<P> The Democratic party saw the Preparedness movement as a threat . Roosevelt, Root and Wood were prospective Republican presidential candidates . More subtly, the Democrats were rooted in localism that appreciated the National Guard, and the voters were hostile to the rich and powerful in the first place . Working with the Democrats who controlled Congress, Wilson was able to sidetrack the Preparedness forces . Army and Navy leaders were forced to testify before Congress to the effect that the nation's military was in excellent shape . </P> <P> In fact, neither the Army nor Navy was in shape for war . The Navy had fine ships but Wilson had been using them to threaten Mexico, and the fleet's readiness had suffered . The crews of the Texas and the New York, the two newest and largest battleships, had never fired a gun, and the morale of the sailors was low . In addition, it was outnumbered and outgunned by the British, German, French, and Italian navies . The Army and Navy air forces were tiny in size . Despite the flood of new weapons systems unveiled by the British, Germans, French, Austro - Hungarians, Italians, and others in the war in Europe, the Army was paying scant attention . For example, it was making no studies of trench warfare, poison gas, heavy artillery, or tanks and was utterly unfamiliar with the rapid evolution of Aerial warfare . The Democrats in Congress tried to cut the military budget in 1915 . The Preparedness movement effectively exploited the surge of outrage over the Lusitania in May 1915, forcing the Democrats to promise some improvements to the military and naval forces . Wilson, less fearful of the Navy, embraced a long - term building program designed to make the fleet the equal of the British Royal Navy by the mid-1920s, although this would not be achieved until World War II . "Realism" was at work here; the admirals were Mahanians and they therefore wanted a surface fleet of heavy battleships second to none--that is, equal to Britain . The facts of submarine warfare (which necessitated destroyers, not battleships) and the possibilities of imminent war with Germany (or with Britain, for that matter), were simply ignored . </P> <P> Wilson's program for the Army touched off a firestorm . Secretary of War Lindley Garrison adopted many of the proposals of the Preparedness leaders, especially their emphasis on a large federal reserve and abandonment of the National Guard . Garrison's proposals not only outraged the localistic politicians of both parties, they also offended a strongly held belief shared by the liberal wing of the Progressive movement . They felt that warfare always had a hidden economic motivation . Specifically, they warned the chief warmongers were New York bankers (like J.P. Morgan) with millions at risk, profiteering munition makers (like Bethlehem Steel, which made armor, and DuPont, which made powder) and unspecified industrialists searching for global markets to control . Antiwar critics blasted them . These special interests were too powerful, especially, Senator La Follette noted, in the conservative wing of the Republican Party . The only road to peace was disarmament, reiterated Bryan . </P> <P> Garrison's plan unleashed the fiercest battle in peacetime history over the relationship of military planning to national goals . In peacetime, War Department arsenals and Navy yards manufactured nearly all munitions that lacked civilian uses, including warships, artillery, naval guns, and shells . Items available on the civilian market, such as food, horses, saddles, wagons, and uniforms were always purchased from civilian contractors . Armor plate (and after 1918, airplanes) was an exception that has caused unremitting controversy for a century . After World War II, the arsenals and Navy yards were much less important than giant civilian aircraft and electronics firms, which became the second half of the "military - industrial complex" Peace leaders like Jane Addams of Hull House and David Starr Jordan of Stanford redoubled their efforts, and now turned their voices against the president because he was "sowing the seeds of militarism, raising up a military and naval caste". Many ministers, professors, farm spokesmen, and labor union leaders joined in, with powerful support from a band of four dozen southern Democrats in Congress who took control of the House Military Affairs Committee . Wilson, in deep trouble, took his cause to the people in a major speaking tour in early 1916, a warmup for his reelection campaign that fall . Wilson seems to have won over the middle classes, but had little impact on the largely ethnic working classes and the deeply isolationist farmers . Congress still refused to budge, so Wilson replaced Garrison as Secretary of War with Newton Baker, the Democratic mayor of Cleveland and an outspoken opponent of preparedness (Garrison kept quiet, but felt Wilson was "a man of high ideals but no principles"). The upshot was a compromise passed in May 1916, as the war raged on and Berlin was debating whether America was so weak it could be ignored . The Army was to double in size to 11,300 officers and 208,000 men, with no reserve, and a National Guard that would be enlarged in five years to 440,000 men . Summer camps on the Plattsburg model were authorized for new officers, and the government was given $20 million to build a nitrate plant of its own . Preparedness supporters were downcast, the antiwar people were jubilant . America would now be too weak to go to war . Colonel Robert L. Bullard privately complained that "Both sides (Britain and Germany) treat us with scorn and contempt; our fool, smug conceit of superiority has been exploded in our faces and deservedly ." The House gutted the naval plans as well, defeating a "big navy" plan by 189 to 183, and scuttling the battleships . The battle of Jutland (May 31 / June 1, 1916) was used by the navalists to argue for the primacy of seapower; they then took control in the Senate, broke the House coalition, and authorized a rapid three - year buildup of all classes of warships . A new weapons system, naval aviation, received $3.5 million, and the government was authorized to build its own armor plate factory . The very weakness of American military power encouraged Berlin to start its unrestricted submarine attacks in 1917 . It knew this meant war with America, but it could discount the immediate risk because the U.S. Army was negligible and the new warships would not be at sea until 1919 by which time the war would be over, with Germany victorious . The notion that armaments led to war was turned on its head: refusal to arm in 1916 led to war in 1917 . </P>

What happened when the united states entered world war 1