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Re: THE FIRST WORLD WAR THREAD.
Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2017 1:24 pm
by Niner
Wilson's Peace speech to Senate is rejected in Europe. The Entente wants unconditional victory and a hard peace. Germany isn't giving up a German speaking part of Poland or pay any significant reparations and wants to end things with peace talks not admitting defeat in any way shape or form.
The Russians were thinking like the British and the French. The Germans must be defeated and disarmed as a military threat. Little did the Tsar know that in a few weeks he would see the beginning of the Russian revolution and that he wouldn't live long enough to worry about what happened to Germany.
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Re: THE FIRST WORLD WAR THREAD.
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2017 9:36 pm
by Niner
So Germany, faced with a war to the finish decides that any material...war or not... going to the Entente powers is fair game for sinking. This would include US ships supplying their enemy. Doesn't sit well with the US who have been "neutral" while supplying war material to the Entente. War is getting nearer for the US.
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/ ... d-1/seq-1/
Re: THE FIRST WORLD WAR THREAD.
Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2017 5:50 pm
by Niner
And so...Wilson bangs the war drum as he says Germany is acting outside of accepted convention with their U boats likely to be killing Americans delivering war goods to England by sinking American shipping.
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Re: THE FIRST WORLD WAR THREAD.
Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2017 6:01 pm
by DuncaninFrance
Yes, but it didn't happen until April 6th 1917 and even then the first limited participation of US Troops was not until October 1917.
Re: THE FIRST WORLD WAR THREAD.
Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2017 7:50 pm
by Niner
It seems to me that if Wilson really had wanted to be neutral he would have blocked sales of war material and war support material from the US to any war making nation before this turn of events. Instead, what he was now saying was that since the US wasn't participating in the actual fighting it was a neutral deserving of a free pass on the high seas to supply the Entente nations. We were "exceptional".....like Obama used the term in recent years as well. No way Germany will be allowed to sink our ships for supplying the Entente.
The German blockade was only after the Entente refused peace overtures and vowed total victory to the point of crushing Germany and axis allies. Germany could see that the US was supporting the Entente materially while pretending neutrality.
But... it was what it was and the die was cast long before the first soldier showed up to say "Lafayette, we are here".
Re: THE FIRST WORLD WAR THREAD.
Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2017 12:27 pm
by Niner
And the next day... this front page story. Only the Wikipedia story seems a bit tame as hindsight.
Housatonic sailed from Galveston, Texas, on 6 January 1917 carrying a cargo of 144,200 bushels of wheat, and after calling at Newport News, Virginia, she sailed for Liverpool on 16 January. According to a statement by Captain Thomas A. Ensor, at 10.30 a.m on 3 February 1917[5] Housatonic was stopped by the German submarine U-53, under the command of Kapitänleutnant Hans Rose, when about twenty miles south-west of Bishop Rock[6] off the Isles of Scilly.
An officer and two seamen from U-53 boarded the ship, and sent Ensor over to the submarine, where he was questioned by Rose, who spoke fluent English. After examining the Housatonic's papers Rose told Ensor to return and order the crew to abandon ship. Rose explained that he was sorry, but the ship was "carrying food supplies to the enemy of my country". The crew launched two lifeboats[6] while the Germans helped themselves to the ship's supply of soap (apparently in short supply in Germany) before opening the seacocks. The U-53 then delivered the coup de grace with a single torpedo, and the Housatonic sank.[5]
Ensor persuaded Rose to take the lifeboats in tow toward the English coast. After two hours a vessel was sighted. Ensor was not convinced that they had been seen, so Rose fired his deck gun to attract her attention, then slipped away. The vessel turned out to be the trawler Salvator[6] which took the crew of Housatonic to Penzance.[5] Captain Ensor returned to the United States aboard the SS Orduna, with his crew following aboard the SS Philadelphia.[6]
By the way, the USS Housatonic was the first ship sunk by a submarine. It was in Charleston harbor during the Civil war by the Hundley, an experimental Confederate vessel.
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Re: THE FIRST WORLD WAR THREAD.
Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2017 10:29 am
by Niner
To sum up the problem in America on this date a hundred years ago.
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Re: THE FIRST WORLD WAR THREAD.
Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2017 12:56 pm
by Niner
Meanwhile... William Jennings Bryan, the former Secretary of State, and Bernie Sanders of his day, laments the mood of the Congress and President for drawing a line in the sand. He tells people to contact their elected officials and tell them NO to war. But then one citizen in Duluth writes his Congressman with what he thinks is a better idea.
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Re: THE FIRST WORLD WAR THREAD.
Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2017 5:06 pm
by Niner
Remember Henry Ford and his peace ship and how he was trying to do a Donald Trump art of the deal peace negotiation? Well... now that WE are talking war.. that's a horse of a different color.
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Re: THE FIRST WORLD WAR THREAD.
Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2017 7:25 pm
by Niner
Germany isn't backing off the sea blockade nor giving the US a free pass.
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