Transcript Chapter 22 *The Ordeal of Reconstruction

Chapter 34 – FDR and the
Shadow of War (1933-1941)
FDR and the US navigate a volatile Europe in
the 1930’s, wavering between isolationism
and activism
The London Conference
 FDR tries to make foreign policy subordinate to
domestic policy
 The London Economic Conference (1933) organized to
combat global depression
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Stabilizing currency exchange rates to revive world trade
 FDR unwilling to compromise domestic recovery for
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international stability
FDR pulls the US out of the conference
With the conference doomed, global depression worsened
Signaled global nationalistic tendencies
Emboldened world-wrecking dictators
FDR pulls away from Imperialism
 With depression, Americans eager to rid
themselves of Filipino ownership
 Gave “freedom”, with unfavorable economic
terms for the Philippines
 Japan emboldened by US Asian withdrawal
 Yet, FDR officially recognizes the USSR
Good Neighbor Policy
 FDR rethinks TR’s Corollary
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Economic aggressiveness in the face of the Depression?
Antagonize our neighbors may lead to Europe’s dictator’s to use
them against us
 Good Neighbor policy—consultation and non-
intervention
 Haiti, Cuba, Panama witness American withdrawal of
power
 FDR lionized in Latin America
 Secretary Hull pushes Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act
ended trade wars and high tariffs (revised HawleySmoot)
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Beginning of post-WWII free-trade era
Totalitarianism and Isolationism
 Post-WWI chaos and depression led to totalitarian,
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re-armed states in USSR, Italy, Germany, Japan
Hitler and Mussolini form Rome-Berlin Axis
Japan resents naval disarmament, illegally rearms
Tripartite Pact (Japan, Germany, Italy)
Mussolini attacks Ethiopia in 1935; the League of
Nations fails to respond
US responds with isolationist moves
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Johnson Debt Default Act prevents delinquent debtors from
borrowing
Congressional Neutrality
 US public resents role of “merchants of death” in our
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WWI participation
Neutrality Acts of ‘35, 36, 37 limit the economic role
of Americans during foreign wars and end freedom
of the seas policy
Shortsighted policies ignore that war wasn’t always
in their hands
What effect did these policies have?
What relevance does this have today?
Spanish Civil War
 Spanish Civil War (‘35-39) proved neutrality to be
damaging
 Fascist General Franco leads rebels against leftist
gov’t
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Aided by Hitler and Mussolini
Gov’t aided by USSR
 Americans split on who to side with
 Pro-gov’t Americans go to Spain to fight in the Abraham
Lincoln Brigade
 Congress and FDR apply an arms embargo to both
sides
 Inaction led to Franco’s victory and emboldened the
dictators
Appeasement
 Japan invades China in 1937
 FDR makes his Quarantine Speech
 Makes calls for economic policies to quarantine aggressors
 Sparked outrage from isolationists
 FDR retreats in the face of protests
 Hitler’s military buildup and aggression towards
neighbors and Jews ignored
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Democracies believed his occupation of Austria would quench
his thirst
Invades Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia
 Munich Conference
 Democracies show appeasement by allowing Hitler to keep
territorial gains…he then takes all of Czechoslovakia
Tensions Rise
 Hitler-Stalin pact stuns the world
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Hitler can now be an aggressor without reprisal from USSR
 Germany invades Poland in September 1939
 Britain and France declare war on Germany
 FDR declares neutrality, despite desperately needed aid
for Britain and France
 Neutrality Act of 1939 allows democracies to buy
weapons on a “cash-and-carry basis”
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Helped our allies, hurt the dictatorships
Helped for depression recovery
 Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, and France
fall to the Nazis
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Americans horrified that Britain is the only ally left standing
 FDR calls for a military buildup, peacetime draft
Refugees from the Holocaust
 Jews in eastern Europe had suffered decades of
pogroms
 “Kristallnacht” in Germany in 1938
 The tragedy of The St. Louis
 FDR creates the War Refugee Board
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Saved 1000s of Hungarian Jews
 But only 150,000 Jews given refuge in the US
 Why?
Bolstering Britain
 Hitler begins bombing of Britain in 1940
 During the successful defense in the Battle of Britain
debate waged in the US
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Supporters of aid to Britain form Committee to Defend
America by Aiding the Allies
Isolationists form the America First Committee (Lindbergh)
 FDR unilaterally agrees to transfer naval destroyers
to Britain
 FDR moving away from neutrality in the face of
public support for aiding Britain
Election of 1940
 Republicans nominate political newcomer, the
dynamic lawyer Wendell L. Willkie
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Repubs condemn the costly New Deal and tyrannical FDR
 FDR abandons the two-term tradition
 Willkie supports FDR’s interventionism, but not his
methods
 Both promise to keep US out of war, bolster defenses
 FDR wins election easily due to fears of Willkie’s
inexperience
Lend-Lease
 Britain cash-strapped due to war costs
 FDR and Congress move to pass the Lend-Lease Bill
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“Send guns, not sons”
“The arsenal of democracy”
 Isolationists attack the bill as a blank-check
 By 1945, the US sent $50 billion worth in arms to victims
of aggressors
 An economic declaration of war; shatters neutrality
 Helped the US mobilize for war and helped economy
 Germany begins sinking US merchant ships
The Path to War
 Hitler invades the Soviet Union (6/41)
 FDR moves to aid USSR through lend-lease
 Harsh winter, solid fighting halts German advance
 Atlantic Charter drawn up by FDR and Churchill
 Rights of individuals over nations
 Anti-imperialist, right to self-determination
 Freedom to choose form of government
 Disarmament
 A new association of nations
 Isolationists unsurprisingly denounce the Charter
The US at War
 Lend-lease shipments require protection by US naval destroyers to
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prevent German U-boat sinkings
Small scale skirmishes ensue
Congress decides to arm merchant ships; neutrality is officially over
Japan dependent on US resources (oil)
US imposes embargo, freezing of Japanese assets
Japanese surprise attack at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii
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12/7/41: “A day which will live in infamy”—FDR to Congress
3000 dead, battleship fleet destroyed
 Congress declares war on Japan; Ger and Italy on US
 American public united; isolationism dies
 Allied Powers (US, UK, Fra, USSR, Australia, Belgium, Brazil,
Canada, China, Denmark, Greece, Netherlands, New Zealand,
Norway, Poland, South Africa, Yugoslavia)
 Axis Powers (Ger, Italy, Japan, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria)