Essential Questions:

1

• Essential Questions
• What factors led the United States to shift from
  isolation in the 1920s 1930s to an active war
  participant by 1941?
• What caused World War 2?
• How do these factors compare to the reasons for
  the outbreak of World War 1?

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American Isolationism Foreign Policy in the
1920s 1930s
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Foreign Policy in the 1920s 1930s

• After WWI, the U.S. assumed a selective
  isolationist foreign policy
• Americans wanted to maintain the economic boom of
  the 1920s desperate for an answer to the
  depression in the 1930s
• But, the U.S. did play an active role in attempts
  at international disarmament economic stability

4
Foreign Policy Economic Policy

• In the 1920s, the most divisive international
  issue was war debts
• European nations owed the U.S. 10 billion
  Attempts to reclaim these debts led to
  anti-American sentiment in Europe
• When Germany could not repay 33 billion in
  reparations, the U.S. negotiated the Dawes Plan

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In 1924, Hoover negotiated a reduction in German
debt, an extended time period to repay debts,
U.S. loans to help Germany make payments to
France England
The Dawes Plan helped stabilize the German
economy, allowed Germany to repay the Allies, and
helped France England repay their debts to the
United States
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Foreign Policy Economic Policy

• But the Great Depression made post-war recovery
  in Europe difficult in the 1930s
• The Hawley-Smoot Tariff in 1930 limited European
  attempts to sell their goods in the U.S.
• The U.S. was unable to provide loans, leaving
  Germany unable to repay reparations Europe
  unable to repay its war debts

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Foreign Policy International Peace

• The USA never joined the League of Nations, but
  did play a role in attempts to avoid future wars
• At the Washington Disarmament Conference in 1921,
  world leaders agreed to disarmament, free trade,
  collective security
• In 1928, almost every nation, including the USA,
  signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact, renouncing war as
  a tool of foreign policy

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The USA, England, Japan, Italy, France signed
the Five-Power Treaty agreed to limit
construction of battleships aircraft carriers
The Nine-Power Treaty reaffirmed the Chinese
Open-Door Policy
England, USA, Japan, France signed the Four-Power
Treaty agreeing to collective security
But, neither the Nine- or Four-Power Acts had
provisions to enforce these agreements
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Foreign Policy International Peace

• These agreements did not last
• Japan needed raw materials to continue its
  industrial expansion
• Japan began to create an Asian empire by
  attacking Manchuria in 1931 China in 1937
• In both occasions, the League of Nations
  reprimanded Japan but chose no punitive measures

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Totalitarian Regimes Hideki Tojo Emperor
Hirohito
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Japan Invades Manchuria
In 1937, Japanese pilots bombed the USS Panay, a
U.S. gunboat stationed in China, killing 3
Americans. The U.S. accepted Japan's apology
promise against future attacks
Unlike the USS Maine or Lusitania, few Americans
called for war against Japan
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Totalitarian Regimes Benito Mussolini
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Totalitarian Regimes Hitler
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The Munich Pact
Peace in our time
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Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis
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Foreign Policy International Peace

• In the 1930s, FDR Congress were preoccupied
  with the Great Depression to adequately plan for
  new world conflicts involving totalitarian
  dictators
• The rising threat of war in Europe Asia
  strengthened Americans desire to avoid
  involvement in another world war

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Foreign Policy Citizen Attitudes

• In the 1920s 1930s, most Americans wanted to
  avoid another meaningless war
• Munitions makers bankers were labeled
  merchants of death were blamed for American
  involvement in WWI
• Passivism swept across college campuses Students
  staged walk-outs anti-war rallies

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The Lost Generation
All Quiet on the Western Front portrayed WWI as
brutal
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• Ernest Hemingway was the Lost Generation's leader
  in the adaptation of the naturalistic technique
  in the novel. Hemingway volunteered to fight with
  the Italians in World War I and his Midwestern
  American ignorance was shattered during the
  resounding defeat of the Italians by the Central
  Powers at Caporetto. Newspapers of the time
  reported Hemingway, with dozens of pieces of
  shrapnel in his legs, had heroically carried
  another man out. That episode even made the
  newsreels in America. These war time experiences
  laid the groundwork of his novel, A Farewell to
  Arms (1929). Another of his books, The Sun Also
  Rises (1926) was a naturalistic and shocking
  expression of post-war disillusionment.

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The Neutrality Acts

• The merchants of death charges were led by
  North Dakota Senator Gerald Nye from 1934 to
  1936
• Reaction to the Nye Committee report led to
  popular support to avoid making the same mistakes
  that led America to enter WW1
• Congress passed 3 neutrality acts to avoid future
  wars

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The Neutrality Act of 1935 banned arms sales to
nations at war warned citizens not to sail on
belligerent ships
The Neutrality Act of 1936 banned loans to any
warring nation
The Neutrality Act of 1937 made the 1935 1936
acts permanent required all trade to be on a
cash carry basis
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• Essential Question
• How did the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor alter
  the course of World War 2?

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The Road Towards American Intervention
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From Neutrality to Undeclared War

• As Europe headed toward war, FDR openly expressed
  his favor for intervention took steps to ready
  the U.S. for war
• In 1937, FDR unsuccessfully tried to convince
  world leaders to quarantine the aggressors
• Everything changed in 1939 with the Nazi-Soviet
  Pact the German invasion of Poland

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From Neutrality to Undeclared War

• When WW2 began in 1939, Congress imposed a cash
  carry policy to aid the Allies
• The U.S. would trade with the Allies but would
  not offer loans
• The U.S. would not deliver American products to
  Europe
• In addition, FDR traded 50 old destroyers with
  England for 8 naval bases in Western Europe

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The destroyer-for-bases deal is the most
important action in the reinforcement of our
national defense that has been taken since the
Louisiana Purchase FDR
FDR responded with all-out aid to the Allies but
did not call for war
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From Neutrality to Undeclared War

• Isolationists
• Were appalled by this departure from neutrality
  FDRs involvement of the U.S. in foreign war
• Their fortress of America idea argued that
  Germany was not a threat to the U.S.

• Interventionists
• Groups like the Committee to Defend America by
  Aiding the Allies called for unlimited aid to
  England
• They argued that the events in Europe did impact
  the security of U.S.

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From Neutrality to Undeclared War

• By 1940, interventionists had the majority of
  American public sentiment on their side
• in 1940, Congress appropriated 10 billion for
  preparedness
• FDR called for Americas first ever peacetime
  draft
• In the election of 1940, FDR was overwhelmingly
  elected for an unprecedented 3rd term

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From Neutrality to Undeclared War

• By 1940, England remained the only active
  opposition to Hitler but was running out of
  money
• FDR called for a Lend-Lease Act
• U.S. can sell or lend war supplies to Allied
  nations
• Congress put 7 billion to allow England full
  access to U.S. arms

U.S. Cash and Carry Program
X
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Lend-Lease Supply Routes
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From Neutrality to Undeclared War

• England desperately needed help escorting
  U.S.-made supplies through the u-boat infested
  Atlantic
• FDR allowed for U.S. patrols in the western half
  of the Atlantic
• German attacks on U.S. ships in 1941 led to an
  undeclared naval war between USA Germany

U.S. Cash and Carry Program
X
X
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From Neutrality to Undeclared War

• In 1941, FDR Churchill met to secretly draft
  the Atlantic Charter
• The U.S. Britain discussed a military strategy
  if the USA were to enter the war
• They discussed post-war goals of free trade
  disarmament
• In 1941, Germany broke the Nazi-Soviet Pact
  invaded Russia

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From Neutrality to Undeclared War

• FDR brought U.S. to the brink of war opened
  himself to criticism
• In Sept 1941, polls showed 80 of Americans
  supported remaining neutral in WW2
• FDR had to wait for the Axis to make a decisive
  movewhich Japan delivered on Dec 7, 1941

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Pearl Harbor
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Showdown in the Pacific

• Japan took full advantage of the European war to
  expand in Asia
• Attacked coastal China
• Seized French Dutch colonies in East Indies
  Indochina
• Signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany Italy
  in 1940
• FDR retaliated against Japan with fuel, iron,
  oil sanctions

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The U.S. now faced a possible 2-ocean war
but Germany was still seen as the primary danger
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The Greater East Asia-Prosperity Company
Rich in Tin, Oil, Rubber
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Showdown in the Pacific

• In 1941, the U.S. Japan were unable to
  diplomatically resolve their differences, so the
  USA
• Froze all Japanese assets in USA
• Banned all oil sales to Japan
• Hideki Tojo sent an envoy to negotiate for a
  resolutionbut secretly ordered an attack on the
  U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor

41
This was really a stall tactic intended to hide
Japanese military preparations for an attack on
Pearl Harbor
U.S. wanted the Japanese removed from China
Japan wanted an end to sanctions a free hand to
China
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On Dec 7, 1941, the U.S. naval fleet in the
Pacific was crippled by the attack 8 battleships
were sunk 2,400 Americans were killed
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Showdown in the Pacific

• After Pearl Harbor
• Congress declared war against Japan on Dec 8,
  1941
• Italy Germany declared war on the U.S. on Dec
  11, 1941
• American public opinion was now fully behind the
  war effort to defeat the fascist threat in Europe
  to seek revenge against Japan