-
Period: to
Actions During the World Wars
-
The Anglo-Japanese Treaty
Internationalist: The Anglo Japanese Convention of 1854) was the first treaty between the United Kingdom and the Empire of Japan, then under the administration of the Tokugawa shogunate. Signed on October 14, 1854. As a result of the treaty, the ports of Nagasaki and Hakodate were opened to British vessels, and Britain was granted most favored nation status with other western powers. -
Paris Peace Confrence
Internationalists: The Paris Peace Conference, also known as the Versailles Peace Conference, was the meeting in 1919 of the victorious Allied Powers following the end of World War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers. the victorious European powers demanded that Germany compensate them for the devastation wrought by the four-year conflict, for which they held Germany and its allies responsible. Unable to agree upon the amount that Germany should pay. -
The 5 Powers Treaty
Internationalists
The 5-Powers Treaty was a treaty to agree to limit the amount of warships we have. The treaty was signed by the U.S, Great Britain, Japan, France and Italy -
4 Powers Treaty
Internationalists: In the Four-Power Treaty, the United States, France, Britain, and Japan agreed to consult with each other in the event of a future crisis in East Asia before taking action. This treaty replaced the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of 1902, which had been a source of some concern for the United States. The Four-Power Treaty sought to eliminate the development of rival blocs in East Asia, as well as to preserve the territorial sovereignty of the signatories' holdings in the Pacific. -
Isolationists: Germany's payment
The Commission set the final bill at 132 billion gold marks, approximately $31.5 billion. -
The Allied Powers determine Germany's payment
Internationalists: After the Paris Peace Conference, The United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the other Allies established a Reparation Commission to settle the question about how much Germany owes. -
Isolationists: U.S Peace Advocates
In the wake of World War I, U.S. officials and private citizens made significant efforts to guarantee that the nation would not be drawn into another war. Some focused on disarmament, such as the series of naval conferences that began in Washington in 1921.nd some focused on cooperation with the League of Nations and the newly formed World Court. Others initiated a movement to try to outlaw war outright. Peace advocates Nicholas Murray Butler and James T. Shotwell were part of this movement -
The 9 Powers Treaty
Internationalists: The final multilateral agreement made at the Washington Naval Conference was the Nine-Power Treaty, which marked the internationalization of the U.S. Open Door Policy in China. The treaty promised that each of the signatories—the United States, Britain, Japan, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal and China—would respect the territorial integrity of China. -
Inital Arms Limit Pt. 2
Internationalists: In the treaty, the powers agreed to a 5:5:3:1.75:1.75 ratio of naval tonnage and restrictions with regard to new building of both ships and bases. This meant that while the United States and Great Britain remained on par with each other in the size of their navies, Japan was held to a navy 60 percent as large. -
Initial Arms Limit Pt.4
Internationalists: France and Italy declined the invitation to participate in the conference. The League of Nations was already engaged in preparing a more comprehensive disarmament conference (which took place in Geneva in 1932), and the two powers preferred to wait until that event to discuss air, land, and sea armaments all at once. -
Inflation
Isolationists: Inflation in Germany, which had begun to accelerate in 1922, spiraled into hyperinflation. The value of the German currency collapsed; the battle over reparations had reached an impasse. -
Balfour Note
Internationalists: London made this link explicit in the Balfour Note, which stated that it would seek reparations and wartime debt repayments from its European allies equal to its debt to the United States. That same year, Congress created the United States War Debt Commission to negotiate repayment plans, on concessionary terms, with the 17 countries that had borrowed money from the United States. -
Intital Arms Limit Pt.1
Internationalist: After World War I, many nations became concerned about the threat of another war and the possibility of an arms race. To address these issues in the naval arena, in 1922, Great Britain, the United States, Japan, France, and Italy signed the Five Powers Treaty at the Washington Conference. -
Initial Arms Limit Pt. 3
Internationalists: France and Italy were restricted to navies 35 percent the size of the British and American forces. In 1927, U.S. President Calvin Coolidge invited these powers to meet again to discuss extending the agreement to include other classes of vessels not included in the original treaty, such as cruisers, destroyers, and submarines. -
The Reperation Commission's committee
Isolationists: The European powers stalemated over German reparations, the Reparation Commission struck a committee to review the situation.Headed by Chicago banker Charles G. Dawes, the committee presented its proposal in April 1924. -
Unable to pay
Isolationist: When Germany defaulted on a payment in January 1923, France and Belgium occupied the Ruhr in an effort to make it pay; instead, they met a government-backed campaign of passive resistance. -
The Dawes Plan
Isolationists: Under the Dawes Plan, Germany's annual reparation payments would be reduced, increasing over time as its economy improved; the full amount to be paid, however, was left undetermined. Economic policy making in Berlin would be reorganized under foreign supervision and a new currency, the Reichsmark, adopted. France and Belgium would evacuate the Ruhr and foreign banks would loan the German government $200 million to help encourage economic stabilization. -
Fixing the 5 Powers Treaty
Internationalists: The Five-Power Treaty controlled tonnage of each navy's warships, some classes of ships were left unrestricted. As a result, a new race to build cruiser ships emerged after 1922, leading the powers back to the negotiating table in 1927 and 1930 to close the remaining loopholes in the agreements. -
The Geneva Naval Conference
Internationalists: A gathering of the United States, Great Britain and Japan, to discuss making joint limitations to their naval capacities. The conference was a failure because the parties did not reach an agreement and the naval arms race continued unabated after the conference. -
French Involvement
Isolationists: Briand published an open letter in April of 1927 containing the proposal. Though the suggestion had the enthusiastic support of some members of the American peace movement, U.S. President Calvin Coolidge and Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg were less eager than Briand to enter into a bilateral arrangement. -
Kellogg-Briand Pact
Internationalists: The Kellogg-Briand Pact was an agreement to outlaw war signed on August 27, 1928. Sometimes called the Pact of Paris for the city in which it was signed, the pact was one of many international efforts to prevent another World War, but it had little effect in stopping the rising militarism of the 1930s or preventing World War II. -
Fifteen Nations at Paris
Internationalists: Fifteen nations signed the pact at Paris. Signatories included France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Belgium, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Italy and Japan. Later, an additional forty-seven nations followed suit, so the pact was eventually signed by most of the established nations in the world. -
The 2nd Committee
Internationalists: Another committee of experts was formed, this one to devise a final settlement of the German reparations problem. -
The Great Depression dooms The Young Plan
Internationalists: The advent of the Great Depression doomed the Young Plan from the start. Loans from U.S. banks had helped prop up the German economy until 1928; when these loans dried up, Germany's economy floundered -
The Young Plan
the committee, under the chairmanship of Owen D. Young, the head of General Electric and a member of the Dawes committee, proposed a plan that reduced the total amount of reparations demanded of Germany to 121 billion gold marks, almost $29 billion, payable over 58 years. Then another loan would increase the payment to $300 million. The Young Plan also called for the establishment of a Bank for International Settlements, designed to facilitate the payment of reparations. -
Agreement in a treaty
Internationalists: The United States and Great Britain realized that without an agreement, the cruiser issue would block advancements at any future conferences, so they continued discussions in the years that followed.The two sides agreed on a limit of 50 cruisers and 339,000 tons, with a limit to the maximum number of heavy cruisers. Both sides compromised heavily to reach this deal, but the issue of how many heavy cruisers would be permitted was not yet settled. -
American Isolationism
Isolationists: During the 1930s, the combination of the Great Depression and the memory of tragic losses in World War I contributed to pushing American public opinion and policy toward isolationism. Isolationists advocated non-involvement in European and Asian conflicts and non-entanglement in international politics. -
Growth of Militarism
The League proved ineffectual in the face of growing militarism, partly due to the U.S. decision not to participate. -
Attempt to fix the problem
Isolationists: As the world sunk ever deeper into depression, a one-year moratorium on all debt and reparation payments was declared at the behest of President Herbert Hoover; an effort to renew the moratorium the following year failed. -
Manchuria Invasion Reaction
Internationalists: The Japanese invasion of Manchuria and subsequent push to gain control over larger expanses of Northeast China in 1931 led President Herbert Hoover and his Secretary of State, Henry Stimson, to establish the Stimson Doctrine, which stated that the United States would not recognize the territory gained by aggression and in violation of international agreements -
Internationalists: The Lausanne Conference
At the Lausanne Conference in 1932, European nations agreed to cancel their reparation claims to save for a final payment. France and the United Kingdom resurrected the link between reparations and war debts, tying their Lausanne Conference pledge to cancel their claims against Germany to the cancellation of their debts to the United States. The United States would not accept the proposal. European debtor nations except Finland had defaulted on their loans from the United States. -
The Stimson Doctrine
Internationalists: The Stimson Doctrine is the policy of nonrecognition of states created as a result of aggression. The policy was implemented by the United States federal government, enunciated in a note of January 7, 1932, to the Empire of Japan and the Republic of China -
Roosevelt's Congressional Action
Isolationists: In 1933, President Roosevelt proposed a Congressional measure that would have granted him the right to consult with other nations to place pressure on aggressors in international conflicts. The bill ran into strong opposition from the leading isolationists in Congress, including progressive politicians such as Senators Hiram Johnson of California, William Borah of Idaho, and Robert La Follette of Wisconsin. -
War is a Racket
Isolationists: In the wake of the World War I, a report by Senator Gerald P. Nye, a Republican from North Dakota, fed this belief by claiming that American bankers and arms manufacturers had pushed for U.S. involvement for their own profit. The 1934 publication of the book Merchants of Death by H.C. Engelbrecht and F. C. Hanighen -
Internationalists: Struggling with the Nuetrality Acts
In 1935, controversy over U.S. participation in the World Court elicited similar opposition. As tensions rose in Europe over Nazi Germany's aggressive maneuvers, Congress pushed through a series of Neutrality Acts, which served to prevent American ships and citizens from becoming entangled in outside conflicts. Roosevelt lamented the restrictive nature of the acts, but because he still required Congressional support for his domestic New Deal policies, he reluctantly acquiesced. -
The Isolationists Group
Isolationists: The isolationists were a diverse group, including progressives and conservatives, business owners and peace activists, but because they faced no consistent, organized opposition from internationalists, their ideology triumphed time and again. Roosevelt appeared to accept the strength of the isolationist elements in Congress until 1937 -
Johnson Act
Isolationists: The neutrality act of 1937, passed in May, extended the prohibition against trading with belligerents to include civil wars in general and strengthened the rule on belligerent ships by forbidding travel by American citizens upon them -
Public insists on nuetrality
Isolationists: At that time, however, Americans were still not prepared to risk their lives and livelihoods for peace abroad. Even the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939 did not suddenly diffuse popular desire to avoid international entanglements. Instead, public opinion shifted from favoring complete neutrality to supporting limited U.S. aid to the Allies short of actual intervention in the war. -
Pearl Harbor
Internationalists: The surprise Japanese attack on the U.S. Navy at Pearl Harbor in December of 1941 served to convince the majority of Americans that the United States should enter the war on the side of the Allies.
