The USA in War and Peace: 1917-1919

The American Army?

• Volunteers, National Guard, or Draftees?

• Combination of systems• An army drafted from a

nation that had volunteered en masse

• “Channeled manpower”

The Amalgamation Controversy• The American situation is quite

unsatisfactory…It will be well on in 1919 and more probably 1920 before they have an Army in the sense in which the French or English Armies may be considered today – British Commander Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig

• At the present moment, amalgamation is the only possible form of American collaboration, because it provides effectives and at present American assistance can only take the form of men – French Commander Gen. Philippe Pétain

US Responses• Ship only infantry

– By 5 July US had 618,388 men in France

– US landing one ID per day– Many US soldiers go to “quiet”

sectors to learn– Others go right into the fight

• Work in tandem with Brits and French

• Learn ways of modern war from Australians, Canadians

• Tanks, air key to US approach

Lt. Col. George Patton with his tank, 1918

The Convoy System

• Takes advantage of US strength in destroyers• Three convoy “speeds”• Protects merchant shipping• Leads to drop in shipping losses• Ends U-Boat threat

American Expeditionary ForcesDeployed in France

1917May 1,308Dec 183,896

1918Mar 329,005May 667,119Jul 1,210,708Sep 1,783,955

Nov 2,057,675

Second Marne

Amiens

St. Mihiel

Argonne Forest

Meuse-Argonne

• Then the largest battle ever fought by American forces

• 27,000 Americans killed and 95,000 wounded, plus thousands of “stragglers”

• Views on an armistice and Pershing’s plans for 1919

The Paris Peace Conference:19 January to 28 June 1919

1

23

4

5

6

7

8

Trouble Spots:1 Saar/Rhineland2 South Tyrol3 Fiume4 Sudetenland5 Danzig6 Memel7 Curzon Line8 Smyrna9 Upper Silesia

9

Wilson and the USA• Elections of 1918

– Irreconcilables– Sen. Lodge

• 14 Points– Should they guide the

conference? Can they?– Contradictions?

• “God Himself only gave mankind ten, and we soon learned how to break those” – Georges Clemenceau

• I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at. • II. Absolute freedom of navigation • III. The removal of all economic barriers • IV. national armaments will be reduced to the lowest

point consistent with domestic safety. • V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial

adjustment of all colonial claims, • VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory. • VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be

evacuated and restored. • VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded

portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, should be righted.

Fourteen Points (abridged)

• IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.

• X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development.

• XI. The relations of the several Balkan states to one another [should be] determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality.

• XII. The nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships.

• XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea.

• XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

Impacts

• Isolationism vs. internationalism

• Home front impacts– Great migration– 100% Americanism– Growth of government

influence• Birth of modern

American foreign policy