The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931

by Adam Tooze

The leading figures in Berlin never took seriously the idea that Wilson might actually manage to stop the war. Whatever the nuances of American politics, they insisted its economy was ever more committed on the Entente side. The effect was self-fulfilling. By acting on their deterministic beliefs about American politics, the Kaiser’s strategists tore the ground from beneath Wilson’s feet. On 9 January 1917, overriding the hesitant objections of their Chancellor, Hindenburg and Ludendorff rammed through the decision to resume unrestricted U-boat warfare.31 Within less than two weeks the depths of their miscalculation were to become obvious. Even as Wilson strode to the Senate rostrum on 22 January 1917 to call for the war to be brought to an end, Germany’s U-boats were battering their way through winter seas to assume battle stations in a wide arc surrounding the British and French Atlantic coastline.