This free textbook is an OpenStax resource written to increase student access to high-quality, peer-reviewed learning materials.
23.4 From War to Peace - U.S. History | OpenStaxSkip to ContentGo to accessibility pageKeyboard shortcuts menu Log inU.S. History23.4 From War to PeaceU.S. History23.4 From War to PeaceCloseMenuContentsContentsHighlightsTable of contentsPreface1 The Americas, Europe, and Africa Before 1492Introduction1.1 The Americas1.2 Europe on the Brink of Change1.3 West Africa and the Role of SlaveryKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions2 Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650Introduction2.1 Portuguese Exploration and Spanish Conquest2.2 Religious Upheavals in the Developing Atlantic World2.3 Challenges to Spain’s Supremacy2.4 New Worlds in the Americas: Labor, Commerce, and the Columbian ExchangeKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions3 Creating New Social Orders: Colonial Societies, 1500–1700Introduction3.1 Spanish Exploration and Colonial Society3.2 Colonial Rivalries: Dutch and French Colonial Ambitions3.3 English Settlements in America3.4 The Impact of ColonizationKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions4 Rule Britannia! The English Empire, 1660–1763Introduction4.1 Charles II and the Restoration Colonies4.2 The Glorious Revolution and the English Empire4.3 An Empire of Slavery and the Consumer Revolution4.4 Great Awakening and Enlightenment4.5 Wars for EmpireKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions5 Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests, 1763-1774Introduction5.1 Confronting the National Debt: The Aftermath of the French and Indian War5.2 The Stamp Act and the Sons and Daughters of Liberty5.3 The Townshend Acts and Colonial Protest5.4 The Destruction of the Tea and the Coercive Acts5.5 Disaffection: The First Continental Congress and American IdentityKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions6 America's War for Independence, 1775-1783Introduction6.1 Britain’s Law-and-Order Strategy and Its Consequences6.2 The Early Years of the Revolution6.3 War in the South6.4 Identity during the American RevolutionKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions7 Creating Republican Governments, 1776–1790Introduction7.1 Common Sense: From Monarchy to an American Republic7.2 How Much Revolutionary Change?7.3 Debating Democracy7.4 The Constitutional Convention and Federal ConstitutionKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions8 Growing Pains: The New Republic, 1790–1820Introduction8.1 Competing Visions: Federalists and Democratic-Republicans8.2 The New American Republic8.3 Partisan Politics8.4 The United States Goes Back to WarKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions9 Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850Introduction9.1 Early Industrialization in the Northeast9.2 A Vibrant Capitalist Republic9.3 On the Move: The Transportation Revolution9.4 A New Social Order: Class DivisionsKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions10 Jacksonian Democracy, 1820–1840Introduction10.1 A New Political Style: From John Quincy Adams to Andrew Jackson10.2 The Rise of American Democracy10.3 The Nullification Crisis and the Bank War10.4 Indian Removal10.5 The Tyranny and Triumph of the MajorityKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions11 A Nation on the Move: Westward Expansion, 1800–1860Introduction11.1 Lewis and Clark11.2 The Missouri Crisis11.3 Independence for Texas11.4 The Mexican-American War, 1846–184811.5 Free or Slave Soil? The Dilemma of the WestKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions12 Cotton is King: The Antebellum South, 1800–1860Introduction12.1 The Economics of Cotton12.2 African Americans in the Antebellum United States12.3 Wealth and Culture in the South12.4 The Filibuster and the Quest for New Slave StatesKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions13 Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860Introduction13.1 An Awakening of Religion and Individualism13.2 Antebellum Communal Experiments13.3 Reforms to Human Health13.4 Addressing Slavery13.5 Women’s RightsKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions14 Troubled Times: the Tumultuous 1850sIntroduction14.1 The Compromise of 185014.2 The Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Republican Party14.3 The Dred Scott Decision and Sectional Strife14.4 John Brown and the Election of 1860Key TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions15 The Civil War, 1860–1865Introduction15.1 The Origins and Outbreak of the Civil War15.2 Early Mobilization and War15.3 1863: The Changing Nature of the War15.4 The Union TriumphantKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions16 The Era of Reconstruction, 1865–1877Introduction16.1 Restoring the Union16.2 Congress and the Remaking of the South, 1865–186616.3 Radical Reconstruction, 1867–187216.4 The Collapse of ReconstructionKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions17 Go West Young Man! Westward Expansion, 1840-1900Introduction17.1 The Westward Spirit17.2 Homesteading: Dreams and Realities17.3 Making a Living in Gold and Cattle17.4 The Assault on American Indian Life and Culture17.5 The Impact of Expansion on Chinese Immigrants and Hispanic CitizensKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions18 Industrialization and the Rise of Big Business, 1870-1900Introduction18.1 Inventors of the Age18.2 From Invention to Industrial Growth18.3 Building Industrial America on the Backs of Labor18.4 A New American Consumer CultureKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions19 The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900Introduction19.1 Urbanization and Its Challenges19.2 The African American “Great Migration” and New European Immigration19.3 Relief from the Chaos of Urban Life19.4 Change Reflected in Thought and WritingKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions20 Politics in the Gilded Age, 1870-1900Introduction20.1 Political Corruption in Postbellum America20.2 The Key Political Issues: Patronage, Tariffs, and Gold20.3 Farmers Revolt in the Populist Era20.4 Social and Labor Unrest in the 1890sKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions21 Leading the Way: The Progressive Movement, 1890-1920Introduction21.1 The Origins of the Progressive Spirit in America21.2 Progressivism at the Grassroots Level21.3 New Voices for Women and African Americans21.4 Progressivism in the White HouseKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions22 Age of Empire: American Foreign Policy, 1890-1914Introduction22.1 Turner, Mahan, and the Roots of Empire22.2 The Spanish-American War and Overseas Empire22.3 Economic Imperialism in East Asia22.4 Roosevelt’s “Big Stick” Foreign Policy22.5 Taft’s “Dollar Diplomacy”Key TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions23 Americans and the Great War, 1914-1919Introduction23.1 American Isolationism and the European Origins of War23.2 The United States Prepares for War23.3 A New Home Front23.4 From War to Peace23.5 Demobilization and Its Difficult AftermathKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions24 The Jazz Age: Redefining the Nation, 1919-1929Introduction24.1 Prosperity and the Production of Popular Entertainment24.2 Transformation and Backlash24.3 A New Generation24.4 Republican Ascendancy: Politics in the 1920sKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions25 Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? The Great Depression, 1929-1932Introduction25.1 The Stock Market Crash of 192925.2 President Hoover’s Response25.3 The Depths of the Great Depression25.4 Assessing the Hoover Years on the Eve of the New DealKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions26 Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932-1941Introduction26.1 The Rise of Franklin Roosevelt26.2 The First New Deal26.3 The Second New DealKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions27 Fighting the Good Fight in World War II, 1941-1945Introduction27.1 The Origins of War: Europe, Asia, and the United States27.2 The Home Front27.3 Victory in the European Theater27.4 The Pacific Theater and the Atomic BombKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions28 Post-War Prosperity and Cold War Fears, 1945-1960Introduction28.1 The Challenges of Peacetime28.2 The Cold War28.3 The American Dream28.4 Popular Culture and Mass Media28.5 The African American Struggle for Civil RightsKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions29 Contesting Futures: America in the 1960sIntroduction29.1 The Kennedy Promise29.2 Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society29.3 The Civil Rights Movement Marches On29.4 Challenging the Status QuoKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions30 Political Storms at Home and Abroad, 1968-1980Introduction30.1 Identity Politics in a Fractured Society30.2 Coming Apart, Coming Together30.3 Vietnam: The Downward Spiral30.4 Watergate: Nixon’s Domestic Nightmare30.5 Jimmy Carter in the Aftermath of the StormKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions31 From Cold War to Culture Wars, 1980-2000Introduction31.1 The Reagan Revolution31.2 Political and Cultural Fusions31.3 A New World Order31.4 Bill Clinton and the New EconomyKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking Questions32 The Challenges of the Twenty-First CenturyIntroduction32.1 The War on Terror32.2 The Domestic Mission32.3 New Century, Old Disputes32.4 Hope and ChangeKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsCritical Thinking QuestionsA | The Declaration of IndependenceB | The Constitution of the United StatesC | Presidents of the United States of AmericaD | U.S. Political MapE | U.S. Topographical MapF | United States Population ChartG | Further ReadingAnswer KeyChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17Chapter 18Chapter 19Chapter 20Chapter 21Chapter 22Chapter 23Chapter 24Chapter 25Chapter 26Chapter 27Chapter 28Chapter 29Chapter 30Chapter 31Chapter 32IndexLearning ObjectivesBy the end of this section, you will be able to: Identify the role that the United States played at the end of World War I Describe Woodrow Wilson’s vision for the postwar world Explain why the United States never formally approved the Treaty of Versailles nor joined the League of Nations The American role in World War I was brief but decisive. While millions of soldiers went overseas, and many thousands paid with their lives, the country’s involvement was limited to the very end of the war. In fact, the peace process, with the international conference and subsequent ratification process, took longer than the time U.S. soldiers were “in country” in France. For the Allies, American reinforcements came at a decisive moment in their defense of the western front, where a final offensive had exhausted German forces. For the United States, and for Wilson’s vision of a peaceful future, the fighting was faster and more successful than what was to follow. WINNING THE WAR When the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, the Allied forces were close to exhaustion. Great Britain and France had already indebted themselves heavily in the procurement of vital American military supplies. Now, facing a possible defeat, a British delegation to Washington, DC, requested immediate troop reinforcements to boost Allied spirits and help crush German fighting morale, which was already weakened by short supplies on the frontlines and hunger on the home front. Wilson agreed and immediately sent 200,000 American troops in June 1917. These soldiers were placed in “quiet zones” while they trained and prepared for combat. By March 1918, the Germans had won the war on the eastern front. The Russian Revolution of the previous year had not only toppled the hated regime of Tsar Nicholas II but also ushered in a civil war from which the Bolshevik faction of Communist revolutionaries under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin emerged victorious. Weakened by war and internal strife, and eager to build a new Soviet Union, Russian delegates agreed to a generous peace treaty with Germany. Thus emboldened, Germany quickly moved upon the Allied lines, causing both the French and British to ask Wilson to forestall extensive training to U.S. troops and instead commit them to the front immediately. Although wary of the move, Wilson complied, ordering the commander of the American Expeditionary Force, General John “Blackjack” Pershing, to offer U.S. troops as replacements for the Allied units in need of relief. By May 1918, Americans were fully engaged in the war (Figure 23.15). Figure 23.15 U.S. soldiers run past fallen Germans on their way to a bunker. In World War I, for the first time, photographs of the battles brought the war vividly to life for those at home. In a series of battles along the front that took place from May 28 through August 6, 1918, including the battles of Cantigny, Chateau Thierry, Belleau Wood, and the Second Battle of the Marne, American forces alongside the British and French armies succeeded in repelling the German offensive. The Battle of Cantigny, on May 28, was the first American offensive in the war: In less than two hours that morning, American troops overran the German headquarters in the village, thus convincing the French commanders of their ability to fight against the German line advancing towards Paris. The subsequent battles of Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood proved to be the bloodiest of the war for American troops. At the latter, faced with a German onslaught of mustard gas, artillery fire, and mortar fire, U.S. Marines attacked German units in the woods on six occasions—at times meeting them in hand-to-hand and bayonet combat—before finally repelling the advance. The U.S. forces suffered 10,000 casualties in the three-week battle, with almost 2,000 killed in total and 1,087 on a single day. Brutal as they were, they amounted to small losses compared to the casualties suffered by France and Great Britain. Still, these summer battles turned the tide of the war, with the Germans in full retreat by the end of July 1918 (Figure 23.16). Figure 23.16 This map shows the western front at the end of the war, as the Allied Forces decisively break the German line. My Story Sgt. Charles Leon Boucher: Life and Death in the Trenches of France Wounded in his shoulder by enemy forces, George, a machine gunner posted on the right end of the American platoon, was taken prisoner at the Battle of Seicheprey in 1918. However, as darkness set in that evening, another American soldier, Charlie, heard a noise from a gully beside the trench in which he had hunkered down. “I figured it must be the enemy mop-up patrol,” Charlie later said. I only had a couple of bullets left in the chamber of my forty-five. The noise stopped and a head popped into sight. When I was about to fire, I gave another look and a white and distorted face proved to be that of George, so I grabbed his shoulders and pulled him down into our trench beside me. He must have had about twenty bullet holes in him but not one of them was well placed enough to kill him. He made an effort to speak so I told him to keep quiet and conserve his energy. I had a few malted milk tablets left and, I forced them into his mouth. I also poured the last of the water I had left in my canteen into his mouth. Following a harrowing night, they began to crawl along the road back to their platoon. As they crawled, George explained how he survived being captured. Charlie later told how George “was taken to an enemy First Aid Station where his wounds were dressed. Then the doctor motioned to have him taken to the rear of their lines. But, the Sergeant Major pushed him towards our side and ‘No Mans Land,’ pulled out his Luger Automatic and shot him down. Then, he began to crawl towards our lines little by little, being shot at consistently by the enemy snipers till, finally, he arrived in our position.” The story of Charlie and George, related later in life by Sgt. Charles Leon Boucher to his grandson, was one replayed many times over in various forms during the American Expeditionary Force’s involvement in World War I. The industrial scale of death and destruction was as new to American soldiers as to their European counterparts, and the survivors brought home physical and psychological scars that influenced the United States long after the war was won (Figure 23.17). Figure 23.17 This photograph of U.S. soldiers in a trench hardly begins to capture the brutal conditions of trench warfare, where disease, rats, mud, and hunger plagued the men. By the end of September 1918, over one million U.S. soldiers staged a full offensive into the Argonne Forest. By November—after nearly forty days of intense fighting—the German lines were broken, and their military command reported to German Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II of the desperate need to end the war and enter into peace negotiations. Facing civil unrest from the German people in Berlin, as well as the loss of support from his military high command, Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated his throne on November 9, 1918, and immediately fled by train to the Netherlands. Two days later, on November 11, 1918, Germany and the Allies declared an immediate armistice, thus bring the fighting to a stop and signaling the beginning of the peace process. When the armistice was declared, a total of 117,000 American soldiers had been killed and 206,000 wounded. The Allies as a whole suffered over 5.7 million military deaths, primarily Russian, British, and French men. The Central powers suffered four million military deaths, with half of them German soldiers. The total cost of the war to the United States alone was in excess of $32 billion, with interest expenses and veterans’ benefits eventually bringing the cost to well over $100 billion. Economically, emotionally, and geopolitically, the war had taken an enormous toll. Click and Explore This Smithsonian interactive exhibit offers a fascinating perspective on World War I. THE BATTLE FOR PEACE While Wilson had been loath to involve the United States in the war, he saw the country’s eventual participation as justification for America’s involvement in developing a moral foreign policy for the entire world. The “new world order” he wished to create from the outset of his presidency was now within his grasp. The United States emerged from the war as the predominant world power. Wilson sought to capitalize on that influence and impose his moral foreign policy on all the nations of the world. The Paris Peace Conference As early as January 1918—a full five months before U.S. military forces fired their first shot in the war, and eleven months before the actual armistice—Wilson announced his postwar peace plan before a joint session of Congress. Referring to what became known as the Fourteen Points, Wilson called for openness in all matters of diplomacy and trade, specifically, free trade, freedom of the seas, an end to secret treaties and negotiations, promotion of self-determination of all nations, and more. In addition, he called for the creation of a League of Nations to promote the new world order and preserve territorial integrity through open discussions in place of intimidation and war. As the war concluded, Wilson announced, to the surprise of many, that he would attend the Paris Peace Conference himself, rather than ceding to the tradition of sending professional diplomats to represent the country (Figure 23.18). His decision influenced other nations to follow suit, and the Paris conference became the largest meeting of world leaders to date in history. For six months, beginning in December 1918, Wilson remained in Paris to personally conduct peace negotiations. Although the French public greeted Wilson with overwhelming enthusiasm, other delegates at the conference had deep misgivings about the American president’s plans for a “peace without victory.” Specifically, Great Britain, France, and Italy sought to obtain some measure of reven… truncated (8,330 more characters in archive)