Richard Leopold,
The Growth of American Foreign Policy summarizes the dilemmas Wilson faced.
https://archive.org/details/growthofamerican00inleop/page/300
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A breakdown of traditional concepts in a twentieth-century war was
even more apparent with neutral rights. It was also more dangerous.
Since the Hague Conferences had not defined precisely acceptable
belligerent practices on the high seas, the United States became em-
broiled with England once that country tried to strangle Germany by a
long-range blockade. The introduction of the submarine precipitated
an even more violent controversy with Germany which, two years later,
led to intervention on the Allied side. Yet that decision came only after
the most agonizing soul-searching, for Wilson saw the dilemma of
neutral rights and the paradox of going to war to vindicate principles
designed to preserve peace.
As in the Napoleonic era, the United States discovered that neutral
rights involved a compromise between the belligerent's desire to cut
off his foe from all commerce with the outside world and the neutral's
wish to deal uninterruptedly with all combatants and other neutrals. As
in the period 1 793-1 81 2, the British tolerated some neutral trade lest
they add the United States to their list of enemies, while the American
government endured some interference as a lesser evil than going to
war. But there were also important differences. From 1914 to 1917 no
impressment issue or territorial ambitions complicated the problem.
The dependence of the Allies on American exports gave Wilson, if he
had chosen to use it, a more effective means of retaliation than Jeffer-
son's embargo, whereas the American people and their leaders grew
emotionally more involved in this conflict than Madison and his con-
temporaries had been in theirs. Nor did the Wilson administration
seriously contemplate fighting England over infringements of neutral
rights. As to Germany, the differences were not the same as those
with France before 181 2. In the First World War the right of American
citizens to travel in safety on the high seas was challenged for the first
time. Germany's violation of maritime rights, moreover, meant the
loss of human lives, not simply of property. Logically, the difficulties
with the two sets of belligerents cannot be separated, but for a clearer
analysis we must deal first with one and then with the other. Yet
chronology should be kept in mind, for the timing of the German de-
predations often permitted the British to escape from troubles created
by their own.
From August 20,1914, to March 28, 1915, England was the chief
transgressor of neutral rights. On the first date Britain rejected, as was
its prerogative, Bryan's plea of August 6 to accept the rules of naval
warfare contained in the unratified Declaration of London of Feb-
ruary 26, 1909. Instead, the British issued an order-in-council defining
contraband in terms much less favorable to nonbelhgerents. Steadily
thereafter they built up a system of controls intended to deny the
Central Powers all sources of oil, copper, cotton, food, and other raw
materials. The British mined the North Sea, extended the contraband
list, interfered with mails, exercised sweeping powers of search, inter-
cepted shipments to neutral ports, detained neutral vessels, and con-
fiscated neutral goods — though compensation was promised. They
justified these acts by citing Northern precedents from 1861 to 1865
and by insisting upon the changed character of modern warfare. The
United States declined to acquiesce in these practices and repeatedly
complained that they went beyond international law and recognized
belligerent rights. But Wilson was reluctant to retaliate, to break off
diplomatic relations, or to go to war to uphold the freedom of trade.
Neither side wanted a showdown. The American government was con-
tent to enter protests and recover damages later. England's objective,
as Grey put it, was "to secure the maximum of blockade that could be
enforced without a rupture with the United States."
Grey's task was not easy. What seemed in Washington a legiti-
mate move to promote American interests was often viewed in London
as a sinister plot to help Germany. The attempt to provide more bot-
toms for farm exports in the Ship Registry Act of August 18, 1914, and
in the subsequent abortive Ship Purchase bill were regarded in Eng-
land as unneutral in fact and in spirit. The ban on loans, imposed for
domestic reasons, was also misunderstood. On the other side, German
sympathizers tried to push Wilson into challenging the long-range
blockade. To offset Allied propaganda on atrocities in Belgium, they re-
sorted to comparable fabrications. They blamed Britain's restrictive
measures for the alleged starvation of women and children in the
Reich. Food supplies were actually adequate, but these reports mar-
shaled popular support behind an American proposal of February 20,
1915, which, if accepted, would have destroyed the British blockade on
the importation of food and raw materials into Germany.
Tension with England over neutral rights was alleviated by the
simultaneous submarine controversy with Germany and by the bur-
geoning prosperity which the war trade brought to almost all Ameri-
cans. Over the years Wilson has been severely criticized for allowing
those two factors to outweigh Britain's questionable maritime prac-
tices. His acquiescence has been attributed to the influence of the mu-
nitions makers and of Wall Street, to an allegedly pro-Allied bias, and
to a failure to heed his own counsel. Yet Wilson tried desperately to be
neutral; but his efforts were nullified by the fact that complete neu-
trality, in the sense of absolute impartiality, had been made impossible
for the United States by its importance in the world's economy and by
the nature of modern warfare. Whatever the republic did or failed to
do benefited one side and, at least indirectly, injured the other. To in-
sist on nineteenth-century standards would hamper England and per-
haps lead to war. To forego ancient privileges would hurt Germany and
perhaps lead to war. Such was the dilemma of neutral rights from 1914
to 1917. Wilson believed that to accept British restrictions was less of
a strain on traditional concepts than to deny it the advantages of su-
perior sea power. This conviction did not stem from ignorance, propa-
ganda, or bad advice but rather from his own notion of what was best
for the United States. To be sure, his decision created an intricate web
of economic ties with the Allies and a dangerous resentment with the
Central Powers, but it did not make intervention inevitable. That was
brought about by the submarine, a weapon Germany would have used
no matter what England did or Wilson believed.
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By the way, those "Northern precedents from 1861 to 1865" which Leopold mentions are often forgotten and perhaps left the US in a poor position to lecture the UK on the law of blockades...