Chapter 34: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Shadow of War

The London Conference

• Summer of 1933, 66 nations sent delegates to the London Economic Conference

  • Delegates hoped to coordinated an international response - global depression

  • Stabilize currencies and rates which they could be exchanged

• FDR opposed conference b/c didn’t want any interference with his own plans to fix US economy

• W/out support from US conference fell apart

• Collapse strengthened global trend towards nationalism

• Made international cooperation difficult

• Stated as the event that really kicked off WW2

Freedom for/from Filipinos and Recognition for Russians

• Continuing nation's isolationist policies – FDR withdrew from Asia

  • Congress passed Tydings-McDuffie Act, 1934, provided independence to the Philippines by 1946 – didn’t want to have to support the Philippines if Japan attacked

• 1933, FDR formally recognized the Soviet Union

  • Opened up trade and fostered friendship to counter-balance the threat of German power in Europe and Japanese power in Asia

Becoming the Good Neighbor

• FDR - Good Neighbor policy

  • America would not intervene or interfere with Latin American countries.

    • All marines left Haiti, 1934

    • Released some control over Cuba and Panama

• When Mexican gov’t seized American oil properties in 1938, FDR held to his policy and a settlement was worked out (1941)

Secretary Hull’s Reciprocal Trade Agreements

• Congress passed Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, 1934

  • Designed to lower tariffs

  • Allowed Pres. to lower tariffs with a country if that country also lowered theirs

  • Negotiated pacts with 21 countries by 1939

• Trade agreements dramatically increased U.S. foreign trade

• Paved way for American-led free-trade international economic system after WWII

Storm-Cellar Isolationism

• Following Gt. Dep. totalitarianism spread throughout Europe

  • Joseph Stalin took control of Communist USSR > killed hundreds of thousands of political opponents

    • Killed more than Hitler, but we didn’t worry as much because he did it within his borders

  • Benito Mussolini took control of Italy in 1922

• Adolf Hitler took control of Germany in 1933 - Most dangerous b/c of tremendous power and impulsive tendencies

• 1936, Nazi Hitler and Fascist Mussolini became allies - Rome-Berlin Axis

  • The idea was that Italy and Germany both split Europe in half

• 1934, Japan terminated Washington Naval Treaty and accelerated their construction of large battleships

• Mussolini attacked Ethiopia in 1935

• Americans maintained isolationist attitude - thought oceans that surrounded country would protect them.

• 1934, Congress passed the Johnson Debt Default Act, preventing debt-dodging nations from borrowing further from the US

Congress Legislates Neutrality

• Congress sought to keep US out of war by passing the Neutrality Acts of 1935, 1936, and 1937

  • Acts stated that when the president proclaimed the existence of a foreign war, certain restrictions would automatically go into effect.

  • Countries involved in a war (victim or aggressor), no American could legally sail on one of their ships, sell or transport munitions to them, or give them loans

• Because America did not help its democratic friends, America actually helped provoke the aggressors

America Dooms Loyalist Spain

• Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939

  • Started when Spanish rebels, led by Franco, rose against the left-wing republican government in Madrid

  • Aided by Mussolini and Hitler

  • Overthrew Loyalist regime, supported by USSR

  • War was "dress rehearsal" for WWII - involved many of the same countries

• Small group of American volunteers fought for Loyalists

• US wanted to stay out of war > Congress amended neutrality legislation to apply an arms embargo to both Loyalists and rebels

Appeasing Japan and Germany

• 1937, Japan invaded China.

  • FDR refused to call invasion a "war", so the neutrality legislation did not take effect.

    • If he had called it a war, he would have cut off munition sales to the Chinese > consequence Japan could still buy war supplies from US

• FDR gave Quarantine Speech, 1937

  • Proposed economic embargos against the aggressive dictators

  • Public opposed - FDR did not follow through with his plan

    • If we would have aligned with anyone, it would have been Stalin

• 1937, Japan’s planes sunk US ship - Tokyo apologized and US accepted

• 1935, Hitler violated Treaty of Versailles - introduced mandatory military service & 1936 took over demilitarized Rhineland.

• March 1938, Hitler invaded Austria. (Note: Austria actually voted for the occupation, fully aware that if it resisted, Germany would forcefully take over Austria.)

• Germany, Sept. 1938, Western European democracies allowed Germany to keep Sudetenland (part of Czechoslovakia) - hoped this would stop Hitler from taking over other countries.

• In March 1939, Hitler took over all of Czechoslovakia

Hitler’s Belligerency & US Neutrality

• August 23, 1939, USSR signed nonaggression treaty with Hitler

  • Hitler-Stalin pact meant Germany could make war on Poland & Western democracies without fear of retaliation from USSR

• Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939.

• Britain and France, honoring commitments to Poland, declared war on Germany > start of WWII

• US strongly anti-Nazi but wanted to stay out of war

• Britain and France needed materials from US, so Congress passed Neutrality Act of 1936

  • European democracies buy US materials if they transported goods on own ships &
    paid cash – “Cash and Carry” policy

  • US to avoid loans, war debts, and the sinking of American ships

• Demand for war goods helped end the recession of 1937-1938, and it solved decade-long unemployment crisis

  • By ‘38 we were out of the Depression - Recession is slightly better than a recession

The Fall of France

• Months after the fall of Poland - known as the "phony war“

  • France and U.K. were not really militarily involved in the war

• USSR took over Finland despite Congress loaning $30 million to Finland

• Phoney war ended - April-May 1940 when Hitler took over Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and Belgium

• France fell in June 1940

• When France surrendered, Americans realized that England was all that stood in the way of Hitler controlling all of Europe.

• FDR and Congress quickly set out to build large air fleets and a two-ocean navy

• Sept. 6, 1940, Congress passed conscription law – US first peacetime draft

• At Havana Conference of 1940, US agreed to protect Latin America from German aggression

Refugees from the Holocaust

• Nov. 9, 1938, mobs of Germans attacked German Jews

  • Kristallnact, "night of broken glass“

  • Following these attacks, thousands of Jews sent to concentration
    camps

• FDR created War Refugee Board after learning of Nazi genocide

  • Created to help victims of Nazis and other Axis powers

• By the war's end, over 6 millions Jews had been murdered in the Holocaust

Bolstering Britain

• After France fell to Germany, Hitler launched air attacks against Britain in August 1940 (Battle of Britain)

• During Battle of Britain, radio broadcasts brought the drama from London air raids directly into US homes.

  • Sympathy for Britain grew, but not enough to push the US into war

• Most powerful group of those who supported aid for Britain was the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies

• Isolationists organized the America First Committee - America should concentrate what strength it had to defend itself

• Sept. 2, 1940 – FDR transferred 50 destroyers left over from WWI to Britain.

  • In return, Britain US 8 valuable defensive base sites in the Western Hemisphere.

  • This was a violation of America's neutrality obligations

Shattering the Two-Term Tradition

• 1940 Election - Republicans chose Willkie

  • Condemned FDR's alleged dictatorship & opposed New Deal

• FDR decided to run for 3rd term,

  • Argued that in time of war, country needed his experience\

• FDR won election

A Landmark Lend-Lease Law

• Fearing collapse of Britain - Congress passed the Lend-Lease Bill in 1941

  • Under pretense of defending America

  • Allowed US to lease arms to democracies that needed them.

    • Guns & tanks returned after war

    • Opponents of bill said arms would be destroyed and unable to be returned after the war.

    • Bill marked abandonment of any pretense of neutrality

• Hitler saw the Lend-Lease Bill as an unofficial declaration of war

• Until then, Germany had avoided attacking U.S. ships

• May 21, 1941- unarmed US merchant ship destroyed by German submarine
  outside the war zone

Charting a New World

• Before attack on Pearl Harbor, 2 events marked the course of WWII:

  • Fall of France - June 1940

  • Hitler's invasion of USSR - June 1941

    • Hitler’s plan; if he takes oil from USSR, they can’t fight

• Hitler decided to invade USSR – June 22, 1941

  • Hoped to take oil and other resources of USSR & then concentrate on Britain

  • FDR sent military supplies to the USSR.

• August 1941 – FDR & Churchill met and came up with the eight-point Atlantic Charter at the Atlantic Conference

  • Discussed goals of the war

  • Promised there would be no territorial changes contrary to the wishes of the inhabitants

  • Affirmed right of a people to choose their own form of government

  • Declared for disarmament of the aggressors

US Destroyers and Hitler’s U-Boats Clash

• B/c Germany kept sinking arms shipments, FDR decided to have US warships escort supplies to Britain (July 1941)

• After series of US boats were sunk by German U-boats, Congress voted in November 1941 to repeal the Neutrality Act of 1939

  • Enabled merchant ships to be legally armed and enter combat zones with munitions for Britain

Surprise Assault on Pearl Harbor

• Since September 1940, Japan had been allied with Germany

  • Japan's war effort was dependent on trade with US

    • Late 1940- US imposed the first of its trade embargoes on Japan

• Offered to lift the embargo if Japan ended its war with China > did not agree to US's terms

• "Black Sunday" Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese bombers attacked Pearl Harbor, killing 2,348 people.

  • Most of US's battleships were significantly damaged

  • Pearl Harbor was not US soil

  • 3 Pacific-fleet aircraft carriers were spared because they were out of the harbor.

• Dec. 8, the U.S. declared war on Japan

• Dec. 11, 1941, Germany and Italy declared war on US

• US followed suit by declaring war on them.

America’s Transformation from Bystander to Belligerent

• Pearl Harbor united Americans in their desire to go to war

• Prior to attack, most Americans only supported policies that might lead to war

• Did not want Britain to fall to Germany

• Wanted to stop Japan from expanding