746 ★ CHAPTER 19 Safe for Democracy: The United States and WWI
claims with colonized people given “equal weight” in deciding their futures,
and the creation of a “general association of nations” to preserve the peace. Wil-
son envisioned this last provision, which led to the establishment after the war
of the League of Nations, as a kind of global counterpart to the regulatory com-
missions Progressives had created at home to maintain social harmony and
prevent the powerful from exploiting the weak. Although purely an American
program, not endorsed by the other Allies, the Fourteen Points established the
agenda for the peace conference that followed the war.
The United States threw its economic resources and manpower into the
war. When American troops finally arrived in Europe, they turned the tide of
battle. In the spring of 1918, they helped to repulse a German advance near
Paris and by July were participating in a major Allied counteroffensive. In
September, in the Meuse- Argonne campaign, American soldiers under the
command of General John J. Pershing, fresh from his campaigns in Mexico,
helped to push back the German army. With 1.2 million American soldiers
taking part and well over 100,000 dead and wounded, Meuse- Argonne, which
lasted a month and a half, was the main American engagement of the war
and one of the most significant and deadliest battles in American history. It
formed part of a massive Allied offensive involving British, French, and Belgian
soldiers and those from overseas European possessions. With his forces in
full retreat, the German kaiser abdicated on November 9. Two days later, Ger-
many sued for peace. More than 100,000 Americans had died, a substantial
number, but they were only 1 percent of the 10 million soldiers killed in the
Great War.
THE WAR AT HOME
The Progressives’ War
Looking back on American participation in the European conflict, Randolph
Bourne summed up one of its lessons: “War is the health of the state.” Bourne
saw the expansion of government power as a danger, but it struck most Pro-
gressives as a golden opportunity. To them, the war offered the possibility of
reforming American society along scientific lines, instilling a sense of national
unity and self- sacrifice, and expanding social justice. That American power
could now disseminate Progressive values around the globe heightened the
war’s appeal.
Almost without exception, Progressive intellectuals and reformers, joined
by prominent labor leaders and native- born socialists, rallied to Wilson’s sup-
port. The roster included intellectuals like John Dewey, journalists such as