Preparedness

1
Preparedness

• The Republicans agreed with Wilsons assessment
  that, the U.S. was not prepared to protect
  itself from attack, let alone fight a war.
• The National Security League -

2
Wilson calls for military buildup

• 1915 Wilson calls for the start to a Military
  Complex.
• June, 1916 - Congress votes on National Defense
  Act.
• Regular army is to increase to 175,00
• 50 warships (battleships, cruisers, destroyers
  and submarines.

3
Opposition to War

• Populists, Progressives and Socialist were all
  anti-war isolationists.
• Including, William Jennings Bryan, Jane Addams,
  and Jeannette Rankin.
• Rankin later becomes the first woman elected to
  Congress.
• Woman suffragists actively campaigned against any
  military buildup.
• With declaration of war in 1917 Suffragists
  Change to support.

4
Mobilization

• With much to do in building of military complex,
  Wilson asks for volunteer industries.
• U.S. forces were not ready.
• U.S. ups the amount of food and ammunition that
  is to be sent with other supplies to aid Great
  Britain and France.

5
Volunteer Help in the War Effort

• Bernard Baruch - Wall Street broker, Director of
  the War Industries Board, Raw materials / price
  stabilization.
• Herbert Hoover distinguished engineer, Director
  of Food Administration, encouraged Americans to
  eat less meat and bread. In two years triples
  food shipments to allies.

6
Volunteer War Effort Continued

• Harry Garfield, head of Fuel Administration,
  directing efforts to save coal. Nonessential
  factories were closed.
• William Howard Taft, former president, helped
  arbitrate disputes between workers and employers
  heading the National War Labor Board.
• Theodore Roosevelt, former president, organizes
  medical needs and enlists women and men as nurses
  and doctors in the war effort.

7
Financing the War Effort

• War Bonds called Liberty Bonds
• Borrowing from industry, banks, nations.
• 33 billion was raised in two years by a
  combination of loans and taxes.
• Increase on income tax, corporate tax and excise
  tax (luxury goods).
• Reallocation of current funds.

8
Espionage and Sedition

• 1917 and 1918
• 2000 people prosecuted
• Imprisonment of up to 20 years
• Socialist Eugene Debs
• Schenck v. U.S. Supreme Court upholds Espionage
  Act distributing pamphlets against the draft.
• Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes concluded that the
  right to free speech could be limited when it
  represented a clear and present danger to the
  public safety.

9
Selective Service Act - 1917

• Sec. of War Baker created a democratic method o
  ensuring that all groups in the population would
  be called into service.
• 2.8 million men called by lottery system.

10
German Warfare

• Blitzkrieg warfare lightening war
• Bombing raids on London
• Offensive against France U.S. supports Trenches
  and holds lines with British.
• Bombing raids on Berlin and beyond.

11
Last Major German Advancement

• June, 1918 - At Chateau-Thierry, German forces
  attack on the Marne River.
• U.S. win successful counterattack at Belleau
  Wood.
• August October U.S. troops battle back tired
  German army.

12
U.S. casualties

• 112,432 American Troop Deaths
• 49,000 in early days of battle
• Others
• Exposure
• Disease
• Wounds
• Flu epidemic

13
WWI and Peace

• Jan. 1917 Peace without Victory Wilson
• Jan. 1918 Presents Congress with 14 pts.
• Jan. 1919 Palace of Mirrors Versailles,
  France Outside Paris (mtg. of)
• Big Four
• David Lloyd George Great Britain
• Georges Clemenceau France
• Vittorio Orlando Italy
• Woodrow Willson U.S.

14
Peace Terms

• Based on 14pts. but, with changes
• 1. Germany was disarmed and stripped of its
  colonies in Asia and Africa. It was also forced
  to admit guilt for the war, accept French
  occupation of the Rhineland for 15 years, and pay
  a huge sum of money in reparations to Great
  Britain and France.
• 2. Applying the principles of self-determination,
  territories once controlled by Germany,
  Austria-Hungary, and Russia were taken by the
  Allies, independence was granted to Estonia,
  Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, and Poland, and the
  new nations of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were
  established.
• 3. Signers of the treaty would join an
  international peacekeeping organization, the
  League of Nations. Article X of the covenant
  (charter) of the League called on each member
  nation to stand ready to protect the independence
  and territorial integrity of other nations.