Transcripts For CSPAN3 100th Anniversary Of U.S. Entry Into

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. matt 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 don't know you can think of the last 100 years particularly in the united states without understanding the impact of world war i. and that's true of countries across the globe. i'm 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 it's a defeat. it defines who australians are and that's 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 it's 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. we'll put our phone numbers and twitter handle on the screen as we talk here with matt naler and we'll get into the things you're 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 preceded 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 inhabitant 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. >> we've probably all learned in our history books that it was the assassination of arch duke ferdinand that started the war, but why was that the -- but it sounds like there was a lot of tinder that that match struck. so what was going on? >> it was a tinderbox that was there and that it struck, it seems to me there is a multiplicity of things, and a rise in nationalism among those. the sense of local ethnic identity was growing in a way in which it hadn't previously been, under the oppression of empire and people's sense of self-identity 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 combatants? how many people died in world war i. >> it's hard to make that true estimate, isn't it? we would say that there are at least 9 million combatant deaths. it's reasonable to say that perhaps 60 million were killed and then there's 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 anticipated and they're not set up to count those sorts of deaths. >> so now let's move specifically to the united states. this country was out and we were not involved and there were pressures on the president wood row wilson, especially from the rival theodore roosevelt to get involved and set the stage for us about the u.s. entry. >> he wasn't involved and certainly it wasn't 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. there's at least 10 million german immigrants, for example in the united states. first-generation immigrants and so the debate is a difficult debate, and because it's not clear cut. if you're a first-generation 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. it's 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 didn't 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 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 that helped persuade some that 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 camel's back and the stage was well set. i think it's interesting that woodrow wilson ran on the campaign he kept us out of the war and he's 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 to the western front in france happened almost a year-plus later. why did it take so long? >> how do you equip an army and grow an army of that size? i guess, that was the struggle. albeit, however, very quickly because prior they had a standing army of 100,000 and scaled it at an extraordinary rate. one of the things 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 that's 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 women's rights. it had a profound impetus and impact on civil rights issues. the experience of african-american 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. there's 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 changed it and led to the american century. >> we're going to talk about the creation of this museum. it's 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. we're listening. what's 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 from tackle, north dakota, and he marched in that 47 days, and he told me about it and how shiny his helmet was and everything, what 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. we've having a little bit of trouble with your audio. this is an 80-year-old man who remembers talking to a soldier who participated in the 47-day campaign. his question was what motivated them to fight? >> i can't 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 people's 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 whole 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. because the consequence of 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 today's terms in ten 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 in winning the design. and president coolidge came back and 150,000 people said to be the largest crowd that the community -- that our president had ever spoken to. i think it's 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. 217-foot tower. these two fantastic exhibit holes, 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 three-dimensional objects from the war from all belligerents and all sides and have continued to do so for the last 90 years. in the '60s and '70s in the '80s there was some deferred maintenance issues that caught up with the memorial and that wasn't uncommon in city structures in other 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 from you who comes today and it's an appropriate time to see some of your exhibits. my colleague is with the chief curator here to see some of what you've 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? >> well, the first reason was, 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 about a third of your population that couldn't 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, let's go to war, and it didn't 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 couldn't 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. >> let's 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 didn't 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 flag's face. >> and this particular poster is original? yes, all of the materials on exhibit at the museum are 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 tano's 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, mcado who happened to be the president's son-in-law. >> thank you very much. we'll 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. american history tv is marking the to 100th anniversary and they're marking the entry into the war of the whole nation. we're taking your telephone calls and learning about the war history as it's captured in this national museum. we'll take another telephone call. holmes is watching us in greenpoint, new york. you're on. welcome to american history tv. >> thank you. i want to thank the program, c-span3 for illuminating me on my father's 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 to fort wadsworth 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. the captain. in the field artillery that his company was in, they were moving up to the front lines in early november of 1917 and my father could hear the cannons. 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. i'm 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 war real for people? >> what we heard there is a connection that someone has to their forebearers which is so often with what we found with people who visit the museum. it doesn't 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, that's the case for international visitors as well and what we seek 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. that's one of the things about this museum, is we seek to tell the story of all of the countries that were -- that were caught up 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 museum 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 it would have been the most t h 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 it's 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 turret at the top pivots or turns around and would primarily be used for taking out machine gun batteries and such, going 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. let me preface it by saying, 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 discovered 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 ballist in ships, 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. >> we'll 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. >> right. when we come into the main galleries, the most favorite site for me on the right 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. you're on the air. >> i'm calling from farmington, michigan. i want to tell a story about, i believe it was called the lost baaal on. they were cutoff from the other troops and they didn't 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 you'll find it now in the institute and that's my story. >> great. thank you very much for that story. another example of the old and new technologies blending together in this war. >> indeed. >> we'll take another call. paul is in new york city and you're on with matt naler. hello, paul. welcome to the program. >> good morning, matthew and good morning. thank you for the world war i memorial. it's really appreciated. but i want to ask you about the harlem hell fighters and can you give us history and there was a west point grad who was african-american and he graduated and he wanted to fight in world war i. could you tell us about that? i'd really appreciate it. thanks. >> thank you very much. can you give us -- we'll talk more in depth with a bit of the snapshot of the african-americans, did they participate in the war? >> indeed. i think you have a segment when we'll discuss that in more detail. more than 300,000 african-americans 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 and it's 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. it's 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 they're less expensive for persons who serve or have served and for children and they are aged -- it's really quite a traditional bell curve of participation, that 50% of the visitorship is aged between 25 and 45. so it's 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 world-class museum. it's a real eclectic blend of visitors. last year we had people from 73 countries. >> how many visitors last year? >> so at the memorial and the museum, we served 100,000 guests. >> this is your big week with the 6th coming up. >> it is. >> what's happening on the 6th? >> we're 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 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 90-minute ceremony that incorporates the best of 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 it's 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 voices, the african american voices, women's voices, native-american 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 you're 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 nevada" he was just a young 16-year-old 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 along 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 u-boats were pretty effective at sinking these things until the bantry base squadron got into the mix. and so, yeah, 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? >> yes. 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 that's 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 father's 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 -- we'd second -- we would be more concerned about that. it happened then. people fudged their certificates. they didn't have correct i.d. they found ways of serving. >> we only have a few minutes left with you and i don't 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 or two lines 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 fields 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 in 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, as you mentioned, there is a bridge that takes you into the main galleries under which this glass bridge is a beautiful field of poppies and red poppies of flanders field and there are 9,000 blooms, each representing a thousand combatant deaths and it's an architectural masterpiece of the museum and very striking for visitors and what's interesting to see is how different countries respond to that. americans, they're moved by the poem and they're moved by the experience. europeans or people from the commonwealth for whom poppies have a deeper resonance, it's very striking for them. so what we find is that it's 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, it's 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 groups in the united states still make and sell these poppies. >> in partnership of the vfw distribute those here. >> we have just a little bit of time left with matt naler, who is the president and ceo of the museum. big week ahead as they mark the 100th anniversary of the entrance of world war i. as we close here, i'm going to ask sort of what i did at the beginning. for people, especially young people, what are the lessons they should take away from this global war? is it possible that there are threads of that history that are pertinent to what's going on in the world today. >> i think it's fair to say that the world is much like the world of 1913 today as at any time in the last 100 years. rise of -- you know, 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, it's 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 grandfather's shaver in my office. it's 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 don't 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 we'll come back with the first of two world war i historians and more of your phone calls. >> i'm with dewan cart in front of an exhibit that shows what was inside a u.s. soldier's pack. can you go through the items? >> well, a lot of it in 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 in the kpe big we have things that would have led to their comfort and one of the things in the packet with the sheets, that's 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 underwear and wool socks and of course, with all of this clothing that they had they didn't 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 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? what's 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 didn't do that and they just pulled it over themselves when it was raining and then they wanted creature comforts, as well and that's 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 dominos 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 mades and the ones commercially produced and they would roll their own and they did that during the day time because at night you didn't 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 5'6" and he carried about 70 pounds. he carried about half his 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 that's what affects me the most is the humanity that used these objects and carried these with them in their lives during the war because they're no longer with us, but if we can show this through the exhibitions, i think that's very important. >> thank you very much. >> thank you very much. >> and you're watching american history tv as we commemorate the 100th anniversary of united state entry into world war i. the date that congress voted to declare war against germany. we're here for two and a half hours. our next two guests are world war i historians. one of with them is with me here on the set. he is the author of a number of books and he is serving as a consultant to that centennial commission that you heard that the u.s. government has set up. tell us about the commission and it's a 12-member group. is that right? >> it's a 12 member group that really is going around the country as stewards as the first world war. for historians, this is our moment to shine. and it's important that we don't just let this period of 2017-2018 just go by unnoticed and the commission is working extremely hard to make the american people recognize what happened a hundred years ago. we entered the war and ultimately, 4 million men and women served in uniform and half that number were overseas, fighting, and we want to educate people. there are a lot of -- i'm sure your listeners who have relatives or fought in some capacity in the war and they're anxious to hear more. one of the main focuses of the commission is to educate and what better place to do that than this museum here in kansas city. >> our focus with you is going to be a great deal on the united states getting itself ready and then going over to war but we've got callers who have lots of battle related questions so we're going to mix it all up. in fact, i want to go right to a caller whose been nicely holding for us. his name is james and in minnesota. james, welcome, thanks for waiting. you are on with mitch. >> caller: thank you. my grandfather served in the war during that time. but he was a member of the minnesota national guard. i also was a member of the minnesota national guard during the korean war and i'd like someone to comment on the fact that the national guard was used widely during the organization for the world war, also i'd like to comment that in the american legion magazine currently out there, there's a great story about the world war i and also alvin york who was one of the heroes of that time. >> great. thank you very much for that question. so when the united states declared war to get to that 4 million plus number, there were various components of society. this caller mentions the national guard, can you talk about how people were mobilized? there were three moments of the american expedition of forces. that's what general john j. pershing commanded overseas. you have the regular troops, the regular army. they were the professional soldiers. many of them had served with him in 1916 into '17 when he chased after pancho villa in northern mexico after villa had crossed over in march of '16 into new mexico. so when the war was declared, we relied on the regular soldiers, but there were only roughly 120,000. not even remotely close to enough that was going to be needed when the u.s. would go overseas, so then president wilson, he federalized the national guard like this caller had mentioned. they were the militia troops, they were funded by the state governors. once they became part of the regular army they were given the same nomenclature, they were given united states army uniform guns and also trained the same way. it's interesting about the national guard is the fact this most of the regulars including pershing didn't really care for them. they felt like they were weekend warriors, or they would get together monthly in these fancy national guard armories around the country and didn't take fighting seriously. in fact wilson had called up the national guard during the punitive period but pershing wouldn't allow them to cross over into mexico. they were keeping close watch on any insurgents along the mexico border, squatting scorpions. and then there were the drafted soldiers and this was known as the national army. >> once the united states instituted the draft, was it continuous? >> it was. there were three phases of the draft that went on literally till the end of the war and by the time you had the last phase, they were looking at men well into their 40s. caller also mentioned alvin york. he was, i believe, around 40 or 41 when he -- i may have that number off a little bit. but he was older than most troops. he was drafted -- the famous story about him is because of religious reasons, he didn't want to serve. like quakers they were against fighting and he applied for deferment through the conscious objector status, and was twice turned down. ended up serving as part of the 82nd all-american division, 328th infantry triand the rest, as shay they say, is history. he received the distinguished service cross. that was upgraded to the medal of honor. gary cooper plays him in a movie during world war ii. during the civil war, the last great war that the country had fought, of course people were famous for being able to buy their way out of service. so they could conscript someone to serve on their behalf. by the time we got to world war i, were there ways that people were able to escape serving if they did not wish to. >> they couldn't buy their way out like in the civil war. theodore roosevelt's father did that. in world war i you apply for hardship or through conscientious object everybody status. a decision was made if you could stay home. maybe you had a large family or a business or a farm that could help the war effort better than putting on a uniform. you couldn't buy your way out and certainly if you tried to escape and go elsewhere, you were a deserter and prosecuted. >> take another telephone call for you, 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 rural tex and he was in world war i. i have a picture of his battery unit. it's an old picture, about three feet long and 8 inches tall. my grandchildren won't have the emotional connection to this that i do. 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. >> since i don't work for the museum i can't say definitively. what tom is referring to of course the panoramic photograph you see some of those on display here and 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 in high school and had your class photograph taken. i will pass that on and see if this is something they would be interested in to see if tom's ancestor's unit is not already represented. >> if not here, places like the national archives. >> the national archives we do have some panoramic photographs that have been donated. it's not a focus of our collections but 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 and museum that would perhaps cherish it more because of the fact that he's from tex. >> i want to pick up on the point he made of which a farm boy that went to fight the war. would you comment on -- u.s. was largely an agrarian society at the turn of the 20th century and beginning of the industrial age and ramping up. how in that regard did it change america? >> well, two points i'd like to make on that, one, the point of eventual soldiers being farmers, so it was interesting to them when they went overseas and fought in france or belgium, they got to see the farmland, the breadbasket 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 so-called western front where wheat had grown and barley and other crops were just completely decimated and i think that had a huge impact on a lot of these soldiers. but going back to your other point, by the time the u.s. got into the war we were still an agrarian society but we were one of if not the most advanced industrial nations in the world with practically everyone now had electricity and combustible engines which meant that coupled with the electricity, factories can run as we say today, 24/7. so we were cranking out supplies and henry ford was cranking out model ts. it changed to the sense of going from strictly really to industrialized nation. >> and how many women went to work in those factories at that point? was that a phenomenon in world war i. >> i don't remember the exact number but it was a huge phenomenon. because once the men started going over whether they were drafted or joined up or they happened to be a part of the national guard, a lot of private industry, just like in world war ii turned over as part of war production. and somebody had to work in those factories and women jumped ahead and took over and were working long hours either in armaments, building, war equipment, uniforms, really, you name it. women played a significant role on the home front but they also played a significant role on the battle lines as nurses, as ambulance drivers and the famous hello girls, the telephone operators. >> and women who were not able to vote yet in the united states we should point out. >> that's really one of the more baffling things about world war i. the fact that, here women are playing a significant role, equal to men in certainly most combat kpastties but they don't have the right to vote and there are famous photographs of them in front of the white house protesting. eventually they would get that right because of world war i. it seemed so antiquated to me to think that didn't happen. >> world war i historian is our guest here live from the world war i museum in kansas city. next up is joanie in wisconsin. you're on the air. >> caller: thank you for the fantastic program. i really enjoyed it. >> thank you. >> caller: i'm calling -- i've been doing some family history research and i discovered that my maternal grandfather, his name was frances patrick mclaughlin, he was the grandson of irish immigrants from county mayo and was 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 because i didn't realize that we were a presence in haiti at that time. but i've learned through my research that between 1911 and 1915 seven president of haiti were either assassinated or overthrown and so the u.s. was concerned about heightening german activity and influence in haiti at that time. and so they wanted to, you know, have a really strong presence there and restore order and political and economic stability in the caribbean. in july of 1915, another haitian president was assassinated. so the president sent in the u.s. marines at that time. i was just wondering, you know, if there are any exhibits or any materials in the world war i museum concerning the u.s. marines presence in haiti at that time? >> thanks very much. mitch, doesn't work for the museum so he can't answer that but do you know the haitian story? we talked about how this was a global conflict so even the caribbean nations were involved in the fighting. >> it's interesting that the caller brought this up because a lot of people don't know that by the time the u.s. entered world war i, as far as our armed forces, i mentioned about the army, the draft, and the national guard troops. the marines actually had more experience than the united states army. and the fact that there were marines that were sent to haiti. there were some sent to santa domingo and even some troops earlier on that were in korea. the marines were known as the troops that would go anywhere, fight anywhere. they were mobile basically infantry troops and when the u.s. got into the war, the marines were cast aside as the caller said. her ancestor was down in haiti and i don't know if that really had much to do directly with the world war other than she mentioned about the instability there. so i'm not sure -- i'm not up on my marine corp history to know if it directly correlated to the world war. but it's a good segue into the fact that the marines literally had to fight their way into serving overseas in france. pershing was an army guy. he wasn't interested in the marines and he originally rejected their offer even though they were ready and experienced. he had to battle against secretary of the navy josephius daniels, who through the commandant at the time. they went up on capitol hill in a big argument ensued. finally pershing accepted two regimes of the marine that' attached to the regular army and it ended up marines fought significantly, the most famous battle where they took a lot of losses was at bella wood was in the early summer of 1918 but they also fought elsewhere. and 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 months after the u.s. declared war. he had been back from mexico. he was -- historians say it was a failed expedition. because they didn't capture pancho via. he was wounded. it was wonderful experience for pershing and he wanted to become commander of whatever force the americans were going the send over. in fact he lobbied hard on his own behalf. after the april 2nd speech where he lays out why he thinks the u.s. should join the war. as we all know he ran for re-election on keeping america out of war and he back pedalled out of that. but he laid it out very carefully in a wonderful speech. pershing read that speech. he wrote a letter to wilson congratulations him, by the way, i'm available. also he wrote to secretary of war newton baker a similar letter so when it came time to select a commander for what ultimately become the american expedition forces it was plural. pershing was the number one guy. there were a few other folks being considered but he had the most experience, not just because of the punitive expedition but his earlier career serving in the philippines. he had the ability as not only as an army officer, but as a diplomat. he understood how to work with other commanders and foreign powers and that was a huge part of his job, not just commanding overseas. so he was selected i believe it was in may and then he went over in june with a token force and then slowly more americans started coming over, the first division came over and then slowly other troops. part of the problem we didn't have enough shipping to get soldiers overseas. we had to borrow a lot of them from the british and we had to train our troops. it took a while. upwards of nine months in some cases to get troops trained before they could go over. >> and how did the american fighting man get the nickname doughboy in world war i. >> that's an interesting question. the definition that i go with is written in a book by lawrence stall whogs wrote a book called "the doughboy." he wrote a wonderful narrative that's still available today. he says that it dates all the way back to 1848-48 during the american/mexican war so american troops are crossing over the rio grande, they're in mexico, their uniforms are covered in dust, which matches the adobe buildings and houses and they shortened it to dobe and it became angelcised to doughbuoy. and that's the definition i've seen. >> was it used exclusively through world war i and not so much by world war ii. >> i've never heard it used in world war ii then a term of endearment for troops that served in the first world war as well. >> we're going the learn a bit more about some of the exhibits here at the world war ii miami in kansas city with the chief curator. >> dorrin, what can you tell us about this ambulance that we're standing next to here? >> this is a ford model t. 1918 truck bed and it was getting ready to be floated over to europe but the armistice occurred first so it basically was in a warehouse and 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 and so he had it restored and he called me up one day and said, i've got this beautiful ambulance and it's like the same one that my father drove in the war would you like to have it as a donation not museum and i said i sure would. and so 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 by the ambulances that were able to get right up to the fighting. >> even before the war began, there were americans overseas volunteering? >> that's correct. as soon as the war started in august of 1914, americans volunteered their services overseas. it first started off in 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. and one of the big efforts that started was the american field service and it came out of the american hospital that was in paris already and this was really to help the french army with transporting the wounded soldiers and they primarily at the start of the war transported wounded french soldiers and they could carry three men on stretchers, or four men sitting in the back. >> and who made the truck? >> this was made by ford. and ford produced a lot of the ambulances from the united states but also dodge and cadillac and other countries. 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 of an ambulance driver would have been very cold, very wet, very muddy. they had to know how to fix the ambulances, they had to get them out of harm's way when possible. and a lot of them didn't. 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 at the museum, what have you learned about what sorts of americans volunteered to do this work? >> you know, it was all walks of life. it was 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 and so they covered all gamuts. and also women. women were volunteers in all aspects of the war, both when -- before the americans entered and then after that as well, and one of the areas that we really need -- we try to cover here in the museum was the women's service as volunteers and also with the military. >> do you still accept donations to the museum? what's that process? >> it's interesting, the museum's been collecting since 1920 and we're very selective any more about donations to the museum. we get about 99% of our collection through donations, from people all over the world because we do collect all the belligerent nations and the best way to find out what we're looking for and how to donate is to go to our website and look under donating an object and that will give our contact information and people can contact me or the museum archivist and we can go from there. we do ask that people contact us first. walk-ins with materials is a little difficult because we're not always available to look at them, but we are looking for a specific things and we do have that on our website. >> dorrin cart, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> you're watching live with us as c-span visits the national world war i museum in kansas city, missouri. we're spending two hours here this saturday morning. our guest right now is mitchell yokelson who is a world war i historians. and his latest book is "47 days: how pershing's warriors came of age to defeat the army in world war i." let me pick up on that topic. the war had been waging for three and a half four years and 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? >> pershing was ademant about so-called open warfare. he felt that the allies, whose side we joined were basically hiding behind the trenches popping out from time to time and attacking the germany positions. the german positions were extremely difficult. they were the masters of defense. they were behind these concrete bunkers and utilizing farm house and hillside, really anything part of the terrain both natural and manmade that they could find or build and keep themselves protected. the allies were attacking and not making any progress. the allies had warned pershing, this is the tactic you're going to have to use and he said, no. i'm going to have my troops. i'm going to teach them how to use fire power, how to shoot from the rifle. he was certain that they were learning that in the u.s. before they came over and then they had further training. what's interesting on that sideline is, there weren't enough guns to train american troops within the u.s. you see that with either fake wooden guns or broom sticks, anything just so they could learn the rudiments of war. so when they got overseas, many of them hadn't fired a gun before so they had to learn all this on the fly. pershing wanted them out of the trenches and going forward. jumping ahead to the offense offensive which becomes the largest battle in american history. more than a 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 germany positions. first couple of days the americans caught them off guard, so we -- we the americans had made great progress, but then the german troops started bringing up more reinforcements and things slowed down and american casualties increased. so as time went on the americans had to start changing the tactics. they were still using the open warfare and going out -- it reminded a lot of soldiers of the american civil war attacks in fredericksburg or the famous pickets charge at gettysburg but american troops especially in small bunches were learning how to encircle the german positions, the machine gun positions which the germans had really masterminded. by that point casualties on the german side were increasing. they didn't have the reinforcements. a lot of the german troops were surrendering to americans so it was inevitable that the american tactics were starting to improve and get better but the war was eventually going to end up as it did. >> the museum is open so you'll see people that are touring the exhibits around us as we talk here. it's very much a well-visited miami especially on this anniversary week. so we expect to see people wandering around. let's take another telephone call. norman, welcome to our world war i discussion. >> caller: good morning. i would like to ask dr. yokelson at first i was going to ask him about the famous lost brigade but i would like to change my question if i may and my grandfather had an older brother who fought in world war i and he suffered from shell shock and when he came back, he spent the rest of his life in an insane asylum because of his shell shock and i was wondering, didn't 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, norman. appreciate the question. so what is shell shock? >> shell shock was a term that i believe the british came up with because artillery shelling which is referred to, was one of the main sort of technologies of the war, during world war i, artillery had been around for centuries but now you're talking about artillery that's lobbed by much larger shells from a much greater distance that caused much destruction and it went on day and night. and as norman pointed out that his ancestor, i can't imagine what it must have been like. i was reading one account, often whether it was a soldier or civilian, they were able to interpret the sound of a particular shell and because of so much experience so they could figure out whether it was going to land close to them and they had to go into hiding or if they were safe. but if you had somebody at the front lines that's constantly being shelled, they -- a nickname was wiz banged. the shells would make a whizzing noise and bang they would hit. the term was coined for mostly i believe for british soldiers and the british government did deal with the 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 weren't as obvious as say somebody losing a limb. you had soldiers who were badly wounded from gas warfare but certainly shell shock and the v.a., to the best of my knowledge, back then, the veterans administration and its various incarnations was just learning how the deal with it. i think they had one hospital that kind of specialized in it but it was something that was relatively unknown and i don't think it was treated very well. it probably should have been. because we don't think about this but soldiers serving in the civil war would have experienced the same thing. >> so each war seems to have its own set of particular casualties because of the kinds of munitions that are used, for example, afghanistan and iraq we saw the rise from brain damage from ied and the helmets. you mentioned gas, use of gas. what were the other kinds of things that world war i veterans were bringing home? >> well there, were any sort of wound. i mean, let's not forget during -- in 1918 there were three phases of the influenza pandemic. and that struck all the troops, certainly the american troops pretty hard in the autumn of 1918 going back to the battle and anybody whose been to northern france in the autumn knows that it's damp and rainy and it's difficult not to get sick and you get the flu and that had lingering effects on the guys that came home. any gun shot wound whether from a machine gun or rifle or perhaps even a plane firing its machine guns above where troops might have been in a fixed position, so it's not unusual to see photographs of veterans coming back to the u.s. walking around either with a prosthetic or walking around with a loss of a 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. not in a positive way in that regard. >> next caller from is john. from dunkirk, new york. you're on, john. >> caller: good morning. i have -- both my grandfathers were in the navy in world war i on battle -- battleships, one the texas, the other the iowa. could you elaborate on the size of the u.s. navy and its primary missions during the war? >> thank you very much. was world war i primarily a land war or 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 that was in 1916, the battle of jutland which was a wish attack. the american navy played a significant role more in line the "w" the destroyers, not so much the battleships that this caller mentioned although both the iowa and the texas were famous battleships during the spanish war. but in the first world war when the servicemen were going over in former ocean liners that the british lent us. there were such a fear of the german u-boats that were prowling underneath the ocean and made the ships vulnerable. so what the u.s. navy did was provide destroyers and they would travel from the ports along the east coast, primarily off of new york but even off of norfolk in virginia and it was about a two week voyage to get from the east coast to one of the british ports or french ports and along the way the destroyers would guard these ships and go in a zigzag pattern so they weren't sailing directly but they were maneuvering around that way to throw off the german u-boats. >> we have another caller. in oak forest, illinois by the name of rich. rich, you're on our program. welcome. >> caller: i like to say my grandfather was in world war i. he also served in brownsville, texas, as border patrol in the cavalry. and he was at the bottom of 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. he served with the marines that invaded iwo jima and i got drafted during the vietnam war and my i remember my grandfather telling me, you know, you should be proud to serve in the military. one of the things i really would like to say is your museum is magnificent. i was there last year and i spent the whole day there seeing all the different things. i was way up into the tower there that you have over there and it just was i'd recommend it for anybody. it's really -- really a great museum to visit. okay. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> i'm sure the people in this community who support the museum and the folks who work here really appreciate that call and we hope more people will come visit as a result of watching this program. you can make at two-fer because it's not very far away from independence, missouri. you can see harry truman's home. what was his role in world war i? >> he was in the national guard. he was in the 35th division which was primarily troops from the missouri/kansas area. he was a battery commander. and he saw a lot of action during the war, again going to the -- 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/fiancee later at the time. he talks about what it was like to be in combat and he specifically talks about the mud and trying to get these huge heavy artillery pieces that are drawn by horses through the rough terrain that's muddy, the road themselves have been destroyed by enemy fire and truman's letter are digitized and available on the truman library website. so people can read them and 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 country's standing army before war was declared and once the war was over, what was the size of the permanent army in the united states? >> a good question. the regular army that i alluded to before, somewhere in the neighborhood of 120,000-some. and that's the reason why we had to bring in the national guard and troops. after the first world war typical of the united states, we downsized significantly so the drafting troops and those enlisted they all go home. they put their uniforms away and they're done with the military and pretty much the same thing with a lot of the national guard troops. if you were in the regular army, somebody like george s. patton for example, who played a significant role as a tank commander, that was his life. dwight d. eisenhower who didn't serve overseas but was a major in gettysburg, he was training tankers and also at camp mead that was his life as well. so the army had downsized significantly. i don't know the exact number but i know that if you were in the military in the so-called interwar period between world war i and world war ii, it wasn't all that glamorous and there was a possibility that you couldn't make much of a career out of it. truthfully a lot of the blej rebelligerents had an inklg that this was the first world war. germany was forced into an armistice. there was a lot of thought there was going to be another war so if you could hold on in the regular army like guys like patton and eisenhower did and make yourself useful if anything about the next technology, there's a good chance you're going to have an opportunity to see more action. >> eloise, you're up next. >> caller: i was a recreational director working for the air force in northern france in the late -- part of my job was running tours. and in the late '50s and into the early '60s, i got some requests, can't we have a tour of -- so i got in my car and drove to -- which wasn't that far away. and they only had one guide who spoke any english at all. but with his english and my french, which was somewhat limited we managed to go over everything there. and it was exciting because he wanted to share the information. and so i got things arranged that we could have a tour there. and what had prompted this interest was an area south of western france. the german trenches came to that point because it was a big gully there and then this road was going across and on the other side of the road was also something of a gully. and the allied forces were on that side and they would bring the bodies up at the end of the day and set them on the road and the women from two villages would come out with wagons and pick up the bodies and take them back and bury them. and so this is why it's called the road of the women and i was so glad that i was encouraged let's have tours there because it was quite exciting to go through. and what i was shown and i took my troops through and showed them also are things that i understand they don't show now, but any way, it's -- it was really something to see. >> thank you. i'll pick it up from here. >> so why was that battle important? >> well, it was a fortress area for the french. it was an extremely important -- it was a symbol of france because of all of these forts that encircled the city. the germans knew that. the germans rarely went on the offensive. certainly by this point in the war we're talking 1916. and so they felt in order to break the stalemate from their side by attacking these forts and the fortress city of -- literally they're going to bleed the french white. and so they attack verdon and the france miraculously hang on. they suffer significant casualties both in military but also civilians. and it's going on and on for weeks. and this is when the british launch the attack of the battle of the somme other on the other side of france north of paris where 19,000 young britishmen were killed in one day. so that was the kind of the attack -- eventually it comes to an end in february of 1917 and the germans hold on and she was absolutely correct. it's very interesting to see, in fact, there is a museum that's reopened recently that deals with the whole siege of verdon and you can see some of the forts in the area. and there's a lot to see now that maybe wasn't there when she was serving that i encourage people to go visit if they are going to be in that area. it's not that far from paris that they can make a trip. >> we have four minutes with you. we have a caller in massachusetts. >> caller: hello. >> you're on the air. go ahead, please. >> caller: hi. i'm a volunteer helping to build a national desert storm war memorial in d.c. and that was a 100 day endeavor. so 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 till today? >> thank you very much. >> it's 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 but 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 also in today's term of a rich man's war where poor men are fighting it and you mentioned at the very beginning of our discussion about the agrarian country and of course the soutsz hh has a lot of farm and the south has a lot of farmers in that time, a lot of tenant farmers, and the wealth distribution in the country was not equal by any means. there was a fair amount of animosity. slowly that disappated. and by and large most of the country was joined together in an effort, even though -- even some congressmen and senators said this really isn't our war, mr. president, why are we getting involved? there's a european war but by in large as i say most americans joined up and got together and participated. >> that caller was talking about wanting to be a desert storm memorial in washington, d.c. there is a world war i memorial being built in washington. can you tell us more about it. >> what's the main initiative of the united states world war i commission where i proudly advise as a historian and we're really hoping that it will come to fruition where depending on donations from the public, whether it's, you know, a little change here and there or some huge donor contributions. >> what stage is it in the process right now? >> well, c-span has covered this. it's been -- a designer has been picked, an architect. the land has been set aside. there's work being done with the national park service, which will can maintain it once it's build and talks going on with the d.c. government and other u.s. government entities so right now it's in the fund-raising stage. the hope is all that have will get taken care of within the next year or so and on november 11, 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 and the caller is absolutely right, we don't have one for desert storm. but we don't have one for world war i and the fact that there were 4 million americans participated in that conflict both domestically and overseas tells me that it's sadly needed. >> as our time wraps up with you here, if we've whetted the appetite that didn't know much about it, what's the one thing you want them to take away about the importance of world war i. >> well, it brought the united states into the modern age. i mean, it not only militarily, as i mentioned, some of our later figures like george patton and dwight eisenhower but it brought the americans into the forefront as a superpower. we wouldn't be the nation we are todays 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 pershing's warriors came of age to defeat the german army in world war i." a world war i historian and also serving as the chief historian consultant to the world war i centennial commission. thank you for being with us. appreciate it. we have about 55 minutes left to go and two and a half hours of live programming from the world war i museum in kansas city and next we'll return to some of the exhibits that visitors see here. >> we're going to learn about the african-american contribution to world war i with dorrin cart. can you talk about this exhibit right next to us? >> well, basically, what we're featuring here is some of the activities that the african-american 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. but many of the african-americans who first went over to serve in the army had been part of national guard units and the 15th new york national guard unit was primarily an african-american unit and when the national guard units were federalized, that unit became the 369th infantry religion -- religion -- regiment. they were not in a division at that time. but later became part of the 39th division. they gained quite a repetition from early on. and because some of them were most from harlem, they got the nickname of the harlem hell raisers. when they really got over in europe and they primarily fought alongside the french. they were under french command. they also got the nickname of the black rattle snakes or the black rattlers, they had a lot of nicknames and even though the insignia on the uniform here that's shown is post war it was their symbol during the war itself. and since they were american troops fighting with the french, they wore american uniforms but they used french equipment. >> why did they serve under the french? >> well, primarily because -- there were two reasons for that. one is that the french needed soldiers in a particular area to help bolster their defense. and general john j. pershing, he did not hold a lot of confidence in the african-american troops. and so he lent out the 369th and the 371st to the french and so they were issued french helmets, the french adrian helmet. they wore the french ammunition belt and ammunition boxes. they carried the french rifle and they learned to use the french machine guns. and the french wanted them and they wanted them because they were used to colonial troops. they were used to commanding other soldiers and they did not have the racism against them that occurred and it was interesting, the band leader of the 369th was a man named james reese europe and he was credited with during the war with his band of introducing jazz to france. and so that was his contribution as well as being in the army there and probably one of the most famous soldiers in the 369th was a man named henry johnson and henry johnson was the first american soldier to get the french gadicare and just in a defensive fight against a german raiding party. less than a year henry johnson was awarded posthumously, a medal of honor, he really was given this award because they had not been given the medal of honor during the war. and since then, there have been two african-americans awarded the medal of honor. and what we like to show here in the museum is their contributions were great. they were great at home with the african-american women who were working in all the war time industries and then not only did the african-americans serve in that regiment but also in a full division, the 92nd division. they were called the buffaloes. and so they fought the longest on the line of any american division during the war. >> we're going to walk over behind you, there are some women service uniforms. >> all right. >> okay. >> so what is this uniform? >> what we're seeing here is the military uniform that was developed by -- for the american women ambulance drivers who were primarily volunteers and they were considered part of the military in service to the military but they were not under direct military command as opposed to some of the other women who were in service with the americans. and they copied the -- this is the french style of tunic and skirt that were worn by the american women ambulance drivers. and they followed the pattern, basically, of the british, who had really started it. >> so what was the experience -- i know it's hard to generalize but for women serving both in the military and as with the red cross and all during the war? >> well, of course there were over 25,000 american women who 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 and over 350 american women died overseas during the war, primarily from disease but several of them were killed directly from combat. and so they did not fight as soldiers but they did every other duty that was asked of them. >> we're going to walk down and see u.s. signal corps uniform. >> yes. >> what was their role in the signal corps. >> the u.s. women signal corps telephone operators were responsible for communicating between the american lines and the french lines, especially in two battles and they were part of the signal corps. so they served directly under army command. they were in the army but they did not receive their recognition as veterans until 1977. and the uniform that we're looking at was worn by olive shaw who was one of the telephone operators. she was from maine. and her uniform, she wore when they gave testimony before congress in 1977. and she was really very succinct. this is my army uniform. look at the buttons on there, the united states army buttons. they're united states army collar insignia, i was supposed to be given the consideration of an officer of my rank. and 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 corps telephone operators full veteran status along with the women service pilots from world war ii. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. >> and we are back at our set here at the world war i museum and memorial in kansas city. we have about 45 minutes left to go. we're very much enjoying your telephone calls as part of the process here. so keep them coming in. lots of family history we've been learning. let me introduce you to our final guest who is a military historian and a retired member of the military, richard faulkner. has a ph.d. in american history from kansas state university and taught 15 years at the command and general staff college at ft. leavenworth. so you've had a lot of military history. why are you particularly interested in world war i? >> that's a good question. i grew up on the battlefields of the american civil war and that was a period of the civil war with trenches and for some reason that just stuck with me. and when i was 4 years old my parents gave me a world war i play set. little tanks and little airplanes and it just went from there. and i was building a period that i was going to study, it's really an era that's not very well done in american history, so you're able to plow new ground. >> we're 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 in american history. we've talked quite a bit already about general blackjack pershing. over your shoulder is one of his battle flags. would the american effort have been successful without him? >> he is the right man at the right time. generalship changed dramatically. the scope and the scale meant you are no longer going to be the great man on horse back. leading troops into battle. this is now about being able to manage huge armies over huge spaces and to sustain them and pershing is bringing a couple of really important attributes. first of all, he is politically reliable. wilson administration had sent him to chase down pancho villa during the mexican revolution. and pershing knows that he's not going to be able to accomplish really what the president wants but despite his private reservations he soldiers on so when it comes time to select the commander for the aef. he's got a good reputation. the other thing is, he's got an eye for talent. he exacts requires a lot of talent from himself or makes a lot of demands on himself and those of his subordinates also. you see that in a couple of key individuals. one is charles day -- charles dawes. they had struck up quite a good friendship but as pershing is trying to build this huge aef with all the supply requirements, the army doesn't have a lot of experience in this so he calls on his old friend not because he is comfortable with him but he knows that he's going to be competent. now pershing is very exacting when it comes to things like uniforms and he will call charles dawes one of the most unmilitary man that he has ever seen. but he knows he's competent. another one is george marshall. marshall goes to war as a young captain in the first division and is on the staff. and pershing is not real happy with the division commander. and during a training exercise pershing is just breathing out. marshall takes exception to this and tries to button hole pershing and try to explain to him the amount of problems that he is facing. when pershing turns around marshall has the audacity to grab him by the arm and spin him around. and tell him forcefully and logically what the problems are. after that incident later that night all of marshall's friends said that's it for you. you'll be back on the first boat to the united states. but in fact, pershing had great respect for someone who is willing to stand his ground and marshall will go on to be one of the great staff officers of the aef. and lastly there is hunter ligett. pershing is a stickler. he believes 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. general officers. all of them have to rotate to france to figure approval. when liggett shows up, he says he is too old. and pretty well dismiss 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 he's got to take on the likes of george clement and fernand probst. he needs to stand his ground to 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? >> 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 african-americans 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 african-americans they do not serve in segregated units. so, they're 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 don't 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 it's 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 for 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. they only have 52,000 trucks. horses have their own problem. a horse is not a well-suited 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 don't 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 that's a lie. so, ultimately, you're using horses in a lot of cases just to bring up the fodder for other horses. they continually cut down at the amount of fodder. 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 aren't 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 cutoff sailing with 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. and, so, we are learning from the french in many ways as we are learning how to use motor transport to offset problem with horses. >> let's 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 take effect on the 11th day of the 11th month 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? am 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. sadly, he's correct, that 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 waning 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 suffering 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 out of war completely. so, now, that's 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 in april of 1917 that ends up being a 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 and the austrians launch a counter attack 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 it's 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, 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 we've lost in the last 16 years of global war on terrorism in one week. we lost sight of the amount of sacrifice that this army undergoes. >> our next caller is michael in dearborn, michigan. hi, michael. welcome to the conversation. >> 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 don't you ask both and we'll take them at one time. >> caller: i'm just learning about john j. 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. i'm guessing high school student. great that he is studying the history. so, the first was, would the blockade have been successful on its own? >> a follow on to the last question we asked. the british blockade is certainly slowly and surely strangling the german war economy. 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 lundendorf 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 pershing's 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 aef 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, we've 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 standard-issue 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 .30-06 caliber. came from the year it was developed. 1906. 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 infantryman had the same equipment, same uniform within all divisions of the army. it started with the steel helmet, of course, and that was a copy of the british steel helmet. when america went to war, they didn't 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 it's 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 couldn't get to your gas mask properly. so they wore it back bards 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 that on belt their for close hand combat. but the americans never used to fight very close. and the bay onyet, 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. because they got covered in mud. 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 wouldn't 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 we're 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 in the war, they use use the maximum machine gun. it was invented by an american. most were invented by americans but we didn't 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 a carriable 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 truman's 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 didn't 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, wouldn't 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 you've 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 "pershing's 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. and it had to be a direct fire. you would see the canon. by world war i the technology allows indirect fire so firing from several miles away. and they're firing high-explosive shells. 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 nerve-racking experiences. so there's 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. lasserating wounds, destroying faces. and of all the weapons of the war the dough boys feared it the most. for good reason. >> 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 follow-on 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? >> that's 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. they're already thinking about living space in the east in world war i. they're 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 blockaded 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. they're fixed targets, though, these observation balloons. so, if you can take them down, it's 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 world's first true design fighter plane designed to keep you from observing your fire and gathering intelligence. now it's 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. it's taking us years, decades to develop an f-22 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, it's changing over the air frames 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 government's. >> in my remembering, theodore roosevelt lostt a son. >> yeah, quinn rosevelt. this is a war where everyone is expected to give. it is the fairest draft 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. and quinn ton, of course, is shot down and killed. >> 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 didn't have in here you didn't have in your disposal immediately. mary in phoenix. hi, mary. >> caller: hi, thank you for the wonderful program. i wanted to talk about a little more about the war. my father just turned 18 about the time president wilson asked for declaration of war. he was in the service but i don't know if he was drafted or if he was recruited. he's from rural north dakota. and then went to college in st. paul. and i don't know if somewhere in between there, where was the fervor? 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 didn't go overseas? i don't think he went overseas, but i don't 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 in 1917 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 an 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 who's 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. it's 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 pershing's command by the name of major general robert e. lee. i'm 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. i'm 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 that's 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 can't make its numbers, the regular army can't 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 of san miguel. 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 they're 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 truman's 35th division will also go in at the same time. also, not a lot of experience for this battle and they'll 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 gas gangrene. if you look 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 that's killing them. so, medical science, mostly the british and french, are trying to figure out how 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 solution that they use today, slowly irrigating the wound and it has beginnings of antibiotics properties. the war pushed forward newer psychotic treatments. i know one of the previous callers talked about shell shock. 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 s removed from floyd 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, they'll 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 its own 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 just about five, six minutes left. we have another caller probably our last from david this time in phoenix. hi, david, you're 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 unit and was a driver with the 128th and 108th field artillery battery f. he was in six major engagements. and i cannot -- and his discharge papers only shows him having victory medal. i have all of his medals and i'm trying to verify that these are authentic. but there's 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. it's 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 you're 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 draft certificate. you can also 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. >> while we're talking about resources, i recall that 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 you're not able to travel here, the website that they've 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 of the people back here that contributed to the war efforts. that would be the first place i would start if you're 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 warfare, it sounds like. but i'm 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. it's sort of sad, but he's 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. he'll 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 cheering throngs everywhere he goes. the more he sits down with the sharks in the tank, the less he is able to get what he wants. at the end while the europeans like the idealism that he's pushing, this is the ugliest war in human history. and there's a wide belief, 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 resonate with the american people. we have made the world safe for democracy. we have done everything we possibly can. europeans don't 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 women, 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 african-americans 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. it's 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 country's role in the first world war and thanks to all of our callers for adding your questions to it. >> visit our website, c-span dot ork/history. american history tv, at c-sp cspan.o cspan.org/history. c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies it's brought to you today by your cable or satellite provided. >> american history tv is on c-span 3 every friday. here's a clip from a recent program. and after midnight, we finally at the end read out roosevelt's statement in which he said he had no wish to be a candidate again. this wasn't quite a refusal, but it seemed like it. there was stone silence in the hall. the delegates thought, what exactly does this mean? while they were thinking came a voice as the likes of god 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. he was hidden in the basement speaking through the microphone through the public address system. thereafter, this was known by those who didn't 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. that's c-span.org/history. next, on american history tv, the united states world war 1 centtennial commission, marking the 100th anniversary of america's 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 a declaration of war on april 6, '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

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