Roads to War

Internationally, competition intensified among the great powers and drove Western nationalists to become more aggressive. In the spring of 1914, U.S. president Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) sent his trusted adviser Colonel Edward House to Europe to observe the rising tensions there. “It is militarism run stark mad,” House reported, adding that he foresaw an “awful cataclysm” ahead. Government spending on what people called the arms race had promoted economic growth while it menaced the future. As early as the mid-1890s, one socialist had called the situation a “cold war” because the hostile atmosphere made war seem a certainty. By 1914, the air was even more charged, with militant nationalism in the Balkan states and politics—both at home and worldwide—propelling Europeans toward mass destruction.