America and the Great War

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• America and the Great War

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• MAIN THEMES
• How official American wartime neutrality was
  something less than actual neutrality and
  eventually led to full American participation in
  the war.
• That the American intervention on land and sea
  provided the balance of victory for the Allies.
  
• How the Wilson administration financed the war,
  managed the economy, and encouraged public
  support for the war effort while raising the
  expectations for the post-war period.
• How President Wilson tried to apply his personal
  and political idealism and morality to the
  realities of world politics and how he largely
  failed.
• How the American war effort affected the American
  home front not only during, but immediately
  after, World War I.
  

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• World War I
• Timeline
• 1914  
• June 28 - Archduke Franz Ferdinand assassinated
  in Sarajevo.
  
• August 1 - Germany declares war on Russia.
• August 4 - Germany invades neutral Belgium.
• August 26-30 - Battle of Tannenberg
• September 5-10 - First Battle of the Marne.

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• 1915    
• May 7 - Lusitania sunk.
• August 30 - Responding to American demands,
• Germany stops sinking ships without warning.  
• 1916    
• February 21-December 18 - Battle of Verdun.
• July 1-November 18 - Battle of the Somme.
• November 7 - Woodrow Wilson re-elected. 

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• The Road to War
• Preparedness Versus Pacifism
• Wilsons Neutrality

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Western Front
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• 1917    
• February 1 - Unrestricted submarine warfare
  declared by Germany, again.
  
• March-September - Russia collapses. 
• April 6 - United States declares war on Germany.
  
  
• December 3 - German-Russian armistice.
• 1918    
• January 8 - President Wilson presents 14-point
  plan.
  
• March-June - Ludendorff Offensive.
• August 8 - Allied counter-offensives on the
  Somme.
  
• September 29 - Allies break through the
  Hindenberg Line.
  
• September-November - Battle of Meuse-Argonne.
• October 28 - German sailors mutiny.
• November 10 - German republic founded.
• November 11 - Armistice signed.
• 1919  
• June 28 - Treaty of Versailles signed.

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• The New Technology of Warfare
• -Machine Gun
• -Air / Bombing of Cities
• -Gas
• -Tanks

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AMERICAN WAR DEATHS
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The Influenza Pandemic of 1918
The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 killed more
people than the war, somewhere between 20 and 4
0 million people.

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America and the Great War

• The End of Empires
• The Fourteen Points
• Adjusting boundaries
• Principles of international conduct
• League of Nations
• The Paris Peace Conference
• Idealism Vs. Self-Interest
• Threat of Communism
• Maintenance of League of Nations
• The Ratification Battle

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• Labor Union Growth

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America and the Great War

• A Society in Turmoil
• The Demands of African Americans

True Sons of Freedom (Library of Congress)
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America and the Great War

• A Society in Turmoil
• The Red Scare
• A. Mitchell Palmer
• Sacco and Vanzetti
• The Retreat from Idealism