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Robert Lansing was an American lawyer and diplomat who served as Counselor to the State Department at the outbreak of World War I, and then as United States Secretary of State under President Woodrow Wilson from 1915 to 1920. A conservative pro-business Democrat, he was pro-British and a strong defender of American rights at international law. He was a leading enemy of German autocracy and Russian Bolshevism. Before U.S. involvement in the war, Lansing vigorously advocated freedom of the seas and the rights of neutral nations. He later advocated U.S. participation in World War I, negotiated the Lansing–Ishii Agreement with Japan in 1917 and was a member of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace at Paris in 1919. However, Wilson made Colonel House his chief foreign policy advisor because Lansing privately opposed much of the Versailles treaty and was skeptical of the Wilsonian principle of self-determination.
Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon, better known as Sir Edward Grey, was a British Liberal statesman and the main force behind British foreign policy in the era of the First World War.
The Zimmermann Telegram was a secret diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office in January 1917 that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico if the United States entered World War I against Germany. Mexico would recover Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. The telegram was intercepted and decoded by British intelligence.
A neutral country is a state that is neutral towards belligerents in a specific war or holds itself as permanently neutral in all future conflicts. As a type of non-combatant status, nationals of neutral countries enjoy protection under the law of war from belligerent actions to a greater extent than other non-combatants such as enemy civilians and prisoners of war.
Arthur Zimmermann was State Secretary for Foreign Affairs of the German Empire from 22 November 1916 until his resignation on 6 August 1917. His name is associated with the Zimmermann Telegram during World War I. However, he was also closely involved in plans to support rebellions in Ireland and in India, and to assist the Bolsheviks to undermine Tsarist Russia.
The Open Door Policy is the United States diplomatic policy established in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that called for a system of equal trade and investment and to guarantee the territorial integrity of Qing China. The policy was enunciated in US Secretary of State John Hay's Open Door Note, dated September 6, 1899 and circulated to the major European powers. In order to prevent them from "carving of China like a melon," as they were doing in Africa, the Note asked the powers to keep China open to trade with all countries on an equal basis and called upon all powers, within their spheres of influence to refrain from interfering with any treaty port or any vested interest, to permit Chinese authorities to collect tariffs on an equal basis, and to show no favors to their own nationals in the matter of harbor dues or railroad charges. The policy was accepted only grudgingly, if at all, by the major powers, and it had no legal standing or enforcement mechanism. In July 1900, as the powers contemplated intervention to put down the violently anti-foreign Boxer uprising, Hay circulated a Second Open Door Note affirming the principles. Over the next decades, American policy-makers and national figures continued to refer to the Open Door Policy as a basic doctrine, and Chinese diplomats appealed to it as they sought American support, but critics pointed out that the policy had little practical effect.
France was the first ally of the new United States in 1778. The 1778 treaty and military support proved decisive in the American victory over Britain in the American Revolutionary War. France fared poorly, with few gains and heavy debts, which were contributing causes of France's own revolution and eventual transition to a republic.
Germany and the United States fought against each other in two world wars. In the late 1940s, the U.S. occupied Western Germany and built a demilitarized democratic society. West Germany achieved independence in 1949. It joined NATO in 1955, with the caveat that its security policy and military development would remain closely tied to that of France, the UK and the United States. While West Germany become closely integrated with the U.S. and NATO, East Germany became an Eastern Bloc satellite state closely tied to the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. After communist rule ended in Eastern Europe amid the Revolutions of 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germany was reunified. The reunified Federal Republic of Germany became a full member of the EU, NATO and one of closest allies of the United States. It is also the largest economy in Europe and the fourth-largest in the world.
At the start of World War II in 1939, the Portuguese Government announced on 1 September that the 550-year-old Anglo-Portuguese Alliance remained intact, but since the British did not seek Portuguese assistance, Portugal was free to remain neutral in the war and would do so. In an aide-mémoire of 5 September 1939, the British Government confirmed the understanding. As Adolf Hitler's occupation swept across Europe, neutral Portugal became one of Europe's last escape routes. Portugal was able to maintain its neutrality until 1944, when a military agreement was signed to give the United States permission to establish a military base in Santa Maria in the Azores and thus its status changed to non-belligerent in favor of the Allies.
The relations between the Russian Empire and the United States of America (1776–1917) predate the Soviet Union–United States relations (1922–1991) and the modern Russia–United States relations (1991–present). Relations between the two countries were established immediately after the US declared its independence.
Diplomacy in the Revolutionary War had an important impact on the Revolution, as the United States evolved an independent foreign policy.
The American entry into World War I came in April 1917, more than two and a half years after the war began in Europe.
History of United States foreign policy is a brief overview of major trends regarding the foreign policy of the United States from the American Revolution to the present. The major themes are becoming an "Empire of Liberty", promoting democracy, expanding across the continent, supporting liberal internationalism, contesting World Wars and the Cold War, fighting international terrorism, developing the Third World, and building a strong world economy with low tariffs.
The diplomatic history of World War II includes the major foreign policies and interactions inside the opposing coalitions, the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers, between 1939 and 1945. The military history of the war is covered at World War II. The prewar diplomacy is covered in Causes of World War II and International relations (1919–1939). For the postwar see Cold War.
This article covers worldwide diplomacy and, more generally, the international relations of the great powers from 1814 to 1919. The international relations of minor countries are covered in their own history articles. This era covers the period from the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna (1814–15), to the end of the First World War and the Paris Peace Conference.
The history of the foreign relations of the United Kingdom covers British foreign policy from about 1500 to 2000. For the current situation since 2000 see Foreign relations of the United Kingdom.
The diplomatic history of World War I covers the non-military interactions among the major players during World War I. For the domestic histories of participants see home front during World War I. For a longer-term perspective see international relations (1814–1919) and causes of World War I. For the following (post-war) era see international relations (1919–1939). The major "Allies" grouping included Great Britain and its empire, France, Russia, Italy and the United States. Opposing the Allies, the major Central Powers included Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) and Bulgaria. Other countries also joined the Allies. For a detailed chronology see timeline of World War I.
Great Britain entered World War I on 4 August 1914 when the King declared war after the expiration of an ultimatum to Germany. The official explanation focused on protecting Belgium as a neutral country; the main reason, however, was to prevent a French defeat that would have left Germany in control of Western Europe. The Liberal Party was in power with prime minister H. H. Asquith and foreign minister Edward Grey leading the way. The Liberal cabinet made the decision, although the party had been strongly anti-war until the last minute. The Conservative Party was pro-war. The Liberals knew that if they split on the war issue, they would lose control of the government to the Conservatives.
The foreign policy of the United States was controlled personally by Franklin D. Roosevelt during his first and second and third and fourth terms as the president of the United States from 1933 to 1945. He depended heavily on Henry Morgenthau Jr., Sumner Welles, and Harry Hopkins. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Cordell Hull handled routine matters; the president ignored Hull on most major issues. Roosevelt was an internationalist, and Congress favored more isolationist solutions, so there was considerable tension before the Attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. During the war years, treaties were few, and diplomacy played a secondary role in high-level negotiations with the Allies of World War II, especially Britain's Winston Churchill and the Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin.
The Foreign policy of the Woodrow Wilson administration deals with American diplomacy, and political, economic, military, and cultural relationships with the rest of the world during the Presidency of Woodrow Wilson, 1913–1921. Although Wilson had little experience in foreign policy, he made all the major decisions, usually with the advice of his close friend Edward M. House. Wilson executed the Democratic Party foreign policy which since 1900 had, according to Arthur S. Link:
consistently condemned militarism, imperialism, and interventionism in foreign policy. They instead advocated world involvement along liberal-internationalist lines. Wilson's appointment of William Jennings Bryan as Secretary of State indicated a new departure, for Bryan had long been the leading opponent of imperialism and militarism and a pioneer in the world peace movement.
References
- ↑ Robert R. Wilson, "'Non-Belligerency' in Relation to the Terminology of Neutrality." American Journal of International Law 35.1 (1941): 121-123
- ↑ "Strict Accountability". Digital History. Digital History. Retrieved 15 November 2019.