1. U.S. Foreign Policy 1899-1941
and World War II Starts in Europe
“When peace has been
broken anywhere, the
peace of all countries
everywhere is in danger.”
Roosevelt

2. Imperialism
• 1899- The U.S. had
acquired an “empire”
(Puerto Rico, Guam,
the Philippines)
• From 1899 to 1919,
the U.S. wanted to
preserve the status
(keep things the
same)

3. World War I
• The great war disrupted
the status quo. The U.S.
entered the war in 1917
• When the war ended in
1919, the U.S. did not
ratify the Treaty of
Versailles or join the
league of nations.
• The U.S. once again
became isolationists,
preferring to not become
entangled in world affairs
American Draft Card WWI

4. Isolation
• Americans disillusioned by
the outcome of WWI were
happy to leave foreign
policy to their leaders
• American leaders believed
that the world needed
exactly what America
needed-peace and
prosperity

5. Isolation continued…
• U.S. foreign policy during the 1920s and 1930s
pursued the goals of peace and prosperity
through three tactics
1. disarmament(1922 Washington Naval
Conference)
2. outlawing war (1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact)
3. nonrecognition (called Stimson Doctrine)

6. The Drift Towards War (WWII)
• 1931- Japanese
march into
Manchuria in Asia
• 1933- Adolf Hitler
became chancellor
of the German
Reich

7. The Drift Towards War
• March 1935- Germany
reinstitutes
conscription and
begins rearming
• Fall of 1935- Italy
invades Ethiopia

8. The Drift Towards War
• March 1936- Germany
remilitarizes the
Rhineland region of
Germany
• 1936/1937- Germany
and Italy form the
Rome-Berlin Axis

9. The Drift Towards War
• March 1938- Germany takes control of
Austria
• September 1938- British Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich
Agreement (appeased Hitler)
• September 1938- England and France
surrender the Sudetenland region of
Czechoslovakia to Germany
• September 1939- Germany takes control
of the remainder of Czechoslovakia
• August 1939- The Soviet Union signed a
nonaggression pact with Hitler
Nazi foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop
(left), Soviet leader Joseph Stalin (center), and
Soviet foreign minister Viacheslav Molotov (right)
at the signing of the nonaggression pact between
Germany and the Soviet Union. Moscow, Soviet
Union, August 1939.

10. World War II Begins in Europe
• September 1, 1939- Germany
invades Poland (Blitzkrieg)
• Britain and France declared
war on Germany two days
later.
• The anti-German coalition (or
later the Allied Powers) at
the start of the war consisted
of France, Poland, the United
Kingdom, and the British
Commonwealth nations
• The United States remained
neutral refusing to take part
in the war in Europe
Stukas over Poland 1939