 “The
most colossal, murderous,
mismanaged butchery that has ever
taken place on earth.”
Ernest Hemmingway
 “Make the world safe for democracy.“
Woodrow Wilson


The First World War
Problems of neutrality
• Submarines
• Economic ties
• Psychological and ethnic
ties


Preparedness and
pacifism
Mobilization
•
•
•
•
Fighting the war
Financing the war
War boards
Propaganda, public
opinion, civil liberties

Wilson's Fourteen
Points
• Treaty of Versailles
• Ratification fight

Postwar demobilization
• Red scare
• Labor strife
 Democrat
(Progressive)
 PHD-Professor then President of PrincetonPolitical Science
 Governor of New Jersey
 Want foreign policy to shape
morality in the World.
 Very religious
 Committed to Peace in the world.
 Wilson, “It
would be the irony of fate if my
administration had to deal chiefly with
foreign affairs.”
 Hoped to change relations with Latin
America- didn’t like the “Big Stick”
diplomacy Wanted to restore Latin American
Confidence in the US
 American Economic Expansion with
American Democracy, and Christianity, to
civilize the world.
 Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan
(Christian, Pacifist- reflected the
Moral/Missionary vision)
 Wilson
saw American influence in the world
as a moral crusade Wanted to help create a “New World Order”
guided by fair play and cooperation
 Wanted to spread democracy and hope to
less fortunate lands
 Pledged, “The United States would never
again seek one additional foot of territory by
conquest.”
 “Americans
are meant to carry liberty
and justice and the principles of
humanity wherever… convert them to
principles of America.”
 “America must use it’s enormous
moral and material power to create a
new order.”
 Most
Americans did not want to get involved
in the War
 Wilson didn’t want war but didn’t want Brits
to lose
 Anglo-Americans pro-Allies (Brits)
 Irish Americans (4.5 million) were AntiBritish and pro-German (1916, Easter
Rising, Irish will use German Weapons to
attack British in Dublin)
 German Americans pro-German (8 million)
 American Industrialists- were making
millions on war goods
Wilson said, A German victory would be
“destructive to American ideals.”





U. S. Bankers
Immediately after the War bogged down into stalemate, the
Allies sought to build their armies. They needed money and
material to do it. They also needed supplies in large
quantities. What they couldn't produce they bought from the
United States and they bought on credit from U. S. Banks.
Trade with Germany
• 1914 = $169,000,000
• 1916 = $1,158,000
• 1917 $27 million in credit
Trade with Allies
• 1914 = $824,000,000
• 1916 = $3,214,000,000
• 1917 = $2.3 billion in credit
When the War looked bad for the Allies the bankers became
worried that they might lose their money if the Allies lost the
War and started to pressure the United States government to
get more involved.
 Wilson
wants to maintain neutrality but
also cited the necessity to maintain
“freedom of the seas”
 Causes Americans to become more
hostile to Germans
 Wilson
protests and demands German
apology, reparations, commitment to stop
attacking passenger vessels
 Germans comply for time being
 Americans still trade with Allies and
Germans
 Wilson desires “Peace and
Preparedness” begins to prepare for war
with appropriations






Wilson
playing both
sides
Preparednes
s and Peace
Beats the
Republican
Hughes
Very close
race
277-254
electoral
votes
9.1 mill- 8.5
mill pop
votes
 January
1917
 German diplomat suggests to Mexico
 Alliance If US enters the war against Germany
 Mexico declares war on US and if Germany
wins, Mexico will receive Texas, Arizona,
and New Mexico
 Telegram is leaked to papers
 Outrages many Americans = more support
for entering war
 1917
Germany is getting desperate
 Wants to force British negotiated
peace or victory
 Announces new policy of Unrestricted
Submarine Warfare= All ships going to
Allied countries possible targets.
 Germans thought this might cause US
to enter war, but thought war would
end before they could mobilize.
 Wilson- Very
pro-British- saw the war
concerning the survival of democracy.
 US Bankers and industrialists supported
entrance into war
 Wilson wanted to see a New World Order
emerge
 He cited the “Freedom of the seas”
 The American cause was “to vindicate the
principles of peace and justice…The world
must be made safe for democracy.”
 Asks Congress for a Declaration of War
 Woodrow Wilson
was re-elected in 1916 on the
platform that
• “He Kept Us Out of War!”
 In 1917, however, Wilson sought a declaration of
war.
 Citing “Freedom of the seas.”
 A “War to Make the World Safe for Democracy”
April
1917
Senate 92-6
House 473-50
US
is at war against Germany

Financing the War
•
•
•
•



Raised Income Taxes
Corporate Taxes
Loans
War Bonds

War Industries Board
(WIB)
• Huge bureaucracy
• Manages war time economy

$24 Billion- cost of war
$11 Billion in war loans
War boards organize
production




Food Administration
• Herbert Hoover
• Managed food supply
• Controlling Wheat, Meat,
Sugar
Railroad Board
Fuel Administration
Shipping Board (Merchant
Ships)
National War Labor Board
 War
industries board WIB - huge bureaucracy
 Food Administration- headed by Herbert Hoover
 Wanted to limit private consumption of goods
that could be used for the war effort such as:
wheat, grains, and sugar so that it could be used
for the war .
 18th Amendment proposed- outlaw the making
of alcohol
Volstead Act- federal legislation that enforces the
18th amendment
 In
order to mobilize support for the
War
 Committee Public Information
 The American Government’s
propaganda arm
 Created to produce hatred for
Germans and support for the war
effort
 US
has a history of limiting civil
liberties, (liberties of free speech,
suspending Habeas Corpus)
 John Adams 1798- Alien Sedition Acts
 Lincoln- Civil War- suspends Habeas
Corpus
 World War I Wilson pushes Sedition
Acts (limits freedom of speech)
 Espionage and Sedition Acts
 Alien
Act 1798- Adams government,
deport enemy aliens
 Espionage Act 1917 = allows for fines
and prison for obstruction of war effort
 Sedition Act 1918 = allows up to 20
years





A portion of the amendment to Section 3 of the
Espionage Act of June 15, 1917.
SECTION 3. Whoever, when the United States is at
war,…,
. . .(hinder) the recruiting or enlistment service of
the United States, or . . .
shall willfully utter, print, write, or publish any
disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language
about the form of government of the United States,
or the Constitution of the United States,…
by word or act oppose the cause of the United States
therein, shall be punished by a fine of not more
than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than
twenty years, or both....
 The
Supreme court upholds the
Espionage and Sedition acts in the
Schenck vs. United States.
 “War
to Make the World Safe for
Armaments and Munitions
Manufacturers.”
 People like Emma Goldman, Eugene
Debs, Jane Addams vigorously
criticized the decision to enter the war.
 Debs will be put in prison because of
his views
 Selective
Service Act: All males 18-45
were ordered to register for the draft
 More men who served in the war were
conscripted.
 Draftees were un Unmarried, 13%
black
 24 million registered
 2.8 million drafted
 2 million volunteered
 Great
Migration= large numbers move
North
 “Nothing here but money, and it is not hard
to get.”
 New York/Chicago
 Push: poor conditions, floods, race
oppression
 Pull: more economic opportunity, jobs,
higher pay
 Migration causes hostility among other
groups- immigrants
 Segregated in military
 260,000
enlist or are drafted
 50,000 were sent to France- most worked
in service/menial tasks
 Some Combat regiments
 Segregated Units
 White officers
 Suffer racial abuse
 American
Expeditionary Force (AEF)
name of the US forces in Europe
 “Doughboys” nickname for
Americans in WWI
Black Jack Pershing- American Commanding General
 1916
Russians loosing (weak, poor); sending
troops w/out weapons to the front line; 1916
Russians pull out with the Bresk Litovsk
treaty (1917)
 1916 French mutiny, 300 killed for refusing
to attack fighting
 Trench warfare causing mass amounts of
deaths; “No man’s land” and Machine Guns,
high explosives, and poison gas
 If Germany had taken Paris they would have
won, but American reinforcements
(1 million troops) stopped the Germans and
save the Allies
 By
early 1918 American troops arrive
in France
 The AEF fight in a few important
engagements
 Chateau-Thierry
 Bellau Wood
 The Argonne Forrest
 St. Mihiel
 Women
enter the military services
 Secretaries, nurses, telephone
operators
 More opportunity for civilian work
 1 million women in industry
munitions
 November
11, 1918 (11:00 AM)
 Germans facing invasion ask for a
negotiated end of war based on
Wilson’s Fourteen Points
 War is effectively over.





Wilson attempted to see his “Missionary” ideals in the
settlement of the war.
His “New World Order”
“We entered this war because violations of right had occurred
which touched us to the quick and made the life of our own
people impossible unless they were corrected and the world
secured once for all against their recurrence.
What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar to
ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in;
and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving
nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life,
determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair
dealing by the other peoples of the world as against force and
selfish aggression.
All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this
interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that unless
justice be done to others it will not be done to us. The program
of the …” world's peace, therefore, is our program”
 “Do unto others……”


Idealist expression of
Wilson
To correct errors that
created the war and
to support the
creation of a new
world order based on
Wilson’s missionary
principles
 Contained
Treaty of
Versailles
in






Some of the Points
Self Determination =
independence for
colonies
Freedom of Seas
Greater freedom of trade
No Secret Treaties
Reduction of armaments
League of Nations to
solve international
problems
Austria-Hungary
lose empire
Germany loses land, pays large
war debt
Takes full blame for the war
Turkey loses empire
 Republican
Senator, Henry Cabot Lodge
 Didn’t like Wilson
 Wanted to change/weaken the League of
Nations Covenant- (Charter)
 Concerned about American Sovereignty
• Immigration
• Tariffs
• Ability use force (limited by the league)
 Wanted
to Weaken the Democratic Party
 Wilson
would not compromise with the
Lodge and the Republicans in Senate
 He goes on a speaking tour to create
public pressure on the Senate
 Has a massive stroke and is
incapacitated
 The league of Nations/internationalism
is dead
 American policy and popular opinion
will reflect the concept of Isolationismtill World War II
 World War
I claimed an estimated 16 million
lives.
 The influenza epidemic that swept the world
in 1918 killed MORE THAN 20 MILLION
PEOPLE
 [an
estimated 20 to 60 million people]. One
fifth of the world's population was attacked
by this deadly virus.
 Within months, it had killed more people
than any other illness in recorded history
 After
the Communist Revolution in Russia and
establishment of the Communist International
(Comintern)
 Americans become frightened of Communism
in the US
 1918- Anarchist mail bombing campaign
 Mitchell Palmer, US Attorney General, was one
of the recipients- prompts hysterical reaction
roundups of 6000 alleged radicals 500
deported
 J. Edgar Hoover is and assistant to Palmer, (will
later head the FBI)
 Two
victims of the Red Scare were
 Saco and Vanzetti
 Two anarchists accused of murder
(not related to the bombs)
 Executed in the electric chair
 (invented by Edison)