Interwar Foreign Policy and WWII: Mobilization

American Foreign Policy of the 1920s Republican Presidents

Disarmament Initiatives

  • Washington Naval Conference
    • Five-Power Treaty
    • U.S., Great Britain, Japan, France, Italy
    • Warship tonnage ration 5:5:3
    • 10-year pause on construction of naval capital ships
  • Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928)
    • International promise to avoid war as an option for international disputes
  • London Naval Conference (1930)
    • Expanded construction caps on naval auxillary ships

Economic Policies

  • Protective Tarrifs
    • Fordney-McCumber Tariff (1922)
    • Hawley-Smoot Tariff (1930)
  • Dawes Plan (1924)
    • Resolved the issue over Germany’s reparation payments

Stimson Doctrine

  • Japanese invasion of Manchuria (1931)
    • Need for raw materials
  • Stimson Doctrine
    • United States will not recognize territories assumed by force and aggression

Good Neighbor Policy

  • United States transformed its relationship with Western Hemisphere
    • Apply a policy of non-aggression and non-intervention in Central and South American nations
    • Establish reciprocal agreements
  • Hoover
    • Clark Memorandum (1930)
    • Rejected Roosevelt Corollary as extension of Monroe Doctrine
    • Emphasized U.S. role to prevent further European intervention per the Monroe Doctrine
  • FDR
    • Montevidge Convention (1933)
    • U.S. renounced the right to unilaterally intervene in the affairs of Central and South American nations
    • Ended occupations in Haiti and Nicaragua
    • Annulled the Platt Amendment
    • Returned Cuban autonomy

American Isolationists

  • Characteristics
    • Midwest region
    • Rural sectors
    • Progressives and conservatives
  • Nye Committee
    • “Merchants of Death”
    • Munitions manufacturers and bankers pro-WWI to make a profit
    • Support for the Neutrality Acts
  • America First Committee
    • Avoid possible entanglements with European affairs in WWII
    • Anti-Semitic Leaders
    • Charles Lindbergh
    • Henry Ford

The Axis Powers and Appeasement

  • Japan
    • Invasion of Manchuria (1931)
    • Invasion of China (1937)
  • Italy
    • Invasion of Ethiopia (1935)
  • Germany
    • Re-militarization of the Rhineland (1936)
    • Anschluss and the Sudetenland (1938)
  • Global Response
    • Munich Conference (1938)
    • Motov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact (1939)
    • German-Soviet Non-Aggression
    • German invasion of Poland begins World War II in Europe (1939)

Japanese Aggression in the Pacific

  • Show Statism
    • Ultra-nationalist philosophy
    • Military dictatorship
    • Territorial expansionism
  • Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
    • Asia for Asians
  • Invasion of Manchuria (1931)
  • Invasion of China (1937)

Italian Fascism

  • Fascism
    • Far-right authoritarian and totalitarianism
    • Black shirts terrorized anyone to the left of the organization
    • Ultra-nationalism
    • Protectionist economics
  • Invasion of Ethiopia (1935)
    • Annexation of former colony lost in 1896
  • Umberto Eco: Ur-Fascism

German Nazism

  • Weimar Republic
    • Suffered under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and the Great Depression
    • Liberal democracy
  • Beer Hall Putsch
    • 1923 - failed coup d’etat by the Nazis
    • Wrote Mein Kampf
  • Rise to power
    • Nov. 1932: Nazi’s gain 32% of votes
    • Form coalition with conservative party
      • Keep the Communists out of power
    • Jan. 1933: President Paul von Hindenburg appoints Hitler as Chancellor
    • Feb. 1933: Reichstag fire
    • Hitler seizes control using emergency powers

Quarantine Speech

  • Speech by FDR on October 5, 1937
    • FDR sounded alarm on escalating global conflicts
    • Will not enter war without reason
    • Maintain U.S. security

American Isolationism: Neutrality Acts

  • Neutrality Act of 1935
    • Prohibited export of “arms, ammunition, and implements of war” for foreign nations at war
    • Arms manufacturers required an export license
    • Couldn’t trade with belligerent nations
  • Neutrality Act of 1937
    • Americans forbidden to travel on belligerent ships or non-American ships
    • American merchant ships prohibited to transport arms to belligerent nations
    • Cash and Carry: sale of items to belligerents if paid in cash up front
  • Neutrality Act of 1939
    • Cash and Carry expanded to include arms to belligerent nations

World War II Begins in Europe

  • Axis Powers
    • Germany, Italy, Japan
  • Non-Aggression Pact (1939)
    • No fighting between Germany and USSR
    • Tentative alliance
  • German invasion of Poland (Sept. 1, 1939)
    • Blitzkrieg campaign
    • Shock and speed
    • Rapid expansion
    • “Lightning war”
    • Poland surrenders in 35 days
    • Britain and France declare war on Germany - Sept. 3, 1939
    • France and Belgium invaded
      • Fell in 46 days
  • Dunkirk - June 5th, 1940
    • 330,000 British, French, Dutch soldiers evacuated the English channel
    • Avoiding German use of machinery and weapons
  • Blitzkrieg bombing in London, Britain
    • Germany planned to invade the UK

Election of 1940

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt (D)
    • “Drafted” for unprecedented third term
    • Immense popular support
    • Would not send soldiers to fight in Europe
    • Large portion of electoral collage
  • Wendell Willkie (R)
    • Make New Deal programs more efficient

Preparedness

  • Cash and Carry maintained
  • Destroyers-for-Bases (1940)
    • Executive order to trade 50 cruisers and destroyers for 99-yearrent-free leases on British bases
    • UK was running out of money
    • America gains military presence worldwide from the UK
  • Lend-Lease Act (1941)
    • Authorized free trade of American arms to nations “vital to the defense of the United States”: United Kingdom, Soviet Union, China
    • Provides supply needed for the war (increased manufacturing)
    • Effectively ended American neutrality
  • Selective Service Act of 1940
    • First ever peacetime conscription act
    • 21-35 year old men register with local draft board
    • Allowed for conscientious objection for non-combatant or civilian employment

FDR’s Four Freedoms

  • Freedom of speech, from want, worship, from fear
  • Freedoms Americans enjoy

“Arsenal of Democracy”

  • Lend-Lease Act (1941)
    • Provide arms to Great Britain on credit and decisively pro-British “neutrality”
  • Atlantic Charter (1941)
    • UK and US
    • Plan for the world after the war
    • Promote and secure self-determination and free trade
    • No pursuit of territorial expansion
    • Blueprint for United Nations following WWII
    • Solidifies partnership with the UK

Pearl Harbor

  • U.S. Embargoes on Japan
    • Prohibited trade of steel and oil
    • Required Japan’s halt on expansion and removal from China
    • Neutered Japanese economy and industries
    • Provoked attacks against the U.S.
  • December 7, 1941
    • Japanese surprise attack on U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii
    • 2,400 Americans killed
    • USS Arizona and Oklahoma
  • United States enters WWII
    • U.S. declares war on Japan on Dec. 8, 1941
    • Germany and Italy declare war on U.S.
    • German invasion of Soviet Union (1942)
    • Operation Barbarossa
      • June-December, 1942

Office of Price Administration (OPA) and Ration Books

  • Regulated all aspects of civilian life
    • Froze rents, wages, and prices
  • Rationed
    • Meats, sugar, gas, and tires
  • Wartime spending increased 1000%
    • Great Depression could be solved by gov’t spending

Natives in World War II

  • 44,000 Natives served in American armed forces
  • Navajo Code Talkers
    • Code based on Navajo language completely oral and variations in syntax and tone
    • Contributed to successful island hopping campaign in Pacific Theater
    • Japanese never broke the code
  • Served also during WWI
    • Choctaw and Cherokee

Hispanics on Home Front

  • Braceros Program
    • Bi-lateral agreement between Mexico and United States contracting Mexican agricultural laborers
    • General safeguards of housing, but low wages and tough work conditions given high demand
  • Zoot Suit Riots (June 1943)
    • Series of altercations between white military servicemen and Mexican-American youths in Los Angeles

Women on the Home Front

  • “Rosie the Riveter”
    • Women in the workforce
    • 1940 - 27%
    • 1945 - 37%
    • Earned 65% of what men earned
    • Domestic sphere included the home front
  • US gov’t subsidized child care
    • Mary T. Norton (Rep, D-NJ)
    • Commonly Facilities Act of 1942
      • Made families, regardless of income, eligible for 6 days of childcare per week

Women and the Armed Forces

  • 350,000 served in military
    • Clerks, typists, drove trucks, repaired airplanes, laboratory technicians, rigged parachutes, analyzed photographs, flew military aircraft, test-flew repaired planes, and trained anti-aircraft artillery gunners by acting as flying targets
  • Women’s Army Corps (WAC)
  • Women Appointed for Voluntary Emergency Saves (WAVES)
  • Marine Corps Women’s Reserve
  • Coast Guard Women’s Reserve (SPARS)
  • Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPS)
  • Army Nurses Corps and the Navy Nurse Corps.

African Americans on the Homefront

  • Great Migration
    • Detroit Race Riot (1943)
  • FDR and African-Americans
    • Proposed March on Washington (1943)
    • A. Phillip Randolph
    • Executive Order 8802
    • Desegregation of national defense industry
    • Committee on Fair Employment Practice
  • Congress of Racial Equality (C.O.R.E)
  • Double V Campaign
    • Slogan and movement to promote victory for democracy overseas (against fascism) and at home (segregation, discrimination)

African Americans in World War II

  • 1.2 million served during the war
  • Endured Jim Crow segregation in the military forces
    • Segregated units
    • Unable to hold officer positions about whites
  • Tuskegee Alabama
    • Airmen (Red Tails)
    • Fighter and bomber pilots
    • First Black military aviators in armed forces
    • Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male
    • 1932-1972 - United States Public Health Service

Japanese Internment

  • Executive Order 9066
    • Japanese internment camps
    • 110,000-120,000 Japanese families on the west coast
    • Lost property (homes, farms, business, and employment)
    • Korematsu v. United States (1944)
    • SCOTUS ruled E09066 constitutional
    • Financial compensation granted in 1988

Japanese in World War II

  • 442nd Combat Regiment

    • Composed of Nisei (second-generation Japanese-Americans)
    • Total of 14,000 men served

  • Most decorated unit in U.S. military history

  • Rescued the “Lost Battalion”

    • Texas National Guardsmen

  • April 5th is Go for Broke Day in honor of Sadao Munemori KIA on April 5, 1945

    • First Medal of Honor recipient