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Unit 9: 1920s, Great Depression, and WWII

Lesson 3: WWII
US Foreign Policy after WWI had two goals:
- #1 US avoided alliances or collective security pacts that might lead to war
o US failed to ratify Versailles Treaty and join the League of Nations over objections to
collective security
o Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928)
Agreement among 62 nations to outlaw war (unless in self-defense)
Meaningless because it had no enforcement provisions, such as collective
security
- #2 US promoted trade and investment in foreign countries
o Washington Disarmament Conference (1921)
Goals: Preserve the Open Door in the face of expanding Japanese power in
China
Result:
Nine Power Treaty: continuation of Open Door
Five Power: prevented arms race in Asia
o Limited battleships in a ratio of 5:5:3 among the US, GB, and
Japan
o US and GB agreed to stop fortifying Asian territories
o Dawes Plan (1924)
Causes:
European
governments owed
US $10B in war
debts; want US to
forgive debt
Germany owes Allies
$33B in war
reparations; wants
them reduced
Plan:
Reduced Germanys reparations
US lent money to Germany allowing it to make reparations payments
to Allies
Enables Allies to pay back US
Result: US made $$$
Ends as a result of the banking crisis in 1929
o FDRs Good Neighbor Policy (1933)
Renounced the Roosevelt Corollary (i.e. the right of the US to intervene in the
affairs of nations in the Western Hemisphere
In accordance with this, he withdrew US soldiers from Latin American
countries and terminated the Platt Amendment
Note: US still had the same goal of political and economic dominance of the
Western Hemisphere; it is only changing the strategy

From intervention to cooperation


Significance: better relations led to hemispheric solidarity in WWII

Road to WWII
- Settlement of WWI and the worldwide depression of the 1930s set the stage for international
political instability.
o In Japan, Italy, and Germany, economic collapse and rising unemployment created
political conditions that nurtured fascists (i.e. extreme nationalistic) movements
promising recovery through military buildup and territorial expansion.
o Elsewhere in Europe and in the US, economic problems led to isolationism
Isolationism: when a government turns inward focusing on domestic problems
and avoiding foreign entanglements
Result: League of Nations, based on collective security, failed to stop
Japanese, Italian, and German expansion
- First challenge came from Japan
o Japan expanded to obtain raw materials and overseas markets for its goods in order to
become an industrial power
o In 1931, Japan seized Manchuria, a province in northern China
League of Nations condemned Japans actions but did nothing to stop it.
- Germany:
o Reparations and depression fueled the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party
o His goal was to unite German people throughout Europe in a new empire that he
called the Third Reich
o In 1935, Germany began enlarging its military in violation of the Treaty of Versailles
- Italy:
o Led by Benito Mussolini, Italy engages in overseas expansion and military buildup
o 1935: colonized Ethiopia
- American Isolationism:
o Causes:
Nations traditions
Depression overshadowed foreign affairs
Disillusionment with WWI
Most Americans believed WWI had been a mistake
From 1934-1936, the Nye committee, a Senate committee led by
Republican Gerald P. Nye, investigated charges that the US had been
manipulated into WWI so that munitions makers (called the
merchants of death) could make enormous profits.
o Similar ideas were being advanced by historians and movies,
such as All Quiet on the Western Front.
During the 1930s, college students and professors annually walked out
of class to attend massive antiwar rallies in which demonstrators
carried signs reading Abolish the ROTC and Build SchoolsNot
Battleships.
As a result of these attitudes, Congress passed the Neutrality Acts and
the Ludlow Amendment was proposed.
o Neutrality Acts (1935, 1936, and 1937)

Goal: avoid involvement in new conflicts by preventing activities that had


drawn the US into WWI.
Provisions:
Forbade Americans to travel on ships of nations at war
Prohibited the sale of arms and the making of loans to belligerent
nations
Belligerents could purchase non-military goods on a cash-and-carry
basis
o Ludlow Amendment (1938)
Proposed constitutional amendment that would have required a national
referendum (i.e. a vote of the American people) on any US declaration of war.
Only a direct appeal by FDR ensured that Congress rejected the measure but
only by a very narrow margin
American isolationism and British and French appeasement encouraged fascist aggression
o 1936: Germany invaded the Rhineland
o Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)
Hitler and Mussolini extended aid to fascist General Francisco Franc who was
seeking to overthrow Spains republican government.
Spanish republicans asked for help, but only the USSR responded.
US liberals denounced fascism and support intervention
American liberals in the Lincoln Brigade fought alongside Spanish
republicans
o 1936: Alliance formed between Germany, Italy, and Japan; the Axis Powers
o 1937: Japan conquered China
o 1938: Germany annexed Austria
o 1939:
Germany seized Czechoslovakia
Germany signed a non-aggression pact with the USSR
Germany invaded Poland causing Great Britain and France to declare war
beginning WWII.
German blitzkrieg overruns Europe
Bombing of Britain in the Battle of Britain
Retreat from Isolationism: Americas thousand-step road to war
o FDR declared US neutrality BUT . . .
He supported measures short of war to help the Allies
US began to mobilize
o Neutrality Act of 1939 was a retreat from the earlier acts by allowing arms sales to
belligerents on a cash-and-carry basis
o Selective Service Act (1940): first peacetime draft in US history
o Destroyers for bases (1940)
By executive order, FDR transferred 50 destroyers to Great Britain in return
for the right to build bases on British territory in the Western Hemisphere
Infuriated isolationists, such as the America First Committee and Charles
Lindbergh
In the Election of 1940, FDR ran for and was able to win an unprecedented
third term. He promised to keep the US out of the war.

o Lend-Lease (1941)
Great Britain is broke and can no longer pay for arms
The law allowed the president to lend arms to any country whose defense
was vital to US security
Significance:
Ended any pretense of neutrality
Unofficial entrance of the US into the war
Makes the US the great arsenal of democracy
o Atlantic Charter (1941)
Even though the US has not officially declared war FDR and British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill meet to set postwar goals
Agree to support free trade, self-determination, and a new world
organization based on collective security
o Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941)
Japanese expansion:
1931: Manchuria
1937: China
Once WWII began, Japan took over European colonies in SE Asia
US responded to this expansion with economic sanctions
Halted the sale of petroleum and scrap metal to Japan, to vital raw
materials needed for their war effort
Froze Japanese assets in the US: depriving them of $$$
Faced with economic strangulation, Japan attacked destroying much of the
Pacific Fleet stationed in Pearl Harbor, HI
Assault ended American isolationism by providing public support for the war
December 8: FDR asked Congress to declare war
o Labeled December 7th a date which will live in infamy
Congress declared war with only one dissenting vote
Home Front:
- Economy:
o Allies won because of the ability of the US to out-produce the Axis
Americans produced 2x as much as Germanys and 5x as much as Japanese
Constructed ships faster than German subs could sink them
Economy is the great arsenal of democracy
o Government controlled the economy to aid the war effort
War Production Board oversaw conversion of industry to military production,
allocated resources, and enforced production priorities
Office of Price Administration regulated prices to control inflation
In contrast to the voluntaristic approach in WWI, the OPA subjected
nearly everything Americans ate, wore, or used to rationing.
National War Labor Board established wages, hours, and working conditions
o Economic mobilization required close cooperation between business and government,
solidifying a partnership that had been growing since WWI
To encourage business to convert to war production, the government ensured
profits

Tax write-offs, subsidies, low-interest loans, cost-plus provisions in


contracts
War concentrated power in large corporations because:
Government does not enforce antitrust laws
Large corporations get the war contracts
100 largest companies produced 30% of the nations output in 1940
and 70% in 1943
o Mobilization for war ends the Great Depression
Government spending on war production: $186 billion
Note: Keynesian Economics
Keynes advocated ending recessions by increasing government
spending or cutting taxes
Increases in government spending during the New Deal werent big
enough to end the Great Depression needed the extra political will
power provided by WWII to spend enough money to bring Great
Depression to an end.
Creates the biggest economic boom in human history!
Labor
o Labor shortage changed the composition of the workforce
Mexicans and Mexican-Americans: bracero guest worker program brought in
200,000 Mexicans into the US
African-Americans:
Migration out of the South and into industrial cities in the North
continues
Access to better jobs
Women:
Government encouraged women to work (i.e. Rosie the Riveter), but
only for the duration.
Wider range of jobs open to women: welders, shipbuilders,
lumberjacks, etc.
For the first time, the majority of female workers are married women!
o From this time on, married women form a growing part of the
US labor force changing the nature of American family life.
But they still received lower wages than men for the same work
Independence gained from wages laid the foundation or later womens
movement
When the soldiers return home these groups lost their jobs
o Unions
Shortage of labor strengthened the labor movement
50% increase in union membership
Obtain higher wages and improved working conditions
Continues gains made during the New Deal
Major unions made a no-strike pledge, but many strikes did occur
Main complaint: businesses are making large profits and workers want
a larger share

When nearly half a million United Mine Workers strike demanding a


wage increase over that allowed by the NWLB, Congress passed the
Smith-Connally Act (1943) allowing the president to seize plants if
strikes interrupt war production.
o During the war, average weekly earnings increased 70%
Many earned more money than rationing restrictions allowed them to spend.
Instead people saved money mainly by buying war bonds
This will cause a flood of consumer spending after the war
Prosperity made the war fun for those on the home front.
Financing the War:
o Government paid for the war by raising taxes and borrowing (i.e. selling war bonds)
o Revenue Act of 1942
Dramatically expanded the number of people paying taxes from 3.9 to 42.6
million
Raised highest tax bracket to 94%
Beginning of payroll deductions (i.e. taking taxes from peoples paychecks)
Becomes a permanent change in government financing (i.e. from now on
government relies on income tax for revenue)
o Government debt $280 billion in 1945 (i.e. $23 trillion in todays dollars!); GDP-debt
ratio: 120%
Migration:
o War led to a vast migration of Americans
o Lured by defense jobs, 16 million Americans move
Southern white families, southern African-Americans, Hispanics, Native
Americans off of reservations, northerners, and easterners all move looking
for jobs
o Defense jobs were concentrated along the Pacific Coast and the Sunbelt (i.e. southern
US) leading to increased population in these areas
CA affected more than any other state
o Housing shortages and intermixing groups led to race riots
Zoot Suit Riot (1943): gangs of Mexican-American young men who wore
zoot suits were attacked by sailors and soldiers stationed at nearby military
bases in Los Angeles.
Rise in African-American activism against discrimination laid the groundwork for the civil
rights movement
o African-Americans point out parallels between anti-Semitism in Germany and racial
discrimination in the US
o Challenge the government to live up to its own rhetoric about freedom and
democracy
o Double V campaign: military victory abroad and victory over racism and
inequality at home
o A. Phillip Randolphs proposed march on Washington won concessions from FDR
January of 1941 before the US entered the war, labor leader A. Phillip
Randolph promised to lead tens of thousands of frustrated black workers in a
march on Washington to demand more defense jobs and integration of the
military.

FDR feared this would embarrass the country and disrupt war production.
In return for cancelling the march, FDR issued Executive Order 8802, which
prohibited discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries
or government on the basis of race.
o NAACP membership increased 9 fold
o Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) Formed
Advocated nonviolent resistance to segregation
Staged sit-ins
Japanese Internment (1942)
o After Pearl Harbor, West Coast residents worried that Japanese-Americans would aid
the Japanese in sabotage or further attacks.
Fear encouraged by local politicians and newspapers
Part of the West Coasts long history of racism toward Asian-Americans
o Despite a lack of evidence of disloyalty, FDR issued Executive Order 9066 requiring
the interment of all Japanese-Americans on the West Coast.
130,000 were interred in camps in desolate areas of CA, AZ, UT, CO, WY,
and ID
Forced to abandon their possession or sell them for a pittance
o In Korematsu v. United States (1944), the Supreme Court upheld internment.
o Ways out of the camp:
Labor shortage in faming led the government to release agricultural workers
4,300 college students were allowed to resume their education outside of the
West Coast military zone
Enlistment in the armed services
o In HI, where the presumed danger of subversion might have been greater, internment
did not take place because people of Japanese ancestry made up 37% of the
population and their labor was essential to the economy.

Fighting the War:


- June 1941: Germany army invaded the Soviet Union despite the non-aggression pact
o Soviets join the Allies
o Suffering hundreds of thousands of casualties, USSR wants US and Great Britain to
open a second front in western Europe
Instead, Great Britain invaded African first in order to protect the Suez Canal
and Britains access to oil.
The long delay in opening a second front angered Stalin and made him
increasing suspicious of American and British intentions
- Between 1942 and 1943, Allied troops under the leadership of Dwight D. Eisenhower and
General George S. Patton defeated Germanys soldiers in Africa.
- From Africa, the Allies advanced into Europe through Sicily and the Italian Peninsula:
Italian Campaign
o Complete disaster
o Germany took over control of Italy from Mussolini and bitterly resisted the Allied
invasion
o American and British troops were still fighting German forces in northern Italy when
the European war ended in May 1945

In the meantime, the USSR turned the tide against Germany at the Battle of Stalingrad
D-Day (June 6, 1944)
o Operation Overlord directed by Eisenhower
o Goal: open up the second front in Western Europe by landing the military in France
Allied double agents and diversionary tactics fooled the Germans into
expecting a landing at the narrowest part of the English Channel rather than in
the Normandy region.
Prior to D-Day, the navy bombarded Normandy and paratroopers were
dropped behind enemy lines to disrupt German communications
On June 6, more than 4,000 Allied ships landed troops and supplies on
Normandys beaches.
First American troops to land at Omaha Beach met especially heavy
German fire and took enormous casualties
o Successful; within 3 months, US, British, and French forces entered Paris
Battle of the Bulge (December 1944-January 1945)
o Germanys last-ditch offensive push failed
o Battle is named for the bulge 80 miles long and 50 miles wide that Hitlers troops
drove into the Allies line before being pushed back
US and Great Britain moving east and USSR moving west advance toward Germany
o Soldiers discover evidence of the Holocaust
May 8, 1945, Germany surrendered
o Called V-E Day for victory in Europe
o But the war in the Pacific was not over
Pacific Theater
o Battle of Midway (June 1942)
Japan amassed 200 ships and 600 planes to destroy what remained of the US
Pacific Fleet and to take Midway Island, a strategic location for Hawaiis
security.
US learned of the plan when Naval Intelligence broke the code
Surprising the Japanese navy, the US sunk 4 Japanese carriers and destroyed
over 300 planes.
Turning point in the Pacific because it left Japans fleet so damaged that its
offensive capabilities were destroyed
o Island-hopping: from the Battle of Midway, US forces advanced slowly toward
Japan, taking one island after another in the face of bitter Japanese resistance
Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa (1945)
Japanese soldiers fight to the death inflicting enormous casualties on
the US
o Kamikaze
Significance: US strategists predict millions of casualties will occur
when the US invades Japan
Firebombing of Japanese cities:
Goal: destroy Japanese cities to end the nations capability to fight war
and to win its unconditional surrender
Inflicts unprecedented civilian casualties

o More Japanese die in raids than Japanese soldiers killed during


the war
o FDR dies on April 13, 1945, and is replaced by Vice President Harry Truman
Unprepared for the job
FDR had not included Truman in any high-level policy discussions
o No knowledge of informal agreements made among the allies
making cooperation between them more difficult
o Knew nothing of the Manhattan Project
o Manhattan Project:
US project to build an atomic bomb
Begun after Albert Einstein warned FDR in 1939 of advances in the
German atomic program
Directed by J. Robert Oppenheimer
Research team included many Jewish refugees from Germany
Located at Los Alamos, NM
First atomic bomb tested July 16, 1945
o US dropped 2 nuclear bombs on Japan killing over 160,000 people
On August 6, 1945, the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima from a
plan called the Enola Gay
On August 9, 1945, it dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki
Why did the US do this?
Based on fighting on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, it was believed that a
land invasion of Japan could cost a million casualties
Worsening relationship between the US and USSR
o US wanted to end the war in the Pacific theater before the
Soviets could fully enter it and share in the postwar occupation
of the region
o US wanted to intimidate the Soviets
In the context of the earlier fire bombings of Japanese cities, it was just
an acceleration of an existing policy
o US was already targeting civilian populations
August 14, 1945 Japan surrendered
Called V-J Day for victory in Japan
Americans did not reflect much on the bombings at the time. They were just
relieved the war was over.

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