Transcripts For CSPAN3 100th Anniversary Of U.S. Entry Into World War I 20170529

To authors and historians to speak about what was then called the great war. We learn about the creation of the memorial to honor those who serveded and about artifacts in the museums collection. This is about two and a half hours. 100 years ago on april 6, 1917, president Woodrow Wilson signeded a declaration of war against germany, entering the United States into world war i. More than 4 million american men and women would eventually serve in uniform and more than 100,000 americans died in the conflict. The influx of u. S. Resources changed the tide of the years long global war bringing it to a close on november 11, 1918. To mark the 100th anniversary of what was then known as the great war, American History tv is live from the National World war i museum and memorial in kansas city, missouri. Well be here for the next two and a half hours and well take you on a tour of the exhibits and involve you in conversations with top world war i historians as we learn about the history of the u. S. Role in the war and its impact. As we open the program, we are joined by the president and ceo of the National World war i museum and memorial Matthew Nayler. You have resources in telling the story of world war i, why is it important for people in 2017 to know this story . I dont know you can think of the last 100 years particularly in the United States without understanding the impact of world war i. And thats true of countries across the globe. Im an australian and an american, as well, and for australia it is the defining moment rather than a moment of victory defining a national psyche, for australia its a defeat. It defines who australians are and thats true of so many other places. It had such a profound impact on the reconstruction of world relationships, of how countries were formed and so on, that its essential for our understanding of our current age. In about ten minutes we will be going to telephone calls. This is an interactive program. We know many of you are either professional or amateur historians in our audience and we would love to have you as part of our conversation. Well put our phone numbers and twitter handle on the screen as we talk here with matt naler and well get into the things youre most interested in about world war i. So give us a snapshot, please n 1917 as the u. S. Is considering this momentous decision. What precededed it. How many countries were involved in the conflict at that point . How many combatants . The remarkable thing about world war i, all of the continent of the world were swept up into that. About 34 countries then, but those now would be more than 100 if we define how all of those countries, because of the nature of empires that there were so many countries that were swept up into that. In such a brief period of time from all over the globe those countries swept up and then shipped off to europe. For example, in a 1. 8 million indian troops serving. Japanese escorting australians into europe. In africa, because of colonialism, countries there that were then providing resources and providing labor for the war. It really was truly a global war leading up to the u. S. Engagement already. Weve probably all learned in our history books that it was the assassination of arch Duke Ferdinand that started the war, but it sounds like there was a lot of tippednder that that mat struck. It was a tinderbox that was there and that it struck, it seems to me there is a multiblissity and a rise in nationalism among those. The sense of local ethnic identity was growing in a way in which it hadnt previously been, under the oppression of empire and peoples sense of selfidentity was so important so that is rubbing. Changes in Energy Sources then are having a profound impact on economic relationships. The alliances which are being formed and are being secretly formed as well then is creating tensions. There was also a view amongst some that somehow war could be cleansing. The idea that winning an idea of survival of the fittest extended beyond just what we would think about it of animals to even societies that somehow the fittest really need to demonstrate their success and so there was this idea that war might even be cleansing and so these things come together and the rise of workers movements and so many of those then were setting the tinderbox with that match being struck set the world aflame. By the time the war was over how many people were involved . 70 million is the number of comb combatants . How many people died in world war i. There are at least 9 million combatant deaths. Its reasonable to say that perhaps 60 million were killed and then theres the impact of the flu, as well which certainly is not a result of the war, but certainly is exacerbated because of that, but do you ever really know . Nobody expected deaths at this sort of scale. So how do you count when the deaths are happening particularly earlier on in the war at the rate at which they are and societies are not anticipateded and theyre not set up to count those sorts of deaths. So now lets move specifically to the United States. This country was out and we were not involved and there were pressures on the president Woodrow Wilson especially from the big rival, Theodore Roosevelt to get involved and set the stage for us about the u. S. Entry. He wasnt involved and certainly it wasnt involved in a variety of ways and albeit remaining politically neutral. Economically, the u. S. Was benefiting from the war in a whole variety of ways and manufacturing munitions, providing loans. Which side were we providing them for . Particularly for the allies and then also the United States is a country of immigrants. Theres at least 10 million german immigrants, for example in the United States. Firstgeneration immigrants and so the debate is a difficult debate, and because its not clear cut. If youre firstgeneration immigrant and why would you go to fight against your people, as it were . So a very difficult debate that the country participated in for a long time. Its to listen to music, for example, is i think really profound. Over there is the sound that we most associated with in world war i and i didnt raise my son to be a soldier, and a poignant song that tells the story of the other side, as it were. Throughout society there was quite a debate that we said ought we do this, ought we go. And what happened to bring us into the war . A variety of things and there were and the lucitania which is one people point towards and the submarine warfare in generally and the risk that that presented to the british, for example, and then to the United States which had a profound bearing upon that. People point to it as being an important factor and it was timely where the mexicans were being invited to attack against the United States and then seeking to introduce the japanese. Perhaps that was the straw that broke the camels back and the stage was well said. I think its interesting that Woodrow Wilson ran on the campaign and he kept us out of the war and hes inaugurated in march and we know that in april 2nd he delivers his address to Congress Asking for the declaration of war which is the proclamation signed on the 6th of april. The first influx of troops in france happened almost a yearplus later. Why did it take so long . How do you equip an army and grow an army of that size . That was the struggle. Albeit, however, very quickly because prior they had a Standing Army of 100,000 and scaleded it scaled scaleded it at an extraordinary rate. One of the thingses we have at the museum is to serve an army that turned out to be 4 million, 4. 5 or so. How many undershirts . How many socks, shoes . Let alone the training required . It was a massive, massive effort and yet it was done in a short time and then with what led to the biggest battles in American Military history. Extraordinary effort by the United States and everybody. This was not something thats relegated just to the armed forces. It was a total war, a true, full effort by people right across the United States. Factory workers, farmhands, volunteers, people necessarily got behind this in order to be able to quit the troops and you made the point that it forever changed the United States, how so . I think there are a number of ways in which that happened and certainly contributed to the Suffrage Movement and womens rights. It had a profound impetus and impact on civil rights issues. The experience of africanamerican soldiers in the war and then their experience of returning back to a segregated country. Economically, the place of the United States is enormously impacted by the war. Though the war benefited the u. S. Economically prayer to 1917, but coming out of the war, the u. S. Was really on a different footing financially that had a profound bearing. Theres a leadership role that the u. S. Sought after the war which certainly, albeit it seems to me was somewhat diminished because of the unwillingness of the u. S. To support the league of nations and certainly the u. S. Leadership position, those substantially changeded it a itd to the american century. Well get to the creation of the museum. Its time now for our phone calls and the first one comes from marvin watching us from minnesota. Welcome to the world war i Memorial Museum and our discussion about world war i. Thank you. Hello . Yes, sir. Were listening. Whats your question . Oh, the i really have no question, but i had said earlier i am of 80 years of age, and i talked to one of the men that was in that war. His name was john sockton, and he was tackle, north dakota, and he marched in that 47 days, and he told me about it and how shiny his helmet was and everything they went through. I guess my question would be what motivated these people or these military soldiers to keep going like that . Thank you very much. Weve having a little bit of trouble with the audio. This is an 80yearold man who remembers talking to a soldier who participated in the 47day campaign. His question was what motivated them to fight . I cant speak specifically to that. I think he would be better situated to do that. More generally, my grandfather served in world war i. He served in france, and there was a deep sense of, i think, of commitment to values and were deeply shared at the time they had a profound bearing on peoples desire to sacrifice and to serve in world war i which was a in the united kingdom, for example, the pals brigade are an example where whole villages and woel towns would sign up together and the men altogether would sign a poll and cricket teams or soccer teams would sign up together to serve in the war because that was the thing that needed to happen. Enormous sacrifice by people. And the pals brigades as they were in the same division, for example, the same brigade and then they were wiped out and whole villages of young men altogether would be killed, hence the way in which people would recruit and drafted change and the way people were assigned change, but there was certainly a desire to serve in a way which really motivated people such as my grandfather. Speaking of motivation, the story of this memorial is one of motivation by people who had been combatants and supporters in the war. Tell our audience how it got started. 1919, soon after the armistice of the campaign, they came together and said let us do something with kansas city and within a short period of time they organized the people of the city and the community of about 250,000 to fund raise, 2. 5 million in ten days. 83,000 people participated in that. That would be 40 million. In tern days. Wow and the allied commanders served from belgium, uk, italy, france and the United States came here in 1921 together with about 100,000 people and dedicated the hilltop here and the land 26 acres overlooking the city and in an International Design competition, mcgonigle was successful and cool imcame back and 150,000 people said to be the largest crowd that the community that our president had ever spoken to. I think its an extraordinary story of grassroots support, of crowd source funding to pay for what turned out to pay for an extraordinarily dramatic memorial. Two very important decisions made at the time. The first was to create a memorial of scale which this is. 217foot tower. These two fantastic exhibit halls, sphinx, and a freeze on the north side and really a large memorial and then the second significant decision was to collect globally. So in 1920 the Association Began collecting archival materials and threedimensional objects from the war from all belligerents and all sides and have continueded to do so for the last 90 years. In the 60s and 70s in the 80s there was an issue that caught up with the memorial and that wasnt uncommon in city structures and the cities, as well and the people responded to that and congressman cleaver was mayor cleaver at the time, he made it a priority of his mayorship to restore the memorial which at that point had been closed. Ali gates, a local businessman, he was a chair of the parks and Recreation Commission was assigned to move on this. So through a variety of activities again, at the city, the people voted about 68 with sales tax for about 18 months and private philanthropy together raised 100 million locally to restore the memorial and in the process carve in its understructure a museum which is fitting of the collection that had been then in the collective for so many years. Ralph applebaum and associates, one of the foremost designers in the u. S. Then designed the main gallery and opened in 06 with a congressional designation as the National World war i museum and 2014 designated the memorial as the National World war i memorial and we are proud to carry both of those designations as the National World war i and memorial. We are going to learn in a minute to you who comes today and its an appropriate time to see some of your exhibits. My colleague is with the chief curator here to see some of what youve got on display. Yes. We are here in front of an exhibit of posters and doran cart will explain why the u. S. Government made propaganda posters in world war i . As soon as the war started there was a committee on Public Information formed by the president , and they wanted to control all information that was given out to the american public, and it was all censored and it all had to be approved by this committee and posters were the true advertising medium of the day because it could be produced colorfully, they could be produced in mass quantity which they wanted to cover the country with them and they also could be used for a population that couldnt read. So their images then impressed upon the viewer what the government wanted you to understand, and so they were really propaganda, but they were also social directives. They wanted you to save food. They wanted you to give money to the government for the war effort, and they wanted you to become part of the war and it really was, at the beginning of the war it really was a struggle. People think that everyone in the United States was rah, rah, lets go to war, and it didnt occur that way. So the committee on Public Information used the posters which were the social media of the day as their beating drum. They couldnt have big bands every place so they had posters and this was an important part of their effort. Where would people see these posters . Well, they would see the recruiting posters, of course, in the places where they were recruiting men and women for service into the war. They would be plastered on barns, they would be in cafes. They would be in libraries and they would be anywhere where people gathered and where someone could pass by and see this and they would impress their importance on them. The ones where they were talking about raising more food would be primarily in the rural areas where they wanted people to give more money and tended to be more in the urban areas. Lets take a look at the uncle sam poster. This is particularly special. Tell us about it. Of course, the uncle sam is probably the most recognized american poster from world war i, and it was done by a man with an appropriate name for the patriotic fervor of the time and his name was James Montgomery flag, and he was given the commission. He was a volunteer to paint an image of uncle sam based on a famous british poster of lord kichner basically wanting the viewer to enlist. When he was getting ready to paint the original he had hired a model. The model didnt show up and so flag had to get it done in one day, and so he used himself. He looked in the mirror and painted himself as uncle sam. So the iconic image that we have of uncle sam which has been around since the 1820s became James Montgomery flags face. And this particular poster is original . Yes, all of the materials on exhibit are the original and the posters are a major part of our collection. We have thousands of them in the collection from all of the nations who used them during the war. And do you know exactly where this one came from . Well, actually we do. The museum started collecting in 1920 and one of the first checks there was a local fellow in kansas city, and he was in new york and he had a lot of these posters for sale at brynn tanos bookstore, and he purchased a lot of them and gave them to the museum as part of the collection. There are also several on the wall that are for liberty loans. What was a liberty loan . A liberty loan came about fairly quickly at the start of the war, and it was really to get people to give cash to support the war effort and then they were promised a return on their investment, probably seven years after the war, and so it really was considered a loan to the government and then it would help pay for their liberty. They used the word liberty a lot for their advertising efforts and it was really created by the secretary of the treasury, mcdo who happened to be the president s soninlaw. Thank you very much. Well talk to you again soon. Thank you, susan. We are back live with Matthew Nayler president and ceo of the National World war i museum. And theyre marking the entry into the war of the whole nation. Were taking your telephone calls and learning about the war history as its captured in this national museum. Well take another telephone call. Holmes is watching us in greenpoint, new york. Youre on. Welcome to American History tv. Thank you. I want to thank the program, cspan3 for illuminating me on my fathers limited relations with what he told me about his efforts in world war i. My father has the same name as mine, holmes hallic, he and several of his close friends, soon after our entry in april of 1917 went to the recruiting office in new york city. He and a couple of his friends, a couple of others were unaccepted and enlisted and he first was assigned and then told me about his experience after getting over to france. Later in 1917. He served as a corporal in france for his company and was the company commander. In the Field Artillery that his company was in, they were moving up to the front lines in early november of 1917 and he thought they could hear the canons, they were that close to the front lines and they intended to go into full action when the truce was signed on november 11th of 1918. Thank you. Im going to stop you at that point, holmes. Thanks for telling us your family story. You have a family story, and this museum tries to capture a lot of the personal stories. Is the idea to make bar rewar rr people . What we heard there is a connection that someone has to their fore bearers which is so often with what we found with people who visit the museum. It doesnt take long for somebody to find somebody in their family who served in world war i or might have served in factories or on farms that supported the war effort. Certainly, thats the case for International Visitors as well and what we seem to do here is to tell the story through the lives of people, ordinary people, men and women, volunteers as well as those who served in the armed forces from all sides. Thats one of the things about this museum is we seek to tell the story of all of the countries that were that were in world war i. Are there world war i museums in other places in the world . Indeed there are. All over. You bet. Do you have a fraternity . Do you Work Together . There are strong relationships between us all, and we are very proud to be partners with the australia war memorial and the imperial war memorial in london and so on. We should tell people the set that we created here features one of the very special things you have here which was a tank that was in combat. Can you tell me about it . This is a renault tank and the most technologically advanced tank at the time and this tank behind me here is one only of three that remain that were battle damaged, and i think its an extraordinary tank and albeit a technologically advanced and it only went 4 miles an hour. Two men would be inside it. One driving and the other operating the gun and the teret at the top pivots or turns around and would primarily be used for taking out machine gun batteries and clearing the way for the infantry to come behind. What i think is striking about this tank, if you see the front, the wheels that hold the tracks of wood, when we brought this back to kansas city. It was common for mechanics to carve their names on the inside. When we brought it back to kansas city and we were doing further work with it, we discovereded some names of mechanics on the inside and one of those mechanics is from kansas city and lived close to the museum and memorial, and he had done mechanical work on this in france, and this was damaged in the latter part of 18 in france and was brought back in a souvenir ship and went on a train to raise money as an object for people to look at and found its way to a collector and we have it here. Well talk about this in more detail with the historians later on in the program. This is a war that had one foot in one century and one foot in another. Horses and tanks at the same time. The most favorite site for me is where we have the swords and the colorful uniforms that people wore going into the war and on the other side directly opposite that is a large piece of artillery. So this mechanization of war is what we saw happen, and the challenge was to not use techniques of previous wars which when one is confronting machine guns, to learn new ways of fighting. Next call and our discussion is from mike watching us from farmington, michigan. Hi, mike. Youre on the air. Im calling from farmington, michigan. I want to tell a story about, i believe it was called the lost battalion, and they didnt have any telegraph or telephone lines and all they had was a pigeon. This pigeon was they put the note on the leg of the pigeon and it went around and it circled and flew off and got back to the lines and it told them to stop firing on them and our troops were saved by this pigeon, and youll find it now in the institute and thats my story. Great. Thank you very much for that story. Another example of the old and new technologies blending together in this war. Indeed. Well take another call. Paul is in new york city and youre on with matt naler. Welcome to the program. Good morning, matthew and good morning. Thank you for the world war i memorial and i want to thank you about the harlem hell fighters and can you give us history and there was a west point grad who was africanamerican and he graduated and he wanted to fight in world war i. Could you tell us about that . Thank you very much. Can you give us well talk more in depth with a bit of the snapshot of the africanamericans, did they participate in the war . Indeed. I think you have a segment when well discuss that in more detail. More than 300,000 africanamericans served in the war and were segregated and many of whom served with the french, and the and served heroically also and particularly with the french and then this is one of the things we discussed earlier, susan, when people returned to the United States and having had experience of integration, of their service being honored and valued equally and then to find themselves back in American Society where segregation was still the norm a and its significantly contributed to more impetus around civil rights movements. I wanted to get some sense of who comes here today. I also wanted to underscore something that you explain that this facility gets no federal funding. Its all private philanthropy and Corporate Support and the city support. Does it cost to come . It does. We have tickets for people to be here, very modest and the theyre less expensive for personses who serve or have served and for children and they are aged its really quite a traditional bell curve of participation that 50 of the visitorship is aged between 25 and 45. So its a people who are veterans, people with military histories and amateur historians who have an interest in world war i, people who have a Family Connection or just people who want to see a worldclass museum. Its a real eclectic blend of visitors. Last year we had people from 73 countries. So at the memor wral and the museum, we served 100,000 guests. This iss big week. It is. Whats happening on the 6th . Were really honored to be hosting the National Ceremony to mark the entrance of the United States in world war i. It is responsible for advising the president and coordinating the centennial activities and they have chosen that the place where for the last 90 years people have gathered to honor those who served and to remember and learn about world war i. They have chosen this site as the location for the ceremony and so the ceremony answer on april 6th is focused around telling the story of what happened leading up to the decision of the u. S. To enter the war and using historic readings, poetry, songs and there will be about a 90minute ceremony that incorporates multimedia performers and people whose ancestries linked back to world war i in telling that story and then will include readings from the countries against whom the United States fought and under whose flag the United States served. So its a small number. They will then read readings of what was being said in their country about the u. S. Entry to world war i. It is really intended to to rehearse for us the really challenging decision of the u. S. Deciding to go to war and reflecting the many skroises, the African American voices, nativeamerican voices and honoring those who served ceremonially. American history tv will have cameras recording the event and it will be part of our lineup and stored in our archives so you can go back and learn about the history of this great war if you are so inclined. Another telephone call is from greg in ashland, oregon. You are on the air, greg. Welcome. I guess not. Can you hear me okay . We sure can. Thank you. Okay. Perfect. Yes. Thank you immensely. I think youre doing a great job. Yes, i just want to make a mention and ask a question regarding my grandfather clarence leon bowers. He served aboard the uss nev a nevada he was just a young 16yearold and slipped through the ranks and was able to lie in a birth certificate to get involved in all of this and he was aboard the nevada look with the oklahoma and utah and they were called the ban theory bay squadron, and if you can elaborate the importance of what these guys were doing especially since the nevada was a fuel oil ship, they had a fuel oil shortage. So it took a year for them to actually get over there to get fuel oil enough to be able to run around there and protect these convoys. They were convoy escorts protecting and the british ships, i guess, were older and so the german uboats were pretty effective at sinking these things until the bantry base squadron got into the mix. If you could elaborate the importance of the escort boats and these were destroyers, by the way, and so all right. Thank you very much. So once the United States got into the war, the challenge of getting all of those soldiers over to europe, we had to build the ships first in order to transport them . Some of them, though, were captured and then reused. So a very inventive of how best to get the troops safely across europe and one of the things that were mentioned there is that his grandfather was 16 when he signed up and thats not uncommon. Rentmore, for example, a young man was 13 when he was in world war i was wounded and he subsequently served in world war ii and the korean war. We were reading a letter about a young man who was writing about his fathers death on a ship and he was similarly 13 serving with his father on a ship. So younger men serving on ships or in infantry today we would wed second we would be more concerned about that. It happened then. People fudged their certificates. They didnt have correct i. D. And found ways of serving. We only have a few minutes left with you and i dont want it to end without learning about one of the striking things that you see when you come in here and that is a field of poppies underneath a walkway of glass. Most of us can recite one of us of flanders field where poppies grow. What is the connection of world war i and the poppy . Poppy seeds lay on the ground for 80 years and still be viable and in the field of flanders because of munitions and one presumes because of death, those grounds then were disturbed and those poppies began to grow. And so the poppies then grew and amongst what is the killing fields and so the poem in flanders field was written, and began popularity, 1919 after the war in britain and then soon in the United States and poppies began to be sold as for remembrance and to raise funds for wounded veterans. When you come into the National World war i museum and memorial, there is a bridge that takes you into the main galleries under which this glass bridge is a beautiful field of poppies and flanders field and there are 9,000 blooms, each representing a thousand combatant deaths and its an architectural masterpiece of the museum and very striking for visitors and whats interesting to see is how Different Countries respond to that. Americans, theyre moved by the poem and theyre moved by the experience. Europeans or people from the commonwealth for whom poppies have a deeper resonance, its very striking for them. Its a great way to begin telling the story of the sacrifice of those whose lives were lost and the work that we all have been doing of memory, of remembering. You know, its said history often repeats itself. History never repeats itself, but it often rhymes, so our work in this poppy field in part and all that we do here is about remembering so that we can learn from the past to create a more prosperous future. I think veterans still make mop poppies. In partnership of the vfw distribute those here. We have just a little bit of time left with matt naler, president and ceo of the museum. Big week ahead as they mark the 100th anniversary of the entrance of world war i. For people, especially young people, what are the lessons they should take away from this global war . Is it possible that there are threat of that history that are pertinent to whats going on in the world today. I think its fair to say that the world is much like the world of 1913 today as at any time in the last 100 years. We think about the impact of social media. One of the things that that does the days of it are gone and narrow casting and the ability for us to be able to link to our own nationalism, its rivalled all over the world like we saw lee going into world war i. Changes in Energy Sources and alliances which are uneasy or have been questioned. I have, as mentioned earlier, my grandfathers shaver in my office. Its issued by the british and it was made by the germans. It has made in germany on that blade that was issued by the British Government to him, a british soldier. It tells me about the ways in which things can quickly change for us. I dont say this as somehow fearmongering, but rather to say there is a fragility in the world and it is right that we learn from the past and then take care in thinking about how decisions are made, about how easy it is to slip into a path which can then lead to conflict. We do write to remember the sacrifice and think about the values which shaped our past and choose which path of the future we would want to go down. Well, thank you for allowing our cameras into the museum today and we wish you well with your big ceremonies later this week. Thank you. We will show you more of the exhibits inside the world war i museum in kansas city and then well come back with the first of two world war i historians and more of your phone calls. Im with dewan cart in front of an exhibit that shows what was inside a u. S. Soldiers pack. Can you go through the items . Well, a lot of it inside the exhibit was carried on the pack and a lot was carried on the belt and a lot was carried in the pockets of the soldiers. The canteen cover of course, would have held the cup with the folding handle on it, the aluminum canteen fit inside of that. Above that then would have been the knife, fork and spoon that they all carried, and then the emergency rations were two tins with hard crackers in them and the mess kit and goes around and the ubiquitous bacon tin. Never carried bacon in it, but it carried their toiletry supplies and their combs and their toothbrushes and things like that and a condiment can with salt, pepper and sugar and an emergency ration which was basically a big, hard bar of lousy chocolate carried in a can and the full field pack in the center that you see there would have carried a lot of these supplies along with an entrenching tool and a mess kit would have fit in the pocket and we have things that would have led to their comfort and one of the things in the packet with the sheets, thats actually sheets of toilet paper which they quaintly called at the time napkins, and above was tooth powder, toothbrush and a carrier, shaving brush, foot powder. Feet were a common problem with the soldiers especially being in wet conditions, a folding cup, an extra wool shirt was carried, long underwaear and wool socks and of course, with all of this clothing that they had they didnt have anybody with them to sew their clothes for them so they carried a sewing kit which they called from the british, they called a housewife, and then each soldier carried an emergency medical kit on the side which was a brass box in a canvas carrier which hung on their ammunition belt and is also on their ammunition belt they carried a trench knife which was one of the american inventions during the war and then the shaving kit, and they had to shave not necessarily for appearance and so you kept your shaving so the gas mask would fit closely to the face. What about on the bottom . Whats over on the far right. Each soldier would have a blanket. They would also carry half of a tent that was called a shelter half so they would button it together with one of their buddies and they each carried three of the stakes and one of the tent poles and it was carried on the pack and right down and buttoned together and usually they didnt do that and they just pulled it over themselves when it was raining and then they wanted creature comforts, as well and thats what they carried in their pockets. And so they carried lockets of loved ones. Of course, letters and writing utensils. They carried their pay book which was very important. The average american soldier got 30 a month. When they went overseas they got 33 and then they carried playing cards and they carried pictures of the folks at home which was very important. They even carried dominoses and they carried some that were so flat and they would fit right in their pocket and of course, smokes were very important. Both the tailor mads and the ones commercially produced and they would roll their own and they did that during the day tame because at night you didnt want to lose your tobacco and then they would carry prayer books and those with catholics would carry rosaries and, of course, men that needed spectacles, they would carry those and some at the beginning carried pocket watches, but they quickly found out it was hard to get a pocket watch out of the pocket with the straps on and so wrist watches came into vogue and the pocketknife was very useful, and then jewish prayer book for jewish soldiers and so you figure, the average soldier weighed about 140 pounds and was 56 and he carried about 70 pounds. He carried about half hass weight into battle, and it was not an easy life. What do you hope that visitors to the museum take away from an exhibit like this . What we hope they take away is the humanity is people carried these, people used these. They wrote home about how they got cold and wet and what they had to carry and they wrote home that they needed soap and would love to have more letters from home. So thats what affects me the most is the humanity that used these objects and carried these with them in their lives during the war because theyre no longer with us, but if we can show this through the exhibitions, i think thats very important. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Much. You are watching American History tv as we commemorate the 100th anniversary of entry into world war i. April 16th, 1917 congress voted to declare war against germany. We are here for 2 1 2 hours. Our next two guests are world war i historians. One is with me, mitchell yackleson. He is the author of a number of books and a consultant of the commission that the u. S. Government has set up. Tell us about the commission. It is is a 12member group, is that right . It is a 12member group that is going around the country. For historians, this is our moment to ship. Shine. It is important we dont let this period go by unnoticed. The commission is working extremely hard to make the American People recognize what happened 100 years ago when we entered the war and ultimately 4 million men and women servend uniform. I am sure your listeners have relatives that fought in some capacity in the war. One of the main focuses of the commission is to educate. What better place to do that than in this museum in kansas city. Our focus with you is a great deal on the United States getting themselves ready and over to war. We have callers that have a lot of battlerelated questions. We are going to mix it all up. I want to go to a caller that has been nicely holding for us. His name is james. He is in minnesota. James, welcome. Thanks for waiting. Ut are on with mitch yockelson. Caller thank you. My grandfather served in the war during that time. He was a member of the Minnesota National guard. I also was a member of the Minnesota National guard during the korean war. I would like someone to comment on the fact that the National Guard was used widely during the organization for the world war. Also, i would like you to comment that in the American Legion magazine currently out, there is a great story about the world war i and also about alman york, who was one of the heroes of that time. Thank you for the question. When the United States declared war, there were various components. Can you talk about how people were mobilized. There were three components of the forces. Thats what john j. Kerrshing commanded overseas. You have the regular army, the possessional soldiers that served with him in 1916 and 1917 when he chased after poncho via in northern mexico after via had crossed over in march of 16 into new mexico. When the war was declared, we relied on the regular soldiers. There were only roughly 120 some thousand, not even remotely close to enough that was going to be needed when the u. S. Would go overseas. Anyone, president wilson wharks , what he did was federallized the National Guard. They were the militia troops. They were state troops that were funded by state governors. Once they became part of the regular army, they were i have been given the same nomenclature and trained the same way. Whats interesting about the National Guard, most of the regulars, including pershing, didnt really care for them. They felt like they were weakened warriors or would get together monthly in the fancy National Guard armories around the country and didnt take fighting seriously. Wilson had called up the National Guard during the expedition but pershing wouldnt allow them to cross over in new mexico. Instead, they were keeping close watch on any along the texas new mexico ads mexico arizona border, and the third component were the drafted troops or the recruited ones, known as the National Army. Once you the United States instituted the draft, was it continu continuous. It was. There were three stages and by the time they had the last stanl, they were lookistan stage, they were looking at men well into their 40s. Alvin york, he was well into his 40s, older than most troops. He was drafted. The famous story about him is because of religious reasons, he didnt want to serve. He felt his church, like quakers, they were against fighting. He applied for deferment through Conscientious Objector status was twice turned down. Ended up serving as part of the 82nd allAmerican Division. The rest is history. He would go on to win the distinguished Service Cross and this was upgraded to become a recipient of the medal of honor. Gary cooper plays him in a movie during world war ii. You mentioned deferment, during the civil war, the last great war the country had fought, people were famous for being able to buy their way out of service. They could con script someone to serve on their behalf. By the time we got to world war i, were there ways people were able to escape serving if they did not wish to in. They could not buy their way out like you point out in the civil war. Theodore roosevelts father is one of the war famous that did that. In world war i, you could apply for hardship or through conscientious object ytore status. The war doc looked at these carefully and make a decision whether you had a reason to stay home. Maybe you had a business or a farm that could help the war effort better than putting on a uniform. You couldnt buy your way out. If you tried to escape and go elsewhere, you were a deserter and prosecuted. Well take another telephone call for you. It is tom in garland, texas. Tom, welcome to our discussion on world war i and u. S. Entry. Caller good morning and thank you for the program. My grandfather was a farm boy from texas and he was in world war i. I have a picture of his battery unit. It is an old picture, about threefeet long and about eight inches tall. My grandchildren wont have the emotional connection to this that die. Is it possible to donate Something Like this to the museum to keep it there as part of the treasure of the war . Thanks very much. Caller well, since i dont work for the museum, i cant say definitively. What tom is referring to is the panoramic photographs. You see some of those on display here. Those were very popular at the time. They were done by commercial photographers and then they were sold to soldiers after the war not unlike when you were high school and had your class photograph taken. I will pass that on to dorian cart who is here and see if this is something they would be interested in to see if toms an s ancestors unit is not already represented. If not here, places like the National Archives looking for this . We do have some panoramic photographs that have been donated. I would suggest to the caller that since it has a local identity, that maybe somewhere around the garland, texas area. There is a Historical Society museum that would cherish it more because of the fact that he is from texas. I want to pick up on the point he made. A farm boy that went to fight the war. And matt did touch on this before. The u. S. Was largely an aguarian society. How in that regard did it change america . Well, two points i would like to make. One, the point of eventual soldiers aguarian being farmers. It was interesting to them when they went overseas and fought in france or belgium, because they got to see the farmland, the bread basket of europe, which was badly torn up. By the time the american troops got over, which was mostly in 1918, a large part of the socalled western front, where wheat had grown and barley and other crops, were just completely decimated. I think that had a huge impact on a lot of these soldiers. Going back to your other point, by the time the u. S. Got into the war, we were still an aguarian society but we were also one of if not the most advanced industrialized nation in the world. Practically everyone had electricity and combustible engines, which meant with coupled with the electricities, factories could run 24 7. We were cranking out supplies and henry ford was cranking out model ts, which are well represented in this museum. It changed in the sense of going from strictly aguarian to an industrialized nation. How many women went into work in those factories . Was that a phenomenon in world war i . I dont know the exact number. Once the men started going over, whether they were drafted or joined up or happened to be part of a National Guard, a lot of private industry, just like in world war ii, turned over as part of war production. Somebody had to work in those factories. Women jumped ahead and took over and were working long hours, with armaments, building, war equipment, uniforms, really, you name it. Women played a significant role on the home front. They also played a significant role on the battle lines as nurses, as ambulance drives and the famous hello girls, the telephone operators. Women that were not able to vote yet in the United States, we should also point out . Yes. Thats really one of the more baffling things about world war i. Here women are playing significant roles, equal to men in certainly most capacities. They dont have the right to vote. There are famous photos of them in front of the white house protesting. Eventually, they would get that right based on world war i. It seems so antiquated to me to think that that didnt happen. World war i historian, mitch yackelson is our guest here. Next up is joanie in wisconsin. Caller hi. Thank you for this fantastic program. I am really enjoying it. Thank you. Caller i am calming and i have been doing some Family History research. I have discovered my maternal grandfather, his name was Francis Patrick mclaughlin. He was the grandson of irish immigrants and born and raised in st. Paul, minnesota. He served with the u. S. Marines in haiti during world war i, which i found kind of surprising. I didnt realize we were a presence in haiti at that time. I have learned between 1911 and 1915, seven president s of haiti were either assassinated or overthrown. So they were concerned about heightened german activity in haiti at that time. So they wanted to have a strong presence there and restore order and political and economic stability in the caribbean. In july of 1915, another hey sh haitian president was assassinated. I was just wondering if there are any exhibits or any materials in world war i museum concerning the u. S. Marines presence in haiti at that time . Thanks very much. Mitchell yockelson doesnt work for the museum so cant answer if there were exhibits. Do you know the haitian story . Even the caribbean nations were involved in the fighting . It is interesting the caller brought this up. A lot of people dont know that by the time the u. S. Entered world war i, as far as our armed forces, i mentioned about the army, the National Guard, the marines actually had more experience than the United States army. The fact that there were marines sent to haiti and some that were sent to santo dom min ingo and. The marines were known as the troops that would go anywhere, fight anywhere. They were mobile basically infantry troops. When the u. S. Got into the war, the marines were kind of cast aside as the caller said. Her ancestor was down in haiti. I dont know if that really had much to do directly with the world war, other than as she mentioned about the instability there. Im not sure im not up on enough of my har reasmarine cor history to know if it correlated to the world war. The marines had to fight their way into serving overseas in france. Pershing was an army guy. He wasnt interested in the marines. He originally rejected their offer even though they were ready and experienced. He had to battle against secretary of the navy, josephus daniels, who through the comidant of the marine co, he feenl finally accepted two regiments that he attached to the second. The marines fought significantly in world war i. The most famous battle where they took a lot of losses was at bella wood in the early summer of 1918. They also fought in the final offensive. How long after the april 6th declaration of war against germany by the United States congress was the American Expeditionary force formulated and general pershing chosen as its leader. He was selected within the first couple of months after the u. S. Declared war. He had been back from mexico. Some historians say it was a failed expedition because we didnt capture poncho via. He was wounded. It was wonderful experience for pershing. He wanted to become commander of whatever force the americans were going to send over. He lobbied hard on his own behalf. After the april 2nd speed by president wilson, where he lays out why he thinks the u. S. Should join the war, as we all know, he ran for reelection on keeping america out of war and then he backpedalled on that. Pershing read that speech. He wrote a letter to wilson congratulating him and saying, by the way, im available. He wrote to secretary of war newton baker a similar letter. When it came time to select a commander for what would become the American Expeditionary forces, it was plural. Pershing was the number one guy. A few other folks, officers, that were being considered. He had the most experience, not just because of the punitive expedition but his earlier career serving in the philippines. He had the ability not only as an army officer but as a diplomat. He understood how to work with other commanders and foreign powers. That was a huge part of his job, having to deal with french commanders and british commanders. So he was selected,ible it was, in may and he went over in june with a token force. Slowly, more americans started coming over. The First Division came over and then slowly other troops. Part of the problem was, we didnt have enough shipping to get soldiers overseas. We had to borrow a lot of that from the british. We had to train our troops. It took a while, upwards of nine months to get troops trained before they could go over. How did the American Fighting man get the nickname doughboy in world war i . Thats an interesting question. The definition i go with is written in a book called lauren stallings. He was in the Second Division and wrote a wonderful narrative Still Available today. He says it dates back to 1846, 48 during the Mexican American war. American troops are crossing over the rio grand. It is dusty, dirty, their uniforms are covered in dust, which matches the adobe buildings and houses. They shortened it to doby and it became ang glicizet to doughboy. Was it exclusively used in world war i . I have never heard it used there unless it is a term of endeere endearment. What can you tell us, doran, about this am plans we are standing next to . This is a ford model t 1918 truck bed. It was getting ready to be floated over to europe but the armistice occurred first. It never got overseas. It was basically in a warehouse. After the war, a fellow who was interested in rare automobiles and things like that, his father had been a driver, an ambulance driver in the war. So he had it restored and he called me up one day and said, i have this beautiful ambulance and it is like the same one my father drove in the war. Would you like to have it as a donation to the museum . I said, i sure would. It really shows us the whole idea of how the wounded were transported during the war. And that the medical advances during the war were helped bring the ambulances that were able to get right up to the fighting. Even before the war began, there were americans overseas volunteering . Thats correct. As soon as the war started in august of 1914, americans volunteered their services overseas. It first started off with mostly humanitarian projects with the food relief and to help with refugees. By the end of the war, there were almost 12 million refugees displaced by the war. One of the big thaefrts startwa american field service. It came out of the American Hospital in paris. This was to help the french army with the transport of the wounded soldiers. Primarily, at the start of the war, it transported wounded french soldiers. The paulieus. They could carry three men on stretchers and four sitting in the back. Who made the truck . This was made by ford. Ford produced a lot of the ambulances from the United States but also dodge and cadillac and other countries did produce them. They liked the lightweight of the ford model t truck because it could go a lot of places. What would life have been like for an ambulance driver . Life for an ambulance driver would have been very cold, very wet, very muddy. They had to know how to fix the ambulances and get them out of harms way when possible. A lot of them didnt. A lot of the volunteer ambulance drivers did die in action during the war. In your work as a curator here, as the senior curator here at the museum, what have you learned about what sorts of americans volunteers to do this work . It was all walks of life, cowboys from the west. It was College Students from the east. There was even a group of fellows who volunteered to drive that were from the university of missouri. So they covered all gamuts. Also, women. We forget that women were volunteers in all aspects of the war both before the americans entered and then after that as well. One of the areas that we really need we try to cover here in the museum is the womens service, as volunteers and also with the military. Do you still accept donations to the museum . Whats that process . It is interesting. The museum has been collecting since 1920. We are very selective anymore about donations to the museum. We get about 99 of our collection through donations, from people all over the world. We do collect all the belligerent nations. The best way to find out what we are looking for and how to donate is to go to our website and look under donating an object. That will give our Contact Information and people can contact me or the museum for archival material. Then we can dpoe frgo from ther. We do ask that people contact us first. Walkins with materials is a little difficult. We are not always available to look for them. We are looking for specific things. We do have that on our website. Doren cart, thank you very much. Thank you. You are watching live as cspan visits the National World war i museum in kansas city, missouri. We are spending 2 1 2 hours here in the week of the sen ten yece. Our guest is mitchell yockelson. His latest book, forthseven days. Let me pick up on that topic. The wore had been raging enter europe for 3 1 2, 4 years by the time the United States decided to get into it. You described it as pretty much a stalemate. Neither side was advancing very far. What tactically did general pershing plan to do to break that stalemate. He was adamant about socalled warfare. He felt they were popping out from time to time and attacking the german positions. The german positions were extremely difficult. They were the masters of defense, behind these concrete bunkers utilizing farmhouses and hillsides and really anything part of the terrain both natural or manmade that they could find or build to keep themselves protected. The allies were attacking and not making any progress. The allies were saying, this is the tactic you are going to have to use. He said, no. Im going to have my troops and teach them how to use fire power, how to shoot from a rifle. He was certain they were learning that in the u. S. Before they came over and then they had further training. Whats interesting on that sideline, there werent enough guns to train american troops with in the u. S. You see them with fake wooden guns or brook sticks, anything so they could learn the rude di war. Pershing wanted them out of the trenches and Going Forward, jumping ahead to the offensive which ultimately becomes the largest battle in American History, more than 1 million american troops participate in that. He has them leaving fixed positions, jumping off, as they said, either from taped positions or some of them were in trenches. A lot of them were in woods or shell craters, Going Forward against these german positions. The first couple of days, the americans caught them off guard. So we, the americans, had made great progress. Then, the german troops started bringing up more reinforcements and things slowed down. American casualties increased. As time went on, the americans had to change the tactics. They were still using the tactics that reminded them of the American Civil War and the famous picket charge at gettysburg. American troops in small bunches were learning how to encircle the german machine gun positions, which the germans had really masterminded. Casualties were increasing. They didnt have the reinforcements. A lot of troop ws were surrendering to americans. It is inevitable they were starting to improve the tactics but the war was eventually going to end up as it did in an armistice. The museum is open. You will see people touring the exhibits around us as we talk here it is a wellvisited museum, specially on this anniversary week. We expect to see people wondering around. Lets take another telephone call. Norman is in has let, michigan. Welcome. Caller good morning. Good morning. Caller i would like to ask dr. Yockelson, at first i was going to ask him about the famous lost brigade. I would love to chapg nge my question, if i may. My grandfather had an older brother that fought in world war i. He suffered from shell shock. When he came back, he spent the rest of his life in an insane asylum because of his shell shock. I was wondering, didnt the government deal with cases of battle fatigue like they did after world war ii and other wars since with our gis . Or did they just ignore battle fatigue after world war i and institutionalize the vets like my uncle had been . Thank you. Appreciate the question. What is shell shock . Shell shock is a term the british came up with. Because artillery shock had been around for centuries but now you are talking about artillery that is lobbed by much larger shells from greater distance that caused much destruction. It went on day and night. As norman pointed out, his ancestor, i cant imagine what it must have been like to constantly shell. I was riding one account where often whether there was a soldier or civilian, they were able to interpret the sound of a particular shell, because of so much experience. They could figure out whether it was going to land close to them and anied to go inthey had to g or if they were safe. If you had someone constantly being shelled, a nickname was whiz bang. They would make a whizzing noise and bang they would hit. The term was coined mostly for british soldiers. The British Government did deal with shell shock certainly better i think than the americans did. They had a hospital in scotland that was set aside. When the american troops came back from the war in 1919, there were a number of casualties that werent as obvious as somebody losing a limb. You had soldiers badly wounded from gas warfare, so their lungs were damaged. The v. A. To the best of my knowledge back then, the Veterans Administration and its various incarnations, were just learning how to deal with it. I think they had one hospital that kind of specialized in it. It was relatively unknown. It probably should have been. A soldier serving in the civil war would have experienced the same thing. Each war seems to have its own set of particular casualties because of the kind of ammunitions used. Afghanistan and iraq, we saw the rise of brain damage from ied and helmets. You mentioned gas, use of gas. What were the other kind of things that world war i veterans were bringing home . Any sort of wound. Lets not forget that during in 1918, there were three phases of the influenza pandemic. That struck all the troops, certainly the american troops pretty hard in the autumn of 1918 going back to the arcan battle. Anybody who has been to northern france in the autumn knows it is damp and rainy and it is difficult not to get sick. You have the influenza. That had lingering effects on soldiers that came home. Any gunshot wound, whether from a machine gun or a rifle, or a plane firing above where troops would have been in a fixed position, it is not unusual to see photographs of veterans coming back to the u. S. Walking around with a prosthetic or Walking Around with a loss of limb or some sort of disfigurement in their face, perhaps an eye could be missing, an ear, part of the nose. It was a devastating war. It was, by far, technologically advanced but not in a positive way in that regard. Next caller in our program is john from dunkirk, new york. You are on, john. Caller good morning. Both my grandfathers were in the navy in world war i on battleships, one the texas and the other the iowa. Could you elaborate on the size and expansion of the u. S. Navy and its primary missions during the war . Thank you very much. Was world war i probably a land war or a naval war . By the time the United States got in the war, it was almost entirely a land war. There had been one real naval battle that took place during world war i, in 1916, the battle of jutland, which is a british attack. The American Navy played a significant role more in line with the destroyers, not so much the battleships, as this caller mentioned. Both the iowa and the texas were famous battleships during the spanishamerican war and both of them also saw Significant Service in the Second World War. In the First World War, when the american troops were going over on transport ships that were former ocean liners that the british had lent us, there was such a fear of the german uboats prowling underneath the Atlantic Ocean and that the ships were vulnerable. The u. S. Navy provided destroyers and they would travel from the ports along the east coast, primarily off of new york and norfolk and virginia. A twoweek voyage to get from the east coast to one of the british or french ports. Along the way, the destroyers would guard these ships. They would go in a convoy and a zigzag pattern. They werent sailing directly but they were kind of maneuvering around to throw off the german u boats. We have another caller in oak forest, illinois, by the name of rich. Rich, you are on our program. Welcome. Caller i would like to say, my grand fofather was in world i and also served in brownsville, texas, as Border Patrol to calvary. He was on the bottom of the panama canal when they first were building it. He served in the 25th Infantry Division in world war i. My father was also in world war ii. He was in the navy, served with the marines that invaded iwo jima. I got drafted during the vietnam war and my grandfather, i remember him telling me, you should be proud to serve in the military. One of the things i would really like to say is your museum is magnificent. I was there last year. I spent the whole day there. I seen all the different things. I was way up into the tower that you have over there. I just would recommend it for anybody. It is really a great museum to visit. Thank you. I am sure the people in this community who support the museum and the folks that work here really appreciate that call. We hope more people will come visit as a result of watching this program. You can make it a twofer and you can see Harry Trumans home in independence, missouri. He had a role in world war i . What was it . He was in the National Guard, the 35th division, which was primarily troops from the missouri, kansas area. Truman was an artillery officer, a battery commander. A battery is equivalent to an Infantry Company or a cavalry troop. He saw a lot of action. They have a nice display on him here at the museum. They quote some letters that he wrote home to bess, who was his girlfriend, later his wife. He talks about what it was like to be in combat. He specifically talks about the mud and trying to get these huge, heavy artillery pieces that are drawn by horses through the rough terrain thats shell shocked and muddy and the roads have been destroyed by enemy fire. Trumans letters are digitized and available on the Truman Library websites. People can read them. I recommend they do. They are fascinating. You have made the point that the United States had to ramp up to be able to participate in world war i. What was the size of this countrys Standing Army before war was declared . Once the war was over, what was the size of the Permanent Army in the United States in. The regular army that i alluded to before the regular soldiers that were spread out the United States, whether they were in Coastal Artillery forts or not far from here at Fort Leavenworth or somewhere out on the west coast, somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 some thousand. Thats the reason we had to bring in the National Guard and troops. After the First World War, typical of the United States, we do downsized significantly. The drafted troops and those enlisted, they all go home and they put their uniforms away and they are done with the military. Pretty much the same thing with a lot of the National Guard troops. If you are in the regular army, somebody like george s. Patent, for example, who played a sig ro significant role as a tank commander, dwight d. Eisenhower, who didnt serve overseas but he was training at camp meade. That was his life. The army had down sized significantly. I dont know the exact number. If you were in the military in the socalled innerwar period between world war i and world war two, it wasnt all that glamorous. There was a possibility you couldnt make a career out of it. Truthfully, a lot of the belligerence in the First World War had an inkling that germany hadnt been invaded. If you could hold on and make yourself useful, there is a good chance you are going to have an opportunity to see more action. Eloise, you are up next calling from silver springs, maryland. You are on the air. Caller i was a recreation director working for the air force in northern france at long air base. In the late part of my job was running tours. In the late 50s, into the early 60s, i got some requests, cant we have a tour to ver dun. I got in my car and drove there, which wasnt that far away. They only had one guide that spoke any english at all. With his english and my french, which was somewhat limited, we managed to go over everything there. It was exciting. He wanted to share the information. So i got things arranged that we could have a tour there. What had prompted this interest was an area south in western france called the shemen de dam. The german chen muches catrencht point, because there was a big gulley there. The road was going across. On the other side of the road was also something of a gulley. The allied forces were on that side. They would bring the bodies up at the end of the day and set them on the road. The women from two villages would come out with wagons and pick up the bodies and take them back and bury them. So this is why it is called the shem men de dam, the road of the women. I was so glad i was encouraged to have tours of veradun. What i was shown and i took my troops through and showed them also are things that i understand they dont show now. It was really something to see. El owe wiese, thank you. Why was the battle important . It was a fortress area for the trench, a symbol of france because of all the forts that encircled the city. The germans knew that. The germans rarely during the war went on the offensive. Certainly by this point in the war, we are talking 1916. They felt in order to break the stalemate, by attack these forts and the fortress city of verdun. Literally, they are going bleed the french white. The french miraculously hang on. They suffer significant casualties both in military but also civilians. It is going on and on for weeks. This is when the british launched the attack of the battle of versom on the other side of france north of paris where 19,000 young british men are killed in one day. That was the kind of relief the attack on verdun. It comes to an end in february of 1917. The germans hold on. Eloise is absolutely correct. It is interesting to see. There is a museum that has reopened recently that deals with the whole siege of verdun. There is a lot to see that wasnt there when she was serving that i encourage people to go visit if they are going to be in that area. It is not that far from paris if they can make a trip. We have just about four minutes left with you. We have a caller in quincy, massachusetts, named kumu. Is that correct . Caller yes, yes. You are on the air. Go ahead, please. Caller hi. Im a volunteer helping to build p t the National Desert storm war museum in d. C. My question is, can you comment on what was the support for the draft when it was introduced . Was it outpouring and how has the draft changed over the years until today . Thank you very much. Thats an excellent question. When the draft was introduced by president wilson, it got mixed results. A lot of americans were feeling very patriotic and wanted to join up. There were other pockets of the United States. In the south, for example, there were a number of southern citizens, not so much because of the civil war and lingering effects of being the Confederate Association but more of thinking of it also in todays terms of a rich mans war where poor men are fighting it. You mentioned at the very beginning of our discussion about the aguarian country. The south south has a lot of farmland. There were a lot of tennant farmers. The Wealth Distribution was not equal by any means. There was a fair amount of an mossity in a sense of wanting to register and even serve in the military by southerners. Slowly, that dissipated and by and larnl, most of t and larnl, most of the country w was joined together. They said, this really isnt our war. This is a european war. Most americans joined up and got tog. She was talking about wanting to build a desert storm museum. There is a world war i memorial being built in washington. Can you tell our viewers about it . The Main Initiative of the United States world war i Centennial Commission where i proudly advise as a historian. We are really hoping it will come to fruition, where, depending on donations from the public, whether it is a little change here and there or some huge donor contributions. What stage is it in . It has been designer has been pick, an architect. The land has already been set aside. There is work being done with the National Park service, which will maintain it once it is built. There are talks going on with the d. C. Government and other u. S. Government entities. Right now, it is in the fundraising stage. The hope is, all of that will get taken care of within the next year or so. On november 11th, 2018, when we commemorate the armistice, that will be done in washington, d. C. At the new world war i memorial, which is really needed. Out of all the conflicts that the u. S. Has been in, the caller is absolutely right, we dont have one for desert storm. We dont have one for world war i and the fact that there were 4 million americans participating in that conflict, both domestically and overseas, tells me it is sadly needed. If we have whetted the appetite of people that didnt know much about it, what is the one thing you want them to take away about the importance of world war i . It brought the United States into the modern anyone, not only militarily. Some of our later figures, like George Patton and Dwight Eisenhower but it brought the americans into the forefront as a super power. We wouldnt be the nation we are today had we decided not to enter the great war on the side of the allies and really we turned the tide of that war, not just in troops but in that last battle that led to the armistice. Thank you so much. Author of 47 days, how pershings warriors came of age to defeat the german army in world war i. A world war i historian and home base is the National Archives and also serving as the chief historian consultant to the world war i commission. Thank you for being with us during our program. Appreciate it. We have about 55 minutes left to go in 2 1 2 hours of Live Programming from the world war i museum in kansas city and next will return to some of the exhibits that visitors see here. We are going to learn about the africanamerican contribution to world war i. Can you talk about this exhibit right next to us . Basically, what we are featuring is some of the activities of the africanamerican soldiers took part in during the war. Of course, they came from a society where they were asked to go fight for democracy but they did not have democracy at home. Many of the africanamericans who first went over to serve in the army had been part of National Guard units. The 15th new york National Guard unit was primarily an africanamerican unit. When the National Guard units were federalized, that unit became the 369th infantry regiment. They were not in our division but later became part of the 93rd division. They gained quite a reputation very quickly on. Since a lot of them were from harlem, they got the nickname of the harlem hell fighters or hell raiseers. When they really got over in europe and they were primarily fought alongside the french. They were under french command. They also got the nickname of the black rattle snakes or the black rattlers or the fighting rattle snakes. They had a lot of nicknames. The insignia is post war but it was their symbol during the war itself. Since they were american troops but fighting with the french, they wore american uniforms but used french equipment. Why did they serve under the french . Primarily, there were two reasons for that. One is that the french needed soldiers in a particular area to help bolster their defense. General john j. Pershing did not hold a lot of confidence in the africanamerican troops. So he lent out the 369th and the 370 371st to the french. They were issued french helmets, the french adrian helmet and wore the french ammunition belt and boxes. They carried the french label rifle and learned to use the french machine guns. The french wanted them. They were used to colonial troops and commanding other soldiers. They did not have the racism against them that occurred. The band leader of the 369th was a man named james reiss europe. He was credited with his band of introducing jazz to france. That was his contribution as well as being in the army there. Probably one of the most famous soldiers in the 369th was a man named Henry Johnson. Henry johnson was the First American soldier to get the french quadigare. He did it in a defensive fight against a german raiding party. A year, less than a year ago, Henry Johnson was awarded posthumously the medal of honor, the highest award given to an american soldier. He really was given this, because they had not been given the american medal of war. Their contributions were great at home with the africanamerican women working in all of the wartime industries. Then not only did the africanamericans serve in that regiment but in a full 92nd division. They were the buffaloes. They fought the longest on the line of any American Division during the war. Were going to walk over behind you. There are some Women Service uniforms. All right. So what is this uniform . What we are seeing here is the military uniform that was developed by and for the american women ambulance drivers who were primarily volunteers. They were considered part of the military in service to the military. They were not under direct military command. As opposed to some of the other women in service with the americans. They copied the this is a french style of tunic and skirt that were worn by the american women ambulance drivers. They followed the pattern basically of the british, who had really started it. So what was the experience . I know it is hard to generalize but for women serving both in the military and with the red cross and all during the war . Well, of course, there were over 25,000 american women that served overseas and their experiences were that they felt they were really contributing to the war effort. They were awarded that kind of respect, because they were contributing to the war effort. Over 350 american women died overseas during the war. Primarily from disease but several of them were killed directly from combat. So they did not fight as soldiers but they did every other duty is that was asked of them. We are goings to walk down and see u. S. Signal core uniform. What was their role . The u. S. Women signal Corp Telephone operators were responsible for communicating between the american lines and the french lines. They were part of the signal corp. They served directly under army command. They were in the army. They did not receive their recognition as veterans until 1977. The uniform that we are looking at was born by olive shaw, one of the telephone operators. She was from maine. Her uniform, she war when they gave testimony before congress in 1977. She really was very succinct. She said this is my army uniform. Look at the buttons on there. The United States army buttons. For the signal corp and as an officer. I was not an officer. I was supposed to be given the consideration of an officer of my rank. So she said i was in the United States army. So this was 1977. Did Congress Pass a law . Yes, they did. They gave the remaining 48 signal Corp Telephone operators full veterans status along with the Women Service pilots from world war ii. Thank you very much. Thank you. We are back at our set at the world war i museum and memorial in kansas city. We have about 45 minutes left to go. We are very much enjoying your telephone calls as part of the process. Keep them coming. We will put the phone numbers on the screen. Let me introduce you to our final guest, who is a military historian and a refired member of the military, richard falkner, has a ph. D. In American History from Kansas State University and taught 15 years at the command and general Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, military history. He is the author of a book called pershings crusaders, the american soldier and world war i. You have had a lot of military history at your disposal. Why are you particularly interested in world war i . Thats a good question. I grew up on the battlefield of the American Civil War north of atlanta, a period with trenches. For some reason, that just stuck with me. When i was four years old, my parents gave me a world war i play set. Little tikes and little airplanes and it went from there. As i was building a period that i was going to study, it is an era that is not very well done in American History. You are able to plow new ground. We are hoping to do a little of that and interest more people in coming to this museum and reading your books and learning more about this important period. We have talked quite a bit about general blackjack pershing. Would the american effort have been successful without him . He was the right man at the right time. It has changed dramatically in world war i. The scope and scale of war meant that you are no longer going to be the great man on horseback leading troops into battle. This is now about being able to manage huge armies over huge places and to sustain them. Pershing is bringing a couple of important attributes. He is politically reliable. The Wilson Administration had sent him to chase down poncho via during the mexican revolution and pershing knows he is not going to be able to accomplish what the president wants but despite his private reservations, he soldiers on. When it comes time to select a commander for the eef, he has a good reputation and he has an eye for talent. He exacts, requires a lot of talent from himself or makes a lot of demands on himself. There were subordinates also. You see that in a couple of key individuals. One is Charles Dawes. Dawes is a nebraska businessman. Pershing met him when he was teaching the precursor to the rotc in the 1890s. They struck up quite a good friendship. As pershing was trying to build this huge aef with all the supply requirements, the army really doesnt have a lot of experience in this. So he calls on his old friend, not because he is comfortable with him but he knows he is going to be confident. Pershing is very exacting when it comes to things like uniforms. He will call Charles Dawes one of the most unmilitary men that he has ever seen. He tends to go around with a big cigar and pershing will come in and tap him on the shoulder and knock off the ashes but he knows he is confident. Another one is george marshall. He goes to war as a young captain and is on the staff. Pershing is not real happy with the division commander. During a Training Exercise in late 1917, pershing is just reaming out silver in front of all the staff. Marshall takes exception to this and tries to button hole pershing and tried to explain to him the amount of problems that he is facing. When pershing briskly turns away, marshall has the awe dasity to spin him around. All of his frentds saiends said it for you. Pershing had Great Respect for someone who is willing to stand his ground and marshall wanted to be one of the great Staff Officers of the aef. Lastly, there is hunter ligget. He is a large man, well north of 260 pound. Pershing is a stickler. He believes that modern war requires quite fit officers. He has worked out a deal with the administration that he gets last say on which officers get to serve in the aef, general officers. All of them have to rotate through france to figure out whats going on with the army and also to get pershings when ligget shows up he says he is too fat for service and pretty much dismisses him. When liggett has final interview with him, he says, hey, pershing, watch this, and he taking off on a run. A nice trot up a steep bill and comes back down without breaking a sweat. What impresses pershing the most is he says my fat stops at the neck. Everything above there is strong gray matter. Again, pershing respected that. Last but not least, pershing has an iron will. It will take an act of will to bring this huge army into existence. And hes got to take on the likes of George Clement and fernand probst. Basically bring this army together despite all the problems it faces. I have 40 minutes left with you. Going to mix in calls. We have someone standing by watching us in arch anchorage, alaska. I want to very briefly touch on Major Military components of how the war was fought. Just to learn a little bit about each of these things such as trenches, such as horses and just a little capsule of the role that they played in the battle. Paul is in anchorage, alaska. Thank you for joining us today. Welcome to the conversation. Caller thank you and good morning. You have talked before about the contribution of africanamericans and the women in the war. There is also contribution of the choctaw indians as first co talkers in the u. S. Military and also, if the gentleman there can talk about the contributions of those indians, as well as that of joseph oklahomaley, whose military service, dwarfs that of sergeant york. I would be willing to hear your responses. Thanks. Thank you for asking that question. We have certainly heard about code breakers in world war ii. They had a history in world war i, as well . Absolutely. The native americans, as a whole, probably not given the credit that they deserve. Unlike the africanamericans they do not serve in segregated units. So, theyre mixed in with white comrades. They tend to have large numbers in units such as 36th division. They are smaller than the numbers in world war ii and they dont get the recognition that they deserve. Part of this is the nature of communications. By world war ii you get radio and the ability to intercept communications of the enemy and to keep them from intercepting yours is a lot more difficult than world war i, where you get telephone lines. But its still a security precaution that the army thinks is important. As a whole the native americans draw upon a tradition of their people and seen as a great honor for them to serve. In fact, some of the complaints later after the war is they probably did too much that in a quest for this warrior honor expected of their people, they tend to volunteer to be scouts, tends to volunteer fob snipers. Tend to volunteer for other you jobs. They tend to be more hazardous than average. Because our set has a tank right behind you we have talked about the role of tanks. Let me go the other direction and have you start with talking about the role of horses in world war i. It was both a modern and really ancient form of war fare coming together on the battlefield. Absolutely. It is that time of technological change. But horses are still vital when it comes to moving supplies and moving most of the artillery. With the aef, for example, they either bring over to france or purchase over 250,000 horses. That pales in comparison to the number of trucks. Horses have their own problem. A horse is not a wellsuited animal for war. If you feed it too much it dies. If you feed it too little it dies. If you give it too much water on a warm day it dies and if you dont take care of it it will brock down much sooner than a soldier will. And the early regulations are supposed to receive 20 pounds of fodder a day. And thats a lie. So, ultimately, youre using horses in a lot of cases just to bring up the fodder for other horses. When you are in active operations when it is difficult to bring up bulky fodder. The health of the horses are in rapid decline. We are all familiar with a play in the movie war horse. That would be the luckiest horse in history to make it the full four years of the war. American horses generally arent that fortunate. They died by the tens of thousands. They died by the tens of thousands. In fact, one of the reasons that the army goes increasingly to automobiles, because they are in the end, a lot more reliable than horses. Segue into the use of automobiles in world war i. That almost begins from the beginning of the war. The commander is putting men into taxi cabs to rush them to the front lines. Where automobiles really start to have an impact is during the battle to keep this basically cut off, the french line, supplied with men and materiel, organizes a system of constant troubles and constant maintenance to keep up with what become as the sacred way open to keep it supplied. We are learning how to use motor transport to offset problem with horses. Lets take a call from bernie watching us in howard beach, new york. Hi, bernie, you are on American History tv. Caller thank you. Mr. Faulkner, i want to go back to the armistice. The armistice was supposed to have place on the 11th day of the 11th hour. Between the time it was agreed to and to the armistice actually taking effect, my understanding is that the french continued an offensive even though they knew that it was coming. Many thousands of soldiers died. I want to know if any of the american soldiers that pershing take part in this and is this true . Amount i correct . That there was continued offensive, even though they knew the war was coming to an end . Thank you. Back up and tell us when the agreement was reached that the war would come to an end. The days leading up to the 11th of november the germans were sending representatives across the line to meet with the journalist of the allied armys. He in consultation with the leaders are finally agreeing to the armistice. As the caller pointed out, it will begin at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. November 11th. In the waning hours of the war the orders are to push as hard as they can both to crack what remains of the german army and also to grab as much land as possible from the enemy. And in doing that a number of american soldiers, probably several thousand, are actually killed in the wayning hours of the war. I have read an account of artillery battery banging away into the last possible second. So casualties are being suffered on both sides really for no real gain. I do believe that is one of the great tragedies of the war. So, tactically, the arrival of american troops, 4 million in number, while the germans were fighting with the same size army and obviously sufferi ining casualties, is that what really brought the war to a close . It definitely contributes. I hesitate to say it but it is close. The americans win the war just by showing up. 1917 is a critical year of the war. 100 years ago almost exactly as we are sitting here you get the beginning of the russian revolution. And, of course, by october of 17, Vladimir Lenin will take the russians outlets of war completely. So, now, thats a huge number of allied soldiers that the german will divert and will divert against the western allies. The western allies themselves had not done very well in 1917. French launch a massive offensive that ends up being such a debock debacle that they are going to mutiny. Which turns into the iconic vision of world war i dying in the mud. To accomplish very little. Finally, in november of 17, the germans launch a counterattack against italians and nearly break the italian army. So, the americans are really are the only bright spot that comes out in 1917. Sadly, we are so woefully unprepared for the war it will take us a while. 2 million men ultimately make it through france before the armistice, and its a miracle that we get there. And we only accomplished that by cutting a lot of corners so american soldiers will suffer for lack of training, lack of preparedness and leadership to understand reality of war. What was the period of heaviest u. S. Casualties . Well, again, we suffered 53 h53, 402 combat casuals of the war and 200,000 wounded. And the vast majority of those occur in the last six months of the war. If you want to put into a smaller number, most of them occur in the last six weeks of the war. And it is important to sort of keep those into perspective. The second week we lose over 6,000 dead which is almost as much as weve lost in the last 16 years of global war on terrorism in one week. We lost sight of the amount of sack sacrifice that this army undergoes. Our next caller is michael in dearborn, michigan. Caller i want to thank you very much. I have never interviewed a real historian before. I just want to ask, i have two questions. First of all, the bigger question, do you think that the allies would have won the war without america . Because some people say with the blockade the allies would have won . So, you can answer that . Do you have a second question . Why dont you ask both and well take them at one time. Caller im just learning pershing. What was he like . Was he a conservative . Was he more liberal . Was he like the George Patton of world war ii or not George Patton do you mind if i ask your age . Those are my questions. Thank you very much. I missed his age. Im guessing high school student. Great that he is studying the history. So, the first was, would the blo blo blockade have been successful on its own . A follow on to the last question we asked. The british blockade is certainly slowly and surely struggling. The germans will claim after the war that it is directly or indirectly responsible for 700,000 deaths. Civilian deaths. But as the americans come in, following on on the americans winning the war, is it forces the germans to do some things that are ultimately detrimental to their war effort. With all soldiers released with the collapse of the empire, the germans know that the americans are entering the war and going to be able to bring huge numbers of men. And so, in the late winter of 1917, eric linddorf who was basically running the war comes to the conclusion that germany must knock one of the allies out of the war before the American Forces can come to bear. And so in march of 1918 he will launch what is known as series of offensives. What they ultimately do is sap the last remaining manpower reserves of the german army. And so, as these offenses peter out in the summer of 1918, the american numbers are arriving just in time to do an overall allied war effort to crush the remains of german strength. Good question. His second question was on John Pershings personality and specifically, was he a conservative . As far as his political views he is a man of his time. This was a time when American Generals at least ostensibly tried to be apolitical. Of course, leonard wood, former chief of staff and good friend of Theodore Roosevelt, an exception of that. Pershing himself tries to stay out of politics. As i said before he benefits from that. The fact that he has political reliability not only means that he selected to command the adf but he is given more freedom to build his army and use his army than any other American General in our history. Woodrow wilson is not very interested in military affairs and trusts pershing to do the right thing. So, he has given a much more free hand than any general before or since. So, during this segment with colonel faulkner, weve been talking about particular military aspects of world war i. We will continue here with exhibits of the museum who we will learn about small arms that the soldiers carried into battle. Please explain the rifle and also what the soldier is wearing here. Well, there were two standardissue rifles for the american infantry men in world war i. There was the u. S. Model 1903 springfield. And also there was the u. S. Model 1917 infield rifle. They both fired what was called a. 3006 balancaliber. Came from the year it was developed. While people tended to romanticize the infield was really the workhorse of the war. It was supplied four times the amount that springfields were because it was easier to make. The american soldier typical infantry. It started with the steel helmet, of course, and that was a copy of the British Steel helmet. When america went to war, they didnt have helmets. Go down in the gas mask carrier for the box respirator gas mask. The gas mask is carried inside there. Again, a british invention, the americans adopted it. And its interesting, they made the bag backwards. So when they put it on, if you had to have a flap on the front, fasten on the front, you couldnt get to your gas mask properly. So they worry it backwards basically so the flap was in front. Carried the cartridge belt and carried clips and carried that on the belt. There was a trench knife that they carried they carried that on belt their for close hand combat. But the americans never used to fight very close. Of course, people said that pershing wanted his soldiers to fight with the bayonet. Really, americans killed more french chickens with bayonets than german shoulders. They called them chicken catchers. And then the other things that the american soldiers had adopted from the british was they carried a spoon. The spiral were to keep legs warm and break mud off. They stuck a spoon in it because if they had to try to get the spoon out of the backpack when they got to where a field kitchen was they wouldnt get food very quickly so they carried a spoon there. You always see that with the british soldiers and the american soldiers. And a field kitchen would provide primarily what was called slum or slum gum, which is the stew made of potatoes, tomatoes and beef. And were going to move down and look at a couple of machine guns. Well, of course, the machine guns were in use before the war. It is interesting that most of the armys that use machine guns use the maximum machine gun. It was invented by an american. Most were invented by americans but we didnt have many of our own machine guns except for the colt machine gun that we see on exhibit here. It was called the potato digger because the front, in the front part, underneath the barrel that actually would flip up and down and looked like a machine that they used for digging potatoes. Another true american invention which was movable machine gun was the automatic rifle. It was invented by john browning. This was so american troops could advance with a lot of fire power and when they were going against the German Forces can route them with this kind of fire power that they were carrying. So it got into the war probably july, august 1918 and played a very Important Role in the american defense. An earlier caller asked about Harry Trumans service during the war. Can you talk about what kind of weapons that he used . Of course, harry truman being an artillery captain would have been armed with a side arm, a pistol. And his guns that he commanded in his battery were french 75 millimeter guns because we didnt take a lot of cannons over with us. And the french were that was their standard weapon. It was called in french. The americans, of course, wouldnt say that. And they always made the french sound toward their language, so they called the french 75 the saucy cans. And so truman commanded a battery of those and he was really responsible at times for directing his fire and using the unit where it needed to be used. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for having me on today. We have about 20 minutes left to go in our live production from the world war i museum and memorial in kansas city. And our final guest if youve been with us is colonel Richard Faulkner who is a professor of military history at the u. S. Army command in kansas. He is also the author of a book called pershings crusaders and talking with him about the role of the dough boy and helping to win world war i. As we work our way through this we just saw small arms. What advances in artillery happened during world war i . Artillery is ultimately the most important weapon of the war. It is the big killer. 70 of the casualties are caused by shell fire. As the war is developing it really becomes the tactic of how can you best use your artillery. And in trench war fare and later in open warfare, it comes down to the fact that if the artillery does not pulverize the german offenses then your attack will grind to a standstill. It is a fearsome weapon. If you look at the time of the American Civil War, cannon was giving off one shot a minute. You would see the canon. By world war i the Technology Allows indirect fire so firing from several miles away. So this is literally changing the surface of the earth when these things explode. To be under shell fire was one one of the most nerveracking experiences. So theres nothing you can do. You just endure it. You shelter in the ground. You get down and dig and hope that you survive on the back end. And it leaves horrible wounds. Lassera lasserateing wounds, destroying faces. And of all the weapons of the war the dough boys feared it the most. The museum has exhibit that just opened of photographs of the french landscape and how it is still very much pock marked from all of the artillery fired during world war i. Our next call is from michael in galveston, texas. You are on the air. Caller i think that the colonel may have addressed my question before. I apologize if he did. But given that the russians had withdrawn from the war leading to the treaty why did the transfer of german soldiers from the Eastern Front to the western front have not a greater impact . And kind of a followon question which you may have also addressed, was it that the blockade had not only interfered with manpower, but it interfered with materiel delivery also . Thats a good question. Well, the problem with the germans, when they occupied russia this is going to be their leavings around. The idea that the germans come up with this world war ii is actually false. Theyre already thinking about living space in the east in world war i. Theyre hoping that the vast rain belts of the ukraine will free them of the food blockads that occurred with the allied war effort. Unfortunately, the ukrainians have their own ideas and there is a Ukrainian Liberation Movement that hits as part of the russian civil war. So while the germans hope to take large numbers to the western front in the end they have to keep the at least a million men blockades down in the east just to garrison the areas that they have taken. The second question . Was about the success of the blockade. I think you covered it. Getting back to my tactics during the war, what was the role of airplanes and air ships . What were the roles . Well, as we said before, artillery is the big killer on the battlefield. And you find out early, as you start to do indirect fire. You have to see where the shells hit. You use barrage balloons or observation balloons to see where the shells hit so the artillery can adjust it on to the target. Theyre fixed targets, though, these observation balloons. So, if you can take them down, its going to be better for your side. And a fixed wing aircraft can also be the same mission. Ultimately, the most Important Mission that you have in world war i is observation. Since Everybody Knows that now you get in this oneupsmanship. If i can deprive you of Aviation Assets it is good for me, bad for you. By the beginning of 1915 you get the worlds first true design fighter plane designed to keep you from serving your fire and gathering intelligence. Now its keeping up with the joneses. If you look at the life span, the operational life span of world war i fighter plane it is months. Its taking us years, decades to develop an f22 fighter. World war i and the little bit of Incremental Advantage you get if you can fly higher or turn in quicker than the enemy, its changing over the air frails at a very rapid pace. If you get caught on the back end of the development as will happen a couple of times for the allies you get the scourge when this first fighter plane comes out in 1915 and then later in 1916 the germans will come out with another fighter plane and you will have a second one. By then the life of the allied pilot is weeks. Until they can also come out with new airplanes that can match the governments. In my remembering, Theodore Roosevelt left a son. Yeah, quinn rosevelt. This is a war where everyone is expected to give. It is the fairest we ever have. It is an expectation and roosevelt has this that those are given much, much is expected. All three of his sons served in world war i. All three are wounded. Do you know where it happened . Not off the top of my head. Sorry to stop you. You have lots of facts in here. I found one you didnt have in here you didnt have in your disposal. Mary in phoenix. Hi, mary. Caller hi, thank you for the political program. I wanted to talk about a little more about the war. My father just turned 18 about the the time president wilson asked for declaration of war. He was in the service but i dont know if he was drafted or if he was recruited. Hes from rural north dakota. And then went to college in st. Paul. And i dont know if someone in between there, where was the river . And how did the country get behind the war when it was so compelled against getting into it in the first place . Can you talk about that and where can we find out about the service of the people that didnt go overseas . I dont really know anything about his service. Can we find out a little bit more about where we can learn about that . Thank you. Well, if he was 18 and 19, 17 he probably enlisted. When the draft law comes out it only applies to age 21 to 35. As we start to take serious casualties in the summer and fall of 1918 a new draft amendment comes out and lowers the age to 18. So if he is in the army in 1917 he is probably enlisted. And with parental approval you can actually enlist as young as 17. I found accounts of soldiers enlisting as young as 14, against the rules, but they either lie or enlisting sergeant takes sympathy for him and allows him to go. When it comes to the war itself despite divisions inside america, by 1917 the United States has pretty much come to the conclusion that this is a war we are not going to avoid and it is in our interest to participate in. So there is mass participation. The draft is sold as a nation that volunteers in mass, a little propaganda. But it actually works. One of the most brilliant things that this Selective Service act does is decentralizes the execution of the draft board. So, you have over 4,000 local draft boards consisting of your friends and neighbors who decide whos going to go into the service. Because of that there is a lot less problem with americans accepting the draft as with the civil war. So as we work through things that changed during world war i and conducting battle, how about communications . Well, this is one of those things where technology lags. On one hand you have artillery and rapid fire, machine guns, magazine, bolt action and rifle, but technology when it came to communications had lagged quite a bit. There are no radio. The radios they have are huge, several thousand pounds that are hard to get around on the battlefield. They lightened them up before the war is done. The most advanced communication this time are field phones. So they are like the Old Fashioned telephone. You is to run the wire. You connect it up and it goes only in two directions. It goes from your headquarters to the headquarters in the rear. That is going to be one of the problems with artillery. Today if a soldier needs to call for artillery he gets on the radio and shortly thereafter, he gets air support and artillery support. In world war i since going from headquarters to headquarters and through a vast network of telephone lines it is slowing down the process. Its not very responsive. And the wires themselves are quite frag. Anything can break them. Shell fire, your own soldiers not paying attention to the wire. And the minute that that is broken now someone has to go out from the headquarters, trace back the line, put them back together. And if that is being accomplished under enemy fire shell fire you can see how hazard otherwise it is. And by a telephone lineman attached to an infantry regiment is one of the most hazardous positions in the war. Next is david in mechanicsville, virginia. Good morning, david. Caller yes. Good morning, colonel. I just got finished reading a very interesting book. You are probably familiar with that. A couple of things came up that i found interesting. One was that there was a third component of the army that is not often talked about called the National Army. I would like you to talk a little bit about that. But i would also like to find out what your feelings are regarding an interesting officer that was under pershings command by the name of Major General robert e. Lee. Im trying to remember his last name. Bullard. His actions and nonaction with regard to people that are adjacent to his command in the final days thanks very much. Im going to stop you only because our time is starting to run out. I think quick answers on big topics. Okay. The National Army is actually the army thats going to be the draftees. In the beginning you have regular army divisions. You have National Guard divisions and you have the draftee divisions or National Guard and National Army divisions. The reality is the vast majority of american soldiers for the first time in American History are going to be draftees, nearly 70 . The National Guard cant make its numbers, the regular army cant make its numbers. By the middle of 1918 the army gets away from these designations and everyone of the units whether regular National Guard or draftees have substantial number of draftees inside. I have read the book on mt. Mccon. And it is one of those sad tradeoffs. It chronicles the 79th division and engaged in the opening days of the battle. Part of this, there have been the battle this is going to be the coming out party for the aef. So, pershing wanted everything to go perfectly for this. Because of that he took his most experienced best trained units and put them towards but that meant that he was not going to have those types of units ready. So the 79th division when theyre thrown in the battle in the early days of this campaign are not very well trained, not very well prepared, and they pay the price. Harry trumans 35th division will also go in at the same time. Also, not a lot of experience for this battle and theyll also have substantial problems overcoming a very stiff german resistance and very difficult terrain. I once had a physician tell me that war forces the greatest advances in medical science. What did world war i contribute to medical science . Well, a host of things. One of the signature mallities of the war is something called gastine green. At where it was fought in Northern Europe it has been well maneuvered for millennia. When you get hit by a shell fragment or bullet it carries all of that in and it is creating these very nasty secondary infections. The wound themselves could easily be treated but it is the infection thats killing them. So, medical science, mostly the british and french, are trying to how to deal with this. Ultimately they go to radical solutions. Traditionally you would close up the wound and let it heal. If you do that all you are doing is keeping the infection inside. They pioneer keeping the wound open and using a sluk tholution they use today, slowly irriga irrigating the wound and it has beginnings of antibiotics properties. The war pushed forward newer psychotic treatments. Over 27,000 american soldiers suffered neuropsychotic injuries. That covers a host of things. There are efforts by british psychiatrists, american psychiatrists just not very far removed from friday to deal with the psychological injuries of war. One of the other ones is Plastic Surgery. The wounds are causing horrible mutilating injuries. So Plastic Surgery is really coming into its own. More or less successful. But in a war that france, theyll call them the men without faces, those that could not be helped. When you talk about gas, were both sides of the conflict employing gas . Or was it primarily germans. Both sides were. I was speaking of gas gangrene. It has nothing to do with gas. It just swells up and creates gas. Both allies and germans are using gas. In fact, even though we were slow to mobilize and get our weapons overseas the United States producing more chemical agents than any other power. By the end of the war. Was blindness permanent from the use of gas . Well, mustard gas is a blister agent so when it gets on the skin it raises nasty blisters. If it gets in the eyes it can cause temporary blindness. If you get enough of a dose it can cause permanent blindness. We have another caller probably our last from david this time in phoenix. Hi, david, youre on. Caller hi. Good afternoon. My dad actually was in the First World War and he was part of the National Guard unit coming out of pennsylvania. I have two questions. Number one is how were they transported out from the east coast . Did they bring them through the panama canal and around . Because i know he was in ft. Bliss going through training. And my second question is, after that, he was converted to an artillery units and was a driver with the 128th and 108th Field Artillery battery f. He was in six major engagements. And his discharge papers only shows him having victory medal. I have all of his medals and im trying to verify that these are authentic. But theres no documentation. Could you speak about the transportation from east to west from Mexican Border conflict and how i can maybe verify some or all of these medals that he accumulated through the six major engagements. Thank you. Thanks, david. The United States in world war i has one of the finest Railroad Systems in the world. Very few soldiers go through the panama canal. Its just easier to put them on trains and send them across the United States. They will embark from ports along eastern seaboard with new york city being largest one. It sounds like your father was in the 28th division and youre correct, they participate in all of the major campaigns of the aef in the war. Sadly, the veterans Records Administration that held most world war i records suffered a fire in the 1970s so a number of those records were lost. Though if you get on ancestry. Com, you can get his drafter is and maybe hook up some other information. But you can be assured that if he had gone over with early contingent, the 28th division, he would have had a number of campaign bars, signifying each one of the major campaigns of the aef attached to his victory medal. I recall mary in phoenix asking where can she find out more about people who go to fight. I might recommend the website for this museum. If youre not able to travel here, the website that theyve build has a lot of resources not just about how the war was fought, but how the country went to war and many of the stories back here that contributed to the war efforts. That would be the first place i would start if youre interesting in finding out a little bit more. As we close out we talked about how the war fundamentally changed the United States. It changed wear warfare, is sounds like. But im wondering what it changed politically and diplomatically. That is a good question. Woodrow wilson sends the American Force overseas to get the americans a place at the peace table. Its sort of sad, but hes going to bleed ourselves to versailles. He knows he has to send over a large army to give us credibility with the likes of david lloyd george. And the europeans are actually receptive to what wilson is pushing. Hell come out with the 14 points. His idea of what a modern Peaceful World would look like. He is all about creating the peace, more than he is about waging the war. And in the beginning when he arrives and he arrives in europe shortly after the armistice. He is met with cheer iing thron everywhere he goes. The more he sits down with the sharks the less he is able to get what he wants. At the end while the europeans like the idealism that hes pushing, this is the ugliest war in human history. And theres a wide believe, especially in france and in italy, that they need to get something in return for the sacrifices that they have pushed. The most important people that wilson is unable to win over are the American People that his idea of a league of nations that will keep a great war from happening again does not rs s resonate with the American People. We have done everything we possibly can. Europeans dont seem to want to really buy what we are selling. So when he comes back to the United States to try to sell his idea of the league of nation the senate shuts him down. When it comes to other political changes, of course, the role of 33,000 women serve in uniform in world war i, several hundred thousand more serve in the red cross and the salvation army. Thousands more in industry back home. Woodrow wilson said without the women we could not have won the war. And this will finally give impetus for the 19th amendment to be passed in august of 1920 giving women the right to vote. It is also changing demographics. A half million africanamericans leave the south for the first time during the war in search of war time jobs. And that will change the demographics of the United States and lead to things and encourage things such as harlem renaissance. So, it plays a major goal. We also go being a debtor nation to a creditor nation. And the locust of economic power in the world slowly moves from london to new york city. Beginning some say in the american century. Absolutely. Was the Second World War inevitable because of the end of the first . Well, never state that war is inevitable. But the unresolved issues that come out of the war itself. And the expectations that are not met are definitely leading in that direction. But a combination of it and the Great Depression is creating a lot of the tensions. Japan, of course, participates in the war the side of the allies in return, gets a number of islands in the pacific that we will have to take in 1943, 44 and 45. The italians feel like they are left out. Dealing with these unresolved issues are an impetus. It is the noon hour in central time zone and we have run out of time. Its been a very interesting 2 1 2 hours. Thank you so much for being part of it. It is the centennial week of u. S. Entry into world war i. We thank the staff of the world war i Memorial Museum for allowing us to be part of their busy week here to tell you more about the history of our countrys role in the First World War and thanks to all of our callers for adding your questions to it. Youre watching American History tv. All week, every weekend on cspan3. To join the conversation, like us on facebook cspanhistory. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. In 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas cable tielevision companies answer its brought to you today by your cable or satellite providede provided. American history tv is on cspan 3 every friday. Heres a clip from a recent program. And after midnight, we finally at the end read out roosevelts statement in which he said he had no wish to be a candidate again. This wasnt quite a refusal, but stone silence in the hall. As t the villagers thought what exactly does this mean, while theyre thinking that, a voice filling the hall saying we want roosevelt. We want roosevelt. This turned out to be the superintendent of chicago sewers in a very deep loud voice. Who was speaking into the microphone through the public address system. Thereafter, this was known by those who didnt like it as well as a voice from the sewers. Only a voice from the sewers would demand that roosevelt would be president again. You can watch this and other American History programs on our website where all our video is archived. Thats cspan. Org history. Next, on American History tv, the United States world war 1 centtennial commission, marking the 100th anniversary of americas entry into the war. The ceremony includes a dramatic telling of the american debate over whether to join the conflict. President Woodrow Wilson signed a declaration of war on april 6en, 16. More than 1 million americans served in uniform and over 100,000 died. This is about 1 hour and 45 minutes. O say can you see by the dawns early light what so proudly we hailed at the twilights