Teddy win's in 1912

I will have to apologize up front, but Mikestone8 of England pretty much demolishes the two central conceits of this scenario most times it is brought up on AH.com, and was occasionally assisted in this by the late, great David T aka David Tenner. The two hurdles being (a) getting Republican unity behind TR and holding that to majority levels despite bitter divisions of policy and principle as well as personality, in a addition to rising Democratic support (b) the constitutional/political inability of even a somehow elected TR to bring the US into the war through force of will or oratory before public and and the Congress think it is necessary due to a pattern of hostile German actions and American losses; and no the Lusitania is a woefully inadequate casus belli, despite its infamy, it could in no way be the proverbial last straw leading to an American DoW on Germany; in reality, it was more like the ‘first straw’ causing some to question the pro neutrality national consensus and make war against Germany *thinkable*.

Not a problem and don't sweat it.

This scenario is a tempting and recurring one that people bring up all the time for a couple reasons, because (a) it really would be interesting to see the impact of the US going into WWI in 1915*, and (b) Theodore Roosevelt was such a colorful character in personal speech and demeanor. It is simply one of those tempting, oddly attractive AH scenarios that end up overdone, regardless of its unlikelihood or probable unimpressiveness of results, like an Axis Nationalist China^TM, or expansion of French colonialism through the use of the Huguenot^TM minority and them alone, never mind the 85 or 90% of countrymen who were Catholic, or Christianizing the Near, Middle, or Far East, but through Nestorianism^TM instead of one of the churches more popular in the west.


*I think it could be *possible* for America to be brought into WWI in 1915 and make it even plausible, if the author simply does the hard work of changing German provocative behaviors, and possibly capabilities, or pre-war behaviors and action to provoke the United States under any average President, Wilson or otherwise. This could include an earlier, continuing, more devastating, nonstop submarine campaign against all neutral ships that continually sinks American ships in rapid succession- the Germans would probably require greater numbers of more capable subs to do this. Alternatively, if German sabotage attacks against American munitions or supply production for the Entente are conducted in a manner that both causes high American casualties and soon becomes traceable to the German government. The Black Tom explosion of 1916 skirted close to this. It was pretty large scale industrial explosion and inflicted large scale casualties. It could have killed more, and could have damaged the Statue of Liberty but did not. It did not lead to a US declaration of war in 1916 because the US government did not clearly link the cause to German saboteurs instead of the competing theory of a random industrial accident with no foul play until after the US had already declared war for other, unrelated, reasons.

The discussions in the post above shows that is is not that clear of a case what you think might happen.

As raharris1973 made in a good post:

First, Teddy needs Republican unity behind and hold that to majority levels despite bitter divisions of policy and principle as well as personality.

Secondly, even if Teddy gets president, there still needs a Casus belli, i think that is what it is called to get the United States into the war, and even if the United States goes to war, it will take like OTL almost a year before the United States Army, i think can do some useful stuff on the Western Front.

A year earlier could help. It might have derailed the Bolsheviks.  Don't like the predicted 500,000 -650,000 dead, because I still expect the bad generalship from the American army, despite Teddy trying to slot in better generals, based on his historical sloppy handling of the Filipino-American War.