From Neutrality to the Arsenal of Democracy

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Section Chronology

Most Americans condemned German aggression and favored Britain and France, but isolationism remained powerful. Roosevelt feared that if Congress did not repeal the arms embargo mandated by the Neutrality Act of 1937, France and Britain would soon succumb to the Nazi onslaught. Congress agreed in November 1939 to allow belligerent nations to buy arms, as well as nonmilitary supplies, on a cash-and-carry basis.

In practice, the revised neutrality law permitted Britain and France to purchase American war materiel and carry it across the Atlantic in their own ships, prevailing cash-and-carry neutrality law. By late summer in 1940, Roosevelt concocted a scheme to deliver fifty old destroyers to Britain in exchange for American access to British bases in the Western Hemisphere, the first steps toward building a firm Anglo-American alliance against Hitler.

CHAPTER LOCATOR

How did the United States respond to international developments in the 1930s?

How did the outbreak of war affect U.S. foreign policy?

How did the United States mobilize for war?

How did the Allies turn the tide in Europe and the Pacific?

How did the war change life on the American home front?

How did the Allies finally win the war?

Conclusion: Why did the United States emerge as a superpower at the end of the war?

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While German Luftwaffe (air force) pilots bombed Britain, Roosevelt decided to run for an unprecedented third term as president in 1940. But the presidential election, which Roosevelt won handily, provided no clear mandate for American involvement in the European war. The Republican candidate, Wendell Willkie, a former Democrat who generally favored New Deal measures and Roosevelt’s foreign policy, attacked Roosevelt as a warmonger. Willkie’s accusations caused the president to promise voters, “Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars,” a pledge counterbalanced by his repeated warnings about the threats to America posed by Nazi aggression.

Once reelected, Roosevelt maneuvered to support Britain in every way short of war. In a fireside chat shortly after Christmas 1940, he proclaimed that it was incumbent on the United States to become “the great arsenal of democracy” and send “every ounce and every ton of munitions and supplies that we can possibly spare to help the defenders who are in the front lines.” In January 1941, Roosevelt proposed the Lend-Lease Act.

Lend-Lease Act

image Legislation in 1941 that enabled Britain to obtain arms from the United States without cash but with the promise to reimburse the United States when the war ended. The act reflected Roosevelt’s desire to assist the British in any way possible, short of war.

Lend-Lease Act

> Lend-Lease Act

  • Allowed the British to obtain arms from the United States without paying cash but with the promise to reimburse the United States when the war ended.
  • Supported the defense of democracy and human rights throughout the world, according to Roosevelt.
  • Provided Britain with more than $50 billion of support during the war.

Stymied in his plans for an invasion of England, Hitler turned his massive army eastward and on June 22, 1941, sprang a surprise attack on the Soviet Union, his ally in the 1939 Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact. Neither Roosevelt nor Churchill had any love for Joseph Stalin or communism, but they both welcomed the Soviet Union to the anti-Nazi cause. Both Western leaders understood that Hitler’s attack on Russia would provide relief for the hard-pressed British. Roosevelt quickly persuaded Congress to extend Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union, beginning the shipment of millions of tons of trucks, jeeps, and other equipment that, in all, supplied about 10 percent of Russian war materiel.

As Hitler’s Wehrmacht (armed forces) raced across the Russian plains and Nazi U-boats tried to choke off supplies to Britain and the Soviet Union, Roosevelt met with Churchill aboard a ship near Newfoundland to cement the Anglo-American alliance. In August 1941, the two leaders issued the Atlantic Charter, pledging the two nations to freedom of the seas and free trade as well as the right of national self-determination.