230 likes | 340 Views
World War I and the United States. Schlieffen Plan. The Western Front. Trench Warfare. New Weapons. Mass Participation. The. U.S. enters the war, April 6, 1917. Proximate causes: German resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare. Zimmerman telegram Woodrow Wilson sought grand goals
E N D
The. U.S. enters the war, April 6, 1917 • Proximate causes: • German resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare. • Zimmerman telegram • Woodrow Wilson sought grand goals • Reshaping of international order (embodied in 14 points)
Mobilization Issues • Manpower • Industrial production • Organization
The Selective Service Act, May 1917 • All males age 21-30 to register for draft: • Later extended to males aged 18-45 • Local civilian boards selected draftees. • Equitable exemption & recruitment policy: • No bounties, substitutions or commutations.
1917: Assessing the Draft • 9-10 million men registered in June. • 3 million called to service. • 1 million rejected: physically unfit. • 1 million obtained other exemptions. • 500,000 enter military service by end of year. • 700,000 men volunteered for Army and National Guard.
How Many Men? • 1917: Army decides AEF should have 1.3 million men in 30 divisions by end of 1918. • July 1918: AEF to expand to • 80 divisions by May 1919 • 52 by end of 1918. • AEF had 43 division at war’s end.
Sources for Officers? • Regular Army enlisted ranks • R.O.T.C. (and related Student Army Training Corps). • Officer training schools camps/schools (for enlistees/volunteers)
Economic Difficulties • Competing markets • Foreign: military and civilian • U.S.: military and civilian • Growth of U.S. military sector • Ideological/bureaucratic impediments • Organizational discord
War Organizations & Initiatives • War Industries Board (1917) • War Shipping Board & Emergency Fleet Corporation (1916) • Food Administration (1917) • War Trade Board (1917) • management of railroads • Liberty Bonds
Evaluation • The good: • cantonments • basic supplies • The bad: • arms production
U.S. Navy and the Atlantic • Primary danger: U-boats.
The push for convoys • William S. Sims
Requirements for ASW • Escort ships • Destroyers • “splinter fleet” • Merchant ships • Sailors
Technological Fix • North Sea Mine Barrage, 1918