America's Second Crusade

Cover

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Title Page, Copyright

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pp. iii-iv

Contents

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pp. v-

Introduction

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pp. vii-viii

There is an obvious and painful gap between the world of 1950 and the postwar conditions envisaged by American and British wartime leaders. The negative objective of the war, the destruction of the Axis powers, was achieved. But not one of the positive goals set forth in the Atlantic Charter and the Four Freedoms has been realized. ...

1. The First Crusade

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pp. 1-23

Americans, more than any other people, have been inclined to interpret their involvement in the two great wars of the twentieth century in terms of crusades for righteousness. General Eisenhower calls his memoirs Crusade in Europe. And the mural paintings in the Widener Memorial Library at Harvard University...

2. Communism and Fascism: Offspring of the War

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pp. 24-38

When World War I was at its height, it must have seemed probable that the victor would be either the Kaiser or the leaders of the western powers. But the true political winners from that terrific holocaust were three men who were little known, even in their own countries, when hostilities began. ...

3. The Collapse of Versailles

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pp. 39-70

It was the announced purpose of the Treaty of Versailles to replace the state of war by a “firm, just and durable peace.” But the peace settlements with Germany and its allies were neither firm nor just nor durable. A century elapsed between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the next general European conflict. ...

4. Debacle in the West

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pp. 71-95

The British and French alliances with Poland brought only disaster and suffering to all the partners. The Polish Army, courageous but poorly trained in methods of modern warfare and scantily supplied with tanks and airplanes, was overwhelmed by the invading Germans during the first weeks of September. ...

5. "Again and Again and Again"

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pp. 96-126

No people has ever been led into war with so many soothing promises of peace as the Americans received from their Chief Executive in 1939 and 1940. The national mood after World War I had become one of profound disgust and disillusionment. It had become increasingly obvious that America’s First Crusade had not made the world...

6. Road to War: The Atlantic

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pp. 127-152

Roosevelt was elected President for a third term by the votes of isolationists who trusted his dozen or more specific pledges to stay out of war and of interventionists who did not believe he meant what he said. The latter had far more reason for satisfaction. Once assured of four more years in the White House...

7. Road to War: The Pacific

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pp. 153-183

By 1941 the United States had become deeply involved in the Pacific, as well as in the Atlantic theater of World War II. The Roosevelt Administration was striving to block and discourage Japan’s expansion by a variety of measures short of war: economic discrimination, aid to China, diplomatic warnings, display of naval force. ...

8. The Coalition of the Big Three

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pp. 184-212

Pearl Harbor was quickly followed by declarations of war on America by Germany, Italy, and the Axis satellites. The Japanese Government invoked the Tripartite Pact on December 3¹ and called on Germany and Italy to fulfill their obligations as cosignatories. Why Hitler kept this promise, when he broke so many others, is a question to which no positive answer can be given, in the light...

9. The Munich Called Yalta: War's End

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pp. 213-238

The second conference of the Big Three, held at Yalta in February 1945, represented the high point of Soviet diplomatic success and correspondingly the low point of American appeasement. This conference took place under circumstances which were very disadvantageous to the western powers. ...

10. Wartime Illusions and Delusions

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pp. 239-265

One might have supposed that an alert public opinion would have warded off some of the moral inconsistencies and political blunders which have been described in preceding chapters. Of course, complete freedom of speech is never maintained in time of war. Father Coughlin’s magazine, Social Justice, for example, was harassed into extinction. ...

11. Poland: The Great Betrayal

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pp. 266-293

The questions are not: Shall Poland’s eastern border be shifted westward? Shall she lose her eastern territories or, losing them, acquire in their place western territories at the expense of Germany? “The question is: Shall Poland exist? “Beyond this there is another question: Shall Europe exist—the Europe we have known, and hope to know again, the Europe for which...

12. Germany Must Be Destroyed

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pp. 294-320

Roosevelt’s policy toward Germany found its main expression in two decisions. One was negative, the other ferociously destructionist. The first was the “unconditional surrender” slogan, proclaimed at Casablanca in January 1943. The second was the Morgenthau Plan, sanctioned at Quebec in September 1944. ...

13. No War, But No Peace

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pp. 321-347

In the fifth year after the end of the war, there still was no peace with the two principal belligerents, Germany and Japan. The Congress of Vienna made, by and large, a good peace, with amazingly little in the way of vengeful reprisals against France for Napoleon’s wars of aggression. With all its faults, it was a settlement that saved Europe for...

14. Crusade in Retrospect

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pp. 348-366

America’s Second Crusade belongs to history. Was it a success? Over two hundred thousand Americans perished in combat, and almost six hundred thousand were wounded. There was the usual crop of postwar crimes attributable to shock and maladjustment after combat experience. There was an enormous depletion of American natural resources...

Bibliography

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pp. 367-371

Index

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pp. 373-387

Information

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pp. 390-

The typeface used for this book is ITC New Baskerville, which was created for the International Typeface Corporation and is based on the types of the English type founder and printer John Baskerville (1706–75). Baskerville is the quintessential transitional face: it retains the bracketed and oblique serifs of old-style faces such as Caslon and Garamond, but in its increased...