ch 34 outline

Ch 34

The London Conference

--->In the summer of 1933, 66 nations sent delegates to the London Economic Conference

---> The delegates hoped to organize a coordinated international attack on the global depression

--->President Roosevelt, at first, agreed to send delegates to the conference, but had second thoughts after he realized that an international agreement to maintain the value of the dollar in terms of other currencies wouldn't allow him to inflate the value of the dollar

--->Without support from the United States, the London Economic Conference fell apart

--->The collapse strengthened the global trend towards nationalism, while making international cooperation increasingly difficult.

Freedom for (from?) the Filipinos and Recognition for the Russians

--->Increasing the nation's isolationism, President Roosevelt withdrew from Asia

---> Bowing to organized labor's demands of the exclusion of low-wage Filipino workers, Congress passed the Tydings-McDuffie Act in 1934, providing for the independence of the Philippines by 1946

--->In 1933, Roosevelt formally recognized the Soviet Union, opening up trade and bolstering a friendly counter-weight to the possible threat of German power in Europe and Japanese power in Asia

Becoming a Good Neighbor

--->President Roosevelt initiated the Good Neighbor policy, renouncing armed intervention in Latin America

--->The last marines left Haiti in 1934; Cuba, under the Platt Amendment, was released from American control; and the grip on Panama was relaxed in 1936

--->When the Mexican government seized American oil properties in 1938, President Roosevelt held to his unarmed intervention policy and a settlement was eventually worked out in 1941, causing the oil companies to lose much of their original stake

Secretary Hull's Reciprocal Trade Agreements

--->Congress passed the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act in 1934

---> Designed to lower the tariff, it aimed at both relief and recovery

---> Secretary of State Hull succeeded in negotiating pacts with 21 countries by the end of 1939

--->With the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, the president was empowered to lower existing rates by as much as 50% provided that the other country involved would do the same

Impulses Toward Storm-Cellar Isolationism

--->Joseph Stalin took control of the Communist USSR, Benito Mussolini took control of Italy in 1922, and Adolf Hitler took control of Germany

--->In 1936, Nazi Hitler and Fascist Mussolini allied themselves in the Rome-Berlin Axis

--->Determined to find a place in the Asiatic sun, Japan terminated the Washington Naval Treaty and accelerated their construction of giant battleships

--->Mussolini, seeking power and glory in Africa, attacked Ethiopia in 1935

--->In 1934, Congress passed the Johnson Debt Default Act, preventing the debt-dodging nations from borrowing further in the United States

Congress Legislates Neutrality

--->Responding to overwhelming popular pressure, Congress passed the Neutrality Acts of 1935, 1936, and 1937

---> The acts stated that when the president proclaimed the existence of a foreign war, certain restrictions would automatically go into effect

--->The Neutrality Acts were made to keep the United States out of a conflict

America Dooms Loyalist Spain

--->The Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 started when Spanish rebels, led by General Francisco Franco, rose against the left-wing Republican government in Madrid

---> Aided by Mussolini and Hitler, Franco undertook to overthrow the Loyalist regime, which was assisted by the Soviet Union

Appeasing Japan and Germany

--->In 1937, the Japanese militarists touched off an explosion that led to the all-out invasion of China --_>President Roosevelt declined to invoke the recently passed neutrality legislation by refusing to call the "China incident" an officially declared war

--->In 1937, Japanese planes sunk an American gunboat, the Panay

--->Tokyo was quick to make apologies and the United States accepted

--->In 1935, Hitler violated the Treaty of Versailles when he introduced mandatory military service in Germany

---> In 1936, he again violated the treaty when he took over the demilitarized German Rhineland.

--->In March 1938, Hitler invaded Austria

--->At a conference in Munich, Germany in September 1938, the Western European democracies, unprepared for war, betrayed Czechoslovakia to Germany when they gave away Sudetenland

--->In March 1939, Hitler took control of Czechoslovakia

Hitler's Belligerency and U.S. Neutrality

--->On August 23, 1939, the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression treaty with Hitle

---> The Hitler-Stalin pact meant that Germany could make war on Poland and the Western democracies without fear of retaliation from the Soviet Union

--->Hitler demanded from Poland a return of the areas taken from Germany after WW

---> After Poland failed to meet his demands, Hitler militarily invaded Poland on September 1, 1939

--->The Neutrality Act of 1937 placed a arms trade embargo on Spain and extended the current embargo on Britain and France

--->Heeding to the need of France and Britain of war materials from America, Congress passed the Neutrality Act of 1939

--->It stated that the European democracies could buy American war materials as long as they would transport the munitions on their own ships after paying for them in cash

The Fall of France

--->The months following the collapse of Poland were known as the "phony war"

--->The Soviet Union took over Finland despite Congress loaning $30 million to Finland

--->Hitler overran Denmark and Norway in April 1940, ending the "phony war"

--->Hitler then moved on to the Netherlands and Belgium

---> By late June 1940, France was forced to surrender

---> On September 6, 1940, Congress passed a conscription law

--->Amrica's first peacetime draft was initiated-provision was made for training 1.2 million troops and 800,000 reserves each years

---> At the Havana Conference of 1940, the United States agreed to share with its 20 New World neighbors the responsibility of upholding the Monroe Doctrine

Bolstering Britain with the Destroyer Deal (1940)

--->After France fell to Germany in the Battle of France (June), Hitler launched a series of air attacks against Britain in August 1940

--->President Roosevelt faced a historic decision

---> whether to hunker down in the Western Hemisphere and let the rest of the world go it alone; or to bolster Britain by all means short of war itself

---> Isolationists organized the America First Committee, contending that America should concentrate what strength it had to defend its own shores

--->On September 2, 1940, President Roosevelt agreed to transfer to 50 destroyers left over from WWI to Britain

FDR Shatters the Two-Term Tradition (1940)

--->The Republicans chose Wendell L. Willkie to run against President Roosevelt

--->Roosevelt challenged the sacred two-term tradition when he decided that in such a grave crisis he owed his experienced hand to the service of his country

--->Both presidential nominees promised to stay out of the war, and both promised to strengthen the nation's defenses

--->FDR won the election of 1940; voters generally felt that should war come, the experience of FDR was needed

Congress Passes the Landmark Lend-Lease Law

--->Fearing the collapse of Britain, Congress passed the Lend-Lease Bill in 1941

--->it allowed for American arms to be lent or leased to the democracies of the world that needed them

--->Lend-lease was a challenge thrown at the Axis dictators; America pledged itself to bolster those nations that were indirectly fighting it by fighting aggression

--->Hitler recognized the Lend-Lease Bill as an unofficial declaration of war

--_> On May 21, 1941, the Robin Moor, an unarmed American merchantman, was destroyed by a German submarine in the South Atlantic, outside the war zone

Hitler's Assault on the Soviet Union Spawns the Atlantic Charter

--->Two events marked the course of WWII before the assault on Pearl Harbor

---> the fall of France in June 1940, and Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941

--->Even though the two nations were bound to peace under the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939, neither Hitler nor Stalin trusted one another

--->On June 22, 1941, Hitler launched an attack on the Soviet Union

---> President Roosevelt immediately promised assistance and backed up his words by making some military supplies available

--->With the surrender of the Soviet Union a very real possibility, the Atlantic Conference was held in August 1941

--->eight-point Atlantic Charter, outlining the aspirations of the democracies for a better world at the war's end

---> The Atlantic Charter promised that there would be no territorial changes contrary to the wishes of the inhabitants; it affirmed the right of a people to choose their own form of government and to regain the governments abolished by the dictators; and it declared for disarmament and a peace of security, pending a new League of Nations

U.S. Destroyers and Hitler's U-boats Clash

--->FDR made the decision to escort the shipments of arms to Britain by U.S. warships in July 1941

===> In September 1941, the U.S. destroyer Greer was attacked by a U-boat, without suffering damage

---> October 17 the destroyer Kearny was crippled by a U-boat

--->Congress voted in November 1941 to repeal the Neutrality Act of 1939, enabling merchant ships to be legally armed and enter the combat zones with munitions for Britain

Surprise Assault of Pearl Harbor

--->state Department insisted that the Japanese clear out of China, offering to renew trade relations on a limited basis

---> Forced with the choice of succumbing to the Americans or continued conquest, the Japanese chose to fight

--->On "Black Sunday" December 7, 1941, Japanese bombers attacked Pearl Harbor, killing 2,348 people

--->On December 11, 1941, Congress declared war.

America's Transformation from Bystander to Belligerent

--->Pearl Harbor was not the full answer to the question of why the United States went to war

--->Rather than let democracy die and dictatorship rule, most Americans were determined to support a policy that might lead to war