“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 Princeton-

Political 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

Anti-British 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

Preparedness 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

$24 Billion- cost of war

$11 Billion in war loans

War boards organize production

War Industries Board (WIB)• Huge bureaucracy • Manages war time

economy 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 in Treaty of Versailles

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 Isolationism- till 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)