live at 1:00 p.m. eastern here on american history tv on c-span 3. 28,orld war i began on july 1914 when austria and hungary war on serbia. less than a month later, most of the waroined the war as marked the beginning of the historians panel of and authors who talked about the and effect of the conflict once known as the war to end all wars. century ago to a the start of the first world war, it seems that the world is still at war. in the past few weeks alone, a passenger plane shot down leaving hundreds dead in the clash between ukraine and rocket fire raging in israel and gaza, conflicts in syria. might ask, does this have to do with world war i. you.answer might surprise i'll be moderating our discussion today. first, i'd like to introduce you the gentleman who will bring this discussion to life. dr. chad left is williams. afro american studies in bran dice university. braden him, dr. tungstill. of phi utive director alpha theta national border a board member of the world war i association. ast but not least, author of borrowed soldiers and americans under british command in 1918. he's the archivist with the national archives that teaches at the u.s. naval academy. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> panel of experts will be questions from me. if you're watching live, they can answer questions from you as well. questions fromng our audience. you can tweet questions to us at @www1cc. message us on our facebook page at world war i spelled out. world war i centennial commission. >> before we talk about this, we go to the report filed last week before the recent cease-fire. >> i ended up at the wrong war. unday, i had a ticket to the war in iraq. by monday evening, i was on my way to gaza. ince i've been here, i've seen a failed cease-fire. i've seen an escalation. hamas with the rocket attacks out of gaza. they have killed one person. israel said nay were striking targets and among the 213 people they've killed, ccording to outside organizations, something like half or more of those people are civilians. i've seen up close. you look behind me, you see plumes of smoke. there have been rocket attacks moving out the of this area. and, of course, we have seen the the streets. there have been dozens of homes, some of them rs, military, some of them destroyed.all they have struck over 1,000 targets and have thousands more to go. families today who left their homes days ago. heard about a cease-fire yesterday. told again, with israeli leaflets dropped from the sky to leave their homes northern gaza. they have returned to the center f gaza, a city that's not prepared to handle the 100,000 people that the israelis have homes.to leave their so there is likely to be a humanitarian crisis here. city with a shortage of water. a shortage of electricity. most people get eight hours a day. and there's a shortage of food. this place has 50% unemployment, the people here live in poverty and receive food aide. i've noticed this is a conflict with no end in sight. a hamas the home of official today. that was destroyed. interesting in 2004, his home was destroyed once before. his son was killed. wife were injured. another son was killed in a eparate engagement with israel and then today, of course, it happens all over again. so as we await a cease-fire, we look forward and wonder whether happens at the end of this conflict will make a ubstantial difference between israel and palestine over the long run. to haveflict that seems no end. were more clear cut. how does this fighting relate to world war i. doctor, we'll start with you. >> a pleasure to be here. know the world war i to understand the conflict going now. sheriff hussein, an arab leader, approached the ritish governor about an alliance because the turkish empire controlled the middle east. the famous have mcmahon hue cain correspondents arabs are told, yes, you can ally with us, but we and all these aq areas. we will be supreme. nd it's accepted after a long silence. but the key point is 1917 with balfour declaration. here the british joined the that they would have a new homeland and assured not be s they would disturbed. using the word disturbing, the british never intended anything in this time. you have to remember, britain was the largest imperial empire controlled 25% of the earth's surface at this time. military ou have a was ign in palestine which on the level of what they anticipated for world war i, but key to wanting palestine for the british was that it would suez the flank for the canal. it was critical for india, the their empire. tragedy a lot a l-- of people are not aware of, this is what the arabs look back to dislike on july 7, 1918, a joint declaration made and french sh governments promising that if he arabs continued to fight self-determination gave them their freedom. lloyd george and clemens self only determined that self-determination to be in europe. you have these uprisings. in 1922, they finally start to and iraq and egypt become, quote, inagain dense. no, the british still controlled them. in mesopotamiail which is today's iraq. '14 and a campaign in '15 to get the oil for the dreadnaugts. nationals e arab start to build and with it evolution. in 1935, you have a major uprising in palestine is crushed. but where this trouble starts before the second world war was 1939. the british government issued white paper or white statement -- a white paper, where they said you for 10 ave independence more years. and it caused a lot of trouble. world war ppens when ii breaks out is that many of he arab leaders will support british because the and french have controlled them. this is important but also the hitler army beat france in 1940 and they '41 rassed the french in and '42 in the pacific. the middle east is never going the same. they're promised the freedom in the end of the war. it finished at major powers.listic the key here is 1947 after world war ii. this is when the british decide cannot handle the religious problems in palestine or india. the united states to take over control of palestine. we say no. so they turn it turnover the nations. i don't want to get into the but to make a long story short, as soon as the united nations proclaims a birth of israel, there's a war in 1948. you know, there are other wars, '67-'73. his brings in the great powers because after world war ii in africa, asia, and particularly he middle east, all of the national groups can get weapons systems they couldn't before powers. super '63 and '70 -- '67 and arabs switched to a more guerrilla-type warfare because they can't win on the ground. have the palestinian liberation organization with arafat, it goes to the hezbollah. controlling that area. call it a more dangerous ireland. it's about religion but it will not be settled for a long time. >> back to world war i. >> all goes back to world war i beginning. >> think about what's happening in israel, in the ukraine. but also in other areas, in was mentioned. in africa, in sudan. the congo. s being the results, the legacies of european imperialism, the drawing of in many borders that respects for arbitrary, that ethic,rded the national, and religious identities of the people who lived there. so when we think about what the what the world war i world, many n our of us were experiencing the struggles over animatedrmination that the hopes and aspirations of many oppressed peoples all over the world. war, i think the the war are still being fought today. one ofjust to sum it up, the points that dr. tunstill war, bout the end of the the armies were more interested in getting the troops home. attitude of the people, especially in the united "the new course in york times," "the washington post" reporting about what's going on in the middle east. ut it's not a concern in this country. as time went on, after the war, we're celebrating, we're moving from the war. it wasn't possible in the middle east. things were exacerbatinexacerba. things were getting worse. now we're concerned. stories going on. >> another one of the top stories, russia and the ukraine, that seems to be twinning out of control. also with roots in world war i. how did this all start? >> you want me to start? ahead. >> trouble between the ukraine and the great russians, the moskovitz start back in the middle ages. the in world war i, with treaty in march 3, 1918, the germans had conquered a good eastern part of europe. and the russians had dropped out revolution ith the in 1917. he ukrainians declared themselves a separate public. breklatosk was negated with the peace treaty at versailles. i wanted to mention, which is critical to understand the ukraine, russia, and other of the war, we all know four empires collapsed, german, hungaryian, russian, and turkish. you're le area is where going to understand the second world war is going to be born. resolvee treaty did not what world war i was about. it will increase what the olleagues were going after later. in 1920, poland was reborn. 1795.existed since the poles went to war against bolsheviks. they also got the polish corridor, which is part of east bush administration territory. this because the could only rsailles hold if the united states was there and our senate voted down the treaty. the treaty depended upon britain and france policing the treaty. britain's not going to do it. her biggest trade partner was germany. it.e's not going to do be uh the danger was in the east. because the treaty of versailles was dead if germany or soviet powers.came great they did it about the same time. nd their mutual enemy was poland. if you realize this, you the stand better machinations with hitler and the western front. the ukrainian nationalists fought both the nazis and the troops. and the revolt against the continued.n army start the cold war, the soviet union takes the rotective areas against the invasion of the west. particularly the threat of in 1945.hich is dead however, one quarter of the atomic oviet union missiles are still in the ukraine. nd by the fact that we are ukraine toy with the them to the eu, putin is right. you are the same -- as cuba and '62.united states in and you -- excuse the people in the press, but i don't believe press. half of the stuff they say is absolutely baloney. to understand that the soviet union considers ukraine very vital to them. in fact the entire navy consisted of ukrainian's sailors. so we started playing and trying to get them to revolt, which we never do, of course. putin has a right. it's going to be resolved after much more bloodshed. it's not going to end overnight. thank you. the circle it back to first world war, there were troops in northern russia and siberia. there were regimens when other troops were winding down on the western front. we have troops in 1990 and fighting against the support of russians, it was a bloody situation where there were a number of americans who thattheir lives in an area we don't think of as a theater of war. >> in fact, joseph stalin said one point, one of his speeches, the cold war began american troops landed arch vladisvokstok in 1919. >> we talked about the treaty designed to end the war perpetrated even more war. what in your perspective did the who came up with the treaty of versailles and the other agreements, what did they not understand. to start off -- i think part of it, when you look at the french, for example, there was a anger, of course. they wanted retribution against the germans. destruction was destroyed. a lot of citizens, the same thing with the belgians, a lot population died at the hands of the germans. so you had a lot of anger and of going after the germans. and that animosity, i think, to some confusion of what they were going to try to this, you having know, treaty. and the united states was kind peripheral of this. president wilson had run again and dr. tungstill pointed out, never ratified in the united states. it ended up being more i think of the other allies kind of control things at the table. well, i think in some ways, t also reflected the limitations of american influence. so when it came to the history dynamics and e deep-seeded hostilities that were at the war and how wilson nd all of his idolism, his lofty talk about democracy, self-determination, creating a order of ational diplomatic relations was ultimately not effective in different nations that were trying to, you know, table and to e resolve this great conflict which ultimately led to the next great conflict of the 20th century. looking more en specifically at the american perspective and wilson his lack of attention to domestic affairs, he is in hat when versailles negotiating, the in e treaty, america is flames. race riots are taking place in the country. labor unrest. you have a tremendous amount of affectedupheaval, that he politics of getting the -- getting the treaty pass through congress which hopefully didn't happen. o i think there's a number of different factors you know looking from the perspective of he united states and wilson specifically had that speak to why the nations and versailles a failure. >> lloyd george and george played wilson like a fiddle. in particular, in the league of army as controlled by britain and france as it was ii.n created after world war so you had to be aware of that. but when wilson would stand up to something and say i don't we're at, they would say not going to vote for the league. he would give in. to the how he gave in mandates for asia, africa, and the middle east. convinced by boy george be clemens who had to snickering under his breath, the iddle east they will be free soon. wilson fell for it. the main other point is, because european historian, is the hungaryian empire was destroyed. a major political, economic, and structure for europe, for the ages, created seven countries that could not exist nationalism was the key. and this, if you go back to what earlier, if germany becomes a great power of the oviet uni, these countries are there for the picking. because they were nationalistic, at least one/third of other races within them. they all wanted to rule on their own. ilson never visited the battlefields once. never understood what the with war was about. and i hate to say it, lloyd clemens still came out the winners at versailles. >> to fully understand the war's impact on the current war, it's important to take a closer look years that four world war won. how to describe that war? history channel asks some historians and authors to give it a try in one word. >> if i had to choose one word world war i, it would be cataclysmic. describe e word to world war i would be catastrophic. >> transformational. nothing was the same once the war was over. word to describe world war i was disruptive. >> i would choose the word, mistake. stupid. that's how i would encapsulate the first world war. world war i did not have to happen. no inherent reason. done. rally was >> the person doing world war 1 thought they were doing a new age. a fascinating new world. the world that produced the titanic, aviation, and incredible advances in medicine. it seems like everything was in before world war i. and all of these would be battlefields of europe. >> from the very beginning, the comes everything that out of the war and the peace it's not just one mistake, a series of mistakes. to choose the option peace and time and again seemed to make the wrong decisions. of communication, it was intellectual rigidity. it was a simple falling of dom fall. that never needed to so the children of the renaissance, the age of reason, nd the enlightenment ended up massacring themselves in the mud and blood of the trenches. >> not just destructive in terms happens to men's bodies on the battlefield. in terms of global politics. >> the russian empire, the empire.an the grievous weakening of the empire. the world that existed in 1918 was remarkably different from 1914. e that existed in >> the whole globe was influenced by this war. changes formational cover a wide range of the technology and weapons and see the first tanks, you can see the maturation of artillery guns, warfare, uns, trench world war i begins the modern era. modern war i began the era. was this war as max brooks stupid war, it, a a mistake. what does that mean? an inevitable war with all of the different factions. empire was one of those mentioned in what's going on in europe at that time, it was kick started by the -- the serbia and it n just went from there. >> i consider the clauses of the war, the alliance system, the most important one. this is how i explain to the students. going to go to war regardless. germany didn't start the first world war. serbian monarchy is going to invade serbia and hope they keep russia out. come in. going to interestingly enough because of fears she'll be outfoxed from of 1912, 1913, which needs a lot of don't have time. france are britain and and germany coming into the war on august 1. because of the alliance system. the arms race. from 1911 on, everybody is armed to the teeth. there's going to be a war. "sleep ead the book walkers," everybody is raving about it, he's wrong. weren't sleep walking. in cambridge university press, to name the 5 to 10 people most responsible for the outbreak of the war. going to new what was happen because they were caught up in the nationalism, the most "ism" of the 20th and 21st centuries. starts out hopefully s a global war but austria and hungary has to invade serbia or her empire will collapse because 15 nationalities. the wardek la ration against 15 ia is published in different languages. so it's a great power. germany could not let it be defeated. it's the only other ally. russians sign add treaty in 1894, which would take the weight off of the french and the west if they went to war. colleagues d let my comment. there's a danger in characterizing the war as stupid. millions of rs to people. they were fighting for something they believed in. and people all over the world engage in this conflict. it was a truly world war. stupid, ss it as meaningless, i think runs the risk of dismissing it, you know, an historical event. and other historians who spoke spoke to just the tremendous ramifications of the war, the transformations that ook place in terms of technology, in terms of just the nature of modern warfare. worlgd war i was a big deal. it mattered in many ways. i had to characterize it, if i would choose one word, i characterize it as tragic. it was >> there's a reason why this , originally alt memorial, because it was an important event to people who are involved, whether they were on the battlefield or political leaders, they knew this was not the war to end all wars, and ultimately it would lead to other conflicts. >> you talked about the magnitude of this war and this building is a testament to that. 10 million lives were lost, 20 million wounded, many more disabled. a generation at that time right now -- wiped out. 2 million americans served 116,000 either killed in combat or from disease and just to put that in context, it's nearly two times the casualties of american troops in more than a decade of vietnam. to end alled the war wars. clearly it was not. did just the opposite. >> using the word inevitable, there was a point where the u.s. was going to get involved in the chief reason, if you go back to the sinking of the lusitania, american lives were lost, eventually there is pressure put on the u.s.. i think we recognize the fact that we had to help our allies, who were the british and french at this time. although there were a lot of americans in this country, immigrants from germany and irish immigrants who would've been just as happy if the united states had gone on the side of germany and certainly fought against the british. you had the mexican revolution which we became involved in and the zimmerman telegram that said hey, mexico, we will help you get back arizona texas and new mexico if you help turn this war. this helped turn the tide for the united states. there are so many people in this country that did understand why we need to get into a war that is more than 3000 miles away. we are not directly involved in that. without the united states, the war would not have ended and we certainly turned the tide. >> united states was involved from the very beginning, whether it was economic, providing arms for the allies, whether it is volunteers going to europe to the red cross. you have americans following what is happening in the war. the immigrant communities have a clear connection in terms of their relatives and immediate family members. when the united states got involved formally in the war in the spring of 1917, it wasn't as if this was suddenly thrust upon the american people. their questions and issues that americans had been confronting and debating for quite some time. trying to mobilize the american population was a different story. that is where major wilson becomes important in how he framed the war as -- woodrow wilson becomes important in how he framed the war. he tapped into the democratic idealism of the united states and was quite effective in terms of mobilizing a country that was wholly unprepared for war. united states and one of the smallest standing armies in the world. the time the war ended, we had emerged as a significant military power on the global stage. >> talk about public sentiment at that time in history among americans. were americans emotionally ready to go to war? how not ready where we? >> you ask a question. there are still animosity from the civil war. there were still divisiveness between the north and south. we certainly weren't ready as dr. williams pointed out, we had one of the smallest standing armies. we had a regular army force, we had the national guard, which was from the militia. we weren't ready technologically to fight this war. we didn't have enough manpower. we had to institute a draft does not entirely popular. it really was starting from scratch. so did the british when they got into war. they had a small standing army as well. they had to rely on their form of the militia. the united states had the kind of learning curve to build up to it. it took a while and angered a lot of the political leaders in france and britain who said just ring the american troops over. we will not make them with our troops. president wilson was against this. he pointed general gas general john j burgeoning whose name is all over kansas city. he said you will not fight as an independent army, you'll find is the american army. if you need to help out the other belligerents, so be it. wilson never visited the battlefields. he sent secretary of war baker over there are couple of times. he would report back to him. he didn't care staff wilson didn't care so much about the fighting. he cared about what would happen once the war was over. >> the united states government created an incredible propaganda machine to generate support for the war effort amongst many segments of the american population which was incredibly skeptical. you have the committee of public information, which was created by george creel which produces this remarkable machine of government-sponsored propaganda. you also have a strong element of government repression as well. american support for the war was the worst. you have one of the darker aspects of american involvement in the war is a tremendous suppression of civil liberties which took lace. restrictions of freedom of the press. there was a whole element to american involvement in the war, which in some ways counter to the democratic idealism that woodrow wilson was propagating. >> i would also like to mention capitalism, because we do live in america. the united states government loaned money to britain. written loss also gold reserves, but britain loaned money to italy and france. if we did not enter the war, who was going to pay the bills ? all the papers in new york city had news from the german government. it was a ship of war. it is one of the reasons we go into the war. i want to mention after the war because this is one of the things that helps hitler. the tines have trouble paying the money, the french back to the british. the americans loaned money to the weimar government, which is used to build buildings. i don't have time to go into it. the depression makes the difference. it is over these payments. hitler only becomes important because of the depression. and then his party rises. >> follow the money. we will switch gears just briefly here. when you look at this major war overseas, it also drove some huge cultural changes back here at home. how did the war further the fight for civil rights, for women's rights? dr. williams, you have done a lot of research. >> are the most erratic reverberations of the war happened on the homefront in terms of transformation and social, cultural, political and race relations in the united states. the way that the war was framed, to make the world safer for democracy tapped in to the democratic aspirations of a broad range of marginalized peoples and groups in the united states. we can look at the women's rights movement culminating in the 19th amendment. in 1919 we can look at organized labor and unionism, workers rights. african-americans who really used the language of discourse, of democracy, to engage in a struggle to affirm their citizenship rights and united states, but to also expand upon their citizen ship -- citizenship rights which had been under attack since the end of construction. we can look at the fact that you have some 300 80,000 african-american soldiers who served in world war i. 200,000 served overseas, roughly 40,000 fighting on the western front. very important in terms of what they meant domestically, african americans, looking at them as a source of hope and inspiration. also the constitution -- or contributions to the war effort. i think it often goes unrecognized. we can look at the war in many ways as being the birth of the modern civil rights movement for -- if we are talking about the black experience, how you have a generation of african-americans who come out of the war determined to continue to fight for democracy, who take the lessons from the war, the positive developments but also the disillusionment's, and translate that into sustained efforts for change in the united states. it happens during world war ii and culminates in the 1950's and 1960's with what we now see as the modern civil rights movement. >> is important to mention that those african-american soldiers had to fight in french uniforms. talk about why that was, their lives in europe and their lives when they returned back to the united states. >> you had two divisions. i wrote a whole book about this. but, yes, two divisions of black combat soldiers. the 92nd division was served in american expeditionary forces and was subjected to institutionalized racism, segregation, had a very trying experience, especially amongst the black officers. you have another division, the 93rd division which was a provisional division made up largely of black national guardsman from new york, chicago and other places. there was a division of american troops among the french. if and when the united states entered the war, not knowing what to do with this conglomeration of black national guardsman, he conveniently gave the 93rd division to the friends army. they literally served under french command, war french uniforms -- wore french uniforms and acquitted themselves admirably. their experience and spoke to the challenges that african-americans faced when faced -- when serving an american military. serving under the french generated as far as providing bike soldiers with a different view of racial possibilities, that there were alternatives to what they were experiencing and had experienced in the united states. translated into the postwar period. >> some of the unsung heroes were native americans who served in the combat divisions, for example the 36th, which is out of oklahoma and texas. he had a number of native americans. we know about the novel code talkers in the second world war using codes to full japanese. actually, that dates to the first world war where the choctaw code talkers in 36 used telephones and use their own dialect and came up with some kind of gibberish messages that fooled the germans around the champagne sector. native americans were rewarded for their so-called service by getting naturalization after the war. >> the war also drove incredible advances in technology. this is a war were soldiers rode in on horseback and came out in airplanes. talk about what people may not know about the technology and advancement that happened in the four years of world war i. >> medical research particularly advanced. you did not have your wonder drugs yet. one example, a lot of head wounds were fatal. particularly in the alps. that was the worst field of battle in europe. artillery shells would hit the rocks and pieces of rock would go into heads who did not have steel helmets until the end of the war. an austrian who won an award in 1914 developed a process which allowed many of these people to live. it was resample. you clean up the world. a lot of times you went -- with abraham lincoln they treated the wound incorrectly. armor did not prove itself in the first world war. in fact, the germans did not see it as being that worthwhile because they didn't even build a lot of tanks. their artillery would stop them. that will be a development later. the telegraph and telephone become critical in the first world war, which leads to communication advances. we jumpstart in the second world war. oil becomes the mainstay of warfare. his explains the middle east later and even today, oil is the background and as we all know it is not going to last forever. they have to come up with solutions. that is the key to military power. anyway, it is why china has tried to get all the oil she can. she's tried to build up a gigantic army and within a few decades it will be the first time in history that a country will actually be able to threaten an invasion of the united states. >> we will get to those tensions in a while. anyone else have anything to add about the technology that was developed during the war? >> some of the paintings you're seen done after the war show soldiers in hand-to-hand combat and using their bayonets against fo. that was unusual. but of the reason was the fact that machine guns were so deadly. the germans were masters of the machine gun. they set up these pillboxes throughout their defenses and it was for difficult to get close to them because they were able to use them with such deadly effectiveness, that having been fighting hand to dan -- hand to hand fighting never happened. >> is critical to understand that when the war began, artillery will end up being the killer of 81% of those killed in world war i. artillery was not accurate. you see in the western front the idea is more and more artillery. it is not until the end of the war that artillery becomes in effect be truly effective weapon. before that, the time front in one battle, the italians had an artillery piece every four feet. artillery is a key weapon in world war i. it is -- its evolution is slow and it has not completed that in 1918. >> after that, tanks, poison gas, and a number of ways to perpetrate the horrors of war more effectively. we'll switch gears here now. world war i has been called the forgotten war. why is it so important to remember? we asked a few historians and authors. >> i think is so important to remember the first world war because it shaped the world that we live in now. it was not something that is just long, gone and buried. the conflicts that emerge, the border disputes it from world war i continue to plague us in many serious ways. >> is often called the forgotten war because was overshadowed by world war ii. not only was world war ii greater in scope, it was mechanized and it was clear cut. you had the nazis on one side and you had the perpetrators of pearl harbor on the other. a great crusade with fabulous wonder weapons. economics called world war ii lord of the rings with tanks. world war i was young man dying in my den trenches that didn't move. it is not the stuff of heroic songs. i think largely the madness of world war i has been overshadowed by the crusade of world war ii. >> it is important to remember it because we went into it grossly unprepared and we repeated the same lesson over again in world war ii. >> the solution to the end of the war was not the solution, and that is a lesson we can use to the state. we have to be very careful about how we conduct international relations, especially when it involves armed conflict. >> individuals were not only confronted with four, they were confronted with a pandemic flu outbreak. so many of our young men died of noncombat but the closeness that they had to live and the pandemic that spread. america faced a tragedy and the world faced a tragedy. a significant loss of life in world war i can be something we can never forget. >> world war i is important to remember because it birthed an american century. we hear over and over again about the greatest generation, but who were the parents of the greatest generation? who forged the greatest generation? it was a world war i veterans. it was the family of world war i veterans. ♪ >> in addition to remembering those lives lost and the families of world war i veterans, it is important to remember this war because there are very stark and troubling geopolitical parallels between now and then there talk about that. people have said the world is on a crash course because of nationalism once again and other conflicts in the world. are these valid comparisons? >> i think some of the points made in this film, there were heroes, there were a lot of heroes, for example in the american army, the highest honor one could receive was the medal of honor. i was not given out lightly. that was given out to men who did heroic things, who supported their comrades. some of them died trying. dr. williams could talk about freddy starts. he was killed in battle. he got the only african-american medal posthumously. our artillery was -- the gas warfare. a lot of them did not want to talk about it. they never mentioned it to the families. during my work in the national archives i would meet families who found it much later on that a had someone will -- a relative who had fought in the war. they never talked about because it was such an horrific experience. certainly in this country, it became a forgotten war. thankfully, for the national memorial heroes museum, we can still remember what we did and i hope the next four years will -- we will be a will to pay tribute to those people. >> you can talk about this as well, it is certainly not a forgotten war in europe. if you go to france and great britain and germany, world war i is not forgotten. they're still living with it on a daily basis. french farmers are still digging up unexploded artillery cells -- shells. in united states, out of the reason why the war may be forgotten is -- has to do with the trauma as well as the disillusionment, and how the reasons for why the united states fought in the war became very contested immediately after the war in 1919. the failure of the united states to join the league of nations. americans were actively questioning what this war was about, what the sacrifices were that we made for? that has been passed down from generation to generation. why the war doesn't have the same residence in the united states as it does in europe. >> in europe, it certainly does. i have been in poland and all over europe, particularly central and eastern europe, giving talks. all over central and eastern europe, they have fallen tears replacing all the gravestones of those who died in the first world war. in little villages and big cities, they will never be forgotten in europe because an entire generation was destroyed. >> in the so-called lost generation after the war, the great writers like hemingway and faulkner were disillusioned. i thought they were going to make a great contribution to this conflict there they went into early as volunteers -- went in early as volunteers. no one was really happy about it very certainly the germans weren't nor were the allies. the people who fought in it started questioning what we gave for this? what was our contribution? >> we look at the world today, some people have made comparisons between how the world looks then and how the world looks today, about certain conflicts and rivalries between countries. to compare that to how the world looks prior to world war i. talk about china going militarily and economically. how daunting are those comparisons in your mind? should be be concerned? >> i think we should be concerned. it is to store before world war i of germany before england and possibly france. believe me, those of you think rush is not a threat, i have a bridge to sell you in brooklyn. rush is still a great power and is very dangerous. but the power and threat, and i'm earned used overpopulation. you're not aware of it by 2050, india will pass china and they will have well over half the world population. that often leads to war. just to give you an example how world war i affected what is going on today. in world war i, president wilson told the chinese leaders that if they would go to war against germany, he would make sure that the peace treaty that they could bring up the shandong peninsula question which had been taken by the japanese. well, whenever site treaty came up, clem and lloyd george said to president wilson that they have a secret treaty with japan. it keeps the shandong peninsula. the telegraph arrived and the versailles treaty which the vietnamese, the chinese, etc., was ignored. critical, a century later. believe me. the key is, when the telegraphs arrived in china and they found out that they did not get the shandong peninsula, it led to the fourth of may movement, a gigantic upheaval. workers, intellectuals, as a result of this in 1919, the chinese communist party was formed and the nationalist party. japan invaded china in 31 and 37. chang kai-shek was one of the most corrupt rulers in history. he was notorious for not fighting the japanese because he could not beat them. so the cap fighting the communists -- so we kept fighting -- so he kept fighting the communists. you will find a civil war will go from 1921 to 1949. in world war ii, chiang spend most of his time fighting communists and we were supporting him. in 49, the revolution succeeded. that is when the cold war moved to asia. you had the korean war. i can throw in japan. why is the korean war? because china had a revolution. the cold war is here. china has seen its self as betrayed by the americans and disliked us going back to the first world war era. this china threat? she has a lot of nationalities, but she has a lot of problems and is destroying the earth environmentally, but she is also very dangerous. >> think when you get some challenges facing the world today, it raises a lot of questions about the efficacy of the international bodies. i think there are lessons to be learned from world war i about how to prevent wars and what steps need to be taken to create robust, sustainable international governing bodies. look at what is happening in israel, and gaza, ukraine, in syria. where is the european union? hopefully we can look back on world war i and some of the failures i came out of the war and hopefully take some lessons about how to prevent these large-scale global conflicts from actuating into something more sinister. -- from escalating into something more sinister. >> the u.s. had military advisors and attaches all over europe and they were reporting on political, economic, military conditions. we knew what germany was doing. we knew they were building their -- they were preparing for war. this should not have come as a great surprise. what is going on in china? we need to be aware of what the chinese are doing. we need to not get caught off guard like we did in the korean conflict area >> thank you, we will take a few questions now from members of our live audience and from people online. you can tweak questions to @ww1centennialcommission. >> can anyone on the panel compare the recent downing of airliner over the ukraine with the sinking of the much discussed lusitania here today? >> i would like to say that to fly over that area was insane. you have a war zone, why are you flying over it? most of the major come -- countries were flying over it anymore. i think it was stupidity in the part of the malaysian airlines. >> another question from our artists? >> -- from our audience? >> just effect that world war i had on women in america after the aftermath. you elaborated on labor and race relations. >> a think the first world war gave women an opportunity. men went off to war, so that women just like in the second world war took over in factories and in other jobs they would normally not have been allowed to work at. certainly after the war, women's rights. women played a significant role oversees in volunteer organizations like the volunteer -- the salvation army, ymca, but also as telephone operators. of course nurses, and i am talking about this country. the world had changed and it opened up from this experience for women to be more empowered. >> another question? gentleman in the back. >> i would like to maybe slightly disagree with those who say that the soldiers of world war i were a lost generation, in that many of the soldiers who fought in world war i came back and became community leaders. we have such people in kansas city as the judge and the gemini spearheaded the whole idea behind brown versus board of education. there are so many people who joined the american legion who became great assets to their community with golden ideas that someone picked up when they were in europe. >> you're absolutely right. a lot of soldiers came back and became community leaders and their churches and civic organizations and businesses. the point i want to make earlier was that they had such a horrific experience, especially on the western front, in the trenches. as dr. williams pointed out, if you are an african american you were treated poorly by your white officers. when they came back, i they wanted to move on with their lives and become better people and community leaders. >> the war was incredibly transformative for individual soldiers identities. in the case of applicant test of african-american soldiers, the chance to travel to different parts of the world. the idea of a rural sharecropper going to france was revolutionary. the war expanded the horizons of many american soldiers, especially black troops, and they used those expenses to transform their lives for the better after the war, to transform the lives of those in the family's and their communities. many african-american soldiers did become key members of their civil rights organizations. charles hamilton houston was one of the architects of the naacp's legal strategy to combat jim crow as an officer in the american army during the war. you have many american soldiers who come back from the war who are deeply transformed and take those experiences into various aspects of their lives to affect change, locally as well as nationally. >> you had lieutenants and captured -- and cap to survive the first world war became the generals and field marshals of the second world war. the military realm was affected as well. >> if you can just keep your hands up so rebecca can get to you. >> i just wanted to know from your perspective, we seem to be talking about the 20's as a generation where women get rights. are you think it took longer for african-americans to get that same sort of momentum in terms of civil rights movement? do the thing is, just general opinion, how much of a difference would it have made it united states had joined the league of nations? >> in the case of african-americans, you have a deeply entrenched history and legacy of racism and systemic discrimination which took time to fight against. what is important to think about in terms of the significance of world war i is we see the groundwork being laid, the seeds being sown for the civil rights movement. got organizations act the naacp, the urban league, that are growing and expanding. they have important shifts in the demographics of the country with african-americans migrating to the north. that affect political change. change being the calculus of politicians on the local and national levels as far as how they are going to support various civil rights efforts out of clinical expediency. it does take time, and that is why i think many historians today tend to think of the civil rights movement as not being the singular moment, but as a process, a long civil rights movement that really began in the late 19th century and perhaps even continues today. >> can answer the league of nations? >> i was going to ask. go ahead. >> the main problem with league of nations is that it did not have any armed forces. if you don't have armed forces you don't make decisions. the united states and all the countries that fought in world war i had been bled to death. they were not anxious to fight. even if the united states had been in, i don't think the united states a look would've voted to sentients anywhere. the league of nations was a playground for england and france. it was not truly a league of nations at all. if you look at muscling in invading ethiopia, he got slapped on hand. does a league of nations do anything when the japanese invaded china and 31 i-37? no. they put out a paper saying this probably should not have happened. i'm not a big fan of the league of nations. you can probably catch that. [laughter] the league of nations without armed forces was not going to make a difference. >> we have a online. would there have been a hitler had the been no world war i? >> hitler was nothing in germany. again, it was a depression. when the depression hit, hitler took all the arguments against versailles, articles 231 and 232, germany started the war, therefore she must pay. it was economic troubles of the depression that brought him forward. it is a depression era that stalin was able to use to build up the russian army. you would not have had a hitler if it had not been for the depression. >> government for about one more question. anyone have a question? >> we are one more. >> does too much focus on the western front distort the history are goofy of the first world war? if so, how can -- compensate for this? >> it took me under no how long to convince -- to convince people that there was an eastern front, which i write about. a lot of people don't understand the caucasian front, -- the caucasus front. there are academic books out there that have this information. the western front, this is the key, if you don't understand it. the winning powers write what they want. since the british speak english, we get what they say. i will tell you little secret. look at any book written before 1990 and you will see no picture of a french soldier any british history of the first world war. the british only had 25 miles of the front. >> at the remember him for one more question. -- i think we have room for one more question. >> i would like to hear your honest opinion about how far we have evolved as a society when we -- [laughter] i will elaborate. i think it is alarming to see historians say this war was stupid simply because we continue to make the same mistakes. we talk about nationalism and we sit right here in america. being pulled into iraq after 9/11. none of our leaders have the courage to stand up to that based on nationalism. are we still just barely tamed animals waiting to destroy each other? >> i have more faith in the human species that we would not replicate what happened in the first world war. i would certainly think there are important lessons to be learned. there are yearly parallels -- there are eerie parallels. i do think we have perhaps evolved to a point, and i am trying to be as optimistic as possible, that we would not replicate what happened in the first world war. i think the costs were so high that the memories are still so vivid and with us that we would not make those kind of mistakes again. >> the trouble in the middle east and other areas is religion. >> you mention in your question about nationalism. certainly, nationalism became so as americans got further into the war. if we got into a major conflict like that again, americans would join together. one of the problems you brought up, was preparedness. even though there were leaders who urged the united states. that is something we should consider. as things got more and more dangerous in the century. >> the problem is that armed forces were being made weaker and weaker. i don't think we should be the policeman of the continent, but you don't have diplomacy unless you have military force. that is what we have got to understand with china and russia. the understand force. they don't understand words. they'll listen to words. >> we will have to leave it there. i want to thank my panel. [applause] thank you so much. thank you. would also like to thank our audience for your thoughtful questions and we would like to thank you for your thoughtful answers. we like to extend a big debt of gratitude to the national world war i team and liberty memorial for hosting us here. to history channel and to the national world war i commission for making this event possible. thank you so much for joining us