{"id":223,"date":"2015-08-21T18:07:01","date_gmt":"2015-08-21T18:07:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.candelalearning.com\/ushistory2os2xmaster\/?post_type=chapter&#038;p=223"},"modified":"2022-09-16T00:01:00","modified_gmt":"2022-09-16T00:01:00","slug":"from-war-to-peace","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/chapter\/from-war-to-peace\/","title":{"raw":"From War to Peace","rendered":"From War to Peace"},"content":{"raw":"<div class=\"bcc-box bcc-highlight\">\r\n<h3>Learning Objectives<\/h3>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Identify the role that the United States played at the end of World War I<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp179226384\">The American role in World War I was brief but decisive. While millions of soldiers went overseas, and many thousands paid with their lives, the country\u2019s involvement was limited to the very end of the war. In fact, the peace process, with the international conference and subsequent ratification process, took longer than the time U.S. soldiers were deployed. For the Allies, American reinforcements came at a decisive moment in their defense of the Western Front, where a final offensive had exhausted German forces. For the United States, and for Wilson\u2019s vision of a peaceful future, the fighting was faster and more successful than what was to follow.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<section id=\"fs-idp39906880\" data-depth=\"1\">\r\n<h2 data-type=\"title\">Winning the War<\/h2>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp42208048\">When the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, the Allied forces were close to exhaustion. Great Britain and France had already indebted themselves heavily in the procurement of vital American military supplies. Now, facing near-certain defeat, a British delegation to Washington, DC, requested immediate troop reinforcements to boost Allied spirits and help crush German fighting morale, which was already weakened by short supplies on the frontlines and hunger on the home front. Wilson agreed and immediately sent 200,000 American troops in June 1917. These soldiers were placed in \u201cquiet zones\u201d while they trained and prepared for combat.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"390\"]<img src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images-archive-read-only\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/884\/2015\/08\/23203042\/CNX_History_23_04_Soldiers.jpg\" alt=\"A photograph shows two U.S. soldiers running past fallen Germans on their way to a bunker.\" width=\"390\" height=\"379\" data-media-type=\"image\/jpeg\" \/> <strong>Figure 1<\/strong>. U.S. soldiers run past fallen Germans on their way to a bunker. In World War I, for the first time, photographs of the battles brought the war vividly to life for those at home.[\/caption]\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp21149600\">By March 1918, the Germans had won the war on the eastern front. The 1917\u00a0<strong>Russian Revolution<\/strong>\u00a0had not only toppled the hated regime of Tsar Nicholas II but also ushered in a civil war from which the Bolsheviks, Communist revolutionaries under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, had emerged victorious. Weakened by war and internal strife, and eager to build the new Soviet Union, Russian delegates agreed to the <strong>Treaty of Brest-Litovsk,<\/strong> ending their war with Germany and the Central Powers. Germany, suddenly able to shift massive numbers of troops away from the Eastern Front, began their <em>Kaiserschlacht<\/em> (Spring Offensive), causing both the French and British to ask Wilson to forestall extensive training to U.S. troops and instead commit them to the front immediately. Although wary of the move, Wilson complied, ordering the commander of the American Expeditionary Force, General John \u201cBlackjack\u201d Pershing, to offer U.S. troops as replacements for the Allied units in need of relief. Prior to\u00a0August 8, 1918, two million men of the American Expeditionary Forces had joined British and French armies in a series of successful counteroffensives that pushed the disintegrating German lines back across France. German general Erich Ludendorff referred to the launch of the counteroffensive as the \u201cblack day of the German army.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idm7944240\">In a series of battles along the front that took place from May 28 through August 6, 1918, including the battles of Cantigny, Chateau-Thierry, Belleau Wood, and the Second Battle of the Marne, American forces alongside the British and French armies succeeded in repelling the German offensive. The Battle of Cantigny, on May 28, was the first American offensive in the war. In less than two hours that morning, American troops overran the German headquarters in the village, thus convincing the French commanders of their ability to fight against the German line advancing towards Paris. The subsequent battles of Chateau-Thierry and Belleau Wood proved to be the bloodiest of the war for American troops. At the latter, faced with a German onslaught of mustard gas, artillery fire, and mortar fire, U.S. Marines attacked German units in the woods on six occasions\u2014at times meeting them in hand-to-hand and bayonet combat\u2014before finally repelling the advance. The U.S. forces suffered 10,000 casualties in the three-week battle, with almost 2,000 killed in total; 1,087 perished in a single day. Brutal as they were, these battles entailed relatively small losses compared to the casualties suffered by France and Great Britain. Ultimately, the German offensive exhausted the Central Powers' faltering military effort. Defeat was inevitable.\u00a0These summer battles turned the tide of the war, with the Germans in full retreat by the end of July 1918.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_8271\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"965\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5696\/2015\/08\/24164205\/Western_front_1918_allied.jpeg\"><img class=\"wp-image-8271 \" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5696\/2015\/08\/24164205\/Western_front_1918_allied.jpeg\" alt=\"A map shows the western front at the end of the war, as the Allied Forces decisively break the German line.\" width=\"965\" height=\"747\" \/><\/a> <strong>Figure 2<\/strong>. This map shows the Western Front at the end of the war, as the Allied Forces decisively break the German line.[\/caption]\r\n<figure id=\"CNX_History_23_04_WestFront\"><\/figure>\r\n<div id=\"fs-idm16955280\" class=\"history my-story\" data-type=\"note\" data-label=\"My Story\">\r\n<div class=\"textbox exercises\">\r\n<h3>Sgt. Charles Leon Boucher: Life and Death in the Trenches of France<\/h3>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp271279216\">Wounded in his shoulder by enemy forces, George, a machine gunner posted on the right end of the American platoon, was taken prisoner at the Battle of Seicheprey in 1918. However, as darkness set in that evening, another American soldier, Charlie, heard a noise from a gully beside the trench in which he had hunkered down. \u201cI figured it must be the enemy mop-up patrol,\u201d Charlie later said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<blockquote id=\"fs-idp148776000\">\r\n<div>I only had a couple of bullets left in the chamber of my forty-five. The noise stopped and a head popped into sight. When I was about to fire, I gave another look and a white and distorted face proved to be that of George, so I grabbed his shoulders and pulled him down into our trench beside me. He must have had about twenty bullet holes in him but not one of them was well placed enough to kill him. He made an effort to speak so I told him to keep quiet and conserve his energy. I had a few malted milk tablets left and, I forced them into his mouth. I also poured the last of the water I had left in my canteen into his mouth.<\/div><\/blockquote>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp287956112\">Following a harrowing night, they began to crawl along the road back to their platoon. As they crawled, George explained how he survived being captured. Charlie later told how George \u201cwas taken to an enemy First Aid Station where his wounds were dressed. Then the doctor motioned to have him taken to the rear of their lines. But, the Sergeant Major pushed him towards our side and \u2018No Mans Land,\u2019 pulled out his Luger Automatic and shot him down. Then, he began to crawl towards our lines little by little, being shot at consistently by the enemy snipers till, finally, he arrived in our position.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp11045888\">The story of Charlie and George, related later in life by Sgt. Charles Leon Boucher to his grandson, was one replayed many times over in various forms during the American Expeditionary Force\u2019s involvement in World War I. The industrial scale of death and destruction was as new to American soldiers as to their European counterparts, and the survivors brought home physical and psychological scars that influenced the United States long after the war was won.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<h2>\"The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month\"<\/h2>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp69843424\">By the end of September 1918, over one million U.S. soldiers staged a full offensive into the Argonne Forest. By November\u2014after nearly forty days of intense fighting\u2014the German lines were broken, and their military command reported to German Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II of the desperate need to end the war and enter into peace negotiations. Facing civil unrest from the German people in Berlin, as well as the loss of support from his military high command, Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated his throne on November 9, 1918, and immediately fled by train to the Netherlands. Two days later, on November 11, 1918, Germany and the Allies declared an immediate <strong>armistice<\/strong>, thus bringing the fighting to a stop and signaling the beginning of the peace process. The United States celebrates Veteran's Day on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month to commemorate the signing of the Armistice in World War I.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div class=\"textbox examples\">\r\n<h3>WATCH IT<\/h3>\r\nThis video explains the history behind Veteran's Day, which was originally celebrated as Armistice Day to mark the end of the Great War:\r\n\r\n<center><iframe src=\"\/\/plugin.3playmedia.com\/show?mf=8186070&amp;p3sdk_version=1.10.1&amp;p=20361&amp;pt=375&amp;video_id=ymCa1eB_qLA&amp;video_target=tpm-plugin-8s8vmzoo-ymCa1eB_qLA\" width=\"800px\" height=\"450px\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0px\" marginheight=\"0px\"><\/iframe><\/center><center>You can view the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/course-building.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/US+history+II\/historyoftheholidayshistoryofveteransdayhistory.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">transcript for \u201cHistory of the Holidays: History of Veterans Day | History\u201d here (opens in new window)<\/a>.<\/center><\/div>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"390\"]<img src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images-archive-read-only\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/884\/2015\/08\/23203045\/CNX_History_23_04_Argonne.jpg\" alt=\"A photograph shows several U.S. soldiers sitting and standing in a trench.\" width=\"390\" height=\"241\" data-media-type=\"image\/jpeg\" \/> <strong>Figure 3<\/strong>. This photograph of U.S. soldiers in a trench hardly begins to capture the brutal conditions of trench warfare, where disease, rats, mud, and hunger plagued the men.[\/caption]\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp38577968\">When the armistice was declared, a total of 53,000 American soldiers had been killed in battle, while 64,000 had died of disease, the vast majority from\u00a0the Spanish Flu, which first appeared in Kansas in the spring of 1918 and was carried to Europe by American soldiers.\u00a0Reports from the Surgeon General of the Army revealed that while 227,000 American soldiers were hospitalized from wounds received in battle, almost half a million suffered from influenza. The worst part of the epidemic struck during the height of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in the fall of 1918 and weakened the combat capabilities of the American and German armies. During the war, more soldiers died from influenza than combat.<\/p>\r\nThe Allies as a whole suffered over 5.7 million military deaths, primarily Russian, British, and French soldiers. The Central powers suffered 4 million military deaths, with half of them being German soldiers.\u00a0Both France and Germany lost about 4% of their population to the war.[footnote]Michael S. Neiberg, Fighting the Great War: A Global History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005).[\/footnote] The total cost of the war to the United States alone was in excess of $32 billion, with interest expenses and veterans\u2019 benefits eventually bringing the cost to well over $100 billion.\r\n<h2>A Transformed World<\/h2>\r\nBefore the war, the Middle East had three main centers of power: the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and Iran. President Wilson\u2019s call for self-determination appealed to many under the Ottoman Empire\u2019s rule. In the aftermath of the war, Wilson sent a commission to investigate the region to determine the conditions and aspirations of the populace. The King-Crane Commission found that most of the inhabitants favored an independent state free of European control. However, these wishes were largely ignored, and the lands of the former Ottoman Empire were divided into \"mandates\" through the Treaty of S\u00e8vres at the San Remo Conference in 1920. The Ottoman Empire disintegrated into several nations, many created by European powers with little regard for ethnic realities. These Arab provinces were ruled by Britain and France, and the new nation of Turkey emerged from the former heartland of Anatolia. Though allegedly for the benefit of the people of the Middle East, the <strong>mandate system<\/strong> was essentially a reimagined form of nineteenth-century imperialism. France received Syria; Britain took control of Iraq, Palestine, and Transjordan (Jordan). The United States was asked to become a mandate power but declined.\r\n\r\nThe 1917 Russian Revolution, meanwhile enflamed American fears of communism, which manifested in an exacerbated nervousness about immigrants and the potential spread of radical ideas.\u00a0When in March 1918 the Bolsheviks signed a separate peace treaty with Germany, the Allies planned to send troops to northern Russia and Siberia to prevent German influence and fight the Bolshevik Revolution. Wilson agreed, and, in a little-known foreign intervention, American troops remained in Russia as late as 1920. Although the Bolshevik rhetoric of self-determination followed many of the ideals of Wilson\u2019s Fourteen Points\u2014Vladimir Lenin supported revolutions against imperial rule across the world\u2014the American commitment to self-rule was hardly strong enough to overcome powerful strains of nativist anticommunism.\r\n\r\n<\/section>\r\n<div class=\"textbox tryit\">\r\n<h3>Try It<\/h3>\r\nhttps:\/\/assess.lumenlearning.com\/practice\/5dac2a32-5e62-44fc-8e47-f89714ee132a\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div class=\"textbox learning-objectives\">\r\n<h3>Glossary<\/h3>\r\n<strong>armistice:\u00a0<\/strong>a cease-fire agreement, which may only be temporary as two belligerent parties attempt to negotiate a peace treaty\r\n\r\n<strong>Bolsheviks:\u00a0<\/strong>the Communist political party of Vladimir Lenin which overthrew the short-lived democratic government installed after the revolution that had deposed Tsar Nicholas II in 1917\r\n\r\n<strong>mandate system: <\/strong>the system put in place after WWI by the victorious Allies to govern provinces of the dismantled Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, using arbitrarily drawn \"mandates\" from the League of Nations\r\n\r\n<strong>Russian Revolution:<\/strong> events in Imperial Russia that led to the overthrow of the unpopular monarch, Tsar Nicholas Romanov II, and the eventual installation of a Communist government under Bolshevik party leader Vladimir Lenin\r\n\r\n<strong>Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: <\/strong>negotiated between\u00a0Germany and Russia, and signed in March 1918, ending Russia's involvement in the war and allowing Germany to commit all of its resources to defeat the Allies on the Western Front\r\n\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"<div class=\"bcc-box bcc-highlight\">\n<h3>Learning Objectives<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Identify the role that the United States played at the end of World War I<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"fs-idp179226384\">The American role in World War I was brief but decisive. While millions of soldiers went overseas, and many thousands paid with their lives, the country\u2019s involvement was limited to the very end of the war. In fact, the peace process, with the international conference and subsequent ratification process, took longer than the time U.S. soldiers were deployed. For the Allies, American reinforcements came at a decisive moment in their defense of the Western Front, where a final offensive had exhausted German forces. For the United States, and for Wilson\u2019s vision of a peaceful future, the fighting was faster and more successful than what was to follow.<\/p>\n<section id=\"fs-idp39906880\" data-depth=\"1\">\n<h2 data-type=\"title\">Winning the War<\/h2>\n<p id=\"fs-idp42208048\">When the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, the Allied forces were close to exhaustion. Great Britain and France had already indebted themselves heavily in the procurement of vital American military supplies. Now, facing near-certain defeat, a British delegation to Washington, DC, requested immediate troop reinforcements to boost Allied spirits and help crush German fighting morale, which was already weakened by short supplies on the frontlines and hunger on the home front. Wilson agreed and immediately sent 200,000 American troops in June 1917. These soldiers were placed in \u201cquiet zones\u201d while they trained and prepared for combat.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images-archive-read-only\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/884\/2015\/08\/23203042\/CNX_History_23_04_Soldiers.jpg\" alt=\"A photograph shows two U.S. soldiers running past fallen Germans on their way to a bunker.\" width=\"390\" height=\"379\" data-media-type=\"image\/jpeg\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Figure 1<\/strong>. U.S. soldiers run past fallen Germans on their way to a bunker. In World War I, for the first time, photographs of the battles brought the war vividly to life for those at home.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"fs-idp21149600\">By March 1918, the Germans had won the war on the eastern front. The 1917\u00a0<strong>Russian Revolution<\/strong>\u00a0had not only toppled the hated regime of Tsar Nicholas II but also ushered in a civil war from which the Bolsheviks, Communist revolutionaries under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, had emerged victorious. Weakened by war and internal strife, and eager to build the new Soviet Union, Russian delegates agreed to the <strong>Treaty of Brest-Litovsk,<\/strong> ending their war with Germany and the Central Powers. Germany, suddenly able to shift massive numbers of troops away from the Eastern Front, began their <em>Kaiserschlacht<\/em> (Spring Offensive), causing both the French and British to ask Wilson to forestall extensive training to U.S. troops and instead commit them to the front immediately. Although wary of the move, Wilson complied, ordering the commander of the American Expeditionary Force, General John \u201cBlackjack\u201d Pershing, to offer U.S. troops as replacements for the Allied units in need of relief. Prior to\u00a0August 8, 1918, two million men of the American Expeditionary Forces had joined British and French armies in a series of successful counteroffensives that pushed the disintegrating German lines back across France. German general Erich Ludendorff referred to the launch of the counteroffensive as the \u201cblack day of the German army.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-idm7944240\">In a series of battles along the front that took place from May 28 through August 6, 1918, including the battles of Cantigny, Chateau-Thierry, Belleau Wood, and the Second Battle of the Marne, American forces alongside the British and French armies succeeded in repelling the German offensive. The Battle of Cantigny, on May 28, was the first American offensive in the war. In less than two hours that morning, American troops overran the German headquarters in the village, thus convincing the French commanders of their ability to fight against the German line advancing towards Paris. The subsequent battles of Chateau-Thierry and Belleau Wood proved to be the bloodiest of the war for American troops. At the latter, faced with a German onslaught of mustard gas, artillery fire, and mortar fire, U.S. Marines attacked German units in the woods on six occasions\u2014at times meeting them in hand-to-hand and bayonet combat\u2014before finally repelling the advance. The U.S. forces suffered 10,000 casualties in the three-week battle, with almost 2,000 killed in total; 1,087 perished in a single day. Brutal as they were, these battles entailed relatively small losses compared to the casualties suffered by France and Great Britain. Ultimately, the German offensive exhausted the Central Powers&#8217; faltering military effort. Defeat was inevitable.\u00a0These summer battles turned the tide of the war, with the Germans in full retreat by the end of July 1918.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_8271\" style=\"width: 975px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5696\/2015\/08\/24164205\/Western_front_1918_allied.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8271\" class=\"wp-image-8271\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5696\/2015\/08\/24164205\/Western_front_1918_allied.jpeg\" alt=\"A map shows the western front at the end of the war, as the Allied Forces decisively break the German line.\" width=\"965\" height=\"747\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-8271\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Figure 2<\/strong>. This map shows the Western Front at the end of the war, as the Allied Forces decisively break the German line.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure id=\"CNX_History_23_04_WestFront\"><\/figure>\n<div id=\"fs-idm16955280\" class=\"history my-story\" data-type=\"note\" data-label=\"My Story\">\n<div class=\"textbox exercises\">\n<h3>Sgt. Charles Leon Boucher: Life and Death in the Trenches of France<\/h3>\n<p id=\"fs-idp271279216\">Wounded in his shoulder by enemy forces, George, a machine gunner posted on the right end of the American platoon, was taken prisoner at the Battle of Seicheprey in 1918. However, as darkness set in that evening, another American soldier, Charlie, heard a noise from a gully beside the trench in which he had hunkered down. \u201cI figured it must be the enemy mop-up patrol,\u201d Charlie later said.<\/p>\n<blockquote id=\"fs-idp148776000\">\n<div>I only had a couple of bullets left in the chamber of my forty-five. The noise stopped and a head popped into sight. When I was about to fire, I gave another look and a white and distorted face proved to be that of George, so I grabbed his shoulders and pulled him down into our trench beside me. He must have had about twenty bullet holes in him but not one of them was well placed enough to kill him. He made an effort to speak so I told him to keep quiet and conserve his energy. I had a few malted milk tablets left and, I forced them into his mouth. I also poured the last of the water I had left in my canteen into his mouth.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p id=\"fs-idp287956112\">Following a harrowing night, they began to crawl along the road back to their platoon. As they crawled, George explained how he survived being captured. Charlie later told how George \u201cwas taken to an enemy First Aid Station where his wounds were dressed. Then the doctor motioned to have him taken to the rear of their lines. But, the Sergeant Major pushed him towards our side and \u2018No Mans Land,\u2019 pulled out his Luger Automatic and shot him down. Then, he began to crawl towards our lines little by little, being shot at consistently by the enemy snipers till, finally, he arrived in our position.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-idp11045888\">The story of Charlie and George, related later in life by Sgt. Charles Leon Boucher to his grandson, was one replayed many times over in various forms during the American Expeditionary Force\u2019s involvement in World War I. The industrial scale of death and destruction was as new to American soldiers as to their European counterparts, and the survivors brought home physical and psychological scars that influenced the United States long after the war was won.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2>&#8220;The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month&#8221;<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"fs-idp69843424\">By the end of September 1918, over one million U.S. soldiers staged a full offensive into the Argonne Forest. By November\u2014after nearly forty days of intense fighting\u2014the German lines were broken, and their military command reported to German Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II of the desperate need to end the war and enter into peace negotiations. Facing civil unrest from the German people in Berlin, as well as the loss of support from his military high command, Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated his throne on November 9, 1918, and immediately fled by train to the Netherlands. Two days later, on November 11, 1918, Germany and the Allies declared an immediate <strong>armistice<\/strong>, thus bringing the fighting to a stop and signaling the beginning of the peace process. The United States celebrates Veteran&#8217;s Day on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month to commemorate the signing of the Armistice in World War I.<\/p>\n<div class=\"textbox examples\">\n<h3>WATCH IT<\/h3>\n<p>This video explains the history behind Veteran&#8217;s Day, which was originally celebrated as Armistice Day to mark the end of the Great War:<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/plugin.3playmedia.com\/show?mf=8186070&amp;p3sdk_version=1.10.1&amp;p=20361&amp;pt=375&amp;video_id=ymCa1eB_qLA&amp;video_target=tpm-plugin-8s8vmzoo-ymCa1eB_qLA\" width=\"800px\" height=\"450px\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0px\" marginheight=\"0px\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\">You can view the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/course-building.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/US+history+II\/historyoftheholidayshistoryofveteransdayhistory.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">transcript for \u201cHistory of the Holidays: History of Veterans Day | History\u201d here (opens in new window)<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images-archive-read-only\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/884\/2015\/08\/23203045\/CNX_History_23_04_Argonne.jpg\" alt=\"A photograph shows several U.S. soldiers sitting and standing in a trench.\" width=\"390\" height=\"241\" data-media-type=\"image\/jpeg\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Figure 3<\/strong>. This photograph of U.S. soldiers in a trench hardly begins to capture the brutal conditions of trench warfare, where disease, rats, mud, and hunger plagued the men.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"fs-idp38577968\">When the armistice was declared, a total of 53,000 American soldiers had been killed in battle, while 64,000 had died of disease, the vast majority from\u00a0the Spanish Flu, which first appeared in Kansas in the spring of 1918 and was carried to Europe by American soldiers.\u00a0Reports from the Surgeon General of the Army revealed that while 227,000 American soldiers were hospitalized from wounds received in battle, almost half a million suffered from influenza. The worst part of the epidemic struck during the height of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in the fall of 1918 and weakened the combat capabilities of the American and German armies. During the war, more soldiers died from influenza than combat.<\/p>\n<p>The Allies as a whole suffered over 5.7 million military deaths, primarily Russian, British, and French soldiers. The Central powers suffered 4 million military deaths, with half of them being German soldiers.\u00a0Both France and Germany lost about 4% of their population to the war.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Michael S. Neiberg, Fighting the Great War: A Global History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005).\" id=\"return-footnote-223-1\" href=\"#footnote-223-1\" aria-label=\"Footnote 1\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[1]<\/sup><\/a> The total cost of the war to the United States alone was in excess of $32 billion, with interest expenses and veterans\u2019 benefits eventually bringing the cost to well over $100 billion.<\/p>\n<h2>A Transformed World<\/h2>\n<p>Before the war, the Middle East had three main centers of power: the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and Iran. President Wilson\u2019s call for self-determination appealed to many under the Ottoman Empire\u2019s rule. In the aftermath of the war, Wilson sent a commission to investigate the region to determine the conditions and aspirations of the populace. The King-Crane Commission found that most of the inhabitants favored an independent state free of European control. However, these wishes were largely ignored, and the lands of the former Ottoman Empire were divided into &#8220;mandates&#8221; through the Treaty of S\u00e8vres at the San Remo Conference in 1920. The Ottoman Empire disintegrated into several nations, many created by European powers with little regard for ethnic realities. These Arab provinces were ruled by Britain and France, and the new nation of Turkey emerged from the former heartland of Anatolia. Though allegedly for the benefit of the people of the Middle East, the <strong>mandate system<\/strong> was essentially a reimagined form of nineteenth-century imperialism. France received Syria; Britain took control of Iraq, Palestine, and Transjordan (Jordan). The United States was asked to become a mandate power but declined.<\/p>\n<p>The 1917 Russian Revolution, meanwhile enflamed American fears of communism, which manifested in an exacerbated nervousness about immigrants and the potential spread of radical ideas.\u00a0When in March 1918 the Bolsheviks signed a separate peace treaty with Germany, the Allies planned to send troops to northern Russia and Siberia to prevent German influence and fight the Bolshevik Revolution. Wilson agreed, and, in a little-known foreign intervention, American troops remained in Russia as late as 1920. Although the Bolshevik rhetoric of self-determination followed many of the ideals of Wilson\u2019s Fourteen Points\u2014Vladimir Lenin supported revolutions against imperial rule across the world\u2014the American commitment to self-rule was hardly strong enough to overcome powerful strains of nativist anticommunism.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<div class=\"textbox tryit\">\n<h3>Try It<\/h3>\n<p>\t<iframe id=\"assessment_practice_5dac2a32-5e62-44fc-8e47-f89714ee132a\" class=\"resizable\" src=\"https:\/\/assess.lumenlearning.com\/practice\/5dac2a32-5e62-44fc-8e47-f89714ee132a?iframe_resize_id=assessment_practice_id_5dac2a32-5e62-44fc-8e47-f89714ee132a\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border:none;width:100%;height:100%;min-height:300px;\"><br \/>\n\t<\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"textbox learning-objectives\">\n<h3>Glossary<\/h3>\n<p><strong>armistice:\u00a0<\/strong>a cease-fire agreement, which may only be temporary as two belligerent parties attempt to negotiate a peace treaty<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bolsheviks:\u00a0<\/strong>the Communist political party of Vladimir Lenin which overthrew the short-lived democratic government installed after the revolution that had deposed Tsar Nicholas II in 1917<\/p>\n<p><strong>mandate system: <\/strong>the system put in place after WWI by the victorious Allies to govern provinces of the dismantled Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, using arbitrarily drawn &#8220;mandates&#8221; from the League of Nations<\/p>\n<p><strong>Russian Revolution:<\/strong> events in Imperial Russia that led to the overthrow of the unpopular monarch, Tsar Nicholas Romanov II, and the eventual installation of a Communist government under Bolshevik party leader Vladimir Lenin<\/p>\n<p><strong>Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: <\/strong>negotiated between\u00a0Germany and Russia, and signed in March 1918, ending Russia&#8217;s involvement in the war and allowing Germany to commit all of its resources to defeat the Allies on the Western Front<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t <section class=\"citations-section\" role=\"contentinfo\">\n\t\t\t <h3>Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t <div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <div id=\"citation-list-223\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div class=\"licensing\"><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">CC licensed content, Original<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>Modification, adaptation, and original content. <strong>Authored by<\/strong>: Lillian Wills for Lumen Learning. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: Lumen Learning. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0\/\">CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike<\/a><\/em><\/li><\/ul><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">CC licensed content, Shared previously<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>US History. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: OpenStax. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/openstaxcollege.org\/textbooks\/us-history\">http:\/\/openstaxcollege.org\/textbooks\/us-history<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/\">CC BY: Attribution<\/a><\/em>. <strong>License Terms<\/strong>: Access for free at https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/us-history\/pages\/1-introduction<\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t <\/section><hr class=\"before-footnotes clear\" \/><div class=\"footnotes\"><ol><li id=\"footnote-223-1\">Michael S. Neiberg, Fighting the Great War: A Global History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005). <a href=\"#return-footnote-223-1\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 1\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"author":19,"menu_order":11,"template":"","meta":{"_candela_citation":"[{\"type\":\"cc\",\"description\":\"US History\",\"author\":\"\",\"organization\":\"OpenStax\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/openstaxcollege.org\/textbooks\/us-history\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"cc-by\",\"license_terms\":\"Access for free at https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/us-history\/pages\/1-introduction\"},{\"type\":\"original\",\"description\":\"Modification, adaptation, and original content\",\"author\":\"Lillian Wills for Lumen Learning\",\"organization\":\"Lumen Learning\",\"url\":\"\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"cc-by-sa\",\"license_terms\":\"\"}]","CANDELA_OUTCOMES_GUID":"080833bc-3fbc-40fd-96da-9d2fcfa1db1b,15716f15-5b09-4a5c-b26b-5126c629b243","pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-223","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":200,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9433,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/223\/revisions\/9433"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/200"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/223\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}