World War I

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World War I

• Chapter 30

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Stagnation in Europe

• The war in Europe had quickly ground into a
  stagnant mass slaughter on both sides.
• Trenches
• Stagnant lines.
• Casualties on both sides were extraordinarily
  high. Reasons.
• By early 1917 both sides were running out of
  steam.
• Germans couldnt go on much longer simply
  throwing new bodies into the war.
• Britain was highly dependent on foreign shipping
  for keeping its war effort going.
• Germany needed to end the war soon or lose.

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WWI Western Front Trench Line
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Unlimited Sub Warfare

• Peace without Victory address.
• Germanys response
• January 1917 Germans announce unlimited sub
  warfare
• Is a repeal of the Sussex Pledge.
• What is the German gamble?
• What about the state of the US military seemed to
  justify this gamble?
• Wilson breaks off diplomatic relations, but
  refuses to enter the war absent some overt act of
  aggression against US.
• What happens when he tries to arm merchant ships
  for self-defense?

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Wilson Asks for War

• March, 1917, Zimmerman Note is publicized.
• What is it?
• Germanys overt act.
• Revolution overthrows Czar in Russia and Russia
  withdraws from war. Consequences?
• Now all Allies democracies
• Allies are in even more desperate straits.
• April, 1917 Wilson asks congress for a
  declaration of war.

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Wilsonian Idealism Enthroned

• Isolationism ran deeply in the American psyche.
• Washingtons farewell address
• While most favored the Allies, the fever to go to
  war was relatively mild.
• How does Wilson sell the war to the public? What
  is the objective of the war?
• Goes over the head of Congress.

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Wilsons 14 Points

• Wilson articulates the moral basis for the war in
  a speech setting out 14 points that should be in
  any peace agreement.
• Fourteen points include
• Abolish secret treaties
• No territorial gains return to pre-war borders
• freedom of the seas
• removal of economic barriers among nations
• Arms reduction
• adjustment of colonial claims in the interest of
  both natives and colonizers
• self-determination for minority groups such as
  Poles
• international organization to provide for
  collective security and dispute resolution.

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Creel Manipulates Minds

• Committee on Public Information. Purpose?
• George Creel.
• Creel is very successful.
• Super-Patriotism.
• Dehumanizing the enemy
• Problem Wilson and Creel convince the country
  that the war will create a new international
  utopia.

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Enforcing Loyalty

• Anti-German hysteria and discrimination.
• Liberty Cabbage, e.g.
• Espionage Act of 1917 and Sedition Act of 1918
• Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or Wobblies)
• Witch-hunt against communism and socialism.

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The Nations Factories Go To War

• Country unprepared when war started.
• Army ranked 15th in the world in size.
• Up-hill battle to mobilize the economy onto a war
  footing
• Wilson strategy for mobilizing the economy.
• Why doesnt it work well?
• Government never had a very effective central
  control over war production.

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Labor

• Would it cooperate by not going out on strike?
• Mostly, Feds were able to keep labor in line with
  a combination of strategies.
• Work or fight rule.
• National War Labor Board
• Samuel Gompers
• Effect on membership in mainstream labor

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Strikers get Squashed

• Smaller and more radical organizations,
  especially the Wobblies (IWW), organized strikes
  and industrial sabotage. These groups were
  harassed unmercifully.
• 1919 largest strike in American history hits the
  Steel industry.
• Industry reacted mercilessly to strikers demands
  that union be recognized and that they be allowed
  collective bargaining.
• Strike collapses after black strike-breakers
  brought in.

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Black Migration

• War was beginning of a mass migration of blacks
  from the south to the industrial north.
• Reasons
• Reception in the north.
• Migration continues after the war.
• Beginning of the large black populations in
  industrial northern cities.

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Women Go to Work

• Women also entered the workforce
• Helped convince Wilson to support the 19th
  Amendment, giving women the vote ratified in
  1920.
• Most women gave up their jobs after the war.
• Boost to womens activism

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Hoover Sets the Table

• Volunteerism vs. enforced restrictions.
• Food production and availability was a key issue
• Herbert Hoover chosen to lead Food
  Administration.
• Hoovers approach.
• victory gardens.

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Hoover, Cont.

• Congress restricted use of crops for making
  alcohol
• Helped advance the cause of prohibition.
• Many brewers were of German extraction and were
  subject to war-prejudices.
• 18th Amendment prohibiting the sale of alcohol
  passed in 1919 and began prohibition.
• Hoovers voluntary approach worked. Farm
  production increased by a quarter and food
  exports to the allies tripled.

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Appeal to Conserve Food
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Bond Drives

• Hoovers methods were emulated in other agencies
• Great bond drives.
• Went overboard those who refused to purchase
  bonds were branded unpatriotic
• Intimidation and threats.
• Kansas Mennonites

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Making Plowboys Into Doughboys

• At the beginning, most Americans assumed that US
  contribution to war would be naval
• Allies made it clear that they were running out
  of men to throw into the war.
• The war had been extraordinarily bloody.
• Allies need America to supply fresh troops.

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Draft

• Many volunteered for war, but not enough.
• conscription.
• Some in congress predicted that a draft would
  cause riots.
• Compared by some to Slave labor.
• Had not been a draft in US since the Civil War.
• Legislation starting draft was passed six weeks
  after war declared.
• Terms
• Workers in key industries exempted.

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Doughboys

• Within a few months, army grows to over 4 Mill.
• How to get these guys ready to fight?
• Training timetable had to be accelerated.
• Nearly a year after US declared war before US
  troops in any force could fight in Europe.

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Fighting In France

• The need to hurry US troops into action was
  magnified by events in Russia.
• With Russian out of war, Germany able the send
  battle-tested troops from the Eastern front to
  the Western front.
• Germany suddenly has a dangerous manpower
  advantage in that theater.
• America is having shipping problems and is taking
  a long time to get army together and trained.
• American soldiers began to trickle into France in
  1918, but were not a separate army.
• Were used to reinforce the Allied armies on a
  unit by unit basis. America is not a separate
  fighting force.

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America Helps Hammer The Hun

• Spring 1918 the Germans unleash a massive
  offensive that rolled the Allies back with
  frightening momentum.
• May 1918 Germans within 40 miles of Paris
• US troops see their first real action as an
  independent unit at Chateau-Thierry.
• Americans brought a fresh spirit of optimism
• July 1918 Allies begin to role back Germans.
• Black Jack Pershing.
• Muess-Argonne offensive, involving 1.2 Mill. US
  troops.
• 10 US casualties.
• Germany getting worn down. Reverses on the
  battle field, and British blockade is taking its
  toll.

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The Fourteen Points Disarm Germany

• October 1918 Germans turn to Wilson seeking a
  peace based on his fourteen points.
• Wilson says that no negotiations before the
  Kaiser is out of power.
• The Germans promptly send him packing.
• Armistice11/11/1918. America rejoices.

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US Contribution to Victory

• Americas primary contribution.
• The potential numbers US could throw into battle
  made it clear to the Germans that they could not
  win.
• US was forced to rely heavily on European
  equipment
• Battlefield casualties compared

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Losses in World War I
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Wilson Steps Down From Olympus

• At the end of the war Wilson was extraordinarily
  popular both at home and in Europe.
• Moral leader of the world with most powerful
  economy behind him.
• That popularity was not destined to last.
• Impossible to satisfy expectations
• Wilsons mistakes
• Biggest and most fatal mistake was mid-term
  election
• Republicans upset by his delegation to peace
  negotiations. Why?

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An Idealist Battles The Imperialists

• People of Europe welcome Wilson with thundering
  acclaim
• Leaders of the Allied countries were wary. Why?
• Peace conference was dominated by the Big Four,
  leaders of US, France, England and Italy. Wilson
  in the drivers seat.

The Big Four
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Wilsons Goal

• Europe was a mess.
• Wilsons ultimate goal was League of Nations
• First priority to keep the winners from dividing
  up the colonies of the beaten countries.
• Wilson had to compromise.
• What did the treaty say regarding Colonies?

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Republicans Carve up the Treaty

• Henry Cabot Lodge and other isolationist
  Republicans raise objections to the LON treaty
  and insisted on modifications.
• Enough Senators said would not pass without the
  changes to defeat the treaty.
• What were their complaints?

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Treaty That Bred A New War

• Wilson forced into a series of compromises
• Treaty presented to Germans in June, 1919. They
  cried foul.
• Why?
• Planted seeds of resentment.
• Wilson was forced to compromise many of his
  ideals
• Wilsons popularity is tarnished
• Treaty did, though, liberate a number of people.
  
• Treaty was better to the Germans and to citizens
  in colonies because he was there.

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New Nations
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The Domestic Parade Of Prejudice

• Wilson returned to political storm.
• Isolationists hated the LON.
• Rabid anti-Germans
• Liberals.
• Recent immigrants from Axis countries
• Irish

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Wilsons Tour And Collapse

• Majority of Americans favored the treaty and
  senate Republicans had no real hope of defeating
  it.
• What is Republican strategy? Is it successful?
• Delay causing Americans to become increasingly
  apathetic and confused
• Wilson decided to go over the heads of congress
  to the people.
• Went on a barnstorming speaking tour.
• Collapses and suffers a stroke. One side
  paralyzed.
• With Wilson incapacitated, Republicans in
  congress have control of the debate.

Wilson on his whirl-wind tour tosell the nation
on a League of Nations
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Wilson Rejects The Lodge Reservations

• Senator Lodge able to tack on 14 reservations so
  that LON would not bind the US to act.
• Wilson, who hated Lodge, flatly rejected the
  reservations.
• What does Wilson order Democrats to do? Why?
  What is the result?

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Defeat Through Deadlock

• Public pressure forced another vote.
• 4/5 of senators favored the treaty in some form,
  but the necessary 2/3 majority could not agree on
  a version of it.
• In 1920 comes up again for a vote with the Lodge
  amendments tacked on again.
• What does Wilson do? What happens to the treaty?

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Election of 1920

• Wilsons plan make the election of 1920 a
  referendum on the League
• Who controls the Republican party?
• Republicans nominate Warren Harding from Ohio
  second-rate candidate. Calvin Coolidge from
  Mass. the VP nominee.
• Dems nominate Ohio Gov. James Cox and Franklin
  Roosevelt is his VP nominee.

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Election of 1920

• Dem platform Strongly in favor of the treaty.
• Harding statements on treaty.
• Republicans win overwhelmingly. Big business,
  laize faire Republicans back in power.
• Women voting for the first time.
• Debs gets nearly a million votes despite being in
  prison.

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Consequences of US Rejection of LON

• LON left without the vital American international
  support
• America retreated behind isolationism and let
  Europe find its own way.
• France feels compelled to rearm, so Germany does,
  too. Without America, the LON was toothless.