American Involvement in World War I & II: From Neutrality to Victory

American Involvement in World War I

• After the outbreak of war in 1914, the USA declared itself neutral, arguing that it was a European conflict that did not concern America.

• Initially, public opinion was in favor of staying out of the war, despite strong sympathies for Britain and her Allies, and the potential damage to U.S. economic interests.

• President Wilson sent his aide Colonel House to try to broker a peace, but to no avail.

• In 1915, circumstances changed when the British passenger liner Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat, killing 1,200 including 128 Americans.

• Wilson demanded an immediate end to unrestricted submarine warfare, but his declaration that America was ‘too proud to fight’, meaning that America should set an example of peace in a warring world, did enormous damage to his reputation.

• U.S. diplomacy finally achieved results in 1916 when Germany agreed not to attack passenger vessels without warning, although this promise was broken in January 1917.

• U.S. trade was closely entangled with that of Britain, and American banks like J.P. Morgan started raising massive loans for the Allies.

• In February 1917, Wilson set out his Fourteen Points, a public justification for U.S. participation in the war, proposing a new vision of collective security with a League of Nations defending a set of key principles, including:

• the right to self-determination
• free trade
• freedom of the seas
• global disarmament
• the outlawing of secret alliances (a radical challenge to Old World imperialism)

• President Wilson signed the declaration of war on 6 April 1917, stating that ‘the world must be made safe for democracy’.

• Wilson stressed that it was joining an emergency coalition rather than a lasting alliance, and U.S. involvement would be limited, as American troops would fight separately under American commanders.

• Around 2 million U.S. troops fought in Europe during the last 8 months of the war, largely raised through conscription.

• U.S. participation was decisive as it altered the balance sufficiently to break the deadlock.

• Around 110,000 U.S. soldiers died in 8 months, compared to 900,000 British, 1.4 million French, and 2 million German troops in 4 years.

• At the end of the war, Wilson attended the Paris peace conference but failed to prevent the Allies from furthering their imperialist ambitions and insisting that Germany pay for war damages.

• The Republican-controlled Senate refused to ratify the Paris Treaty, and although the League of Nations was formed, without U.S. participation, it never became

American Isolationism and the Road to World War II

The mid-1930s marked the depths of American isolationism. The Neutrality Acts banned Americans in any future war from selling arms or making loans to belligerent countries.

• Although he detested Nazism, FDR went along with the neutrality argument, believing that primary responsibility for confronting Hitler lay with France and Britain.

• When war broke out in September 1939, FDR proclaimed U.S. neutrality but persuaded Congress to amend the Neutrality Acts to allow Americans to trade with the countries at war, provided that no U.S. credit or vessels were involved. FDR aimed to provide covert aid to Britain, which, unlike Germany and Japan, had sufficient foreign exchange and merchant shipping to import American goods.

• By June 1940, France had surrendered and Germany dominated Europe.

• Britain was facing a German invasion, although Winston Churchill had replaced the appeaser Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister.

• FDR won a third presidential election in November 1940, maintaining his pledge to keep the USA out of the war while offering the Allies all possible aid ‘short of war’. The Lend-Lease Act (March 1941) enabled the USA to lend or sell much-needed war equipment to the Allies.

• Even in March 1941, over 80% of Americans surveyed in a Gallup poll were opposed to U.S. intervention.

The USA Enters the War

• On 7 December 1941, the Japanese attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, destroying 8 battleships and killing 2,400.

• Congress responded by declaring war on Japan, and Germany and Italy declared war on the USA 3 days later.

• 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent were moved to internment camps.

• Although FDR agreed with Churchill that the main theater of war should be Europe, the USA also led a strong effort against Japan in the Pacific theater.

• In 1942, after being driven out of the Philippines, Malaya, Burma, and the East Indies, it appeared that the Allies might also lose Australia and India to the Japanese.

• The U.S. defeat of the Japanese fleet (including 4 aircraft carriers) at Midway marked a turning point, and the Allies gradually reconquered the lost Pacific territories.

The End of the War

• In Europe, after the D-Day landings of 6 June 1944 and Soviet advances from the east, the Germans were slowly pushed back on all sides before finally surrendering on 8 May 1945.

• The Japanese refused to surrender, and the prospect of a heavy loss of life led the Allies to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Emperor Hirohito formally surrendered on 2 September 1945.

• Roosevelt, who had died in April 1945 after serving a record 12 years as president, was replaced by fellow Democrat Harry Truman.

• The U.S. contribution, both in human and material terms, had turned the course of the war decisively in the Allies’ favor.

• The United Nations Charter, which was drafted at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences of February and July 1945, respectively, ended American isolationism.