The Ukraine War

Nope, nothing to do with it. The Lusitania was sunk May 7, 1915. The US entered the war April 6, 1917, nearly two years later.

There was plenty of friction between the US and UK during 15 and 16. Most of Europe was neutral, including the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway. The British navy was seizing a lot of US flag freighters, bound for neutral ports, on charges of carrying contraband. The Brits would sell the cargoes, and maybe the ships, and pocket the proceeds. This upset a lot of USian “JCs”. One of the very top UK diplomats, the name does not come to mind at the moment, met with the US Secretary of State, and brought data. The British showed sharp increases in the shipments of certain materials to these neutral countries. The British asked, words to the effect “what are the Dutch (for example) doing with 10 times the nickel they imported before the war, if not reshipping it to Germany?”

The US was chafing at German “unrestricted” submarine warfare too. In early 1916, President Wilson, on threat of breaking diplomatic relations with Germany, demanded an end to attacks on passenger ships, and the crews of freighters to be allowed to abandon ship, before it was sunk. Germany agreed to those terms on May 4, 1916. On January 31, 1917, the German ambassador delivered a note to the US Secretary of State advising that Germany will resume unrestricted submarine warfare. On Feb 3, President Wilson severed diplomatic relations with Germany.

The Zimmerman message threatened a direct attack on the US mainland. That fired people up. Zimmerman admitted the message was genuine on March 3rd. That was the last straw. The US declared war on April 6th.

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