Chapter 22 – World War I & the Progressive Crusade (1914-1920)

Learning Objectives

  • Understand Wilson’s foreign policy aims, U.S. involvement in WWI, home-front impacts, post-war peace negotiations, and the turbulent shift from war to peace.

An American Story – George “Brownie” Brown

  • 23-year-old engineer from Waterbury, CT; volunteered July 1917 → served in 117^{th} Engineers, 42^{nd} “Rainbow” Division.
  • Duties: trench construction, barbed-wire entanglements, artillery & MG emplacements; daily German fire.
  • Champagne defensive (Mar 1918): division lost \approx6{,}500 men ( 20\% casualties).
  • St. Mihiel offensive (12 Sept 1918): 3{,}000 U.S. guns fired >1{,}000{,}000 shells; 42^{nd} lost another 1{,}200 men.
  • Meuse–Argonne: Brownie gassed; recuperated when armistice signed 11/11/1918. Discharged Feb 1919 → married Martha Johnson.

Wilson’s Foreign-Policy Agenda (1st Term)

  • Originally domestic-minded; nevertheless drawn abroad by:
    • Progressive ideals: peaceful free trade, self-determination, democracy.
    • Economic interests & global trade.
  • Claimed: “no selfish ends … one of the champions of the rights of mankind,” yet willing to use force.

U.S. Interventions in Latin America & the Caribbean

  • Continuity with Roosevelt’s “Big Stick” & Taft’s “Dollar Diplomacy.”
  • Military occupations to protect U.S. banks/companies: Nicaragua, Haiti, Dominican Republic.
  • Map 22.1 shows network of interventions 1895\text{–}1941.
Mexico Crisis
  • 1913: Gen. Victoriano Huerta’s coup → Wilson refuses recognition (“government of butchers”).
  • Apr 1914: 800 Marines seize Veracruz to block arms shipment.
  • Rebellion by poor farmers; Francisco “Pancho” Villa retaliates:
    • Jan 1916: steals gold train, kills 17 U.S. engineers.
    • Mar 1916: raids Columbus, NM, kills 18 Americans.
  • Wilson sends 12{,}000 troops under Gen. John J. “Black Jack” Pershing → 300-mile pursuit, recalled Jan 1917 to prepare for potential European war.

Descent of Europe into WWI

  • Long-term forces: nationalism, imperialism, militarism; Germany’s challenge to British supremacy.
  • Alliance web magnified danger:
    • Triple Alliance: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy.
    • Triple Entente: Great Britain, France, Russia.
  • Spark: assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (28 Jun 1914) → chain reaction; by 4 Aug 1914 all Great Powers at war.
  • Eventually involved Japan (vs. Germany) → global conflict.
  • Human cost: \approx8{,}500,000 soldiers killed.

Wilson’s Initial Neutrality (1914–1916)

  • Declares “absolute neutrality” – vital to trade & diverse immigrant nation.
  • British naval blockade of Germany tolerated; U.S. exports to Allies ↑ \approx400\%, trade with Germany ≈ zero.
  • German U-boat counter-blockade:
    • Feb 1915: announces unrestricted submarine warfare.
    • 7 May 1915: sinks RMS Lusitania → 1,198 dead (128 Americans).
  • William J. Bryan (Sec-State) resigns; Robert Lansing takes over, adopts harder line.
  • 1916: Germany pledges warning/safety; Wilson campaigns on slogan “He kept us out of war” – razor-thin re-election (popular margin \approx600{,}000; electoral 277–254).

Path to U.S. Entry (Jan–Apr 1917)

  • U.S. supplying \approx40\% of Allied war matériel; U.S. bankers extend billions in loans despite neutrality.
  • Jan 1917: Germany resumes unrestricted submarine warfare, betting Britain will collapse before U.S. mobilizes.
  • Zimmerman Telegram (25 Feb 1917): German proposal for Mexican alliance → public outrage.
  • Feb–Mar: German subs sink 5 U.S. ships → 66 deaths.
  • 2 Apr 1917: Wilson asks Congress for war “to make the world safe for democracy.”
  • 6 Apr 1917: War declared (House 373–50; Senate 82–6).

Mobilizing the Nation

Selective Service Act (18 May 1917)
  • Draft for men 21–30 (later 18–45).
  • Inducted 2{,}800,000; additional 2{,}000,000 volunteers → total forces 4,800,000 (incl. 370,000 Black soldiers).
  • \approx64,000 conscientious objectors; \approx3,000,000 evaders.
  • Training emphasized physical/moral uplift (YMCA, settlement-house ideals); sex-control lectures.
  • Gen. Pershing appointed AEF commander; reputation “lean, clean, keen.”
Progressive Wartime Agencies
  • War Industries Board (Bernard Baruch): coordinated production, cooperation labor–management; profits tripled.
  • Food Administration (Herbert Hoover): “Meatless Mondays,” “Wheatless Wednesdays”; ensured Allied food.
  • Fuel, Railroad Administrations; National War Labor Policies Board → 8-hour day, living wage, collective bargaining in some sectors.
  • Economic boom: industrial wages ↑ (Fig 22.2); AFL membership ↑ 2.7 \text{→} 5 million.
  • Eighteenth Amendment (Dec 1917) → national prohibition (effective 01/01/1920).
  • Nineteenth Amendment: women’s suffrage passed 1919; ratified Aug 1920.

Women in the War

  • >25,000 served in France: nurses, ambulance drivers, canteen workers, “hello-girls,” reporters.
  • Domestic labor shortages → women in railroads, munitions, welding, clerical work; >1 \text{million} new industrial jobs.
  • Suffrage tactics:
    • Radical: Alice Paul’s pickets, hunger strikes (“America is not a democracy …”).
    • Mainstream: NAWSA (Carrie Chapman Catt) builds 2 \text{million} members.
  • Wilson endorses suffrage in 1918 as “vital to winning the war.”

American Expeditionary Force (AEF) in France

  • Trench stalemate: Somme 1916 – 600,000 Allied & 500,000 German casualties for scant gains.
  • U.S. combat 1918:
    • Spring: Germans launch final offensive; AEF enters at Cantigny, Château-Thierry, Belleau Wood (Marines earn fame).
    • Summer: Allied counter-offensive on Marne; \approx250,000 U.S. troops.
    • Sept: St. Mihiel – >1 \text{million} Americans, 45,000 AEF casualties.
    • Meuse–Argonne: largest U.S. operation; total AEF deaths \approx112,000 (wounds + disease) & 230,000 wounded.
  • Black troops: 92^{nd} & 93^{rd} Divisions; 369^{th} “Harlem Hellfighters” served 191 days in battle, most decorated U.S. unit; respected by French, discriminated by U.S. officers.
  • Armistice signed 11/11/1918; Kaiser abdicates.

Wilson’s Fourteen Points (8 Jan 1918)

1–5: open diplomacy, \text{freedom of seas}, free trade, arms reduction, colonial peoples’ rights.
6–13: self-determination for European nationalities.
14: “general association of nations” → League of Nations.

Paris Peace Conference & Treaty of Versailles (Jan–Jun 1919)

  • Big Four: Wilson (U.S.), Clemenceau (FR), Lloyd George (GB), Orlando (IT).
  • Wilson fails to include leading Republicans → domestic political risk.
  • Allied priorities: punish Germany, secure reparations, expand empires.
  • Key outcomes:
    • Article 231 “war guilt” → Germany solely blamed; reparations >\$33 \text{billion}.
    • Germany lost colonies; Rhineland demilitarized.
    • New nations: Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland, Baltic states; Ottoman lands = mandates (Palestine, Iraq, Syria).
    • Japan gains Shandong; racial-equality clause rejected.
    • League of Nations charter accepted (collective security principle).

Senate Rejection of Versailles

  • Opposition factions:
    • “Irreconcilables” – no entanglements.
    • “Reservationists” led by Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge – accept with modifications, esp. Article 10 (collective security).
  • Wilson’s stroke (Oct 1919) → refuses compromise; nationwide speaking tour cut short in Pueblo collapse.
  • March 1920: treaty fails by 6 votes; U.S. never joins League (though Wilson wins 1920 Nobel Peace Prize).

Civil Liberties & Propaganda on the Home Front

  • Committee on Public Information (George Creel): 75,000 “Four-Minute Men,” films, posters demonizing “Huns.”
  • Anti-German hysteria: language banned, products renamed (“liberty cabbage”).
  • Repressive legislation:
    • Espionage Act (1917).
    • Trading with the Enemy Act (1917).
    • Sedition Act (1918).
  • Postmaster Burleson censors mail; \approx1,500 prosecutions – mostly speech.
  • Eugene V. Debs jailed (10 yr) for anti-war speech.
  • Supreme Court (Schenck v. U.S., 1919): “clear & present danger” test (fire-in-theater analogy).

Immediate Post-War Turbulence

Economic Demobilization
  • Govt ends controls; cancels contracts; 3 \text{million} veterans flood labor market.
  • Inflation: prices +75\% in 1919 vs. 1914; employer offensives vs. 8-hr day & unions.
  • Strikes 1919: \approx3,600; Seattle general strike (110,000 workers), Boston Police, nationwide steel strike (350,000) – all crushed.
The Red Scare (1919–1920)
  • Causes: recession, strikes, bombings (Wall St. 16 Sept 1920 – 38 dead), Bolshevik Revolution, Comintern.
  • Attorney Gen. A. Mitchell Palmer & J. Edgar Hoover → Palmer Raids Jan 1920: 6,000 arrests, 500 deportations (incl. Emma Goldman).
  • May Day 1920 predicted uprising fails → scare subsides; ACLU founded 1920 to defend civil liberties.
Influenza Pandemic (1918–19)
  • “Spanish Flu” – 675,000 U.S. deaths; >40 \text{million} worldwide; high mortality ages 20–40.
Racial & Ethnic Conflict
  • Great Migration 1915–1920: \approx500,000 Southern Blacks move North (factory jobs; escape Jim Crow).
    • Race riots in >2 dozen cities; East St. Louis 1917 (39 killed); 96 lynchings in 1918.
  • Mexican immigration 1910–1920: pop. 222,000 \to 478,000; pulled by U.S. labor demand after Chinese Exclusion & WWI; exploited in agriculture & railroads; growth of barrios, cultural solidarity → League of United Latin American Citizens (1929).

Election of 1920 – “Return to Normalcy”

  • Wilson frames vote as referendum on League; Democrats: James M. Cox & FDR support Wilsonian idealism.
  • Republicans: Warren G. Harding & Calvin Coolidge promise “normalcy,” healing, anti-idealism.
  • Result: Harding landslide 60.5\% popular; 404 electoral votes (Map 22.6) – signals retreat from Progressive crusades.

Conclusion – Victory at What Cost?

  • U.S. wins militarily; Wilson’s moral vision partly realized overseas (League), but U.S. refuses membership.
  • Domestic cost: >112,000 U.S. deaths; civil liberties curtailed; hyper-patriotism, repression, labor setbacks; only durable reforms = Prohibition & Women’s suffrage (latter enduring).
  • Progressive spirit wounded; nation turns toward prosperity, conservatism, and “good times” of the 1920s.

Key Terms / Concepts

  • Triple Alliance & Triple Entente
  • Lusitania
  • Selective Service Act
  • American Expeditionary Force (AEF)
  • Eighteenth & Nineteenth Amendments
  • Fourteen Points; League of Nations
  • Treaty of Versailles; Article 231; reparations >\$33 \text{billion}
  • Espionage/Sedition Acts; Schenck v. U.S.
  • Red Scare; Palmer Raids; ACLU
  • Great Migration; Mexican immigration; LULAC

Chronology (Selected)

  • 1914 – U.S. Marines occupy Veracruz; WWI begins.
  • 1915 – Lusitania sunk; Anti-German sentiment grows.
  • 1916 – Villa raids; Wilson re-elected.
  • Apr 1917 – U.S. enters war.
  • May 1917 – Selective Service Act.
  • Jan 1918 – Fourteen Points.
  • Nov 1918 – Armistice.
  • Jan–Jun 1919 – Paris Peace Conference.
  • Jun 1919 – Versailles Treaty signed.
  • Oct 1919 – Wilson stroke; Senate fight.
  • Jan 1920 – Palmer Raids.
  • Aug 1920 – Nineteenth Amendment ratified.
  • Nov 1920 – Harding elected president.