Question

Explain the different events that led to the entry of the United States into both the First World War (1914-1918) and the Second World War (1939-1945). Also pay attention to what specific role the US played in bringing these two wars to an end.

Answer 1

On April 2, 1917, Wilson went before a special joint session of Congress and asked for a declaration of war against Germany, stating: “The world must be made safe for democracy.”On April 4, the Senate voted 82 to 6 to declare war. Two days later, on April 6, the House of Representatives voted 373 to 50 in favor of adopting a war resolution against Germany. (Among the dissenters was Rep. Jeannette Rankin of Montana, the first woman in Congress.) It was only the fourth time Congress had declared war; the others were the War of 1812, the War with Mexico in 1846 and the Spanish-American War of 1898.In early 1917, the U.S. Army had just 133,000 members. That May, Congress passed the Selective Service Act, which reinstated the draft for the first time since the Civil War and led to some 2.8 million men being inducted into the U.S. military by the end of the Great War. Around 2 million more Americans voluntarily served in the armed forces during the conflict.The first U.S. infantry troops arrived on the European continent in June 1917; in October, the first American soldiers entered combat, in France. That December, the U.S. declared war against Austria-Hungary (America never was formally at war with the Ottoman Empire or Bulgaria).When the war concluded in November 1918, with a victory for the Allies, more than 2 million U.S. troops had served at the Western Front in Europe, and more than 50,000 of them died.

The American entry into World War I was also simpler than the American entry into World War II. By 1917 there was only limited opposition to taking part in the conflict. In April President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany, largely in response to Berlin’s policy of unrestricted submarine warfare (sinking merchant ships without warning). The declaration was passed by 82 votes to 6 in the Senate, and by 373 to 50 in the House of Representatives. But the neutral USA entered World War II only after many months of argument in Congress and among the general public, and only when a Japanese fleet launched a big surprise air raid against its Pacific naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on 7 December 1941.

The outbreak of full-scale conflict between Japan and China in July 1937 had little to do with the USA and its people. Neither did Germany’s pre-war actions in the 1930s: remilitarisation, sending troops into the Rhineland in 1936, forced unification with Austria, and destruction of Czechoslovakia after the 1938 Sudenten crisis. Even Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September 1939, and the declaration of war by Britain and France seemed to have little relevance to the USA. Yet President Franklin D Roosevelt, a Democrat elected for his second term of office in November 1936, had taken a public position of opposition to aggression by Japan, Italy, and Germany. He made a speech in Chicago in October 1937, when he called for the “quarantine” of aggressive and warlike countries, and he also publicly condemned the nature of the Nazi government in Germany.

Congress, however – although both houses were controlled by the Democrats – contained strong voices opposing intervention. This opposition was based on a long-term ‘isolationist’ tradition, whose adherents did not want America – protected as it was by broad oceans – to become ‘entangled’ with foreign countries and wars overseas. Both in Congress and among the American public, this sentiment had been strengthened by the experience of World War I, which isolationists claimed America had only entered in 1917 because US manufacturers wanted to make a profit by selling munitions.

The situation changed drastically in May and June 1940. Many Americans had expected the ‘European War’ to be a protracted conflict, in which the Allies – with larger populations than Germany and global resources – would eventually gain the upper hand. Instead, Hitler’s armed forces unexpectedly won quick victories, knocking France out of the war. The Third Reich took control of western and central Europe; Mussolini’s Italy opened a new front against Britain in the Mediterranean. All this threatened, perhaps in a few months, to defeat the surviving Ally. Now it seemed that unless help was provided America might have to deal on its own with a German-dominated Europe.

The implications of the May–June 1940 upheaval were global. In particular, the resource-rich southeast Asian colonies of France and the Netherlands were suddenly open to control or occupation by outsiders. Even the British colonies would be under threat if the empire’s military resources had to be concentrated in Europe and the Mediterranean. In late September 1940 this potential threat began to become a reality, when Japan sent troops into the northern French Indochina.

In the second half of 1940 the US became a vital base of support for Britain, and it grew greatly in importance as a factor in world affairs. In September 1940 Germany and neutral Japan, along with Italy, signed the Tripartite Pact. The intention was to deter the Americans from entering the war, as they had in 1917; the signatories pledged mutual support if the US went to war against any one of them. In the US public opinion was alarmed by Germany’s position in Europe; in addition, the bombing of London and other cities in the summer and autumn of 1940 and increasing submarine attacks on British ships aroused sympathy.Roosevelt nevertheless moved cautiously; there would be a Presidential election in November 1940, and as he was running for an unprecedented third term it could be an uphill fight. He pledged to keep the US out of direct involvement in the war. In the end he took 55% of the popular vote (a decline from 61% in 1936). The Senate remained securely Democratic, but in the House of Representatives the result was only slightly better for the Democrats than in 1938, with the Roosevelt’s party winning 267 seats out of 435. The opposition Republicans won nearly 40% of the seats.

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