Gilbert pg. 80-98

 The part of the reading that I was kind of confused by was the part about Romania and Bulgaria. I had never really learned anything prior to this about Romania or Bulgaria having a significant effect on the war, so I really had no idea they were even involved to such extent. The book calls the declaration of war against Romania by Bulgaria Germany's "trump card". Why is this such a big deal? I've never even heard of this before. So either the public education system has failed me or I'm just really bad at retaining information. Neither Romania or Bulgaria was obligated to join in the war by treaty or alliance, neither one had anything significant to gain, neither one was big enough to come in as some kind of superpower and end the war. So why did this happen? And why was is it so important?
So I "Googled" it! Yay! And apparently, Bulgarians were still angry about the Balkan wars, as Romania controlled land in the Balkans that was previously Bulgaria's. So when Germany promised to restore their territories, they joined the war. Germany benefited because Romania  was a Russian ally, but I still don't see why it was so important.

102-115 Homework Assignment

Question 9: Was German "unrestricted submarine warfare" an avoidable mistake?
This question was difficulte for me to answer because it is easy to see why it was a mistake, but it was difficult to see an alternative to the decision. Germany had really nothing over the Allies except their U-Boats, and if they let U.S. supply ships through to Britain, they would lose their only edge. So from that standpoint it seems like they had no choice. However, it is obvious that if they started consistently attack U.S. ships, the U.S. would join the war and probably end it. So, I don't really know whether the mistake was avoidable, or if they had indirectly lost before they even reached this point.