United States

Arming for war

Meanwhile, the increasingly perilous state of relations with Germany had prompted Wilson, in December 1915, to call for a considerable expansion in the country’s armed forces. A violent controversy over preparedness ensued, both in Congress and in the country at large. The army legislation of 1916 was a compromise, with Wilson obtaining only a modest increase in the army and a strengthening of the National Guard, but the Naval Appropriations Act of 1916 provided for more ships than the administration had requested.