The USA in War and Peace: 1917-1919

1. The USA in War and Peace: 1917-1919

2. The American Army? • Volunteers, National Guard, or Draftees? • Combination of systems • An army drafted from a nation that had volunteered en masse • “Channeled manpower”

3. The Amalgamation Controversy • The American situation is quite unsatisfactory…It will be well on in 1919 and more probably 1920 before they have an Army in the sense in which the French or English Armies may be considered today – British Commander Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig • At the present moment, amalgamation is the only possible form of American collaboration, because it provides effectives and at present American assistance can only take the form of men – French Commander Gen. Philippe Pétain

4. US Responses • Ship only infantry • By 5 July US had 618,388 men in France • US landing one ID per day • Many US soldiers go to “quiet” sectors to learn • Others go right into the fight • Work in tandem with Brits and French • Learn ways of modern war from Australians, Canadians • Tanks, air key to US approach Lt. Col. George Patton with his tank, 1918

5. Takes advantage of US strength in destroyers Three convoy “speeds” Protects merchant shipping Leads to drop in shipping losses Ends U-Boat threat The Convoy System

6. American Expeditionary ForcesDeployed in France

7. Amiens Second Marne St. Mihiel Argonne Forest

8. Meuse-Argonne • Then the largest battle ever fought by American forces • 27,000 Americans killed and 95,000 wounded, plus thousands of “stragglers” • Views on an armistice and Pershing’s plans for 1919

9. The Paris Peace Conference:19 January to 28 June 1919

10. 6 5 7 9 1 4 Trouble Spots: 1 Saar/Rhineland 2 South Tyrol 3 Fiume 4 Sudetenland 5 Danzig 6 Memel 7 Curzon Line 8 Smyrna 9 Upper Silesia 2 3 8

11. Wilson and the USA • Elections of 1918 • Irreconcilables • Sen. Lodge • 14 Points • Should they guide the conference? Can they? • Contradictions? • “God Himself only gave mankind ten, and we soon learned how to break those” – Georges Clemenceau

12. Fourteen Points (abridged) • I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at. • II. Absolute freedom of navigation • III. The removal of all economic barriers • IV. national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety. • V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, • VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory. • VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored. • VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, should be righted.

13. IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality. • X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development. • XI. The relations of the several Balkan states to one another [should be] determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality. • XII. The nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships. • XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea. • XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

14. Impacts • Isolationism vs. internationalism • Home front impacts • Great migration • 100% Americanism • Growth of government influence • Birth of modern American foreign policy