Woodrow Wilson and the Great War: Reconsidering America’s Neutrality, 1914–1917 (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Woodrow Wilson and the Great War: Reconsidering America’s Neutrality, 1914–1917 Ross Kennedy Woodrow Wilson and the Great War: Reconsidering America’s Neutrality, 1914–1917. By Robert W. Tucker. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-8139-2629-2. Notes. Index. Pp. xv, 246. $39.50. In his new book on Woodrow Wilson’s neutrality during World War I, Robert Tucker presents an interesting re-interpretation of a crucial period in twentieth-century American foreign relations. Without much thought about the consequences of his actions, Tucker argues, Wilson early on adopted policies clearly favorable to the Allies in the war. Once set on this course, the president grew ever more committed to it as he came to equate American prestige and the laws of humanity with confronting Germany’s submarine campaign in the Atlantic. Tucker criticizes [End Page 1307] this posture, asserting it was bound to undermine Wilson’s own goals of staying out of the war, mediating a “peace without victory,” and building a new international order based on the League of Nations. In the end, Tucker suggests, Wilson defeated himself. There are several significant points for Wilsonian historiography in this argument. First, Tucker rightly breaks with the work of Arthur S. Link and others in asserting that Wilson’s goals would have been better served by a policy that “combined strict neutrality with measures of preparedness” (p. 79). This approach might have gained the respect of the belligerents and contributed to a deadlock in the conflict – two developments conducive to the aim of ending the war with American mediation. Tucker also provides a thoughtful and detailed analysis of the concept of “neutrality” in the pre-1914 international system, a technical but vital topic missing from nearly all of the monographs on Wilson’s wartime diplomacy. Finally, Tucker echoes Lloyd Ambrosius’s important point that Wilson was not an unqualified internationalist: if a peace league was not based on “American principles,” the United States would continue its traditional refusal to make any political-military commitments overseas (pp. 206—07). For all of the positive qualities of Tucker’s book, however, some aspects of his interpretation are problematic. The author downplays Wilson’s fears of German power, for example, by emphasizing that any concerns the president had on this score were far outweighed by his desire to avoid American entry into the war (pp. 9—10). In my view, this argument tends to obscure Wilson’s conviction that a German victory would threaten American national security, a conviction that shaped not only his neutrality policy but also his approach to peace terms. Tucker also devotes too little attention to Wilson’s preparedness policy. He barely mentions it, even though one of his key claims is that Wilson should have embarked upon a defense build up soon after the war started rather than waiting until late 1915. Readers are thus left with little sense of how Wilson related his military policy to his diplomacy. Still, this is a well-written, provocative work. Tucker takes on a big topic and has cogent points to make about it. I enjoyed reading this book and highly recommend it to anyone interested in Wilson’s statecraft or in U.S. foreign relations in general. Ross Kennedy Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois Copyright © 2008 Society for Military History