Download The Nation at War

HIST 1302 Part Two
Lesson 24 The Nation at War
Wilson and Reform
Constitutional Amendments Ratified
During the Wilson Administration
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16th Amendment (1913) – Income tax.
17th Amendment (1913) – Direct election of Senators
18th Amendment (1919) – Prohibition (Effective 1920)
19th Amendment (1920) – Woman Suffrage
President Wilson lived up to campaign pledge;
filed more than 100 federal anti-trust suits.
Achievements of Congress During Wilson Presidency
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Lowered the tariff
Passed a modest income tax law
Created Federal Reserve Bank system
Passed a tougher anti-trust law
Created Federal Trade Commission
Workmen’s compensation for federal employees
National Child Labor Law (later ruled
unconstitutional by Supreme Court)
Wilson and Mexico
The Mexican Revolution began on
November 20, 1910.be
Porfirio Diaz, Mexico’s
president for 27 years,
was overthrown.
In 1911 Francisco Madero, a
liberal reformer, became
Mexico’s new leader.
But he was murdered
in 1913 by Gen.
Victoriano Huerta.
Villa
Obregon
President Wilson refused to
recognize Huerta’s
government and supported
Mexicans who sought to
overthrow him.
Zapata
Carranza
1914: To stop a German ship carrying arms for Huerta’s
government U.S. troops seized the port of Veracruz.
After Venustiano Carranza
overthrew Huerta in 1914,
the U.S. withdrew its
troops.
March 9, 1916: Mexican
presidential aspirant
Francisco “Pancho” Villa
leads a raid on Columbus,
NM, destroying property
and killing 17 Americans.
1916: Gen. John J. “Black Jack” Pershing leads
U.S. “Border Expedition” (5,800 troops) into
Mexico to find Villa. He never did.
The First World War
1914: Archduke Franz Ferdinand (heir to Austrian throne) and his wife are
assassinated by a Serb nationalist in Sarajevo, Bosnia.
Interlocking Treaties lead to the “Great War”
3 min.
1914-1918: Stalemate on the “Western Front”
In 1915, the German government warned Americans
against traveling to the war zone.
128 Americans died when the Lusitania was sunk by a German U-Boat.
Despite the sinking of the Lusitania, Americans wanted to stay out
of the war and officially, the United States was neutral.
Campaigning with the slogan “He kept us out of war!” Woodrow Wilson
was re-elected in 1916 over Republican Charles Evans Hughes.
In 1917 the “Zimmerman Telegram” tried (and failed) to
convince Mexico to enter the war on the side of Germany.
German Foreign
Minister Zimmerman
In 1917, after the Germans began unrestricted U-Boat warfare,
five U.S. merchant ships were sunk. President Wilson urged war.
2 min. 05sec.
In his war message to Congress on
April 2, 1917, President Wilson
declared: “The world must be made
safe for democracy.”
Congress declared war against
Germany on April 6, 1917.
Posters urged men to join the Army.
…and the Navy.
…and the Marines.
This poster appealed to
the patriotism of AfricanAmericans.
Four African-American regiments
served under French commanders.
A little under 3 million men
were drafted in service.
In 1918 Socialist leader Eugene Debs was imprisoned for violating
the Sedition Act by speaking out against the war.
Gen. John J. “Black Jack” Pershing led the American
Expeditionary Force (AEF) in Europe.
The first U.S. troops left for France in 1917.
But the U.S. was unprepared for war. It was nearly a year before
U.S. troops saw any significant combat.
In 1917 Czar Nicholas II was overthrown.
Following a year-long civil war, Communists seized
power and pulled Russia out of the war.
After Russia’s withdrawal, veteran German
troops were sent to the Western Front.
9 min. 27 sec.
On the Western Front, U.S. soldiers took
part in several battles in 1918, when the
Germans launched a massive offensive
against Paris.
At 11 a.m. on November 11, 1918 the war
ended when Germany agreed to an armistice.
In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson
personally headed the U.S. peace
delegation to Paris.
Wilson’s “Fourteen Points,” which he wanted to be
part of the peace treaty, included the establishment
of a “League of Nations.”
The Treaty of Versailles (1919) formally ended the “Great War.” It
called for Wilson’s “League of Nations” to be formed.
When Wilson ran into opposition to the treaty from Senate Republicans,
(who objected to the League of Nations provision), he took his case to
the people; but he had a stroke.
3 min. 48 sec.
Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge led the opposition to the Treaty of
Versailles. In 1921 the U.S. signed a separate peace treaty with Germany.
In terms of manpower and casualties, the
United States ranked fifth among the
allies (Russia, Britain, France, and Italy
were nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4). The Russians
lost 1,700,000 men; the French a little
more than a million, the British (and
colonies) just under a million, the Italians
650,000 and the U.S. 126,000.