‘The Great War’ looks at WWI 100 years later

‘The Great War’ looks at the global conflict 100 years later

“The Great War” is a documentary on PBS that looks back on World War I and America’s role in it.

After a series of German submarine attacks, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war on the European power on April 2, 1917. Four days later, America joined World War I on the side of the Allies.

Despite having kept America out of what would be called The Great War for more than two years, Wilson also understood the changes that were coming.

“It was a watershed in American history,” declares one historian in “The Great War,” a three-part, six–hour documentary beginning today on PBS. “It’s where America goes from being the country on the other side of the ocean to a world power.”

As the documentary reminds us, we may be looking at the war from a distance of 100 years, but the issues and impacts of the bloody conflict that claimed some 15 million lives are familiar. It began as an old-fashioned war with horse brigades and bravado and ended with mechanized death, kill zones in the trenches and poison gas.

Many in America had wanted to get into the war, seeing it as a chance for the country to take its rightful place at the top of nations, and many industrialists had contributed to the Allies.

Still, when America went to war, it was a divided nation. A Virginian by birth, Wilson as a youth lived in the South during the Civil War and his racial attitudes were less than enlightened. Nevertheless, African Americans, who had few rights in America, went off to fight anyway, seeing it as a way to show their patriotism and gain their rightful place in society. At the front, though, they were still treated as second-class citizens.

There had been a strong isolationist streak in America that many believed in even after the conflict began. At the time, around a third of U.S. citizens had at least one immigrant parent, and many were loathe to fight against their parents’ homeland, or in the case of the Irish — for the English who they saw as oppressors.

To keep the war effort going, speech and dissent were suppressed at home. Pro-German Americans were deemed threats — an incident of sabotage was blamed on them — and those of German descent were viewed by many with suspicion.

Meanwhile, opponents to the war — conscientious objectors, war critics, such as socialist leader Eugene Debs and some religious leaders of small sects — were jailed and sometimes

“The United States becomes a different country because of this war, and because of that, the world becomes a different place. Almost every theme we live with today goes directly back to World War I.”

— “Wilson” biographer Scott Berg

tortured.

Many suffragettes refused to give up their campaign for equality, and the war gave them a chance to serve as nurses on the front. Back home, women worked in factories and in the government, and because of that it helped contribute to the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

There was no such reward for the returning African-America troops. In France, they were often turned over to French commanders, who treated them as comrades if not exactly equals. But at home, though, there remained prejudices and segregation. Having seen something better, some rebelled, resulting in unrest during the “red summer” of 1919 and hundreds of lynchings by white supremacists.

Anniversaries of wars are not to be simply marked with patriotic celebration. They are a time for reflection and understanding. PBS’s “The Great War” reminds us how easily civilization can slip into conflict and how the drums of war can become unyielding. As “Wilson” biographer Scott Berg observes, “The United States becomes a different country because of this war, and because of that, the world becomes a different place. Almost every theme we live with today goes directly back to World War I.”

If that is the case, we should take note, and this documentary is a good place to start.

PHOTO COURTESY OF NATIONAL ARCHIVES “First to Fight.” A group of U.S. Marines. U.S. Marine Corps Recruiting Publicity Bureau (1918).

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS Participants in a women’s peace parade down Fifth Avenue, New York City (August 1914).

PHOTO COURTESY OF NATIONAL ARCHIVES Carpet weavers division marching in New York City Preparedness Parade (May 1916).

COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS President Woodrow Wilson writing at his desk.

COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS American troops helping wounded German soldiers in a forested area at Meuse-Argonne, France (September 1918).

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES An American soldier wraps another soldier’s head wound at Varennes-en-Argonne, France (September 1918).

PHOTO COURTESY OF NATIONAL ARCHIVES Harlem Hellfighters on the boat right after it docks at New York City. Members of the 369th [African American] Infantry, formerly 15th New York Regulars.