re: History nerds: should the United States have entered the First World War?

I gather that the consensus around here is that the USA did the right thing to enter the war against Imperial Germany because:

1. Zimmerman Telegram

2. Unrestricted sub warfare

But is the Telegram so bad? All it is is an offer to Mexico in case the USA declares war on Germany. If the USA stays neutral there is no threat of Germany Mexico alliance. Is this really a cause for war?

WRT unrestricted sub war - Do we realize that the USA waged unrestricted sub war against its enemies in WW2? Why was the same thing a cause for war against Imperial Germany less than 25 years earlier?

How "neutral" was the USA in WWI and WW2? During both wars, the USA itself or private arms corporations in the USA supplied critical war materiel to belligerent Great Britain - during years when the USA claimed neutrality.

Lusitania contained machine gun ammo and high explosives for making field artillery shells being shipped from the USA to Britain's arms factories near Liverpool.

In 1939, the USA began shipping 100 percent Octane gasoline to Britain's Royal Air Force. This is not the behavior of a neutral nation.

Sometimes I wonder whether our conventional mainstream thinking on World War One is completely sound.

The Kaiser was a freak, an angry, psychotic, insecure, fancy dresser

Austria-Hungary provided the spark the Kaiser needed to prove he was a man

and he fed all the gas that was needed

cousin spat

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WWI set us up to be the premier economic force the world has ever seen.

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Rome on Roids

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History nerds: should the United States have entered the First World War?

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No. Not our war

As an aside, I am listening to Pat Buchanan's book, "Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War"

Churchill had a zeal about the war an a desire to engage at the earliest moment. He had a smile on his face even while knowing 10s of thousands of British soldiers were in their graves.

Didn’t they also send a letter to Mexico about invading the US?

Germany loves unforced errors

NO

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And we shouldn’t have gone over to Europe in WWII either v

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But then London and Paris would be speaking German instead of Farsi!

True, but the Treaty of Versailles and its pummeling of Germany was the tipping point. The war decimated Germany’s economy and the treaty’s harsh sanctions were arguably equally devastating. Enter Hitler.

I contend that if the USA allowed private american companies to sell machine gun ammo and field artillery shells to Britain, then the US justification for declaring war on Imperial Germany seems less strong.

Do you suppose that back in 1917, the American public had the whole story about how the Lusitania was carrying machine gun ammo and field artillery shells to Britain? Do you suppose that the American public was aware that the US armaments corporations were selling arms to Britain for just about the whole war?

I'm not so sure.

Anyway, like I say, sometimes I wonder whether the mainstream views of History and particularly WWI are accurate.