The Road to World War II

• Keys: Isolationism, Nationalism, Totalitarianism, Tripartite Pact, Spanish Civil War, Neutrality acts, Germany starts War 9/1/39, Lend Lease, Atlantic Conference, Japanese Embargo

Foreign policy and the rise of dictators

• The London Conference of 1933

• Organize an international attack on the depression

• FDR didn’t cooperate with other nations (US isolating from Europe)

• Wanted freedom to maintain inflationary problems at home

• Results of the failed conference

• Reflected the power persistence of US isolation

• More economic isolationism:

  • Countries let themselves find their own solutions

• Increased the power of dictators

Exchange Rate Stabilization:

• FDR did not want to get locked into that because he felt it would limit his power at home to inflate the economy if necessary

• This resulted in a withdrawal from economic conference

• The US was more focused on domestic issues than international issues

Freedom for (from?) the Filipinos and Recognition for the Russians

• Roosevelt withdraws from Asia

• Congress passed the Tydings-McDuffie ACt 1934

• Independence of the Philippines by 1946

• Especially supported by US sugar growers

• But keep US naval bases

• Japan viewed this as a sign that US was withdrawing from the Far East

• Roosevelt’s one internationalist gesture

• He formally recognized the Soviet Union in 1933

• FDR motivated by trade with Soviet Russia (primary motive)

• USSR balanced Nazi Germany & a militaristic Japan (secondary motive)

Labor union concern was supposedly a hotbed of communist activity

• This was not true

• The AFL was concerned that we are improving our relationship with Russia

• More immigration from the Soviet union meant more immigration, which meant more people taking jobs with lower pay and thus resulting in take away jobs from union members

Becoming a Good Neighbor

• The Good Neighbor policy

• Consultation and non intervention in South America *herbert hoover started good neighbor policy, but FDR implements it

• FDR’s new era in relations with Latin America (Open up trade–economic primarily reason)

• 1933: REnounce armed intervention in Latin america at Pan-American Conference

• End of Roosevelt Corollary---most damaging foreign policy in Latin America

• Marines left Haiti in 1934

• Cubans released from Platt Amendment (US keeps Guantanamo naval base)

• Panama received similar uplift in 1936

• Success of Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy:

• Increased goodwill among the people of the south

• Sign US was content being a regional power

Secretary Hull’s Reciprocal Trade Agreements

• The Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act (1934)

• Activated the low-tariff policies of the New Dealers

• US foreign trade increased appreciably

• Landmark piece of legislation

• Reversed high-protective tariff policy that had existed unbroken since Civil War (most recently Hawley-Smoot)

• Had so damaged American and international economies following WWI

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

  Spread of totalitarianism:

  • Citizens have no rights, good of state outweighs individual rights

• Stalin’s communist USSR led the way (Far left)

• Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Italy (Far right) (Fascism)

• Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany (Far right—Nazism)

• Tojo’s militaristic Japan- emperor was hirohito

• Black Dragon came to power in the Japanese military and gov.

  • They wanted Japan to become an imperial power to assert themselves

  • militarism

  • significant opposition, but They assassinated you if you publicly opposed

• In 1936 Rome-Berlin Axis extends to Tokyo, which keeps US out of war

• Mutual defense agreement between Italy and Germany

• Johnson Debt Default Act (1934)

• Debtor nations couldn’t borrow more from US

• Adolf Hitler, a fanatic who plotted & harangued his way to control of Germany in 1933

• *He’s Austrian not German

• Most dangerous dictator because he combined tremendous power with impulsiveness (narcissistic)

• Secured control of Nazi party by making political capital of Treaty of Versailles and Germany’s depression-spawned unemployment

• Withdraw Germany from League of Nations in 1933

• Began clandestinely (Sneaky) (and illegally) rearming

• Hitler Used Political Capital and blamed britain and France

• Used rhetoric against Jews

• He also blamed Treaty of Versailles

Impulses Toward Storm-Center Isolationism

• Joseph Stalin of Soviet Union, Benito Mussolini of Italy, and Adolf Hitler of Germany

• Of the 3, Hitler was the most dangerous because he was a great orator and persuader who led the German people to believe his “big lie” making them think that he could lead the country back to greatness and out of his time of poverty and depression

• In 1936, Nazi Hitler and Fascist Mussolini allied themselves in Rome-Berlin Axis

• Japan slowly began gaining strength, refusing to cooperate with the world and quickly arming itself by ending the Washington Naval Treaty in 1934 and walking out of the London Conference. Japan was also building up their Navy again

• In 1935, Mussolini attacked Ethiopia, conquering it, but the League of Nations failed to take effective action against the aggressors

Isolationism in America boosted by alarms from abroad

• America believed encircling sea gave her immunity

• Continued to suffer disillusionment from participation in WWI

• Nursed bitter memories about debtors

• Mired down by Great depression, Americans had no real appreciation of revolutionary forces being harnessed by dictators

Congress legislates Neutrality

• The 1934 Nye Committee was formed to investigate whether or not munitions manufacturers were pro-war for the sole purpose of making more money and profits, as the press blamed such producers for dragging America into the First World War

• Reinforce view with Isolationism

• The Neutrality Acts of 1935, 1936, and 1937

• US not allowed to trade or loan to a belligerent

• US made no distinctions between aggressor or victim

• US unwittingly helped dictators

• By not helping friendly nations

• Legislation abandoned traditional policy of freedom of seas

• USA failed to recognize it might have used its enormous power to shape international events, Instead it remained at mercy of events controlled by dictators

America Dooms Loyalist Spain

• During the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), Spanish rebels led by the Fascist General Fransisco Franco rose up against the leftist-leaning republican gov.

• In order to stay out of the war, the US put an embargo on both the loyalist government, which was supported by the USSR, and the rebels, which were aided by Hitler and Mussolini

• The US just stood by while Franco smothered the democratic government, letting a fellow democracy die just to stay out of war

• It also failed to build up its fleet, since most people believed that huge fleets led to huge wars

• In 1938, Congress passed a billion-dollar naval construction act, but then it was too little too late

• Encouraged Dictators toward further aggression

• When Roosevelt repeatedly called for preparedness, he was branded a warmonger

Appeasing Japan and Germany

• Quarantine Speech by Roosevelt in Chicago, autumn in 1937:

• Called for positive endeavors to quarantine aggressors—presumably by economic embargoes

• Isolationists feared a moral quarantine would lead to a shooting quarantine
  Roosevelt retreated and sought less direct means to curb dictators

• In December 1937, the Japaneses bombed and sank the AMerican gunboat, the Panay, but then made the necessary apologies, “Saving” America from entering into war against it

• In 1937, Japan essentially invaded China

• FDR didn’t call this combat “a war” thus allowing the Chinese to still get arms from the US

• Hitler was running wild while Europe was appeasing him

In 1938, he goes into Austria and demands a union between Germany and Austria and Austria welcomed him

Then demanded German-inhabited Sudetenland of Neighboring Czechoslovakia

Roosevelt’s messages to both Hitler and Mussolini urged peaceful settlement

Conference held in Munich, Germany (Sept. 1938)

• Western European democracies, badly unprepared for war, betrayed Czechoslovakia To Germany by shearing off Sudetenland

However, Hitler takes the rest of Czechoslovakia

Appeasement of dictators: Symbolized by Munich

• Munich compromise: appeasement

  • give up morals to please a dictator

Appeasement, War in Europe, and the American Response

Reactions to Munich

• Neville Chamberlain: British Prime Minister who came up with the agreement, said that he had achieved “peace in our time”

• Winston Churchill: Future British Prime Minister, said: “Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonor. They chose dishonor. They will have war.”

Germany Gets Aggressive

• Hitler violates Treaty of Versailles claiming he only wants what “rightfully belongs to Germany”

• 1935: introduced conscription in Germany (violation of treaty of versailles)

• 1936: troops marched into demilitarized Rhineland (Region of germany which bordered france)

• 1930s: progression of attacks on German Jews increased with the nuremberg laws (based on Jim Crow laws in US)

• 1930s: built German mechanized army and air force

• 1938: Bloodless takeover of Austria

• 1938: Munich Conference and British appease Hitler who promises he wants no further land.

• March 1938: Hitler marched troops into Austria and announced “Anschluss”--union–between Germany and Austria

• Actions violated the Treaty of Versailles

Hitler’s Belligerency and US Neutrality

• Stalin, sphinx of Kremlin, key to peace puzzle:

• On August 23, 1939, astounded the world by signing a nonaggression treaty with German dictator

  • The treaty consisted of conditions such as:

    • Don’t attack one another (not est. an alliance)

    • Stalin is saying that Eastern Europe is mine and Hitler is saying that Western Europe is mine

• Notorious Hitler-Stalin pact:

• Gave Hitler green light to make war with Poland and Western democracies

  • Poland was taken away from Russia and Germany and est. on the map after WWI

  • Hitler is bearing a grudge and he’s going to reacquire all the territory that the treaty of versailles took away from the Germans

• Stalin plotted to turn German accomplice against Western democracies

• Doesn’t want to fight two-front war (doesn’t want to fight Eastern front)

• Late August 1939: Hitler demands German land given to Poland after WWI

• Poland refused and asks for help

• Britain and France promise to defend Poland

• Hitler no longer fears Russia and their pact allows Russia a little of POland while Hitler grabs the rest

• September 1, 1939–Hitler attacks Poland (Blitzkrieg—lightning war) and WWII starts

• They bomb EVERYTHING to intimidate people

• Britain and France declare war against Germany

• Poland defeated in 3 weeks (brutal massacre of tanks against Horses)

• USSR entered from east to split Poland with Germany

• Part of a secret agreement Hitler and Stalin made

• Germany was the most dominant civilization in the globe and he’s talking about 1000 years because of their prowess, they’re going to rule the world for 1000 years and install the Third Reich

US response to Germany attack on Poland:

• Roosevelt issues statement of neutrality

• US opinion overwhelmingly anti-German, but did not want to be sucked into the war

• US DEbated whether to assist Britain and France

• Neutrality Act of 1936 barred US from sending these countries arms or other assistance

Neutrality Act of 1939 favors European Democracies

• Set up “Cash and Carry” Policy

• Europeans could buy US war materials, but would have to pay cash and transport them in their own ships to avoid attacks on US ships (Citizens will be anti-German and start a war)

• Effects of Cash-and-carry is to help allies because they control the seas but hurts China since Japan controls the Pacific

• October 1939 to March 1940 Hitler “Quiet” as he realigns troops to attack France while at the same time “Hinting” he would like to achieve peace

• Known as the “Phony War”Or sitzkrieg

• Americans thought Hitler wasn’t that big of a deal, but they underestimated Hitler

War Heats Up

• April 1940: Hitler attacks Denmark and Norway

• May 1940: Hitler attacks Netherlands and Belgium

• May/June 1940: Germans attack and defeat France, with Italy attacking from the South

• British evacuate most of their troops in frantic transport across English Channel at Dunkirk

• Chamberlain Resigns and Winston Churchill elected as prime minister of England

• America takes action with fall of France because fear that if British fall Germany could become master of Europe and Oceans:

• Congress appropriates $37B for military build up

• 5X larger than New Deal annual budget

• June 1940: Selective Service Act: Conscription (Draft) started for first time ever during peacetime

• August 1940 Battle of Britain begins & Royal Air Force (RAF) prevents quick German invasion

• America agrees to help British by any means short of war

Refugees from the Holocaust

• Jewish Communities in Eastern Europe:

• Frequent victims of pogroms, mob attacks approved or condoned by local authorities

• November 9, 1939, instigated by speech from Nazi Joseph Goebbels:

• Mobs ransacked more than 7000 Jewish shops and almost all synagogues in Germany

• 91 Jews Killed

• About 30,000 sent to concentration camps in wake of Kristallnacht, “night of broken glass”

• St. Louis left Germany in 1939 with 937 passengers, almost all Jewish refugees, went to Cuba, Miami, and Canada

• Had to return to Europe, where they were killed by many Nazis

War Refugee Board

• Created by Roosevelt in 1942

• Saved Thousands of Hungarian Jews from deportation to death camp at Auschwitz

• Only 150,000 Jews, mostly Germans and Austrians, found refuge in United States

• By end of war, 6 million Jews had been murdered in Holocaust

From the Battle of Britain to Pearl Harbor

• Battle of Britain: 1940  *not a turning point for Allies (doesn’t turn war in favor of Allies)

• Now with Britain the only power fighting against Germany, FDR had to decide whether to remain totally neutral or to help Britain

• Hitler launched air attacks against the British in August 1940 and prepared an invasion scheduled to start a month later, but the tenacious defense of the British Royal Air force stopped that

  • The British were overmatched by Luftwafte until radar was invented by British scientists

  • The British started to beat Germany

  • After 3 months, Germany gave up and they lost the Battle of Britain

• Hitler bombs London to kill Civilians

• If Britain fell, the war was over because Hitler would have controlled of western europe’s resources (manpower, military) and hitler would be invincible

• Britain Stopped hitler from conquering Europe and ending democracy

• Radar helps locate where planes are coming from

Winston Churchill on contributions of the RAF:

• “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to few”

American Public Opinion Divided

• Those who supported helping Britain formed the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, while those for isolationism (including Charles A. Lindbergh) were in the America First Committee, and both groups campaigned and advertised for their respective positions (Lindbergh believed that Hitler was targeting Europe not AMerica and he said FDR wanted to go to war; hitler was not a threat but FDR was a warmonger)

Bolstering Britain

• Argument double-barreled:

• To Interventionists: appealed for direct succor to British by such slogans as “Britain is Fighting Our Fight”

• To Isolationists—-appealed for assistance to democracies by “All methods short of war,” so conflict would be kept to faraway Europe

• Isolationists, both numerous and sincere, very vocal

• Organized America First Committee

• Contended Americans should concentrate strength to defend their own shores

• Basic philosophy: “The Yanks Are Not COming”

• Britain was in dire need for destroyers, and on September 2, 1940, FDR boldly moved to transfer 50 old-model, four-funnel destroyers left over from WWI, and in return, the British promised to give the US eight valuable defensive base sites stretching from Newfoundland to South America

• These would stay in American ownership for 99 years

FDR shatters the two-term tradition

• In 1940: FDR broke the two-term tradition, and won his third-term

• Democrats felt that FDR was the only man qualified to be president, especially in so grave of a situation as was going on

Congress Passes the Landmark Lend-Lease Law

• Britain was running out of money, but ROosevelt didn’t want all the hassles that came with calling back debts, so he came up with the idea of a lend-lease program in which the arms and ships, etc… that the US lent to the nations that needed them would be returned when they were no longer needed

• Senator Taft retorted that in this case, though, the US wouldn’t want them back because it would be like lending chewing gum that was chewed, then taking it back

Congress Passes the Landmark Lend-Lease Law March 1941

Defended as law that would keep US out of war

• US sends weapons instead of soldiers

• US would be “arsenal of democracy”

• Britain to give used weapons or equivalent back when war was over

* Criticism from isolationists or anti-Roosevelt Republicans

• Lend lease was argued over heatedly in Congress, but it passed, and by war’s end America had sent about $50 billion worth of arms and equipment

• Could lend or lease munitions to any nation whose defense was deemed vital to the defense of the US

• The Lend-Lease Act was basically the abandonment of the neutrality policy, and Hitler recognized this

• Hitler recognized Lend-Lease as unofficial declaration of war

• Until then, Germany avoided attacking US Ships (hitler doesn’t want US in the war because he knows that the US can turn the war in favor of the Allies)

• After Lend-Lease, little point in trying to curry favor with US

• On May 21, 1941, Robin Moor, unarmed American merchantman, torpedoed and destroyed by German submarine

Charting A New World

• Two Global events marked course of World War II:

• Fall of France in June 1940

• Hitler’s invasion of Soviet Union, June 1941

• Stalin balked at German control of Balkans

• Hitler decided to crush coconspirator, seize oil and other resources of Soviet Union

• On June 22, Hitler launched devastating attack on Soviet neighbor

• Stalin invites him in (Soviet’s had most casualties)

• Hitler’s Assault on the Soviet Union Spawns the Atlantic Charter

• On June 22, 1941, Hitler attacked Russia, because ever since the signing of the Non-Aggression Pact, neither Stalin or Hitler had trusted each other, and both had been plotting to double-cross each other

• Hitler assumed his invincible troops would crush the inferiori Soviet soldiers, but the valor of the Red Army, US aid to the USSR through lend lease and bitter winter stranded Hitler

• The Atlantic Charter

• Atlantic COnference was Suggestive of Woodrwo Wilson’s 14 points

• FDR and Churchill meet in the Atlantic and discuss war strategies and make a plan for the post-war peace

• The US and Britain sign the Atlantic Charter

• Pledged the following: Collective security, disarmament, self-determination, economic cooperation and freedom of the seas

• Would be the basis for the charter of the United Nations

US Destroyers and Hitler’s U-Boats Clash

• To ensure that arms sent to Britain would reach there, FDR finally agreed that a convey would have to escort them but only as far as Iceland, as Britain would take over there

• September 1941, US Destroyer Greer attacked by German sub it had been trailing

• FDR Allowed to Shoot on Sight

Surprise Assault on Pearl Harbor

• Japan, since September 1940, had been formal military ally of Nazi Germnay:

• America’s shooting foe in North Atlantic

• Japan mired down in costly and exhausting China Incident

• Japan and america:

• America embargoes on key supplies on Japan in 1940, Japan had no choice but to either back off of CHina or attack the US

• December 7, 1941

  • Attack on Pearl Harbor

  • Fdr called it “a date which will live in infamy”

• US asks congress to call for war and then Germany and Italy declared war on the US

Tripartite Pact: Germany, Japan, and Italy

• rome-berlin-tokyo axis

• The purpose for signing it is so the US doesn’t join the war and so the war isn’t fought on two fronts (going to war to one meant fgoing to war with three)

1940 Election historical significance: FDR ran and won for a third term (22nd amendment limits number of terms)

Atlantic Conference/Charter:

• FDR and Churchill met at NewFoundland to discuss war strategies and post war peace

• They went to write and sign Atlantic Charter

• The importance of charter:

  • The principles agreed upon became basis for charter of United Nations; taken from 14 points of Wilson

Two key mistakes made by axis powers: In chronological order:

German invasion of Soviet Union—always intended to attack the USSR—wanted their oil too (fight two front war he never wanted)

• Hitler invaded USSR earlier than planned was because of resource problems: Hitler’s plan was to take over western europe and then attack Russia (similar to Schlieffen plan from WWI)

Pearl Harbor (US joined the war)