PBS series examines US entry into conflict

PASADENA, Calif. — One hundred years ago, America became embroiled in a war it didn’t want: World War I thrust the bucolic nation onto a worldwide stage.

How that happened is the subject of a three-part “American Experience” installment premiering tonight on PBS.

Although the nation itself wasn’t marching off to war before 1917, Americans were, said Stephen Ives, producer of the series, “The Great War.”

“Nurses were flooding into France,” he said. “Ambulance drivers were heading over there. Men were volunteering for the French Foreign Legion. Young American aviators, many of them well-heeled, from the nation’s elite colleges, were flying volunteer sorties for a thing called the ‘Lafayette Escadrille,’ which was the thing that sort of created that dashing image of the aviator that we know from World War I.”

Woodrow Wilson, the nation’s president then, agonized over his decision to join the fight,

said A. Scott Berg, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Wilson.

“This is the most educated president we’ve ever had,” Berg said. “He’s the most religious president we’ve ever had. He was the most idealistic president we ever had.

“He fought like hell to keep us out of this war for three

years. There were all sorts of pressures — and, ultimately, this philosophical belief of his, this fundamental belief, brought us into the war.”

Although many people disagreed with Wilson’s ultimate decision, his integrity in making that decision was above reproach, Berg said.

“I’ve never heard anybody challenge his integrity, and with that, his very good intentions. … Make no mistake: He changed and created

the world we live in to this very day.”

Added Ives: “What’s so fascinating about World War I is that there’s a really strong desire to remain neutral on the part of the country, and it is picked up by Wilson. He articulates it with his usual, extraordinary eloquence, and there’s this absolute struggle to keep separate from what anyone can see, which is this catastrophic experience going

on in Europe.”

Wilson thought that if the U.S. didn’t join the Allies, Ives said, the country wouldn’t play a decisive role in the terms of peace. And he dreamed of a League of Nations, through which countries would unite to settle international disputes.

“He had a vision for what the postwar world should look like. And he felt that it was worth American blood to try to achieve that.”