Those Angry Days - American Foreign Policy Between the Wars [1919 to 1941]

The rancorous internal squabbles that gripped the United States debate over American intervention in World War II—

a bitter, sometimes violent clash of personalities and ideas that divided the nation and ultimately determined the fate of the free world.

Prompt: To what extent did the goals of American foreign policy change in the years 1920-1941? For what reasons did these goals change?   

Treaty of Versailles (1919)

Washington Disarmament Conference (1921)

Benito Mussolini  (1922)
Rise of Joseph Stalin  (1924)

The Dawes Plan (1924)

Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928)

Good Neighbor Policy (1929)
Pan-Americanism (1930's).

The Shadow of  War – Aggressors on the March [ 1931 to 1941]

"'Appeasement' of the dictators, symbolized by the ugly word Munich, turned out to be merely surrender on the

installment plan.  It was like giving a cannibal a finger in the hope of saving an arm."

The rise of Hitler

1931  Japan invades Manchuria | Hoover-Stimson Doctrine             

1933  Hitler elected Chancellor of Germany

1933  London Economic Conference

1935 US Passes first Neutrality Act
1938  German invasion of the Sudetenland|1939 Munich Conference  (Appeasement)
1939  Hitler/Stalin Non -Aggression Pact 

Those Angry Days – Storm Cellar Neutrality, 1936 to 1940

"Storm-cellar neutrality proved to be tragically shortsighted. America falsely assumed that the decision for peace or war lay

in its own hands, not in those of the satanic forces already unleashed in the world."

Neutrality Act (1935)

Spanish Civil War (1936)

US Neutrality  Acts ( 1936 to 1939)

FDR "Arsenal of Democracy" speech (1939)

America First Committee (September 1940)

Selective Service and Training Act ( September 1940)

Destroyer-Bases Deal (September 1940)

   And War Came, 1941

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, stunned virtually everyone
in the United States military. Japan's carrier-launched bombers found Pearl Harbor totally unprepared.

The Four Freedoms Speech (January 1941)

Lend-Lease (April 1941)

Embargo of 1941  (July 1941)

Atlantic Conference and the Atlantic Charter (August 1941)

Pearl Harbor Attack December 7  1941  

Those Angry Days - Archives