Chapter Study Outline

  • I. Wilson and foreign affairs
    • A. Idealistic diplomacy
      • 1. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan
      • 2. God expected America to advance democracy and moral progress
    • B. Mexico
      • 1. General Victoriano Huerta established military dictatorship
      • 2. Incident at Tampico allowed Wilson to intervene
      • 3. The downfall of Huerta
      • 4. Mexican bandits
      • 5. Carranza’s more liberal Mexican government
      • 6. “Pancho“ Villa’s raids and Pershing
    • C. In Caribbean, U.S. Marines helped put down disorders
  • II. An uneasy neutrality
    • A. The beginning of the war
      • 1. Assassination of Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand
      • 2. The European system of alliances
        • a. Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy)
        • b. Triple Entente (France, Great Britain, Russia)
      • 3. Trench warfare
    • B. America’s initial reaction
      • 1. Wilson urged Americans to be neutral
      • 2. Many immigrants for the Central Powers
      • 3. Old-line Americans for the Allies
      • 4. Role of propaganda
    • C. American neutrality strained
      • 1. Financial assistance to Allies
      • 2. Freedom of the seas
        • a. Importance of sea power in European war
        • b. British ordered ships carrying German goods via neutral ports to be stopped
      • 3. German submarine warfare
        • a. Germans declared a war zone around the British Isles and threatened to sink any ships there
        • b. German sinking of two ships divided the administration on a course of action
        • c. Lusitania sunk; among 1,198 dead were 128 Americans
        • d. America protested through series of notes
        • e. Unwilling to risk war, Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan resigned (June 1915)
      • 4. Arabic Pledge
      • 5. Mediation efforts
      • 6. Sussex Pledge
    • D. The debate over preparedness
      • 1. Peace advocated in Congress
      • 2. Sinking of the Lusitania contributed to demands for a stronger army and navy
        • a. National Security League organized
        • b. Wilson’s war preparation plans announced
        • c. Some were against preparedness
      • 3. The army strengthened
      • 4. The navy strengthened
      • 5. Revenue Act of 1916
    • E. Election of 1916
      • 1. Republicans nominated Charles Evans Hughes
      • 2. Democrats nominated Wilson again
      • 3. Wilson campaigned on peace and a progressive platform
      • 4. Hughes was ambiguous on foreign policy and behind Wilson on social issues
      • 5. Wilson won in close race
    • F. Wilson’s last efforts for peace
      • 1. Wilson said that America should share in laying the foundations for lasting peace
      • 2. Germany announced its new policy of unrestricted submarine warfare
      • 3. Wilson broke diplomatic relations with Germany
      • 4. Wilson decided to arm U.S. merchant ships
      • 5. The Zimmermann telegram
  • III. America’s entry into the war
    • A. Declaration of war
    • B. Reasons for war
    • C. America’s early role in the war
      • 1. American contributions to Allied naval strategy
        • a. Convoy system
        • b. Minefield across North Sea
      • 2. Liberty Loan Act helped finance British and French war efforts
      • 3. Token army of under 15,000 men under John J. Pershing sent to France
      • 4. Selective Service Act
  • IV. The home front
    • A. Regulation of industry and the economy
      • 1. Lever Food and Fuel Control Act of 1917
      • 2. War Industries Board
        • a. Most important of all mobilization agencies
        • b. Under direction of Bernard Baruch, directed almost all of America’s economy
    • B. A new labor force
      • 1. African Americans
        • a. The Great Migration
        • b. Northern race riots
      • 2. Women
        • a. Types of war work
        • b. Effects temporary
      • 3. Organized labor
    • C. Mobilizing public opinion—the Committee on Public Information
      • 1. Headed by George Creel
    • D. Civil liberties
      • 1. Public opinion, aroused to promote war, turned to “Americanism“ and witch-hunting
      • 2. Espionage and Sedition Acts
        • a. More than 1,000 convictions
        • b. In Schenck v. United States and Abrams v. United States, Supreme Court upheld acts
  • V. America in the war
    • A. Until 1918, American troops played only a token role
    • B. The “race for France“
      • 1. By November 1918, over 2 million men in Europe
      • 2. Allied victories kept Germans out of France
      • 3. Second Battle of the Marne (July 15)
      • 4. By November, Germany was retreating all along the front
    • C. The Bolsheviks and intervention in Russia
    • D. Wilson’s plan for peace
      • 1. The Fourteen Points
        • a. Open diplomacy
        • b. Freedom of the seas
        • c. Removal of trade barriers
        • d. Reduction of armaments
        • e. Impartial adjustment of colonial claims
        • f. Evacuation of occupied lands
        • g. National self-determination
        • h. Polish access to the sea
        • i. A League of Nations
      • 2. Allies accepted Fourteen Points as basis for peace but demanded reparations for war damages
      • 3. Armistice signed on November 11, 1918
  • VI. The fight for peace at home and abroad
    • A. Wilson’s domestic strength was declining
      • 1. The unraveling of his progressive coalition
      • 2. Democrats lose in the elections of 1918
      • 3. Wilson fails to invite any prominent Republicans to assist in the negotiations
    • B. The negotiations in Paris
    • C. The League of Nations
      • 1. For Wilson, the most important point
      • 2. Article X pledged members to consult on military and economic sanctions against aggressors
      • 3. Organization of the League
    • D. Territory and reparations
      • 1. France pushed for several harsh measures against Germany
        • a. Territorial concessions
        • b. Reparations
      • 2. Problems with Wilson’s principle of national self-determination
      • 3. Methods for resolving issues
        • a. Use of committees of experts
        • b. Use of plebiscites
      • 4. The issue of reparations
        • a. France wanted to use demands for reparations to cripple Germany
        • b. Wilson agreed to clause where Germany accepted responsibility for war and thus for its costs
  • VII. Wilson’s fight for the treaty
    • A. Opposition in Senate
      • 1. The “irreconcilables“
      • 2. The “reservationists“
    • B. Henry Cabot Lodge began his attack on the treaty
    • C. Wilson took his case to the American people
      • 1. Delivered thirty-two addresses in twenty-two days
      • 2. Suffered stroke on October 2
      • 3. Refused to compromise on treaty
    • D. The Senate vote on the Versailles Treaty
      • 1. On the treaty with reservations, Wilsonians and irreconcilables combined to defeat ratification
      • 2. On the treaty without reservations, reservationists and irreconcilables combined to defeat ratification
    • E. The official end of the war by joint resolution of Congress
  • VIII. Lurching from war to peace
    • A. The Spanish flu
    • B. Economic transition
      • 1. Labor unrest
        • a. In 1919, 4 million workers on strike
        • b. Strike at U.S. Steel
        • c. Boston police strike
    • C. Racial friction
      • 1. The Red Summer of 1919
      • 2. Twenty-five race riots, with many deaths and injuries
    • D. The Red Scare
      • 1. Fear of a social revolution (like Russia’s)
      • 2. Most violence was the work of the lunatic fringe, but many Americans saw it all as Bolshevism
      • 3. Role of A. Mitchell Palmer, attorney general, in promoting the Red Scare
      • 4. The Red Scare began to evaporate by the summer of 1920