ABSTRACT
From the war's outset, Wilson implored Americans to remain "impartial in thought as well as in deed." While most Americans desperately wanted to avoid hostilities, true neutrality was impossible. Wilson himself was an Anglophile, and America's pro-British tropism was accentuated by the German invasion of Belgium and stories of German atrocities. Then, in February 1915, Germany began unrestricted submarine warfare around the British Isles. In May, the Germans sank the British luxury liner Lusitania; 1,200 persons died, including 128 Americans.
