The question refers to incidences such as the conditions of the 1918 Armistice. In this link, for example: A.—CLAUSES RELATING TO WESTERN FRONT. (Hansard, 11 November 1918)
The Prime Minister refers to ‘Allied and United States forces’.
Why is that? Was the United States not party to a specific treaty that formally composed the Allies? If so, why did they not sign it?
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I’m guessing it was the late entry into the fray.
The US was not an Allied power in WW1. It was an “Associated Power”.. It was not at war with the Ottomans for instance.
The US never formally joined the Alliance. We declared war on our own-ostensibly for our own purposes. Of course, pragmatically we were allied with the Allies, but officially we just happened to be at war with the same people as the Allies and cooperated since it was in our mutual best interests.
There was a very strong feeling in the United States that we should not ally ourselves with any other country. The feeling was that if we agreed to an alliance with another country then we could end up in a war we didn’t choose to be in because of something another country did. Alliances were seen as a surrender of our sovereignty.
Not an unwarranted concern, since that was largely how WWI snowballed into a major conflict in the first place.
Maybe. But some people have argued that a similar set of alliances would have prevented WWII and did prevent WWIII.
Sure, except that NATO and other such mutual defense arrangements were an easier political sale with US public opinion on account that (a) ***we ***were the lead power and (b) now we had seen what happened when the democracies lowered their guard.
From contemporary writings by political and foreign policy experts of the time, it was the above, and a dose of i) Twice in 30 years have had to enter a European war, and we will be damned if we have enter a third, except on our terms and ii) To ensure security and ensure that the Europeans behaved themselves, and they were a lot more blunt on this score then, as compared with later.
Thanks everyone, ignorance fought!
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