706 Chapter 26 The New Deal: 1933–1941
back. During the first five months of 1940 he asked
Congress to appropriate over $4 billion for national
defense. To strengthen national unity he named
Henry L. Stimson secretary of war^1 and another
Republican, Frank Knox, secretary of the navy.
After the fall of France, Hitler attempted to
bomb and starve the British into submission. The epic
air battles over England during the summer of 1940
ended in a decisive defeat for the Nazis, but the Royal
Navy, which had only about 100 destroyers, could
not control German submarine attacks on shipping.
Far more destroyers were needed. In this desperate
hour, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who had
replaced Chamberlain in May 1940, asked Roosevelt
for fifty old American destroyers to fill the gap.
The navy had 240 destroyers in commission and
more than fifty under construction. But direct loan or
sale of the vessels would have violated both interna-
tional and American laws. Any attempt to obtain new
legislation would have roused fears that the United
States was going down the path that had led it into
World War I. Long delay if not outright defeat would
have resulted. Roosevelt therefore arranged to
“trade” the destroyers for six British naval bases in the
Caribbean. In addition, Great Britain leased bases in
Bermuda and Newfoundland to the United States.
The destroyers-for-bases deal was a masterful
achievement. It helped save Great Britain, and at the
same time it circumvented isolationist prejudices
since the president could present it as a shrewd bar-
gain that bolstered America’s defenses. A string of
island bastions in the Atlantic was more valuable than
fifty old destroyers.
Lines were hardening throughout the world. In
September 1940, despite last-ditch isolationist resis-
tance, Congress enacted the first peacetime draft in
American history. Some 1.2 million draftees were
summoned for one year of service, and 800,000
reservists were called to active duty. That same month
Japan signed a mutual-assistance pact with Germany
and Italy. This Rome-Berlin-Tokyo coalition—the
Axis Powers—fused the conflicts in Europe and Asia,
turning the struggle into a global war.A Third Term for FDR
In the midst of these events the 1940 presidential
election took place. Why Roosevelt decided to run
for a third term is a much-debated question.
Partisanship had something to do with it, for no
other Democrat seemed so likely to carry the coun-
try. Nor would the president have been human had
he not been tempted to hold on to power, especially
in such critical times. His conviction that no one else
could keep a rein on the isolationists was probably
decisive. In any case, he was easily renominated.
Vice President Garner, who had become disen-
chanted with Roosevelt and the New Deal, did not
seek a third term; at Roosevelt’s dictation, the party
chose Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace to
replace him.
By using concern about the European war to jus-
tify running for a tradition-breaking third term,
Roosevelt brought down on his head the hatred of
conservative Republicans and the isolationists of both
major parties, just when they thought they would be
rid of him. The Republicans nominated the darkest(^1) Stimson had held this post from 1911 to 1913 in the Taft Cabinet! of dark horses, Wendell L. Willkie of Indiana, the
PACIFIC
Huang OCEAN
He
Ya
ngz
iR.
Sea
of
Japan
Yellow
Sea
Sea
of
Okhotsk
North
Sea
Empire 1920–1930
Expansion 1931
Expansion 1933
Expansion 1941
SOVIET UNION
MONGOLIA
CHINA
JAPAN
FORMOSA
KOREA
MANCHURIA
JEHOL
Hong Kong
Nanking
Peking
Mukden
Vladivostok
Shanghai
Tokyo
Canton
JA
PA
NE
SE
EM
PI
R
E
HUNGARY
ROMANIA
YUGOSLAVIA
ITALY
DENMARK
BELGIUM
Rhineland
occupation,
March 1936
Sudetenland
to Germany,
October 1938
AUSTRIA
Union with
Germany,
March 1938
LUX.
SWITZ.
GERMANY
NETH. POLAND
FRANCE
CZEC
Stat HOSLOVAKIA
eoccupied 1
(^939)
Danzig Königsberg
Hamburg
Berlin
Cologne Leipzig
Munich
Trieste
Prague
Vienna
Warsaw
Japanese Expansion, 1920–1941The Japanese empire,
which conquered Korea early in the twentieth century, seized
Manchuria in 1931; Jehol, north of Beijing, in 1933; and the rest
of China after 1937.
German Expansion, 1936–1939In March 1936, Hitler’s forces
reoccupied the Rhineland. In 1938 Germany annexed Austria and
wrested the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, and in 1939
occupied the remaining Czech lands.