In the summer of 1914, war broke out between the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary against the Allied Countries of Britain, France and Russia. At the start of the war, President Woodrow Wilson declared that the United States would remain neutral. Over the next three years, that neutrality would be strongly debated as events such as submarine warfare in the Atlantic and Germany’s sinking of the British ocean liner Lusitania on May 7, 1915 killed more than 120 U.S. citizens, pushing the United States closer to entering the war.
With additional Germany attacks on U.S. shipping and Germany meddling in U.S.-Mexican relations, the United States finally declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917. Within a few months, thousands of U.S. men were being drafted into the military and more than a million troops were sent to Europe to encounter a war unlike any before and the swift rise of military technology. Crucial to the Allied cause was the introduction of the American industry that would ultimately provide almost two-thirds of all Allied military equipment, including 297,000 aircraft, 193,000 artillery pieces, 86,000 tanks and 2 million army trucks. This would result in the American industrial production doubling in size.
While the troops returning home would receive many military awards for
