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November 1918. Finally both Germany and the Allied leaders agreed to discuss armistice terms on the basis of the Fourteen Points with certain reservations. German emissaries came through the Allied lines on 7 November 1918 to Foch's traveling headquarters, located in a railroad car near Compiègne. At 0500 hours on 11 November an armistice agreement was signed, effective at 1100 hours on the same day.

By the terms of the Armistice the new German republic—the Kaiser had abdicated and fled to Holland on 9 November-agreed to the following military provisions: (1) evacuation of all occupied territory within two weeks; (2) surrender to the Allies of 5,000 pieces of artillery, 25,000 machineguns, 1,700 airplanes, 5,000 locomotives, 150,000 railroad cars, and 5,000 trucks; (3) immediate return of all Allied prisoners of war; (4) evacuation of the west bank of the Rhine and the bridgeheads of Mainz, Coblenz, and Cologne on the east bank; (5) demilitarization of a sixmile strip on the east bank; (6) surrender of all submarines and internment of most of the German fleet in neutral or Allied ports. The Armistice also imposed severe political and economic terms, including continuation of the blockade and payment of reparations for damages.

After a six-day pause at the Armistice line, Allied armies moved into the territory of France, Belgium, and Luxembourg previously held by the Germans, and on 1 December began the advance into Germany proper. By mid-December the bridgeheads at Coblenz, Cologne, and Mainz were secured. The American Third Army was organized 7-15 November and designated as the Army of Occupation (14 November). It was composed of the III Corps (1st, 2d, and 32d Divisions), IV Corps (3d, 4th, and 42d Divisions), VII Corps (89th and 90th Divisions), and numerous supporting units. This Army took over the American zone of occupation, which included the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the Moselle valley, and the Coblenz bridgehead.

THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES. The Peace Conference was formally opened at Paris on 18 January 1919, with 70 delegates representing 27 of the vic

torious powers. Germany was excluded from the deliberations until the terms of the treaty were submitted to her delegation on 7 May 1919. The treaty was signed in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles on 28 June. Its terms included provisions for: (1) a League of Nations; (2) territorial cessions by Germany (including Alsace-Lorraine to France, Danzig to be a free city, and her colonies to the Allies as League mandates); (3) limitation of the German military establishment to an army of 100,000, a navy of 6 warships, and no submarines or military aircraft; (4) Allied occupation of the Rhineland for 15 years and demilitarization of the east bank of the Rhine; (5) various economic penalties and restrictions, including payment of reparations for war damages and cost of the occupation; (6) acceptance by Germany of sole responsibility for the war.

The United States Senate failed to approve ratification of the Treaty of Versailles when it came up for a final vote on 19 March 1920. Legally, therefore, a state of war continued between the United States and Germany until it was formally ended by the Treaty of Berlin on 25 August 1921.

DEMOBILIZATION. Planning for demobilization of the wartime Army had just started when the fighting ended. The War Department decided that the traditional method of demobilization by units would disrupt the economy least and permit maintenance of an adequate force for postwar duties. Immediate steps were taken to discharge units at home through thirty regional demobilization centers located throughout the country.

Plans were made for returning the A.E.F. to the United States as quickly as possible. Cargo vessels were converted into troop transports and the Navy brought soldiers back on cruisers and battleships. By May 1919 the monthly rate of return reached 330,000. Soldiers debarking in the United States were sent to the regional centers for demobilization. A year after the Armistice more than 3,400,000 men had been discharged.

While troops in France awaited shipment home, every effort was made to keep them usefully occupied. Military

training was continued in order to maintain high standards of discipline and keep the A.E.F. prepared for renewal of the fighting if the prolonged peace negotiations should break down. A vast system of schools was established in the A.E.F. for men who wished to continue their civilian education. Post schools provided elementary education to some 180,000; divisional centers gave high school and vocational training to some 27,000; French and English universities, and a new military university at Beaune, admitted nearly 17,000. Similar educational opportunities were made available to men awaiting discharge in the United States. All kinds of recreational opportunities were also provided to relieve the monotony of training and waiting for shipment home. There were some 650 "soldier shows"; numerous athletic competitions; several planned tours of France, Italy, Belgium, and Great Britain; and many organized leave and rest areas.

By August 1919 the only American troops remaining in Europe were the occupation forces in Germany and small

caretaker detachments stationed at the few American installations elsewhere. The Third Army was disbanded on 2 July 1919, and on the following day the occupation troops still in Germany were designated the American Forces in Germany. These forces gradually declined from nearly 16,000 in June 1920 to about 1,200 in December 1922. The last thousand Americans left the Rhine on 24 January 1923.

U. S. ARMED FORCES STRENGTH AND CASUALTIES. In the period 6 April 1917-11 November 1918, a total of 4,734,991 persons (Army, 4,057,101; Navy, 599,051; Marines, 78,839) served in the Armed Forces of the United States. Battle deaths, including died-of-wounds and prisoners-of-war deaths, totaled 53,407 (Army, 50,510; Navy, 436; Marines, 2,461). Nonbattle deaths totaled 63,156 (Army, 55,868; Navy, 6,898; Marines, 390). Wounds not mortal totaled 204,002 (Army, 193,663; Navy, 819; Marines, 9,520). Of the 2,084,000 servicemen who reached France, it is estimated that about 1,390,000 saw active service at the front.

WORLD WAR II

THE WAR BEFORE AMERICA'S ENTRY. Immediate Causes. Barely twenty years after the conclusion of peace following World War I-widely hailed as "the war to end all wars"-a new world conflict arose in Europe. The Treaty of Versailles did not bring to Europe the era of permanent peace and international security predicted by its formulators. Rather it became the focal point for the development of a profound dissatisfaction and disillusionment with the postwar settlement, out of which grew those movements and trends that culminated in World War II. The responsibility for the maintenance of the system of collective security established by the Versailles settlement rested, in the final analysis, upon the victorious democracies of World War I-France, Great Britain, and the United States. But this system collapsed completely in the thirties, when the democratic powers failed to uphold it in the face of repeated attacks by resurgent antidemocratic

forces in Europe bent upon repudiating the whole Versailles settlement.

For a little more than a decade after World War I there was a kind of illusory period of peace. In retrospect it seems to have been the result of warweariness and exhaustion of the great powers rather than the effective operation of the new collective security system. In this brief period there was a general acknowledgment of the sanctity of treaties and international law. Earnest attempts were made to limit armaments (Washington Conference, 1921-22; London Naval Conference, 1930; Geneva Disarmament Conference, 1932); to guarantee existing frontiers as established at Versailles (Locarno Treaties, 1925); and to outlaw war as an instrument of national policy (KelloggBriand Pact, 1928). As a further safeguard France negotiated a system of alliances with Poland and the Little Entente (Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Romania-a cordon sanitaire

around the borders of Germany-designed to further strengthen the Versailles security system.

The most serious challenge to the Versailles system of collective security came from the totalitarian regimes that rose to power in those states most dissatisfied with the status quo as established by the post-World War I treaties. A threat to world peace and a fundamental challenge to the basic political and social philosophy of the democracies were implicit in totalitarianism. The one-party dictatorship typical of the totalitarian state rejected completely all democratic political processes and civil liberties. The rights of the individual were subordinated entirely to the interests of the state. In the sphere of international relations as in the drive to attain its domestic goals, the totalitarian state advocated the ruthless application of force. Since peaceful methods of negotiation and adherence to international law were looked upon as devices for preserving the status quo, totalitarian governments deliberately ignored or defied them.

Thus, by the later 1930's the whole basis of international relations founded upon the peace settlement of 1919 was breaking down. Replacing the system of collective security was a new division of the great powers into the totalitarian states (Germany, Italy, and Japan) and the democratic states (France, Great Britain, and the United States). Standing isolated outside both camps temporarily was the Soviet Union, an antidemocratiic nation which could align itself with either side and upset the precarious new balance of power. The international Communist movement (the Comintern), sponsored by the Soviet Government, served to abet the growth of extremist anti-Communist factions in some totalitarian states (e.g., Italy and Germany), while it divided and weakened liberal, democratic forces in the democracies (e.g., France and England).

Beginning in 1931 the fabric of the post-World War I international system was rent repeatedly by the aggressive acts of the totalitarian nations, who grew increasingly bolder and more contemptuous of the status quo with each new success. Lending added impetus to

these aggressions was the soon revealed weakness and discord existing among the democracies. They were much too intent on trying to solve their own domestic problems arising from the depression to be able to present a united front of resistance to the aggressors in the League of Nations and in diplomatic negotiations. Instead, democratic statesmen fell back upon unilateral policies of appeasement dictated by their own immediate national interests, and upon development of ever more powerful defensive measures (e.g., the Maginot Line in France). The system of collective security and the League were allowed to pass into limbo almost by default.

Japan was the first to resort to aggressive measures in open defiance of the status quo. Japanese forces invaded Manchuria in September 1931, defeated its Chinese defenders, and eventually established the puppet state of Manchukuo. The United States (the Stimson Doctrine, 1932) and the League of Nations (the Lytton Report, 1933) condemned Japan's aggressive action, which was in violation of the Open Door Policy and the Nine-Power Treaty (1922). Japan set the pattern for later aggressions by other totalitarian states by ignoring the protests of the United States and by eventually withdrawing from the League (effective in 1935). Primarily because of the opposition of Great Britain, the League decided not to order economic sanctions against Japan.

The conquest of China by Japan continued with only a brief period of interruption (1933-37), merging in 1941 into the Pacific phase of World War II. After completing the conquest of Manchuria in 1933 the Japanese began a forced penetration of North China, and in July 1937 resumed fullscale hostilities in that area. In the next two years the Japanese captured all the major cities in China. In November 1937 Chiang Kai-shek, the Chinese Nationalist leader, was forced to move his capital from Nanking to Chungking, deep in the interior.

The League and the United States condemned the renewal of Japanese aggression in China in 1937, but to no avail. When Japanese bombers sank the American gunboat Panay on 12 De

cember 1937 while it was carrying on legitimate business on the Yangtze River, American neutrality was given a severe test. But the Japanese Government promptly apologized and paid an indemnity. Great Britain and the United States strengthened China's resistance to Japan with substantial loans and supplies, as did also the Soviet Union. After the fall of France, Japan occupied northern French Indochina (September 1940), in what appeared to be a preparatory step toward further aggression in Southeast Asia.

Adolph Hitler and his National Socialist party had come into power in Germany in January 1933. The Nazis lost no time in establishing a fullfledged totalitarian regime, which promised the Germans release from the "bondage" of the Treaty of Versailles and inclusion of all members of their "race" under the control of one government. Immediate measures were undertaken to reestablish Germany as a great military power. In October 1933 Germany withdrew from the Geneva Disarmament Conference and the League. In March 1935 Hitler denounced the disarmament provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. The signatories of the Treaty supinely acquiesced in these German moves. Thus, in June 1935, Germany secured an agreement with Great Britain that permitted expansion of the German navy to thirty-five percent of the British.

Under the leadership of Benito Mussolini and his Fascist party, a totalitarian state had been in the making in Italy since 1922. The Italian armed forces were greatly enlarged, and by 1935 Mussolini was ready to achieve his long-heralded ambition of expanding Italy's oversea empire. Italian forces invaded Ethiopia in October. The League voted to invoke economic sanctions against Italy, including embargoes on arms, credit, and raw materials (oil was excluded). But the amply-armed Italians, helped by many loopholes in the sanctions enforcement scheme, had no difficulty in completing the conquest of Ethiopia by May 1936. This failure of the League marked its demise as an effective political machine. Taking advantage of the Ethiopian crisis, Germany reoccupied the demilitarized

Rhineland in March 1936, in direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties.

In July 1936 civil war broke out in Spain when a conservative military party, led by General Francisco Franco, attacked the republican government. Italy and Germany sent ground and air contingents of "volunteers" to reinforce Franco's Insurgents, while the Soviet Union furnished the Loyalist republican forces with loans and equipment. These states simply ignored the international nonintervention agreement arranged by Great Britain and France in November 1936, even though Germany and Italy were parties to it. This conflict not only provided Germany and Italy with an invaluable opportunity to test their military forces, but also greatly enhanced their prestige when the Insurgents emerged victorious in 1939.

Agreements growing out of the Spanish War established more clearly the division of the powers into fascist and nonfascist groups. A German-Italian Pact of October 1936 laid the basis for the Rome-Berlin Axis. Then Japan joined the fascist camp when she and Germany signed an agreement directed against the Communists (the Anti-Comintern Pact) in November 1936. Italy (1937), Spain (1939), and Hungary (1939) subsequently adhered to this anti-Communist agreement.

In the Axis Pact of 1936 Italy and Germany had agreed that the Italians should have the Mediterranean region as their area of future expansion, while the Germans took central Europe as their sphere of aggrandizement. Germany had already begun effective economic penetration of east-central and southeastern Europe. Several states (Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Greece) in this area had negotiated diplomatic and trade agreements with Germany. By 1938 Hitler was ready to upset the territorial status quo in Central Europe. He would justify his new aggressions on the ground that all German-speaking peoples should be incorporated in a greater Germany. Backed up by his own strong alliance system and increasingly powerful armed forces, Hitler anticipated little serious resistance, from an isolated Russia and a demoralized France and England, to the reestablish

ment of German hegemony in Mitteleuropa.

In March 1938 German forces marched into Austria, and the 6,700,000 inhabitants of that small state, mostly German-speaking, were annexed to Nazi Germany. The democracies accepted this fait accompli with scarcely a murmur. By this move Hitler had acquired a direct road to central Europe and another side from which to threaten Czechoslovakia, last major obstacle to German penetration of the rich lower Danube Valley.

Czechoslovakia, with a strong army (40 divisions), a major munitions industry, a democratic government, and powerful friends, posed a continuous menace to German expansionist ambitions. Some three million Germanspeaking people lived in the Sudetenland, the westernmost part of the Czech state. Hitler began agitating for the union of this region with Germany in the spring of 1938. Finally, in September, he demanded immediate cession of the Sudetenland on the pretext of liberating its German inhabitants. Russia appeared ready to support Czechoslovakia in the ensuing crisis, but France (with whom the Czechs had a formal alliance) and Great Britain once more fell back on a policy of appeasement. On 29 September, at the Munich Conference, Premier Daladier and Prime Minister Chamberlain came to an agreement with Mussolini and Hitler for the partition of Czechoslovakia. In consequence the Czechs were forced to give up some thirty percent of their territory to Germany (Sudetenland), Poland (Teschen), and Hungary. At the same time Slovakia demanded and was granted autonomy. After Munich Hitler gave a solemn pledge to respect the independence of the rump Czech state; nevertheless, the Nazis proceeded to occupy the rest of the country in March 1939, designating the Czech and Slovak parts as "protectorates" with German gover

nors.

The dismemberment of the Czech state made all too clear the real intent of Hitler's expansionist policy. By this seizure of Czechoslovakia Hitler had dealt the final blow to the French system of alliances with the small states of central and eastern Europe. The way

now seemed open for the relatively easy achievement of a German-dominated Mitteleuropa.

The emergence of Germany as the greatest power on the Continent and the growing menace of the Italians in the Mediterranean finally compelled the English and French to take concerted action. On 23 March 1939 Hitler annexed Memel from Lithuania; he simultaneously demanded restoration of Danzig and the right to construct an extraterritorial railway and highway across the Polish Corridor, in return for a guarantee of Polish frontiers and a nonaggression pact. Poland rejected these demands, and on 1 March England and France guaranteed the Polish Government aid in the event of aggression. This guarantee was expanded into a mutual assistance pact on 6 April. After Mussolini seized Albania on 7 April a similar Anglo-French guarantee was extended to Romania and Greece, and in the next two months mutual assistance agreements were negotiated between Turkey and England and France. In retaliation against these AngloFrench moves, Germany renounced a 10-year nonaggression pact made with Poland in 1934 and the naval limitations agreement concluded with England in 1935. Britain and France dispatched diplomatic and military missions to the USSR in May 1939 at the invitation of the newly appointed foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, to discuss terms for an alliance. While these talks were still in progress in Moscow, Hitler and Stalin, the Soviet dictator, startled the world with the announcement, on 23 August 1939, that they had signed a nonaggression pact. This diplomatic revolution nullified in effect the Anti-Comintern Pact and weakened the Rome-Berlin Axis. But it freed both Germany and the Soviet Union temporarily from the fear of a two-front war.

Hitler now proceeded to push his demands against Poland. The British warned the Nazi leader that they were prepared to come to Poland's assistance and suggested direct negotiations, to which Poland agreed. On 29 August Hitler made a pretence at agreement by requesting that a special Polish envoy appear in Berlin the next day to

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