ABSTRACT

After the First World War ended in November 1918, two intertwined trends affected the United States military for the next two decades. One can be seen in the international arena where victorious French, British, and American leaders hammered out the Treaty of Versailles and established the League of Nations in 1920. The treaty determined the fate of Germany. The belligerent nation was required to accept responsibility for the war, pay reparations to the Entente Powers, and disarm its military forces. Thereafter, most leaders and people in France, Great Britain, and the United States saw little need for maintaining expensive armed forces. Into the late 1920s and the early 1930s, these nations made several additional attempts to ensure peace by controlling production of weapons and arbitrating disputes among nations. Their efforts yielded temporary solutions that could not, however, prevent the slide toward another global confl ict by the end of the 1930s.