Is America's 1914-1917 Neutrality a Myth?

Wilson's First Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan,
Who Broke with the President Over Neutrality Issues

In a provocative  and what appears to me to be a thoroughly researched 2012 article I recently discovered, Canadian historian Russell Freure argues that  [Yes] American neutrality during the First World ended in the first months of hostilities and is something of a historical "myth".

Most studies of the Wilson administration’s policy seek to determine how and why the country found itself at war in April 1917, after two and a half years of non-belligerence. The common factor in these discussions is the acceptance by historians of American neutrality from August 1914 through April 1917. The present paper challenges the assumption that the United States non-belligerence was in fact neutral, indeed American intervention in favor of the Entente powers effectively began in the first months of the war. 

Here's his summation from the end of the article  However, I'd recommend downloading and reading the full article, found HERE

[The 1930s economic historian Harry Elmer] Barnes has suggested that the United States had “one type of international law for England and the Allies, but quite another for Germany.” It would seem, then, that the Americans viewed the British blockade and unrestricted submarine warfare differently, not just because the former took property and the latter took lives, but because the former was British and the latter German. This is a critical point.

There existed an overwhelmingly pro-Entente and anti-German attitude in Washington. In August [1915] Wilson privately predicted ominous consequences if Germany was victorious. In early September, he told the British ambassador that a quarrel with Britain “would be the crowning calamity.” Wilson was not willing to risk a German victory, despite his public calls for impartiality, and so he ultimately “surrendered.” American neutrality to preserve relations with Britain. 

Understanding Wilson is crucial to understanding the decisions made in Washington during the first six months of the war. The president had a religious upbringing, being the son of a Presbyterian minister. With this background came an unquestioning faith in God, and a strict sense of right and wrong. He had an affinity for British culture, law and commitment to human rights, as well as a strong mistrust of autocratic and militaristic Germany. As president, Wilson had great authority over foreign policy and he exerted that authority perhaps more than any other president before him. The policy of the United States was Wilson’s. He consulted and accepted advice, but his nature led him to make his own decisions. 

Bryan's Successor, Robert Lansing, Depicted
Advising President Wilson

Winston Churchill said of Wilson: “It seems no exaggeration to pronounce that the action of the United States with its repercussions on the history of the world depended, during the awful period of Armageddon, upon the workings of this man’s mind and spirit to the exclusion of almost every other factor; and that he played in the fate of nations incomparably more direct and personal than any other man.”  While it is true that Wilson was responsible for fashioning American policy in ways that benefited the Entente, there appears to be no evidence to suggest that he appreciated his actions were in any way un-neutral. The president was surrounded by advisors sympathetic to the Entente cause, who represented British actions “in the best possible light,” only serving to reinforce Wilson’s beliefs. Confident in his own “moral superiority,” Wilson appears to have maintained a resolute conviction in his ability to “define true neutrality” better than the legal experts. 

What Wilson ideally wanted was peace between the belligerents, although one favouring Britain and France. The president maintained his peace efforts throughout the duration of American “neutrality.”  There can be no question, however, that American interests lay in an Entente victory, and Wilson had no desire to place obstacles in the path of Britain’s economic campaign. Loss of commerce and even neutral rights was a price he was willing to pay. 

Scholars, too, have refused to acknowledge that American policy was un-neutral. They have interpreted most British violations of law, and Wilson’s reaction to them, as justifiable. Moreover, much like Wilson, these writers have made the mistake of viewing the submarine issue in moral terms when the law did not make such a distinction. As a consequence the general public has, for the most part, accepted these accounts. There exists a collective memory with regards to the United States and their role in the Great War. It is manifest in the traditional narrative – the United States was forced into war by German actions, in defense of neutral rights, American honor and fundamental morality. This account provides a convenient and positive explanation for why the United States departed from a long standing tradition of isolation from European affairs. The truth was more complex and American actions much less altruistic.

The reality is that American interests were tied up with those of Britain.  The prewar maritime policies London and Washington, developed on the basis of a liberal view of freedom of the sea and indomitable neutral rights, proved incompatible with the exigencies of modern war. To make blockade of the Central Powers effective, Britain had to adopt policies that were illegal. Wilson accommodated resulting British violations of U.S. neutral rights in the conviction that Entente success served larger American interests. 

Emotions and individual proprieties, however, are not a part of international law. They are, though, an integral component of the human personality. The traditional narrative coincides with the notion that the First World War was a “good” war—a struggle between peaceful Western democracies and militaristic German autocracy.  

This is, perhaps, why the “myth” of American neutrality endures. The general public may be excused for their part in this perpetuation, the scholar may not.

Source: "When Memory and Reality Clash: The First World War and the Myth of American Neutrality," Russell Freure, The Northern Mariner/le marin du nord, XXII No. 2, (April 2012).

https://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol22/tnm_22_141-163.pdf