Chapter 30

The War to End War

1917-1918

US and War

• Unrestricted submarine warfare

• Zimmermann Telegram March 1, 1917

• 4 US merchant ships sunk- March 1917

• Russian Revolution= all democracies

• “entangling alliances,” money made as a neutral country

• “The world must be made safe for democracy”- war declared April 6, 1917

Fourteen Points• January 8, 1918: Wilson delivered 14

Points Address postwar plan, based on progressivism, just peace for all– Abolish secret treaties– freedom of the seas– remove economic barriers for all nations– reduce armaments– adjust colonial claims to be fair to natives too– self determination– international peace keeping organization

Propaganda

• Committee on Public Information aka Creel Committee

• 150,000 workers, 75,000 “4 minute men”

• Posters, pamphlets, booklets, music, movies= anti-German rhetoric

• Promoted mobilization and war effort cooperation

Anti-German PropagandaThe government relied extensively on emotional appeals and hate propaganda to rally support for the First World War, which most Americans regarded as a distant “European” affair. This poster used gendered imagery to evoke the brutal German violation of Belgian neutrality in August 1914.

Patriotic PersuasionWorried about the public’s enthusiasm for the war, the government employed all the arts of psychology and propaganda to sustain the martial spirit. The prewar song “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier” was changed to “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Slacker,” which in turn inspired the cruel parody “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Sausage.”

Liberty hound

Restriction of Civil Rights• 8 million German-Americans= fear of

spies• Cultural holdovers disallowed• Espionage Act 1917 ($10,000 fine and 20

years in prison)• Sedition Act 1918- “subversive activity”• 1,900 prosecuted including Eugene V.

Debs• 1st amendment? Schenck vs. US 1919

upheld restrictions= “clear and present danger”

Labor in WWI

• “Labor will win the war”

• The National War Labor Board with Taft

• AFL and Gompers= “no strike pledge” because of government’s concessions

• Membership= 2x at end of war, 20% pay increase but inflation= higher prices

• Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or Wobblies)

Labor in WWI

• The Great Steel Strike of 1919 racial violence

• East St. Louis Riot 1917

• Chicago Race Riot 1919

Suffrage

• Women= take over men’s jobs• National Woman’s Party (Alice Paul-

pacifists)• National American Woman’s Suffrage

Association• Wilson endorsed suffrage amendment but

met by resistance in Senate women’s movement

• 19th amendment ratified August 1920

War Economy

• Food Administration headed by Herbert Hoover

• Voluntary compliance, propaganda (Hooverizing) Wheatless Wednesdays, Meatless Tuesdays, Victory Gardens

• 18th amendment passed 1919 (prohibition)• Liberty Loans bought through propaganda

and parades= $21 billion• Rest of money achieved through taxes

Mobilization

• Original plan= US navy, but by April 1917 needed US troops

• Conscription bill• 337,000 draft dodgers, 4,000

conscientious objectors• 4 million person army within 4 months,

women and blacks allowed to serve• Poor training for doughboys before

shipping out

America in the War

• Germans moved toward Paris • Ferdinand Foch• May 1918: US soldiers arrive to reinforce• Battle of Chateau Thierry, Second Battle

of the Marne• US General John Pershing• Battle of St. Mihiel• Muese-Argonne- September 26-November

11, 1918

Major U.S. Operations in France, 1918One doughboy recorded in his diary his baptism of fire at St. Mihiel: “Hiked through dark woods. No lights allowed, guided by holding on the pack of the man ahead. Stumbled through underbrush for about half mile into an open field where we waited in soaking rain until about 10:00 P.M. We then started on our hike to the St. Mihiel front, arriving on the crest of a hill at 1:00 A.M. I saw a sight which I shall never forget. It was the zero hour and in one instant the entire front as far as the eye could reach in either direction was a sheet of flame, while the heavy artillery made the earth quake.”

Gassed, by John Singer SargentThe noted artist captures the horror of trench warfare in World War I. The enemy was

often distant and unseen, and death came impersonally from gas or artillery fire. American troops, entering the line only in the war’s final days, were only briefly exposed

to this kind of brutal fighting.

Armistice

• Kaiser forced to abdicate

• Armistice Day- November 11, 1918

• US contributions

Approximate Comparative Losses in World War I

German “Repentance,” 1918 A prophetic reflection of the view that the failure to smash Germany completely would

lead to another world war.

Paris Peace Conference

• Big Four met in Paris- threat of communism

• Wilson wanted to focus on Fourteen Points- League of Nations

• Colonies? mandates of L of N

• Make-up of League: Assembly, Council, World Court, Secretariat

Wilson in Dover, England, 1919

Lloyd George, Orlando, Clemenceau, and Wilson

Opposition at Home

• Irreconcilables- Henry Cabot Lodge, William Borah, Hiram Johnson– Violates Monroe Doctrine, Constitution!– Wanted isolationism

• Wilson needed to compromise to get Treaty passed– France wanted Saar Valley and Rhineland– Japan wanted Shandong and German islands

• Security Treaty with France

Treaty of Versailles

• Germany angry- didn’t follow Fourteen Points!

• Would be the rallying cry for Hitler• Wilson felt League would fix inequalities• Senator Lodge against Article X in League-

14 reservations (amendments)• Wilson urged Democrats to vote treaty

down (with amendments) November 1919• Public shocked, voted on 2nd time March

1920- denied

Election of 1920• Wilson wanted 1920 election to be a

referendum on the Treaty of Versailles• Republicans: Warren G. Harding (smoke

filled room) and Calvin Coolidge as VP– Platform: ambiguous toward League of

Nations, “front porch campaign”– Wanted a “return to normalcy”

• Democrats: James M. Cox and FDR as VP– Platform: strong support for League of Nations

• 404 EV for Harding, 127 for Cox= death to League of Nations

WWI part II?

• End of WWI set in motion WWII

• US didn’t join League (suppose to be a major component) isolationism

• Senate didn’t ratify Security Treaty with France (began rearming)

• Massive $ for reparations= depression!

• Stripped Germany of land (Hitler’s lebensraum)