World War I. When the Germans declared unlimited submarine warfare, Wilson knew the United States would have to get involved. Still he hesitated, hoping for some event that would make an American declaration of war unnecessary. Instead two events occurred destroying all hopes of neutrality. The first was the Zimmerman telegram. This was a message intercepted by Britain proposing a secret alliance between Germany and Mexico. The next event that pushed the US into the war was the Russian Revolution, in which Russia withdrew from the war, this meant the Allies lost a major part of their team, and without the United States, Germany would have surely won. In April 1917 Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany. He appointed able men to mobilize the economy and to command the armed forces, never interfering with either. By September 1918 Germanys army was in retreat, its civilians hungry and exhausted. Wilsons' real heart was in peace. He insisted on going to the Paris Peace conference himself, where he was greeted by European crowds cheering wildly. He and three other men, known as the Big Four, including Premier Vittorio Orlando of Italy, Prime Minister David Lloyd George of Britain, and Premier Georges Clemenceau of France drew up the Treaty of Versailles, based on Wilsons Fourteen Point address. Aspirations of world order were represented in his Fourteen Points: Open diplomacy, freedom of the seas, the removal of economic barriers among nations, reductions of armaments, the ending of imperialism, self-determination for national groups, the inclusion of Russia in the world community, and, most important to Wilson, the creation of an association of nations to assume collective responsibility for maintaining peace (the League of Nations). Wilson passionately wanted his Fourteen Points implemented, he wanted a treaty that would be fair to fallen enemy as well as to the victors. After many compromises, the Treaty of Versailles was signe...
