Chapter 25
Chapter 25: America And The Great War
Chapter Outline
I. Wilson and foreign affairs
- Idealistic diplomacy
- Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan
- God expected America to advance democracy and moral progress
- Mexico
- Gen. Victoriano Huerta established military dictatorship
- Incident at Tampico allowed Wilson to intervene
- The downfall of Huerta
- Mexican bandits
- Carranza's more liberal Mexican government
- Pancho Villa's raids and Pershing
- In Caribbean, American marines helped put down disorders
II. An uneasy neutrality
- The beginning of the war
- Assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand
- The European system of alliances
- Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy)
- Triple Entente (France, Great Britain, Russia)
- Trench warfare
- America's initial reaction
- Wilson urged Americans to be neutral
- Many immigrants for the Central Powers
- Old-line Americans for the Allies
- Role of propaganda
- American neutrality strained
- Financial assistance to Allies
- Freedom of the seas
- Importance of sea power in European war
- British ordered ships carrying German goods via neutral ports to be stopped
- German submarine warfare
- Germans declared a war zone around the British Isles and threatened to sink any ships there
- German sinking of two ships divided the administration on a course of action
- Lusitania sunk; among 1,198 dead were 128 Americans
- America protested through a series of notes
- Unwilling to risk war, Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan resigned (June 1915)
- Arabic pledge
- Mediation efforts
- Sussex pledge
- The debate over preparedness
- Peace advocated in Congress
- Sinking of the Lusitania contributed to demands for a stronger army and navy
- National Security League organized
- Wilson's war preparation plans announced
- Some were against preparedness
- The army strengthened
- The navy strengthened
- Revenue Act of 1916
- Election of 1916
- Republicans nominated Charles Evans Hughes
- Democrats nominated Wilson again
- Wilson campaigned on peace and a progressive platform
- Hughes was ambiguous on foreign policy and behind Wilson on social issues
- Wilson won in close race
- Wilson's last efforts for peace
- Wilson said that America should share in laying the foundations for lasting peace
- Germany announced its new policy of unrestricted submarine warfare
- Wilson broke diplomatic relations with Germany
- Wilson decided to arm U.S. merchant ships
- The Zimmermann telegram
III. America's entry into the war
- Declaration of war
- Reasons for war
- America's early role in the war
- American contributions to Allied naval strategy
- Convoy system
- Mine field across North Sea
- Liberty Loan Act helped finance British and French war efforts
- Token army of under 15,000 men under John J. Pershing sent to France
- Selective Service Act
IV. The home front
- Regulation of industry and the economy
- Lever Food and Fuel Control Act of 1917
- War Industries Board
- Most important of all mobilization agencies
- Under direction of Bernard Baruch, directed almost all of America's economy
- A new labor force
- African Americans
- The "Great Migration"
- Northern race riots
- Women
- Types of war work
- Effects temporary
- Organized labor
- Mobilizing public opinion-the Committee on Public Information
- Headed by George Creel
- "Expression, not repression"
- Civil liberties
- Public opinion, aroused to promote war, turned to "Americanism" and witch-hunting
- Espionage and Sedition Acts
- More than 1,000 convictions
- In Schenck v. United States and Abrams v. United States, Supreme Court upheld acts
V. America in the war
- Until 1918, American troops played only a token role
- The "race for France"
- By November 1918 over two million men in Europe
- Allied victories kept Germans out of France
- Second Battle of the Marne (July 15)
- By November Germany was retreating all along the front
- The Bolsheviks and intervention in Russia
- Wilson's plan for peace
- The Fourteen Points
- Open diplomacy
- Freedom of the seas
- Removal of trade barriers
- Reduction of armaments
- Impartial adjustment of colonial claims
- Evacuation of occupied lands
- National self-determination
- Polish access to the sea
- A League of Nations
- Allies accepted Fourteen Points as basis for peace, but demanded reparations for war damages
- Armistice signed on November 11, 1918
VI. The fight for peace at home and abroad
- Wilson's domestic strength was declining
- The unraveling of his progressive coalition
- Democrats lose in the elections of 1918
- Wilson failed to invite any prominent Republicans to assist in the negotiations
- The negotiations in Paris
- The League of Nations
- For Wilson, the most important point
- Article X pledged members to consult on military and economic sanctions against aggressors
- Organization of the League
- Territory and reparations
- France pushed for several harsh measures against Germany
- Territorial concessions
- Reparations
- Problems with Wilson's principle of national self-determinism
- Methods for resolving issues
- Use of committees of experts
- Use of plebiscites
- The issue of reparations
- France wanted to use demands for reparations to cripple Germany
- Wilson agreed to clause where Germany accepted responsibility for war and thus for its costs
VII. Wilson's fight for the treaty
- Opposition in Senate
- The irreconcilables
- The reservationists
- Henry Cabot Lodge began his attack on the treaty
- Wilson took his case to the American people
- Delivered 40 addresses in 22 days
- Suffered stroke on October 2
- Now he refused to compromise on treaty
- The Senate vote on the Versailles Treaty
- On the treaty with reservations, Wilsonians and irreconcilables combined to defeat ratification
- On the treaty without reservations, reservationists and irreconcilables combined to defeat ratification
- The official end of the war by joint resolution of Congress
VIII. Lurching from war to peace
- The Spanish flu
- Economic transition
- Labor unrest
- In 1919, four million workers on strike
- Strike at U.S. Steel
- Boston Police Strike
- Racial friction
- The "Red Summer" of 1919
- Twenty-five race riots, with many deaths and injuries
- The Red Scare
- Fear of a social revolution (like Russia's)
- Most violence was the work of the lunatic fringe, but many Americans saw it all as "Bolshevism"
- Role of
- Mitchell Palmer, attorney general, in promoting the Red Scare
- The Red Scare began to evaporate by the summer of 1920