Lecture By: Robert Rennie(Graduate Teaching Assistant: The University of Tennessee)

The U.S. Before The Great War: 1900-1914

United States manufactures 1/3 of world’s goods.

The United States is on the verge of becoming a World Power.

Era of Intervention

Dollar Diplomacy and Moral Imperialism

U.S. as Industrial Power

Roosevelt Corollary

U.S. increasingly involved in international affairs.

U.S. Marines land in Caribbean countries twenty times between 1900-1920.

United States has a right to exercise “International Police Powers.”

Ignores Monroe Doctrine.

Groundwork for U.S. Foreign Policy to this day.

Use of trade and investment to further diplomatic aims.

Democracy = Capitalism and Trade for American companies.

The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand ignites underlying

tensions created by…

An entangling “Alliance System.”

Austro-Hungarian aggression.

Colonial Expansion and a Military Arms Race.

Franco-Russian Alliance.

German-Austro-Hungarian Alliance.

Exacting, Inflexible Military Planning: The Schlieffen Plan / Plan XVII.

Overpowering Currents of Nationalism and Ethnic Identity.

American “Neutrality…”

President Wilson re-elected on

platform of “He kept us out of the

war.”

The United States loans money to

England and France during the war.

American civilians divided.

Lusitania and Zimmerman Note.

Unrestricted German

Submarine Warfare.

Sinking of the Lusitania.

Interception of the

Zimmerman Note.

United States Declares

War: April 2, 1917.

Russian Collapse

•Combat is more fluid in the East – Trenches never truly develop

•High causalities: Russian Dead: 682,213 German Dead: 1,150,000

•War wears down Russian morale.

•Unrest with Czarist Government increases.

Revolution of 1917

Russian Economy near collapse.

Bolshevik agitators fuel unrest at home.

November 29, 1917: Communist Bolsheviks take power.

Russia withdraws from war: March 1918 (Treaty of Brest-Litovsk).

Wilson’s Fourteen Points…

Wilson’s idea of a new

international order.

Strictly an American Idea. Not

endorsed by the Allies.

Progressive Ideals.

United States fails to ratify the

Fourteen Points.

Self-Determination

Freedom of the Seas

Open Diplomacy

Free Trade

Colonial Readjustment

League of Nations

The Treaty of Versailles…

•The Treaty of Versailles officially

ended World War I…

•Wilson’s Fourteen Points Not Fully

Realized.

•Establishes the League of

Nations: The forerunner to the

United Nations.

•Self-Determination “Stillborn.”

•Reshapes European Continent.

•Creates Seething Discontent that

will Spark World War II.

Germany Assigned “War Guilt.” (Ar.231)

German War Reparations.

German Military Power Destroyed.

“Stab in the Back.”

A Second World War in a Generation.

Why World War I Matters…

World War I signaled the end of the Victorian Era and the Old Order.

It creates the world we now live in.

International Trouble In… Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans, the Middle East.

Even the Cold War finds its roots in The Great War.

37,000,000 Military and Civilian Causalities.

16,000,000 Deaths.

21,000,000 Wounded

9 in 10 French Soldiers killed or maimed.

100,000 U.S. Casualties in 10 months.

Let’s Not Forget the Spanish Flu: Kills 50-100 Million People! Worldwide!

A Destructive Decade… Germany virtually

destroyed.

European Monarchies Extinct.

40,000,000 Dead or Wounded in The Great War.

50 – 100,000,000 Die in Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918.

A Tumultuous Decade… Eugenics.

Americanization.

Repression of Liberty.

Racial and Ethnic Discrimination.

A Transformative Decade… European World Order

Transformed.

European economy in turmoil.

The United States: World Power.

Victorious in The Great War.