Talk:American entry into World War I

Undemocratic, militaristic state

The article stated that Wilhelm siding with the military instead of the civilian government was proof "that Germany was indeed an undemocratic militaristic state". Not so. Germany indeed was militaristic and undemocratic, but Wilhelm's decision is not proof. He was the head of the executive and commander in chief; deciding against his subordinates in the civilian government was within his constitutional rights. Just because the U.S. President sometimes sides with the military and not with his Secretary of Defense the U.S. does not become militaristic. One might say that a constitution that allows such rights to a non-elected person is proof of an undemocratic state, but that's off-topic for this article. Yoritomo 20:14, 15 December 2009 (EST)

to side with the miltary against the elected government is militarism. Yes it was constitutional, which is why the US demanded the German constitution be changed and the system ended. RJJensen 20:37, 15 December 2009 (EST)

I disagree. The military might have the better arguments, for example. Siding with them on a given issue is not necessarily militarism. Besides, in the German Empire the civilian government wasn't elected either. The Chancellor was appointed by the Kaiser, and parliament had no say in that matter. As I said, Germany certainly was undemocratic and militaristic, but Wilhelm's decision on unrestricted submarine warfare isn't proof. For example, I can't imagine Roosevelt's Secretary of State having been too happy with the decision to sink all ships in Japanese waters in WWII - but that doesn't make the US militaristic.

If the military is able to dictate a course of action to the civilian government, that's militarism, and indeed at that point in the war Hindenburg and Ludendorff demanding a course of action might have been sufficient to make the Kaiser's opinion on the matter irrelevant. But that's not the point we were making.

As an aside, I believe you're confusing the post-WWII changes in Germany with the post-WWI changes. The US had no say in the Weimar constitution. The Reichspräsident, as an ersatz Kaiser, still was commander in chief, and if Weimar Germany had been involved in a war, he would still have been able to decide such matters against the rest of the civilian government, which, by the way, still wasn't elected but appointed by the President (though by then parliament could force it out of office).

As a further aside, I don't think mention of Germany's militarism or lack of democracy in the submarine section is helpful at all. It certainly influenced US opinion of Germany and thus the US decision to enter the war, but I don't think the submarine policy was a major issue in US opinion on the German lack of democracy (compared to having a ruling Kaiser in the first place.)Yoritomo 22:17, 15 December 2009 (EST)

I think the Kaiser in 1914-18 was a nonentity who was controlled and manipulated by the military. In Oct 1918 Wilson demanded end of the Kaiser system and the Germans obliged with their revolution that created a republic. Most historians argue that the submarine policy was the #1 cause of the US entry into the war (as Germany expected it would be). Germany's militarism was the underlying factor, as Wilson himself said. And indeed as German historians like Fischer have demonstrated. The president under Weimar was elected by the people.RJJensen 23:16, 15 December 2009 (EST)

I like the new version of Kaiser-military relations, it makes the relevant points much clearer than the previous text. Yoritomo 11:52, 16 December 2009 (EST)