The Great War

War and Society, 1914-1920

Study Guide Identifications

• 14 points• Peace without Victory• League of Nations• Imperial Competition• American neutrality• Factors that led to US entering war• U-boats• Trench Warfare

Study Guide Questions

•  Why did the US become involved in WWI?

• What problems did the US encounter as it sought to mobilize its people, and economy for war?

• How were they overcome? • What were Woodrow Wilson’s peace

proposals and how did they fare?

Origins of Conflict

• Since 1870s– Competing imperial ambitions of the great

European powers – Economic rivalries– Military expansion– Diplomatic maneuvering – International tensions

• May 1914, an American diplomat reported, “there is too much hatred, too much jealousies, he predicted an awful Cataclysm”

Entente & Central Powers

• Entente Powers– Led by France, Russia, Britain– Later Italy (1915) and the United States (1917)

• Central Powers– Austro-Hungarian– German– Ottoman Empire

Inevitable War

• Began between Serbia and Austro-Hungary – Serbian nationalist assassinated Archduke

Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne

• Austria declared war on Serbia in 1914

• World powers promised to come to each other’s aid if attacked– 2 hostile groups:

“Domino’s”

• Russia was obligated by a treaty to defend Serbia if attacked by the Austria-Hungary Empire

• Alliance System– Alliances a factor in powers joining WWI

Imperial Rivalry

• Greater Factor’s in rise of WWI - competition– Economic rivalries– Military Expansion– Diplomatic maneuvering  – International tensions

• Britain and Germany - struggle for world supremacy

• Myth of the swift and decisive war

Unprecedented Warfare

• Victory Not Swift• Two camps evenly matched • New technologies and methods of

warfare  • Tanks• trench warfare

– rat infested –disease

• airplanes• barbed wire

 

Myth of Victorious War

• In the first 3 months of the war– (August 1914) the original British army was

wiped out. – The British press

• Impression of victory

– German press • “All quiet on the western front.”

– 1917 the French military • Mutinies

Devastation & Carnage

• 8.5 million soldiers died, with 17 million wounded

• total casualties military and civilian reached 37 million.

• Europe lost an entire generation of young men, leaving behind an entire nation of young widows.

American “Neutrality”

• Woodrow Wilson - Europe’s war

• No threat to vital American interests

• Wilson effort to seek peace

• Normal trade relationships with both.

 

Roosevelt’s Pro-war Camp

• War was inevitable

• German Expansion needed to be checked

• Majority agreed with Wilson.

Factors of America’s entering into War

1. Strong economic ties with Britain• 800 million dollars a year in exports

• 170 million to Germany and Austria-Hungary

2. Shared culture and language

3. Economic Boom for the United states in providing food, clothing and war supplies and equipment to France and Britain • American business and investors had a direct stake in

an Allied victory

Critical Perspectives• Anti-Imperialist and Socialist:

Imperialist war– advanced capitalist countries of Europe were

fighting over boundaries, colonies, spheres of influence

• Alsace-Lorraine, The Balkans, Africa and the middle east.

• Imperialist: Economic necessity – 1914 recession in the U.S.

• business depressed, farm prices deflated, employment serious,…

War Profits

• 1915 war orders for the allies stimulated the economy– by April 1917 more than 2 billion worth of

goods had been sold to the allies. Prosperity depended on foreign markets

• 1897: 700 Million in exports• by 1914 3 ½ billion in exports

– Even secretary of State, an anti-imperialist William Jennings Bryan advocated the righteous conquest of foreign markets.

%Interest in an Allied victory

• JP Morgan and Allies – lent money at great amounts to make a

profit and tie American finance closely to the interest of a British victory.

• (Was the prosperity classless, who benefited?)

Factors Continued…

4. British Blockade on German Ports (attempt to starve Germans into submission)

• America did not challenge its right to trade with Germany

• Violated American neutrality

• protested the blockade, created a recession in the US.

5. U-boat or submarine warfare • Combat British control of the seas

• Flow of US goods to the allies. 

Lusitania

• Significance of the sinking of the Lusitania– Brought public opinion in line with government

action– People supported a war they collectively did

not previously

Germany’s Escalation of Aggression

• Beginning in 1918, Germany’s aggression against the allies began to escalate – United States entered into the war to reinforce

British lines• Allied powers won

• Germany asked for an armistice to be followed by peace negotiations based on Wilson’s 14 points

Wilson’s 14 points

• “Peace without victory” campaign won him re-election in 1916.– Culminated 14 points policy – Proposed a new world order

• All nations, weak and powerful, could participate as equals in the world.

Paris Peace Conference

• Wilson led the American delegation of the Paris Peace Conference

• 14 points

• Code of conduct that embraced free trade, freedom of the seas, open diplomacy, disarmaments, and resolution of disputes through mediation  

League of Nations• function as an international parliament and

judiciary

• establish rules of international behavior

• resolve disputes between nations through rational and peaceful means

• nine member executive council

• power to punish aggressor nations through economic isolation and military retaliation

• Due to opposition, congress failed to ratify the treaty

The Big Three

• Conference controlled by • Wilson

• David Lloyd George of Britain

• Georges Clemenceau of France

• France and Britain refused to include most of the 14 points into the peace treaty. They wanted to punish Germany.

Treaty of Versailles (1919)

• Awarded portions of Germany to Denmark, Poland and Czechoslovakia

• disarmed Germany (all but 100,000)

• forced admission of responsibility for the war

• reparations of 33 billion dollars

Consequences of World War One

League of Nations:Great Britain & FranceRight to rule former territories as mandates

Rule in interests of the people, not as colonies

German Territories in Africa Ottoman Turkish lands in the Middle East

A Mandates

• Middle East• Almost ready for

independence– Advanced politically

and economically enough for provisional independence to be granted

• Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon

• Balfour declaration & creation of Israel

B MandatesNeeded Several generations of

“tutelage”

Togoland (French West Africa)Kamerun (French & British mandates) German East Africa (British Tanganyika,

Rwanda, Burundi)

C mandates To Britain

Pacific unprepared for independence in the foreseeable future

Nambia given class C mandate to the Union of South Africa in 1922

New Guinea mandated to Australia

Western Samoa to New Zealand

North- Western Pacific Isand to Japan

War on the Home FrontID/Terms

• CPI 1917 campaign• CPI 1918 Campaign• War Time Repression• IQ test• Liberty Bonds• Trading with the Enemy Act• Anti-German Campaign• Anti-radical Crusades• Flappers• Nativism & Xenophobia

Total War

• Scale of men needed, preparations heavily taxed the United States in every way.

• First conscription law passed to raise a multi million man army

• Agricultural, transportation, industrial and human resources all devoted to war effort.

 

How to Organize War Time Economy?

• Southern and Midwestern democrats– feared centralization of government authority

• Northeastern progressives – strong state to regulate the economy, boost

efficiency and achieve social harmony.

Organized industry• Centralized federal agencies

– food administrations

• Private transportation shifted to public control– Rail Roads

• unified system to move supplies and troops efficiently

• centralized management eliminated competition,

• permitted improvements in equipment,– brought great profits to the owners

– higher prices to the general public.

War Industries Board

– Further empowered corporations responsible for mobilizing supplies

• led by Bernard Baruch who aimed for business-government integration

• promoted major business interests

• helped suspend anti-trust laws

• guaranteed huge corporate profits.

– (industrialists charged high prices for what the federal government needed)

Organized Civilian labor

• New job opportunities – half million African Americans – half million southern whites

• migrated from tenant farms and share cropping to industrial centers such as Chicago and Detroit.

– Hundreds of thousands of Mexican immigrants (1910 revolution)

– 40,000 women

Black Migration

• industrial northern cities doubling and tripling the black population there

• fearful and resentful whites began race riots, In east St Louis, IL, – a white mob murdered at least 39 people in

• July 1917.

Gains in Labor Unions

• Demand of labor– Success of labor unions (1916-1920)

– Membership doubled

– Wages rose 137%

– work week decreased to 48 hours.

• “Industrial democracy”

– War for democracy in Europe, why not at home.

The Draft

• Senator James Wadsworth of New York suggested it to avert the danger of class struggle and movements for social change– “that these people should be divided by class…

we must let our young men know that they owe some responsibility.”

Military Labor

• Selective Service Act passed 1917

 

• 24 million men registered

• 3 million were drafted

• 2 million volunteered

• 18% were foreign born

• 10% African American

Socialist Challenge

• Despite Wilsons words of “the war to end all wars” and “to make the world safe for democracy” Americans did not rush to enlist and congress voted for a draft.– The socialist party declared the war “a crime

against the people of the United States”

Socialist party Gains

• 1917 up to 20,000 farmers protested the war, the draft and profiteering.

• It began to gain in strength rapidly.– Politically in municipal elections of 1917

socialists made gains.

Segregation, Discrimination, IQ• Scientific Racism continued

– Eugenics• 1905 Pennsylvania

• 1970’s African American 500,000

• Native American 25,000

– Military• 10% were African American

– Segregated and barred from combat

• Justified by IQ test– Non-whites not as endowed mentally

» Half the troops-morons, with a mental capacity of 13

NAACP- Concessions

• Pressured military to allow African Americans combat positions

• 369th infantry

• Croix de Guerre by French government length and distinction of service

Who paid for the war?

• Government borrowed money and raised taxes– Corporations paid 1/3 in taxes

• Richest charged a 67% income tax, and a 25% inheritance tax

• Liberty Bonds – – government effort, patriotic duty to

purchase them – treasury bond campaign– “Every Person who refuses to subscribe is a

friend of Germany”

Committee on Public Information

• 1917 Wilson - CPI – George Creel

• Goal “fight for the minds of men, for the conquest of heir convictions”

• publicize and popularize the war

• unprecedented propaganda campaign – “to make the world safe for democracy”

– Self-determination of Nations

Renewed Protest

• Demanding U.S. live up to its ideals at home

– Industrial democracy

– Women’s suffrage

– Deliverance of African Americans from second class citizenship

– Ethnic groups – opportunity for success

Suppressing Dissent

• Espionage Act– Heavy fines and 20 years in prison in

obstructing the war effort

• Sedition Act 1918– based on state laws designed to

suppress labor radicals• severe penalties for speaking or writing

against the draft, bond sales, or war production or for criticizing government personnel or policies

Political repression and Ultra Patriotism

• Senator Hiram Johnson lamented • “It is war. But good God,…when did it become war upon

the American people?”

• Eugene Debs • “it is extremely dangerous to exercise the right of free

speech in a country fighting to make democracy safe in the world”

1918 CPI campaign:

•  State and Local authorities– 184,000 investigating and enforcement agencies known

as Councils of Defense or Public Safety Committees

– Inflammatory advertisements called on patriots to call on their neighbors and ethnics they suspected of subverting the war effort

• Propagandists “100% American”– Repudiate all ties to homeland, language and customs.

German Americans

• Aroused hostility spreading lurid tails of German atrocities

• Justice department arrested thousands of German and Austrian immigrants suspected of subversive activities

Anti-German Campaign

• German Americans objects of popular hatred• German banned

• Music• books burned• teaching of German language

• German Americans risked being fired, losing businesses and assault on the streets

• Some lynched - defended as an act of patriotism• Began hiding ethnic identity and changed names

"Where he can be kept out of mischief?"—In a November 1917 cartoon, Des Moines Register cartoonist J.N. "Ding" Darling illustrated the fear that German immigrants to the United States would support Germany in World War I, reinforcing the belief that German-Americans could not be trusted.

Immigration Restriction Act

• Escalated into Anti-immigrant campaign

•   Immigration Restriction Act of 1917– denied entry to US to adults who failed the

reading test– Banned immigration of laborers from India,

Indochina, Afghanistan, Arabia and East Indies.

Repression

• Wilson’s administration relied on repression more and more to achieve domestic unity –  Espionage, Sabotage and Sedition acts passed in 1917

and 1918 • Sweeping power to silence dissenters

• Prosecuted for writing or uttering any statement that could be construed as profaning the flag, constitution or military

Banning and Persecution of Socialists

Repressed and banned socialist meetings in the US

   Businessmen used rhetoric to suppress labor movements

Anti-radical Crusades

• Super charged patriotism • Encouraged local governments and private

citizens to initiate anti-radical crusades

–  Bisbee, AZ, Kidnapping 1,200 IWW members, New Mexican Desert

– Butte, MN, chained a IWW organizer to a car, drove through city streets, castrated

American Protective League

• The Return of Vigilantism– Attorney General Thomas Gregory

• American Protective League

• 250,000 members spied on workers and neighbors

• Domestic Spying and surveillance • Opened mail, Tapped phones • Harassed those suspected of disloyalty

Federally supported and endorsed