The War to End War

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The War to End War

• 1917 - 1918

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War by Act of Germany

• Jan 22, 1917 futile attempt to mediate between
  the embattles belligerents
• peace without victory
• Jan 31, 1917 Germany announced unlimited
  submarine warfare
• sink all ships, including Americas, in the war
  zone

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Wilson Responds

• Wilson broke diplomatic relations
• War only if Germans took overt acts against
  American lives or property
• Wilson asked Congress for the authority to arm
  merchant ships
• Filibuster to block measure
• Reminder of the strength
  of American isolationism

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Zimmermann Note

• March 1, 1917 note was intercepted published
• German foreign minister Arthur Zimmermann
  secretly proposed a German-Mexican Alliance
• Promised recovery of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona
  
• Infuriated Americans, especially westerners

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Zimmermann Telegram
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Zimmermann Telegram
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Wilson Moves Toward War

• March 1917 - German U-boats sank 4 unarmed
  American merchant vessels
• Russian Revolution had overthrown the tsar
• America could now fight for democracy
• April 2, 1917 Wilson asked Congress for a
  declaration of war against Germany

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Wilsonian Idealism Enthroned

• 6 senators 50 representatives voted against war
• Jeannette Rankin first congresswoman (Montana)
• Wilson goals for war
• a war to end war
• Crusade to make the world
  safe for democracy

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Wilsons Fourteen Points

• Jan 8, 1918 Wilson delivered his 14 points to
  Congress
• 1st Five Points
• Abolish secret treaties
• Freedom of the seas
• Removal of all economic barriers
• Reduction of armament burdens
• Adjustment of colonial claims in the interest of
  both native peoples the colonizers
• 14th Point League of Nations
• International organization that would provide
  collective security

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Creel Manipulates Minds

• Committee on Public Information
• headed by George Creel
• Purpose sell America on the war
  sell the world on Wilsonian war
  aims
• Employed 150,000 workers
• Sent 75,000 four-minute men delivered countless
  speeches
• Varies forms
• Posters, leaflets, pamphlets,
  propaganda booklets, movies, songs

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Propaganda
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Enforcing Loyalty Stifling Dissent

• German-Americans numbered over 8 million
• Dependable loyalty to the US
• Hatred of Germans things Germanic swept the
  nation Too bad for you Sauerkraut! I prefer
  liberty cabbage!
• Controlling Public Opinion
• 1917 Espionage Act stiff penalties for spying
• 1918 Sabotage Act Sedition Act made it a
  crime to say, print, or write almost anything
  perceived as negative about the government

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• 1,900 prosecutions under the laws
• Mostly antiwar Socialists members of the
  radical union Industrial Workers of the World
  (IWW)
• Eugene V. Debs sentenced to 10 years under the
  Espionage Act in 1918 (Socialists)
• Later pardoned by President Harding in 1921
• William (Big Bill) Haywood (head of IWW) 99
  associations were also convicted

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Debs in Prison (Read Aloud)

• following quote from President Wilson regarding
  Eugene V. Debs release from prison.
• I will never consent to the pardon of this man.
  While the flower of American youth was pouring
  out its bloodthis man, Debs, stood behind the
  lines, sniping, attacking, and denouncing them.
  Before the war he had the perfect right to
  exercise his freedom of speech and to express his
  own opinion, but once the Congress of the United
  States declared war, silence on his part would
  have been the proper course to pursue This man
  was a traitor to his country and he will never be
  pardoned during my administration.

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Factories Go to War

• Wilson had done little to prepare for the
  possibility of war
• 1915 Council of National Defense study
  problems of economic mobilization
• Shipbuilding programs
• Modest beefing-up of the army 100,000 regulars
• 1918 War Industries Board
• Bernard Baruch Labor will win the war

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The War Workers

• 1918 War Departments work or fight rule
• Threatened any unemployed male with being
  immediately drafted
• National War Labor Board chaired by Taft
• Head off labor disputes that might hamper the war
  effort
• Helped workers receive higher wages 8 hour days
• Did not guarantee the right to organize into
  unions
• Samuel Gompers AF of L supported the war
• IWW (Wobblies) other radical labor
  organizations
• Engineered damaging industrial sabotage

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Strikes The Strikebreakers

• 6000 strikes broke out during the war years
• 1919 Steelworkers Strike
• More than a quarter of a million workers walked
  off
• Wanted right to organize bargain collectively
  did not get that right
• Company refused to negotiate
• Hired 30,000 African American strikebreakers
• More than a dozen workers dead
• Crippling setback for the union movement

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Great Migration

• African Americans moved North for war-industry
  employment
• Racial tensions resulted
• July 1917 East St. Louis, MI
• 9 whites 40 blacks dead
• July 1919 - Chicago Race Riot
• Reign of terror lasted 2 weeks / 15 whites 23
  blacks dead

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Women the War

• Thousands of female workers
  worked in factories fields
• took jobs vacated by men who went to war
• President Wilson convinced to endorse woman
  suffrage as a vitally necessary war measure
• 19th Amendment women receive the right to vote
  1920
• Womens Bureau emerged after the war
• Protect women in the workplace
• Sheppard-Towner Maternity Act of 1921
• Provided federally financed instruction in
  maternal infant health care

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Womens Suffrage
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Forging a War Economy

• Food Administration
• Headed by Hebert C. Hoover already considered a
  hero because of the charitable drive to Belgium
• Preferred voluntary compliance
• Rejected ration cards
• Propaganda campaign
• Wheatless Wednesdays
• Meatless Tuesdays
• Victory Gardens
• 1919 18th Amendment
• prohibited alcohol
• Many brewers were German used foodstuffs

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Voluntary Approach

• Fuel Administration save fuel
• Heatless Mondays
• Lightless Nights
• Gasless Sundays
• Treasury Department
• Promoted sale of Liberty Loans
• Victory loan campaign - 1919
• Taxes were eventually raised

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Forceful Approach

• 1917 Govt took over the nations railroads
• Govt seized merchant vessels in American harbors
• Started campaign to build more ships// a few
  ships vessels were launched Faith

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Making Plowboys into Doughboys

• Early American involvement
• Used navy to uphold freedom of the seas
• Shipped war materials to the Allies supplied
  them with loans
• April May 1917 Allies confessed the need for
  American troops
• More troops or the whole western
  front would collapse

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The Draft

• Wilson disliked draft but eventually supported
  conscription
• Draft bill was criticized by Congress
• Passed 6 weeks after US had declared war
• Required registration of all males 18 45
• No one could purchase an exemption or hire a
  substitute
• Worked effectively
• Army grew to 4 million
• Women African Americans
• Women admitted to navy marines
• African Americans segregated units usually
  under white officers

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Fighting in France

• Bolsheviks withdrew Russia from
  war early in 1918
• Released Germans from the eastern front in
  Russia moved them to western front in France
• Spring of 1918 before the US reached France to
  fight
• Mainly used as replacements with the British
  French
• Small detachments were also sent to Belgium,
  Italy, Russia

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Spring of 1918

• Allied nations united under French
  Marshal Foch in order to fight the Germans
• May 1918 Germans came within 40 miles of Paris
• US troops sent to Château-Thierry right into the
  German advance
• 1st significant engagement of
  American troops in European war
• July 1918 Second Battle of the Marne
• Beginning of the German withdrawal

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War Continues

• Americans were demanding a separate army
• General (Black Jack) Pershing was assigned a
  front
• Last mighty Allied assault
• Sept 26 Nov 11, 1918 - Pershings army
  undertook the Meuse-Argonne offensive
• Goal was to cut the German railroad lines
• Lasted 47 days included 1.2 million American
  troops
• Germans were ready to surrender

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Fourteen Points Disarm Germany

• October 1918 Wilson demanded that the Kaiser be
  overthrown before an armistice could be reached
• Kaiser was forced to flee to Holland
• Germany surrendered Nov. 11, 1918
• USs main contributions
• Foodstuffs, munitions, credits, oil,
  manpower

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Woodrow Wilson

• Very popular
• Personally appealed for a Democratic victory in
  the congressional elections of 1918
• Republicans won a majority to Congress
• Decided to go to Paris for the peace conference
• Infuriated Republicans
• Peace Treaty - snubbed the Senate neglected to
  include a single Republican
• Should have included Henry Cabot Lodge chairman
  of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

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Idealists Battles the Imperialists

• The Big Four
• Woodrow Wilson US
• Vittorio Orlando Italy
• David Lloyd George Britain
• Georges Clemenceau France
• Wilsons goal- League of Nations
• Victors would not take conquered territory
  outright
• Receive territory as trustees of the League of
  Nations
• Syria France /// Iraq Britain
• Feb. 1919 League was included in peace treaty

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Hammering Out the Treaty

• League of Nations was not popular in US
• William Borah Hiram Johnson
• Republican senators refused to approve
  the League in its imperfect form
• France
• Demand the Rhineland the Saar Valley
• Compromise Saar Bain would remain under the
  League for 15 years then a popular vote
  Britain and US would aid in defense from German
  invasion

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• Italy
• Demand Fiume but Wilson insisted
  that the seaport go to Yugoslavia
• Turned against Wilson
• Japan
• Demand Chinas Shantung peninsula German
  islands in the Pacific
• Compromise Japan kept Shantung pledged to
  return it to China at a later date

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Treaty of Versailles

• June 1919 Germans were forced to sign
• Take full responsibility for the war
• Disarmament
• Pay 33 billion in reparations
• Give up colonial holdings
• Wilson was forced to compromise in order to save
  the League of Nations
• Liberation of millions of minority peoples
• Wilson was no longer popular in Europe
• US did not support any part of entangling
  alliances

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Wilsons Tour

• Majority of Americans did support the treaty
• July 1919 Lodge wanted to Americanize,
  Republicanize, or senatorialize it
• Republicans wanted to take credit
• Summer 1919 - Wilson began speechmaking tour
• Appeal directly to the people for their support
• Midwest received Wilson lukewarmly
• Rocky Mountain region Pacific Coast welcomed
  Wilson
• Borah Johnson spoke out against Wilson

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Wilsons Collapse

• Breaking Point
• September 25, 1919 Wilson pleaded for the
  League of Nations in Colorado
• Collapsed later had a stroke that paralyzed one
  side of his body
• Did not meet with his cabinet for 7½ months

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Wilson Rejects the Lodge Reservations

• Senator Lodge proposed 14 formal reservations to
  the 14th Points
• Rejected by Wilson with the strong support of the
  Democrats
• Republicans disliked it because it morally bound
  the US to aid members Article X
• Wilson sent word to all Democrats to vote no
• Nov 19, 1919 treaty was rejected

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Defeat Through Deadlock

• Majority of Congress could not agree
• March 1920 Treaty was brought
  up for a vote again
• Wilson sent word to the Democrats to vote down
  the treaty with the Lodge reservations
• March 19, 1920 treaty was rejected again
• Who defeated the treaty?
• Lodge-Wilson personal feud, traditionalism,
  isolationism, disillusionment, partisanship
• -Ultimately it was Wilson who defeated the treaty
  due to his inability to compromise!

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Election of 1920

• Wilson proposed to settle the treaty in the
  election
• Appealed to the people for a solemn referendum
• Republicans
• Platform appealed to the Pro-League
  Anti-Leaguers
• Warren G. Harding presidential candidate
• Selected by Senate bosses meeting in the
  smoke-filled Room 404 of the Hotel Blackstone
• Calvin Coolidge vice presidential candidate
• Democrats
• James M. Cox
  Franklin Roosevelt

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Election Results

• Harding wins
• First Presidential election for franchised female
  voters
• Death sentence for the League
• Eugene V. Debs received the largest vote ever
  for the Socialist Party
• While he was in prison

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