Tommy's Notes Repository

7 - 1 Interwar Years

5 min read

Interwar Years

Essential Questions

  • Did the neutrality laws of the 1930s represent an effective US response to world affairs
  • Which side offered a more convincing argument: the “internationalists” or the “isolationists”?
  • How did FDR’s Four Freedoms Speech impact the United States and other nations?

1919: Treaty of Versailles

  • Ends WWI, but fails to enforce terms
  • League of nations is very weak & unable to prevent war

America Returns to Isolationism

  • After WII the US returned to a foreign policy of isolation

1922

  • Benito Mussolini becomes the fascist leader of Italy

1924

  • Stalin takes control of the soviet Union
    • USSR
  • Communist
    • Total control

1925

  • Joseph Stalin takes control of the
  • (My Struggle): Outlines his Nazi Plan
    • German WWI veteran, Adolf Hitler outlines his Nazi Plan in his book Mein Kampf
    • Blonde Hair/Blue Eyes

1931

  • Japan invades Manchuria for its natural resources
  • League of nations does nothing

1933

  • Adolf Hitler becomes leader of germany
  • Nazi Party
  • Gets Germany out of the Great Depression by rebuilding Germany’s military
  • League of nations does nothing

1935: Neutrality Acts

  • Banned the loan of money & sales of weapons to any country making war
  • Allowed to trade non-military items

1936

  • Germany invades the Rhineland_
  • Area between Germany & France
    • Germans needed “living space”
      • Expanding the Fatherland
  • The League of nations does nothing

Rome-Berlin Axis

  • Secret alliance between Italy & Germany

Nov 1936

  • Japan invades China
  • Practicing imperialism
    • Most of Europe was coming out of the Great Depression

1937

  • Japan invades China
  • Practicing imperialism
  • Communists & nationalists invadingchina

1937: Quarantine Speech

  • FDR asked other countries to get involved and quarnatine ( contain ) agressor nations
    • IE – “Europe!! You need to control Hitler & Mussolini!!”
  • FDR wants other countries to stop Germany and Japan

1937: Cash & Carry

  • Ends military trade embargo
  • USA can sell supplies to other countries, but they have to pay ” cash & carry ” the supplies on their own boats
  • We want to start helping England & France, but are still really, really nervous *

1938

  • Hitler invades Austria
  • League of nations does nothing
  • Example of appeasement:
    • Hitler said he would stop if he just had a little bit more land
  • Example of appeasement:
    • Give into an aggressor in hopes they will stop
      • Chamberlain gave Hitler land hoping he would stop invading

March 1939

  • Germany invades the Sudetenland
  • Czechoslovakia ceased to exist!!
  • League of Nations does nothing

Aug 1939

  • Non-Agression Pact: Hitler & Stalin agree to not invade eachother & divide Poland
  • League of Nations does nothing

Sept 1 1939

  • Germany invades Poland
  • A force of approx 700 Polish soldiers held out against 40000 German soldiers for 3 days
  • Led by Captain Władysław Raginis
  • WWII begins

1940: Destroyers for bases

  • U boats wiped out most of englands navy & churchhill asked FDR for help
  • The US gave England old battleships in exchange for military bases
    • We gave England ships
    • The US gave England old battleships in exchange for military bases
      • Bermuda, Bahamas…

Limited Aid to the Allies

  • After the german invasion of France and the rescue of ALlied forces at Dunkirk, American public opinion changed to favor limited aid to the Allies.
  • The America First Committee opposed any American intervention or aid to the Allies. Charles Lindbergh became their spokesperson.
  • President Roosevelt ran for an unprecedented third term as president in the election of 1940. Both Roosevelt and the Republican candidate, Wendell Willkie, said they would keep the United States neutral but assist the Allied forces. Roosevelt won by a large margin

Roosevelt’s goal

  • In 1940 Roosevelt is re-elected president for a 3rd term
  • Roosevelt’s primary goal was to help Britain and it’s allies defeat Germany

Four Freedoms

  • In an address to Congress on January 6, 1941, President Roosevelt delivered one of the most famous speeches in American history
  • The Four Freedoms speech was an expression of the president’s vision in which the American ideals of individual liberties were extended throughout a world already engaged in war.
  • Roosevelt ended the speech with a description of four essential human freedoms
  • Rockwell raised 130000000 for war bonds

1941: Lend-Lease Plan

  • England out of money & can’t pay according to “Cash & Carry”
  • The US would “lend or lease” supplies to any nation vital to the defense of our country
  • England had to return the supplies after the war or pay rent on them

Hemispheric Defense Zone

  • FDR developed the hemispheric defense zone, which declared the western 1/2 of the Atlantic as part of the Western Hemisphere and therefore neutral.
  • This allowed Roosevelt to order the US Navy to patrol the western Atlantic Ocean and reveal the location of German submarines to the British.

Atlantic Charter

  • August 1941 President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill agreed to the Atlantic Charter
  • postwar world of democracy
  • Non aggression
  • free trade
  • economic advancement
  • Freedom of the seas

Japan

  • Japan’s attempt to create an empire is conflicting with the US goal of maintaining an open trade policy in Asia
  • By July 1941, Japanese aircraft posed a direct threat to the British empire.
  • US responded by freezing all Japanese assets in the US and reducing the amount of oil and steel shipped to Japan

Japan Attacks the United States

Sides

The Axis`

The Allies

Germany

France

Italy

United States- joined Dec 7 1941