Last updated: August 27, 2026
Article
Theodore Roosevelt and his children in World War I, 1914-1919
Last year in September 2024, the National World War I Memorial opened in Pershing Park located Washington, D.C. For well over 100 years, national, state, and municipal governments funded the construction of memorials throughout the U.S. to recognize citizen service in the armed forces. The District of Colombia lacked a national First World War memorial as a counterpart to the World War II Memorial until 2013-2014 when Congress voted to establish a permanent memorial for American veterans of the First World War to be located in the nation’s capital. A careful examination of the WWI memorial, with its classical-inspired sculptures, reveals a veteran passing down his doughboy helmet to his child, deeply connecting the cause and generations that fought against militarism in both global conflicts.1
This article will attempt to summarize for visitors of Theodore Roosevelt-related NPS sites the history of T.R. and his family as U.S. supporters and military servicepersons during World War I. With this conflict now roughly 110 years ago, its relevance from time to time must be revived in order to recognize the sacrifices the American people made in both World Wars and why they did so. The reasons for the First World War’s beginning and the response of each nation is still greatly debated by intellectuals and historians to this day. The President of the U.S. at the time, Woodrow Wilson, proclaimed in August of 1914 “Every man who really loves America will act and speak in the true spirit of neutrality...” The Roosevelt family disagreed and were highly supportive of the Entente (Allied) Powers in WWI even during America’s legal neutrality.
An estimated 117,000 American military service men lost their lives from 1917-1918 mostly on the European Western front. Their sacrifices wouldn’t have been seen as in vain for most contemporary Americans. Although the United States would not go on to join the League of Nations (the proto-United Nations) nor sign off on the 1919 Paris Treaty ending WWI, within the treaty, article 231 stated that the primary cause of war was German and Austria-Hungary’s aggression. In light of how both nations would act in the late 1930s in the lead up to World War II, it is not unreasonable to suggest that article 231 of the Versailles treaty was at the least pointing out something millions of citizens and subjects in Allied nations would’ve agreed with. This is indeed how Theodore Roosevelt and his children viewed World War I from 1914-1919.
T.R. had just returned in spring of 1914 back to the U.S. from a South American expedition that nearly took his life. He initially began to campaign for the third-party Progressives in the 1914 elections but they did not win.2 When World War I first broke out, Theodore Roosevelt was highly supportive of the Entente Powers. In a letter to Hugo Münsterberg, T.R. wrote “there can be no satisfactory peace until Belgium’s wrongs are redressed…”3 and he identified German U-boats (submarines) sinking ships and patrolling the North Atlantic as “piracy on a vaster scale… than old-time pirates ever practiced.”4 At 2:10 P.M. on May 7, 1915, a German U-boat used a torpedo to sink the R.M.S. Lusitania. Over 1,100 people perished, including 128 Americans. The passenger ocean liner had become a target of German submersibles due to its cargo of war munitions and supplies for the Entente powers.
Theodore Roosevelt told his son Archibald that this was sheer mass-homicide by Germany in the Atlantic and that it might mean war for the U.S.5 Later that summer of 1915, Theodore Roosevelt in a letter to his son Kermit wrote about how his brothers Theodore Jr. and Archibald were in Canada observing military preparations. He told to Kermit “The United States would stand like a unit if we had in the Presidency a man of the stamp of Andrew Jackson.”6 T.R. insisted that a Jacksonian foreign policy was the best response to murder of Americans by Imperial Germany on the high seas. U.S. Jacksonianism in international affairs focuses on a strong national defense and makes sure the top priority of this defense is protecting the interests as well as security of the American people. It especially emphasizes hard military power and presence.
Throughout 1915-1917 although the U.S. was officially neutral, he was ready to go to war with Germany even before the U.S. entered the war in April of 1917. The Anti-Wilsonian, anti-pacifist movement T.R. backed was called the Preparedness movement. T.R. fleshed out his ideas on the Wilson Presidency and WWI in one of his last books from 1917 called The Foes of Our Own Household. In this work, he proposed what is known as Theodore Roosevelt's World War I volunteer Army. Congress approved the proposal but President Wilson declined to act upon it. T.R. wished to raise four divisions to engage in combat on the Western Front and they would be similar to but much larger than his first U.S. Volunteer Cavalry (The Rough Riders) of the 1898 Spanish-American War. Nonetheless, by late 1917, Preparedness camps sprung up across the U.S. T.R. regarded the camps as “a University of American Citizenship... from every camp we hear the eagerness with which the men are doing their duty, of their resourcefulness, and of the real patriotism which is being rapidly learned. All this means not merely good soldiers in war, but good citizens in peace; it means an immense growth in the spirit of Americanism... the sons of the foreign-born learn that they are exactly as good Americans as anyone else... let all good Americans insist that now... we make this state of affairs our permanent national policy of law.”7
Theodore Roosevelt’s view of the necessity of American military action overseas echoed his view of the 1898 Spanish-American War. During that conflict in which he served in two battles, T.R. saw the war as one of liberation for Cubans, Filipinos, and Puerto Ricans against the Spanish Empire but also a war avenging the dead sailors of the U.S.S. Maine, which the U.S. saw as a casus belli.8 T.R. would also view World War I as a war avenging the thousands of civilian dead who were victims of German military aggression in Europe and in the Atlantic.
In mid-1918, when Theodore Roosevelt wrote to his friend Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, he stated Congress should demand “the unconditional surrender of Germany as our war aim.” A month later after the 11 a.m. November 11, 1918 Armistice (ceasefire) took effect on the Western Front in Europe, he explained to his friend Arthur Lee that “We have lived through the most tremendous tragedy in the history of civilization. We should be sternly thankful that the tragedy ended with a grime appropriateness…” T.R. having lost his son Quentin to arial combat serving in the Air Service of the American Expeditionary Force against the Imperial German air force, he blamed the Central powers for “the tragedy… cynical treachery, brutality, and barbarism… [as well as] brute force… [from 1914-1918] I did… think the Kaiser… [an unvalorous] barbarian.”9 These words by T.R. are eerily prescient considering what will take place in Europe during World War II twenty years after his death in 1919.
T.R. would also go on to argue that the 1898 war and World War I were necessary wars for the U.S. to fight, not wars of imperialism. Regarding WWI, he wrote “This is a people’s war. It is not the President’s war any more than it is Congress’s war. It is America’s war. We are honor bound in conducting it to stand by every official who does well and against every official who fails to do well. Any other attitude is a servile attitude. Congress on the whole has done well… [let us] see this war through to a triumphant conclusion”10 T.R. saw the Union in the American Civil War, the 1898 Spanish war, and the ‘Great War’ (WWI) as just conflicts in which the American republic had engaged. Roosevelt argued that a 1918 anti-war “mob in New York in all essentials resembles the anti-draft mob of 1863… of 55 years ago.”11 In T.R.’s view veterans of the Civil War, the Spanish-American war, and WWI should be paid the highest honors and have pride in serving their nation in times of crisis.
The Axis Powers of WWII would become the ideological successors of the Central Powers with many nations remaining in the same camps for both World Wars. It is also worth noting that Theodore Roosevelt’s views on WWI surely influenced his children’s views on the conflict and motivated their service. Days before his death on December 30, 1918, T.R. wrote a letter to his friend Madison Grant. In the letter he discussed how that there are some U.S. Army “divisions [that] exactly represent the melting-pot idea.”12 Even if T.R. disagreed with President Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points peace plan proposal, he still could understand the humanistic and patriotic cohesion war brings to the U.S. by the time of the 1918 ceasefire. This conception that T.R. holds in his mind during the last days before his death on January 6, 1919, illuminate shades of the future President Franklin Roosevelt’s Atlantic Charter of 1941. “Let us support any reasonable plan, whether in the form of a League of Nations or in any other shape [League to Enforce Peace], which bid fair to lessen the probable number of future wars, and to limit their scope.”13 Here, T.R. envisions today what is in effect the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty. By way of its article 5, NATO is able to deter aggression on the European continent, keeping its Member nations armed and lessing future wars as well as (in the recent decade) certainly limiting their scope.
Throughout the last years of the 26th President’s life, Roosevelt continued to be actively involved with domestic and international politics. This is most evident in the services he rendered as a citizen in wartime and his ecouragemeant for service in the armed forces of his children whom were on or close to the frontlines. Their dedication to America in time of crisis was exemplarily both for their civilian contemporaries as well as for Americans today.
Kermit volunteered with the British military to Mesopotamia (Iraq) in 1917.14 While serving at the Middle Eastern front, Kermit learned Arabic, survived German air raids, and met T.E. Lawrence who was leading the 1916 British-backed Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire. Kermit won the British Military cross and took Turkish Army prisoners of war during combat operations. After Kermit met Lawrence, he was deployed to the Western Front in France as an Artillery captain in the American Expeditionary Force (A.E.F.).15 Once he was in the A.E.F. he commanded the 7th Artillery Regiment in the 1st Division. He was active in the Meuse–Argonne offensive at war’s end.
Ethel served as a nurse on the Western Front during World War I and was assigned to a hospital near the fighting. She was the first of the family to serve in a wartime role before all four Roosevelt brothers had served their military tour of duty in France.16 The youngest of the Roosevelt children Ethel served with the American Red Cross along with her husband who was a surgeon. Ethel would subsequently dedicate her life to the organization, serving again in World War II along with her three surviving brothers.
Archibald volunteered for the U.S. Army in 1917, going with the A.E.F. to the Western Front in France. In March of 1918, during the Imperial German army’s last offensive of the war, he was wounded serving on the front in the U.S. 1st Infantry Division.17 During his service he received the U.S. Silver Star and France’s Croix de Guerre. Archibald was wounded in the arm and knee. His brother “Ted Jr. [was also] (blown skyward by the same blast that injured Archie) [and] cabled home to reveal the... severity of his brother’s” wound. Theodore and Edith celebrated their son’s heroics.18
“Quentin was in France [by 1917] and posted as a supply officer at the American flying school…”19 Quentin was enthralled by aviation in the 1910s and joined the U.S. Army Air Service in 1917-1918. He was killed in action in aerial combat over German-occupied France on July 14, 1918. His death devastated his entire family. Theodore Roosevelt wrote in the newspaper Kansas City Star two days after the ceasefire had been signed via an armistice which ended fighting on the Western Front “my son, Quentin, who was killed… [and] all who have given their lives or the lives of their dearest to them in this war stand on an exact level of service and sacrifice and honor and glory. The men who have died... [of disease] in the hospitals, the men who have been killed in accidents... are as much heroes as those who were killed at the front, and their shining souls shall hereafter light up all to a clearer and greater view of the duties of life. The war is over now.”20
The Roosevelt parents felt that their son’s ultimate sacrifice in the war to ‘make the World safe for Democracy’ was no greater or no less than any other servicemember who lost their lives in World War I. “Quentin lived and died his father’s creed of sacrificing service. He died fighting with seven enemy planes… two other sons are among the wounded… lend to the creed of the true American! The boys justify their father’s gospel and career before all the world… He stands for all the fallen upon whom no public glory falls... the Roosevelts serve their country… [and] bound their people in oneness of spirit... Quentin rests in Germany by his people’s orders…”21 Quentin was initially buried in German-occupied land but after it was retaken by Allied armies in 1918, it was made an official memorial. Ted Jr. would go on again to serve in World War II on the Western Front, dying of a heart attack July 12, 1944 shortly after his involvement in D-Day and the Normandy campaign. In 1955 when the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial was established for the U.S. dead of the second World war, Quentin’s remains were exhumed by his family from its original location and reburied to rest next to his brother Ted, Jr. Hazelhurst Field No. 2 or Mitchel Field was an aerodrome and airport in which many WWI American pilots trained. This airfield was renamed Roosevelt Field after Quentin in his honor and is today the site of a consumer shopping mall in Garden City, N.Y.
When the Lusitania sank in May 1915, Ted Jr. and several of his lawyer friends at the Harvard Club signed a telegram to the White House to demand “reparations for past violations by Germany of American rights and secure guarantees against future violations.” Many Americans were strong non-interventionist when this telegram was sent, but like his father, Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was advocating for American steadfast military preparedness. When the British passenger liner had been sunk, General Leonard Wood “Ted, Archie, and Quentin had been preparing for such an opportunity at a summer ‘citizens’ training camp at Plattsburg, New York.”22 This would go on to help train Ted and his brothers for the challenges of modern warfare. By the time the U.S. had entered World War I in April of 1917, the Roosevelt brothers were getting ready or on their way to the frontlines.
Theodore Jr. served as a battalion commander (serving as a lieutenant colonel in the 26th Regiment of the 1st Division of the A.E.F.) on the Western Front in World War I, and he participated in several key engagements such as the Battle of Cantigny. Ted Jr. was wounded twice in 1918. At the Battle of Soissons in July of 1918, Ted Jr. was gassed and wounded and by the end of the war he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.
Note: This collaborative research project was formulated to give students of all levels valuable academic and professional experience while also providing the public with useful essays on historic subjects.
This essay was produced for Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace, as part of St. John's University Accredited Volunteer In Parks Program by Anthony James Field, a St. John’s University Doctoral Student in World History.
Footnotes
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Roosevelt. Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star: War-time Editorials. pp.105-109
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Roosevelt. Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star: War-time Editorials. pp.259
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Jeffers. Theodore Roosevelt Jr.: The Life of a War Hero. p.91,99
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Jeffers. Theodore Roosevelt Jr.: The Life of a War Hero. p.99
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Jeffers. Theodore Roosevelt Jr.: The Life of a War Hero. p.99
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Jeffers. Theodore Roosevelt Jr.: The Life of a War Hero. p.91
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Roosevelt. Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star: War-time Editorials. pp.255-258
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Jeffers. Theodore Roosevelt Jr.: The Life of a War Hero. p.84
Citations
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Jeffers, H. Paul. Theodore Roosevelt Jr.: The Life of a War Hero. Novato, CA: Presidio, 2002.
Kissinger, Henry. Diplomacy. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1994.
Miller, Nathan. Theodore Roosevelt: A Life. First edition. New York: William Morrow and Company. 1992. pp.1-100, 538-566.
Morris, Edmund. Colonel Roosevelt. First edition. New York: Random House. 2010.
Pietrusza, David. TR’s Last War: Theodore Roosevelt, the Great War, and a Journey of Triumph and Tragedy. Guilford: Lyons Press. 2018.
Roosevelt, Theodore. Letters and Speeches. Edited by Auchincloss, Louis. New York: Literary Classics of the United States, Inc. Library of America, 2004.
Roosevelt, Theodore. The Rough Riders; an Autobiography. Edited by Louis Auchincloss. New York: Literary Classics of the United States, Inc. Library of America, 2004.
Roosevelt, Theodore. The Foes of Our Own Household. George H. Doran Co. LCCN 17025965. 1917.
Roosevelt, Theodore. National Strength and International Duty. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1917.
Roosevelt, Theodore. Americanism and Preparedness. New York: The Mail and Express Job Print. 1917.
Roosevelt, Theodore. The Great Adventure: Present-Day Studies in American Nationalism. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1918.
Roosevelt, Theodore. Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star: War-time Editorials. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., Riverside Press Cambridge. 1921.
Roosevelt, Kermit. Quentin Roosevelt: A Sketch with Letters. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1921.
Strachan, Hew. The First World War. New York, London: Penguin Random House publishing co., 2005.