On May 2nd 1915 the British passenger liner Lusitania was sunk by a torpedo from a German submarine. 1195 passengers, including 128 Americans, lost their lives. Americans were outraged and put pressure on the government to enter the war. Woodrow Wilson (left) campaigned for a peaceful end to the war. He appealed to both sides to try to settle the war by diplomatic means but was unsuccessful.
FDR took a different approach with Japan, he viewed the German threat more prevalent than the Japanese. He strategy was to strangle the island into submission through an economic war. Japan was completely dependent on imports and raw materials from other countries, mainly the US to keep the production of wartime materials. In 1938, Roosevelt issued an embargo against Japan, restricting the trade of steel and oil in hopes to bring Japanese expansion to a halt. With only a six month supply of oil in reserve Japan was forced to make a quick decision that would have an enormous impact on world events.
They wanted to get revenge on Germany for killing their men. Britain demanded that the United States flag was not allowed to be flown at war. The captain of the Lusitania was Captain Turner. Before the night the Lusitania sank, the captain was trying to figure out ways to leave. He figured a U-boat was trying to scope his ship out.
The American entry into WW1 grew out of the navel conflict between Germany and Great Britain. The Germans were using submarine warfare to cripple the British naval forces and on May 7, 1915, more than a hundred Americans were killed during a German strike on the British ship Lusitania. Because of this, the German government suspended unrestricted submarine warfare in September 1915. German naval officers later convinced the German government to let them return to submarine warfare. The return of this led to the U.S. entering the war on April 6, 1917.
It was obviously a threat to surrounding nations. Germany was also forced to take the blame for causing all damage and deaths in the war, so they needed to pay reparations that cost $12 billion and it would be used to repair the damage. Taking the blame for something that was not only Germans' fault angered the population and increased the revenge feeling. Germany's armed forces were reduced and also the army was reduced to 100,000 men and tanks, submarines or
As a result, Germany retaliated with submarine warfare, and even warned that it was inevitable that neutral ships would be mistakenly targeted. So in response, Wilson ordered that merchant ships were to be loaded with U.S. Navy crews so that they could fire at German U-boats when passing through the war zone. The outcome proved to be dire, as 4 ships had been destroyed by the time Wilson went to Congress to ask for the declaration of war. John Bassett Moore, a professor of International Law at Columbia University, who later served at the International Court of Justice, argued that, “what most decisively contributed to the involvement of the United States in the war was the assertion of a right to protect belligerent ships on which Americans saw fit to travel and the treatment of armed belligerent merchantmen as peaceful vessels. Both assumptions were contrary to reason, and no other neutral advanced them”
The Battle of Britain The Battle of Britain was one of the main events that occurred in WW2. The battle began when France had surrendered to the Nazis. Because France had surrendered, Britain was the last unconquered territory in West Europe. The Nazi’s were on the French coast waiting to invade Britain. They hoped the Luftwaffe (the German air force) could smash morale, radar installations and air power before they could sail there troops across the channel to gain control.
5). America was neutral and on one ship 1,260 were dead which showed that Germany didn’t care about neutrality by destroying any ship that wasn’t theirs. Many Americans were outraged at the fact they had sunk an American boat since we were neutral at the time. The Lusitania was later found out to be a ship that carried weapons and passengers. On January 10, 1917 just a few months before America went to war, America got a telegram from Great Britain.
Germany could not sustain a two front war, and the defeat of the Nazis was soon to come. In the Pacific Theater, Japanese army and naval units were trying to push the American Marines away from Japan but were having immense trouble. American troops were chasing the Japanese from island to island until they were close enough to make their final attacks on the island of Japan. With American bombers just outside of Japan, President Truman decided to take at advantage of the United States’ newest weapon, the atomic bomb. On June 6, 1945, an American B-29 dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.
President Truman called on Japan to surrender and when Japan gave an unsatisfactory reply, Truman decided to drop it on Hiroshima. A second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and after a week, Japan surrendered. In 1941, shipments of war materials from the US to Britain were being sunk by German submarines so Roosevelt ordered the navy to use Destroyers. Gradually, the Allies developed ways of containing the submarine menace through the use of radar and sonar. Stalin ordered his troops to fight against the German invaders but suffered huge fatalities.