Between The Wars

1918 – World War I ends.

1919 – Treaty of Versailles is negotiated.

1920 – The U.S. Senate rejects the treaty.

1921 – The Washington Naval Conference -8 nations agree not to build warships for 10

            years. This eases tension in the Pacific. 

1922 – Mussolini takes over in Italy and establishes the first Fascist nation.

1924 – The Dawes Plan.

            U.S. banks loan $2.5 billion to Germany.à Britain and France pay back their loans to U.S. à Germany pays war reparations to France and Britain.

1929 – Kellogg-Briand Pact –64 nations renounce war as an instrument of national policy.

            In the U.S. it basically  “Outlawed war except in cases of self-defense”.

-The Stock Market Crashes and the Great Depression begins.

1931 – Japan invades Manchuria (N. China) and begins it’s quest for Asian domination.

1932 – U.S. Secretary of War Stimson announces, “U.S. opposes Japanese aggression”.

1933 – The League of Nations reprimands Japan. Japan quits The League of Nations.

            Hitler seizes power in Germany. The second Fascist nation is created.

1934 – The U.S. begins The Good Neighbor policy – no troops in Haiti.

1935 – The Neutrality Acts – authorized the President to ban arms sales to nations at war.

-Italy invades Ethiopia, which was the last independent African nation.

1936 – The Spanish Civil War – Franco’s Fascists vs. the Republicans

-Germany occupies the Rhineland.

-Mussolini and Hitler sign the Rome-Berlin Axis treaty.

1937 – Japan attacks China seizing Peking and Shanghai.

-The Panay Incident – An American gunboat is sunk by the Japanese on the Yangtze River in China. Japan apologized and paid two million dollars in damages.

-70% of Americans surveyed believe that the U.S. should not have entered WWI

1938 – Germany annexes Austria (Anschluss).

-The Munich Conference – France and Britain allow Hitler to annex the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia.  Hitler promises that this is his final demand.

1939 – March- Germany takes the rest of Czechoslovakia.

-August 23^rd- Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression pact.

-On September 1^st, Germany attacks Poland. WWII begins.

-September- The Cash and Carry plan allowed Britain and France to purchase U.S. weapons as long as they paid cash and transported them on their own ships.

1940- April- Germany invades and conquers Denmark and Norway.

- May- Germany invades and conquers the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg.

-June- Germany invades and conquers France.

-May 26^th to June 4^th- 336,000 British and French troops flee to England from Dunkirk.

-September- Germany, Italy, and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact. The treaty established the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo axis and made the U.S. realize that a 2 front war could occur.

-September 15^th- Congress votes for compulsory military services—first peacetime draft in history.  

1941- March- The Lend-Lease Act- The U.S., under the direction of the President, could lend or lease arms and other supplies to any country whose defense was vital to the U.S.

-The U.S. navy begins protecting Lend-Lease merchandise as far as Iceland. We will shoot in self-defense.

-June- Germany invades The Soviet Union ending the non-aggression pact.

-August 14^th- Winston Churchill and F.D.R. meet and agree to the Atlantic Charter.

-September-October- 4 U.S. ships are attacked in the Atlantic.

-December 7^th- The Japanese launch a surprise attack against the U.S. navy stationed in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

-The United States officially enters World War II.