Legacyofww i

The Road to War (1921-1941)

Essential Questions

1. What drove U.S. isolationalism?

2. Why did the U.S. not join the League of Nations?

3. How did war debts and reparations set the stage for WWII?

U.S. Foreign Policy after WWI

Americans worried about being dragged into another foreign conflict. “We ask only to live our own way, in friendship and sympathy with all, in alliance with none,” declared Senator Hiram W. Johnson in 1922. Such sentiments led the United States to follow a policy of partial isolationalism, or withdrawal from world affairs, in the 1920s and 1930s.

Legacy of WWI

More than 8 million people, including more than 112,000 Americans died fighting in the Great War.

U.S. government increased in size and authority. (Espionage and Sedition Act)

“Safe for Democracy” questioned.

Isolationalism

Isolationalists did not want to cut off the United States completely from the affairs of the rest of the world. They merely wanted to avoid what Thomas Jefferson had called “entangling alliances” that could drag the United States into another war. Isolationalism led the United States to shun membership in international organizations like the League of Nations set up after World War I.

Please refer to article “Entangling Alliances”.

Senator William E. Borah of Idaho argues against joining the League of Nations

“The whole scheme of the League of Nations has just one ultimate power and that is military force-the same power and the same principle which every dictator has relied upon in his efforts against the people when the people were seeking greater liberty and greater freedom, the same power which George III and Wilhelm II made the basis of their infamous designs….Let us leave these things-the lives of our people, the liberty of our whole nation-in the keeping and under the control of those people who have brought this Republic to its present place of prestige and power.”

War Debts

By the end of WWI the Allies owed the U.S. more than $10 billion. David Lloyd George, the British prime minister argued against paying war debts when he stated:

“The United States did not from first to last make any sacrifice or contribution remotely comparable to those of her European Associates, in life, limb, money, material or trade, towards the victory which she shared with them”.

1. What is his argument against paying war debts?

2. Do you agree with his statement? Explain.

Reparations

The only way the Allies could pay their war debts to the United States was to collect reparations from Germany. Germany owed $32 billion. The Germans bitterly condemned the reparations as too harsh. The German government responded by printing paper money, which resulted in massive inflation and causing the value of the German mark to plunge.

Analyzing Quotes

Ernest Hemingway described the extreme differences in prices between France and Germany, an effect of severe inflation in Germany:

“We changed some French money in the railway station at Kehl. For 10 francs I received 670 marks. Ten francs amounted to about 90 cents in Canadian money. That 90 cents in lasted Mrs. Hemingway and me for a day of heavy spending and at the end of the day we had 120 marks left!...Kehl’s best hotel, which is a very well turned-out place, served a five-course meal for 120 marks, which amounts to 15 cents in our money.”

Reparations and the Rise of Hitler

With his country near financial collapse, one particularly embittered German WWI veteran sought someone to blame. Adolf Hitler had survived a poison gas attack during the war and remained convinced that politicians, not the German army, were responsible for Germany losing the war.

1. Fascism in Italy

Benito Mussolini helped form the Fascist Party in 1921 to combat Communism. The Fascist believed that a military-dominated government should control all aspects of society.

In 1922, Mussolini with the help of the Blackshirts (fascist army) marched on Rome and demanded power. Mussolini was appointed by the King prime minister and gave him dictatorial powers. He limited freedom of speech, arrested political opponents, and restricted voting rights.

Fascism

Fascism is a political movement that promotes an extreme form of nationalism and militarism. It also includes a denial of individual rights and dictatorial one-party rule. “Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to the State.”

1. Which political and cultural characteristics helped make Fascism an authoritarian system?

2. What characteristics of fascism might make it attractive to people during times of crisis such as the Great Depression?

Mussolini’s Fascism

2. Invasion of Ethiopia

Mussolini promised to make Italy an imperial power again. He then invaded Ethiopia. The Ethiopian army proved no match for Italy’s airplanes and machine guns. The U.S. reacted by passing the neutrality acts. This lack of support led to Ethiopia’s downfall.

Stalin in the Soviet Union

1. Stalin’s creation of a Totalitarian government under Communism.

2. The Great Purge

Stalin’s creation of a Totalitarian government under Communism.

After the death of Vladimir Lenin and driven by ambition Stalin emerged as the Soviet Union’s main leader in 1924. Stalin turned the Soviet Union into a totalitarian state-a country where the government has complete control.

The Great Purge

Stalin sent over 15 million people to labor camps after they refused to give up their land which was turned into state-run farms. He then used his Red Army to crush all opposition. Stalin began a campaign to purge all perceived enemies from the Communist party and the Red Army. He was responsible for over 30 million deaths in the Soviet Union.

In what ways was Soviet leader Stalin a dictator?

Fear of Totalitarian

George Orwell illustrated the horrors of a totalitarian government in his novel, 1984. The novel depicts a world in which personal freedom and privacy have vanished. It is a world made possible through modern technology. Even citizens’ homes have television cameras that constantly survey their behavior.

Hitler in Germany

1. Hitler’s Agenda and the Third Reich

2. Anti-Semitism

1. Hitler’s AgendaHitler was elected

chancellor of Germany in 1932. He quickly violated the Treaty of Versailles by building up his

military. Hitler states “The buildup of the armed forces

is the most important precondition for…political

power.” He wanted to use this power for the conquest of new

Lebensraum (space for expansion) in the East (Eastern Europe and Russia). Hitler also believed that the Aryan race was the most superior race in

the world.

2. Anti-SemitismHatred of Jews, or anti-Semitism, was a

key part of Nazi ideology. Although Jews were less than 1 percent of the population, the Nazis

used them as scapegoats for all Germany’s troubles since the war. Beginning in 1933, the

Nazis passed laws depriving Jews of most of their rights. On the night of November 9, 1938,

the Nazi mobs attacked Jews in their homes and on the streets and destroyed thousands of Jewish-owned buildings. This rampage signaled

the start of the process of eliminating Jews from German life.

1. Hitler’s Aggression in Europe

In March 1936 German

annexes Austria and send troops

into the Rhineland which was prohibited by the Treaty of

Versailles.

Continued…Hitler then turned to the Sudetenland region of

Czechoslovakia, where more than 3 million German speaking people lived. Hitler demanded that Czechoslovakia turn over the region to Germany. Czechoslovakia refused Hitler’s demand.

Munich Conference and Appeasement

Hitler and Mussolini joined British prime minister Neville Chamberlain and French premier Edouard Daladier in Munich, Germany in September 1938. The four leaders at the Munich Conference signed a pact giving Germany control of the Sudetenland. Why were some politicians against appeasing Hitler?

Eight Results of Appeasement

Historians have said that appeasement:  

1. let Hitler grow stronger.

2. gave Britain time to re-arm.

3. humiliated Britain – no country in central Europe ever trusted Britain again.

4. abandoned millions of people to the Nazis.

5. caused the war, by encouraging Hitler to think he could do anything.

6. gave Britain the morale high ground – when war came, Britons knew they had done everything possible to keep the peace.

7. would never have stopped Hitler, who was determined to go to war.

8. was a fine attempt to prevent the deaths of millions of people in a war.

Close to War!!!

In March 1939 Adolf Hitler’s armies occupied all of Czechoslovakia. Hilter then demanded to annex the Polish port city of Danzig but the Poles refused. That same year, Italian troops invaded Albania on April 7th.

The Axis Powers

In 1936, Germany and Italy formed a military alliance known as the Axis Powers. Japan later joined the alliance.

War!

Several months later after the Munich Conference Hitler takes over the rest of Czechoslovakia in March, 1939. He then demands the Polish port city of Danzig.

Recognizing the growing threat to European security, Britain and France announced that they would go to war if Germany attacked Poland.

That same year, Italian troops invaded Albania on April 7th.

On September 1, 1939 Germany attacks Poland and two days later the British and French declare war on Germany.

Nonagression Pact

People would have been even more shocked if they had known at the time that, in addition, the two countries had made a number of a 'secret protocol' agreeing to 'spheres of influence' in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Poland.   It amounted to an agreement to invade and divide the countries of eastern Europe between them ... with Poland first on the list.

Nonaggression Pact

Stalin and Hitler agreed not to attack each other. This shocking development came about in part because of a secret clause in the pact in which the two nations agreed to divide Poland between them.