Editing Preparedness Movement (section)

===Compromise reached===
Congress reached a compromise in May 1916. The army was to double in size to 11,300 officers and 208,000 men, with no reserves, and a National Guard that would be enlarged in five years to 440,000 men. Summer camps on the Plattsburgh model were authorized for new officers, and the government was given $20 million to build a nitrate plant of its own. Preparedness supporters were downcast, the antiwar people were jubilant. The United States would now be too weak to go to war.<ref>Link, 1954 pp. 187–188.</ref> Colonel Robert L. Bullard privately complained: "Both sides [Britain and Germany] treat us with scorn and contempt; our fool, smug conceit of superiority has been exploded in our faces and deservedly."<ref>{{cite book|author=Allan Reed Millett|title=The General: Robert L. Bullard and Officership in the United States Army, 1881–1925|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F97eAAAAMAAJ|year=1975|publisher=Greenwood Press|isbn=978-0-8371-7957-5}}</ref> The House gutted the naval plans as well, defeating a "big navy" plan by 189 to 183, and scuttling the battleships. The [[Battle of Jutland]] (May 31/June 1, 1916) saw the German fleet nearly sunk by the stronger British fleet. Only brilliant seamanship and luck allowed it to escape. Arguing this battle proved the validity of Mahanian doctrine, the navalists took control in the Senate, broke the House coalition, and authorized a rapid three-year buildup of all classes of warships. A new weapons system, naval aviation, received $3.5 million, and the government was authorized to build its own armor-plate factory. The notion that armaments led to war was turned on its head: refusal to arm in 1916 led Berlin to make war on the U.S. in 1917. The very weakness of U.S. military power encouraged Berlin to start its unrestricted submarine attacks in 1917. It knew this meant war with the United States, but it could discount the immediate risk because the U.S. Army was negligible and the new warships would not be at sea until 1919 by which time the war would be over, with Germany victorious.<ref>Dirk Steffen, "The Holtzendorff Memorandum of 22 December 1916 and Germany's Declaration of Unrestricted U-boat Warfare." ''Journal of Military History'' 68.1 (2004): 215–224. [https://muse.jhu.edu/article/50680/summary excerpt]</ref><ref>See  [http://www.gwpda.org/naval/holtzendorffmemo.htm The Holtzendorff Memo (English translation) with notes]</ref>