an submarine sank an unarmed French Channelsteamer, the Sussex, with the loss of two Americans. President Wilson threatened toseparate diplomatic relations with the German government unless it abandoned “its presentmethods of submarine warfare against passenger and freight-carrying vessels.” In May,the German government pledged not to sink merchant vessels without warning andwithout saving the lives of those aboard. For nine months the pledge was kept generallyto the satisfaction of the United States. Wilson's powerful diplomacy seemed to haveaverted war with Germany, and as the Democratic candidate in the presidential election of1916, Wilson was elected over the Republican nominee, Charles Evans Hughes, largelybecause “he kept us out of war.” The war, however, was near.At the end of January 1917, Germany broke the so-called Sussex Pledge bydeclaring unrestricted submarine warfare in a zone even larger than the one it hadproclaimed in 1915. On February 3, Wilson replied by breaking off diplomatic relationswith Germany. Later in the month, at his request, Congress passed a bill permitting U.S.merchant vessels to arm. After new depredations by German submarines againstuninvolved shipping, and the discovery of a plan made by the German Foreign Office tounite Germany, Mexico, and Japan against the United States if it entered the war,Wilson on April 2, 1917, requested Congress to declare war. On April 6, Congresspassed a resolution declaring a state of war with Germany. (Alistair Horne, 1970)The early part of 1918 did not look favorable for the Allied nations. On March3, Russia signed the Treaty of Brest - Litovsk, which put a formal end to the warbetween that nation and the Central Powers on terms more favorable to the latter; andon May7, Romania made peace with the Central Powers, signing the Treaty ofBucharest, by the terms of which it ceded the Dobruja region to Bulgaria and the passesin the Carpathian Mountains t...
