EQ: What was the most important cause of why the USA entered WWI?
U.S. President Wilson's speech to Congress addressing German sinking of ships.
The course of WWI would have gone much differently had Russia stayed in, or the U.S. stayed out, and each country had their own reasons of why they did what they did. Now, there were many reasons why the U.S. entered the war, with wanting to support their allies, the Zimmerman Telegram, and the sinking of America ships, but the sinking of the ships is by far the most important reason why. "The United States
claimed the Lusitania
carried an innocent cargo,
and therefore the torpedoing was a monstrous German atrocity. Actually, the Lusitania was heavily armed: it carried 1,248 cases of artillery shells, 4,927 boxes of rifle bullets and 2,000 more cases of other ammunition. The British and American governments lied about the cargo." (Howard Zinn) As Zinn says, the Americans claimed it to be innocent, but the German's couldn't take any chances, so they sunk it. A lot of American passengers were on it too, so this gave the U.S. another reason to be mad. Along with the German's destroying a "innocent" ship, they killed innocent civilians. So, this shows that when it comes to war, a country will do anything to help another, or to win.