Eventually, Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare and began attacking merchant ships and U. Nazi party leader Adolf Hitler saw the United States as a weak yet overbearing nation that consistently meddled in the affairs of other nations.
Hitler saw the USA as an ideological enemy, racially mixed and therefore inferior. With the threat from the USSR vanquished he would then be free to finish off Britain with little interference from the Americans.
According to reports, he was utterly devastated when Germany was defeated. So much in fact, that he never fully recovered from the embarrassment. In turn, he began to blame Jews, Communism, and Western meddling for the despair that had befallen Germany.
Determined to see the nation restored to her previous glory, Hitler soon joined a growing movement called the National Socialist German Workers Party or Nazi Party. The party came to see the Treaty of Versailles, the agreement that ended World War I, as responsible for the destruction of German pride and success.
The treaty was designed in such a matter that Germany would be punished severely for its role in World War I, yet it should be lenient enough to allow Germany to resist the communist movement that was underway in the USSR. Under the agreement, Germany was allowed to possess no submarines, no military aircraft, and only a few naval vessels. The nation was also forbidden to once again unite with Austria, or create any more secret treaties. And to top it off, Germany had to make reparation payments to the nations that it had attacked.
President Woodrow Wilson had little interest in harshly punishing Germany. Instead, he championed the aim of creating a treaty that would allow Europe to handle any future conflicts without the help of the United States.
This mentality began to permeate the United States and culminated in the creation of the Neutrality Acts in the s. In essence, the Neutrality Acts tied the hands of the United States to help its allies by refusing to sell resources or loaning cash to any war combatants.
However, the Neutrality Acts did have some shortcomings which allowed many American businesses to continue supplying resources to whomever they pleased. Nevertheless, as far as the United States government was concerned the country was to keep the sole focus on itself and remain isolationist.
While the Treaty of Versailles had been developed to remain somewhat lenient, Germans saw it as anything but. Instead, it was viewed as a punishment that was meant to embarrass Germany that was sucking the lifeblood from their nation. The loss of vital industrial territory would be a severe blow to any attempts by Germany to rebuild her economy. Coal from the Saar and Upper Silesia, in particular, was a vital economic loss. Combined with the financial penalties linked to reparations, it seemed clear to Germany that the Allies wanted nothing else but to bankrupt her.
This sentiment proved to be true as Germany's unemployment rate and inflation began to paralyze the nation's economy. The United States tried to step in and help by introducing the Young Plan in However, this arrangement soured when the United States entered the Great Depression later that same year. The economic instability in the United States created a massive wave of financial collapse around the world, including Germany.
In , Hitler and the Nazi Party were able to take control of the German government and immediately set about undoing the Treaty of Versailles. The nation also began to rebuild prohibited military equipment such as military aircraft, tanks, naval vessels, and artillery. In , the German military invaded and occupied an area called the Rhineland that had been set aside as a demilitarized zone by the Treaty of Versailles. As Hitler had predicted, none of the Allied nations responded to this flagrant breach of the treaty.
This lack of a response only served to embolden the Nazi's. Knowing that violating the Treaty of Versailles would have virtually no repercussions, Germany began swallowing up Europe through trickery, lies, and force. When Germany invaded Poland, President Roosevelt was finally able to persuade Congress to allow the exchange of war materials to our allies on a cash and carry basis only. However, he also knew that he would not be able to wage a successful campaign against the American's on their home soil.
Germany believed that this would create such a size disparity that it would be impossible for the United States to wage any type of campaign in Europe. The United States then began sending massive amounts of military equipment, and financial support to both Britain and Russia, instituted a military draft, and expanded its naval boundaries. The United States also agreed to supply Britain with 50 naval destroyers in exchange for several military bases in the Atlantic and Pacific. To protect the shipments of these goods provided under the Lend-Lease Act, the United States Navy then began to escort Allied shipping convoys across the Atlantic.
Hitler began to sense that President Roosevelt had been increasing naval activity in the area simply to create an incident that the United States could claim as an act of war. However, the USSR proved to be a much tougher opponent than predicted and was able to slow the Nazi advancement. Though President Roosevelt wanted to provide assistance to the British, both American law and public fears that the United States would be drawn into the conflict blocked his plans.
The Johnson Act of also prohibited the extension of credit to countries that had not repaid U. The American military opposed the diversion of military supplies to the United Kingdom. Marshall, anticipated that Britain would surrender following the collapse of France, and thus American supplies sent to the British would fall into German hands. Marshall and others therefore argued that U.
Many Americans opposed involving the United States in another war. Answering this question can be complicated if you want it to be. World War II was a catastrophic clash of global power, driven primarily by a small group of powerful elites, but played out on the ground by regular working-class people whose motivations were as diverse as they were.
A great many were forced, some signed up, and a number of them fought for reasons we may never understand. In total, 1. Every American was motivated differently, but the vast majority, if asked, would have named one of a few reasons for why they supported the war and even chose to risk their life to fight in it. Larger historical forces eventually brought the United States to the brink of World War II, but the direct and immediate cause that led it to officially entering the war was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
This blindside assault came in the early morning of December 7, when Japanese Imperial bombers flew over the Hawaiin naval base and dumped their payloads full of destruction and death. They killed 2, Americans, wounding 1, more; sunk four battleships, damaged two others, and wrecked countless other ships and planes stationed at the base.
The vast majority of the U. At the time of the attack, nine civilian aircraft were flying in the vicinity of Pearl Harbor. Of these, three were shot down. Nagumo, however, decided to withdraw as he did not have enough resources to pull off a third wave of attack. The tragedy of the Pearl Harbor attack, along with its treacherous nature, infuriated the American public — which had been growing increasingly skeptical of Japan due to its expansion in the Pacific throughout As a result, after the attacks, America was nearly in complete agreement about seeking vengeance through war.
In Congress, the feeling was equally as strong. Just one person from both houses, a woman named Jeanette Rankin, voted against it. Once back in Washington, she was the sole dissenter in an even more popular vote on war, claiming President Roosevelt wanted the conflict to promote his business interests and also that her pacifist views prevented her from supporting the idea.
She was ridiculed for this position and accused of being an enemy sympathizer. The carnage and cost that comes with war no longer mattered, and neutrality, which was the preferred approach just two years earlier, ceased to be an option.
Throughout the war, Pearl Harbor was frequently used in American propaganda. The nation had been attacked in its own territory, and someone had to pay. Those who stood in the way were cast aside, and the United States prepared to exact its revenge.
These promises unceremoniously devolved into fascism, allowing for the formation of one of the most brutal regimes in history: the Nazis. He cared solely about conquest and domination, and he was unconcerned about the cost. His actions spoke of his view that human life and basic decency meant nothing.
Clearly, the rise of such an evil across the pond was troubling to most Americans, and ignoring what was happening became a moral impossibility. Then, in , France fell to the Nazis in a matter of weeks. The political collapse of such a powerful nation in such a short period of time shook the world and made everyone wake up to the severity of the threat posed by Hitler.
As a result, public support for the war grew throughout and This idea that the United States was going to war in Europe to stop Hitler and fascism from spreading and threatening the American way of life was a powerful motivator and helped make the war a popular thing in the early s. In addition, it pushed millions of Americans to volunteer for service. A deeply nationalist nation, United States society treated those who served as patriotic and honorable, and those who were fighting felt they were standing up to the evil spreading in Europe in defense of the democratic ideals that America embodied.
While World War II had its roots in the corrupt political ambitions of dictators, it was fought by regular people from all over the world.
In the United States alone, a little more than 16 million people served in the military, with 11 million serving in the army. These numbers are even more dramatic when we consider that the American military had less than , soldiers in The draft, also known as the Selective Service, helped swell the ranks, but volunteers, as previously mentioned, made up a large part of the American military and contributed significantly to their numbers. The United States required such a massive military as it essentially had to fight two wars — one in Europe against Nazi Germany and to a lesser extent, Italy and another in the Pacific against Japan.
Both enemies had enormous military and industrial capacity, so the US needed to match and exceed this force to even have a chance at winning. And because the US was left free from bombings and other attempts to derail industrial production both Japan and Nazi Germany struggled in the later years of the war to keep their militaries supplied and replenished due to diminishing capacity at home , it was able to build a distinct advantage that ultimately allowed it to be successful.
However, as the US worked to match — in just a few short years — the production efforts Germany and Japan had spent the previous decade developing, there was little delay to the fighting. By , the US was in full engagements with first Japan, and then later Germany. Early in the war, draftees and volunteers were typically sent to the Pacific, but as the conflict went on and the Allied forces began planning an invasion of Germany, more and more soldiers were sent to Europe.
These two theaters were very different from one another and tested the United States and its citizens in different ways. Victories were costly, and they came slowly. But a commitment to fighting and an unprecedented military mobilization put the US in a good position for success. On Jan. From then until early August, German U-boats dominated the waters off the East Coast, sinking fuel tankers and cargo ships with impunity and often within sight of shore.
World War II shaped conversations on the future of service including universal military training and conscription. Jazz in the late s moved away from big band jazz and morphed into a new expressive form that reflected social developments and post-war realities. During World War II, 4-H members contributed to the war effort in many ways—through military service, as well as efforts on the home front.
Robert Riskin, head of the Bureau of Motion Pictures, was responsible for creating Projections of America , a documentary film series that became one of the most important propaganda initiatives of World War II.
While the war provided opportunities for soldiers to foster their sense of manhood, the postwar years and peacetime preferred the husband and father ideal while also finding ways to deal with injured or psychologically traumatized veterans. The Great Debate. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Like this article?
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