Millions of naturalized[1] U.S. citizens follow the war closely because they still had ties to the nations from which they had emigrated[2].  For example, many Americans of German descent sympathized with Germany.  Americans of Irish descent remembered the centuries of British oppression in Ireland and saw the war as a chance for Ireland to gain its independence.  Socialists criticize the war as an imperialistic struggle between German and English businessmen to control raw materials and markets in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.  Pacifists[3] believed that the war was evil and that the United States should set an example of peace to the world.  Many Americans simply did not want their sons to experience the horrors of warfare.

Despite the widespread opposition to the war, a general feeling of sympathy for Great Britain and France emerged.  Many Americans felt close to England because of a common ancestry, language, and literature, as well as similar democratic institutions and legal systems.  More important, America’s economic ties with the Allies were far stronger than those with the Central Powers.  Before the war began, America traded with Great Britain and France more than twice as much as it did with Germany.  During the first two years of the war, America’s transatlantic trade became even more lopsided[4] as the Allies flooded American manufacturers with orders for all sorts of foodstuffs and war supplies.  Unrestricted submarine warfare against Allied shipping put this trade, and sometimes American passengers and seamen, in peril.