US Wars 1

Question 1

All U.S. wars and military engagements~Focus on the following in greater depth and learn causes and impacts:

Question 2

Revolutionary War

Answer 2

• War fought for American independence from Britain.
• Fighting began with the Battle of Lexington and Concord in 1775, and lasted through the battle of Yorktown in 1781.
• General George Washington commanded the American forces assisted by Ethan Allen, Benedict Arnold, Horatio Gates, John Paul Jones, and others.
• British military leaders included Charles Cornwallis, John Burgoyne, Thomas Gage, and William Howe, among others.

The American cause was greatly aided by French ships and troops and by the presence of the French nobleman Marquis de Lafayette.
The treaty of Paris in 1793 officially ended the war. (See Battle of Bunker Hill and Battle of Saratoga).

Question 3

War of 1812

Question 4

Civil War

Answer 4

• War fought in the United States between Northern (Union) and Southern (Confederate) states from 1861-1865, in which the Confederacy sought to establish as a separate nation.
• The Civil War is also known as the War for Southern Independence and as the War between the States. The war grew out of deep-seated differences between the social structure and economy of North and South, most notably over slavery.
• Generations of political maneuvers had been unable to overcome these differences (Missouri Compromise and Compromise of 1850).
• Secession of the southern states began in late 1860, after Abraham Lincoln was elected president.
• The Confederacy was formed in early in 1961.
• Fighting began with the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter. Most of the battles took place in the South, but one extremely crucial episode, the Battle of Gettysburg, was fought in the North.
• The war ended with the surrender of General Robert E. Lee to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House (Battle of Bull Run, Battle of Chancellorsville, Emancipation Proclamation, and Sherman’s March).
• The Civil War has been the most serious test yet of the ability of the United States to remain one nation.

Question 5

World War I

Answer 5

• War fought from 1914 to 1918 between the Allies (notably Britain, France, Russia, and Italy-who entered the war in 1915) and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire).
• The war was sparked by the assassination in 1914 by the heir to the throne of Austria.
• Prolonged stalemates, trench warfare, and immense casualties on both sides marked the fighting.
• The United States sought to remain neutral but was outraged by the sinking of the Lusitania by a German submarine in 1915 and by Germany’s decision in 1916 to start unrestricted submarine warfare. In 1917, the United States entered the war on the side of the Allies and helped tip the balance in their favor.
• In full retreat on its western front, Germany asked for an armistice, or truce, which was granted on November 11, 1918. By the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, signed in 1919, Germany had to make extensive concessions to the Allies and pay large penalties.
• The government leaders of World War I included Georges Clemenceau of France, David Lloyd George of Britain, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and Woodrow Wilson of the United States.
• World War I was known as known as the Great War, or the World War until World War II broke out.

Question 6

World War II

Answer 6

• A war fought from 1939 to 1945 between the Axis Powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—and the Allies, including France and Britain, and later the Soviet Union and the United States.
• The war began when the Germans, governed by the Nazi party, invaded Poland in September 1939. Germany then conquered France, using blitzkrieg tactics, and forced a desperate British withdrawal at Dunkirk. The Germans tried to wear down the British by heavy bombing, but the withstood the attacks (Battle of Britain). The Soviet Union signed a treaty with Adolf Hitler but entered the war on the side of the Allies after Germany invaded Russia in 1941. The United States was drawn into the war in 1941, when he Japanese attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor. Japan made extensive conquests in east Asia but was checked by American victories at the Battle of Midway Island and elsewhere. The German invasion of Russia was halted at the Battle of Stalingrad. Allied forces took much of Italy in 1943, forcing its surrender. Beginning with the invasion of Normandy in 1944 (D-Day), the Allies liberated France from German occupation and pressed on in Europe, defeating the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge and elsewhere.
• Germany surrendered in May 1945 (V-E Day). The war in the Pacific ended in September 1945 (V-J Day), after the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the aftermath of World War II, more than constructive and less punitive measures were applied to the defeated countries than after WWI (Marshall Plan, Nuremberg Trials, and United Nations).
• The political leaders of the war included Winston Churchill of Britain, Adolf Hitler of Germany, Benito Mussolini of Italy, Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States, and Josef Stalin of the Soviet Union. The military leaders included Charles de Gaulle of France; Bernard Montgomery of Britain; Hermann Goering and Erwin Rommel of Germany; Tito of Yugoslavia; and Omar Bradley, Dwight Eisenhower, William Halsey, Douglas MacArthur, Chester Nimitz, and George Patton of the United States.

Question 7

Korean War

Answer 7

• A war, also called the Korean conflict, fought in the early 1950s between the Untied Nations, supported by the United States, and the Communist Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea). The war began in 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea. The UN declared North Korea the aggressor and sent military aid to the South Korean army. President Truman declared the war a “police action” because he never asked Congress to pass an official declaration of war. He thereby established a precedent for President Johnson, who committed troops to the Vietnam War without ever seeking a congressional mandate for his action.
• General Douglas MacArthur commanded the United Nations troops, who were mostly form the United States. The tide turned against North Korea with the landings at Inchon, and its troops were pushed back into the North; but reinforcements from the People’s Republic of China soon allowed the North Koreans to regain lost territory. In 1953, with neither side having a prospect of victory, a truce was declared. In the course of the war, President Truman removed MacArthur from command for insubordination.

Question 8

Vietnam War

Answer 8

• A war in Southeast Asia, in which the United States fought in the 1960s and 1970s. The war was waged from 1954 to 1975 between Communist North Vietnam and non-communist South Vietnam, two parts of what was once the French colony Indochina. Vietnamese communists attempted to take over the South, both by invasion from the North and by guerilla warfare conducted within the South by the Viet Cong. Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy sent increasing numbers of American military advisers to South Vietnam in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Kennedy’s successor President Johnson, increased American military support greatly, until half a million United States soldiers were in Vietnam.
• American goals in Vietnam proved difficult to achieve, and the communists’ Tet Offensive was a severe setback. Reports of atrocities committed by both sides in the war disturbed many Americans (My Lai Massacre). Eventually, President Nixon decreased American troop strength and sent his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, to negotiate a cease-fire with North Vietnam. American troops were withdrawn in 1973, and South Vietnam was completely taken over by communist forces in 1975.
• The involvement of the US in the war was extremely controversial. Some supported it whole-heartedly; others opposed it in mass demonstrations and by refusing to serve in the American armed forces (draft). Still others seemed to rely on the government to decide the best course of action (silent majority).

Question 9

First Gulf War