Transcript The Interwar Years 1921-1941

The Interwar Years
1921-1941
Diplomacy, Isolationism, and Intervention
The Diplomacy of the New Era / 1920-1929
• League of Nations was an international organization founded as a
result of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920. From 1934-1935, it
had 58 members.
• League goals included: disarmament, preventing war through
collective security, settling disputes between countries through
negotiation, diplomacy and improving global quality of life.
• The League lacked its own armed force and so depended on the
Great Powers to enforce its resolutions, keep to economic sanctions
which the League ordered, or provide an army, when needed, for
the League to use.
Diplomacy of the New Era:
Failure of the League of Nations
• The origins of the League as an organisation created by the Allied
Powers as part of the peace settlement at the end of the first world
war led to it being viewed as a "League of Victors”. It also tied the
League to the Treaty of Versailles so that when the Treaty became
discredited and unpopular, this reflected on the League.
• The League required a unanimous vote of its fifteen, member
Council to enact a resolution; conclusive and effective action was
difficult, if not impossible.
• Member states. Most notably missing was the position that the
United States of America was supposed to play in the League, not
only in terms of helping to ensure world peace and security but also
in financing the League. The League was the cornerstone of
Wilson’s Fourteen Points.
Punch Magazine December 1919
Diplomacy of the New Era:
Failure of the League of Nations
• Collective security by the League
required nations to act against
states they considered friends, and
sometimes against national
interests, to support states in which
they had no interest.
Ex. Mussolini and Ethiopia
• The League depended on the Great
Powers to enforce its resolutions.
Britain and France, were reluctant to
use sanctions or military action on
behalf of the League.
• The League's advocacy of
disarmament for members while at
the same time advocating collective
security unwittingly deprived it of
the only forceful means by which its
authority could be upheld.
Moral Suasion in Punch Magazine 1920
U.S. Diplomacy of the New Era /
Harding-Coolidge
• 1921 Harding administration ended
any chance of the U.S. joining the
League by negotiating separate peace
treaties with the Central Powers (i.e.
Germany)
• Sec. of State, Charles Evans Hughes
sought the advantages of peace w/o
the burden of “collective security”.
• Pursue stable world order via
independent internationalism, not
withdraw from world
• Isolationist only in the sense that US
wants to avoid war and entanglements,
esp. in Europe
• Tries non-military methods to shape
world (economic persuasion)
U.S. Diplomacy of the New Era:
• Washington Conference 1921:
– U.S. goal to negotiate an end to the global naval arms race.
– Scrap 2 million tons of existing shipping. OK. What?
– Five-Power Pact 1922 limited naval tonnage and armaments,
US & GB-5 tons, Japan- 3 tons, France & Italy- 1.75
In effect, Pact gives Japan control of the Pacific. How and to
what ends?
– Nine Power Pact continue Open Door Policy on China
– Four Power Pact US, GB, France, and Japan promise to
respect each other’s Pacific Territories and cooperate to prevent
aggression
• Kellogg-Briand Pact 1928:
– US & France alliance aimed at Germany banning war as a
instrument of foreign policy. Eventually 48 nations sign on
– Enforced by “moral force” of world opinion.
Debt and Diplomacy
• US leaders assume that US
economic expansion abroad
will create a stable world
• By 1920s, US is a prominent
world creditor, manufacturer,
exporter, and investor
• US products, including movies,
saturate globe; foreign reaction
to Americanization is mixed
• US Government assists cultural
and economic expansion (ITT,
RCA, Pan American Airlines)
including Latin America
Debt and Diplomacy
• U.S. foreign policy in 1920’s was aimed at protecting foreign trade
(overseas markets for US goods). Washington Conference and
Kellogg-Briand helped. How?
• U.S. primary overseas market was Europe (still recovering from the
Great War)
– Great Britain and France owed the U.S. creditors 11 billion
dollars
– Germany was strapped with 32 billion in reparations to Allied
Powers
• Dawes Plan 1924
– U.S. make loans to Germany so that it could pay reparations to
GB and France. GB and FR would reduce the payment amounts.
– Reparations payments to GB and France were used to pay its
debt to U.S. banks
• U.S. banking and corporations were inexorably tied to Europe.
• Fordney-McCumber Act 1922. Tariffs make it difficult for German
companies to sell goods, lowering tax revenue, making reparation
payments impossible
Hoover’s Foreign Policy / 1928-1932
•
Latin America
– 1928, goodwill tour, Hoover
renounces the Roosevelt
Corollary of Monroe Doctrine
– Begins formulation of Good
Neighbor Policy
(nonintervention), Clark
Memorandum withdrawing U.S.
Marines from Haiti and
Nicaragua
– U.S. helped negotiate the
Treaty of Lima 1929, ending a
60 yr conflict between Chile
and Peru
– 1931, Mexican Repatriation
Program, forced migration of
500,000 Mexicans to ease
burden on municipal/state aid
programs
Hoover’s Foreign Policy / 1928-1932
•
Europe
– Proposed the Hoover Moratorium
to help Germany make
reparations, rejected by France
– 1931, European countries begin
defaulting on U.S. loans
– Economic instability created a
climate for political and social
unrest, capitalism seemed to be
failing
– Mussolini’s Fascist Party took
power in Italy in 1922, and
threatened expansion by the
1930’s
– Weimar Republic lost popular
support and Hitler’s National
Socialist (Nazi) Party consolidated
power by 1932
Hoover’s Foreign Policy / 1928-1932
•
Asia
– Japan’s economic depression,
Stalin’s Soviet Union to north,
and Chiang Kai-shek
expanding into Manchuria.
– Manchuria, part of China,
under Japanese economic
control since 1905
– Militarists staged a coup in
Japan in 1931 and invaded
Manchuria beginning the SinoJapanese War
– China in turmoil. Civil war
between Chiang (Kuomintang)
and Mao Zedong (Communist)
FDR: Hegemony in Latin America
1933-1939
• US dominance (economic,
military, and political) grows
after 1920
• In reaction to growing
nationalist protests in LA, US
tries less overt means to keep
control
• FDR’s Good Neighbor Policy
reduces anti-Americanism
without loss of US power and
influence
• USA trains national guards and
backs local dictators (Trujillo,
Somoza, Batista)
FDR: Hegemony in Latin America
1933-1939
• Puerto Rico (US protectorate) an example of US
paternalism
• Mexico offers most serious challenge to US as it seeks
control of its raw materials (oil)
• Fearing Mexican-Axis trade, FDR concedes Mexico can
control its land/oil (1942); a big victory for Latin American
nationalists
• FDR also endorses non-interventionism (1936) and PanAmerican consultation
FDR: Isolationism & Internationalism
1933-1939
• FDR’s faced two (interrelated) challenges: economic
recovery and the crisis in Europe
• 1933 World Economic Conference. FDR announces that
U.S. will allow gold backed value of the dollar to fall
(making U.S. goods competitive in Europe)
• 1934 FDR signs legislation forbidding loans to foreign
countries in arrears. In effect, ending the circular loans
used to pay WW I costs.
• 1934 Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act. Lower tariffs by
50% with trade partners who do the same. Increased
exports 40%. But?
Isolationism & Internationalism 1933-1939
• 1933 USSR eases
Comintern anti-US
propaganda, in return,
U.S. officially recognizes
the Soviet Union.
• Good Neighbor Policy.
Cordell Hull announces
– “No state has the right to
intervene in the internal or
external affairs of another”
(replace military pressure
with economic pressure)
U.S. Isolationism
• Geneva Conference- arms limitation talks
– 1933, Hitler and Mussolini withdraw
– 1935, Japan withdraws from Washington Conference
naval agreements
• Reasons for U.S. isolationism:
– Failure of “internationalists” and the League to limit
aggression (ex. Japan-China and Italy-Ethiopia)
– Populist politicians, Nye Committee Report blaming
munitions & banking industry for U.S. involvement in
WW I.
– Public opinion against U.S. involvement in Europe,
leading to the Neutrality Acts
U.S. Isolationism / Neutrality Acts
• Neutrality Acts 1935,’36,’37. Congress responds
to constituents to prevent a repeat of the events
that lead U.S. into WW I.
– Neutrality Act 1935- imposed a general embargo on
trading in arms & war materials with all parties in a war,
declared that American citizens traveling on warring
ships traveled at their own risk.
– Act 1936- renewed the 1935 act for another 14 months.
It also forbade all loans or credits to belligerents. Did not
include civil war (i.e. Spain)
U.S. Isolationism / Neutrality Acts 1937
– Included provisions of the earlier acts, without expiration
date, extended to cover civil wars as well. U.S. ships
prohibited from transporting any passengers or articles
to belligerents, and U.S. citizens were forbidden from
traveling on ships of belligerent nations.
– In a concession to FDR, a "cash and carry" provision
was devised : the President could permit the sale of
non-arms to belligerents as long as the recipients
arranged for the transport and paid immediately in cash,
– Hopefully this would not draw the U.S. into the conflict.
– Roosevelt believed that cash and carry would aid
France and Great Britain in the event of a war with
Germany, since they were the only countries that
controlled the seas and were able to take advantage of
the provision
U.S. Isolationism / Neutrality Acts 1937
• Neutrality Act 1937
– Sino-Japanese War. FDR supports China's efforts to
defend & did not invoke the Neutrality Acts and allowed
arms shipments to China.
– This outraged the isolationists in Congress who claimed
that the spirit of the law was being undermined.
Roosevelt stated that he would prohibit American ships
from transporting arms to the belligerents, but he
allowed British ships to transport American arms to
China.
– Extended 1939 to provide assistance to Great Britain
U.S. Isolationism / Quarantine Speech
• October 1937
– FDR warns that Japanese aggression is a threat to
world peace and that aggressors should be
“quarantined” by the world community to prevent the
spread of the “contagion of war”
– Public reaction to the speech was overwhelmingly
hostile. Most saw it as FDR’s attempt to justify and
further aid to belligerent nations
– December 1937, Japanese warplanes attack and sink
the USS Panay on the Yangtze River. U.S. isolationists
accepted Japan’s account of the incident as an accident
• Towq
U.S. Isolationism / Munich Conference
• German aggression:
– 1936, against Versailles, revives German army and occupies the
Rhineland (ceded to France)
– March 1938, Anschluss with Austria
– September 1938, annexation of the Sudetenland (western
Czechoslovakia)
• Munich Conference- G.B., France and Germany
– Hitler claims that his territorial claims are complete and
Chamberlain declares “peace in our time”
• Six months later Germany occupies all of Czech. And turns
his attention to Poland
– GB and France pledge to defend Poland from Nazi attack
War Begins
• Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, August 1939. Germany
and USSR promised not to join any grouping of
powers that was “directly or indirectly aimed at the
other party”.
– Included a secret protocol dividing the countries of
Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, & Romania
into Nazi and Soviet spheres of influence, anticipating
"territorial and political rearrangements" of these
countries' territories. All were subsequently invaded,
occupied, or forced to cede territory by Nazi Germany,
the USSR, or both.
• September 1, 1939, Hitler invades Poland, GB and
France declare war on Germany
War Begins
• “This nation shall remain a neutral nation. But I
cannot ask that every American remain neutral
in thought as well.” ~FDR
• Neutrality Act of 1939, forbids U.S. ships in war
zones but allows “cash & carry” for arms.
• “Phony War” Hitler waits. Stalin takes Latvia,
Estonia & Lithuania. Finland fights back.
• Spring 1940, Blitz against Denmark, Norway,
Netherlands. France falls on June 22.
• Collaborators establish Vichy government, GB
flee to Dunkirk
War Begins / US Intervention
• May 1940, FDR asks Congress for 1 billion in
defense funds. Gets it!
• Gallup poll, June 1940- German victory not a
concern. July 1940 (after France falls)- 66% of
Americans polled believed Germany was a
threat to the U.S.
• Fight for Freedom Committee- declare war now
• America First Committee- nonintervention,
Lindberg, Sen. Gerald Nye, & Hearst Publishing.
• FDR runs for unprecedented third term. Beats
Willkie with 55% of the popular vote
War Begins / US Intervention
• England near bankruptcy
and cannot afford “cash &
carry” FDR introduces
“Lend-Lease”
– Lend or lease arms to any
nation deemed “vital to the
defense of the United States”
– GB (and other allies USSR) get
weapons on the “promise’ to
pay later
– Sec of War Henry Stimson
urges US convoy protection to
British shipping. U.S. interprets
Monroe (West Hemisphere) to
include Iceland
US Intervention / Lend-Lease
War Begins / US Intervention
• Germany invades
USSR, Operation
Barbarossa
– US extends lend-lease
to USSR
• Oct. 1941, German uboats sink the USS
Reuben James
– US arms merchant
fleet
US Intervention / Atlantic Charter
• It was drafted at the Atlantic
Conference (codenamed
Riviera) by British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill
and U.S. President Franklin
D. Roosevelt, aboard
warships in a secure
anchorage in Ship Harbour,
Newfoundland, and was
issued as a joint declaration
on 14 August 1941
• Outlines the war goals and
goals of the post war world
US Intervention / Atlantic Charter
• In brief, the eight points were:
– No territorial gains were to be sought by the United
States or the United Kingdom.
– Territorial adjustments must be in accord with the
wishes of the peoples concerned.
– All peoples had a right to self-determination.
– Trade barriers were to be lowered.
– There was to be global economic cooperation and
advancement of social welfare.
– Freedom from want and fear;
– Freedom of the seas;
– Disarmament of aggressor nations, postwar common
disarmament
US / Japan
• Tripartite Pact- loose defensive pact between Japan,
Germany, and Italy
• U.S. trade embargo imposed on Japan as punishment
(and stall) Japanese control of the Pacific Islands
• Militarists seized control of the government, replacing
Prince Konoye with Gen. Hideki Tojo
– Invade Vietnam and plan to invade Dutch East India to break US
supply line to China
• Tojo refused to yield on the issue of China
• Henry Stimson~ “I have washed my hands of the
Japanese situation, and its in the hands of …the Army
and Navy”
US / Japan
• Dec 7, 1941 Pearl Harbor
attacked
• U.S. naval force in the
Pacific is greatly reduced by
the loss of 8 battleships, 188
airplanes and 2,000 soldiers
• Dec 8, FDR asks for a
declaration of war.
• Dec 11 Germany & Italy
declare war on U.S.
– U.S. reciprocates