World War I
Causes of the Great War
1. Secret Treaties Triple Alliance
2. Arms Build-up Triple Entente
3. Nationalism Archduke Francis Ferdinand/Black Hand
Gavrillo Princip
Dreadnaught/U-Boat/Nerve gas
Events & Strategy
1914: Battle of Tannenburg
Siege of Liege
Battle of the Marne
Schlieffen Plan
Western Front
American Policy
1. Neutrality
2. Free Trade
1915: Unrestricted Submarine Warfare
British blockade of continent
Lusitania crisis
Arabic sunk
William Jennings Bryan resigns as Sec. of State
Issue: Unarmed merchant ships and passenger liners as military targets
1916: Sussex struck by German torpedo
Germany agrees to the Sussex Pledge
Colonel Edward House (U.S. diplomat in London): Peace objective
American loans
$3 Billion = France + Britain
1916 Election Politics
Democrat slogan “He Kept Us Out of War”
Critics: Theodore Roosevelt + Henry Cabot Lodge
Republican opponent: Charles Evans Hughes
Republican strength: East + Big Business
Democrat strength: South + West/Rural America
1917: Russian Revolution
Vladimir Lenin + the Bolsheviks
Germany resumes unrestricted submarine warfare
Zimmerman telegraph
5 American merchant ships sunk in the Mediterranean
“Make the World Safe for Democracy”
“Peace Without Victory”
Woodrow Wilson
So, why did American opinion shift toward the Allies?
American Domestic Policy
Wartime Economy (Bernard Baruch)
War Industries Board
Government expanded regulation
1. Railroads
2. Shipbuilding
Food Administration (Herbert Hoover)
Victory gardens
Meatless Tuesdays/Wheatless Wednesdays
Selective Service Act (1917)
Drafted 2.8 million/age 21 yrs. -30 yrs. Old
Civil Liberties
Committee on Public Information (George Creel)
Minute Men/”Over There”/”Hate the Hun” propaganda
American Protective League
Espionage Act
Sedition Act
Schenck v. United States (1919)
“Clear and Present Danger”
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
Social Trends
African Americans 400,000 serve in the military
African Americans migrate north with expanded job opportunities
Women employed in factories and shipyards
1918: Military Operations (General John J. Pershing)
Chateau-Thierry
Allied offensive in the Argonne Forest
U.S. combat deaths = 112,000 (includes flu epidemic)
The Treaty of Versailles
The Big Four
David Lloyd George
Georges Clemenceau
Vittorio Orlando
Woodrow Wilson
Wilson’s 14 Points
1. Self-determination
2. League of Nations
3. Freedom of the Seas
4. No secret treaties
5. Reduction in national armaments
6. Impartial adjustment of all colonial claims
The Peace Terms
1. Germany was to disarm
2. Germany stripped of colonies
3. Germany sign a “war guilt” clause
4. Germany pay a large war debt to the Allied nations
5. Self-determination applied to territories once controlled by Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia
6. League of Nations organized
Politics and the Treaty of Versailles
The Senate Ratification Debate
Irreconcilables: William Borah, George Norris, Robert La Follette, Hiram Johnson, Albert Fall
Reservationists: Henry Cabot Lodge + Article 10
Major Reasons for the Rejection of the Treaty of Versailles
1. Wilson’s political mistakes
2. Partisan party animus
3. Wilson’s health + western tour
4. Isolationism
5. Irish Catholic and German Americans opposed the treaty.
The United States would sign a separate treaty with Germany in 1922.
The United States would not join the League of Nations.
The United States government and private banking interests would help Germany pay the war debt noted in the Treaty of Versailles (132 billion gold marks).