"We have sought steadfastly to assist international movements to prevent war. We shun political commitments which might entangle us in foreign wars…Yet we must remember that so long as war exists on earth there will be some danger that even the Nation which most ardently desires peace may be drawn into war."
-President Franklin Roosevelt in a speech at Chautauqua, New York, August 14, 1936
The years between the end of the First World War in 1918 and the beginning of the Second World War in 1939 were a time of social and political upheaval. The issues that precipitated World War I, " industrialization, expanding technologies, empire building, nationalistic rivalries, the growth of mass political participation, and emerging and existing ideologies including Marxism and capitalism" were not resolved by the end of the War (Wagner 1). In fact, the War and the resulting treaties with Germany in which they were required to give up territories, do without weapons, a military or naval air force, and make financial restitution to the Allied nations, only exacerbated the feeling of the German people, and Adolf Hitler in particular, that Germany had been treated more harshly than it deserved and served as a catalyst in Hitler's rise to power (Wagner 5).
The years between the wars also saw the outbreak of the influenza epidemic that killed 50 million people, some 500,000 of them in the United States, and the Great Depression that began in 1929, both events also hindering efforts at rebuilding by countries in Europe devastated by the First World War (Wagner 2).
The impact of the First World War on the United States was not felt as keenly as it was in Europe for two reasons: the United States did not enter the war until 1917, three years after it began, and no battles took place on U.S. territory so there were no civilian losses (Wagner 4). The one major impact it did have, however, was the pursuit of an isolationist policy that had the support of the American people and the Congress. This postwar policy led to the election in 1918 of a conservative Republican Congress that did not agree with Woodrow Wilson's support of the League of Nations, nor his progressive domestic policies (Wagner 2). The tide of conservatism and isolationism in America also led to the election of Republican Warren G. Harding in 1920 under his platform "return to normalcy" (Wagner 2).
The advent of the Great Depression in 1929 cemented the isolationist feelings in the United States because the American people and Congress felt the United States had enough troubles of its own without involving itself with those of foreign countries. The growth of the isolationist movement during the 1930s resulted in Congressional legislation being passed, beginning in 1934 with the Johnson Act which "banned financial credit to governments that had not met their monetary obligations to the United States" (Wagner 32). The first Neutrality Act in 1935 established
Neutrality vs. Aide: A Political Dilemma
The expectations of the British government that assistance from the United States would be forthcoming were based on the assurances of President Franklin Roosevelt that "If Britain is to survive, we must act", and the resultant passage of the Lend-Lease Act of March 11, 1941 (Olson 6). President Roosevelt had to fight hard against the isolationist movement in America to get the bill passed. The isolationists feared that passage of the bill would bring the United States that much closer to war, but Roosevelt convinced Congress the United States could not abandon those nations fighting against the Axis powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan. To allay the fears of the isolationists that aiding Britain would result in the United States entering the war, the Lend-Lease Act was worded in such a way that it allowed President Roosevelt to ship weapons, food, or equipment to any country fighting the Axis powers as a means of defending the United States.
America's isolationist movement was founded not only on the Neutrality Acts revised in 1936 to "prevent all trade with belligerent powers" (Cull 5), but also as a result of the Anglophobia that remained 150 years after the American Revolution. In addition, many Americans also felt that they had been duped, by Britain's propaganda campaign, into the First World War and wanted nothing to do with the impending conflict (Cull 9). Many Americans, like Charles Lindbergh, were very vocal in voicing their opinions against the involvement of the United States in a war that had nothing to do with America.
There were those, however, who admired the British. According to Cull, "a Gallup poll of April 1937 found that 55 percent of American voters considered Britain to be the "European country" they "liked best" (7). During the period before 1939, many of Britain's elite and members of its diplomatic corps married Americans (Cull 8). Both Harold Macmillan and Winston Churchill had American mothers, and Sir Robert Vansittart, Permanent Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and the British Ambassador to the United States, Sir Ronald Lindsey, married Americans (Cull 8). According to Cull, "a survey of 132 members of Parliament in 1938 revealed that more than one in ten had family ties to the United States, while one in five had large personal economic interests in that country" (8).
Although Britain desperately needed the supplies and munitions America could provide, it was because of their propaganda efforts during the First World War that they realized they couldn't run another such campaign in America because they "had worn out their welcome by successfully bringing the United States into World War I" (Cull 9). However, despite America's knowledge of British propaganda techniques and their determination "to be on guard" (Cull 10) against future propaganda efforts, the British, particularly Churchill, would again use subtle and not so subtle means to persuade the United States to provide the assistance needed.
While the British Foreign Office proclaimed a "No Propaganda" (Cull 10) policy after World War I, they did maintain a small press bureau in New York City called the British Library of Information. This office directed its efforts at becoming the source of authority about anything British to influential Americans (Cull 11). Their contacts, however, were limited, and it wasn't until the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) began its "Empire Service" broadcasts in 1932 that American's interest in Britain began to revive (Cull 12). These broadcasts became the start of another round of subtle British propaganda.
A couple of years later, in 1934, in response to British criticism of his New Deal, "President Roosevelt suggested a regular exchange of radio news commentaries between Britain and the United States over the Columbia Broadcasting System and the BBC" (Cull 12). This exchange eventually led to the opening of the BBC's New York office in 1935 and an opportunity for Britain foster better relations with the people of the United States (Cull 12).
While the United States had been arguing over whether to send supplies and munitions to Britain during the summer and autumn of 1940, German U-boats in the Atlantic "were sinking hundreds of thousands of tons of merchant shipping each month, with losses that more than doubled in less than four months (Olson 5). Britain was on the edge of starvation. Imports of food and raw materials were cut almost in half resulting in severe shortages and high prices of everything from meat to timber (Olson 5).
Deployment of any weapons, food, or equipment to England and other countries fighting Germany and Italy was a slow process, particularly with regard to weapons and machinery. While both the Army Chief of Staff, General George Marshall, and the Navy chief, Admiral Harold Stark, believed it important to provide aid to Britain, they were not in favor of giving up what little weapons and other supplies either service had at that time if it would be important for the defense of America (Olson 67). In early 1941, the United States military, long underfunded by Congress and the White House, ranked seventeenth in size compared to other world forces (Olson 67). The Army had little more than 300,000 men, most of whom were recently drafted, compared to Germany's 4 million and Britain's 1.6 million (Olson 67). The U.S. Navy was a little better off, but nearly half of their vessels dated to World War I, and the Army Air Corps had approximately only two thousand combat aircraft (Olson 67).
Another reason for the delay in sending aid to Britain was due to the fact that many in the military were intensely Anglophobic, and were convinced that Britain would soon be defeated (Olson 68). Averell Harriman, Roosevelt's appointee to oversee Lend-Lease in Britain, soon realized that, in order to convince the American military that U.S. munitions and other materiel were urgently needed by the British, he would have to persuade Churchill and the British government to provide compelling evidence of that need (Olson 68).
