Download Chapter 17 The Road to War

Chapter 17
The Road to War
Section 1
The Search for
Peace
Legacies of WWI
• {{Americans worried about being dragged back into
another foreign war}
• Such worries led the United States to follow a policy of
partial isolationism}, or withdrawal from world affairs
in the 20’s and 30’s
• Isolationism led the U.S. to shun international
organizations that were set up after WWI, like the
League of Nations and the World Court
• Rather than joining international peacekeeping
organizations the U.S. used diplomacy to promote
world peace
• American peace groups tried to urge the U.S.
government to negotiate {disarmament, or reducing
the size of a country’s military}, with other world
leaders
The Washington Conference
• Starting in November 1921 the U.S. hosted the {Washington
Conference which asked several nations to agree to focus
on naval disarmament} and Pacific security
• {The meeting was organized by U.S. secretary of state Charles
Evans Hughes}
• Hughes proposed that the U.S., Great Britain, France, Italy and
Japan destroy or retire some of their warships in a plan called
the Five-Power Naval Treaty
• In the Four Power Treaty, Britain, France, Japan and the U.S.
pledged to respect one another’s territory in the Pacific.
• In the Nine-Power Treaty, which included the countries in the
Five-Power Treaty plus China, Belgium, the Netherlands and
Portugal, China’s territorial integrity was guaranteed, and all its
signers had to uphold the Open Door Policy
The 1921 Washington Conference
Unsuccessful Efforts
• On April 6, 1927 French foreign minister Aristide
Briand and U.S. secretary of state Frank Kellogg
suggested an agreement signed by all nations to
outlaw war
• {The Kellogg-Briand Pact, signed by 62 countries,
outlawed war except in the event of self defense}
• But the treaty lacked provisions of enforcement
• This became clear in September 1931 when Japan
invaded Manchuria in China leading to war between
Japan and China
• Many Americans called for a boycott of Japan, but do
you think the U.S. leaders would let that happen?
• The failure of diplomacy to prevent Japanese
aggression marked the end of attempts to reach
international accords
Japan’s invasion on
Manchuria
War Debts and Reparations
• The issue of war debt also weakened efforts to
maintain peace
• Because of the hardships that WWI had on European
allied countries, by 1920 the Allies owed more than
$10 billion to the U.S.
• The indebted nations argued that their debts should
be canceled. The U.S. rejected appeals from Britain,
France and Italy to cancel their war debts
• The only way the Allies could pay back their war debts
was to collect reparations from Germany
• In order to pay the $32 billion owed, Germany began
to borrow money and print more paper money
• This led to a massive inflation and caused the value of
the German mark (dollar) to fall
• British Prime Minister, David Lloyd
George urged the U.S. to cancel
the debts that Britain and other
European nation owed the U.S.
from WWI. In explaining his
reasoning he said: “the United
States did not from first to last
make any sacrifice or contribution
remotely comparable to those of
her European Associates, in life,
limb, money, material or trade,
towards the victory which she
shared with them.”
Military Casualties in World War I 1914-1918
Belgium 45,550
British Empire 942,135
France 1,368,000
Italy 680,000
Japan 1,344
Portugal 8,145
Romania 300,000
Russia 1,700,000
Serbia 45,000
United States 116,516
Continued….
• With his country in financial collapse, a particularly embittered
WWI veteran sought someone to blame
• Adolf Hitler was convinced that politicians, not the German
army, was to blame for Germany losing the war
• {Hitler joined a radical political organization and developed a
plot to overthrow the German government} in 1923
• The plot failed and Hitler was imprisoned
• In prison he continued to plan revenge against those who he
believed had betrayed Germany
• In 1924, the Dawes Plan temporarily eased the economic crisis
in Germany by providing loans and giving more time to pay
back the reparations.
• In 1931 as the worldwide depression deepened, President
Hoover put a halt on reparation and war-debt payments
^ Hitler (far left) with
his platoon in
Germany WWI
<Hitler (far right)
served as a
messenger in WWI
>Hitler in prison
1924
In light of Hitler’s ridiculous moustache,
here is some more weird beards