In January 1917, the United States had spent nearly three years watching Europe tear itself apart and most Americans were fine with that. President Woodrow Wilson had just won reelection on the quiet promise that he had kept the country out of the war. The public largely backed him. Crossing the Atlantic to die in someone else's trenches was not something ordinary Americans were eager to sign up for. German-American and Irish-American communities, neither group particularly warm toward Britain, made their feelings heard. Neutrality was not just government policy it was genuinely popular, almost settled. Then a single intercepted telegram arrived on the right desk, and everything changed.
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