Chapter 27

The Global Crisis, The Road

toWar:

1921-1941

Issues: US Between the Wars• How did the US see its

role in the world in the 1920s?

• How did the US react as Europe moved in 1930s toward war? [WWII]?

America during 20s and 30s: Deep, Abiding Isolationism

1. Disillusionment of World War I2. U.S. avoids international commitments that might lead to involvement in another war.

3. Never again, Americans wanted to believe, would the United States send an army to Europe.

US Mission in 1920s

• 1920s: U.S. diplomats sought to ensure world peace in two ways:

1. Disarmament [Not collective security-League of Nations]

2. Multi-national agreements

• Sec. of State: Charles Evans Hughes

Washington Naval Conference [1921-22]

• Washington Naval Conference: military conference led by Sec. Hughes and held in Washington, D.C. from Nov. 1921 to Feb. 1922.

• Conducted outside the auspices of the League of Nations, it was attended by nine nations.

• It was the first major inter-national conference held in the US.

Effects of Naval Conference• The Washington

Naval Treaty led to an end to building new battleship fleets.

• Numbers of existing war ships were destroyed.

• Some ships under construction were turned into aircraft carriers instead.

US and German War Reparations

• Germany unable to pay $32 billion reparations

• 1924 Dawes Plan created payment plan with private U.S. loans

• 1929 Young Plan reduced reparations to $9 billion payable over 59 years

Kellogg-Briand Pact [1928]

• General Treaty for the Renunciation of War.

• Outlaw war as an "instrument of national policy"

• “International kiss“ how to enforce?

• Signed Aug. 27, 1928, by 14 nations, eventually by 64 nations including Germany and Japan

Great Depression radicalized the politics of Germany and Japan in the 1930s

1930s: War Clouds Rise in Europe

The Ineffectiveness of the League of Nations

The Ineffectiveness of the League of Nations

y No control of major conflicts.y No progress in disarmament.y No effective military force.

Axis Powers of World War II

• European Axis Powers• Fascist Italy:

1922-1943• Nazi Germany:

1933-1945

•Militaristic Japan

Fascist Italy

• Benito Mussolini [1883-1945] governed Italy as its Fascist dictator from 1922-1943. He was executed by Italians in 1945.

Nazi Germany• Adolph Hitler [1889-

1945] ruled Germany from 1933, when he came to power through the political process of Weimar Germany, until he committed suicide in April 1945 in his Berlin bunker.

The Road to War

• 1931: Japan Invades Manchuria

• Neutrality Act of 1935 • Imposed a general

embargo on trading in arms and war materials with all parties in a war.

• It also declared that American citizens traveling on warring ships traveled at their own risk.

The Road to War

• 1935 Fascist Italy invades Ethiopia [Haile Selassie]

• Neutrality Act of 1935 • Imposed a general

embargo on trading in arms and war materials with all parties in a war.

• It also declared that American citizens traveling on warring ships traveled at their own risk.

Germany Occupies the RhinelandMarch 1936

Rome-Berlin Axis, 1936Rome-Berlin Axis, 1936

The “Pact of Steel”

Neutrality Act of 1936

• The Neutrality Act of 1936 renewed the provisions of the 1935 act for another 14 months.

• It also forbade all loans or credits to belligerents.

The Spanish Civil War: 1936 - 1939

The Spanish Civil War: 1936 - 1939

Francisco Franco

The Spanish Civil War: 1936 - 1939

The Spanish Civil War: 1936 - 1939

The American “Lincoln Brigade”

“Guernica” by Pablo Picasso

“Guernica” by Pablo Picasso

Neutrality Act of 1937

• The Neutrality Act of 1937, included the provisions of the earlier acts and extended them to cover civil wars as well.

• U.S. ships were prohibited from transporting any passengers or articles to belligerents

• U.S. citizens were forbidden from traveling on ships of belligerent nations.

Japan

• Hirohito ( 裕仁 ), also known as Emperor Shōwa ( 昭和天皇 ), (29 April 1901 – 7 January 1989) was the 124th Emperor of Japan according to the traditional order, reigning from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989.

The Japanese Invasionof China, 1937

The Japanese Invasionof China, 1937

Japan v China [1937]

• Roosevelt gave his Quarantine Speech in October 1937, a move away from neutrality and towards "quarantining" all aggressors.

• Japan invaded China in July 1937, starting the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945).

The Austrian Anschluss, 1938The Austrian Anschluss, 1938

The “Problem” of the Sudetenland

The “Problem” of the Sudetenland

Appeasement: The Munich Agreement, 1938Appeasement: The Munich Agreement, 1938

Now we have “peace in our time!” Herr Hitler is a man we can do business

with.

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain

Czechoslovakia Becomes Part of the Third Reich: 1939

Czechoslovakia Becomes Part of the Third Reich: 1939

The Nazi-SovietNon-Aggression Pact, 1939

The Nazi-SovietNon-Aggression Pact, 1939

Foreign Ministers von Ribbentrop & Molotov

Nazi-Soviet Pact

• Stalin and Hitler agreed to dividePoland and to carve Europe into spheres of influence.

• The Second World War began only days later.