Transcript Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Shadow of War

Franklin D. Roosevelt
and the Shadow of
War
Introduction
O Americans in the 1930’s tried to
turn their backs on the world
problems. Americans had their
own burdens to shoulder and the
cost of getting involved in foreign
problems seemed too great.
The London Government
O The 66 nation London conference met in the summer
of 1933 and hoped to organize a coordinated attack
on the global depression. They were eager to
stabilize the currency, and this was essential to the
revival of world trade which had all but evaporated by
1933.
O Roosevelt’s first thought was to send someone else,
but he wanted to pursue his gold-juggling and other
inflationary policies at home as a means of
stimulating American recovery. At the time he was
unwilling to sacrifice any domestic recovery for
International Corporation. He scolded the conference
for attempting to stabilize currencies and declaring
America’s withdrawal from the negotiations.
The London Government
O With this announcement the
Conference was ruined, and
this plunged the world into
deeper into debt. Roosevelt’s
actions played directly into
the hands of the power mad
dictators who were
determined to shatter the
peace of the world. American
will eventually pay a high
price for the narrow minded
belief that the United States
could go it alone in the
modern world.
Freedom For(From?) the Filipinos
and Recognition for the Russians
O With the withdrawal from Europe Roosevelt also
did this with Asia. President McKinley’s dream
burst when the Great Depression hit. His dream
was to have an imperialistic Far East. However,
Americans were eager to drop the tropical
liability in the Philippine Islands.
O Congress passed the Tydings-McDuffie Act in
1934 which allowed for the independence of the
Philippines after a 12 years period of economic
and political tutelage that is by 1946. The
United States agreed to abandon its army bases,
but continued to have their naval bases.
Freedom For(From?) the Filipinos
and Recognition for the Russians
O The American people were not so much giving
freedom to the Philippines as they were freeing
themselves from the Philippines. With this it left the
Philippines to their fate and yet in Tokyo, they were
calculating that they had little to fear from an inwardlooking America that was abandoning its principle
possession in Asia.
O Roosevelt made at least one international gesture
was that he formally recognized the Soviet Union in
1933. By doing this Roosevelt was hoping that the
Soviet Union would be a friendly counterweight to the
possible threat of Germany manpower and a
Japanese power in Asia.
Becoming a Good Neighbor
O
O
O
Roosevelt made new relations with
Latin America by proclaiming that he
would like this nation to have a good
neighbor. New world powers suggested
that the United States didn’t want
world power, but their interests and
activities confined to just the Western
Hemisphere.
With what was going on in Europe,
Roosevelt was eager to line up the
Latin Americans to help defend the
Western Hemisphere. Roosevelt had
serious attempts to usher in a new era
of friendliness, though hurting some
US bondholders, paid rich dividends in
goodwill among the people in the
South.
Roosevelt was cheered and to the
South the North seemed less like a
vulture and more an eagle.
Storm-Cellar Isolationism
O Post 1918 chaos in Europe, followed by a Great Depression
allowed the spread of totalitarian to rise and that the state was
everything and the individual was nothing. The USSR (Russia)
led the way with their leader Joseph Stalin and will emerge as
a dictator. In 1936 he began to execute hundreds of
thousands of his own people, and banishing millions to labor
camps. He also his own people destroyed who were suspected
of challenging authority. Mussolini was also in the reins of
power in Italy during 1922. Adolf Hitler also plots to gain
control of Germany in 1933.
O Hitler was the most dangerous out of all of them. He was a
frustrated Austrian painter with hypnotic talents as an orator
and a leader. He makes his mark by securing control of the
Nazi party by making political capital of the Treaty of Versailles
and Germany’s depression that is causing unemployment.
Storm-Cellar Isolationism
O
O
Germans had fallen behind on their
payments and saw no way out of this
escape from the plague of economic
chaos and national disgrace. Hitler at
the time withdrew from the League of
Nations and illegally rearming his
country. In 1936 Hitler and Mussolini
both united together and formed the
Rome-Berlin Axis.
This type of attitude was also
spreading in the Far East. Japan had
unresented feelings towards the Treaty
of Versailles and like the others felt
that they needed more space for their
millions of people. Determined to find a
place in 1934 they gave a termination
notice to the Washington Naval Treaty.
Also by 1935 had dropped out of the
League of Nations. Five years later it
joined arms with Germany and Italy in
the pact.
Storm-Cellar Isolationism
O Mussolini brutally attacked Ethiopia in 1935 with
bombers and tanks. The League of Nations could
have put it down, but they did not want to risk global
hostilities, and by doing that they signed their own
death warrant.
O Isolationism was rotting in America, and they believed
that their encircling seas conferred a kind of mystic
immunity. Americans had no idea that revolutionary
forces were being harnessed by dictators. American
also feared that they might be drawn into it. There
was nationwide talk of developing a constitutional
amendment to forbid a declaration of war by
Congress except in case of invasion unless there was
a favorable popular vote.
Congress Legislates Neutrality
O Responding to overwhelming pressure, Congress made haste
to legislate the nation out of war. Action was spurred when
Mussolini’s Ethiopian assault plunged the world into a new
bloodbath. The Neutrality Acts of 1935, 1936, and 1937 taken
together, stipulated that when the president proclaimed the
existence of a foreign war, certain restrictions would
automatically go into effect. No American could legally sail on
belligerent ships, sell or transport munitions to a belligerent, or
make loans to a belligerent.
O The Neutrality acts were specifically tailored to keep the nation
out of a conflict like World War I. IF they had not been sucked
in-at least not in April 1917. However neutrality proved to be
tragically shortsighted, and America assumed that the decision
for peace or war lay in its own hands. What remained was with
these events are now going to be controlled by dictators.
Appeasing Japan and Germany
O
O
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In 1937 the Japanese militarists near
Beijing touched off the explosion that
led to an all-out invasion of China. In a
sense this attack was the curtain raiser
for WWII.
Roosevelt declined to invoke the
recently passed neutrality legislation by
refusing to call the China incident an
officially declared war. If he had put
the existing restrictions into effect, he
would have cut off munitions which the
Chinese were highly dependent upon.
In Chicago, President Roosevelt
delivered the Quarantine Speech in
1937, and in the speech he called for
positive endeavors to quarantine the
aggressors by economic embargoes.
Many feared that this quarantine would
end up as a shooting quarantine.
Startled by the response, he retreated
and sought less direct means to curb
the dictators.
Appeasing Japan and Germany
O The isolationist mood intensified especially when it came to
China. In 1937 Japan bombed and sank an American
gunboat, the Panay, in Chinese waters. These types of actions
usually caused all-out war, but Tokyo was quick to apologize
and American breathed a deep sigh of relief. They took it
further and they subject white Americans living in China to
slapping’s and stripping’s.
O Hitler was also growing louder and bigger in Europe. In 1935
he opened up a military service that went against the Treaty of
Versailles. He marched into the Demilitarized Rhineland while
France and Britain stood there in indecision. Hitler also took to
persecute and exterminate the Jewish population. In the end
he will wipe out 6 million Jews and will whip the German
military and air force into a machine the world had yet seen.
Appeasing Japan and Germany
O Hitler will then attack and occupy Austria, his birthplace, then
he will begin to make bulling demands for the Germaninhabited Sudetenland of neighboring Czechoslovakia.
Leaders from Britain and France sought to appease Hitler and
Roosevelt kept the wires hot with personal messages to both
Hitler and Mussolini urging a peaceful settlement.
O A conference was finally held in Munich Germany in September
of 1938. In the conference Hitler publicly promised
Studenland was to be the last territorial claim. Appeasement
of the dictators was the symbol of Munich. However in March
of 1939, six months later, Hitler suddenly erased the rest of
Czechoslovakia from the map, contrary from his vow. The
democratic world was again stunned
Hitler’s Belligerency and US
Neutrality
O
O
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Joseph Stalin was the key to the
puzzle. While the British and the
French were securing a mutual defense
with Hitler, the Soviet Union signed a
nonaggression treaty with the German
dictator.
The Hitler-Stalin pact meant that the
Nazi German leader saw the green light
to make war on Poland and the
Western democracies. With the signing
of this act, WWII was only hours away.
Hitler now demanded from Poland a
return of the areas wrested from
Germany after WWI. When Poland did
not comply, he sent mechanized
divisions crashing into Poland at dawn
on September 1, 1939.
Honoring Poland, Britain and Poland
declared war, but they were powerless
to aid them, which allowed Germany to
go on a 3 week of terror. The longdreaded WWII was now fully launched,
and the long truce of 1919-1939 had
come to an end.
Hitler’s Belligerency and US
Neutrality
O President Roosevelt issued proclamations of neutrality, as
Americans were overwhelming anti-Nazi and anti-Hitler, and
they hoped that democracies would win. American however
was desperately determined to stay out: they were not going to
be suckers again.
O Britain and France were urgently ill-prepared and urgently
needing American airplanes and other weapons, but their
Neutrality Acts of 1937 raised a sternly forbidding hand. After
six weeks of considering lifting the arms embargo they made
the Neutrality Act of 1939 which would let European
democracies buy American war materials, it would be a carry
and cash basis. Roosevelt was now also authorized to
proclaim danger zones into which now also let American
merchant ships would be forbidden to enter. Overseas
demands in the end would end up solving the recession of
1937-1938 and solved the unemployment crisis.
The Fall of France
O
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As Hitler was done invading Poland, he
shifted his sights on France. At the
same time the Soviets captured and
flattened Finland. After the attack on
Finland, Hitler began again when he
overran his weak neighbors Denmark
and Norway. Then in the next month
he attacked the Netherlands and
Belgium, followed by the paralyzing
blow at France. By late June France
was forced to surrender.
France’s sudden collapse shocked
Americans out of their daydreams. The
one country that stood in the way was
Britain, and if Britain went under then it
would be the death of constitutional
governments in Europe. This
frightening possibility which seemed to
pose a threat to American security
steeled the American people to a
tremendous effort.
The Fall of France
O Roosevelt called upon the nation to build
huge fleets and a two ocean navy, which
could also check Japan. Congress used 37
billion which was more than the total cost of
fighting WWI and about 5 times larger than
any New Deal annual budget.
O Congress also made a peacetime measure
that had 1.2 million troops being trained
and also 800,000 reserves required for this
global war.
Refugees from the Holocaust
During the late 19th century
Jewish communities in Eastern
Europe were frequent victims of
mob attacks which were approved
by local authorities. Instigated by
a speech given by Joseph
Goebbels, mobs ransacked more
than seven thousand Jewish
shops and almost all of the
country’s synagogues. At least 91
Jews lost their lives and about 30
thousand were sent to
concentration camps. This was
called Kristallnacht, which means
the night of broken glass.
O After reports of the Nazi genocide
began to be verified in 1942,
Roosevelt created the War
Refugee Board. However by the
end of the war, some 6 million
Jews had been murdered in the
Holocaust.
O
Bolstering Britain
Now that France was fallen, now Hitler set his sights on Britain. Britain
alone stood between Hitler and his dream of world domination, and the
wisdom of neutrality seemed increasingly questionable. Hitler will then
launch air attacks and for months the Battle of Britain raged over the
British Isles.
O The debate intensified in the United States over what foreign policy to
embrace. Radio broadcasts from London brought the drama of the
nightly German air raids directly into millions of American homes.
Sympathy grew but not enough for American to get into the war.
O Roosevelt now faced with the decision of going to war or staying the
course with neutrality. Both sides of the war had advocates. Britain by
this time was in desperate need of destroyers, because German
submarines were threatening to starve out Britain with attacks on
shipping. On September 2, 1940 Roosevelt transferred four funnel
destroyers left over from WWI, and Britain gave 8 defensive base sites.
O
Bolstering Britain
O The shifting of warships
from a neutral United
States to Britain was a
violation in the neutrality
acts; however public
opinion polls
demonstrated that the
majority of Americans
were determined, even at
the risk of armed
hostilities to provide the
battered British with all
aid short of war.
Shattering the Two-Term
Tradition
O The 1940 Presidential election came in the midst of this crisis.
Roosevelt was on one side and two Republican senators
Robert Taft and Thomas Dewey and a late bloomer Willkie who
was an outspoken liberal on the other. Roosevelt wanted to
retire, but he owed his experience hand to the service of his
country and humanity.
O In the realm of foreign affairs both candidate promised to stay
out of war, and strengthen the nation’s defense. Willkie hit
hard on Rooseveltian dictatorship and Roosevelt made only a
few speeches and his most specific statement was “Your Boys
are not going to be sent into any foreign Wars.” Roosevelt
triumphed with an electoral win of 449 to 82 votes. Roosevelt
might not have won if there hadn’t been a war crisis.
A Landmark Lend-Lease Law
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The Lend Lease bill was put on the
country when the election was over.
The basis for the bill was that it would
keep the nation out of war. The
underlying concept was Send Guns,
Not Sons, or Billions, not Bodies.
Roosevelt promised the arsenal of
democracy. It would send limitless
supply of arms to the victims of
aggression. This would also keep the
war on the other side of the Atlantic.
The lend lease program marked the
abandonment of neutrality, and it
geared the US factories for all-out war
production. The helped save America’s
own skin when the shooting war burst
around its head.
Hitler recognized the lend-lease
program as an unofficial declaration of
war. On May 21, 1941 the Robin Moor
an unarmed American merchantman
was torpedoed and destroyed by a
German submarine outside the war
zone.
Charting A New World
O
O
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Hitler and Stalin were master dictators,
and are now going to be masters at
double crossing each other. Hitler
therefore decided to crush his coconspirator, seize the oil and other
resources of the Soviet Union. On June
22, 1941 Hitler launched a devastating
attack on his Soviet neighbor. This
attack was a stroke of good luck for the
democratic societies.
Roosevelt promised support by making
some military supplies available. The
United States extended 11 billion in the
lend-lease program. However the red
army combined with the winter halted
Hitler’s invaders at the gates of
Moscow.
With the impending doom of the Soviet
Union’s surrender, an Atlantic
Conference was held in August 1941.
Winston Churchill, Roosevelt met in
Newfoundland met to discuss the
common problems including the
menace of Japan in the Far East.
Charting A New World
O They endorsed the Atlantic Charter and it was
formally accepted by Roosevelt and Churchill
and it outlined the aspirations of the
democracies for a better world at war’s end.
This charter will later help and lay the
groundwork universal human rights.
O The charter promised that there would be no
territorial changes contrary to the wishes of the
inhabitants. It further affirmed the right of a
people to choose their own form of government
abolished by the dictators.
Surprise Assault on Pearl
Harbor
O Japan’s position in the Far East had grown more and more
volatile. The Chinese incident and their constant dependency
on shipments of steel, scrap iron, and oil and gasoline from the
United States was something that was constantly needed.
O Late in the 1940’s finally imposed the first of embargoes and
this came by freezing of Japanese assets in the United States
and cessation of all shipments of gasoline and other strengths
of war. Japan was faced with was either they could knuckle
under to the Americans or break out of the embargo ring by a
desperate attack on the oil supplies and other riches of
Southeast Asia.
O Tense negotiations finally came to a head in Washington when
the department of justice insisted that Japan get out of China.
Those Japanese imperialists refused to give up on a four war to
China and they chose to attack.
Surprise Assault on Pearl
Harbor
O Roosevelt felt that they may attack in the Philippines or Malays.
No one in high authority in Washington seems to have believed
that the Japanese were either strong enough or foolish enough
to strike Hawaii.
O On December 7, 1941 it will be a date that will live in infamy;
about 3000 casualties were inflicted on American personnel,
many aircraft were destroyed, and the battleship fleet was
virtually wiped out when all of 8 of the craft were sunk and
numerous small vessels were damages or destroyed.
O An angered congress officially declared war on December 11,
1941. This challenge was formally accepted on the same day
by a unanimous vote of both the Senate and the House. Pearl
Harbor was not the full answer to the question of why the
United States went to war. This attack was but the last
explosion in a long chain reaction.