17.3
*After his heroism in the Spanish-American War as the leader of the Rough Riders, Theodore Roosevelt was elected governor of New York, where he fought corruption and entrenched interests.  To get him out of the way, the political bosses of the Republican party nominated him for the Vice-Presidency in 1900 when McKinley ran for re-election.  McKinley was the last president to be a Civil War veteran, having served in the same Ohio regiment as Rutherford B. Hayes.  In September, 1901, McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz, an immigrant and socialist, who went mad after losing his factory job following an unsuccessful strike and Roosevelt (about a month shy of being 43 years old) became the youngest man to ever become president.

*As President, Roosevelt initiated many Progressive reforms, built up the United State military (his motto was ‘Walk softly and carry a big stick”), and involved the United States in the affairs of Latin America.  Latin America was protected from Europe by the Monroe Doctrine, but the Roosevelt Corollary to that Doctrine stated that the United States would intervene in any nearby nation who interfered with American business or whose government collapsed.  As a result, Roosevelt was portrayed as the world’s policeman, and was both admired and resented for it.

*One of Roosevelt’s greatest projects in Central America was the Panama Canal, built between 1904 and 1914, connecting the Gulf of Mexico with the Pacific Ocean, greatly assisting sea travel by ending the need to sail around Cape Horn.  As part of the process of building the Canal, however, Roosevelt assisted (and probably encouraged) a rebellion in Columbia that made Panama independent, and eager to deal with the United States.  Under the guidance of Roosevelt and his appointees, the Canal’s construction was so efficient that it was completed six months early and $13 million under budget.  The United States would own the Canal and a 10-mile wide strip of land around it until 31 December, 1999.

*Roosevelt helped broker peace between Russia and Japan in 1905 (in part to keep Russia from being beaten too badly), ending the Russo-Japanese War and earning Roosevelt the Nobel Peace Prize.

18.3
*Roosevelt was a popular and effective president, but, having served almost two terms, he followed tradition and did not try to run again in 1908.  He suggested his Secretary of War and former Governor of the Philippines William Howard Taft.  Taft did not want the job, but his wife wanted him to take it, and she and Roosevelt talked him into it.  Taft actually wanted to be on the Supreme Court, and eventually got his wish and served as Chief Justice, but in 1908 he became President of the United States.

*The fattest president ever, Taft weighted 340 pounds on his inauguration day, and had to have special bathtubs installed in the White House after he got stuck in the old ones.  Big Bill, as Taft was known, was too progressive for the old conservatives of his party and the Democrats, but he was not progressive enough for his old friends, and he grew more conservative as his term progressed.  It was not an impressive four years, characterised principally by labour disputes, trade disputes, and petty corruption.

*Roosevelt had not planned to run again, but when he saw that Taft was not running the government the way he thought was right, he chose to run for the presidency again in 1912.  He could not get the Republican nomination from Taft, so he started his own party, officially called the Progressive Party, but actually called the Bull Moose Party after Roosevelt claimed to feel as fit as a Bull Moose.  He proved his toughness when he was shot while giving a campaign speech.  He concluded the speech, which took about an hour and a half, despite the bullet lodged in his lung and the blood soaking his shirt.

*The election of 1912 is an interesting one, featuring three progressives running against one another.  Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson were all progressives, although with different ideas of how progressive ideals ought to be implemented.  Roosevelt was in many ways the most popular of the three, and alone he would probably have won the election.  Without him, Taft might have won.  As it was, they split the Republican vote, and Woodrow Wilson became president, only the second Democrat since the Civil War.

*As a progressive, Wilson would oversee a number of reforms, the most important and lasting of which was the creation of the Federal Reserve System, replacing Polk’s independent treasury.  This system divided the country into twelve regions, each of which had a central bank owned by the major banks of that region.  The entire system was managed by the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, appointed by the President.  The Federal Reserve system could print paper money called Federal Reserve notes, and by printing money, issuing loans, and overseeing the banks in their regions, the Federal Reserve System could regulate the economy once more, just like the old Bank of the United States, but without the corruption.

*Wilson would also be famous for trying to keep America out of war, a difficult task in the decade in which Europe went to war with itself.

19.1
*Throughout the 19th Century, Europe, although increasingly powerful and militarised, managed to avoid major wars between its countries for 99 years after the defeat of Napoleon.  Partly Europe’s energy was focused outwards, for this was the great era of imperialism, when Europe conquered almost the entire world.  Unfortunately, Germany and Italy got into the race for colonies late, and did not get many compared to Britain or France, and were jealous as a result.

*In the process of conquering the world, Europe developed its old traditions of militarism, a glorification of the military and a focus on military power.  This was useful during the period of colonisation, but with nothing Africa and Asia divided among the nations of Europe, the armies began to grow restless, and a generation grew up weeping like Alexander because there were no more worlds left to conquer.
 
*Europe also experienced a wave of nationalism in the 19th Century.  Nationalism came in two forms.  In established countries, it was a great pride in one’s country and its traditions, sometimes to the point of chauvinism and arrogance towards other lands.  Other nations—that is, ethnic groups with common languages and cultures but not a common government—wanted to be able to become states as well as nations.  This was a serious problem in some of Europe’s empires, which contained peoples from several of these ethnic nations.  The worse of these was the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which encompassed about a dozen different ethnic groups, of whom only two (the Germans and the Hungarians) had much power.

*Finally, Europe had kept the peace for so long through what was called the balance of power.  This was a series of alliances so that each country, if attacked, would be defended by several others.  With each country having a series of these alliances, any attack on anyone was liable to draw most of Europe into a war, so no-one dared attack his neighbour.

*The balance of power was upset, however, by the actions of one rash man.  Gavrilo Princip was a student in Sarajevo, capital of the province of Bosnia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, one of many uneasy ethnic areas that wanted independence.  Princip learned that they heir to the throne of Austria was coming to town on a state visit.  This was Archduke Franz Ferdinand who, with his wife who he dearly loved, rode through town in an open car.  Princip and some fellow nationalists plotted to kill the Archduke who, as luck would have it, ran into Princip while taking a shortcut through a back street in Sarajevo.  Princip shot the Archduke’s wife, Sofia, who died instantly, then shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand near the heart.  The Archduke’s dying word was his wife’s name.

*Austria accused not Bosnia, but neighbouring Serbia of arranging the assassination.  Serbia was an independent country that shared historical and ethnic ties with Bosnia, and wanted to see Bosnia leave Austria and be added to Serbia so all these Slavic peoples could be in one nation-state together.  After making demands Serbia could not meet, Austria declared war on Serbia in July, 1914.  Then all the alliances began to operate.

*Russia was a Slavic nation like Serbia, and prepared to move troops against Austria.  Germany, in turn, began to mobilise her troops.

*Germany had long had a plan for a war in Europe.  It was called the Schlieffen Plan after Count Alfred von Schlieffen who devised it.  In this plan, Germany would attack France and defeat her quickly.  Before Russia could move (because it was assumed Russia would take a long time to get ready) Germany would have beaten France and could then attack Russia.  The problem was, Germany could not just do half of it and attack Russia, so, when Russia began to threaten Germany’s ally Austria-Hungary, Germany declared war on Russia’s ally, France, and invaded.

*When the Germans invaded France, they did so through the small country of Belgium.  Great Britain, an ally of France and Russia anyway, but reluctantly so, had also promised years ago to protect Belgium from any invaders.  Furthermore, when the invasion began, rumours, mostly false, began to spread that the Germans were treating the Belgians terribly.  Although they were not the kindest of occupiers, the most unbelievable claims (such as the roasting and eating of Belgian babies) were unbelievable because they were, in fact, untrue.  Nonetheless, they were viscerally very moving.  Consequently, when the Germans invaded Belgium, the British had to come to the aid of France.

*The Ottoman Empire also joined the war on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary, who became known as the Central Powers, opposed to the Allied powers of France, Britain, Russia, and a few others.  Italy was supposed to ally with Germany and Austria, but decided to sit back and see who was going to win.  When things started looking good for the Allies, Italy switched sides.

*At the time this was seen as a great adventure.  This generation that had thought it had no great task before itself suddenly rushed into the streets to dance and cheer and celebrate.  Their time had come when they could fight for the glory of their country, as their ancestors had done.  Thousands of young men volunteered for the armies of their nations, and Europe went to war cheering.

*The Great War, as it was called at the time, was characterised by the use of new technology.  The most important were machine guns, poison gas, U-boats, and, to a much lesser extent, aircraft.

*Machine guns made it difficult for armies to attack one another.  Instead, troops pinned down by machine gun fire dug personal foxholes, then connected these foxholes with ditches that they expanded into trenches.  These in turn they made deeper and better and more extensive, with communications trenches connected them, bombproof shelters off the side of them, and twists and turns designed to isolate any invading enemy soldiers.  The trenches eventually stretched for hundreds of miles across the French countryside, which was completely cratered by shells until it looked like the surface of the moon.

*The war, at least in the West, devolved into a stalemate, with two vast armies sitting in trenches facing each other across no-man’s-land, and occasionally attacking one another and being mowed down by machine guns.  Millions of men were killed, almost an entire generation in all the European nations that took part in the War.

*America did not get involved much early in the War.  Thanks to the Monroe Doctrine, America valued her independence.  Many people also opposed war on both moral end economic grounds (war being expensive), but others, calling themselves the ‘preparedness movement’ wanted to build weapons and improve the army just in case.  Although Wilson was an idealist and a pacifist, he went along with this.

*Wilson was re-elected in 1916 on a platform of peace; his slogan was ‘he kept up out of war.’  However, some things would eventually force him into the War.

*Most Americans preferred the Allies.  America remained an English nation, and furthermore, Americans heard and largely believed the propaganda Britain promulgated about the Germans, including tales of baby-eating (which would later backfire when people accused Hitler of killing millions of Jews—no-one would believe it or trust propaganda from Europe).  Germans in America (and there were many) were harassed, some even changed their names, and many Germanic names for things were changed, such as liberty cabbage and Salisbury steaks.

19.2
*Part of Germany’s strategy was to blockade Britain with U-boats, but this backfired.  In 1915, a German U-Boat fired upon a British passenger ship carrying several Americans (and, illegally and unknown at the time, a supply of weapons) and sank it.  1,200 passengers, including 128 Americans, died.  Many Americans wanted to go to war, but Wilson refused.

*In 1917, the British intercepted and decoded a German telegram from Arthur Zimmerman, the foreign secretary, making an offer to Mexico.  If Mexico would help Germany and attack the United States, Germany would return to Mexico all the land that Polk took from them during the Mexican War.  Wilson and America were angry about the Zimmerman note, but still Wilson counselled peace.

*In March, the Germans sank three more American ships, and even Wilson, who had campaigned for office with the slogan ‘he kept us out of war’ felt compelled to ask for a declaration of war, which he got, although there was some dissent.  One of the pacifists who voted against the war resolution was Jeannette Rankin of Montana, the first woman in Congress.  She was not re-elected the next time around, and would only return to Congress in 1941, when she would vote against going to war with Japan.

*At Wilson’s behest, America went to war, but not for conquest or power or prestige, but to defeat the tyrants who began the war, and make the world safe for Democracy.  This Great War, Wilson said, would be the last war—it was a war to end war.
 
 

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