The Road To War

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The Road To War
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Americas Foreign Policy 1931 - 1941

• ISOLATIONISM
• The Great Depression
• Americans not wanting a repeat of WWI
• Divided country
• Some favored the ideas of demagogues like Hitler
• Father Coughlin
• Some felt for the victims of aggression.

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America chooses NEUTRALITY

• Neutrality and Isolation
• Hawley-Smoot Tariff isolated America.
• We couldnt buy other countries goods and they
  wouldnt buy ours because of the tariff.

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America Chooses NEUTRALITY

• Neutrality Acts (1935-1937)
• Banned the US from providing weapons to nations
  at war.
• Banned loans to nations at war.
• Trade with countries at war as long as
• Cash and carry
• Non-military items

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What was going on in Europe to make America favor
Isolation?

• Totalitarianism
• Government that exerts TOTAL control over every
  aspect of life in the country.
• Fascism
• Emphasizes the importance of nation or of an
  ethnic group.

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Fascism and Totalitarianism

• Strong dictatorial governments.
• Little respect for individual rights and freedom.

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Hitlers Rise to Power The Nazi Party

• Founded in 1919
• Belief in Hitler
• Belief about German nationalism
• Belief in racial superiority
• 1923, tried and failed to take over German
  government.

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Germany Rearms and Expands

• 1936 Germany took back the Rhineland.
• 1936 Created the AXIS with Italy
• 1938 Annexed Austria
• 1938 Invaded and took over Czechoslovakia

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What did the world do as Hitler did this?

• APPEASEMENT
• Giving in to a competitors demands to keep the
  peace.

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Appeasement

• Britains Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.
• Thought once Hitler had Czechoslovakia Hitler
  would be content
• Peace in Our Time.

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Invasion of Poland

• Poland was next on Hitlers list of countries to
  invade.
• BUT
• France and England had said they would not go
  along with this invasion.
• Stalin was also a problem.

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Hitlers BLITZKRIEG

• Lightning War
• Fast and concentrated land and air war.
• Take enemy by surprise.
• Terrorize civilian populations and troops.

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France

• April 9, 1940 Germany attacks.
• They went round and attacked through Belgium.
• Blitzkrieg!

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Fall of France

• June 10, 1940
• Reaction of the French?
• Collaborators (worked with the Nazis)
• Resistance ( fought the Nazis as guerrillas /
  insurgents)

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Battle of Britain

• August 1940 May 1941
• Luftwaffe attacks day and night.
• 1,000 planes bombed Britain

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Japan Builds an Empire

• US Great Depression affected industry in Japan.
• 1930s rise of nationalism and fascism in Japan.

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1940 Japan finds new allies

• Germany and Italy
• The Axis Powers

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What was America doing in 1940?

• America First Committee
• Blocked any aid to England.
• Strict Isolation
• Charles Lindbergh a leader

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1940 Election

• Roosevelt won.
• Your boys are not going to be sent to any
  foreign war.

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Lend Lease

• November 1940
• If your neighbors house is on fire, you dont
  sell him a hose. You lend it to him and take it
  back after the fire is out.
• FDR
• 49-billion in aid given.

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Japan Attacks Pearl Harbor

• Most American attention was on what was happening
  in Europe.
• That included FDR

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Before the Attack

• Roosevelt did use the Neutrality Acts to keep
  iron, steel and oil from being exported to Japan.
• 1940 froze all Japanese investments in the United
  States.

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America The Sleeping Giant

• America is a sleeping giant. Once awakened, his
  wrath will by mighty.
• Yamamoto

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Why Pearl Harbor?

• Little known port
• Half the fleet would be there in December
• The harbor is only 3 miles square

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Specifics of the Attack

• The Arizona
• Hit by 1,760 lb. Bomb in the forward ammo
  magazine.
• Went down in 9 minutes
• Half the dead of Pearl Harbor

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Pearl Harbor
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December 7, 1941

• By 945 the attack was over.
• 2,400 lives lost
• 1,200 injured
• 200 warplanes destroyed
• 18 warships sunk or heavily damaged
• 8 of the nine battleships of the fleet.

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FDR

• December 7, a day that will live in infamy.
• FDR, Declaration of War speech