Chapter 30
The War to End War
1917-1918
US and War
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Unrestricted submarine warfare
Zimmermann Telegram March 1, 1917
4 US merchant ships sunk- March 1917
Russian Revolution= all democracies
“entangling alliances,” money made as a
neutral country
• “The world must be made safe for
democracy”- war declared April 6, 1917
Fourteen Points
• January 8, 1918: Wilson delivered 14
Points Address postwar plan, based on
progressivism, just peace for all
– Abolish secret treaties
– freedom of the seas
– remove economic barriers for all nations
– reduce armaments
– adjust colonial claims to be fair to natives too
– self determination
– international peace keeping organization
Propaganda
• Committee on Public Information aka
Creel Committee
• 150,000 workers, 75,000 “4 minute men”
• Posters, pamphlets, booklets, music,
movies= anti-German rhetoric
• Promoted mobilization and war effort
cooperation
Anti-German Propaganda
The government relied extensively on emotional appeals and hate propaganda to rally
support for the First World War, which most Americans regarded as a distant “European”
affair. This poster used gendered imagery to evoke the brutal German violation of Belgian
neutrality in August 1914.
Patriotic Persuasion
Worried about the public’s enthusiasm for the war, the government employed all the arts
of psychology and propaganda to sustain the martial spirit. The prewar song “I Didn’t
Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier” was changed to “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Slacker,”
which in turn inspired the cruel parody “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Sausage.”
Liberty hound
Restriction of Civil Rights
• 8 million German-Americans= fear of
spies
• Cultural holdovers disallowed
• Espionage Act 1917 ($10,000 fine and 20
years in prison)
• Sedition Act 1918- “subversive activity”
• 1,900 prosecuted including Eugene V.
Debs
• 1st amendment? Schenck vs. US 1919
upheld restrictions= “clear and present
danger”
Labor in WWI
• “Labor will win the war”
• The National War Labor Board with Taft
• AFL and Gompers= “no strike pledge”
because of government’s concessions
• Membership= 2x at end of war, 20% pay
increase but inflation= higher prices
• Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or
Wobblies)
Labor in WWI
• The Great Steel Strike of 1919 racial
violence
• East St. Louis Riot 1917
• Chicago Race Riot 1919
Suffrage
• Women= take over men’s jobs
• National Woman’s Party (Alice Paulpacifists)
• National American Woman’s Suffrage
Association
• Wilson endorsed suffrage amendment but
met by resistance in Senate women’s
movement
• 19th amendment ratified August 1920
War Economy
• Food Administration headed by Herbert
Hoover
• Voluntary compliance, propaganda
(Hooverizing) Wheatless Wednesdays,
Meatless Tuesdays, Victory Gardens
• 18th amendment passed 1919 (prohibition)
• Liberty Loans bought through propaganda
and parades= $21 billion
• Rest of money achieved through taxes
Mobilization
• Original plan= US navy, but by April 1917
needed US troops
• Conscription bill
• 337,000 draft dodgers, 4,000
conscientious objectors
• 4 million person army within 4 months,
women and blacks allowed to serve
• Poor training for doughboys before
shipping out
America in the War
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Germans moved toward Paris
Ferdinand Foch
May 1918: US soldiers arrive to reinforce
Battle of Chateau Thierry, Second Battle of
the Marne
• US General John Pershing
• Battle of St. Mihiel
• Muese-Argonne- September 26-November
11, 1918
Major U.S. Operations in France, 1918
One doughboy recorded in his diary his baptism of fire at St. Mihiel: “Hiked through dark woods. No lights allowed,
guided by holding on the pack of the man ahead. Stumbled through underbrush for about half mile into an open field
where we waited in soaking rain until about 10:00 P.M. We then started on our hike to the St. Mihiel front, arriving on
the crest of a hill at 1:00 A.M. I saw a sight which I shall never forget. It was the zero hour and in one instant the entire
front as far as the eye could reach in either direction was a sheet of flame, while the heavy artillery made the earth
quake.”
Gassed, by John Singer Sargent
The noted artist captures the horror of trench warfare in World War I. The enemy was
often distant and unseen, and death came impersonally from gas or artillery fire.
American troops, entering the line only in the war’s final days, were only briefly exposed
to this kind of brutal fighting.
Armistice
• Kaiser forced to abdicate
• Armistice Day- November 11, 1918
• US contributions
Approximate Comparative
Losses in World War I
German “Repentance,” 1918
A prophetic reflection of the view that the failure to smash Germany completely would
lead to another world war.
Paris Peace Conference
• Big Four met in Paris- threat of
communism
• Wilson wanted to focus on Fourteen
Points- League of Nations
• Colonies? mandates of L of N
• Make-up of League: Assembly, Council,
World Court, Secretariat
Wilson in Dover, England, 1919
Lloyd George, Orlando, Clemenceau, and Wilson
Opposition at Home
• Irreconcilables- Henry Cabot Lodge,
William Borah, Hiram Johnson
– Violates Monroe Doctrine, Constitution!
– Wanted isolationism
• Wilson needed to compromise to get
Treaty passed
– France wanted Saar Valley and Rhineland
– Japan wanted Shandong and German islands
• Security Treaty with France
Treaty of Versailles
• Germany angry- didn’t follow Fourteen
Points!
• Would be the rallying cry for Hitler
• Wilson felt League would fix inequalities
• Senator Lodge against Article X in League14 reservations (amendments)
• Wilson urged Democrats to vote treaty
down (with amendments) November 1919
• Public shocked, voted on 2nd time March
1920- denied
Election of 1920
• Wilson wanted 1920 election to be a
referendum on the Treaty of Versailles
• Republicans: Warren G. Harding (smoke
filled room) and Calvin Coolidge as VP
– Platform: ambiguous toward League of
Nations, “front porch campaign”
– Wanted a “return to normalcy”
• Democrats: James M. Cox and FDR as VP
– Platform: strong support for League of Nations
• 404 EV for Harding, 127 for Cox= death to
League of Nations
WWI part II?
• End of WWI set in motion WWII
• US didn’t join League (suppose to be a
major component) isolationism
• Senate didn’t ratify Security Treaty with
France (began rearming)
• Massive $ for reparations= depression!
• Stripped Germany of land (Hitler’s
lebensraum)