There were few efforts by any of the Central or Allied Powers to achieve a negotiated peace in the first two years of the war. By 1916 the most promising signs for peace seemed to exist only in the intentions of two statesmen in power—the German chancellor Bethmann and the U.S. president Woodrow Wilson. Wilson, having proclaimed the neutrality of the United States in August 1914, strove for the next two years to maintain it. (See the video.) Early in 1916 he sent his confidant, Colonel Edward M. House, to sound London and Paris about the possibility of U.S. mediation ...(100 of 31671 words)