Chapter 21 - American YAWP

Intro

• World War I, also known as "The Great War," resulted in the fall of empires, the creation of new nations, and the development of tensions that would arise in later years
• The United States got involved in the war in 1917

Prelude to War

• Wilhelm II became the German throne rose in 1888, admiring the British Empire of his grandmother, Queen Victoria
• Wilhelm II envied Great Britain's royal navy and tried to build a rival German navy and establish colonies around the world
• The British considered the German Navy to be a strategic threat
• In 1892, Germany's positioning worried the leaders of Russia and France
• This resulted in a defensive alliance to counter the triple threat between Germany, Austro-Hungary, and Italy
• Queen Victoria remained unassociated with the alliances until a series of diplomatic crises and an emerging German naval threat led to a British agreement with Tsar Nicholas II and French President Emile Loubet in the early 20th century
• The Ottoman Empire in Turkey posed a major danger to European peace
• Austro-Hungarian Expansion in Europe was a source of concern for Tsar Nicholas II
• Russia viewed itself as both the historic guarantor of the Slavic Nations in the Balkans and the competitor for Ottoman Empire-governed territories
• 1914: The Austro-Hungarian Empire controlled Bosnia and Herzegovina and considered Slavic Serbia to be its next challenge
• June 28, 1914: After Serbian Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Austro-Hungarian heirs to the throne, vengeful nationalist leaders wanted to eliminate the rebellious ethnic Serbian threat
• President George Washington in his 1796 Farewell Address spoke about “Foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues" and "those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican liberty”
• 1880s: Americans began to embark upon empire
• Congress approved the building of a modern navy
• The Davis Act of 1908 and the National Defense Act of 1916 led to the rise of modern versions of the National Guard and military reserves

National Guard and Mexican Reformer

• A system of state-run units that could be activated for use in international wars received conditional federal funding for training for local emergencies
• The National Guard program encompassed individual units separated by state borders
• The program provided summer training for college students looking to become reserve officer corps
• Mexican reformer Francisco Madero challenged Porfirio Diaz's corrupt and unpopular conservative regime
• After being jailed, Madero fled to San Antonio and pinned the plan of San Luis Potosi, paving the way for the Mexican Revolution and the rise of armed revolutionaries across the country
• April 1914: President Woodrow Wilson ordered marines to accompany a naval escort to Veracruz on Mexico's lower eastern coast
• Marines oversaw the city government and stopped German weapons shipments to Mexican leader Victoriano Huerta until they left in November 1914
• The threat of war in Europe enabled the passage of the 1916 naval act, which emphasized naval forces and the difficulty in modernizing the military
• Wilson declared the national goal to build the Navy as "incomparably, the greatest...in the world”
• The Wilson administration withdrew support of Diaz, but watched a revolution evolve into assassinations and deceit
• 1916: Pancho Villa raided Columbus, killed 17 Americans, and burned down the town center before American soldiers forced their retreat,
• In 1914, war broke out in Europe
• Wilson declared American neutrality, and insisted that the U.S. be neutral "in fact as well as in name", a policy the majority of American people enthusiastically endorsed
• Ties with the British and French proved strong
• October 1914: Wilson approved commercial credit loans to the combatants
• May 1915: Germans sank the RMS Lusitania

War Spread and US Enters the War

• After the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and grand Duchess Sophie, Austria secured aid promise from its German ally and gave Serbia a list of 10 ultimatums
• July 28, 1914: Austria declared war on Serbia for failing to meet all of the demands
• Russia began to mobilize its armed forces
• August 1, 1914: Germany declared war on Russia to protect Austria after Tsar Nicholas II failed to stop Russian war preparation after a warning directed at him
• The first blow struck was against Belgium in Northwestern Europe
• Germany planned to exploit Russia's sluggish mobilization by concentrating the German army on France
• German military leaders revived earlier strategies and put the Schlieffen Plan into action, quickly moving German forces through Belgium and into France
• This violation of Belgian neutrality led Great Britain to declare war against Germany
• August 4, 1914: Great Britain declared war on Germany for failing to respect Belgium as a neutral nation
• In 1915, the European war had become a series of bloody trench stalemates that lasted into the following year
• Offensives achieved nothing but huge numbers of casualties
• Peripheral campaigns against the Ottoman Empire went underway in Turkey and across the Middle East
• The third year of the war witnessed a coup for German military prospects
• In March 1917, Tsar Nicholas II's regime collapsed in Russia
• The Germans undertook unrestricted submarine warfare to cut off the replenishment supplies from the US for their allied forces
• Realized submarine warfare could spark an American intervention
• Arthur Zimmermann planned to complicate the potential American intervention, and offered support to the Mexican government in a desperate attempt to reclaim Arizona, New Mexico and Texas
• In the spring of 1916-1917, President Wilson believed a German victory would drastically and dangerously alter Europe's balance of power
• Submarine warfare and the Zimmermann telegram stirred public opinion
• Congress declared war on Germany on April 4, 1917

US Joins and Military Enlistment

• The U.S. entered the war 3,000 miles away with a small and unprepared military
• The U.S. relied solely on traditional volunteerism to fill the ranks of the armed forces
• Samuel Gompers advocated for volunteerism stating that "The organized labor movement, has always been fundamentally opposed to compulsion", and also believed that "under voluntary conditions and institutions the Republic of the US can mobilize its greatest strength, resources, and efficiency"
• May 18, 1917: Congress approved the Selective Service Act, with President Wilson signing it a week later
• Initial requirement from ages 21 to 30 to register for compulsory military
• The army medical department examined the general condition of young American men selected for service from the population
• The surgeon general compiled his findings from draft records and the 1919 report "Defects Found in Drafted Men"
• 1,533,937 physical defects were recorded of the 2.5 million men examined for military service
• More than 34% of those examined were rejected for service or later discharged for neurological, psychiatric, or mental deficiencies
• The army used cognitive skill tests to determine intelligence
• About 1.9 million men were tested on intelligence
• Soldiers who could read took the army Alpha test, and illiterate and non-English-speaking immigrants took the nonverbal equivalent, the army beta test, which relied on visual test testing procedures
• Robert M. Yerkes, the president of the APA and chairman of the Committee on the Psychological Examination of Recruits, developed and analyzed tests
• His data argued that the mental age of recruits was only about 13 years'
• The War Department created schools, sightseeing tours, and recreational activities with assistance from the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) and other temperance organizations to provide wholesome and educational outlets
• Women joined military and civilian organizations
• Military leaders authorized the permanent gender transition of several occupations that gave women opportunities to don uniforms were none had existed before in history
• The War and Navy departments allowed women to fill positions in established administrative jobs, which freed more men to join combat units
• Army women served as telephone operators (Hello Girls) for the signal corps
• Navy women enlisted as yeomen (clerical workers)
• The first groups of women joined the Marine corps in July 1918
• Approximately 25,000 nurses served in the army and Navy nurse corps for duty stateside, and overseas
• Millions of women also volunteered in civilian organizations such as the American Red Cross, YMCA/YWCA & Salvation Army

Domestic Policies

• Progressive era reform politics dominated the political landscape
• Americans cared most about the shifting role of at-home government
• The fate of the western world lay in whether the allies prevailed in the United States
• President Wilson articulated a global vision of democracy, but embraced neutrality until 1916 when American trade with the allies tripled and trade with the central powers shrink to less than 1% of previous levels
• When America entered the war, mobilizing military resources to cultivate popular support consumed the country, generating publicity and propaganda campaigns
• Wilson formed the Committee on Public Information, also known as the Creel Committee, headed back progressive George Creel to inspire patriotism and support military adventures
• Enlisted the help of Hollywood Studios to cultivate a view of the war that pitted democracy against imperialism, and framed America as a crusading nation rescuing western civilization from medievalist and militarism
• Wilson signed the Espionage Act in 1917, and the Sedition Act in 1918, striping dissenters and protesters of their rights to resist the war
• Americans financially supported the war effort by purchasing war bonds and supporting the liberty loan drive

Laws and Viruses

• The laws had few effective defensive measures against submarine attacks, as German submarines sank more than 1000 ships before the U.S. entered the war
• The rapid addition of American naval escorts to the British surface fleet and the establishment of a convoy system countered much of the effect of German submarines
• Shipping and military losses declined in July 1917
• After one last disastrous offense against the Germans, the Russian army disintegrated in November 1917
• Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik party came to power
• Russia quickly surrendered to German demands and exited the war, allowing Germany to finally fight the one-front war it had desired since 1914
• March 1918: Germany launched the Kaiserschlacht (Spring Offensive) which consisted of a series of five major attacks, but each had failed to break through the western front by the middle of June 1918
• August 8, 1918: 2 million men of the American expeditionary forces joined British and French armies in a volley of successful counter offenses that pushed the disintegrating German lines back across France
• German General Erich Ludendorff regarded to the launch of the counter offenses as the “black day of the German army”
• Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated at the request of German military leaders, and the new democratic government agreed to an armistice on November 11th, 1918
• In the spring of 1918, a strain of the flu virus appeared in the farm country of Haskell Country, Kansas, and hit nearby camp Funston
• From March-May 1918, 14 of the larger American military training camps reported outbreaks of influenza
• Some infected soldiers transported the virus on troop transports to France
• By September 1918, influenza spread to all training camps in the US and mutated where the second mutated strand struck down those in the prime of their lives

Influenza and 14 Points for League of Nations

• Flu victims were between the ages of 18 and 35
• The "Spanish influenza" became commonly known, although accounts appeared uncensored in those days
• There were estimated deaths of around 50 million people worldwide as a result of the flu
• Reports from the army's general surgeon showed that about half a million soldiers suffered from influenza while 227,000 American soldiers were hospitalized for wounds received in battle
• The worst part struck during the height of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in the fall of 1918, which weakened the combat capabilities of the American and German armies
• There was no cure to the flu that could be found
• On December 4, 1918, President Wilson became the first American president to travel overseas in order to shape the peace
• The war led to an abrupt end to four imperial powers, including the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and the Ottoman Empires, while Allied forces followed the retreating Germans in occupied territories in the Rhineland to prevent Germany from reigniting war
• Wilson and the other allied leaders gathered in France at Versailles for the Paris peace conference to dictate the terms of a settlement to the war
• The Treaty of Versailles officially ended the war on January 8, 1918
• President Wilson offered an ambitious statement of war aims and peace terms known as the 14 points
• The plan not only dealt with territorial issues, but offered principles on which a long-term pace could be built
• Germany still anticipated a favorable verdict on the battlefield, and gave no consideration to accepting the 14 points
• French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau remarked, “The good Lord only had ten points.”
• As the US entered the fray, Wilson proclaimed, “to make the world safe for democracy"
• At the center was the League of Nations, which was charged with keeping pace by preventing the kind of destruction, insuring “mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike"
• Collective security promises that an attack on one sovereign member would be condisered an attack on all, and was a key component of the Fourteen Points
• Wilson was celebrated in Europe and known as the “God of Peace”
• His fellow statesman were less enthusiastic about his plans for post war Europe, as America's allies had little interest in the League of Nations
• However, the negotiations showed that British Prime Minister David Lloyd-George was interested in preserving Britain's power, while French Prime Minister Clemenceau sought acknowledging the Allies' control over the central
• In June 1919, The final version of the treaty was signed, and President Wilson was able to return home
• The treaty was a compromise that included demands for German reparations, provisions for the league of nations, and the promise of collective security
• Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, a prominent opponent the league of nations who could block ratification of the treaty, attacked it for robbing the US of its sovereignty
• Senator Lodge demanded instead that the country deal with its own problems and on its own, free from security oversight
• President Wilson's dream for the league of nations died on the floor of the Senate

Post WWI

• Before the war, the Middle East was made up of three main centers of power: The Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and Iran
• Wilson's call for self-determination appealed to people under ottoman rule
• Wilson sent a commission to investigate the region to determine the conditions and aspirations of the populace, finding that inhabitants favored independent states free of European mandates, however these wishes were ignored
• Lands of the former ottoman empire was divided into mandates through the treaty of Sevres at the San Remo conference in 1920
• The ottoman empire disintegrated into several nations
• The Arab provinces were ruled by Britain and France
• The new nation of Turkey came from the former heartland of Anatolia
• According to the league of nations, mandates were “inhabited by those not yet able to stand by themselves under conditions of the modern world"
• France received Syria, and Britain controlled Iraq, Palestine, and Transjordan
• The U.S. was asked to become a mandate power, but declined
• The geographical restructing of the Middle East included the formation of two new nations: the Kingdom of Hejaz and Yemen
• Resulting was The Russian Revolution of 1917, which inflated American fears of communism
• The fates of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian-born anarchists who were convicted of robbery and murder in 1920 epitomized a sudden American Red Scare
• Those arrested, tried, and executed inspired leftist artists
• Bolsheviks signed a separate peace treaty with Germany in March 1918
• The Allies sent troops to northern Russia and Siberia to prevent German influence and fight the Bolshevik Revolution
• American troops remained in Russia until as late as 1920
• Vladimir Lenin supported revolutions against imperial rule across the world
• Racial tensions culminated in the Red Summer of 1919 when violence broke out in at least 25 cities
• The riots originated from wartime racial tensions
• Industrial war led to the creation of labor shortages, while thousands of black southerners traveled to the North and Midwest to escape the traps of Southern Poverty, and the Great migration sparked racial conflict, specifically from returning white veterans
• W.E.B. Du Bois wrote of returning soldiers, “We return. We return from fighting. We return from fighting. Make way for democracy!"
• America then suffered through the Red Summer of 1919, and riots popped up across the country from April to October.
• The riot in Chicago lasted from July 27th to August 3rd, 1919, and James Weldon Johnson wrote "Can't they understand that the more Negroes they outrage, the more determined the whole race becomes to secure the full right and privileges of a freeman”