Theodore Roosevelt asked President Woodrow Wilson for the power to develop and lead a division of volunteers to join the Allies during World War I. Roosevelt had first organized a cavalry of Rough Riders in 1898, to join the Spanish-American War. By 1914, Roosevelt was out of touch with the modern, mechanized war unfolding in Europe. Even so, just after the U.S. WWI, Congress gave Roosevelt the authority to raise up to four divisions of volunteers, similar to the Rough Riders.