980-1019

1. Wilson and Foreign Affairs

a. Wilsons presidency became about war which was not of desire to him.
b. Francisco Pancho Villa led the largest of the Mexican rival revolutionary
armies.
i. He killed many Americans in an attempt to trigger US
intervention and gain credibility.
ii. Woodrow was furious and abandoned his original policy of
watchful waiting by sending John J. Pershing to capture Villa.
They never found him.
c. Dollar Diplomacy- was practiced by the Taft Administration and
encouraged US bankers to aid debt plagued governments.
2. An Uneasy Neutrality
a. The wars sheer horror and destructiveness, its obscene butchery and
ravaged landscapes, defied belief.
b. War erupted when an Austrian citizen assassinated Archduke Franz
Ferdinand in the town of Sarajevo.
c. The two sides were the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary,
and Italy and the Allied Powers of France, Great Britain, and Russia.
d. Total war meant that nobody was safe. People attempted to starve
civilians by cutting off foreign trade. They also destroyed monuments,
cathedrals, museums, and historical buildings.
e. Industrial war was more about decimating the other army until their
manpower and resources were exhausted.
f. Wilson began approving massive loans for the allies (but very little for
the Germans).
g. The Germans declared a part of the ocean as a war zone and then
used a torpedo to sink Lusitania.
i. Americans were outraged!
h. Woodrow Wilsons policies of neutrality proved popular in the 1916
campaign that he won.
i. Germany sent the Zimmerman Note to the Mexican government that
encouraged them to make war on America. This caused America to join
the war.
3. Americas Entry Into the War
a. Food Administration sought to raise agricultural production while
reducing civilian consumption of foodstuffs. Ex: Meatless Tuesdays,
wheat less Wednesdays.
b. The draft created a labor shortage across the US. Women, African
Americans, and other minorities were encouraged to enter these
industries and take on the jobs.
c. Committee on Public Information was made up of secretaries of state,
war, and the navy. Made propaganda to support war effort.
d. The espionage and sedition act gave prison time and fines to anyone
who gave aid to the enemy; who tried to incite insubordination,
disloyalty, or refusal of duty in armed services.
4. America At War
a. Americans joining the allied powers gave them better morale.

b. Fourteen Points-Wilsons program to establish peace. Included the

establishment of the league of nations.
c. Armistice was signed.
d. Germany, Russia, France, and then Great Britain lost the most soldiers.
5. The Fight for the Peace
a. The Paris Peace Conference was controlled by the prime ministers of
Britain, France, and Italy, and the president of the United States.
b. Wilson gave in to French demands for reparation payments by
Germany that would keep the nation weak, impoverished, and eager
for revenge during the 1920s.
c. Four long standing multinational empires had disintegrated as a result
of the war: Russian, Austro-Hungarian, German, and Ottoman.
6. Lurching from War to Peace
a. The Spanish flu killed 100 million people worldwide.
b. First Red Scare of communism spreading was the largest violation of
civil liberties in American history.
c. The fact that America successfully intervened and ended the First
World War (and the devastation of the other countries involved) made
it the most powerful nation in the world.