The United States only briefly achieved the objectives that led it to enter the First World War. With Woodrow Wilson's demand for his Democratic supporters to reject the Treaty of Versailles with Henry Cabot Lodge's fourteen "reservations" (a sardonic mock of Wilson's Fourteen Points), the death warrant was signed for the Treaty to be accepted by the United States. This led to the uselessness of the League of Nations, because of the absence of the United States, thus the breaking of some of the important peace terms of the Treaty of Versailles. The greatest evidence that the objectives were only short lived was the fact that, two decades later, World War II emerged.
Wilson's Fourteen Points was a big cause and objective for the U.S. to enter the war. It called for, among other things, disarmament, self determination, and, most importantly, the League of Nations. Disarmament worked for several years, as the defeated nations of World War I, mostly Germany, sank deeper into dispair.
United States
United States
The League of Nations: A Pictorial Summary, Geneva...However, with this German misfortune rose Adolf Hitler, who looked promising to the dispaired German people. So he rose a powerful army, which was against disarmament, however, an American-less League of Nations had no power to stop him. The League also sat idol when Mussolini invaded Ethopia in his quest for victory. Self determination was also difficult to enforce, for the victorious nations of World War I were reluctant to give up the land that they captured during the war, or land they obtained by secret treaties. The League of Nations, created as to keep world peace, was powerless and could do nothing without the United States' help. Freedom of the seas was also briefly held, until World War II.
Wilson arrv'g. in Wash'n. (LOC)
President Woodrow Wilson asking Congress to declar...
The final resting place of Woodrow Wilson at the W...
US Objectives and the First World War
The United States achieved its most important objective in World War I, which was the defeat of Germany and her allies. Had the US not entered the war, it would have lasted much longer and might even have resulted in a German victory. Germany gave up because it realized that with the vast resources of the US fully committed to the war, victory was hopeless. America's vengeful European allies were largely responsible for the war's tragic aftermath, which laid the foundation for an even more bloody war a generation later.
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