us history chapter 16-17 study guide Flashcards | Quizlet
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us history chapter 16-17 study guide

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Chapter 16
The seeds of new conflicts had been sown in World War I. For many nations, peace had brought not prosperity but revolution fueled by economic depression and struggle. The postwar years also brought the rise of powerful dictators driven by the belief in nationalism—loyalty to one's country above all else—and dreams of territorial expansion.
FAILURES OF THE WORLD WAR I PEACE SETTLEMENT Instead of securing a "just and secure peace," the Treaty of Versailles caused anger and resentment. Germans saw nothing fair in a treaty that blamed them for starting the war. Nor did they find security in a settlement that stripped them of their overseas colonies and border territories. These problems overwhelmed the Weimar Republic, the democratic government set up in Germany after World War I. Similarly, the Soviets resented the carving up of parts of Russia. (See map, Chapter 11, p. 400.)
The peace settlement had not fulfilled President Wilson's hope of a world "safe for democracy." New democratic governments that emerged in Europe after the war floundered. Without a democratic tradition, people turned to authoritar- ian leaders to solve their economic and social problems. The new democracies collapsed, and dictators were able to seize power. Some had great ambitions. A
JOSEPH STALIN TRANSFORMS THE SOVIET UNION In Russia, hopes for democracy gave way to civil war, resulting in the establishment of a communist state, officially called the Soviet Union, in 1922. After V. I. Lenin died in 1924, Joseph Stalin, whose last name means "man of steel," took control of the coun- try. Stalin focused on creating a model communist state. In so doing, he made both agricultural and industrial growth the prime economic goals of the Soviet Union. Stalin abolished all privately owned farms and replaced them with collec- tives—large government-owned farms, each worked by hundreds of families.
Stalin moved to transform the Soviet Union from a backward rural nation into a great industrial power. In 1928, the Soviet dictator outlined the first of several "five-year plans," to direct the industrialization. All economic activity was placed under state management. By 1937, the Soviet Union had become the world's sec- ond-largest industrial power, surpassed in overall production only by the United States. The human costs of this transformation, however, were enormous.
In his drive to purge, or eliminate, anyone who threatened his power, Stalin did not spare even his most faithful supporters. While the final toll will never be known, historians estimate that Stalin was responsible for the deaths of 8 million to 13 million people. Millions more died in famines caused by the restructuring of Soviet society.
By 1939, Stalin had firmly established a totalitarian government that tried to exert complete control over its citizens. In a totalitarian state, individuals have no rights, and the government suppresses all opposition. Instead of securing a "just and secure peace," the Treaty of Versailles caused anger and resentment. Germans saw nothing fair in a treaty that blamed them for starting the war. Nor did they find security in a settlement that stripped them of their overseas colonies and border territories. These problems overwhelmed the Weimar Republic, the democratic government set up in Germany after World War I. Similarly, the Soviets resented the carving up of parts of Russia. (See map, Chapter 11, p. 400.)
The peace settlement had not fulfilled President Wilson's hope of a world "safe for democracy." New democratic governments that emerged in Europe after the war floundered. Without a democratic tradition, people turned to authoritar- ian leaders to solve their economic and social problems. The new democracies collapsed, and dictators were able to seize power. Some had great ambitions.In Russia, hopes for democracy gave way to civil war, resulting in the establishment of a communist state, officially called the Soviet Union, in 1922. After V. I. Lenin died in 1924, Joseph Stalin, whose last name means "man of steel," took control of the coun- try. Stalin focused on creating a model communist state. In so doing, he made both agricultural and industrial growth the prime economic goals of the Soviet Union. Stalin abolished all privately owned farms and replaced them with collec- tives—large government-owned farms, each worked by hundreds of families.
Stalin moved to transform the Soviet Union from a backward rural nation into a great industrial power. In 1928, the Soviet dictator outlined the first of several "five-year plans," to direct the industrialization. All economic activity was placed under state management. By 1937, the Soviet Union had become the world's sec- ond-largest industrial power, surpassed in overall production only by the United States. The human costs of this transformation, however, were enormous.
In his drive to purge, or eliminate, anyone who threatened his power, Stalin did not spare even his most faithful supporters. While the final toll will never be known, historians estimate that Stalin was responsible for the deaths of 8 million to 13 million people. Millions more died in famines caused by the restructuring of Soviet society.
By 1939, Stalin had firmly established a totalitarian government that tried to exert complete control over its citizens. In a totalitarian state, individuals have no rights, and the government suppresses all opposition. BWhile Stalin was consolidating his power in the Soviet Union, Benito Mussolini was establishing a totalitarian regime in Italy, where unemployment and inflation produced bitter strikes, some commu- nist-led. Alarmed by these threats, the middle and upper classes demanded stronger leadership. Mussolini took advantage of this situation. A powerful speak- er, Mussolini knew how to appeal to Italy's wounded national pride. He played on the fears of economic collapse and communism. In this way, he won the support of many discontented ItaliansBy 1921, Mussolini had established the Fascist Party. Fascism (fBshPGzQEm) stressed nationalism and placed the interests of the state above those of individ- uals. To strengthen the nation, Fascists argued, power must rest with a single strong leader and a small group of devoted party members. (The Latin fasces—a bundle of rods tied around an ax handle—had been a symbol of unity and authority in ancient Rome.)
In October 1922, Mussolini marched on Rome with thousands of his followers, whose black uniforms gave them the name "Black Shirts." When important government officials, the army, and the police sided
with the Fascists, the Italian king appointed Mussolini head of the government. Calling himself Il Duce, or "the leader," Mussolini gradually extended Fascist control to every aspect of Italian life. Tourists marveled that Il Duce had even "made the trains run on time." Mussolini achieved this efficiency, however, by
crushing all opposition and by making Italy a totalitarian state.In Germany, Adolf Hitler had followed a path to power similar to Mussolini's. At the end of World War I, Hitler had been a jobless soldier drifting around Germany. In 1919, he joined a struggling group called the National Socialist German Workers' Party, better known as the Nazi Party. Despite its name, this party had no ties to socialism.
Hitler proved to be such a powerful public speaker and organizer that he quickly became the party's leader. Calling himself Der Führer—"the Leader"—he promised to bring Germany out of chaos.
In his book Mein Kampf [My Struggle], Hitler set forth the basic beliefs of Nazism that became the plan of action for the Nazi Party. Nazism (nätPsGzQEm), the German brand of fascism, was based on extreme nationalism. Hitler, who had been born in Austria, dreamed of uniting all German-speaking people in a great German empire.
Hitler also wanted to enforce racial "purification" at home. In his view, Germans—especially blue-eyed, blond-haired "Aryans"—formed a "master race" that was destined to rule the world. "Inferior races," such as Jews, Slavs, and all nonwhites, were deemed fit only to serve the Aryans.
A third element of Nazism was national expansion. Hitler believed that for Germany to thrive, it needed more lebensraum, or living space. One of the Nazis' aims, as Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, was "to secure for the German people the land and soil to which they are entitled on this earth," even if this could be accomplished only by "the might of a victorious sword." D
The Great Depression helped the Nazis come to power. Because of war debts and dependence on American loans and investments, Germany's economy was hit hard. By 1932, some 6 million Germans were unemployed. Many men who were out of work joined Hitler's private army, the storm troopers (or Brown Shirts). The German people were desperate and turned to Hitler as their last hope.
By mid 1932, the Nazis had become the strongest political party in Germany. In January 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor (prime minister). Once in power, Hitler quickly dismantled Germany's democratic Weimar Republic. In its place he established the Third Reich, or Third German Empire. According to Hitler, the Third Reich would be a "Thousand-Year Reich"—it would last for a thousand years.Halfway around the world, nation- alistic military leaders were trying to take control of the imperial government of Japan. These leaders shared in common with Hitler a belief in the need for more living space for a growing population. Ignoring the protests of more moderate Japanese officials, the militarists launched a surprise attack and seized control of the Chinese province of Manchuria in 1931. Within several months, Japanese troops controlled the entire province, a large region about twice the size of Texas, that was rich in natural The failure of the League of Nations to take action against Japan did not escape the notice of Europe's dictators. In 1933, Hitler pulled Germany out of the League. In 1935, he began a military buildup in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. A year later, he sent troops into the Rhineland, a German region bordering France and Belgium that was demili- tarized as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. The League did nothing to stop HitlerMeanwhile, Mussolini began building his new Roman Empire. His first target was Ethiopia, one of Africa's few remaining independent countries. By the fall of 1935, tens of thousands of Italian soldiers stood ready to advance on Ethiopia. The League of Nations reacted with brave talk of "collective resistance to all acts of unprovoked aggression."
When the invasion began, however, the League's response was an ineffective economic boycott—little more than a slap on Italy's wrist. By May 1936, Ethiopia had fall- en. In desperation, Haile Selassie, the ousted Ethiopian emperor, appealed to the League for assistance. Nothing was done. "It is us today," he told them. "It will be you tomorrow."In 1936, a group of Spanish army officers led by General Francisco Franco, rebelled against the Spanish republic. Revolts broke out all over Spain, and the Spanish Civil War began. The war aroused passions not only in Spain but throughout the world. About 3,000 Americans formed the Abraham Lincoln Battalion and traveled to Spain to fight against Franco. "We knew, we just knew," recalled Martha Gellhorn, "that Spain was the place to stop fascism." Among the volunteers were African Americans still bitter about Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia the year before.
Such limited aid was not sufficient to stop the spread of fascism, however. The Western democracies remained neu- tral. Although the Soviet Union sent equipment and advis- ers, Hitler and Mussolini backed Franco's forces with troops, weapons, tanks, and fighter planes. The war forged a close relationship between the German and Italian dictators, who signed a formal alliance known as the Rome-Berlin Axis. After a loss of almost 500,000 lives, Franco's victory in 1939 established him as Spain's fascist dictator. Once again a totalitarian government ruled in EuropeMost Americans were alarmed by the international conflicts of the mid-1930s but believed that the United States should not get involved. In 1928, the United States had signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact. The treaty was signed by 62 countries and declared that war would not be used "as an instrument of national policy." Yet it did not include a plan to deal with countries that broke their pledge. The Pact was, therefore, only a small step toward peaceIn the early 1930s, a flood of books argued that the United States had been dragged into World War I by greedy bankers and arms dealers. Public outrage led to the creation of a congressional committee, chaired by North Dakota Senator Gerald Nye, that held hearings on these charges. The Nye committee fueled the controversy by documenting the large profits that banks and manufacturers made during the war. As the furor grew over these "merchants of death," Americans became more determined than ever to avoid war. Antiwar feeling was so strong that the Girl Scouts of America changed
MAIN IDEA
Analyzing
Causes
the color of its uniforms from khaki to green to appear less militaristic. G G What factors
Americans' growing isolationism eventually had an impact on President Roosevelt's foreign policy. When he had first taken office in 1933, Roosevelt felt comfortable reaching out to the world in several ways. He officially recognized the Soviet Union in 1933 and agreed to exchange ambassadors with Moscow. He continued the policy of nonintervention in Latin America—begun by Presidents Coolidge and Hoover—with his Good Neighbor Policy and withdrew armed forces stationed there. In 1934, Roosevelt pushed the Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act through Congress. This act lowered trade barriers by giving the president the power to make trade agreements with other nations and was aimed at On November 5, 1937, Hitler met secretly with his top military advisers. He bold- ly declared that to grow and prosper Germany needed the land of its neighbors. His plan was to absorb Austria and Czechoslovakia into the Third Reich. When one of his advisors protested that annexing those countries could provoke war, Hitler replied, " 'The German Question' can be solved only by means of force, and this is never without risk.Austria was Hitler's first target. The Paris Peace Conference following World War I had creat- ed the relatively small nation of Austria out of what was left of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The majority of Austria's 6 million people were Germans who favored unification with Germany. On March 12, 1938, German troops marched into Austria unopposed. A day later, Germany announced that its Anschluss, or "union," with Austria was complete. The United States and the rest of the world did nothingHitler then turned to Czechoslovakia. About 3 million German-speak- ing people lived in the western border regions of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland. The mountainous region formed Czechoslovakia's main defense against German attack. (See map, p. 538.) Hitler wanted to annex Czechoslovakia in order to provide more living space for Germany as well as to control its important natural resourcesHitler charged that the Czechs were abusing the Sudeten Germans, and he began massing troops on the Czech border. The U.S. correspondent William Shirer, then stationed in Berlin, wrote in his diary: "The Nazi press [is] full of hysterical headlines. All lies. Some examples: 'Women and Children Mowed Down by Czech Armored Cars,' or 'Bloody Regime—New Czech Murders of Germans.'"
Early in the crisis, both France and Great Britain promised to protect Czechoslovakia. Then, just when war seemed inevitable, Hitler invited French premier Édouard Daladier and British prime minister Neville Chamberlain to meet with him in Munich. When they arrived, the führer declared that the annexation of the Sudetenland would be his "last territorial demand." In their eagerness to avoid war, Daladier and Chamberlain chose to believe him. On September 30, 1938, they signed the Munich Agreement, which turned the Sudetenland over to Germany without a single shot being fired. A
Chamberlain returned home and proclaimed: "My friends, there has come back from Germany peace with honor. I believe it is peace in our time.Chamberlain's satisfaction was not shared by Winston Churchill, Chamberlain's political rival in Great Britain. In Churchill's view, by signing the Munich Agreement, Daladier and Chamberlain had adopted a shameful policy of appeasement—or giving up principles to pacify an aggressor. As Churchill bluntly put it, "Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonor. They chose dishonor. They will have war." Nonetheless, the House of Commons approved Chamberlain's policy toward Germany and Churchill responded with a warningAs Churchill had warned, Hitler was not finished expanding the Third Reich. As dawn broke on March 15, 1939, German troops poured into what remained of Czechoslovakia. At nightfall Hitler gloated, "Czechoslovakia has ceased to exist." After that, the German dictator turned his land-hungry gaze toward Germany's eastern neighbor, PolandLike Czechoslovakia, Poland had a sizable German-speaking population. In the spring of 1939, Hitler began his familiar routine, charging that Germans in Poland were mistreated by the Poles and needed his protection. Some people thought that this time Hitler must be bluffing. After all, an attack on Poland might bring Germany into conflict with the Soviet Union, Poland's eastern neighbor. At the same time, such an attack would most likely provoke a declaration of war from France and Britain—both of whom had promised military aid to Poland. The result would be a two-front war. Fighting on two fronts had exhausted Germany in World War I. Surely, many thought, Hitler would not be foolish enough to repeat that mistake.
As tensions rose over Poland, Stalin surprised everyone by signing a nonaggression pact with Hitler. Once bitter enemies, on August 23, 1939 fas- cist Germany and communist Russia now committed never to attack each other. Germany and the Soviet Union also signed a second, secret pact, agreeing to divide Poland between them. With the danger of a two-front war eliminated, the fate of Poland was sealedAs day broke on September 1, 1939, the German Luftwaffe, or German air force, roared over Poland, raining bombs on military bases, airfields, railroads, and cities. At the same time, German tanks raced across the Polish countryside, spreading terror and confusion. This invasion was the first test of Germany's newest military strategy, the blitzkrieg, or lightning war. Blitzkrieg made use of advances in military technology—such as fast tanks and more powerful aircraft—to take the enemy by surprise and then quickly crush all opposition with overwhelming force. On September 3, two days following the ter- ror in Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany. C
The blitzkrieg tactics worked perfectly. Major fighting was over in three weeks, long before France, Britain, and their allies could mount a defense. In the last week of fighting, the Soviet Union attacked Poland from the east, grabbing some of its territory. The portion Germany annexed in western Poland contained almost two-thirds of Poland's population. By the end of the month, Poland had ceased to exist—and World War II had begunFor the next several months after the fall of Poland, French and British troops on the Maginot Line, a system of fortifica- tions built along France's eastern border (see map on p. 538), sat staring into Germany, waiting for something to happen. On the Siegfried Line a few miles away German troops stared back. The blitzkrieg had given way to what the Germans called the sitzkrieg ("sitting war"), and what some newspapers referred to as the
phony war. After occupying eastern Poland, Stalin began annexing the
Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Late in 1939, Stalin sent his Soviet army into Finland. After three months of fighting,
the outnumbered Finns surrendered. Suddenly, on April 9, 1940, Hitler launched a surprise invasion
of Denmark and Norway in order "to protect [those countries'] freedom and independence." But in truth, Hitler planned to build bases along the coasts to strike at Great Britain. Next, Hitler turned against the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, which were overrun by the end of May. The phony has endedFrance's Maginot Line proved to be ineffective; the German army threatened to bypass the line during its invasion of Belgium. Hitler's generals sent their tanks through the Ardennes, a region of wooded ravines in northeast France, thereby avoiding British and French troops who thought the Ardennes were impassable. The Germans continued to march toward ParisThe German offensive trapped almost 400,000 British and French soldiers as they fled to the beaches of Dunkirk on the French side of the English Channel. In less than a week, a makeshift fleet of fishing trawlers, tug- boats, river barges, pleasure craft—more than 800 vessels in all—ferried about
330,000 British, French, and Belgian troops to safety across the Channel.
A few days later, Italy entered the war on the side of Germany and invaded France from the south as the Germans closed in on Paris from the north. On June 22, 1940, at Compiègne, as William Shirer and the rest of the world watched, Hitler handed French officers his terms of surrender. Germans would occupy the northern part of France, and a Nazi-controlled puppet government, head- ed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, would be set up at Vichy, in southern France.
After France fell, a French general named Charles de Gaulle fled to England, where he set up a govern- ment-in-exile. De Gaulle proclaimed defiantly, "France has lost a battle, but France has not lost the war."
THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN In the summer of 1940, the Germans began to assemble an invasion fleet along the French coast. Because its naval power could not compete with that of Britain, Germany also launched an air war at the same time. The Luftwaffe began making runs over Britain. Its goal was to gain total control of the skies by destroying Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF). Hitler had 2,600 planes at his disposal. On a single day—August 15—approximately 2,000 German planes ranged over Britain. Every night for two solid months, bombers pound- ed London.
The Battle of Britain raged on through the summer and fall. Night after night, German planes pounded British tar- gets. At first the Luftwaffe concentrated on airfields and air- craft. Next it targeted cities. Londoner Len Jones was just 18 years old when bombs fell on his East End neighborhoodAs German tanks thundered across Poland, Roosevelt revised the Neutrality Act of 1935. At the same time, he began to prepare the nation for the struggle he feared lay just aheadIn September of 1939, Roosevelt persuaded Congress to pass a "cash-and-carry" provision that allowed warring nations to buy U.S. arms as long as they paid cash and transported them in their own ships. Providing the arms, Roosevelt argued, would help France and Britain defeat Hitler and keep the United States out of the war. Isolationists attacked Roosevelt for his actions. However, after six weeks of heated debate, Congress passed the Neutrality Act of 1939, and a cash-and-carry policy went into effectThe United States cash-and-carry policy began to look like too little too late. By summer 1940, France had fallen and Britain was under siege. Roosevelt scrambled to provide the British with "all aid short of war." By June he had sent Britain 500,000 rifles and 80,000 machine guns, and in early September the United States traded 50 old destroyers for leases on British military bases in the Caribbean and Newfoundland. British prime minister Winston Churchill would later recall this move with affection as "a decidedly unneutral act."
On September 27 Americans were jolted by the news that Germany, Italy, and Japan had signed a mutual defense treaty, the Tripartite Pact. The three nations became known as the Axis Powers.
The Tripartite Pact was aimed at keeping the United States out of the war. Under the treaty, each Axis nation agreed to come to the defense of the others in case of attack. This meant that if the United States were to declare war on any one of the Axis powers, it would face its worst military nightmare—a two-ocean war, with fighting in both the Atlantic and the PacificMeanwhile, Roosevelt asked Congress to increase spending for national defense. In spite of years of isolationism, Nazi victories in 1940 changed U.S. thinking, and Congress boosted defense spending. Congress also passed the nation's first peacetime military draft—the Selective Training and Service Act. Under this law 16 million men between the ages of 21 and 35 were registered. Of these, 1 million were to be drafted for one year but were only allowed to serve in the Western Hemisphere. Roosevelt himself drew the first draft num- bers as he told a national radio audience, "This is a most solemn ceremony."That same year, Roosevelt decided to break the tradition of a two-term presidency, begun by George Washington, and run for reelection. To the great disappointment of isolationists, Roosevelt's Republican opponent, a public utilities executive named Wendell Willkie, sup- ported Roosevelt's policy of aiding Britain. At the same time, both Willkie and Roosevelt promised to keep the nation out of war. Because there was so little dif- ference between the candidates, the majority of voters chose the one they knew best. Roosevelt was reelected with nearly 55 percent of the votes castNot long after the election, President Roosevelt told his radio audience during a fireside chat that it would be impossible to negotiate a peace with Hitler. "No man can tame a tiger into a kitten by stroking it." He warned that if Britain fell, the Axis powers would be left unchallenged to conquer the world, at which point, he said, "all of us in all the Americas would be living at the point of a gun." To pre- vent such a situation, the United States had to help defeat the Axis threat by turn- ing itself into what Roosevelt called "the great arsenal of democracy.By late 1940, however, Britain had no more cash to spend in the arsenal of democracy. Roosevelt tried to help by suggesting a new plan that he called a lend-lease policy. Under this plan, the president would lend or lease arms and other supplies to "any country whose defense was vital to the United States."
Roosevelt compared his plan to lending a garden hose to a neighbor whose house was on fire. He asserted that this was the only sensible thing to do to pre- vent the fire from spreading to your own property. Isolationists argued bitterly against the plan, but most Americans favored it, and Congress passed the Lend- Lease Act in March 1941 Britain was not the only nation to receive lend-lease aid. In June 1941, Hitler broke the agreement he had made in 1939 with Stalin not to go to war and invaded the Soviet Union. Acting on the principle that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," Roosevelt began sending lend-lease supplies to the Soviet Union. Some Americans opposed providing aid to Stalin; Roosevelt, how- ever, agreed with Winston Churchill, who had said "if Hitler invaded Hell," the British would be prepared to work with the devil himself.Providing lend-lease aid was one thing, but to ensure the safe delivery of goods to Britain and to the Soviet Union, supply lines had to be kept open across the Atlantic Ocean. To prevent delivery of lend-lease ship- ments, Hitler deployed hundreds of German submarines—U-boats—to attack sup- ply ships.
From the spring through the fall of 1941, individual surface attacks by indi- vidual U-boats gave way to what became known as the wolf pack attack. At night groups of up to 40 submarines patrolled areas in the North Atlantic where con- voys could be expected. Wolf packs were successful in sinking as much as 350,000 tons of shipments in a single month. In September 1941, President Roosevelt granted the navy permission for U.S. warships to attack German U-boats in self- defense. By late 1943, the submarine menace was contained by electronic detec- tion techniques (especially radar), and by airborne antisubmarine patrols operat- ing from small escort aircraft carriersAlthough Roosevelt was popular, his foreign policy was under constant attack. American forces were seriously underarmed. Roosevelt's August 1941 proposal to extend the term of draftees passed in the House of Representatives by only one vote. With the army provided for, Roosevelt began planning for the war he was certain would comeWhile Congress voted on the extension of the draft, Roosevelt and Churchill met secretly at a summit aboard the battleship USS Augusta. Although Churchill hoped for a military commitment, he settled for a joint declaration of war aims, called the Atlantic Charter. Both countries pledged the following: collective security, disarmament, self-determination, economic cooperation, and freedom of the seas. Roosevelt disclosed to Churchill that he couldn't ask Congress for a declaration of war against Germany, but "he would wage war" and do "everything" to "force an incident."
The Atlantic Charter became the basis of a new document called "A Declaration of the United Nations." The term United Nations was suggested by Roosevelt to express the common purpose of the Allies, those nations that had fought the Axis powers. The declaration was signed by 26 nations, "four-fifths of the human race" observed ChurchillAfter a German submarine fired on the U.S. destroyer Greer in the Atlantic on September 4, 1941, Roosevelt ordered navy commanders to respond. "When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike," the president explained, "you crush him." Roosevelt ordered the navy to shoot the German submarines on sight.
Two weeks later, the Pink Star, an American merchant ship, was sunk off Greenland. In mid-October, a U-boat torpedoed the U.S. destroyer Kearny, and 11 lives were lost.
Days later, German U-boats sank the U.S. destroyer Reuben James, killing more than 100 sailors. "America has been attacked," Roosevelt announced grimly. "The shoot- ing has started. And history has recorded who fired the first shot." As the death toll mounted, the Senate finally repealed the ban against arming merchant ships. A formal declaration of a full-scale war seemed inevitable.The Japanese began their southward push in July 1941 by taking over French military bases in Indochina (now Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos). The United States protested this new act of aggression by cutting off trade with Japan. The embargoed goods included one Japan could not live without—oil to fuel its war machine. Japanese military leaders warned that without oil, Japan could be defeated without its enemies ever striking a blow. The leaders declared that Japan must either persuade the United States to end its oil embargo or seize the oil fields in the Dutch East Indies. This would mean war. E
PEACE TALKS ARE QUESTIONED Shortly after becoming the prime minister of Japan, Hideki Tojo met with emperor Hirohito. Tojo promised the emperor that the Japanese government would attempt to preserve peace with the Americans. But on November 5, 1941, Tojo ordered the Japanese navy to prepare for an attack on the United States.
The U.S. military had broken Japan's secret communication codes and learned that Japan was preparing for a strike. What it didn't know was where the attack would come. Late in November, Roosevelt sent out a "war warning" to mil- itary commanders in Hawaii, Guam, and the Philippines. If war could not be avoided, the warning said, "the United States desires that Japan commit the first overt act." And the nation waited.
The peace talks went on for a month. Then on December 6, 1941, Roosevelt received a decoded message that instruct- ed Japan's peace envoy to reject all American peace propos- als. "This means war," Roosevelt declared.
THEATTACKONPEARLHARBOR Earlythenextmorning, a Japanese dive-bomber swooped low over Pearl Harbor— the largest U.S. naval base in the Pacific. The bomber was followed by
more than 180 Japanese warplanes launched from six aircraft carriers. As the first Japanese bombs found their targets, a radio operator flashed this message: "Air raid on Pearl Harbor. This is not a drill."
For an hour and a half, the Japanese planes were barely dis- turbed by U.S. antiaircraft guns and blasted target after target. By the time the last plane soared off around 9:30 A.M., the devastation was appalling. John Garcia, a pipe fitter's apprentice, was thereThe United States was now involved in an undeclared naval war with Hitler. However, the attack that brought the United States into the war came from Japan.
JAPAN'S AMBITIONS IN THE PACIFIC Germany's European victories created new opportunities for Japanese expansionists. Japan was already in control of Manchuria. In July 1937, Hideki Tojo (hCPd-kC tIPjIQ), chief of staff of Japan's Kwantung Army, launched the invasion into China. As French, Dutch, and British colonies lay unprotected in Asia, Japanese leaders leaped at the opportunity to unite East Asia under Japanese control by seizing the colonial lands. By 1941, the British were too busy fighting Hitler to block Japanese expansion. Only the U.S. and its Pacific islands remained in Japan's waySHOOT ON SIGHT After a German submarine fired on the U.S. destroyer Greer in the Atlantic on September 4, 1941, Roosevelt ordered navy commanders to respond. "When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike," the president explained, "you crush him." Roosevelt ordered the navy to shoot the German submarines on sight.
Two weeks later, the Pink Star, an American merchant ship, was sunk off Greenland. In mid-October, a U-boat torpedoed the U.S. destroyer Kearny, and 11 lives were lost.
Days later, German U-boats sank the U.S. destroyer Reuben James, killing more than 100 sailors. "America has been attacked," Roosevelt announced grimly. "The shoot- ing has started. And history has recorded who fired the first shot." As the death toll mounted, the Senate finally repealed the ban against arming merchant ships. A formal declaration of a full-scale war seemed inevitable
Chapter 17
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