and France, which had their own interests in the area...
One other point: Given that it seems to have been mostly (though not exclusively) Republicans who were pressing for a declaration of war with Turkey, does that mean that if Hughes were elected, he would have supported such a declaration? (Or were the Republicans so anti-Turkish in OTL just because Wilson did *not* want war with Turkey?)