HIST
Abbera
WorldWarI20222.pptxWorld War I: Part I
Professor Mindi Sitterud-McCluskey
World War I: Overview
World War I: 1914-1918
World War I became ignited in 1914 and continued for over four years. Its causes can be summarized as European imperialism, greed among the European ruling class, and the rise of European ultra-nationalism.
It was a European war that became extended to European-held colonies. It resulted in the creation of additional European-held colonies after the Ottoman Empire became shattered and carved-up. Former Ottoman subjects living in the Levant-- Syrians, Palestinians, and Iraqis, set out to create a democratic republic for themselves, only to become coerced into colonial rule by France and Britain.
The European Zionist movement took a large step toward the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine (Israel) as a result of WWI; the House of Saud (Saudi Arabia) entered a partnership with Britain whereby oil and the policing of the Levant would be exchanged for weapons and extraordinary wealth, and the people of Russia became galvanized by wartime conditions into a revolution, resulting in the USSR as well as a British led Allied invasion of a former ally.
From a national security perspective, it made little sense for the US to enter Europe’s war. Nevertheless, it did so during the final year of the conflict in opposition to public opinion and with unprecedented state coercion and manipulation.
April 6, 1917: The US declared war on Germany
Spring 1918: US soldiers officially entered the conflict
November 11, 1918: The war ended.
World War I
WWI produced unprecedented carnage and destruction: The world had not yet seen, nor anticipated, such a large-scale slaughter and more diabolical weaponry.
The conflict saw industrialization and science become fully integrated into war-making.
Factories which had churned out consumer goods became transformed into war machines.
Civilians became military targets because they built the weapons and grew the food which sustained the soldiers on the front-lines. Thus, more than a war between soldiers, WWI constituted a Total War.
By the time the armistice was signed, November 11, 1918:
Nearly 90 million people had fought
9-10 million soldiers had been killed on the battlefield.
20-22 million people had been killed, total.
20 million people had been seriously wounded (paralyzed, amputated, etc.)
US losses 116,516 soldiers of 4.7 million mobilized
Germany lost 1.8 soldiers (killed), 4 million wounded (55% of mobilized)
Russia: 1.7 million soldiers killed, 5 million wounded (76% of mobilized)
France: 1.3 soldiers million killed
While the fighting devastated much of Europe, the US home-front escaped military attack. There was war at home, however; a war against all who did not fall in-line with entering what was, for the US, a non-defensive war.
Allied Powers
France
Britain and its Empire
Russia* (until 1917)
Serbia
Belgium
Montenegro
Japan
Italy
Romania (1916-18)
Portugal (1916-18)
Greece (1917-18)
US (1917-18)
Central Powers
Germany
Austria-Hungry
Ottoman Empire
Bulgaria
*Russia: In 1917, Russia left the war due to an uprising at home. The Russian Revolution was largely triggered by hardships resulting from WWI, including the senseless slaughter of soldiers on the battlefield and shortages of food and necessities on the home-front
Major Causes of WWI
World War I: Overview
Causes and Contributing Factors
A desperate and dying global hegemon
The British Empire had fallen into decline.
As is the lifecycle of an empire, the British Empire had overexpanded itself militarily abroad to secure profit-making opportunities for a relatively small group of men. In the process, the home-front had become gutted and neglected, leading to economic downturn and a loss of intellectual and cultural rigor. It had also become politically dysfunctional through the corruption which empire’s breed.
Germany, by contrast, was on the rise.
It had expanded moderately in terms of empire while surpassing Britain in economic growth and intellectual/technological development. It further developed constructive relations with the Ottoman Empire and commenced tapping into a new energy resource: Oil.
Britain sought to “knock the legs out from under” Germany, or, otherwise prevent its ascendance, and it became partnered with France and Tsarist Russia to do so in the interest of maintaining a status quo that the ruling class of all three nations benefitted from. This is the essential and fundamental tension without which there would not have been a continental war.
Enrichment: Rising Germany
The British Empire had risen through a combination of colonial conquest and industrial production. The British working class made the British empire the “workshop of the world” by the mid-1800s. In the decades approaching WWI, however, Germany surpassed the economic growth rate of Britain:
Germany was second only to the United States in industrial production and exports (that British investors were heavily embedded in the US economy rendered US growth acceptable).
It experienced solid growth in the steel and coal industries and motor engineering.
Manufacturing increased 4x in 40 years, w/exports increasing 3x.
German manufactures were squeezing British competitors out of home-front and capturing markets abroad.
Germany’s standard of living was on the rise & employment levels were good
Economic health was reflected in a rapidly growing population.
Germany was also outpacing Britain in education.
For example, Germany claimed 60,000 university students to Britain’s 6,000, with 3,000 graduate engineers to Britain’s 300 annually.
Germany was developing constructive trade relationships with the Ottoman Empire and Austrian Empire, and gaining access to oil resources (then, a newly coveted energy source)
Enrichment: Rising Germany
Trade and Oil Resources
Having forged a constructive partnership with the Ottoman Empire, Germany was developing international railroads into the Middle East and Eastern Europe to facilitate trade, including in the new markets for oil.
In construction: A Bagdad to Berlin Railway that would have connected the Ottoman Empire to Germany
Financed by Deutsche Bank, the rail-line proposed to transport a range of commercial, agricultural and industrial goods between Europe and the Middle East, including petroleum / oil.
A German engineer, Gottleib Daimler, had recently developed the world’s first workable petroleum motor. This greatly increased the importance of oil to European militaries. Put another way, the days of coal-powered navies were numbered.
Powerful British and American capitalists, including the Rockefellers, were invested in US oil (then the greatest producer) and creeping into Middle Eastern deposits. They viewed German oil interests as a threat to their oil profits.
Major Causes: WWI
Wars that respond to the economic growth of one nation threatening the profits and power of another nation’s ruling class are typically preceded by years of disinformation, propaganda and emotional manipulation intended to shape public perceptions toward war. The overriding message: [Germany] is innately evil and threatens the safety and security of [the British people].
Propaganda and Fear Mongering
Hence, years ahead of the outbreak of World War I, certain British “influencers” began to produce an outpouring of scare-stories meant to dehumanize, vilify and distort Germany and emotionally manipulate the British public into fearing and hating Germans.
These sources included newspapers owned by capitalist plutocrats or influenced by them through advertising revenue. Some plutocrats had investments tied to the British Empire and industries “threatened” by German industrial growth. Some merely understood that sensationalism sells.
Sources also included writers, academics, film-makers and politicians who saw a career niche in manipulating the emotions of the public and stoking feelings of nationalism with a manufactured threat.
In truth, Germany did not threaten the British people and home-front prior to the war, but its economic growth did threaten the profit-interests of certain British elite.
Major Causes: WWI
Typical Propaganda Tropes (which remain with us, today)
The Immigrant Subversive: During an age of transnational labor migrations, many German workers migrated to and through British industrial hubs. As in the US, some immigrants settled into a new citizenship and others sought only a temporary source of wages. In this context, British articles and novels such as “The Enemy in Our Midst” (Walter Wood, 1906) portrayed Germans in Britain as a national security threat and innately loyal to the “Fatherland.” Thus, even as they served in the British military, taught in British schools, and labored in British industries, Germans became tainted with suspicion of subversion.
The Dehumanized “Other”: Famed imperialist poet and novelist, Rupyard Kipling coined the phrase “hun” and wrote about Germans as a lesser and separate breed of humans or non-humans: “There are only two divisions in Europe today, human beings and Germans.” He referred to them as beasts, microbes (diseases who infect others), and devils who do evil because it is their nature.
Imminent Invasion: As the German economy grew and quality of life rose, writers insinuated that this ascent was somehow rooted in an ambition of invade Britain and hurt the British people. This propaganda tactic functioned to apply pressure to the British government to increase munitions purchases. Cui bono? Who benefits?
Major Causes: WWI
As will be true of the US in relation to Soviet Russia by the mid-1900s, the scare-stories, vilification, and disinformation advanced the personal interests certain individuals and entities. The “German Menace” bolstered careers, sold books, magazines, and films, justified the purchase of munitions and weapon stockpiles, and conditioned minds toward a war that industrialists, merchants, and bankers sought to wage years before its outbreak.
The propaganda only accelerated after the war had begun. Many of the same sources accused Germans of the most ludicrous crimes, including bayonetting babies and crucifying Christians (never mind that most Germans were Christian). No evidence was presented. None was required. The Germans had already become stripped of rational motives and humanity in popular portrayals ahead of the war.
As a global conflict, World War I also became set in motion by the larger Age of Empire and nation formation.
Competition Among European Empires Abroad
As European nations became industrialized, many pushed further into the world in search of colonies to exploit, markets to manipulate, and economies to control. With imperial expansion came competition among European powers, and competition beget militarism and chauvinism ,
Major Causes: WWI
Competition and Nation Formation Within
The Age of Revolution broke a pattern of kingdoms and empires by formulating the concept of “the nation” as a community of like-minded people with common interests. The assertion went forward that such communities of people (“nations”) should be independent entities- states, rather than existing among a diversity of peoples within an empire.
Although substantial diversity typically existed within ethno-religious groups and regional communities, processes associated with nation-formation promoted unity through the invention of traditions, symbols, culture, and history, and a manufactured opposition to other.
Europe’s internal empires, thus, justified geographic expansion under the pretext of absorbing imagined historical homelands. This led to border disputes within Europe between empires.
European empires also became destabilized by internal rebellions among people newly cognizant of a “national” sense of self and seeking independence and attacks by break away regions aiming to annex what they perceived to be historic homelands This was especially true of Eastern Europe where an outpouring of newly cognizant ethno-nationalities challenged the Austria-Hungarian Empire, Russian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire.
Major Causes: WWI
Ultra Nationalism:
With the rise of modern nation-states and nationalities emerged belligerent and chauvinistic ultra-nationalisms.
Ultra-nationalism differs from a healthy sense of pride in homeland. It is chauvinistic, militant and cult-like. The ultra-nationalist will mindlessly rally behind unethical but charismatic national leaders and illogical military exploits. Wrapped in the flag, he/she will beat the war-drum as the nation is goose-stepped into self-destruction. A saner patriot might save the nation from such leaders, enablers, and cult-like devotees.
Historians have noted that as Europe became more secular and less inclined to traditional religious practices, many people seemed to worship the nation and substitute religious ritual for civic ritual and irrationality.
Major Causes: WWI
Alliance-Building:
Tensions between Britain and Germany, or Serbia and Austria-Hungary, might have produced a regional war if not for the formation of alliances during the years leading up to World War I.
The formation of a network of alliances in the context of rising tensions and border disputes made an otherwise limited war between two nations into a world war.
Arms Race
Rising tensions during the years leading up to the war also generated a stockpiling of weapons. This was rooted in efforts to intimidate rivals.
It was also advanced by the lobbying efforts of munitions-manufacturers and bankers with a profit motive to bring about the hyper-militarization of nations
“Merchants of Death”:
With loans from central banks, major European nations grew their militaries and developed new weapons of war. The industrial-scale slaughter of WWI would not have been possible without the consolidation of wealth in centralized banks and a willingness among associated bankers to enable carnage.
WWI: American Home-Front
Western Elite Culture
By the eve of World War I, a distinct culture had grown-up among the elite of Europe and the United States. It was steeped in anxieties about elite “manliness,” elite concentrations of unearned wealth, and an inability to justify obscene wealth accumulation upon the backs of the laboring class by any pre-existing moral code.
In the context of Europe long being without a major continental conflict, the literature read in elite academic institutions portrayed war as purifying, glorious, heroic, and necessary. It allegedly unified and redeemed the nation and its men from vices, materialism, and decadence of peace. There could be no sweeter death, the storyline went, than to die bravely in battle to redeem your nation.
The pseudo-science of Social Darwinism pretending that humanity, like nature, should not be expected to transcend instincts toward “survival of the fittest” (never mind our superior forebrain and higher capacities for empathy and justice). This mode of thought justified relations between empire/colony, capitalist/laborer, and rich/poor by asserting that those occupying a more powerful position did so because they are innately superior. If further justified a lack of respect for sovereignty, mercy, and charity (nature respects not those things) and promoted conquest and war as an essential means by which “superior” nations and people avoid degeneration.
Thus, as with the Spanish American War, many well-educated sons of privilege eagerly anticipated the conflict that became WWI and goaded their nations toward it.
“…so I wake to the higher aims Of a land that has lost for a little her lust of gold, And love of a peace that was full of wrongs and shames… Tho’ many a light shall darken, and many shall weep… And many a darkness into the light shall leap, And shine in the sudden making of splendid names… For the peace, that I deem’d no peace, is over and done,… And deathful-grinning mouths of the fortress, flames The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire…
We have proved we have hearts in a cause, we are noble still And myself have awaked, as it seems, to the better mind… I have felt with my native land, I am one with my kind…”
Alfred Tennyson
Major Causes: WWI
The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand,
A Serbian nationalist assassinated the heir to the throne of the Austria-Hungarian Empire. The assignation did not cause the war, but it was the trigger which lit the fuse of pre-existing conditions.
Serbia was one of several new ethno-nationalities, recently liberated from empire and seeking to liberate what were perceived as additional historical homelands.
The assassination led to a month of diplomatic maneuvering between Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, France and Britain, called the July Crisis.
Austria-Hungary delivered unreasonable demands, intending to create a pretext for attacking the less powerful Serbia. Russia, sharing a common Orthodox Christianity with Serbia, attempted to prevent an attack by mobilizing against Austria-Hungary.
Having forged an alliance with Austria-Hungary in the context of British hostilities and subversions, Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II asked his cousin, Tsar Nicolas II of Russia, to suspend mobilization against Austria-Hungary. When the Tsar refused, the Kaiser felt compelled to reassure Austria-Hungary of Germany’s loyalty to the alliance, lest the hedge against the British threat be lost. Thus, Germany declared war on Russia, and the web of continental alliances propelled further declarations of war to fall like dominos until the conflict became continental.
Major Causes: WWI
A failure of basic diplomacy:
There was no good reason for Europe to go to war with itself.
Had not Germany felt threatened by a British Empire which had become belligerent and hostile in the throes of imperial decline, it might not have felt compelled to reinforce its alliance with Austria-Hungary by declaring war on Russia. Russian saber-rattling then might have stayed the Austrian hand against little Serbia.
Either way, the declarations of war fell amid a failure of basic diplomacy. Mobilization by Russia, France, and Britain went forward with an intent to reinforce the status quo, including the British Empire; all belligerents sought to use the war to expand territorial claims and national wealth, and no belligerent could have fought a modern war for an extended period without becoming enabled by industrialists and bankers in pursuit of profits.
Diplomacy failed also amid royal family dysfunction. The kings of Germany, Britain, and Russia were all cousins.
Like essentially all wars, the instigators and diplomats did not shed their own blood. The poor and working class provided most of the soldiers and bore the heaviest weight of civilian consequences.
Reluctant Soldiers
The Christmas Truce
The war began in Western Europe with a massive barrage of industrial weaponry. Neither side knew how to advance under these new conditions of war, so they dug down and created long lines of trenches.
Despite the years of anti-German propaganda leading up to the war, a great part of the armies on both sides of the conflict neither held particularly belligerent feelings toward the other, nor understood why the war had begun.
The combination of this uncertainly regarding how to advance under new industrialized war conditions, and a reluctance to fight fellow Europeans, led to one of the most profound episodes in the history of warfare.
The Christmas Truce
Along the western front during the weeks leading up to Christmas 1914 (5 months into the war), there was a lull in the fighting:
This lull presented opportunities for informal truces and even fraternization between opposing British/French and German forces.
Some encounters involved a tacit agreement between the two sides to allow the bodies of the dead strewn across no-man’s land to be gathered and buried without threat of violence.
Some encounters involved the direct approach by enemy soldiers and even low-level leadership for the purpose of informal conversations.
Soldiers spoke about such things as English football leagues (many Germans having lived in England). Confessions were made on both side to not wanting to fight this war.
The Christmas Truce
On one occasion, Christmas carols being sung in the German trenches could be heard in the Allied trenches. The Allies- British and French, joined in the singing. The “ice” had broken.
The “enemies” walked out of their respective trenches to wish one another “Merry Christmas.”
They went on to eat and drink together, play football games, exchange items, and converse.
The Christmas truce involved 100,000 “enemy” soldiers and even officers.
The Christmas Truce
The question for military leadership became: How to get these men to start killing each other?
The truces seemed to be spreading, even reaching the Eastern Front.
In some places, soldiers refused to fire on their new friends.
Military discipline was failing on both sides of the conflict, as men refused to comply with orders to kill other men in a war not of their making and not in their interest.
Only when military leadership commenced to execute their soldiers for treason did military discipline return and the killing resume
The coerced fighting gradually broke the peace.
With the exchange of fire, came fear, death, grief for comrades, and feelings of revenge.
WWI went on to be the second bloodiest war, thus far, in history.
Led by mad generals and monarchs, the war might have continued with even more carnage had it not been for the mutinies that erupted among soldiers in the trenches on both sides of the conflict.
WWI: Trenches
Crisis of Legitimacy
As the war machines became ignited, the stories that western civilization had long told itself about “glorious” and “purifying” war began to fall apart.
The fire-power of industrialized weaponry was such that neither side could significantly advance against the other. The only option was to dig in and chip away at the other side in increments of a few acres of territory with each sporadic suicidal charge. Thus, Europe bled itself.
The trenches were not romantic and glorious.
Two lines of enemy forces bombarded one another from rat infested, muddy trenches, month after month.
Periodic charges across No Man’s Land- the strip of land between the two lines of trenches, went forward under a barrage of fire and blinding chemical weapons, …through barbed wire and the decaying bodies of men and horses.
No Man’s Land became scorched and cratered by continual bombardment. It became a graveyard for those who had gone “over the top” and failed.
The US and World War I
Death in the trenches and on No Man’s Land did not weed-out the lesser men, as Social Darwinism suggested:
Life and death were random.
Luck, not skill, most determined survival.
The strongest did not always survive.
Death did not arrive gracefully
The trenches were mud, defoliated landscapes, constant deafening bombardment, barbed-wire, chemical weapons, dead bodies rotting across No Man’s Land and body parts scattered in the trenches, armies of rats following the stench of death… Men built cages for themselves to guard against being devoured by rats in their sleep.
Men lost their minds in the trenches.
The psychological stress of being on the frontline, week after week and month after month, with sounds beyond what humanity had yet encountered, and under hellish conditions, led many soldiers to develop Shell Shock…
Dying in war was not glorious
Industrial weapons blew bodies to pieces
Chlorine attacks did not provide for a graceful and dignified death.
WWI: Trenches
Many men returned home severely disfigured and mentally/emotionally broken.
Science responded with the first regenerative surgeries and facial prosthetics.
Mask-making industries responded to a desire to hide physical disfigurement.
Mental and emotional disfigurement became evidenced in overflowing mental institutions, as did the lack of desire or ability to live with men damaged and broken by war.
Across both the Western Front and Eastern Front, armies on both sides of the war engaged in periodic mutinies, almost always to be sent back into the trenches at gunpoint or executed for treason.
Millions of men died fighting- for what? Nobody knew. Still, leadership on both sides of the conflict only demanded more.
When the US finally entered the war, its young men went mostly into the trenches of the Western Front
The widespread disfigurements of WWI led to new industries of mask-making, facial prosthetics, and regenerative surgery
The United States and WWI
The United States and WWI
Reluctant Americans:
As WWI carried-on in Europe through 1914, 1915, 1916, and even into 1917, most ordinary Americans took pride in the reality that their nation had stayed out of Europe’s war.
The prevailing mood among ordinary Americans: Non-Interventionism- Not our war, not our business….
As war broke out in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson declared that the US would maintain strict neutrality. He became re-elected as president on the platform, “He kept us out of war.”
Some ordinary Americans leaned toward the Allies, tracing their origins and cultural ties to Britain. Some leaned toward the Central Powers, tracing their origins and cultural ties to Germany.
As a nation, however, the consensus among the ordinary laboring majority of Americans, as Europe tore itself apart: non-intervention.
WWI: American Home-Front
Beyond a general mood of non-interventionism, movements and factions existed in the US with logical arguments and philosophical purposes for staying out of Europe’s war:
Peace Movement
As part of the idealism and moral uprightness of early 1900s progressivism and socialism, a vibrant peace movement thrived: Human progress has made starvation and want unnecessary; thus, all wars are by choice.
American Christianity
Within the nation’s largest religion, there existed prominent pacifist organizations and a social gospel movement committed to emulating the New Testament Jesus: A pacifist who cared for the poor and down-trodden and purged the “money changers” from the temple.
Working Class Farmers
The US remained strongly agrarian, and these farmers tended to oppose entering the war, at least partially because a draft would take sons whose labor was essential to farm operations. Many American farmers also continued to be infused with the anti-Wall Street sentiments of the populist movement.
WWI American Home Front
The Working-Class Left
When the war broke out, working class activism was surging, both within a conservative trade union movement led by the AFL and a more radical wing led by the Industrial Workers of the World on behalf of the creation of a cooperative commonwealth.
Socialism was also surging.
Thus, there existed many men and women with a sophisticated understandings of the capitalist nature of imperialism and the role of bankers and industrialists in fomenting war for profit.
Strong opposition existed to sending American working-class men abroad to kill other working-class men.
Strong opposition existed to squandering national resources and wealth on war rather than investing in the uplift the poor and working class.
Bankers, industrialists, militarists, & devils dance on the bodies of young men sent to war, printed in a newspaper for farmers.
WWI: American Home-Front
As in Europe, the war hawks resided among the sons of privilege and those positioned to profit from the war:
Preparedness Organizations:
By 1915, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. (the former president’s son) had commenced establishing preparedness organizations for the purpose of promoting entrance into the war and organizing young men for military duties.
These organizations later evolved into the first American Legion posts, many of which later became openly supportive of fascism (see PP: WWI Consequences)
Roosevelt established training camps for mostly Ivy League elite sons and petitioned congress for mandatory military training.
Like his father, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., “gushed” over war for war’s sake.
When war came, it took the life of the youngest Roosevelt son, Quinton. Teddy Roosevelt Sr. never emotionally recovered.
Ordinary Americans had long imagined Britain in an adversarial way, as the empire from which the US won independence and the enemy of the War of 1812. As American bankers and industrialists commenced profiting from loans and weapons/supplies sales to Britain, an outpouring of propaganda depicted the two imperialist nations as unified in common values, interests, and destiny.
WWI Homefront
While some sons of the elite “prepared” to don a military uniform and enter a European warzone to “sustain American virility,” other privileged sons mobilized to profit from the conflict from a safe distance. In loaning money and selling weapons to belligerents, these sons compromised the nation’s official status of neutrality.
Though various munitions-makers had sold weapons to belligerents from the start, JP Morgan’s banking House of Morgan led the way among the financiers by organizing a syndicate of 2200 banks in 1915 for the purpose of loaning large sums (with interest).
Russia: 12 million
France and Britain: $500 million
The House of Morgan also became the sole purchasing agent for the British government.
Much of what he purchased came from businesses that he owned. Thus, he turned a double profit: Commission as Britain’s purchasing agent and additional revenue by gearing his purchases toward his own businesses.
When American ships carried weapons and supplies to Britain, these vessels entered what Germany had declared to be a warzone. Although the US remained officially neutral, the act of aiding one side of the conflict rendered these vessels belligerent Consequently, about one of every four steamers did not reach Britain. They became sank by Germany submarines and U-boats.
“In the World War [One] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 2,100 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.
How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?”
– Major General Smedley Butler
The House of Morgan
By the end of 1915, it had become apparent that Germany and its allies were winning the war. If this occurred, the side to which the House of Morgan and its syndicates made mega-loans would likely default on these loans. The banking syndicate would suffer heavy losses if this occurred.
Morgan and his associates determined that the US must enter the war on the side of Britain.
Problem: Most Americans oppose entering the war.
Solution?
Morgan owned 25% of the nation’s newspapers
Rockefeller, who viewed Germany as a competitor in the oil market (as Germany accessed the oil fields of the Ottoman Empire), also owned newspapers
Morgan and Rockefeller expanded their influence over the public by purchasing advertisements in exchange for a certain kind of coverage, editorials, and planted pieces.
Through Morgan’s and Rockefeller’s efforts, editorials and articles began to denounce Germany, tell “atrocity stories,” and portray Germany as “the enemy of western civilization.” They also staged demonstrations and parades which promoted patriotism, duty and preparedness
Yet, the average American continued to oppose an entry into the war.
“Only twenty-four at the (Civil) war’s beginning, Morgan perceived from the first that wars were for the shrewd to profit from and the poor to die in.”
General Smedley Butler
House of Morgan
The Lusitania
Among Morgan’s many investments was a fleet of ships and shipping operations. He handled most of the shipping from the US to Britain during WWI.
The Lusitania was owned by his competitor. It was a luxury-liner, but the British government had paid for it to be retooled and designed to easily convert into a war ship: Horsepower, shape of the hull, ammunition storage areas, able to carry 12 six-foot guns, etc.
The Lusitania increasingly carried both civilian passengers and munitions destined for Britain.
March 1915: The captain of the Lusitania resigned, no longer willing to “carry the responsibility of mixing passengers with munitions or contraband.”
The German embassy filed a complaint and took out adds in major newspapers in an attempt to warn civilians about the dangers of sailing on this ship. Vice President William Jennings Bryan (former populist candidate for president) assisted Germany in this endeavor. He stated:
“Germany has a right to prevent contraband going to the Allies, and a ship carrying contraband should not rely upon passengers to protect her from attack – it would be like putting women and children in front of an army.”
House of Morgan
May 1, 1915: The Lusitania left New York harbor.
Consigned to Morgan, the Lusitania carried, among other things, 600 tons of proxyline (a heavy version of gunpowder), ammunition, shrapnel shells, and munitions.
The Lusitania was to meet a British ship off the coast of Ireland for an escort to port. The ship was not dispatched, so she entered dangerous waters alone, and low on coal. Commander Joseph Kenwothy (British Navy) remarked:
“The Lusitania was sent at a considerably reduced speed into an area where a U-boat was known to be waiting and with her escorts withdrawn”
When the Lusitania became struck by a German sub, she sank in less than 20 minutes. 1915 passengers were killed, including 195 Americans.
Vice President, William Jennings Bryan resigned.
The tragedy had the effect of stirring resentments toward Germany and, especially applying pressure to the political class to “do something.”
The American public was not told about the munitions and military supplies (In 2008, divers confirmed the cargo).
The House of Morgan
There is no scholarly consensus on the question of Morgan intentions regarding the Lusitania: Did he seek to provoke an incident that could get the nation into WWI or was he merely guilty of civilian endangerment? This question was never put to a court. The newspapers (over which Morgan wielded great influence) placed the blame squarely upon Germany.
And, when President Woodrow Wilson betrayed his campaign promises to keep the US out of the war, a means existed by which the nation could fund mobilization– thanks largely to JP Morgan.
The Federal Reserve
In the years leading up to the WWI, Morgan and other big bankers had conspired to create national bank by which men like themselves would control the nation’s money supply: The Federal Reserve
1910: Government officials and executives representing the banks of J.P. Morgan, Rockefeller, and Kuhn, Loeb & Co (Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo) held a secret meeting at JP Morgan’s private estate on Jekyll Island in Georgia.
Secretive: To get there, they boarded a private train. They went by names other than their own while traveling, and they were instructed to not tell even their families about the business at hand. The bill they drafted was labeled the Federal Reserve Bill, to mask its private nature.
The Federal Reserve
The Federal Reserve Bill had become passed under rather shady circumstances…
The cabal of bankers had largely financed the presidential campaign for Woodrow Wilson. Thus, Wilson owed favors. He was expected to support the Federal Reserve Bill, which he did.
The Federal Reserve Bill suddenly and unexpectedly came up for a vote on Christmas, 1913, when most congressmen had returned home for the holidays and could not return– It passed.
Federal Reserve Act
1913 (1 year ahead of WWI)
It established a privately owned central bank, ran by a handful private bankers- not elected government officials, to manage the nation’s money supply
The Fed is to determine interest rates and how much money is in circulation.
The Fed is to print and issue paper money with no regulation on how much (power to create inflation)
The Fed is to loan money to the federal government with interest– which it did and thereby enabled the nation to enter World War I. The US borrowed $9.5 billion to take part in WWI. Cao bono?
How did Wilson feel about his role in the creation of the Federal Reserve?
The Federal Reserve
Unbeknownst to perhaps a majority of Americans, the Federal Reserve which manages the nation’s money supply is not integrated into the US government, nor is it sufficiently accountable to the US government and a system of checks and balances.
“The Fed is as federal as Fed Ex.”
The only audit it has received in its entire history was in 2011. Then, it was discovered that the Fed secretly paid out $16 trillion in bailouts to the top foreign and domestic banks after the 2008 collapse.
It was sold to the American people as a way to stabilize the economy and prevent economic depressions, but the downturns and depressions did not cease. The Fed played a major role in generating the Great Depression.
To enter WWI (and every war since), the US had to borrow money from the private bankers at the Federal Reserve, with interest.
In essence, the scheme put an international banking cartel in charge of the nation’s currency. From this position of leverage, these private bankers assert great influence over government policy-making and action. Some argue that this influence is tantamount to a loss of national sovereignty, rendering the nation a servant to financiers who profit from its debt and demand global debt collection.
Loss of National Sovereignty?
Pre-Election: “Some of the biggest men in the US, in the field of commerce and manufacturing, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it…. We have been dreading all along the time when the combined power of high finance would be greater than the power of government…. “
Woodrow Wilson
“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.”
Theodore Roosevelt
“The real rulers in Washington are invisible and exercise power from behind the scenes.”
Supreme Court Justice, Felix Frankfurter
“When the Federal Reserve Act was passed, the people of these United States did not perceive that a world banking system was being set up here – a super-state controlled by international bankers and international industrialists acting together to enslave the world for their own pleasure. Every effort has been made by the Fed to conceal its powers but the truth is – the Fed has usurped the government.”
Louis McFadden, Congressman and Chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Currency
“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson … The country is going through a repetition of Jackson’s fight with the Bank of the United States – only on a far bigger and broader basis…”
Franklin Roosevelt, 1933
World War I
Finding a grievance against Germany in the sinking of the Lusitania, and assured of financing by the private bankers at the Federal Reserve, Congress voted and declared war on April 16, 1917:
It then passed the War Loan Act, borrowing a $1 billion from the Federal Reserve, as the US Treasury could not spare this sum. By the end of the war, the Federal Reserve had loaned $9.5 billion. Without the Federal Reserve in place, the US could not have taken-out the substantial loans needed to join Europe’s war.
The Federal Reserve further loaned Britain and France money with which to make payments on preexisting debt to the House of Morgan. This rendered the Federal Reserve, rather than Morgan, the holder of British and French war debt.
Looking ahead:
At the close of the war, Germany will become saddled with reparations payments to Britain and France. When Germany fell behind on its reparations payments, Morgan restructured the loan to make the payment manageable but with a higher interest rate. This rendered Germany deeper in debt ten years into payment than where it began.
Unsustainable debt owed to Morgan will help to drive Germany into a deep, disenchanting depression from which Nazi fascism later emerged.
“In the World War [One] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict.
At least 2100 new millionaires and billionaires were made
in the United States during the World War.
That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns.
How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.
How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?
– Major General Smedley Butler
