What if Theodore Roosevelt won in 1912? Collab Timeline

Does he run for reelection?

  • yes

    Votes: 24 72.7%
  • no

    Votes: 9 27.3%

  • Total voters
    33
  • Poll closed .
But the American people will be upset with congress if they impeach, What if the Black Tom Explosion is earlier and bigger to the point that Lady Liberty does not just get a broken arm and crown but she falls down. That to me would be enough to get a declaration of war ?
 
Congress undoubtedly did not want war, and would have spurned a request by TR for a declaration of war. However, I don't think that is the question. The question is whether TR could have unilaterally accomplished a *fait accompli* making war inevitable, whether Congress liked it or not. For example, in OTL TR said during the 1916 campaign that after the sinking of the Lusitania, had he been president he "would have seized every German ship docked in the United States, telling Berlin: 'Now we will discuss not what you will give but what we will give back." https://books.google.com/books?id=iyfEIkl3hXcC&pg=PA212 (Would TR in fact have legal authority to do that as president? I don't know, but even if he doesn't, who is going to stop him?...)


I note, though, that he said this only in hindsight, more than a year after the sinking. Did he say it at the time?

And while the Germans would certainly have been furious, would they necessarily have declared war on the US in response?
 
Of course, all of this begs the question of whether the Lusitania still goes down on schedule. Would the Germans have risked USW in 1915 (when they still had far too few subs for it to be decisive) if TR had been POTUS? I suspect they'd have trodden more warily with him than with a Princeton professor.

And even if they still go ahead, any number of butterflies could have led to U-20 missing its rendezvous with destiny.
 
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