The United States before World War I

 The Civil War started in 1861 because 11 southern states seceded from the
united states over disputes about the federal government authority to limit the
spread of slavery. The Civil War lasted four years and resulted in more than
600,000 deaths.
 The following decade (1870s) is knowns as the Reconstruction where the
United States began reconstructing and modernising after a divisive and deadly
civil war. Slavery was formally abolished nationwide.
 The last decades of the 1800s were marked by rapid industrial growth, the rise
of tycoons and a series of mediocre politicians and governments. It is this
period that laid the groundwork for America’s modern capitalist economy.
 This period was dubbed the ‘Gilded Age’, as its economic prosperity was
superficial and did not apply to all Americans. During this period, the United
States endured a number of mediocre presidents and congressmen and the
laws were drawn up to protect corporate interests but overlooked social
problems and the interests of workers. The lack of protections led to growing
discontent about inequalities of wealth, wage levels, the treatment of labour.
 By the early 1900s, the US was a burgeoning superpower, one of the world’s
largest economies and a military strength.
 While American leaders sought to extend their control over areas like Cuba and
the Philippines, the US generally adopted an isolationist foreign policy,
remaining aloof from the disputes and tensions of Europe.

Steps to the War

On June 28, 1914, Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip assassinated the heir to the
throne of the Austro-Hungarian empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Princip and his
accomplices wanted to unite the Yugoslav people and liberate them from Austrian
rule. The assassination set off a series of events that culminated in a declaration of
war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia.
Due to the European alliance system, all major European powers were drawn into the
war. The war pitted two groups of allies against each other: the Triple Entente,
composed of Russia, France, and the United Kingdom, against the Central Powers,
Germany and Austria-Hungary.
The prevailing alliance system of the time drew all major European powers into the
war and global conflict. President Wilson sought to maintain American neutrality,
however, escalating German aggression drew the United States into conflict.
Some of the factors that led America to formally declare war on Germany on April 6,
1917 were:

 May 7, 1915, German U-boat sinking of the RMS Lusitania ocean liner carrying
over 100 Americans.
  January 1917 Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare and Wilson
broke off diplomacy with Germany
 February 1917 the British government revealed through the Zimmerman
Telegram that Germany was trying to get Mexico to attack the US, in exchange
for the former Mexican territory
 End of 1917 Wilson asked congress to declare war on Germany, thus beginning
WWI for the United States

USA enters the war

The United States stayed neutral during the first 3 years (1914-1917) of World War I as
Woodrow Wilson opted to keep the country out of the bloodbath consuming Europe.
The United States had practiced neutrality in foreign affairs since George Washington
suggested in back in 1796. Staying neutral allowed the United States to keep selling
supplies to the Allied Powers, generating great profits to the US economy.
The American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) arrived in Europe in 1917 and helped turn
the tide in favour of Britain and France, leading to an Allied victory over Germany and
Austria in November 1918.
When Russia surrendered to the Germans in 1917, the Central Powers were able to
focus on the Western Front with help of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF).
All through the summer of 1918, German forces attacked the Allied trenches. The first
American troops began to arrive and having blocked the German attack, the Allies
counter-attacked. The Germans were pulled back all along the Western Front. The
German commanders asked for an armistice before the fighting reached Germany
itself. At the same time, there were riots and revolution among the starving German
people. With chaos at home in Germany, fighting stopped on 11 November 1918.

The Treaty of Versailles

Woodrow Wilson, the American President, was an idealist who wanted to build a
better, safer world out of the war. When he led the USA into war in 1917, he did so on
the basis of his 'Fourteen Points'. He had put these forward in the hope that, it they
were accepted, they would prevent another war from ever taking place.
Woodrow Wilson hoped that these Fourteen Points would be the basis of the treaty
and were meant to remove any possible disagreement which might lead to war, there
is no mention of punishing Germany in them.
Clemenceau didn’t agree with Wilson since his main aim was to weaken Germany so
that it could never attack France again and to gain compensation for all the damage
suffered by France. On the other hand, Lloyd George saw the danger in punishing
Germany too severely. However, he had just won an election in Britain in which he had
gained votes by promising to 'make Germany pay'. He also disagreed with point 2 of
Wilson's Fourteen Points. He thought that Britain's safety depended on controlling the
seas. Orlando, Italy's representative, was only really concerned with seeing that his
country did as well as possible out of the treaty.
THE FOURTEEN POINTS
1. There should be no secret treaties; all international agreements should be
open.
2. The seas were to be free to all countries at all times.
3. Customs barriers between countries should be removed.
4. Armaments should be reduced.
5. The wishes of the people in colonies should be taken into account when settling
colonial claims.
6. German forces must leave Russia.
7. Belgium should be independent.
8. Alsace-Lorraine should be returned to France.
9. Italy's frontier should be adjusted to avoid quarrels with Austria.
10. There should be self-determination for the peoples of Eastern Europe. This
meant that the different nationalities should be allowed to govern themselves
in independent countries.
11. Serbia should be given a coastline.
12. There should be self-determination for the peoples of the Turkish empire.
13. Poland should become independent from Russia and be given a coastline.
14. An international organization to settle all disputes between countries should be
set up, to be called the League of Nations.
Wilson was popular in Europe but did not know as much about European affairs as the
other three representatives did. Many times he had to give way to them in order to
keep their support for the idea which was most important to him: point 14, the setting
up of the League of Nations. This point was written into the treaty.
Several points from the fourteen were accepted but only when it suited Clemenceau,
Lloyd George and Orlando. The setting up of the League of Nations was Wilson’s most
important point, which was written into the treaty. The peacemakers did not have
much time to consider the problem.
Although Woodrow Wilson was an enthusiastic proponent of the League, the United
States did not officially join the League of Nations due to opposition from isolationists
in Congress.
Apart from its effect on Germany, the treaty has been criticized for many reasons.
Most of all, it failed to keep the peace, for only twenty years later world war broke out
again. Wilson's aim of self-determination (point 10 of the Fourteen Points) was not
applied to all national minority groups equally. German minorities in particular were
ignored, self-determination did not seem to apply to the peoples who were on the
wrong side at the end of the war. Some new countries had little experience of
democracy and soon fell under the rule of dictators. Many were too small and weak to
resist Hitler in 1940-41 or in Poland to resist Russia in 1945.
The USA between the Wars
Isolationism
}
The USA had been led into the First World War by President Woodrow Wilson. He had
called it 'a war to end wars'. When he returned to the USA after his efforts at
Versailles, he found that most Americans no longer wanted anything to do with the
rest of the world. Woodrow Wilson hoped that the USA would play a big part in world
affairs, through his League of Nations, but he found little support for it. The USA never
signed the Treaty of Versailles and never joined the League of Nations. America's
policy came to be called isolationism: the wish to stay out of any involvement with
other countries. This policy remained unchanged until 1945.
Immigration
American hostility to foreigners did not end with isolationism. For many years America
had kept an "open door” to immigrants from all over the world. Now this policy began
to change. From 1921 the 'open door' began to close. The number of immigrants
allowed into the USA was gradually cut until, by 1929, only 150,000 entry visas per
year were granted - less than half the number allowed in 1921. There was also a quota
system that made it easier for immigrants from western and northern Europe to enter,
and discriminated against those wishing to come from southern or eastern Europe.
Racism
A group called the Ku Klux Klan gained strength in the 1920s. Most of its members
were poor whites afraid of Negroes and immigrant workers, who were willing to work
for low wages. Although the Klan was started in the southern USA, its strength grew in
the north and west. Covered in white sheets, with pointed hoods, Klan members
attacked and terrified Negroes, Jews and Roman Catholics. Sometimes their victims
were tarred and feathered, lynched or had their houses burned down. It had five
million members by 1925.
The Roaring Twenties
The 1920s was a boom time in the American economy. American industry, backed by
huge reserves of coal, steel, and oil and undamaged by the Great War, expanded
enormously. Industrial goods such as steel, tin, glass, chemicals and machine-tools
were produced on a huge scale. Most noticeable, however, was the boom in consumer
goods. Radios, telephones, gramophones, watches, cameras, washing machines,
vacuum cleaners and hundreds of other items were produced in large numbers. Things
which had been luxuries before the First World War were now made at a price that
millions could afford.
The most striking example of these consumer industries was the car industry. In
Detroit, Henry Ford set up a fully automated factory. Each worker did only one small
job on the assembly line, and by 1925 Ford produced one car every ten seconds. The
average cost of a car dropped from $850 in 1908 to $290 in 1925. Most popular and
famous was the Model T Ford.
THE GREAT DEPRESSION
Herbert Hoover successfully stood for President in 1928. Within a year, the boom was
all over. America was heading into the depths of a Depression, all the worse for the
contrast with the preceding years. The prosperity so obvious in every town and city
was not enjoyed by everybody. Farmers, for example, had never shared in the 1920s
boom. The use of new machinery like the combine harvester meant that they were
producing food too cheaply. The prices they received at home for their farm produce
were very low. Nor could farmers sell abroad: high tariffs prevented foreign countries
from selling goods in the USA, so foreigners did not have dollars to buy American farm
produce. Black Americans did not share in the boom either. Many blacks from the
south had moved to the cities looking for work. They joined poor whites in low-paid
factory jobs, and poor people could not buy consumer goods on a large scale.
By the later 1920s, the boom was slackening off. Too many goods were being
produced for the home market to absorb, and it was not possible to switch to selling
abroad. Foreign countries could not buy American goods because they lacked dollars.
Also, many countries protected their own industries with high tariffs as the Americans
did.
The Wall Street Crash
Wall Street in New York City is the financial centre of the USA, where shares are
bought and sold.
In the 1920s, dividends went up and share prices went up because so many people
wanted to buy. If you had bought shares, at whatever price, you could still sell six
months or a year later at a higher price. They made their profits by simply buying and
selling shares. Dividends in the 1920s went up, overall, by 65%. Wages, in contrast,
rose by only 5%.
By 1929, it was clear that American industry was making goods faster than it could sell
them and that profits were falling. Cautious people began to sell their shares. The
panic spread: more and more people realized that their shares were worth a lot only if
someone was willing to pay for them. They began to turn their shares into cash. On 24
October 1929, thirteen million shares were sold on the Wall Street Stock Exchange,
and prices of shares suddenly fell.
Americans had borrowed money to buy shares, hoping to pay back their loans when
their shares rise in price. When shares fell, they could not pay back the loans and
because American banks were often small and independent, if enough customers
could not pay back their loans, the bank itself could go bankrupt. If this happened,
ordinary people who had savings in the bank lost their savings. In this way, the Wall
Street Crash affected all sections of the population all over the country.
The Wall Street Crash soon affected industry. As production declined, unemployment
rose and money became scarce.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT AND THE NEW DEAL
The Democratic candidate who stood against Hoover was Franklin D. Roosevelt. He
was from the rich upper classes of America, but he and his wife, Eleanor, had a real
sympathy for the poor of the USA. In his 1932 campaign, he promised action instead of
words.
The New Deal
Roosevelt gathered around him men and women with fresh ideas and gave them
encouragement. Sometimes the new ideas worked, sometimes they did not;
sometimes, differing ideas clashed and cancelled one another out. Through all the ups
and downs of the New Deal, FDR kept to three ideas: to help those people hard hit by
the Depression, to revive American business and to build a better America.
The New Deal was only partially successful, however. Despite the New Deal's lofty
dreams, the United States only fully recovered from the Great Depression due to
massive military spending brought on by the Second World War.
Nevertheless, key elements in the New Deal remain with us today, including federal
regulation of wages, hours, child labor, and collective bargaining rights, as well as the
social security system.

Steps to World War II

One of Hitler's first actions was to leave the League of Nations in 1933. The League had
been born out of the Versailles humiliation, and Hitler wanted no part in it. This action
made it obvious that if Hitler was going to be stopped, it would not be through the
League.

 The invasion of Austria would be the most likely first step in Hitler's plan to
unite all Germans into one state. Austria was not only German-speaking, it was
also Hitler's own birth-place. In 1934, he arranged for Austrian Nazis to kill the
Austrian Chancellor, Dollfuss. The Nazis then invited Hitler to become ruler of
Austria. The attempt failed, however, when Mussolini sent Italian troops to the
Austrian border to prevent a German take-over.
 The rearmament of Germany continued at speed throughout the 1930s. By
1935 had built up an air force, the Luftwaffe. Military service was introduced,
and the German army provided itself with the latest weapons, especially tanks,
contrary to the terms decided at Versailles. However, some countries,
particularly Britain, now felt that the terms of the treaty were too harsh,
allowing them to do as they wanted.
 Hitler's next action was the reoccupation of the Rhineland that had been
demilitarized by the Treaty of Versailles. In March 1936, German troops
marched confidently into the Rhineland.
The Annexation of Austria, 1938
In March 1938, Hitler ordered the Austrian Nazis to stir up trouble inside Austria. The
Austrian Chancellor, Kurt von Schuschnigg, was forced to make three Austrian Nazis
ministers. Schuschnigg ordered a plebiscite to be held in Austria: a national vote to see
if Austrians wanted to be part of Germany. This could have made Hitler look foolish, so
German troops occupied Austria before the plebiscite could be held. This act of
annexation was known as the Anschluss.
Czechoslovakia, 1938
The German-speaking fringe of Czechoslovakia was called the Sudetenland. Hitler
called on Henlein, leader of the Sudetenland Nazis, to stir up trouble there and
continued to threaten war.
At this point, the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, stepped into the
situation and flew to meet Hitler at Berchtesgaden to see if peace could be achieved by
discussion. Hitler demanded the Sudetenland for Germany, on the grounds that it was
a German-speaking area. Chamberlain agreed thinking that war could be avoided by
giving Hitler what he wanted. This attitude is called appeasement. At a second meeting
between the two, however, Hitler stepped up the bluff, pretending to be about to go
to war. In desperation, Chamberlain and Mussolini called a third meeting, at Munich
where representatives of Germany, Britain, France and Italy agreed to hand the
Sudetenland over to Germany.
The Nazi-Soviet Pact and the Outbreak of War
Poland was obviously to be Hitler's next victim. The only country which could
effectively stop Hitler from seizing Poland was Rusia. Stalin had been trying to join
Britain and France in an alliance against Hitler, but they refused to have anything to do
with Communist Russia. In desperation, therefore, Stalin signed a Non-Aggression Pact
with Hitler: both sides agreed not to attack the other. The Nazi-Soviet Pact, as it was
called, also contained secret clauses agreeing to carve up Poland between them.
In September 1939, Hitler launched his attack on Poland. Within a few weeks, Poland
was defeated and divided up between the two dictators, as agreed. By then, however,
to Hitler's surprise, Britain and France had declared war on Germany.

USA enters the war

In 1939 the USA hoped to stay out of the war. President Roosevelt made it clear that
Britain could buy equipment, but that it would be on a strictly 'cash and carry' basis.
In 1941, he organized a scheme called 'Lend-Lease', by which Britain could borrow or
hire military equipment. American factories began to turn out large numbers of ships
and planes which were sent to Britain.
When the U-boats began to attack American ships in the Atlantic, opinion in America
began to change. However, in December 1941 the Japanese attacked the American
base at Pearl Harbor. The Japanese government decided to attack Pearl Harbor after
the United States cut off US oil exports to Japan in the summer of 1941. Japan relied
on the United States for eighty percent of its oil, and without US oil supplies its navy
would be unable to function. In attacking Pearl Harbor the Japanese hoped to cripple
or destroy the US Pacific fleet so that the Japanese navy would have free reign in the
Pacific. This ended America's reluctance to enter the war with one blow. Roosevelt
immediately declared war on Germany and Japan. The USA was now wholeheartedly
on Britain’s side.
When America came into the war things were not so easy for Germany. Convoys could
be more heavily protected. Long-range aircraft were able to take off from America to
guard convoys and try to spot U-boats. Gradually, the tide turned and the U-boats
began to be sunk in great numbers.

TURNING POINTS 1942-1943

In the spring of 1942 the Russians were still bearing the full force of the German attack.
They called upon the Allies to distract Germany by invading Europe and opening up a
‘Second Front'.
Churchill was particularly keen to attack in North Africa, and persuaded Roosevelt that
this was a good idea. This plan was called Operation Torch. American and British
troops invaded Morocco and Algeria. The Vichy French forces surrendered after a day,
and the Allied forces advanced east towards Tunis.
In 1943, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill met in Teheran (Teheran Conference). They
agreed that the western Allies would invade western Europe in 1944. Stalin promised
to help the USA against Japan once Germany was defeated. Russia was promised land
at the expense of Poland.

THE NORMANDY LANDINGS 1944

The main event of this year was the Allied invasion of France in June. The main
invasion was launched on the beaches of Normandy. It was a massive combined US
and British operation. Soldiers had been trained for months in advance, equipment
prepared and assembled.
The invasion was successful. The Allied forces pressed on inland with some hard
fighting. In August, the Americans landed in the South of France and moved rapidly
northwards. The French Resistance did a great deal behind German lines to wreck
German supply systems. In August 1944, the Resistance staged a rising in Paris.
By September, the Allies had freed most of France and Belgium. Their advance began
to slow down. They needed time to prepare for the final attack on Germany itself. In
July 1944, there was a plot to assassinate Hitler: a bomb was planted in his map-room
it exploded but failed to kill him.

The Eastern Front, 1944

Hitler was also having to fight on two other fronts. In 1944, the Allies entered Rome
and Florence and Russians made huge advances in the east. In the north, the siege of
Leningrad had ended. All along the line south to the Black Sea, the Germans retreated.
In the centre, the Russian drove the Germans out of Russia and into Poland. In the
south, too, the Russian forces drove the Germans out of Russia. From there, the
Russian army was responsible for ending Nazi rule in most of southern and eastern
Europe. Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were occupied by
Russian troops.
By the end of 1944, therefore, Germany's enemies were pressing in on all sides. For
the Allies, considering the peace was now as important as calculating how to defeat
Hitler.

The Yalta Conference

Early in 1945, the Allied leaders met at Yalta, in southern Russia. It was the last time
Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin would meet. By the end of 1945, Roosevelt was dead
and Churchill had been defeated in the British General Election. They agreed that
Germany, once defeated, should be divided into four zones. Three of them would be
occupied by Russia, the USA and Britain and the fourth zone should go to France.

The Fall of Germany

It did not take long to end the war. In the west, the Allies were held up by the Rhine,
until it was crossed at Remagen, near Cologne. From there, the British and Canadians
dvanced into north Germany while the Americans pushed into central and southern
Germany and Austria. The Russians pressed westwards, reaching Berlin and beyond.
Russian and American soldiers met at Torgau in April 1945.
Adolf Hitler had retired to his deep underground bunker in Berlin. At the end of April,
with the Russians just a few miles away, he married Eva Braun and then they
committed suicide together. Admiral Doenitz took over as leader of Germany. He tried
to make a separate peace with the USA and Britain, but they refused, and the war in
Europe ended on 7 May 1945.

Atomic Bomb
In May 1945, the Allies defeated Germany, two months before the atomic bomb was
complete. War with Japan continued, however, and in August 1945 it seemed that an
invasion of Japan itself might be necessary to force the Japanese to surrender. Military
advisers to President Harry S. Truman warned that such a ground war would result in
the deaths of tens or hundreds of thousands of young men in the US Armed Forces, as
well as the deaths of many Japanese military personnel and civilians. After receiving no
reply to his threat that "prompt and utter destruction" would follow if the Japanese did
not surrender unconditionally, Truman authorized the use of the bomb on Japan.
On August 6, 1945 an American B-29 bomber named the “Enola Gay” dropped the first
atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. 
Truman called for surrender the day after the bombing at Hiroshima once more, but
once more the Japanese government refused. On August 9, about 80,000 people died
after the United States dropped a second bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki.
Six days later, after the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, the Japanese government
signed an unconditional surrender. World War II was over.

The United Nations

 The United Nations (UN) was created at the end of World War II as an
international peacekeeping organization and a forum for resolving conflicts
between nations.
 The UN replaced the ineffective League of Nations, which had failed to prevent
the outbreak of the Second World War.
 The UN was established on October 24, 1945, with headquarters in Manhattan,
New York City, and reflected the rise of the United States to global leadership in
the postwar period.

Cold War
When the Second World War ended, America and Russia were clearly masters of the
world. They were so far ahead of all other countries in power and influence that they
were called the 'Super Powers'. Almost as soon as the war ended, relations between
America and Russia cooled. There has been hostility between them ever since. This
hostility between America and Russia has always stopped short of actual war with each
other. As both Super Powers have nuclear weapons, a real war between them could
mean the total destruction of each other and everybody else on earth. A 'cold war' is,
therefore, a war fought by every method except actual fighting. It is a war of words,
propaganda and threats.