From a reader:

Mr. Goldberg:
The funny thing is, of course, is that Wilson was quite reluctant to enter the war and was harshly criticized for his attempts at isolation–especially by the likes of Republican internationalists Theodore Roosevelt, Leonard Wood, and Henry Cabot Lodge–during World War I. But five months after being elected on the slogan, “He Kept Us Out of War,” and a month after being inaugurated for his second term, Wilson asked for the war declaration–and it was granted to great applause in Congress and among the public.
Insofar as American involvement in the war is concerned, almost from the beginning, the United States was supporting the allies–and the Germans were bound and determined to stop it (to include acts of sabotage–for an example, see Jules Witcover’s Sabotage at Black Tom). American financiers and manufacturers readily provided money and raw materials to the Allies and American volunteers were found in the ranks of the Allied armies–and were never pursued by U.S. authorities, despite strong German protests. And let’s be frank, the Germans did not do themselves any favors with their own high-handedness especially as it related to unrestricted submarine warfare and the infamous Zimmerman Telegram.
Odd as it may seem today, among our WWI allies, France was much preferred over the United Kingdom by Americans. First, there were the historical associations dating back to the American Revolution; many Americans saw helping France and serving in the French military as akin to paying a debt owed to France for our own independence. Second, France was a sister republic in a world of crowned heads and autocrats. Third, one of the Democratic Party’s constituencies–Irish Americans–were suspicious of Britain as were many American policymakers who were upset by the British blockade against Germany that often resulted in U.S. ships being halted on the high seas. Fourth, in the face of the Americans’ determination to establish their own independent army on the Western Front, the French dropped their idea of integrating American soldiers into French units and generously offered to help train and equip the American Expeditionary Force. The British kept asking or demanding that American men be used as a replacement pool for the British Army. This did not go over well with the U.S. Army–who took it correctly as a slight on its professional potential–or the U.S. public which not like the idea of its young men being used as a natural resource. Finally, the French military had an air of la glorie that was born of the First Empire (American officers were quite fond of Napoleonic comparisons) and buttressed by such battles as the Marne and Verdun.
After World War I, there were plenty of conspiracy theories about how the United States was goaded and beguiled into war by Allied propaganda and pushed into war by industrialists and financiers who wanted to make scads of money on armaments and the like. The “we fought the war for Halliburton” routine we hear today is at least a collaterial descendant of the post-1918 accusations about why the United States entered the Great War. Thus, as World War II approached, Congress passed some strong legislation to ensure that we would not be dragged into another European war. As soon as the war began in earnest, however, FDR began to think of ways to help the allies–which meant maneuvering around Neutrality Act–especially after, to the surprise of many, France fell in June 1940. It is interesting to note as well that, almost immediately after 1918, the U.S. Army and Navy fully expected to fight in another European war and during the interwar years laid the plans for the military expansion and industrial moblization that won World War 2.
Regards,
Scott Belliveau
Lexington, Virginia (and you may use my name)