Transcript web6awwii

“From Isolationism to Total War”: 1920-1945
Isolationism: Policy of extreme neutrality in
foreign affairs, that says that the U.S. should stay out
of issues overseas even if asked to intervene. The term
is used to describe the Harding and Coolidge
administrations (because the U.S. refused to join the
League of Nations) but it overstates America’s lack of
involvement.
Instead, Republican administrations pursued narrow
multilateral treaties rather than global agreements.
Isolationism is a more accurate description for the
policy Americans wanted to pursue in the late 1930s.
Washington Naval Conference, 1921: Meeting led by Secretary of State Charles
Evans Hughes, in Washington, DC, of the “big five” world naval powers—Britain, France,
Japan, Italy, and the U.S.—to pursue arms control and set limits on size of each country’s
navy. Under the terms, the U.S. agreed to scrap the Great White Fleet. Other agreements
included the Four Powers Treaty (Britain, France, Japan, and the U.S.) to divide the Pacific
into “spheres of influence”; and the Nine Powers Treaty - (the big five, China, Belgium,
Portugal, and Holland) keeping the “open door” policy in China and respecting China’s
territorial integrity.
Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928): Created by Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg and
French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand, it was an agreement between America, France,
and eventually 62 other nations to “renounce war as an instrument of national policy.” The
pact outlawed war. Kellogg won the Nobel Peace Prize for his effort.
Manchuria Incident: Invasion of Manchuria (a Chinese province) by Japan in 1930: it
broke all international agreements Japan made in the 1920s—the League of Nations, the
Kellogg-Briand Pact, the Five- and Nine-Power Treaties. Hoover objected to the invasion;
Secretary of State Henry Stimson issued a statement, referred to as the Stimson Doctrine,
declaring the U.S. would not recognize the right of any country to occupy or control any
territory taken by force. But because of the Depression, the U.S. did not challenge Japan’s
action and so Japan set up a puppet government in the region.
“Good Neighbor Policy”:
U.S. policy regarding Latin America, FDR continued
the practice of Coolidge and Hoover (reversing that of
Woodrow Wilson) not to judge governments in
Central and South America.
FDR called a Pan-American Conference in 1933, held
in Montevideo, Uruguay, that resolved “No state has
the right to intervene in the international or external
affairs of another.”
Axis Powers: Alliance set in a 1937 Protocol, between three dictators that led world into
war: Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Emperor Hirohito. Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935;
Hitler moved his military into the Rhineland in 1936 in violation of the Versailles Treaty;
Japanese aggression in China led to the “Rape of Nanking” in 1937; and Fascists in Spain
pushed that country into civil war in 1937. They agreed to fight the Communist International
(Comintern) and the Soviets, but ended up going to war with both the Soviets and the West.
Germany (Hitler) Nazism: “National Socialism” advocates
extreme nationalism, militarism, and control of industry by
the State under dictatorship, believes in superiority of
“Aryan race”
Italy (Mussolini) Fascism: Advocates extreme nationalism
and socialism under dictatorship, a militarist police state,
named for the fasces—Roman symbol of authority
Japan (Hirohito) Militarism: Advocates extreme nationalism,
values military virtues, selflessness, and dedication to the
emperor (who is viewed as a god)
Soviet Union (Stalin) Communism: “Command Economy”
entirely controlled by the State, no private property, one-party
regime dictated by premier and close advisors, does not tolerate
dissent
Appeasement: Allowing aggressors to get
away with aggression because you fear greater
problems, such as war. As Hitler defied the
Versailles Treaty rules, England and France
gave in to his demands. British Prime
Minister Neville Chamberlain epitomized
appeasement at the Munich Conference (1939)
when he accepted Hitler’s word the Nazis
would stop at the Sudetenland, a German part
of Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain’s famous
statement that the conference had achieved
“peace in our time” proved faulty.
Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact:
In preparation for war in Europe, Hitler and Stalin signed a treaty in 1939 promising neither
leader would invade the other. Its purpose was to allow Hitler to invade Poland, which he
did in September 1939, to secure the formerly German city of Danzig without having to
worry that Stalin would consider it the first step in an invasion of the Soviet Union. Hitler
and Stalin agreed to divide Poland in two—Germany taking the west and Stalin taking the
east; Hitler also got Lithuania, while Stalin got Latvia, Estonia, and Finland.
Blitzkrieg: Germany’s “lightning fast” method of
warfare, integrating mechanized troops on the ground
and dive-bombers in the air. It defeated Poland in two
weeks, destroying half of Warsaw. After which Hitler
turned his attention on France. Because it was winter
and because France had built extensive fortifications
along the German frontier, the two armies sat
watching each other through the winter of ’39-’40. The
Nazis invaded France in the spring of 1940.
Battle of Britain: France and the Low Countries fell to
the Nazis by June of 1940. The Nazis then tried to invade
England.
In the Battle of Britain, the RAF out flew the Luftwaffe in
the air and radar gave the English an advantage from the
ground.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill called it Britain’s
“finest hour.”
Neutrality Acts:
Series of laws enacted during the Depression requiring
the U.S. to stay out of foreign conflicts. The laws forbade
Americans from trading with or otherwise engaging
nations at war, symbolizing America’s isolationist
tendencies especially in Congress. The 1939 amended law
allowed American companies to sell weapons on a cashand-carry basis.
Quarantine Speech: FDR signed the Neutrality Acts,
but he was not an isolationist. In 1937, denouncing the
“reign of terror and international lawlessness” created by
the Axis Powers, he called on the world community to
quarantine the Axis Powers to protect the health of the
world. He offered no direct policy to combat the Axis, and
backed off the harsh rhetoric of the speech when
isolationists challenged him. But the speech shows FDR’s
true feelings about the coming conflict in Europe and Asia.
Selective Service and Training Act: As the Battle of Britain was being fought and
despite America’s declared neutrality in the war, in September 1940, Congress passed this
law requiring all men twenty-one years and older register for the draft and undergo one
year of military training. The military grew from 220,000 at the time Hitler invaded Poland
to more than 12 million by war’s end. In all, some 16 million men and women (200,000
women volunteers) served.
Lend-Lease Act: Nazi victories in Poland and France and the on-going Battle of Britain
increased pressure on the U.S. to get involved in the war. England was running out of
money and could no longer afford to buy weapons on a “cash and carry” basis. Although
blocked by isolationist public opinion, FDR negotiated a Destroyers-for-Bases plan. By
early 1941, he pushed the Lend-Lease Act through Congress. It allowed the President to sell,
lease, trade, lend or otherwise dispose of arms and other war materiel or supplies to “any
country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the U.S.” FDR had
lobbied for the law for months, including an important speech to Congress in December
1940 in which he declared that the United States would be the “Arsenal of Democracy.”
Atlantic Charter: agreement drawn up by FDR and Churchill in August 1941 to set goals
for a permanent peace structure after the war. It followed closely Wilson’s Fourteen Points.
It declared that the countries did not intend to take any new territory if victorious in war; it
called for arms control, free trade, and freedom of the seas; it called for the creation of a
world congress (the United Nations); and most dramatically for Britain, it declared that
imperial powers would give independence to their colonies—Britain would give up its
empire!
Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere: Japan’s bloc in the western Pacific to
provide natural resources needed for its industry. It involved Japan occupying China and
taking over European colonies in Indochina, such as French Indochina, British Malaya, and
the Dutch East Indies. In 1940, the Japanese ordered the U.S. to give up all of its Pacific
territories, including Pearl Harbor. To which Roosevelt responded, “God, that’s the first
time any damn Jap told us to give up Hawaii.” It set Japan and the U.S. on a collision course.
Attack on Pearl Harbor: On December 7, 1941, “a date that shall live in infamy” as
FDR put it, the Japanese attacked the U.S. Naval Base and Air Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii,
and drew the U.S. into war with Japan and its allies, Germany and Italy. The “surprise
attack,” killed 2,400 American military personnel, destroyed scores of aircraft, and sank
several U.S. battleships, but it was in truth a strategic and tactical defeat for the Japanese
because as Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto noted, “We have woken a sleeping giant.”
Four Freedoms: Offered in FDR’s 1941 State of the Union Speech, they represent what
the U.S. was fighting for in WWII. The freedoms are: (1) freedom of speech, (2) freedom of
conscience or religion, (3) freedom from want, (4) freedom from fear.
Rainbow Five: Secret U.S. war plan to defeat the Axis Powers in the Second World War.
It suggested that the Allies focus resources on defeating Germany while maintaining a
defensive war against Japan. When Hitler’s end was in sight, the Allies would put more
resources into defeating Japan. The ratio of resources under Rainbow 5 was 85% against
Germany to 15% against Japan. The plan was drawn up in November 1941, even before we
were at war.
Office of War Mobilization: Headed by James F. Byrnes of South Carolina, it
coordinated government agencies in the war effort. Among the more important agencies
were the
1. War Production Board, which regulated production of war materials and
allocation of resources during the war, including establishing the ration program.
2. Office of Price Administration, which set maximum prices on necessary
goods and on housing to control inflation during the war.
3. Office of War Information, which created propaganda and poster campaigns to
advance the war effort, and which created the Voice of America radio network.
4. Office of Censorship, which censored media and communications from foreign
governments to coordinate messages for public use; the agency’s chief concern -“headache” -- was controlling information relating to the atomic bomb.
Rationing: So civilians could contribute to the war effort and
to conserve necessary materials for soldiers, U.S. restricted food
and fuel purchases. Families got a ration book of stamps to buy
restricted goods. Families were legally limited as to what they
could buy.
To conserve gasoline and rubber, unnecessary travel was not
permitted and speed limits were set at 35 miles per hour.
Children contributed by holding “scrap drives,”
going door to door, collecting tin cans, used pots
and pans, old tires, etc.
Rosie the Riveter: A fictitious character from a popular song, she worked in an airplane
factory. She represents the role many women played in war production by joining the
workforce in traditionally male jobs while the men fought overseas.
Double V Campaign: Precursor to the civil
rights movement, it called on blacks to contribute to
the war effort to defeat the Germans and Japanese,
but to make sure that they gained equality at home
as a result.
A. Philip Randolph: Head of the Brotherhood of SleepingCar Porters, he became a major civil rights leader in the 1940s
when he threatened to hold a “March on Washington” to
protest discrimination against blacks in the war industries.
Rather than see a potential increase in racial tensions in
wartime, FDR agreed to create the Fair Employment Practices
Commission (FEPC) to reduce discrimination.
Second Great Migration: With America’s entry into war, millions of Americans
moved to find work in war production factories. After the creation of the FEPC, some
700,000 blacks moved out of the South to the West Coast or the North. As blacks moved,
they often faced housing shortages, job discrimination, and racism.
Tuskegee Airmen: Segregated African-American
Army Air Corps unit during WWII. Nearly 1000 black
military aviators trained at an isolated complex near
Tuskegee, Alabama and at Tuskegee Institute. 450
fighter pilots under the command of Col. Benjamin
O. Davis, Jr., (later the U. S. Air Force's first black
general) fought in the aerial war over North Africa,
Sicily and Europe
Battle of Stalingrad, (1943): Turning point of
the war in Eastern Europe: Hitler’s army surrendered
after a siege against the Soviet industrial center.
Defeated as much by a freezing cold early winter as
by Soviet tactics (burn everything in their retreat), the
Nazis would never again be as strong. The Soviets
regrouped, after losing millions of citizens and
soldiers, and began to reclaim Russia and Poland.
As the Soviets held off the Nazis through 1943, the
other Allies gained ground in North Africa (after ElAlamein) and in Italy.
Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower:
From Texas, Eisenhower had a long military career that began at West Point in 1911. After
the U.S. entered WWII, Eisenhower led U.S. troops in the North African campaign. An
even-handed, often political general, he kept loose-cannons like George S. Patton under
wraps and controlled the ego of British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery.
Named Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe in 1943, he helped to devise and
led all Allied troops in the invasion of Normandy. He was offered the Congressional Medal
of Honor for his command in the war, but refused it because he thought it should be
reserved for acts of bravery and heroism. After the war, he became President of Columbia
University before being elected POTUS in 1952.
D-Day (June 6, 1944): At the Tehran Conference in November 1943, Stalin pressured
Roosevelt and Churchill to open a second front in France to relieve pressure on the Soviets
in the East. With Churchill still reluctant to take the risk after the terrible disaster of
Dieppe, Roosevelt and Stalin outvoted him. The Allies delayed until the North Africa and
Italian campaigns were concluded or stabilized. Rome fell on June 4, 1944.
D-Day (D stands for day), Operation Overlord, was the Allied invasion on the coast of
Normandy in France. Within eleven months, the Soviets took Berlin and the other allies
took the western and southern parts of the Reich.
Yalta Conference (February 1945): With the Germans in retreat after the Battle of the
Bulge and the Nazi defeat assured, the Big Three allied leaders --Roosevelt, Churchill, and
Joseph Stalin--met in Yalta on the Black Sea to decide what to do with Germany after the
war and how to assure peace in the future, including the creation of a United Nations
Organization. Roosevelt, ailing and near death – he died of a cerebral hemorrhage in April –
rejected Churchill’s warnings about Stalin’s ambitions. He agreed to let the Soviets lead the
attack on Berlin. FDR and Stalin also secretly agreed that Eastern Europe would be taken
into the Soviet sphere of influence, creating a buffer from further invasions of the U.S.S.R.
Harry S Truman
At the 1944 Democratic National Convention, a divided Democratic Party nominated FDR
for a fourth term despite his failing health. To satisfy conservatives and southerners in the
party, FDR named Truman as his running-mate.
In April 1945, FDR died. Truman became POTUS unaware of the country’s biggest issues,
notably the atomic bomb.
V-E Day (May 8, 1945): Day of the German surrender and end of the war in Europe.
Hitler had committed suicide along with several other Nazi leaders. V stands for victory.
The Holocaust: Adolf Hitler’s “Final Solution” for
victory. It was the planned and systematic removal and
murder of Jews, Poles, Gypsies, homosexuals, and
others in death camps, such as Auschwitz. Rumors of its
existence abounded before 1945, but it was not widely
known until US troops reached the camps near the end
of the war. The Holocaust led to the Nuremberg War
Crimes Trials in which many Nazi leaders were
convicted and executed. It led to the creation of a Jewish
state, Israel. It also had a profound effect on U.S. social,
racial and ethnic relations and provided an impetus for
the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s.
Potsdam Conference: Held in July 1945, outside
of Berlin, it was the first meeting of Stalin, Churchill,
and Harry Truman. Truman had been out of the loop
on most major issues of the war, including, the
atomic bomb, and he did not know of FDR’s deal
with Stalin at Yalta. Truman and Stalin would have a
much icier relationship of distrust than Stalin had
with FDR.
At Potsdam, the Soviets agreed to participate in the
war against Japan and the Allies declared that Japan
must surrender unconditionally or face “prompt and
utter destruction.”
Internment of Japanese Americans
After Pearl Harbor, the Justice Department began rounding up Japanese nationals in the U.S.
as “enemy aliens.” Concern grew about spying and sabotage on the West Coast. In February
1942, FDR issued an Executive Order telling the military to remove Japanese resident aliens
and U.S. citizens of Japanese heritage (Nisei) to “War Relocation Camps,” or internment
camps in the interior of the U.S., notably Arizona and Colorado. The relocation was
accompanied by seizure of property; so many lost their homes.
Several Nisei sued, calling their internment a violation of their rights.
In Korematsu v. United States (1944), the Supreme Court ruled internment constitutional
because of the war emergency.
Battle of Midway, (June 1942): Turning point of the war in the Pacific: an important
strategic victory for the U.S. and caused the Japanese to retreat; the Japanese would never be
as strong again. It also was an important tactical victory, showing the importance of aircraft
carriers in the new warfare.
General Douglas MacArthur: With Eisenhower, Pershing, and Patton, one of the
greatest U.S. military commanders of the twentieth century and considered the best general
in WWII.
He was Commander in the Philippines when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. When the
Japanese forced the U.S. withdrawal of those islands, he declared, “I shall return.”
In WWII, he was Supreme Commander in the Pacific and developed the successful islandhopping strategy, retaking The Philippines in the Battle of Leyte Gulf (where the Japanese
first used kamikaze). After Japan surrendered, he was named military commander of
occupied Japan, reshaping Japanese society through a new constitution and a peace-oriented
economy.
“island-hopping” (“leapfrogging”): Tactic of taking Pacific islands and building air
strips on them, getting closer to Japan so that they could bomb Tokyo and other cities. Two
years of fighting after Midway led to the U.S. retaking The Philippines in 1944, then Guam
in 1945. The campaign was the toughest fighting the U.S. saw during the war, each new
assault being bloodier than the last.
Tarawa--3,000 U.S. Marines fell taking an island of just three square miles; Peleliu -- 10
weeks of fighting in 115-degree heat cost 6,000 U.S. troops; Iwo Jima--36 days of fighting
where the Japanese defenders fought to the death, 20,000 of the 21,000 defenders and 26,000
Americans dying; and Okinawa--50,000 U.S., 140,000 Japanese, and 42,000 Okinawan
casualties. The bloody battles caused some military commanders to believe that it would take
a massive invasion of perhaps 1,000,000 troops to defeat Japan.
“fire-bombing”: Example of the Allied effort of total war, striking at civilian as well as
military targets. In this case, U.S. planes dropped bombs filled with napalm on German
cities, such as Dresden, and Japanese cities, including Tokyo. The Dresden bombings
killed about 25,000 people. The Tokyo bombings killed nearly 100,000 and destroyed as
much as half the city. The Germans also targeted civilians during the blitz and the Battle
of Britain.
Tokyo, March 1945
Dresden, February 1945
Manhattan Project: Name given to the top-secret plan
to develop an atomic bomb: advanced in 1942, when Enrico
Fermi split the atom, it culminated in July 1945 when the
U.S. successfully tested the bomb at Los Alamos, New
Mexico. Truman insisted that the bomb be used only on a
military target rather than on women and children.
In August 1945, a B-29, the Enola Gay, dropped the bomb
on Hiroshima. When the Japanese still did not surrender,
the U.S. dropped a second bomb, on Nagasaki. The bombs
killed more than 200,000 Japanese civilians and caused the
Japanese finally to surrender. The United States celebrated
the end of the war as V-J Day.