The US and World War I

Key Questions for this Unit

• Why did the U.S. get involved with WWI?

• Why did it take so long? Why were Americans opposed to the war?

• How did being at war affect Americans at home?

• What did the government do?

• What did people do?

Review: How did Progressive

Presidents envision the US role in the world?

• Roosevelt: U.S. as “police power” in Western Hemisphere

• Taft: “Dollar Diplomacy” - U.S. investment in the hemisphere

• Wilson: moral imperialism - in theory, not an interventionist; but wants to teach others the blessings of democracy

Progressive Imperialism

Empires: 1900

http://users.humboldt.edu/ogayle/hist111/WWI.html

Global rivalries led to WWI, as European powers colonized the world. The countries in gray are the only ones not involved in imperial ventures. Who has the biggest empire? Can you tell from the key?

Russia

Austria-Hungary

Bulgaria

Greece

SerbiaAlbania

Montenegro

PersiaOttoman Empire

Norway

Finland

Sweden

Ireland

ItalySpain

France

Portugal

Belgium

Romania

Netherlands

Switzerland

Denmark

Germany

LybiaEgypt

Arabia

United Kingdom

Russia

Austria-Hungary

Bulgaria

Greece

SerbiaAlbania

Montenegro

PersiaOttoman Empire

Atlantic Ocean

Mediterranean Sea

Black Sea

North Sea

Caspian

Sea

Baltic

Sea

Norway

Finland

(Russia)

Sweden

Ireland

ItalySpain

France

Portugal

Belgium

Romania

Netherlands

Switzerland

Denmark

Germany

Arabia

United Kingdom

Morocco (France)

Algeria(France)

TunisiaTunisia(France)

Spanish Morocco (Spain)Spanish Morocco (Spain)

Libya(Italy)

Cyprus(Great Britain)

Egypt (Great Britian)

Iceland(Denmark)

Malta(Great Britain)

l

Luxembourg

l

Europe Before World War One (1914)

Note: Boundaries were constantly changing and are approximate for this year.

0 300 600 miles

Arizona Geographic Alliance http://geoalliance.asu.edu/azgaSchool of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning

Arizona State University

Cartographer Becky L. Eden EU_BeforeWW1.PDF10

Courtesy:

Source: http://alliance.la.asu.edu/maps/EU_BeforeWW1.pdf

WWI changed the map of Europe and the Middle East. This is what the map looked like before the war. How is it different from the map today?

• 1896: Ethiopia defeats Italy

• 1905: Japan defeats Russia

• Nationalist movements in China, Russia, and Mexico

• All are threats to U.S. business and investments

• Some conflicts increase immigration to U.S.

Global Instability and the U.S.

World War I

• War breaks out in 1914: assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to throne of Austro-Hungarian empire

• Allies: Britain, France, Russia, and Japan; vs. Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Ottoman Empire

• Huge casualties: 21 million +

American Neutrality

• Profits: exports and loans

• Terrifying industrial violence

• Immigrant America was not united in who they should support in the war

Trench warfare was a characteristic of WWI.Check out all the men crammed down in these trenches!

Industrial warfare made WWI especially terrifying

Limits to Neutrality• Cultural and linguistic ties to England, esp.

among elites

• Economic interests - loaned 85 times as much money to Allied as Central Powers

• Corporations benefited from trade with Britain and France, workers got decent wages because of wartime demand

• Eastern war preparedness: Teddy Roosevelt

Lead-up to American Involvement

• German submarine warfare and sinking of Lusitania (1915) - 1,198 passengers die

• “Preparedness” - expand army and navy

• Wilson runs on keeping U.S. out of war in 1916

• 1917: Zimmerman Telegram

U.S. in WWI

• Russia drops out of war bc of revolution in late 1917

• But US shifts balance when it joins in April 1917; numbers in 1918

• US involvement a surprise: isolationism

• The war ends quickly after the US gets involved: US participation is decisive

Consequences of WWI

The Fourteen Points

• Wilson: war is fought for moral cause

• self-determination

• freedom of seas

• free trade

• open diplomacy (no secret treaties)

• readjustment of colonial claims

• “general association of nations”

Wilson and Peace

• Idea of self-determination makes Wilson a hero, worldwide

• But he’s racist and unconsciously imperialist

• And Britain and France have no plans to give up empires

Seeds of War

• Versailles Treaty - secret; redraws Europe’s map; harsh toward Germany

• Resentment in colonial world at continued status quo; Example: Vietnam

• German resentment sets up for WWII

This young man would grow up to fight against the US in Vietnam. After WWI, he

wants Wilson’s help, but doesn’t get it.

Treaty Debate

• League of Nations was Wilson’s favorite thing from Treaty of Versailles

• Made Senate nervous

• He refused to negotiate

• Senate rejected treaty

WWI at Home

• Progressives support the war

• Excited about opportunities to reform American society; the world

The Wartime State• National state with huge powers:

• Selective Service Act (1917): 24 million men to register with the draft

• War Industries Board regulates economy

• War Labor Board: increase wages, 8-hour day, right to form unions

• Taxes up: rich pay 60% of income in taxes

The Propaganda War• American opposition to the War:

Socialists and IWW

• Committee on Public Information: government propaganda machine

Liberty in Wartime

• Espionage Act (1917): “false statements”

• Sedition Act (1918): crime to say or write things that cast “contempt, scorn, or disrepute” on “form of government”

• Eugene V. Debs convicted 1918; in jail until 1921 (1920: 900,000 votes for president!)

Coercive Patriotism

• patriotism = support for war, government, American economic system

• IWW crushed by the government: arrests and raids in 1917

This cartoon suggests the IWW is against the US - by putting the IWW on the German Kaiser’s face

Society and War

• Conflict over women’s rights: Alice Paul and radical feminists

Arrested feminists were force fed, which is bad PR for the

government, and good for them!

Society and War

• Wilson administration and racism

Society and War• Concerns about

American identity: Americanization campaigns

• Germans: 9 million German-Americans, 1914

• 1919: laws against teaching foreign languages

• hamburger = liberty sandwich

Society and War

• Great migrations - African Americans from south to north

• Mexicans to agricultural/mining jobs in SW, and Mexican Americans increasingly to cities - boom in Los Angeles

World War I and the US

• World War I makes the US a first-tier world power, even though Americans didn’t want to join the war.

• At home, the war:

• leads to expanded government activity with the economy

• heightens animosity toward immigrants, leads to forced Americanization

• but it opens factory jobs to previously excluded groups, including blacks and Latinos - mass migrations to northern and western cities