Foreign Policy Under the Progressive Presidents
Theodore Roosevelt had a saying that went “speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far”. This characterized foreign policy under his administration, in which Roosevelt used the threat of military intervention to spread U.S. influence and power around the world.
Roosevelt brokered a peace between Russia and Japan after the latter two declared war over Manchuria and Korea. Roosevelt was the first American and the first U.S. president to win a Nobel Peace
Prize for his intervention in the Russo-Japanese War. During the
Roosevelt Administration, the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe
Doctrine was also issued. This document stated that the U.S. would intervene in other American states if they could not adequately supervise their countries, especially economically. The Roosevelt
Corollary was a response to Latin American and South American countries defaulting on their debts to European countries. Europe responded by sending naval ships to the Western Hemisphere, an action that the U.S. protested as violating the Monroe Doctrine.
Roosevelt’s biggest foreign policy triumph however, was the building of the Panama Canal. The French had tried to build a canal across
Panama, but disease and poor management had made the effort a

disaster. The U.S. offered a deal to Columbia, since Panama was a province of Columbia, to lease land across Panama and to build a canal. The Columbians refused to ratify the treaty, because the amount offered by the U.S. ($10 million up front and $250k/year) was not enough. Roosevelt walked softly but carried a big stick. He engineered a revolt in Panama and used the U.S. Navy to block the
Columbian Army from putting down the revolt. Within weeks, Panama was an independent nation and the United States had a treaty with
Panama to build a canal. Work started in 1904 and the canal was finished in 1914. It is one of the most important shipping lanes in the world. Control of the Canal was turned over to Panama in 1999.
During the Taft Administration, military threat was replaced by economic influence. Called “Dollar Diplomacy”, Taft used American wealth to replace European loans with American loans in neighboring
American countries. The U.S. also aided our neighbors to the south with loans in order to improve infrastructure and their economies.
With the Panama Canal under construction, it made sense to ensure that the Latin American countries had stable governments.
Woodrow Wilson’s foreign policy was based on morality, hence
“Moral Diplomacy”. His inexperience in the international sphere almost led to a war with Mexico however. When the Mexican government fell to a coup d’etat led by Gen. Victoriano Huerta,
Wilson’s administration went so far as to occupy the port city of
Veracruz for six months in order to stop German arms shipments to

Huerta’s army. Huerta stepped down as president of Mexico in July of
1914, but by then another foreign policy crisis was occupying
Wilson’s attention. On 28 June, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of
Austria-Hungary was assassinated in Sarajevo, Bosnia.
Background of the Great War
1. Unification of the German States
- creation of the German Empire results in a highly militarized
German state and an arms race between the countries of
Europe
2. Diversification of the Austrian Hungarian Empire
- Austria-Hungary is determined to hold on to its empire in the face of various national independence movements among its provinces
- it also wants to tighten control over its Balkan provinces and if the opportunity presents itself, to absorb Serbia
3. The Balkans
- Serbia has plans to unite the Balkans into a Slavic Empire, controlled from Belgrade
- Bosnia, which is a province in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, has a large ethnic Serb population and is actively trying to break free from the empire
- the Slavic populations of the Balkans look to Russia for a common identity and assistance in their quest for independence

4. The Ottomans
- by 1912, the Ottoman Empire has lost all of its European territory, and allies itself with Germany to retain some influence in Europe (and also as a measure of protection from Russia to the north)
5. Russia
- the loss of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 results in a loss ininternational prestige and influence
- Russian leaders hope that intense nationalism and war will quell social unrest among its population
6. France
- France lost the coal rich Alsace-Lorraine to Germany after the
Franco-Prussian War in 1871
- it is also uneasy about a highly armed Germany on its borders
Even though the major European powers all had motivation to go to war (even Britain, who was worried about Germany’s growing power on the seas), the prevailing view was the spirit of Progressivism would prevent the occurrence of any major conflict.
The Guns of August
1. Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated on 28 June, 1914
- he was the heir to the Austrian-Hungarian throne
- best guess is that a Serbian nationalist group, the Black Hand, was responsible

2. Austria-Hungary sends Serbia the July Ultimatum
- it demanded that Serbia institute various measures, including the establishment of Austrian-Hungarian police forces and law courts in Serbia to find and punish insurgents
- Germany has already informed Austria-Hungary that it will honor their alliance
3. Serbia responded by denying the July Ultimatum
- it has received reassurances from Russia that it will protect
Serbia from Austrian-Hungarian aggression
4. Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia on 28 July, 1914
- this prompts each of the major European countries to begin military mobilization
5. Russian mobilization prompts Germany to declare war on 1 August
6. France declares war on Germany 3 August
- it is honor bound by its treaties with Russia
- also alarmed by the Germans mobilizing for war
7. Germany immediately puts the Schlieffen Plan into effect
- war plan in case of hostilities with France
- called for an immediate invasion of Belgium in order to reach
Paris within six weeks and take France out of the war
- Paris must be taken within six weeks because the German high command thought this was how long complete Russian mobilization would take
- in reality, the Russians mobilized much more quickly than the
Germans expected and the invasion of France was halted by fierce Belgian resistance to the German armies

8. Britain enters the war on 4 August
- when Germany invades Belgian on 4 August, Great Britain immediately declares war on Germany
Soon all the European powers are involved in this war. Imperialism ensures that this is a world war, as the colonies of the industrialized nations take part. Rampant nationalism (jingoism) justifies the war aims of the various combatant governments. Industrialism produces military technology that is deadlier than any used in previous wars.
This is also a family war. Queen Victoria of Great Britain married her children into most of the ruling houses of Europe. Her descendents included her grandsons, George V of England and Wilhelm II of
Germany, and the royal families of Russia, Denmark, and Norway.
War in the Trenches
The Great War, as it was known, quickly became a stalemate.
Industrialism produced weapons, modern weapons, that killed on a mass scale. Rapid fire machine guns, hand grenades, artillery shells, tanks, land mines, all meant that the massed infantry battles of the previous century were obsolete. In addition, the Great War saw the use of aircraft (the Red Baron), submarines, motor vehicles and chemical weapons. The last was particularly gruesome and gas

masks were invented in response to the different gas weapons produced by both sides.
Military tactics really didn’t keep up with military inventions, so the first years of the Great War was in essence a defensive war. The two sides retreated to trenches and tried to figure out ways to offensively attack the other’s position. Trench warfare was brutal to the common soldier. Living in a trench in the heat or cold, with fleas and lice, rats, with nasty field rations, trying to cross an open field of barbed wire and land mines, with the enemy firing upon you…that was the life of an infantry soldier in the Great War. Many were scarred psychologically. If you weren’t killed outright, you were maimed, or sickened for life by gas.
On the seas, the Germans employed their underseeboot…the submarine. German U-boats attacked the enemy supply lines, while both sides employed their new battleships to great effect. The Great
War saw the first aircraft carriers launch airplanes in a raid against
German zeppelin hangars.
The two great battles of the war, Verdun, which lasted from February to July of 1916 and the Somme, which dragged on from July to
October of 1916, over one and a half million soldiers were killed.

As the war dragged on for four years, it was clear that the Central
Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottomans) could not win.
After the United States entered the war in 1917, the tide turned in favor of the Allies (Great Britain, France, Russia, who left the war in
October 1917, and the United States). Germany asked for an armistice in November 1917, effectively ending combat. The war was over.
The United States and the War
On August 4, 1914 (the same day as the German invasion of Belgium and the British declaration of war), President Wilson issued a
Proclamation of Neutrality.
Events, however, conspired to bring the United States closer to the
Allied side. The British Navy prevented the United States from trading with the Central Powers, but they declared they would buy supplies intended for the Germans. Therefore, American manufacturing was tied to one side in the war. To pay for these goods, and the war,
Allied countries borrowed money from American banks. So American credit was tied to the Allied side. U.S. newspapers also took sides.
They reported German atrocities and the use of poison gas in the field. American public opinion soon turned against Germany.
In February of 1915, the British passenger ship, the Lusitania, was sunk off the coast of Ireland by a German U-Boat. Approximately

1200 passengers died, including 128 Americans. The British had been using passenger ships (cruise ships) to carry war supplies, including ammunition. The Lusitania was no exception. Germany had declared the waters around Great Britain to be a war zone and any ship that carried war supplies to be a ship of war. The German embassy took out ads in American newspapers warning passengers
NOT to sail on British passenger ships. Both U.S. and British outrage over the sinking of the Lusitania forced Germany to stop U-boat attacks on civilian ships, but the war grinds to a stalemate in the trenches. The U-boat crisis prompted Wilson to quietly start making preparations for war, and Americans avoided cruise ships in
1915/1916.
Wilson gave a speech in 1916 calling for peace without victory and pledged U.S. support for peace negotiations, while quietly making military preparations for war. The president won the election of 1916 on the platform of “He Kept Us out of the War”.
Meanwhile, Germany informed the United States that on February 1,
1917 it would start unrestricted submarine warfare. ANY ship sighted near Britain or France would be fair game for its U-boats. Since the land war is a stalemate, Germany hoped to use its submarines to bring the war to a close. The U.S. broke off all diplomatic relations with Germany. Then, late in February, the Zimmermann Telegraph was intercepted by the British. In this telegram, the German government instructed its ambassador in Mexico to offer a deal to the

Mexican government in case the U.S. declared war on Germany. If
Mexico declared war on the U.S., Germany would ensure that Mexico would regain all the territory it lost to America in the previous century.
Since the telegram had to be routed through London (the British had cut the German trans-Atlantic telegraph cable), the British intercepted the telegram, decoded it and handed it over to the American governmnent. The Wilson Administration was not amused.
In March of 1917, German U-boats sank four American ships. On
April 2, the United States decared war on Germany. Although previously opposed to war, Wilson now embraced it. The United
States could shape peace efforts, and could make the world more safe by containing German aggression and bringing American democracy to the rest of the world. When Wilson stated that this was a “war to end all wars”, he wasn’t referring to it’s brutality. He was referring to his (that is the United State’s) effort to have the Great War be the last war humanity experienced. Ever the Progressive reformer was Wilson.
The War Experience for Americans
The United States was not prepared for war. Military spending was still going to the navy. The army only had roughly one hundred thousand regular soldiers enlisted. To remedy this problem, in May
1917, Congress passed the Selective Service Act. Twenty-three million men registered for the draft, and the government raised an

army of 2.8 million draftees. Although the draft included African-
Americans, and some 350 thousand of them were sent overseas, they were excluded from victory celebrations and memorials. One
African-American doughboy, Corporal Freddie Stowers , did receive the Medal of Honor…in 1991, seven decades after the war ended.
To publicize the war, the Committee of Public Information, or the
Creel Committee, was formed. Headed by George Creel, this government agency was nothing more than a propaganda machine to sell the war to the American people. After all, around ten million people of German descent lived in the United States. Combined with a very large Irish population that harbored anti-British sentiment, the government worried about the loyalty of its immigrant population. The
Creel Committee recruited film stars, sports figures, and other leading lights to speak out in support of the war. Furthermore, the “fourminute men” gave short speeches (around four minutes long, hence their name) before sports games, on the radio, during national events, etc., speeches such as “Why Are We Fighting” and “What
Does It Mean to Be American”. Films such as The Kaiser, Beast of
Berlin were produced. Posters , pamphets, radio spots, all created by the Creel Committee, ensured American loyalty. There was a backlash however.
Anti-German sentiment quickly spread across the country. Schools no longer offered German language classes. German restaurants closed and German food was taken off the menu in other restaurants.

Sauerkraut was renamed “liberty cabbage”. Pretzels were removed from store shelves. Polka music, which had been popular, was no longer played. Neither was Bach, or Beethoven. This was benign however. On the streets of New York City, a dachsund was kicked to death. Some people with German surnames anglicized their last names, or faced being harrassed. It was not an empty fear. Some
Germans, accused of being spies, or traitors, were killed by angry mobs. The most horrific example was Robert Prager, who was lynched by a mob in Collinsville, IL in April, 1918. Although Prager had been locked in jail by the police to try and protect him, when the mob came for him, the police stood by and did nothing. He was allowed to write a short letter to his parents in Germany…”Dear
Parents: I must on this, the 4th day of April, 1918, die. Please pray for me, my dear parents.” Twelve men were put on trial for his lynching.
All were aquitted.
The war created job opportunities for both African-Americans and women. As a matter of fact, two major migrations occurred during the
Great War. First, around half a million African-Americans moved out of the rural South and into the major urban cities of the Northeast and
Midwest. There they found jobs in the factories and industries that were short-handed because of the war. This is the time when the
African-American enclaves in these large urban cities, for example
Harlem and the south side of Chicago, were settled. The other migration came from further south. More Hispanics from Mexico were escaping the political turmoil of their country and moving into the

United States to take farm jobs (especially as African-Americans were leaving). Immigrant restrictions were relaxed just for Hispanics and they became migrant farm workers. Women too, entered the workforce. About 20% of labor in heavy industry were female workers. Of course, they were expected to give up those jobs to returning soldiers, but women made important contributions to the war effort. In addition, they worked as nurses, Red Cross volunteers, ambulance drivers, and entertainers (not prostitutes). As American women tasted economic freedom, and gained the vote, it was hard for them to go back to the private domestic sphere.
A Bureaucratic War
The Great War expanded federal power in the United States substantially. In addition to the Creel Committee to publicize the war, the War Industries Board was created. This federal agency, in essence, took over and ran American manufacturing during the war years. The War Industries Board fixed prices, allocated resources, decided what goods would be produced and what industries were necessary for the war effort (non-essential industries closed several day/week to save on fuel). By setting price, production, and yes, wage standards, the government ensured that it had the necessary resources to wage war effectively. The results of this was that major corporations made huge profits (U.S. Steel/J.P. Morgan) and the
United States emerged from the war as the leading economic and industrial power in the world.

Two more government agencies created for the war effort were the
Food Administration and the Fuel Administration. The Food
Administration, led by future president Herbert Hoover, encouraged
Americans to ration food for "our boys". Not only were "wheatless days" and "meatless days" promoted, but Americans were persuaded to plant victory gardens. This rationing system worked, and the
United States not only had enough food to feed its civilian and military population, but also to bring famine relief to Europe, especially
Belgium. The Fuel Administration did much the same thing, encouraging Americans to ration coal and gasoline, and promoting
"fueless days". It also fixed the price of coal, including its shipping costs, and directed which consumers would get coal. In order to conserve fuel, the first Daylight Savings Time was enacted.
To fund the war, the government issued Liberty Bonds, that is government securities. At first, Liberty bonds weren't in much demand (the regular American had little experience in buying government bonds). But a concerted effort to make buying Liberty
Bonds a "patriotic" act meant that the government raised over seventeen million dollars selling these bonds. The income tax rate was increased also, to help bring in revenue for the war.
Total War

What we see then, in the Great War and in its successor, World War
II, was the concept of Total War. Not only was the military involved, but all levels of society, men and women, young and old, civilian and military. Since territorial gains in trench warfare were measured in yards, not provinces, nations compared birth rates to casualty rates to gauge progress. Today, we know little of total war. We are not called upon to make sacrifices for the wars we wage. In 1914, nations mobilized their entire society for war.
The Treaty of Versailles 1919
In the official treaty that ended the Great War, we can already see the seeds of the next world war. President Wilson travelled to France, hoping to continue the spirit of Progressivism with his Fourteen
Points. The European Nations paid lip service to Wilson, but were in no mood to go easy on a defeated Germany.
Germany, according to the Treaty of Versailles had to:
- relinquish her imperial colonies
- pay 33 billion dollars in war reparations
- disarm itself (no army, no navy)
- sign the "War Guilt Clause", or Article 231, accepting all responsibility for the war

Furthermore, two new states are created, Yugoslavia and
Czechoslovakia. Poland regained its independence. Most importantly for President Wilson, the League of Nations was formed.
President Wilson conceived of the League of Nations as an international council where conflicts could be mediated before war could break out. Written into the Treaty of Versailles, the European states joined the League. The irony is that the United States did not.
When Wilson returned to the Unites States, the Senate refused to ratify the treaty because of the League of Nations. After seeing the carnage that the Europeans (along with their imperial possessions) inflicted on each other, the United States decided that returning to
Isolationism was the better choice. Joining an international body that would obligate our country to involve itself in foreign affairs was not that attractive a prospect.
President Wilson, in the last year of his presidency, toured the country trying to garner support for the League. Although he previously opposed suffrage for women, the 19th Amendment was passed in the hopes that women would support the Treaty and the
League of Nations. They did not. In October of 1919, Wilson suffered a major stroke that would leave him seriously incapacitated for the rest of his presidency. His illness was hidden by his wife and his personal physician, who for the most part ran the White House. The
United States was never a member of the League of Nations.

Aftermath of the War
In October of 1917, a rebellion toppled the monarchy of Russia and overthrew its aristocracy. Based on the writings of Karl Marx (but not really adhering to them), a Bolshevik (workers) revolution created the
U.S.S.R. In the United States, anti-German sentiment soon turned into a "Red Scare".
Four monarchies disappeared...Tsarist Russia, the German Empire, the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire. We have already seen that Russia became a radical socialist state under
Lenin, although the power struggles between various factions would continue for several years. The German emperor abdicated, and a democratic republic was instituted in Germany. Austria-Hungary fractured into its various member provinces. Finally, the Ottoman
Empire, long called the "sick man of Europe" became the modern democratic state of Turkey.
The British not only faced a war on the Continent, but a rebellion at home. Another of its colonies used the Great War to declare it's independence. Ireland launched a bloody campaign to free itself from
British rule. After five years of guerrilla warfare, assassinations and reprisal killings, the south of Ireland became the Republic of Ireland.
The six counties in the northeast, with their majority Protestant and
Unionist population, opted to remain in the British Empire. Although the Anglo-Irish treaty created an independent Ireland, it did not solve

the problems between the Irish themselves. A war for independence devolved into a civil war that lasted most of the century.
The single most tragic occurrance to bombard a world already traumatized by war was the Influenza Pandemic of 1919. It started in
January of 1918 and ended in December of 1920. No corner of the globe was spared...from Inuit villages of the Arctic to the tropical paradises of the Southeast Asia. This pandemic was the worst in human history, eclipsing the Black Death of the late Middle Ages. It is estimated that one in three people became infected (33%), and 3% of the world's population perished, or 50 million people. Although at the time it was called the Spanish Flu, genetic testing has proven that it is a variant of avian flu, of the A(H1N1) strain (the same one that caused panic in 2008). This strain of flu operates differently in that its affects are worse in people with healthy immune systems...adults between the ages of 20 and 45...rather than a normal flu strain, which compromises the young and old. H1N1 (and the other subtypes of bird flu) seem to cause a healty immune system to overreact in a short period of time. There were reports that people would wake up healthy and be dead by dinner time. Of course, people don't die from influenza, but complications of the virus, usually pneumonia. This seemed to be the case in the 1918-1920 pandemic. In the United
States, seven hundred thousand people died from the "Spanish Flu".
The social effects were enormous. Every family was affected by the flu. The dead were buried in pine boxes, since the supply of coffins ran out. Tent hospitals opened to treat patients. And ALL public life

shut down. Schools, community centers, libraries. Funerals were limited to fifteen minutes. For a nation trying to celebrate the end of a war, the pandemic made it impossible. Furthermore, the flu carried off health care workers as well, so a shortage of doctors and nurses compounded the problem. Demobilizing armies carried the virus home with them, spreading the pandemic even further. The one positive to come out of the pandemic is that public health departments learned how to cope with large scale medical crises.