Saylor.org HIST212: "World War II and the United States"

Today's lecture will focus on World War II in the United States. In this lecture we're going to talk about some of the factors that led to the war. We'll also focus on how the United States gets drawn into the conflict, and finally we'll talk about the impact of the war on the United States. In one very fundamental aspect, the war transforms the United States. It goes from being an economically powerful but politically isolated nation to becoming an international superpower. The war also affects the United States in a number of other ways. Certainly there's a very broad social impact. Women's participation in the workforce expands dramatically. It goes from about 12 to 18 million people. In other words, women go from being a fourth to about a third of the nation's workforce. It's also important because it helps give a boost to the civil rights movement, which we'll talk about in a future lecture. It also leads to an important aspect worth the Americanization of ethnic populations. There were a lot of immigrants in the United States, and many had lived in largely immigrant communities. As a result of the war, these immigrant communities in some ways are shaken up a little bit. A lot of people are drafted into the military, and they serve in mixed units from people all over the United States. As a result, a lot of these immigrants become more broadly American and lose some of their immigrant identity and accept more of a broader American identity. One of the last really important aspects of the war is that it leads to the development of nuclear weapons, which, of course, have a huge impact on the United States in the postwar period, during the Cold War, as we'll talk about in a future lecture. It also leads to the rise of a very polarized political system with the United States and the USSR, or the Soviet Union, as these sort of polar opposite nations that are facing off against each other throughout the world in the postwar period. The World War II has a very dramatic and long-lasting impact on the nation. First, we're going to talk a little bit about some of the causes of the war itself. The war just doesn't happen for no reason. It happens for a number of very, very important reasons. The first of these is that the war, in some ways, is caused by the settlement of the First World War, the Versailles Treaty. Here we have an image of some of the German delegates at the Versailles Treaty that settles the war, the World War I that ends in 1918. The Versailles Treaty in 1919, beginning in 1919, largely establishes agreements in the war. One of those agreements is that Germany, the defeated nation in World War I, has to pay these massive reparations, these massive financial payments to Great Britain and France as a consequence of essentially paying back the cost of the war. Since Germany is blamed as the instigator of the conflict, it's seen as being responsible for making whole these nations that had lost millions of men and millions of dollars in the conflict. This, of course, led to very harsh feelings in Germany. Germans felt, not without some justification, that they were being punished for the war, which they felt wasn't simply their fault. It was the fault of many nations, not simply theirs. As a result of the Versailles Agreement, Germany is placed in a very disadvantageous position in Europe. Germany also goes through a period of chaos in the post-war years, economic chaos, political chaos, and social chaos. One of the things that comes out as a result of the war is an effort by the winning nations, the victorious nations, to create some sort of an organization to help mediate disputes, to keep another war from happening. This body, as we know it, is the League of Nations. The League of Nations is not particularly effective, one of the reasons being that the United States never joins it, for reasons we talked about previously. Another reason is that one of the missions of the League of Nations is that they can use armed force to prevent nations from acting illegally, but that never happens. The League of Nations never really has the strength to do that effectively. The League of Nations, while it's intended to be this peacekeeping organization to promote world peace, really never serves effectively in that role. Another thing that's created during this time period, another international agreement, is something that's called the Kellogg-Briand Treaty. This treaty is signed by the head, by the United States, and by France. The objective of this treaty is that both nations agree that they will not engage in offensive war, that war is not going to be used as a solution to international political problems. Eventually other nations sign it as well. The idea of this treaty is a treaty to eliminate war, to make war illegal, to make war not a strategy to be used to solve the differences of opposing nations. Between the League of Nations and the Kellogg-Briand Treaty, many people think, oh, we've solved the problems that have caused World War I, and we'll never again face another war. The reality is things just don't quite work that way. Following World War I in the 1920s, Germany is in chaos, as I mentioned. It's going through a number of chaotic events. One of these is, economically, Germany is in very difficult circumstances. It's being forced to make these huge reparations payments. It literally starts printing money to make these payments. This leads to a period of what's known as hyperinflation, where the German money, the mark, which is the German currency, becomes nearly worthless. In fact, this image shows people have just discarded their mark notes in the streets, and street sweepers have taken them and pushed them into the gutter. Literally, money becomes almost worthless in Germany for a period of time. This leads to chaos and leads to extremist political movements like the Nazi Party wanting to get involved in politics and sort of avenging the German nation. Another thing that this economic chaos does is it leads to good middle-class citizens losing most of their savings. Here we have a German bank that's going out of business, and people are lining up to try to get their money out of the bank if possible. These bank runs led to many people in Germany losing confidence in the government, losing confidence in these financial institutions, and helped bring about, in some ways, a growing interest in extremist movements like the Nazis. We see the same thing happening in other nations as well in Europe. In Italy, for instance, we have the great Generalissimo Benito Mussolini, who emerges in the 1920s as a member of what he creates as the Fascist Party. That is intended, and eventually, beginning in 1922, he seizes control of the Italian government. He marches on Rome with his supporters, and the King of Italy essentially gives him control of the nation as prime minister, and he becomes a de facto dictator. Like Hitler, who gains power in the 1930s, Mussolini in the 1920s tries to create a nation that has a powerful economy, limited civil rights, people don't have as many rights, but essentially creating an alliance of a powerful state and a powerful government or a powerful economy that's intent on expansion outwards and taking over weaker nations that are less able to defend themselves. This is a trend that continues during the 1920s, and certainly by the 1930s, when the Nazi Party eventually gains control through legal elections initially, and Adolf Hitler becomes the German Chancellor, and it continues this desire to create a strong German state and essentially to give up on the agreements that Germany had made under the Versailles Treaty, rebuild Germany's military, rebuild Germany's air force, Europe becomes increasingly unstable. Germany grows increasingly unstable in the 1930s because of the worldwide economic depression. It starts in the United States, but it spreads worldwide, and Hitler is able to take advantage of German unemployment, German dissatisfaction, middle class dissatisfaction with the government and with banking systems to seize control and promise the German people that he's going to create a strong, powerful nation once again. Well, these aren't the only two sources of disruption during the 1920s and 1930s. In the middle of 1930, we have the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, and this breaks out in 1936 after disputed elections where a socialist government is elected, the Republicans, as they're known, and the nationalists under General Franco see this as an illegitimate election, and they begin the Civil War. The nationalists gain support from both fascist Italy and from Nazi Germany. The Republicans, on the other hand, who are socialists, the only nation that would provide them any support was the Soviet Union. And this war, in some ways, is sort of almost a mini version of World War II, the powers that oppose each other in the conflict are very much the same as the powers in the war. Ultimately, the nationalists triumph, and they defeat the Republicans, and Franco gains control of Spain and maintains that control for probably almost nearly 30, 40 years. But needless to say, what we're getting at here is that Europe becomes increasingly unstable during the decade of the 1930s because of the worldwide depression, because of economic, and because of national political extremism. We also see the same thing going on in Asia, especially Japan. Japan had been increasingly interested in expanding beyond the home islands and gaining control of territories in northern China and parts of southeast Asia. In the 1920s and early 1930s, Japan launches an invasion of Manchuria, which is northern China, puts troops on the ground, who eventually take over, and Manchuria becomes a Japanese colony, essentially. And the Japanese move in and take control of this region. And so, not only in Europe, but also in Asia, the ideas that peace and prosperity will ensure that everything will be nice and happy, these ideas are starting to fall apart because the economic depression of the 1930s, political extremism is all leading to a very messy, messy situation, both in Europe and in Asia. Well, the question is, well, what's the United States doing during this period? And the reality is the United States is largely watching from the sidelines. American attitudes, as it says, during the interwar period. Well, the American attitude during the interwar period is isolation. The Americans are trying very hard to remain isolated from what's going on around the rest of the world. America has decided that after the First World War, that war was not a good thing. It was, in fact, a very bad, bad circumstance, and the United States didn't want to be involved in it. And so the United States benefited from its isolation from Europe and its isolation from Asia, and argued that the United States would try to stay out of any future war. One of the organizations that was very much important in promoting this was the so-called America First Committee. The aviator Charles Lindbergh was a member of that committee and gave many speeches talking about how America needed to stay out of this, all these bad circumstances happening in Europe and bad circumstances happening in Asia. Well, the American response to this was to embrace neutrality, and one of the ways they did this was by passing the Neutrality Acts beginning in 1935, which said that U.S. firms couldn't do business with belligerent nations, nations at war. It also said that U.S. citizens couldn't travel on non-neutral vessels, so if U.S. citizens were killed because ships were sunk, well, it was their own fault because the government had made it illegal. Now, of course, these attitudes become challenged as the situation in Europe and in the Pacific becomes increasingly unstable in the late 1930s. Nazi Germany in 1938 invades and unifies with Austria, called the Anschluss. It also invades Czechoslovakia in 1939, and with this action, it's becoming very clear that war is going to break out in Europe and that in 1940, the Nazis invade Poland, and the Russians also assist them with that by invading the other side of the country. And so with these events, it's becoming very clear that Europe is headed for war, and how is the U.S. going to respond? Well, officially, the U.S. is neutral. It can't get involved in this conflict, and many people in the United States argue strenuously that the United States shouldn't get involved in this conflict. But American leaders, particularly President Roosevelt, who was very sympathetic for Great Britain, was very sympathetic for France, very much felt that Nazi Germany was a threat to the United States in one way or another, argue that the U.S. has to do something to support, in some ways, nations like France, Soviet Union, and Great Britain, who are threatened by the Nazis. And by 1941, the Soviet Union is being invaded by Nazi Germany. And so initially, he conceived of an idea called cash and carry. The idea behind cash and carry is that nations that work could buy military equipment or could buy civilian equipment from the United States, from American businesses, as long as they pay cash for it, as long as they haul it on their own ships, so that American shipping and American firms are not involved in any way in taking material to war zones. And this is sort of an initial step. The idea is that nations like Britain and France could buy equipment, buy weapons, buy supplies in the United States, and use them to fight against Nazi Germany. Well, this only goes so far, because after a while, Great Britain especially can't afford to buy supplies in the U.S. It just doesn't have the money. And so instead, the United States government goes a step further and creates what becomes known as lend-lease. And under lend-lease, that idea is that nations like Great Britain or the Soviet Union could essentially borrow military supplies from the United States. Of course, the idea of borrowing military supplies is kind of absurd, because most of the cases, they're going to be destroyed. They're not going to be able to be returned. But the idea was that lend-lease would allow military supplies from the U.S. to go to Great Britain to fight against the Nazis. It would also go to places like the Soviet Union to fight against the Nazis, or for the Soviets to fight against, later on, the Japanese. And eventually, at some point after the war, those costs would be returned to the U.S. One of the most immediate aspects of lend-lease is, in the case of Great Britain, the United States gives Great Britain a bunch of old World War I era naval destroyers, because the British Navy was being decimated by German submarines. And in return, Great Britain gives the United States basing rights in Newfoundland and many parts of the Caribbean, so that American naval vessels can operate in that region. And so, in return, similarly with the Soviet Union, we're giving them tanks and supplies in return for promises that America would have access to resources in the Soviet Union. But, needless to say, this idea of no foreign entanglements remains very strongly entrenched among many people in the United States. And Roosevelt, in some ways, is frustrated, because he wants the U.S. to do more to assist Great Britain, but the U.S. government, U.S. Congress, and the American public really aren't in favor of that. Well, that situation changes abruptly at the end of 1941. And at the end of 1941, a very dramatic event happens. The Japanese government decides to attack the United States and try to defeat and destroy the American Navy, so that the Japanese can expand in the western half of the Pacific without any opposition. The U.S. and Japan, their relationship had become increasingly strained during 1941. Eventually, the U.S. had frozen Japanese assets. Japanese had a lot of money in the United States, and America froze those assets. And then America cuts off the supply of oil to Japan in retaliation for Japan invading China and invading other areas as well. The Japanese decide they can't take this any longer. They have to attack and destroy the American Navy so that they're not opposed when they expand across the Pacific. And so, on December 7, 1941, the Japanese launch a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and utterly devastate the American Navy. Nearly destroy the American Navy, with the exception of a few aircraft carriers who prove very important in later fighting over the next year. Well, the attack on Pearl Harbor is the last straw. America enters the war. Of course, the Japanese are the ones who attack. Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy didn't. And so, initially, the United States only declares war on Japan to avenge Pearl Harbor. But a few days later, because Japan is allied with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy declare war on the United States. And finally, Roosevelt has his reason for the U.S. to go to war in Europe to defeat the Germans and the Japanese. And so, by the second week of December of 1941, the United States is at war with Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan. A two-front war, a war over two oceans, in Europe and in Asia. And the United States, for the next four years, is tasked with defeating these nations and aiding other countries in Asia and other countries in Europe, like Great Britain, in the task. Well, this is a very monumental undertaking. The United States has to transport goods, equipment, ships, men, personnel across two major oceans to do the fighting. And this is something that takes a lot of resources. So as a result, for the United States government, not only is the fighting about military aspects, but the fighting is also about equipment, supplies, transportation resources. And as a result, this war really becomes a war of mobilization. A war of getting the supplies where they need to go. And so, much of the war that's fought is a war of logistics. It's a war of trying to create a nation that's ready and equipped to produce military equipment and supply that military equipment across the sea to support troops in the field. So as a result, much of the bureaucracy of the New Deal, these government agencies that have been created to help administer the New Deal, are turned to support government efforts to create military equipment and weapons to fight this two-front war. And as a result, military production goes through a very important shift. Industrial production. The United States has probably led the world in industry. Many industries are retooled to produce military equipment, to produce engines for aircraft, to produce bombs and other supplies for aircraft to drop on the Japanese or on the Germans, to produce other kinds of things, to recruit troops into the armed forces. Of course, many people volunteer after Pearl Harbor, but there also is a draft. And the draft is utilized to bring people into the war. And so the United States government does a really tremendous job bringing all of these resources to bear to fight the conflict, involving rationing of supplies, involving using research and development from American universities and colleges, expanding the size of the federal government to oversee this effort. The government goes from being about a million employees to nearly 4 million employees, creating things like the War Production Board, the War Manpower Commission, the Office of Price Administration, and the Office of War Information to provide reasons why America is fighting essentially wartime propaganda. And this huge collaboration between the federal government, between American individuals, and ultimately between American industry, is what helps create the equipment and resources necessary for the United States to be successful in this military struggle. And so ultimately, by 1944, the U.S. and its allies launch an invasion of Europe, land in Normandy, and they land in southern France, and they also land in Italy even before that. In the Pacific, the United States is pushing the Japanese out of the islands that they had conquered in parts of the central Pacific. And eventually, the United States is very successful in defeating Nazi Germany in 1945 in the spring. In the summer, they drop two atomic bombs on Japan, which effectively ends the war in the Pacific. And as a result, the United States is successful in winning this conflict. But the war itself, of course, has many consequences, the least of which is that the United States emerges as the most powerful nation. The war leads to the creation of the United Nations. The League of Nations is scrapped, and this new United Nations, which is led by the nations, the United States and its allies, who are victorious in the struggle, emerges as a new organization to help promote world peace. One of the other aspects of this conflict is that Europe is divided between America and its allies in the West and the Soviet Union in the East. We'll talk more about this in the next lecture, but this division really anticipates bigger struggles that take place, because the United States and the Soviet Union are the two most powerful nations emerging from the war. The Soviet Union, the most powerful military, has a huge military. The United States is economically most powerful, but it has nuclear weapons. That creates a real standoff between these two countries. Well, Europe, at the end of this, is utterly devastated. Germany is just obliterated, many cities are obliterated and completely wiped off the map, and it's in a very bad position. Only the United States possesses the economic resources to help rebuild Germany and Western Europe, to rebuild Japan and Eastern Europe, and as a result, the U.S. begins to flex its muscles economically. One of these is through an agreement that's called the Bretton Woods Agreement or Treaty. This is an agreement that's signed in the United States and creates a system in which the U.S. dollar becomes the official, essentially, the benchmark currency internationally. Everything is based on the U.S. dollar. It also creates the International Monetary Fund to help provide economic stability and prevent future Great Depressions. And the World Bank, essentially, the foundations for the World Bank are also conceived during this time period as well. And so, as a result of the war, the U.S., as I said, emerges as this very powerful nation. It becomes, economically, the dominant nation worldwide, and because of nuclear weapons, it also becomes the dominant, at least initially, military power in the post-war years. So, consequently, World War II has a tremendous impact on the United States. By being drawn into the conflict, once again, the United States goes from being this very isolated but economically powerful nation to being, essentially, a world superpower, to being this new nation that will dominate the rest of the world throughout the remainder of the 20th century.