Chapter 31: The War to End War (1917-1918)

January 1917, the US ended diplomatic relations with Germany because Germany announced that they would wage unrestricted submarine warfare on all ships War by Act of Germany Immediate causes of war: March 1917 the Zimmerman note was published in which German secretary of state Arthur Zimmerman secretly proposed a German-Mexican alliance March 1917 German U-boats sank four unarmed American merchant ships The Russian monarchy had been toppled by a revolution, so no more despotic country among the Allies So April 1917 Congress, at Wilson's request and despite opposition, declared war on Germany Wilson had trouble garnering enthusiasm for the war; the country had been profitably isolated for more than a century, and several senators and representatives, most of them from the Midwest, had opposed the war declaration So Wilson glorified the war, saying that America was selflessly fighting the war in order to prevent future wars and to make the world safe for democracy Wilsonian idealism worked extremely well at rousing American enthusiasm for the war January 1918 Wilson delivered the Fourteen Points Address in order to keep Russia in the war, boost the Allies' morale, and seem alluring to the dissatisfied minorities in the the Central Powers The points: 1) Abolish secret alliances 2) Freedom of the seas 3) Remove economic barriers 4) Reduce armament 5) Adjust colonial claims 6) to 13) National self-determination 14) Form a League of Nations Faced opposition from imperialists and those who thought he was being too bossy The Committee on Public Information was created under journalist George Creel: Thousands of four-minute men delivered patriotic, peppy speeches In the Battle of the Fences, posters were posted and pamphlets were distributed Movies depicted the worst of the kaiser, ex. The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin and To Hell with the Kaiser Songs scorned the enemy and glorified the Allied solders, ex. George M Cohan's Over There But Creel oversold Wilson's ideals, so people expected too much of the war

Wilsonian Idealism Enthroned

Wilson's Fourteen Potent Points

Creel Manipulates Minds

Enforcing Loyalty and Of the 100 million Americans, 8 million were German-Americans, most of whom were

Stifling Dissent

loyal to the US But mounting anti-German sentiment, ex. Illinois lynching of a German socialist, orchestras avoiding playing German music, German books and classes being removed, and sauerkraut (liberty cabbage), hamburger (liberty steak), and beer coming into suspicion So 1917 the Espionage Act and 1918 the Sedition Act were passed: Socialists, ex. Eugene Debs, and members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), ex. leader William D. Haywood, were often incarcerated on these bases 1919 Supreme Court case Schenk v. United States settled the debate that the Acts violated the First Amendment by arguing that freedom of speech could be revoked when it posed a danger to the nation Most of those incarcerated would be pardoned after the war

The Nation's Factories America was under-prepared for war; Wilson had created the Council of National Defense Go to War to work on economic mobilization, launched a shipbuilding program, and slightly increased the side of the standing army to 100,000 men (15th largest in the world) States' rights Democrats and businesspeople opposed the stabilizing government control of industry and the economy, ex. March 1918 Wilson established the weak and short-lived War Industries Board under Bernard Baruch Workers in Wartime Government treatment of labor: The 1918 work or fight rule threatened unemployed males with conscription The National War Labor Board under Taft resolved labor disputes that would hinder the war effort and supported high wages and an 8-hour day (though did not guarantee the right to unionize) Organized labor's positions: The AFL under Gompers supported the war and would more than double in size during the war The IWW, consisting of poorly treated transient fruit and lumber laborers, opposed the war and planned industrial sabotage; were despised by most Promisingly, real wages after the war were 20% than those before the war But labor's struggle was far from over: Inflation threatened to cancel out wage increases Still were not guaranteed the right to unionize, so thousands of strikes, ex. the 1919 violent and unsuccessful steel strike was the largest in history Many blacks were migrating from the South to the North for employment, so heightened racial tensions, ex. July 1917 race riot in St. Louis, Missouri and July 1919 gang overtake of Chicago Many women took the factory and field jobs that men who had gone to fight had vacated The war split the women's movement into the pacifists with their National Women's party under Alice Paul and the mainstreamers with their National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), who supported because believed fighting a war for democracy was the best hope for winning women's suffrage Wilson supported women's suffrage because of their contribution to the war effort, so

Suffering Until Suffrage

1920 the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified that granted women suffrage Despite the creation of a permanent Women's Bureau in the Department of Labor, most female workers returned to the home after the war, as supported by the 1921 SheppardTowner Maternity Act that provided instruction in maternal and infant health care Forging a War Economy Economically, the war effort was largely voluntary and haphazard, indicating Americas distance from the fighting and the modest powers of the progressive government Herbert C. Hoover was in charge of the Food Administration that fed itself and its allies; instead of ration cards, as were used in Europe, urged people to voluntarily forgo wheat and meat and to not waste food Many grew victory gardens in their own backyards Prohibition was gaining support, because many brewers were of German descent, and because Congress was restricting the use of foodstuffs for alcoholic beverages; 1919 the Eighteenth Amendment would prohibit all alcoholic drinks Hoovers voluntary approach worked fantastically to increase farm production and food export Other war agencies adopted the voluntary method, ex. the Fuel Administration urged people to cut back on heating and lighting, and the Treasury Department sponsored parades encouraging people to take out Liberty Loans and Victory Loans 2/3s of the war funds ($21 billion) were raised through voluntary loans, and the rest came from obligatory taxes Intimidation, by the public, was sometimes used to get people to sell bonds But the government sometimes stepped in, ex. it seized enemy merchant vessels in American harbors, launched shipbuilding programs, and 1917 took over the railroads

Making Plowboys into At first, most Americans believed that only the American navy would have to get involved, but then the Allies ran low on manpower, so on short notice many American Doughboys troops had to go So 1917 Wilson proposed and Congress approved a draft bill, despite much debate; the public seemed to accept it The draft required all men between 18 and 45 register, excluding those working in important industries, and did not allow for the purchase of a substitute like in the Civil War So in a few months, the army had grown to 4 million men For the first time, women were allowed to serve Blacks were also allowed to serve, but usually in segregated units and assigned to menial jobs The need for men was so urgent that many of the new recruits were shipped out undertrained Fighting in France Belatedly 1917 and 1918 after the Bolsheviks gained power and withdrew from the capitalistic war, German forces on the western front were boosted by the influx of German soldiers from the now-defunct eastern front in Russia Berlin had accurately predicted that the American mobilization of troops would be slow and delayed The first doughboys to reach the front were generally deployed in quiet sectors alongside the British and French Several thousand American troops were also deployed at Archangel, Russia and Siberia, in order to keep Japan from getting Siberia, rescue thousands of marooned Czechoslovak

troops, and steal military supplies from the Bolsheviks America Helps Hammer the Hun Spring of 1918, the German drive on the western front increased in intensity, so for the first time the Allied nations united under French commander Foch May 1918, the majority of the doughboys arrived just in time to participate in the battle at Chateau-Thierry less than 40 miles from Paris; was the first significant involvement of American troops in a European war The Second Battle of the Marne was the beginning of the German retreat Americans were involved in the battle at St. Mihiel that further pushed back the Germans General Jon J. Pershing was assigned a stretch of front to be manned solely by Americans September and November 1918, 1.2 million American troops were involved in the MeuseArgonne offensive, the largest battle in American history, to cut German railroad lines; 10% of them would die As American armies threatened to use up Frances supplies, the war-weary Germans were getting ready to surrender October 1918 Berlin sought peace based on Wilson's Fourteen Points, but Wilson refused unless the Kaiser was thrown out, so Germany exiled him to Holland November 1918 the Germans laid down their arms Germany was demoralized mostly by the possibility of major American involvement in the war, not its actual involvement; America only fought in two major battles, at St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne Ironically, the Ameircan forces heavily relied on the Allies for supplies, artillery, and transportation At the time of the surrender, expectations for Wilson as a moral leader were extremely high But then in the November 1918 elections the Republicans won the majority in Congress, so Wilson was the only leader at the peace conference without a legislative majority at home The Republicans were angered by: Wilson's flamboyant decision to personally travel to Paris (becoming the first president to have traveled to Europe during office) Wilson's peace delegation that did not include any Republicans, like his enemy Republican chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Henry Cabot Lodge

The Fourteen Points Disarm Germany

Wilson Steps Down from Olympus

An Idealist Battles the The Big Four nations controlled the Paris Conference, consisting of Wilson of America, Premier Vittorio Orlando of Italy, Prime Minister David Lloyd George of Britain, and Imperialists in Paris cynical Premier Georges Clemenceau of France January 1919 as the Conference opened, communism was spreading from Bolshevik Russia Wilson forced a compromise between imperialism and idealism; the victors would receive conquered territory as trustees of the League of Nations, but in practice it was just like pre-war colonialism February 1919 the convention agreed to include the League Covenant in the final treaty that would make a League of Nations, Wilson's ultimate goal

 Hammering Out the Treaty

American opposition to the League of Nations: The irreconcilables under senators William Borah and Hiram Johnson were a group of Republican senators who militantly opposed the League of Nations because it was too weak or too powerful, or because they were isolationists To the delight of Wilson's Allied adversaries, other Republican senators, enough to defeat the treaty, would not approve the League of Nations unless changes were made to safeguard the Monroe Doctrine and other interests Struggles in the Convention: France wanted the German areas of Rhineland and the Saar Valley; he received 15 years of League of Nations control over the Valley and the Security Treaty that promised British and American aid in case of German invasion (though the US would renege) Italy wanted Italian- and Yugoslav-inhabited seaport Fiume but did not receive it, so both their delegates and their public were angry Japan wanted China's Shandong Peninsula and the German Pacific islands; received the islands, but Wilson accepted a compromise in which Japan would keep Germany's economic holdings in Shandong and promise to return the peninsula eventually, pleasing no one June 1919 Germany received the Treaty of Versailles and felt betrayed because it had surrendered on the promise that the peace would be based on the Fourteen Points Wilson had to stray from the Fourteen Points because had to make compromises between the conflicting aims of the Allies Wilson, though was condemned by disillusioned liberals and frustrated imperialists, hoped that the League of Nations, with America in the lead, would iron things out Still, the treaty succeeded in liberating millions of minorities

The Peace Treaty That Bred a New War

The Domestic Parade Isolationists opposed the US's proposed involvement in the League of Nations Hun-haters thought the treaty was too lenient, while liberals thought it was too harsh of Prejudice (or, and that it betrayed Germany American Opposition German- and Italian-Americans, among others, opposed because the treaty was not to the Treaty) favorable to their native countries Irish-Americans opposed the League because feared that Britain would gain influence over the US Wilson's Tour and Collapse (1919) Senator Lodge used delaying tactics to muddle and divide public opinion So September 1919 Wilson went on a speechmaking tour despite health problems; was welcomed lukewarmly in the Midwest but enthusiastically in the Rockies and the West Coast, but late September collapsed from exhaustion, and several days later had a stroke Lodge wrote up the fourteen reservations that protected American sovereignty under the Monroe Doctrine and the Constitution and retained Congress's power to declare war (Article X of the League morally bound the US to aid victimized League members) Sickly Wilson despised Lodge's reservations and urged all Democratic senators to vote against the treaty with the reservations appended, so they did, so, shockingly, November 1919 the treaty was rejected

Defeat Through Deadlock

 March 1920 the treaty with reservations appended was put up for a second vote, and again Wilson urged Democrats to vote against it, so it failed to get a 2/3rds majority, so it was defeated The Solemn To resolve the deadlock, Wilson foolishly wanted to appeal to the people for a solemn Referendum of 1920 referendum (or, The Election of The Republicans' platform was ambiguous and could appeal to both pro- and anti1920) Leaguers (ex. supported a vague Association of Nations); chose candidate Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio with running mate Governor Calvin Coolidge of MA The Democrats wanted to make the election a referendum on the League; chose proLeaguer Governor James M. Cox of Ohio with running mate Assistant Navy Secretary Franklin D. Roosevelt Harding won with the greatest margin ever, and the Socialists under Debs won the largest vote ever The public was tired of high-and-mighty Wilsonism Harding's victory was the death sentence for the League The Betrayal of Great America's failure to join the League set it up for failure and helped bring about World War Expectations Two Because America refused the Security Treaty with France, France built up their military for fear that Germany would become as they had been again, so Germany began to illegally rearm