How far do you agree that America was an isolationist from the years 1920-1941? (24 marks) After the First World War America decided to isolate themselves from the rest of the world and was not interested in becoming involved in European affairs. They were desperate to keep themselves out of war and felt they needed to play no part in European problems. The first act of both the American Government and American people to prove that they wanted to return to isolationism was directly after the war when they rejected Woodrow Wilson’s peace treaty and did not join the League of Nations. The Americans believed that their taxes would pay for the League of Nations and sanctions would be imposed to prevent trading, also many Americans were originally for Europe and came to America to get.
In the 1930’s, neutrality was the United States’ chosen international policy. After World War I, the American population did not want to be involved in another military conflict. Neither did the government. There were, however, events going on in the world that gave reason for the American government to take precautions. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in a small step away from true neutrality, addressed a precaution in the form of “quarantine.” When talking about the growing conflict in the world, President Roosevelt equated such conflict as an epidemic of physical disease, and when such disease spreads “the community approves and joins in a quarantine” for the purpose of containing the epidemic and the “health of the community.” Roosevelt was making a case for continued US neutrality, while acknowledging the conflict burning its way across Europe and Asia.
However source 16 disagrees and states that the British themselves were reluctant to grant India independence. When the British PM, Neville Chamberlain, declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, followed him. He was acting just within the limits of his legal powers to do this without consulting any Indians. This indicated that Britain was still behaving as a master and called into question any of its previous concessions. This furthered the Indian’s desire for independence but they were still faced with the challenges of overcoming the divisions within India.
The Nazis felt like this political group was trying to undermine their “people’s community”. Hitler made it very clear that he did not want the communists in his people community when he and the Nazi party realised their 25 point programme of 1920.However the Nazis also portrayed the socialist and any other party of which had taken part in coalition governments during the Weimar republic as they collaborated with communism and Jewish democracy. Hitler wanted to introduce the policy of volksgeminschaft in this case because if he could eliminate the communists and the other parties who were associated as collaborating with them, the Nazis could then get their votes as they had a high amount of supporters, which would mean them having the majority and coming into power. Anybody who the Nazis believed that represented a threat to the racial purity of which Hitler wanted would come under the socialism categories. This included, Jews, gypsies and those who were seen as mentally or physically unfit.
Therefore the source suggests that Henry’s inability to enforce the ‘newly-imposed head tax’ contributed not only to a lack of funds for wars with France, but also his failure to combat the tax boycott ‘gave [James IV] hope of undertaking something’. Source 2 confirms what is being said in source 1 as it demonstrates that the threat was real, accounting how James did actually invade, taking advantage of Henry's absence, which confirms the suspicions of the Privy Council in source 1. Source 1 also implies that Henry may have had to abandon any plans made to invade France due to the possible Scottish invasion, 'against King Henry in his absence'. Yet the situation was double edged sword; if Henry chose to ignore the potential threat of a Scottish invasion and stayed to campaign in France, he risked the former actually coming true. If however, he decided to return to England in order to discourage James IV from attacking, he would lose progress in France.
Thatcher saw the Unions as trouble makers and as a malevolent influence on the UK's prosperity as a whole so she decided to do something about it, she reduced the unions' power - making strike ballots compulsory and outlawing flying pickets etc and set about selling off nationalised industry. Similarly, David Cameron also views trade unions as a nuisance that disrupt society’s economic growth. In the 1980s, Prime Minister Thatcher had a secure Tory majority and no reputation for making U-turns. That is not true of Mr Cameron's government. Weakness, even perceived weakness, not strength, provokes aggression from the trade union.
Americans did not want to enter the war because they thought they had enough to deal with on their own such as the Great Depression. Americans supported isolationism or staying out of the way of warring nations even though America’s Allies were at war. In World War One America had fought to make the world safe for
On August 31, Roosevelt signed the neutrality act into law. In 1936 the law was renewed, and in 1937 a "comprehensive and permanent" neutrality act was passed. Another reason was because Roosevelt said "We shun political commitments which might entangle us In foreign wars...If we face the choice of profits or peace-this nation must answer, the nation will answer 'we choose peace' ",in which they did. In 1939 a poll that had been taken showed that ninety-four per cent of the citizens did not want the United States to enter the war. Americans were still recuperating from the devastating effects of WWI.
He felt strongly about keeping good relations with other countries, but at the same time warned Americans of the danger of remaining isolated from a world that was slowly being taken over by dictators in Germany, Italy, and Japan. He was in turn dominated by an isolationists Congress that felt that U.S involvement in World War I was a big mistake and were determined to prevent the United States from being drawn into another European war. When World War II broke out in Europe in 1939, Roosevelt called Congress into special session to revise neutrality acts to permit allies to buy American arms on a “cash-and-carry” basis. But Great Britain quickly became
This was an uprising by a group of communists led by Rosa Luxembourg and Karl Liebknecht. They tried to start a communist revolution in Germany but it was crushed by the Freikorps, a group of ex-German soldiers hired by the government to put an end to the uprising. This was a problem for the government because it showed that it was under threat and it also made the government look weak because they could not stop the uprising themselves and had to hire the Freikorps to do it for them. This also lead to them becoming more unpopular. Later in 1919 the Weimar government signed the treaty of Versailles.