Unraveling Freedom: The Battle for Democracy on the Homefront During World War I. Ann Bausum
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Название: Unraveling Freedom: The Battle for Democracy on the Homefront During World War I
Автор: Ann Bausum
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Книги для детей: прочее
isbn: 9781426307287
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Wilson at war. “It would be the irony of fate if my administration had to deal chiefly with foreign affairs,” observed Woodrow Wilson before his inauguration as President of the United States. The outbreak of war in Europe a year later assured just that.
“We shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest to our hearts [until we] make the world itself at last free.”
WOODROW WILSON, CONCLUDING REMARKS FROM HIS WAR MESSAGE TO CONGRESS, APRIL 2, 1917
INTRODUCTION
IN THE SPRING OF 1917, as the United States prepared to declare war on Germany and enter the fight that would become known as World War I, perhaps as many as a quarter of all Americans had either been born in Germany or had descended from Germans. My grandfather was one of them. But Frederic William Bausum and his family could be considered some of the lucky German-Americans on the eve of war. They spoke English and had no divided loyalty to an old-world country. They had grown up in the United States, married across ethnic lines, homesteaded on the Western plains, and embraced the customs and beliefs of the country. They had, in short, become Americanized.
Thousands of other German-Americans were less fortunate. Almost overnight, the language they spoke by birth, the relatives they retained ties to from their past, the books they read, the schools they attended, even the food and drink they found most familiar and enjoyable, all became associated with the enemy: Germany.
Immigrants and descendants from other places bore ties to competing nations, too, from Great Britain to France to Italy to Russia. U.S. residents who shared backgrounds and beliefs with these countries found themselves taking sides in the conflict at home even as President Woodrow Wilson tried to steer the United States away from joining the conflict abroad. Finally, on April 2, 1917, the President addressed Congress and made a dramatic appeal for the nation to enter the fight. In words that continue to be quoted for their eloquence and passion, Wilson asserted that “the world must be made safe for democracy.”
Yet, in one of the greatest ironies of 20th century U.S. history, the President so committed to securing democracy and freedom abroad failed to prevent the unraveling of freedom in his own country. Even as millions of Americans put on military uniforms and as the nation expended billions of dollars to fund the fight, freedom came under siege in the United States.
Dogs in the fight. Even though the United States remained neutral after fighting broke out in Europe in 1914, Americans followed the conflict between the continent’s leading nations with concern. Dogs became symbols for competing countries, with dachshunds representing Germany. The American bull terrier personified a confident and fearless stand by the United States.
New laws tested the rights of individuals to question and criticize the government. Leaders who spoke from the edges of the political spectrum found themselves ridiculed, harassed, even jailed. A government-sponsored propaganda effort built public support for the war by fanning anti-immigrant feelings within the nation. At a time when Americans fought abroad in the name of freedom and democracy, Americans at home burned German-language books, put German-language newspapers out of business, condemned German foods and drinks, and spied on fellow citizens, especially those with ancestral ties to Germany.
Some of these wrongs took decades to right. Others forever altered the nature of American life—from the nation’s commitment to teaching foreign languages to its tolerance of differences in people from foreign lands. What happens when a segment of the population can be charged with disloyalty simply because of its heritage? Why may democracy go off track when national security seems at risk? How can a nation of immigrants, whose strength comes in part from its diversity, survive the internal conflicts that follow when wars develop with old homelands?
One needs only to look back at history to find questions—and answers—that echo from the past into events of modern times.
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“The ship was sinking with unbelievable rapidity. There was a terrible panic on her deck. It was the most terrible sight I have ever seen…. The scene was too horrible to watch.”
CAPTAIN WALTHER SCHWIEGER, OF U-BOAT 20, AFTER FIRING A TORPEDO AT THE LUSITANIA
SUNK
It TOOK ONLY 18 MINUTES for the great ship to sink. Even the Titanic had lingered on the ocean surface for more than two hours before sliding to the bottom of the Atlantic in 1912. But, on a sunny spring afternoon just three years later, the Lusitania began to list toward her starboard side almost immediately after being struck by a single submarine-fired torpedo. Minutes later she was gone.
The British ship had been within sight of the Irish coast when U-boat Captain Walther Schwieger commanded his German crew to launch a torpedo at the ocean liner as it steamed past, perhaps 2,300 feet away. It was 2:10 in the afternoon on May 7, 1915. Germany, England, and other European powers had been at war for nine months. Most of the Lusitania’s 1,257 passengers, having eaten their last lunch of the journey, were anticipating their arrival in England the next morning when the 20-foot-long torpedo struck their ship broadside, punching a large hole in the giant vessel’s midsection.
Going down! As the Lusitania sank, the surrounding water became filled with “waving hands and arms belonging to struggling men and frantic women and children,” according to one survivor. The sea “was black with people," observed another.
The Lusitania proved to be an easy target. Despite assurances that she would be greeted in home waters by an armed escort, no such protection materialized as she approached her destination of Liverpool, England, either because none had been requested or because none could be spared by the British Navy. At full speed the Lusitania could easily have outrun any German submarine, but wartime economies had closed one of her four boiler rooms, and the ship’s captain had further reduced her speed for navigation purposes.
Captain William Turner had commanded the Lusitania for only a few months of the ship’s eight-year history, but he had sailed for more than three decades with the vessel’s Cunard Line owner. The 30,000-ton ocean liner had made her maiden voyage in 1907, five years ahead of the Titanic’s single journey. Like the Titanic, the Lusitania promised passengers a swift passage across the Atlantic under luxurious conditions. A crew of more than 700 men and women tended to the needs of passengers during the five to seven days required for a transatlantic crossing. Many crew members on this voyage were new to the service and relatively inexperienced in shipboard safety; they occupied posts held by seamen called up recently for military service.
Battles СКАЧАТЬ