When America joined WWI and became a global power

By Carlos Hamann
via MSN

When America entered WWI, a century ago, its industrial might and vast manpower tipped the balance of the conflict and marked its own emergence as a global power. (AFP photo)When America entered World War I, a century ago this week, the European powers were bogged down in a grinding trench war that had killed millions and ravaged the European continent.

Swinging its industrial might and vast manpower behind France and Britain against Germany and its allies on April 6, 1917, the United States tipped the balance of the conflict and marked its own emergence as a global power.

"World War I was clearly the turning point for developing a new global role for the United States, ushering in a century of international engagement to promote democracy," said Jennifer Keene, a World War I expert at Chapman University in California.

Americans had been keenly following the war ever since it broke out in August 1914, showing broad support for neutrality.

But public opinion changed with the May 1915 sinking of the Lusitania.

The British ocean liner was en route from New York to Liverpool when a German submarine torpedoed it off the coast of Ireland, killing 1,201 passengers, including 128 Americans.

"It seems inconceivable that we should refrain from taking action on this manner, for we owe it not only to humanity but to our own national self-respect," former president Teddy Roosevelt, an influential pro-allied hawk, told the New York Tribune at the time.

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