That Woodrow Wilson quote requires a Theodore Roosevelt Quote:

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Let this nation fear God and take its own part...Wanton or unjust war is an abhorrent evil. But there are even worse evils. Until, as a nation, we learn to put honor and duty above safety, and to encounter any hazard with stern joy rather than fail in our obligations to ourselves and others, it is mere folly to talk of entering into leagues for world peace...The only kind of peace worth having is the peace of righteousness and justice...A nation is utterly contemptible if it will not fight in its own defence. A nation is not wholly admirable unless in time of stress it will go to war for a great ideal wholly unconnected with its immediate material interest.

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And of course some time later, Ted Jr.

Didn't Teddy try to get into the fight too? IIRC he tried to volunteer for it.

I've been listening to Dan Carlin's podcast on World War I, Blueprint for Armageddon.

I haven't made it to America entering the war yet but I'm at the part where Germans started using chlorine gas. It was just a coincidence that I got to the part about chlorine gas on the day Assad used Sarin gas in Syria. The first hand accounts of chemical attacks in WW1 really made me feel for those kids.

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I've studied WWII inside and out, but know comparatively little about WWI.

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Same here. Any recommendations as to an interesting starter book would be appreciated.

John Keegan, The First World War is a very good overview of the conflict and a good place to start

I just saw this......

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/great-war/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=pbsofficial&utm_campaign=thegreatwar_2017

Coupland, First Day on the Somme is my favorite in regard to a particular battle. Brits had 60,000 casualties in one day, 20,000 dead. Tremendous book

Looking forward to that. American Experience typically has incredible documentaries.

Start with The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman.

Yumakazi said:

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Start with The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman.

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Start there, then read a World Undone by Meyer. Branch off from those two as you are interested. WW1 is much more interesting than WW2 in my opinion.

Anyone watch Part One of the PBS show last night? I'm far from an expert on WWI, but I thought it did a decent job in covering the lead-up to America's entry.

The part on the Lafayette Escadrille and Alan Seeger ("I Have a Rendezvous with Death") was good.

I'm struggling to get through this Critical Race Theory version of WWI.

I agree. This is WWI as it would be covered in a course in American Social History or some such.

60 minutes tonight spent on the war at home: quite a bit on the Suffrage movement, recruiting and training black troops, black troops mistreated in Illinois and Houston and South Carolina, irony of fighting for democracy abroad but blacks and women have no rights, German-Americans lynched and persecuted, Espionage Act; Sedition Act, Wilson is a man of contradictions about race and free speech and liberty.

35 minutes on the war, all focused on the Black regiment from Harlem; two win Croix de Guerre.

20 minutes at the end: Belleau Wood; Chateau-Thierry. Turns out there were Marines involved in the battle.

Race and gender uber alles, not as much on class as one might expect.

This is not going to be the go-to documentary on the WAR aspect of the war, to put it mildly.

Oliver Platt is doing a fine job as narrator.

Well, now that I have seen Part 3, it's a very moving film. Something particularly striking is the incredible care with which the old photos and films have been restored. The people seem very real, very modern, in this production. It's worth watching for that alone.

The concluding part remains very light on specifics about battles.

What a depressing thought it is that only 20 years later the world would do it all over again, only much magnified in horror.

Mr. AGSPRT04 said:

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I'm struggling to get through this Critical Race Theory version of WWI.

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It's an aspect of the war and American society that hasn't gotten much attention in popular histories. The aftermath was some horrific crimes against black veterans who began fighting for more equality.

Good analysis of the program, definitely a social history above all but still interesting.

Watson:

Have to disagree, all we get bombarded with in these SJW days are gender and race versions of history. It is particularly acute in your profession. The white man gets it, we were/are terrible, when will we have peace?

OldArmy71 said:

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What a depressing thought it is that only 20 years later the world would do it all over again, only much magnified in horror.

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The destruction of WWII was certainly much more wide spread. And WWII was certainly worse from a civilian casualty standpoint. From the military standpoint, serving on the front line in WWI is worse than serving on the front lines of WWII right? Neither were a walk in the park but it would seem that WWI Western Front starting in 1915 has to be one of the worst wartime experiences in human history.

Absolutely agree. I have read very little on the war--one book, by Paul Fussell (The Great War and Modern Memory)--is more a study of how the war was understood at the time and interpreted by the poets. Another one, A Storm in Flanders, is a study of the front line troops in Flanders, and it describes precisely just what you said: a hell on earth that one escaped only in a severe wound or death.

WildcatAg said:

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OldArmy71 said:

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What a depressing thought it is that only 20 years later the world would do it all over again, only much magnified in horror.

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The destruction of WWII was certainly much more wide spread. And WWII was certainly worse from a civilian casualty standpoint. From the military standpoint, serving on the front line in WWI is worse than serving on the front lines of WWII right? Neither were a walk in the park but it would seem that WWI Western Front starting in 1915 has to be one of the worst wartime experiences in human history.

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WW2 Eastern Front vs WW1 Western Front.

It's a tough choice but I'd say the Eastern Front in WW2 was worse.

It's hard to believe, but the movement periods of the war in the fall of 1914 and the late spring and summer of 1918 were the bloodiest of the whole war. As brutal as the trenches were, more soldiers died during open battle.

hennyj15 said:

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WildcatAg said:

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OldArmy71 said:

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What a depressing thought it is that only 20 years later the world would do it all over again, only much magnified in horror.

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The destruction of WWII was certainly much more wide spread. And WWII was certainly worse from a civilian casualty standpoint. From the military standpoint, serving on the front line in WWI is worse than serving on the front lines of WWII right? Neither were a walk in the park but it would seem that WWI Western Front starting in 1915 has to be one of the worst wartime experiences in human history.

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WW2 Eastern Front vs WW1 Western Front.

It's a tough choice but I'd say the Eastern Front in WW2 was worse.

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With out a doubt Eastern Front was worse. Zero mercy and an absolute war of annihilation. The combatants on the Western Front seemed to be more "civilized" for the most part in the capture of POWs. While both sides tried to destroy each other, neither viewed the other as a pest to be fully exterminated.

BQ78 said:

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Good analysis of the program, definitely a social history above all but still interesting.

Watson:

Have to disagree, all we get bombarded with in these SJW days are gender and race versions of history. It is particularly acute in your profession. The white man gets it, we were/are terrible, when will we have peace?

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It's not about punishment. It's about giving a full account of history. You don't get to go back to the narrow vision that dominated the profession before. Everyone's story needs to be told to fully understand the era.

I have no objection to that at all. It was moderately interesting. However, the series told very little, comparatively, about its subject: the war itself. It needed another hour or two on the battles. It was sort of false advertising.

Watson:

I don't object to the full telling of the story, it is overemphasizing some of those aspects over the truly impactful events. The show gave multiple examples of how the Harlem Regiment was dissed and then slap dashed the Versailles Treaty that ended up giving us the next war and the Middle East issues we are dealing with today. It was not a good telling of the story from telling about the more impactful events. I would say fully two hours of the six hours dealt with race and gender over the more impacful stuff. World War I did very little to move race relations in the country and had a greater but still moderate effect on the suffragette movement. As I indicated earlier, if they had named it a Social History of World War I instead of the The Great War I would have no room for criticism.