This created a sense of prosperity for cotton farmers, their creditors, and communities that depended economically on the crop. entered the war, the average price per pound in the state was 26 cents and increased to 29.48 cents by war’s end in 1918. Once the cotton exchanges reopened, however, prices rose dramatically and continued to rise in 19. At the time, Texas produced one-third of the nation’s cotton and one-fifth of the world’s cotton. In July 1914 cotton exchanges closed for three months and cotton prices for the year fell to an average of 7.22 cents per pound, 40 percent less than the previous year ( see COTTON CULTURE).
Texas farmers felt the first impact of the war through cotton prices.
Although the border had always been porous on both sides of the Rio Grande, these migrants moved farther into the interior of Texas for work and stayed longer, if not permanently settled in the state. Between 19, at least 127,000 migrants fled Mexico to Texas to escape the war. From its start in 1910, violence along the border increased dramatically. Texas had been a staging ground and smuggling source for the Mexican Revolution, a war that quickly became a component of World War I strategic diplomacy between Germany, Britain, and the United States since Mexico was a leading exporter of oil. Most Texans, however, were focused on a war closer to home. Back in Texas, German and Austrian immigrants and first generation citizens raised humanitarian aid for the German and Austrian Red Cross organizations to help those wounded and displaced, and a few German immigrants returned to Germany to join the military. Both in Germany, Olga Kolhberg and Ima Hogg witnessed initial mobilization before making the difficult journey home. Julia Ideson left Liege, Beligum, only a few hours before Germany laid siege to the city in the war’s first battle. Texans who were in Europe at the start of the war immediately made preparations to return home. Maintaining neutrality meant they could continue exporting cotton, cattle, oil, and other commodities to nations on both sides of the conflict and make use of the newly-opened Houston Ship Channel. Most Texans agreed with the decision of the United States to remain neutral and not intervene in European affairs.
Texans were interested in the events of World War I from the beginning of the conflict.
involvement on the front lines was relatively short, events and conditions of the war created long-lasting changes in Texas militarily, socially, economically, and politically.īefore U.S. Texas and Texans made significant contributions to what was then called the Great War on the front lines, on the home front, and from positions within the federal government. The United States, determined to stay out of European affairs, formally remained neutral until declaring war against Germany and its allies on April 6, 1917, and stayed engaged militarily until fighting ceased on November 11, 1918.
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The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian Empire on June 28, 1914, set off a series of events that quickly led to a global war, called the Great War and later World War I, between the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and their allies against the Entente or Allied Powers of Great Britain, France, Russia, and later joined by Japan and Italy.