Submarine Blockades and Warfare

• Allied powers attempt to squash the Central Powers’ economies (Germany, Austria-Hungary)

Blockade of German portspopulations suffer from severe rationing

• Germany responds with unrestricted submarine warfare

Stage 3: Victories of the Allies (late 1917-1918)

• Return of the War of Movement– US joins the war on April 2, 1917– Russians sign the Brest-Litovsk Treaty

after Bolshevik Revolution– Germany can concentrate on Western

Front, hopes to win the war before US army can intervene• Spring 1918 – Great German offensives

return in Picardy, Flanders, Champagne

US Neutrality and Challenges• US sought to remain neutral

– Wilson’s Democratic slogan for 1916 election:“he kept us out of war”

• Lusitania (May 7, 1915)– Passenger ship sunk by Germans, killing

nearly 1, 200 individuals including over 100 Americans

– Germany claimed the ship had munitions (later determined to be correct)

• Sussex Pledge– Germany damaged a French ship, the

Sussex– Germany promised not to sink merchant

ships without providing a warning

US entry into the Great War• Unrestricted submarine warfare

– Biggest cause for US entrance in the war

– Germany would sink all ships, including American

• Zimmerman Telegram (March 1917)– German proposal for an alliance with

Mexico– If Mexico attacked the US, Germany

would help Mexico get land back in SW of US

Stage 3: Victories of the Allies (late 1917-1918)

• Towards Armistice– Allied Powers take the advantage

• Italians win victory over Austria-Hungary Oct 1918

• Gen Foch directs counter offensive in West

• Significant gain by Allies Aug 1918– Arrival of American army

Stage 3: Victories of the Allies (late 1917-1918)

• Interactive Map The Western Front 1918• German desertions increase• Revolutionary groups appear• Republic is proclaimed in Berlin• William II abdicates• Germany signs armistice in Compiègne

on Nov 11, 1918• Democratic nations victorious both

militarily and politically

Treaty of Versailles• Article 231 punishes Germany for starting

the war (& not Austria or Serbia)– War-guilt clause– Helped Hitler’s rise to power

The Big four

The Treaty of Versailles

Wilson Clemenceau Lloyd George Stalin

Wilson’s 14 Points

• Sought to make the world safe for democracy

• Wilson outlined 14 ideas for post WWI world– No secret alliances, freedom of the

seas, etc– Establishment of a League of Nations

• US Entry into WWI exercise

League of Nations• Article X called for members to

give assistance to others if needed– Congress, led by Henry Cabot

Lodge, detested this stipulation• Congress has Constitutional power to

declare war, Article X could force the US into war without Congress’ approval

Debate in Congress

America is going to grow more and more powerful, and the more powerful she is the more inevitable it is that she should be trustee for the peace of the world…All Europe knew that we were doing an American thing when we put the Covenant of the League of Nations at the beginning of the treaty…The most cynical men I had to deal with…before our conferences were over all admitted that the League of Nations, which they had deemed an ideal dream, was a demonstrable, practical necessity. This treaty cannot be carried out without the League of Nations…The rest of the world is necessary to us, if you want to put it on that basis. I do not like to put it on that basis. That is not the American basis. America does not want to feed upon the rest of the world. She wants to feed it and serve it. America…is the only national idealistic force in the world and idealism is going to save the world…That is the program of civilization.”

Woodrow Wilson, Speech at helena, Montana, September 1919

Woodrow Wilson - Need for the League

Debate over the LeagueHenry Cabot Lodge - Danger of the League

Never forget that this league is primarily – I might say overwhelmingly – a political organization, and I object strongly to having the politics of the United States turn upon disputes where deep feeling is aroused but in which we have no direct interest. It will tend to delay the Americanization of our great population, and it is more important not only to the United States but to the peace of the world to make all these people good Americans than it is to determine that some piece of territory should belong to one European country rather than to another. For this reason I wish to limit strictly our interference in the affairs of Europe and of Africa. We have interests of our own in Asia and in the Pacific which we must guard upon our own account, but the less we undertake to play the part of umpire and thrust ourselves into European conflicts the better for the United States and for the world.”

Speech in the Senate, Aug 1919

league of Nations

Why did the Treaty Fail?

• Isolationists, many who were Republican did not like the League of Nations (led by Henry Cabot Lodge)

• Many people wanted the US to stay out of foreign affairs (Washington’s Neutrality Proclamation)

• The league would commit the US to foreign affairs– Wilson refused to budge

Reading Material World War I

The Unfinished Nation by Alan Brinkley Chapter 23: America and the Great War pp. 602-624