United States declaration of war on Austria-Hungary

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On December 7, 1917, the United States declared war on the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This came eight months after the U.S. had declared war on Germany in World War I, and it made the United States officially at war with Austria-Hungary too.

The declaration was House Joint Resolution 169, urged by President Woodrow Wilson. The House voted 365 to 1 in favor, and the Senate voted 74 to 0. Wilson signed the resolution into law the same day.

The resolution stated that a state of war exists between the United States and Austria-Hungary and gave the President authority to use the U.S. armed forces to fight and end the war. Austria-Hungary had broken off diplomatic relations with the United States on December 6, 1917.

In Congress, the vote was mostly unanimous. The lone House opponent was Meyer London, a Socialist from New York, who argued against war but supported the move as a necessary step for the country. Jeannette Rankin, who had opposed the declaration against Germany, voted in favor of this declaration, saying it was a technical step in a war already under way. In the Senate, Robert La Follette did not vote because he had left the chamber to work on an amendment; he later said he would have opposed the resolution as it stood.

Austria-Hungary collapsed in 1918. In 1921, separate peace treaties with Austria and with Hungary’s successor states ended the war, though the United States did not ratify those treaties. The formal state of war between the United States and Austria-Hungary ended with those agreements.