peace seekers and war makers 1920-1941. searching for peace and order in the 1920’s league of...
TRANSCRIPT
Peace Seekers and War Makers
1920-1941
Searching for Peace and Order in the 1920’s
• League of Nations remained weak and ineffectual due to U.S. not joining
• Still, the U.S. attempted to influence the League from a distance
Peace Groups
• National Council for Prevention of War• Women’s International League for Peace and
Freedom• Pointed to carnage of WWI and the benefits of
disarmament
Washington Naval Conference
• The United States, Japan, Britain, and France agreed to limit naval armaments
• Only applied to battleships and aircraft carriers
• Did not include cruisers, destroyers, or submarines
• Still, a step towards disarmament
Kellogg-Briand Act
• 62 nations signed the act in which they “condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it as an instrument of national policy”
Cordell Hull
• “we cannot have a peaceful world, until we rebuild the international economic structure”
• Americanization of world markets• United States took the lead
Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy
• Strengthen ties with Latin America • End interventionism (Pan-American
Conference)• Nullified Platt Amendment• Cardenas controversy in Mexico
Economic Diplomacy
• Recognition of the Soviet Union• Granted Philippines independence• Lowered Tariffs
Fascism and Aggressive Militarism
• The worldwide depression allowed for powerful dictators and militarists to rise to power in – Germany– Italy– Japan
Italy
• Benito Mussolini rose to power in 1922
• Invaded Ethiopia in 1935
• Fascism: idea people should glorify nation and race through aggressive show of force
Germany
• Adolf Hitler used depression and appeals to unemployed to gain control of legislature in 1933
• Also used extreme nationalism and anti-Semitic hatreds
Japan
• Militarist exploits to gain natural resources
• Oil, tin, and iron
American Isolationism
• Neutrality Acts of 1935– No arms shipments, Americans could not travel on
ships of belligerent nations• Neutrality Acts of 1936– No loans or credit to belligerents
• Neutrality Acts of 1937– Could not get involved in the Spanish Civil War
Appeasement
• Ethiopia: League of Nations only condemned Italy
• Rhineland: League did nothing while Hitler simply remilitarized the Rhineland
• China: War between Japan and China• Sudetenland: Munich Conference allowed
Hitler to his last territorial claim in Czechoslovakia
Nazi Germany Goes to War
• Sign a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union
• Ribbentrop-Molotov Agreements
• Sets stage for the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939.
Preparedness
• The U.S. did prepare by increasing military and defense budgets
• Justified by protecting from possible invasion of the Western Hemisphere
Cash and Carry
• Congress repealed embargo and approved a cash and carry flow of goods across the Atlantic
Lend Lease Act (1940)
• Went into effect to help Great Britain• Part of Special Relationship• United States became an “Arsenal for
Democracy”
Atlantic Charter
• Meeting between Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in August 1941
• Set war aims of collective security, self-determination, economic cooperation, and freedom of the seas.
Issues with Japan
• U.S. stopped selling fuel and scrap metal to Japan
• Withheld valuable oil supplies from Japan• Japan responds with an attack on Pearl Harbor
December 7th, 1941.
Clash of Systems
• USA, Great Britain, France
• Liberal capitalist world order
• Freedom of trade• Freedom of investment
• Italy, Germany, Japan, USSR
• Dictators favored totalitarian or fascist systems of governmental and economic issues