the usa and the “war to end all wars”. american reactions to the outbreak “again and ever, i...
TRANSCRIPT
American Reactions to the Outbreak
• “Again and ever, I thank Heaven for the Atlantic Ocean” – US Ambassador to Britain, Walter Hines Page, July 29, 1914 describing “The Great Smash”
Neutrality
• What did the term mean?
• Equal impact on all sides?
• No impact on the war at all?
• Total US freedom of action?
The Germans are killing people. The British are merely inconveniencing them – Wilson on the two blockade strategies.
The Rivals
Woodrow Wilson• Born 1856• Governor (NJ): 1911-1913• President: 1913-1921• Died: 1921 (stroke in 1919)
Theodore Roosevelt• Born 1858• Governor (NY): 1899-1901• President: 1901-1909• Died: 1919
Roosevelt’s Critiques
• Neutrality is “utter folly” akin to disarming the NYPD to fight crime in Central Park
• US policy should be “righteousness backed by force.”
• Wilson’s policy is “object cowardice and weakness.”
Plattsburg Camps
Germany and USW
• Wilson supported a “peace without victory”
• “A War to End All Wars”• “Make the World Safe
for Democracy”• Use the American Army
to solve Europe’s problems through reason and morality
• Roosevelt sought to use US military might to punish Germany
• Use the war to make America a world power
• Roosevelt wanted to lead a division personally
• All of his sons fought, one was killed
The American Army?
• Smaller than Romania’s• Equipment, doctrine,
knowledge of European war all badly out of date
• “I watched them leave and wondered how they could possibly do any good” – Elizabeth Coles Marshall.
The American Army?
• Volunteers, National Guard, or Draftees?
• Combination of systems• An army drafted from a
nation that had volunteered en masse
• “Channeled manpower”
Meuse-Argonne
• Then the largest battle ever fought by American forces
• 27,000 Americans killed and 95,000 wounded, plus thousands of “stragglers”
• Views on an armistice and Pershing’s plans for 1919
Wilson and the USA
• Elections of 1918– Irreconcilables– Sen. Lodge
• 14 Points– Should they guide the
conference? Can they?– Contradictions?
• “God Himself only gave mankind ten, and we soon learned how to break those” – Georges Clemenceau
• I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at. • II. Absolute freedom of navigation • III. The removal of all economic barriers • IV. national armaments will be reduced to the lowest
point consistent with domestic safety. • V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial
adjustment of all colonial claims, • VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory. • VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be
evacuated and restored. • VIII. All French territory should be freed and the
invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, should be righted.
Fourteen Points (abridged)
• IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.
• X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development.
• XI. The relations of the several Balkan states to one another [should be] determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality.
• XII. The nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships.
• XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea.
• XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.