Lecture 13: The Road to Global Conflict: World War II Origins and the American Response

Legacy of World War one and the Treaty of Versailles

• World War one is vital to understanding the origins of World War two because of the massive casualties inflicted upon all combatants and the resulting disruption to the world order.

• The war led to the total collapse of several major empires:

  • Austria Hungary

  • Ottoman Turkey

  • Germany

  • Russia

• The traditional methods of governance established since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in $1815$ were called into question in the defeated nations of the central powers.

• Even on the Allied side, it was understood that the pre-war world could not be revived due to excessive debt, physical destruction, and vast expenditures.

• While the British, French, and Japanese empires emerged stronger, the peace settlement left deep bitterness among several nations.

Disenchantment with the Treaty of Versailles among Allied Powers

• The Japanese Empire:

  • Japan had joined World War one on the side of the Allies and was granted German colonies in the Pacific Ocean, such as the Marianas, as well as the German sphere of influence in China.

  • These territories were granted as mandates rather than pure transfers of sovereign authority, which irritated the Japanese.

  • Japanese leaders were further embittered when an attempt to include a clause in the Treaty of Versailles recognizing the equality of all races was defeated by nations such as Australia and New Zealand, who were perceived as speaking for the British Empire and the white nations of the world.

• The Italian Kingdom:

  • Italy had been allied with Germany before the war but did not enter until $1915$ after playing both sides to secure the best territorial deal.

  • The Italian military contribution was perceived as poor, having been stalemated by Austro Hungarians and Germans in the northern mountains until British, French, and American troops had to save them in $1918$.

  • Because Britain and France viewed Italy as a burden rather than a help, Italy received few rewards in the Treaty. They were denied much of the territory promised from the former Austro Hungarian Empire.

Redrawing the Global Map: The New Order and Discontented Nations

• The Balkans and Eastern Europe:

  • The Austro Hungarian Empire was broken into Austria and Hungary.

  • A new country, Yugoslavia, was cobbled together from territories like Kosovo, Serbia, Bosnia Herzegovina, and other parts of the former empire. This was an attempt to contain the "problematic" Balkans "in a jar and keep a lid on it."

  • Czechoslovakia was created using land taken from Germany, Austria Hungary, and the former Russian empire.

  • The Northern Baltic states of Estonia and Lithuania were recreated.

  • Poland was recreated as an ancient kingdom using land the Germans had previously won from Russia.

• The Soviet Union:

  • The Soviets were angered that land taken from Russia by Germany was not returned to the new communist state but used to create countries like Poland.

  • Western democracies were terrified of the Bolshevik revolution and the spread of communism.

• The Middle East:

  • The fall of the Ottoman Empire led to a remaking of the map to benefit England and France.

  • New borders and spheres of influence created modern states including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Palestine.

The Suppression and Stability of Germany

• The Treaty of Versailles contained several provisions designed to keep Germany down:

  • A War Guilt Clause requiring Germany to accept sole responsibility for starting the war.

  • Requirements for enormous financial reparations.

  • Military restrictions: An army limited to $100,000$ men; no air force; no tanks; no submarines; and a very small navy.

• Western powers faced a dilemma: they did not want Germany to be so weak that it could not act as a bulwark against the Bolshevik revolution in the Soviet Union.

• The German Republic that replaced the monarchy was unstable. Germas were proud, nationalist, and shocked by their defeat, especially since the country had only been unified in $1870$.

• Loss of Territory: Germany lost the German-speaking provinces of Alsace and Lorraine (won during the Franco Prussian War) back to France.

• The Rhineland: A zone on the eastern bank of the Rhine River was demilitarized to serve as a buffer between Germany, France, and Belgium.

American Isolationism and Disillusionment in the 1920s and 1930s

• Wilson’s Failure: Woodrow Wilson lost his moral authority by becoming an architect of the treaty through horse-trading and wheeling-and-dealing at the Paris Peace Conference.

• The League of Nations: Wilson sacrificed other goals to secure the League of Nations for "collective security." The idea was that if any nation became an aggressor, all others would "gang up" to punish them.

• Article 20 Conflict: The US Senate rejected Article 20, correctly or incorrectly fearing it stripped the US of sovereign rights to decide when to deploy armed forces. Consequently, the US never ratified the Treaty of Versailles and never joined the League of Nations.

• Internal US Attitudes:

  • Americans felt the war had not made the world "safe for democracy" but had instead spawned chaos and communism while enlarging the British and French empires.

  • There was a sense that American role in the war was being denigrated by Europeans who claimed they would have won anyway.

  • The Great Depression ($1929$) reduced US interest in foreign affairs to zero as the nation focused on social programs of the New Deal.

  • The US military was demobilized until it became the $13^{th}$ ranked army in the world.

The "Merchants of Death" Thesis

• A wave of pacifism swept through the country, with a Brown University poll showing $72\%$ of college students opposed to military service even in wartime.

• Senator Gerald Nye of North Dakota led a two-year investigation into war profiteering.

• The "Merchants of Death" thesis argued that the US entered World War one not for neutrality or submarine warfare, but because bankers and arms manufacturers had lent so much money to the Allies that they needed a victory to ensure repayment.

• While no proof of this conspiracy was found, it was revealed that armaments manufacturers made enormous profits, fueling public determination to avoid future European entanglements.

The Rise of Fascism and Nazism

• Italy and Benito Mussolini ($1922$):

  • Mussolini organized the Fascist Party to restore order amidst economic chaos and the threat of communism.

  • The "Black Shirts" (paramilitary groups) used intimidation, beating, and terror to silence opposition.

  • Mussolini was a charismatic speaker who promised to recreate the Roman Empire.

  • The Italians sought to settle the score with Ethiopia, having been the only European army defeated by indigenous people in the $19^{th}$ century.

• Germany and Adolf Hitler ($1933$):

  • Hitler led the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi).

  • The "Brown Shirts" served as a paramilitary force to ruthlessly intimidate political opponents.

  • Hitler capitalized on the Great Depression, which had rendered German currency worthless (people reportedly took wheelbarrows of money to market to buy a purse-full of goods).

  • Nazi ideology relied on the "stab in the back" myth: that the German army was not defeated in the field but betrayed by revolutionaries and elites at home.

  • Hitler prioritized rearmament and public works, allowing Germany to recover from the Depression faster than the United States.

  • Like the Japanese militarists, Nazis embraced the concept of a "master race" and utilized a perversion of eugenics to create a "scientific" justification for their actions.

Escalation and the Failure of Collective Security

• $1931-1937$: Japan, driven by a need for natural resources and a belief in their manifest destiny, expanded into China. The Japanese military, effectively a political force, orchestrated the Marco Polo Bridge incident in July $1937$ to launch a full-scale invasion.

• $1935$: Italy invaded Ethiopia using a modern army equipped with tanks, airplanes, and poison gas. Ethiopia was conquered by $1936$.

• $1936$: Hitler reoccupied the Rhineland with a small force. He secretly ordered them to retreat if they faced resistance from France or England, but none came.

• $1936-1939$: The Spanish Civil War served as a proxy war for German and Soviet forces to test new military tactics involving tanks and aerial warfare.

• $1936$: Italy and Germany formed an alliance known as the Axis Powers.

• $1937$: The Nanking Massacre occurred following the Japanese capture of the city. Tens of thousands were slaughtered, and thousands of women were raped. Japanese soldiers used live civilians for bayonet practice.

• $1937$: The USS Panay, an American gunboat on the Yangtze River, was deliberately dive-bombed and sunk by Japanese aircraft. $48$ sailors were wounded and $2$ were killed.

The Road to War in Europe

• $1938$:

  • March: Germany annexed Austria (Anschluss).

  • September: Hitler demanded the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia.

  • The Munich Agreement: British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Premier Paul Renaud agreed to give Hitler the Sudetenland in exchange for a promise of no further territorial demands. Chamberlain famously declared it meant "peace in our time."

• $1939$:

  • Hitler broke his promise and occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia.

  • August: The Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact was signed, shocking the world as natural enemies became allies, freeing Hitler to attack the West.

  • September $1$, $1939$: Germany invaded Poland.

  • September $17$, $1939$: The Soviet Union invaded Poland from the East.

  • October $1$, $1939$: Poland surrendered and was dismembered.

The Fall of France and the Battle of Britain

• April $1940$: Germany overran Denmark and invaded Norway. Neville Chamberlain was replaced by Winston Churchill as Prime Minister of England.

• May $1940$: Germany invaded France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.

• Blitzkrieg: Known as "lightning war," this strategy used coordinated armored columns and aerial attacks. Though the German army was not technologically or numerically superior to the Allies, they were better led.

• The Ardennes: Germans broke through the "impassable" steeply wooded terrain on the border of Belgium and Luxembourg, outflanking the British and French who had rushed into Belgium.

• June $1940$: France fell. The British army was narrowly evacuated at Dunkirk.

• Battle of Britain (July–October $1940$): The German Air Force attempted to bomb England into surrender, but the British aerial victory prevented a sea-borne invasion.

The United States Shifts toward Rearmament

• Neutrality Acts:

  • $1935$: Banned arms sales to nations at war and warned citizens off warring ships.

  • FDR circumvented these by not declaring a state of war between Japan and China in $1937$, allowing arms sales to the Chinese.

• Navy Acts:

  • Navy Act of $1938$: Authorized a $20\%$ increase in the US Navy.

  • Two Ocean Navy Act ($1940$): Passed after the fall of France; provided for a $70\%$ increase, adding $257$ ships ($8$ carriers, $7$ battleships, $33$ cruisers, $115$ destroyers, $43$ submarines) and $15,000$ aircraft at a cost of $8,500,000,000$.

• The Third Term: In $1940$, FDR successfully ran for a third term, arguing it was no time for a change in leadership during a global crisis. He is the only president to serve more than two terms.

• Economic Impact: The Great Depression was ended not by the New Deal, but by World War two. Rearmament and the mobilization of $16,000,000$ people ended unemployment and created a wealth surplus that would fuel post-war prosperity.

The Arsenal of Democracy and Lend-Lease

• Arsenal of Democracy: FDR proposed that the US would provide weapons to those fighting the Axis without directly entering the combat.

• Lend-Lease ($1941$): To bypass Neutrality Acts, FDR proposed "lending" materials to Britain.

• The Garden Hose Metaphor: FDR explained to the public: "If your neighbor's house is on fire… if he comes over to borrow your garden hose… wouldn't you loan him the garden hose with the expectation that when the fire's out, he'll give you back your garden hose?"

• The Atlantic Charter (August $1941$): FDR and Churchill met off the coast of Newfoundland and established joint war goals: no territorial gain, freedom of trade, and the right of people to choose their own government.

The Path to Pearl Harbor

• Japan proclaimed the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere," essentially replacing European colonial masters with Japanese masters.

• Indochina: Following the fall of France, Japan occupied French Indochina (Vietnam).

• Economic Retaliation: FDR imposed a ban on the sale of iron and steel to Japan, followed by a complete oil embargo.

• The Conflict: Japan, an island nation with no natural resources, faced a choice: abandon its empire or go to war with the US to secure resources.

• The US moved the Pacific Fleet from San Francisco to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, as a warning.

• General Tojo, head of the Japanese government, determined war was necessary.

• December $7$, $1941$: The attack on Pearl Harbor crystallized American public opinion, ending the isolationist debate and propelling the US into the conflict.

Questions & Discussion

• Name the only American president ever to be elected to a third term in office.

  • $\text{Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR)}$

• What is the name of the alliance that bound Germany, Italy, and Japan together (common name, not the treaty name)?

  • $\text{The Axis Powers}$

• This legislation/program allowed the US to give the allies military aid without making them pay for it upfront.

  • $\text{Lend-Lease}$

• What does the acronym Nazi stand for?

  • $\text{National Socialist German Workers Party}$

• What country did Nazi Germany have as an ally in the invasion/dismemberment of Poland, but then attacked and went to war against in June 1941?

  • $\text{The Soviet Union (USSR)}$