CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 23
Americans in the Great War, 1914 1920

Chapter Summary
In Chapter 23, we deal with the causes of the First World War, American entry into the war, and the political, social, and economic impact of the war on the United States and its people. The nation’s entry into the war is discussed in “Precarious Neutrality” and “Submarine Warfare and Wilson’s Decision for War.” Although President Wilson proclaimed the United States to be neutral in the European conflict, three realities made neutrality practically impossible. Those realities confirm the interrelation of domestic and foreign policy (a dominant theme in Chapter 22). Furthermore, the discussion of the tenets of Wilsonianism and Wilson’s strict interpretation of international law reinforces the concept that a nation’s foreign policy is based on its perception of the world community of nations and of its relationship to those nations.
Besides the underlying reasons for American entry into the war, there were obvious and immediate reasons for that decision: the naval warfare between Great Britain and Germany, the use of the submarine by the Germans, and Wilson’s interpretation of international law as he attempted to protect the rights of the United States as a neutral nation. The authors’ inference that Americans got caught in the crossfire between the Allies and the Central Powers is supported through the tracing of United States policy from the sinking of the Lusitania to the adoption of unrestricted submarine warfare by the Germans. Therefore, the Zimmermann telegram, perceived as a direct threat to American security by American officials, the arming of American commercial ships, and additional sinkings of American ships by German submarines brought a declaration of war by Congress. Finally, America went to war because of a special sense of mission. The country went to war to reform world politics, war being the only means that guaranteed Wilson a seat and an insider’s voice at the peace table.
In spite of antiwar sentiment in the United States, the country began to prepare for war before the actual declaration, as can be seen in the passage of the National Defense Act, the Navy Act, and the Revenue Act. Once war was declared, the country turned to the draft (the Selective Service Act) to raise the necessary army. Even though American military and political leaders believed that American virtue could reshape the world, they feared that the world would reshape the virtue of American soldiers. To protect that virtue, the government created the Commission on Training Camp Activities. In spite of this, venereal disease became a serious problem within the army. Furthermore, American soldiers could not be shielded from the graver threat of influenza and pneumonia, and more soldiers died from disease than on the battlefield. Another serious problem in the American army—one that government and army officials did little to combat—was racism. Not only were African Americans segregated within the army, but they were also subjected to various forms of racial discrimination.
Mobilization of the nation for the war effort altered American life. Government power increased, especially in the economic sphere. Government-business cooperation became part of official government policy. Centralized governmental control and planning of the nation’s economy were largely successful, but there were mistakes and problems. Government policy caused inflation; government tax policies meant that only one-third of the war was financed through taxes; and, although organized labor made some gains, it usually took a back seat to the needs of corporations.
The war intensified the divisions within the pluralistic American society. Entry of more women into previously “male” jobs brought negative reactions by male workers. Increased northward migration of African Americans intensified racist fears and animosities in factories and neighborhoods. The government’s fear of dissent and of foreigners led to the trampling of civil liberties at the national, state, and local levels. In the immediate aftermath of the war, events both within and outside the country heightened these fears, culminating in the Red Scare and the Palmer Raids. The American effort to “make the world safe for democracy” brought actions on the home front that seemed to indicate a basic distrust of democracy.
Divisions also intensified on the political front, as the debate over the Treaty of Versailles indicates. In “The Peace Conference, League Fight, and Postwar World” Wilson’s Fourteen Points are contrasted with the actual terms of the treaty. The divergence was an issue used in the arguments of those opposed to the treaty and to American entry into the League of Nations. But the core of the problem lay in Article 10 of the League covenant. Critics charged that the collective-security provisions of this article would allow League members to call out the United States Army without congressional approval. The belief of many that this was true was at the heart of the debate against the League. Fear that the United States would be forced to forgo its traditional unilateralism in foreign affairs led the Senate to reject the treaty and American entry into the League of Nations.



Learning Objectives
1. Discuss Europe’s descent into the First World War.
2. Discuss both President Woodrow Wilson’s attempts and the attempts of antiwar activists to keep the United States out of the First World War, and explain the ultimate failure of those efforts.
3. Discuss the response of Americans to the First World War and to American entry into the war, and indicate the extent to which United States participation influenced the outcome of the conflict.
4. Describe the characteristics of draftees and volunteers in the American armed forces during the First World War and discuss their lives as soldiers.
5. Examine the impact of the First World War on the American home front, including its impact on the federal government, business, labor, women, and African Americans.
6. Explain and evaluate the record of government at the local, state, and national levels on civil-liberties questions during and after the war.
7. Explain the differences and similarities between Wilsonianism and the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles.
8. Examine the debate over ratification of the Treaty of Versailles and American entry into the League of Nations, and explain the Senate’s rejection of the treaty.
9. Examine the impact of the First World War on America’s role in world affairs.



Chapter Outline
I. Introduction
As the war began, America declared its neutrality. When events drew the nation into the contest, Woodrow Wilson announced that the country would fight to make the world safe for democracy.

II. Precarious Neutrality
A. Outbreak of the First World War
The war began following the assassination of the heir to the Austro Hungarian throne.
B. Taking Sides
Wilson sought to maintain neutrality, but objections came from German Americans and Irish Americans. Wilson’s administration had considerable sympathy for the Allies, providing another impediment to neutrality.
C. Trade and Loans
American economic ties to the Allies, especially commercially and financially, made neutrality difficult.
D. Wilsonianism
Wilson believed that the United States had become the only nation that could lead the world into a new, peaceful era. British victory seemed crucial to these principles.
E. British Violations of Neutral Rights
Britain used its navy in an effort to sever all neutral trade with Germany and cripple the German economy.
F. The German Submarine and International Law
German naval tactics relied on submarines. Wilson interpreted international law to insist that submarines surface before firing on ships. Germany disagreed.

III. Submarine Warfare and Wilson’s Decision for War
A. Secretary Bryan’s Resignation
When 128 Americans died on the British passenger ship Lusitania, Wilson resisted calls for war. Still, he wanted Americans to be safe to travel on belligerent craft. When Wilson rejected Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan’s advice that Americans be prohibited from travel on belligerent ships, Bryan resigned.
B. Gore McLemore Resolution
A congressional resolution would have prohibited Americans from traveling on belligerent merchant ships, but Wilson’s pressure caused the resolution to fail.
C. Peace Advocates
A strong peace movement existed in the United States because many believed that business profited from war.
D. Unrestricted Submarine Warfare
In February 1917, Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare. The Germans hoped to defeat Britain before American troops could enter the war.
E. Zimmermann Telegram and Mexican Revolution
When British intelligence released the Zimmermann Telegram, Americans took the threat from Germany seriously because of deteriorating relations with Mexico.
F. War Message and War Declaration
Wilson asked for war because of German violations of freedom of the seas and assaults on human rights. He wanted to make the world “safe for democracy.”

IV. Taking Up Arms and Winning the War
A. The Draft and the Soldier
Congress passed the Selective Service Act that made all men between 20 and 30 subject to the draft. Most soldiers were draftees, in their early twenties, and poorly educated. Blacks, at the urging of the NAACP, joined in the U.S. war effort.
B. Indian Enlistees
Most of the 15,000 Native Americans who served sought to escape lives of poverty and prove their patriotism.
C. Commission on Training Camp Activities
A federal commission, established out of concern over saloons and brothels near training camps, coordinated efforts to provide alternative forms of entertainment.
D. Trench Warfare
The nature of World War I combat was marked by a futile stalemate in the trenches.
E. Problem of Venereal Disease
The high prostitution rates in France helped make venereal disease a serious problem for American troops.
F. AEF Battles in France
The American Expeditionary Force remained independent from the Allied forces, but when they entered the lines they tipped the balance of the war in favor of the Allies.
G. Casualties
About 16 million European soldiers and civilians died as a result of the war. Some 50,000 Americans died in battle and another 62,000 died from disease.

V. Mobilizing and Managing the Home Front
A. Business Government Cooperation
When the war began, government and industry had a strong partnership, with executives serving on war committees. Abuses, however, led to disbanding the committees and to the creation of the War Industries Board.
B. New Agencies for Economic Management
Government agencies were created to manage the task of shifting the nation’s resources to the Allies, the AEF, and war-related production. The largest such agency was the War Industries Board which coordinated the national economy.
C. Economic Performance
Despite mistakes, the mobilized economy delivered enough men and materiel to France to defeat the Central Powers.
D. Inflation
Government policy of liberal credit and setting high prices contributed to wartime inflation.
E. Paying for the War
The government financed one-third of the war through taxes. The other two-thirds came from loans.
F. Labor Unions and the War
Labor unions like the AFL advanced their cause and the cause of their members by entering into a partnership with government. The NWLB was created in 1928 to discourage strikes and urge management to negotiate with existing unions.
G. Women in the Work Force
With much of the work force in the military and with immigration interrupted, women filled many jobs. When the war ended, women lost many of the gains.
H. African American Migration North
Many African Americans moved north to work in industry. This migration changed the black community; it also led northerners to vent their anger on the emigrants.
I. Race Riots
Whites in northern cities reacted violently to the influx of black immigrants.
J. Influenza Pandemic
An influenza pandemic engulfed the world between 1918 and 1919, killing 700,000 Americans.

VI. Emergence of the Civil Liberties Issue
A. Committee on Public Information
Headed by journalist George Creel, the Committee on Public Information acted as a propaganda agency.
B. Espionage and Sedition Acts
The Espionage and Sedition Acts gave the government wide authority to crack down on dissenters. More than 2,000 people faced prosecution under these laws.
C. Imprisonment of Eugene V. Debs
Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs gave a speech extolling freedom of speech and criticizing Wilson. Federal agents arrested him; he was sentenced to ten years in prison.
D. Roger Baldwin and Free Speech
This activist advanced the idea that free speech should be aggressively defended.

VII. The Bolshevik Revolution, Labor Strikes, and the Red Scare
A. Intervention in Russia against Bolsheviks
Wilson sent 15,000 troops into Russia during the Russian Revolution. The United States also enacted an economic blockade in an effort to destroy the Bolsheviks.
B. Labor Strikes and the Red Scare
More than 4,000,000 workers went out on strike in 1919, sparking a Red Scare.
C. Palmer Raids
Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer staged illegal raids on meeting halls and homes of alleged Communists. Four thousand went to jail, and many were deported.

VIII. The Peace Conference, League Fight, and Postwar World
A. Obstacles to a Wilsonian Peace
Wilson’s Fourteen Points provided a foundation for peace talks. They summarized Wilson’s international view of a stable world order based on American principles. However, in negotiating a treaty Wilson faced obstacles erected by his political enemies, by the Allies, and by himself.
B. Paris Peace Conference
Wilson underestimated his task in Paris. The victors demanded reparations from Germany, and most of Wilson’s Fourteen Points failed to gain Allied support.
C. League of Nations and Article 10
Wilson worked hardest on establishing the League of Nations to provide for collective security.
D. Critics of the Treaty
Henry Cabot Lodge led opposition to the treaty. Wilson campaigned for ratification of the treaty, but he suffered a stroke that ended any hope for a compromise.
E. Senate Rejection of the Treaty and League
The Senate rejected the Treaty of Paris and the United States refused to join the League of Nations.
F. Collective Security versus Unilateralism
Americans preferred the tradition of nonalignment and chose to act unilaterally in world affairs.
G. Unstable International System
The spread of Wilsonian ideals resulted in the rise of anticolonialism. Also, German resentment of the peace treaty increased the threat of international instability.