Uncle Sam weighs the lives lost in the German sinking of the Lusitania (and other ships, as seen on the horizon) to his cash flow from selling weapons and other supplies to the combatants, particularly the allies. The moneybags have tipped the scales. A 1916 postcard by Em. Dupuis.
A l'ombre, de la LibertéIn the Shadow of LivertyOn the coffin and the ship in the distance, 'Lusitania'
"At the end of 1916 two undertows were sucking America toward war—economic involvement with the Allies and the submarine controversy with the Germans—were exerting such pull as to be almost impossible to resist. Wilson was bent on resisting; no man ever lived who was less willing to be the victim of events. He had made up his mind that if the November election confirmed him in office he would focus all his influence upon one last effort to substitute settlement for slaughter. He sensed, as Bernstorff knew, that little time, little room to maneuver was left."
Germany's submarine warfare targeted enemy ships and those of neutral countries that traded with its enemies. The United States was the largest of the neutrals, and loss of its extensive trade with the Allies would have led to a recession. Americans working and sailing on Allied ships had been killed or captured by submarines, and the United States had repeatedly threatened to break relations with Germany. President Woodrow Wilson's successful re-election campaign had used the slogan, 'He kept us out of war,' but Wilson was finding it increasingly difficult to do so. Count Johann von Bernstorff was Germany's ambassador to the United States from 1908 to 1917.
The Zimmermann Telegram by Barbara W. Tuchman, page 116, copyright © 1958, 1966 by Barbara W. Tuchman, publisher: Ballantine Books, publication date: 1979
1916-12-11, 1916, December, Bernstorff, Wilson, Woodrow Wilson
