<P> Peace leaders like Jane Addams of Hull House and David Starr Jordan of Stanford University 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 warm - up for his reelection campaign that fall . </P> <P> Wilson seemed 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 . 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 reserves, 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 . The United States 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) saw the main German High Seas Fleet engage in a monumental yet inconclusive clash with the far stronger Grand Fleet of the Royal Navy . Arguing this battle proved the validity of Mahanian doctrine, the navalists 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 armour - 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 US Army was negligible and the new warships would not be at sea until 1919 by which time the war would be over, Germany thought, 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> <P> In January 1917, Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare . The German Foreign minister, Arthur Zimmermann invited revolution - torn Mexico to join the war as Germany's ally against the United States in the Zimmermann Telegram . In return, the Germans would send Mexico money and help it recover the territories of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona that Mexico lost during the Mexican--American War 70 years earlier . British intelligence intercepted the telegram and passed the information on to Washington . Wilson released the Zimmerman note to the public and Americans saw it as a casus belli--a cause for war . </P> <P> At first, Wilson tried to maintain neutrality while fighting off the submarines by arming American merchant ships with guns powerful enough to sink German submarines on the surface (but useless when the U-boats were under water). After submarines sank seven US merchant ships, Wilson finally went to Congress calling for a declaration of war on Germany, which Congress voted on April 6, 1917 . </P>

The united states neutrality in world war 1