WEBVTT 00:00.831 --> 00:03.498 (intense music) 00:07.840 --> 00:11.900 - The First World War is really the beginning point 00:11.900 --> 00:14.670 of the modern American Army. 00:14.670 --> 00:17.743 A Soldier today would recognize 00:17.743 --> 00:20.990 the battlefield of the First World War 00:20.990 --> 00:22.910 whereas a soldier in, say, 00:22.910 --> 00:27.550 even as late as the 1890's would be very confused. 00:27.550 --> 00:29.320 So it's really the origin point 00:29.320 --> 00:32.503 of what we consider modern, conventional warfare. 00:34.652 --> 00:37.235 (gentle music) 01:17.961 --> 01:20.628 (intense music) 01:23.370 --> 01:25.420 One of the reasons why the American public 01:25.420 --> 01:27.950 has such a difficulty understanding the war 01:27.950 --> 01:30.860 is because they don't really know why we joined. 01:30.860 --> 01:33.380 There is no great spark. 01:33.380 --> 01:36.310 There is no Pearl Harbor moment. 01:36.310 --> 01:37.320 What happens is that 01:37.320 --> 01:40.350 the war breaks out in of August of 1914. 01:40.350 --> 01:44.540 It's a conflict between the great European Empires. 01:44.540 --> 01:47.274 It is an outgrowth of 01:47.274 --> 01:50.270 an international and diplomatic system 01:50.270 --> 01:54.143 that is based upon competition that we want to stay out of. 01:55.220 --> 01:58.500 American relations with Europe were very different 01:58.500 --> 01:59.540 than they are tody. 01:59.540 --> 02:03.460 We had a much closer connection 02:03.460 --> 02:07.160 with the French stemming from both of our revolutions. 02:07.160 --> 02:09.210 The relations between the United States 02:09.210 --> 02:13.830 and the rest of the continent were fairly strained. 02:13.830 --> 02:16.260 There are a lot of divisions. 02:16.260 --> 02:19.800 This is a time when a lot of Americans are immigrants, 02:19.800 --> 02:21.610 either first or second generation 02:21.610 --> 02:25.883 and they hold a lot of ties to Europe. 02:29.040 --> 02:30.080 President Woodrow Wilson 02:30.080 --> 02:33.230 decided to support a position of neutrality. 02:33.230 --> 02:36.000 He argued that the United States 02:36.000 --> 02:38.470 as a neutral country was free 02:38.470 --> 02:41.890 to essentially go about it's business 02:41.890 --> 02:43.550 trading with either side 02:43.550 --> 02:46.820 and that we would not show favor to one or the other. 02:46.820 --> 02:49.850 Now Wilson's call to the American public 02:49.850 --> 02:51.510 is that he wanted them to 02:51.510 --> 02:54.033 be neutral in thought as well as deed. 02:55.100 --> 02:57.450 The British have a very different idea of this. 02:58.370 --> 03:01.513 They very quickly establish a blockade of Germany. 03:03.550 --> 03:06.850 So there is actually a very natural evolution 03:06.850 --> 03:09.480 of American relations in terms of economics 03:09.480 --> 03:13.890 during the war where we start supplying the Allies 03:13.890 --> 03:16.750 and have a much larger trade relationship 03:16.750 --> 03:19.250 with the Allies than we do with the Central Powers. 03:19.250 --> 03:22.180 By virtue of the blockade 03:22.180 --> 03:27.180 and also by virtue of the sophisticated economic system 03:27.770 --> 03:30.180 already operating within Britain 03:30.180 --> 03:31.390 they start running out of money, 03:31.390 --> 03:35.810 they start loaning, giving huge loans to their allies. 03:35.810 --> 03:37.620 Over the course of the war what we see is 03:37.620 --> 03:40.850 that the United States starts to fill that gap 03:40.850 --> 03:44.260 and starts to provide more and more credit to the Allies 03:44.260 --> 03:45.860 and in fact the United States 03:45.860 --> 03:47.690 by the time we go into the war 03:47.690 --> 03:50.713 has supplanted Great Britain as the international creditor. 03:53.150 --> 03:55.410 It's going to impact Wilson's thinking. 03:55.410 --> 03:59.103 It is going to give him influence over what the Allies do. 04:05.640 --> 04:09.323 When he talks about advocating for peace without victory 04:09.323 --> 04:14.010 he actually means a peace based upon mutual agreement 04:14.010 --> 04:16.070 where one side does not gain 04:16.070 --> 04:17.970 to the disadvantage of another 04:17.970 --> 04:19.890 that in fact they all come together 04:19.890 --> 04:22.373 and create an equitable peace. 04:23.470 --> 04:27.720 He changes due to what he perceives 04:27.720 --> 04:30.163 as the growing threat of Imperial Germany. 04:36.320 --> 04:38.730 Probably the most important action that Germany takes 04:38.730 --> 04:40.920 that leads directly to the United States 04:40.920 --> 04:42.480 being involved in the war 04:42.480 --> 04:45.730 is the usage of what's called 04:45.730 --> 04:47.313 unrestricted submarine warfare. 04:49.680 --> 04:52.410 It is a type of commerce raiding. 04:52.410 --> 04:57.410 If a combatant was going to target an enemy's commerce 04:57.610 --> 04:58.610 typically what you would do 04:58.610 --> 05:00.420 is you would intercept a vessel on the high seas, 05:00.420 --> 05:01.790 you would stop it you would indicate 05:01.790 --> 05:02.940 that you were going to sink it 05:02.940 --> 05:06.320 and then you would allow the crew to depart. 05:06.320 --> 05:08.450 One of the problems with this is that 05:08.450 --> 05:12.700 the U-Boats are very vulnerable on the surface 05:12.700 --> 05:17.033 and the British are going to start arming merchant vessels. 05:18.570 --> 05:21.050 So the Germans decide instead 05:21.050 --> 05:23.016 that they're going to declare 05:23.016 --> 05:27.810 that any vessels found within a certain zone 05:27.810 --> 05:30.888 around the British Isles are fair game 05:30.888 --> 05:32.730 and they will not surface 05:32.730 --> 05:36.310 they will go ahead and just fire upon them and sink them. 05:36.310 --> 05:37.680 And this is seen as, 05:37.680 --> 05:40.880 as really an affront to international law. 05:40.880 --> 05:43.430 The most famous sinking is of course the Lusitania. 05:46.070 --> 05:48.200 For when the Germans sank the Lusitania, 05:48.200 --> 05:49.610 killing over a thousand people, 05:49.610 --> 05:51.620 including over a hundred Americans, 05:51.620 --> 05:54.730 the American public is horrified. 05:54.730 --> 05:59.180 President Wilson is very angry of course. 05:59.180 --> 06:01.950 Several months later the Germans sink another vessel, 06:01.950 --> 06:04.060 killing a couple more Americans 06:04.060 --> 06:05.780 and the United States threatens 06:05.780 --> 06:08.233 to suspend diplomatic relations with Germany. 06:09.450 --> 06:11.470 Germany at this point make a decision, 06:11.470 --> 06:12.910 makes a strategic decision 06:12.910 --> 06:14.620 that they are not willing to risk war 06:14.620 --> 06:16.630 against the United States at this point. 06:16.630 --> 06:18.650 So in fact they make a pledge 06:18.650 --> 06:21.664 and they agree that they will suspend 06:21.664 --> 06:25.593 unrestricted submarine warfare, and they do. 06:28.740 --> 06:32.500 Circumstances are gonna change very rapidly in 1917. 06:32.500 --> 06:36.650 The German's looking at the strategic situation 06:36.650 --> 06:38.360 that they are facing in the war, 06:38.360 --> 06:39.910 make a determination. 06:39.910 --> 06:42.650 The German Navy essentially argue 06:42.650 --> 06:46.173 that if they resume unrestricted sub warfare, 06:46.173 --> 06:49.800 they can sink enough British shipping 06:49.800 --> 06:51.980 to knock the British out of the war 06:51.980 --> 06:55.003 before the United States can transport an army to Europe. 06:56.140 --> 06:58.725 This kind of sets in motion the events 06:58.725 --> 07:02.890 that are going to lead to the United States declaring war. 07:02.890 --> 07:04.930 Obviously the other big element 07:04.930 --> 07:06.513 will be the Zimmerman Telegram. 07:10.790 --> 07:14.240 - So the German Foreign Office starts to think about ways 07:14.240 --> 07:16.200 how this anticipated American intervention 07:16.200 --> 07:18.430 can be counteracted. 07:18.430 --> 07:20.380 They come up with Mexico. 07:20.380 --> 07:22.240 Mexico was a neutral country at the time, 07:22.240 --> 07:23.260 was ruined by civil war, 07:23.260 --> 07:25.240 but nevertheless it was a neutral country, 07:25.240 --> 07:28.140 so the German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmerman, 07:28.140 --> 07:31.340 decides to make an alliance offer to Mexico. 07:31.340 --> 07:33.840 And he tells the Mexicans, 07:33.840 --> 07:37.420 we intend to declare unrestricted submarine warfare. 07:37.420 --> 07:41.310 If The United States indeed then declares war against us, 07:41.310 --> 07:42.391 we make you an offer. 07:42.391 --> 07:45.540 You go ahead, declare war on the United States, 07:45.540 --> 07:47.230 we'll help you, we'll give you money, 07:47.230 --> 07:49.140 some other unspecified support. 07:49.140 --> 07:50.750 The Germans were then hoping well, 07:50.750 --> 07:52.910 even if the United States declares war on us, 07:52.910 --> 07:55.820 all their troops will be tied up on the border with Mexico, 07:55.820 --> 07:58.190 and therefore this American intervention 07:58.190 --> 07:59.523 into the war won't matter. 08:00.410 --> 08:02.088 Normally in peace time 08:02.088 --> 08:05.630 they would have sent this message by submarine cable. 08:05.630 --> 08:09.010 The problem was that in 1914 when the war broke out 08:09.010 --> 08:11.430 the Royal Navy had retrieved 08:11.430 --> 08:14.520 this German submarine cable and had destroyed it. 08:14.520 --> 08:16.450 They came up with a pretty ingenious solution, 08:16.450 --> 08:19.300 they had enlisted the help of the Americans. 08:19.300 --> 08:21.690 There was still an American Embassy in Berlin, 08:21.690 --> 08:23.100 so the German Foreign Office 08:23.100 --> 08:24.760 approached the American Embassy in Berlin 08:24.760 --> 08:26.380 and asked them, well you know can you help us, 08:26.380 --> 08:27.350 we have an important message 08:27.350 --> 08:28.920 for our Ambassador in Washington, 08:28.920 --> 08:30.970 and we can't relay this by cable 08:30.970 --> 08:33.900 because the evil British have cut the cable. 08:33.900 --> 08:36.750 So the American Embassy then sent this message 08:36.750 --> 08:38.854 on their own cables from Berlin 08:38.854 --> 08:41.580 to the State Department in Washington D.C. 08:41.580 --> 08:43.503 not knowing what was in there. 08:44.640 --> 08:47.940 But what neither the Americans nor the Germans knew 08:47.940 --> 08:50.742 was that the British was intercepting 08:50.742 --> 08:55.260 all American traffic that was going through London. 08:55.260 --> 08:56.180 This message was routed 08:56.180 --> 08:58.840 through the American Embassy in London. 08:58.840 --> 09:00.750 They wanted to know what the Americans were thinking. 09:00.750 --> 09:02.791 You know, they were neutrals, but an important neutral, 09:02.791 --> 09:05.466 so this Zimmerman Telegram as it then became known, 09:05.466 --> 09:07.760 almost by accident landed 09:07.760 --> 09:10.710 in the lap of British Naval Intelligence. 09:10.710 --> 09:12.570 They decrypted it. 09:12.570 --> 09:15.480 They saw very quickly this is not an American message 09:15.480 --> 09:18.380 this is a German message, a very interesting German message. 09:18.380 --> 09:20.010 They see this is very explosive 09:20.010 --> 09:22.580 and they would like to give this to the Americans. 09:22.580 --> 09:24.527 But they can't do it at this point 09:24.527 --> 09:26.910 because the Americans would probably ask 09:26.910 --> 09:27.990 this is very interesting 09:27.990 --> 09:30.160 but where did you get this message from? 09:30.160 --> 09:31.420 And the British can't really say, 09:31.420 --> 09:33.350 well, you know, we're routinely reading your traffic. 09:33.350 --> 09:37.230 So they also then retrieved the second message 09:37.230 --> 09:38.940 that the German ambassador from Washington 09:38.940 --> 09:40.900 sends to Mexico City. 09:40.900 --> 09:42.710 This is the copy they then give 09:42.710 --> 09:44.283 the American Ambassador in London 09:44.283 --> 09:47.650 with the not entirely true 09:47.650 --> 09:49.590 but also not untrue explanation 09:49.590 --> 09:51.963 that this message was obtained in Mexico City. 09:54.200 --> 09:57.620 - Wilson had still viewed the international system 09:57.620 --> 09:59.920 as the main culprit for the war. 09:59.920 --> 10:03.940 However he looks at unrestricted submarine warfare. 10:03.940 --> 10:06.480 He looks at the Zimmerman Telegram. 10:06.480 --> 10:11.050 He looks at Germany's militaristic nature 10:11.050 --> 10:15.827 and he sees in Germany an autocracy, 10:17.030 --> 10:22.030 and he sees Germany as a threat to international peace. 10:22.040 --> 10:24.883 He sees Germany as a threat to democracy. 10:26.380 --> 10:30.310 In Wilson's war message he specifies very clearly 10:30.310 --> 10:32.870 that the United States is going to wage war 10:32.870 --> 10:35.420 against the government of Imperial Germany 10:35.420 --> 10:37.420 not against the German people. 10:37.420 --> 10:39.340 And that we're waging war against 10:39.340 --> 10:43.180 what he sees as an autocratic, 10:43.180 --> 10:46.660 militaristic, dictatorial regime 10:46.660 --> 10:50.600 that is a threat to international peace. 10:50.600 --> 10:53.010 And that the German government has to be checked. 10:53.010 --> 10:54.990 So the object is not necessarily 10:54.990 --> 10:56.720 to defeat the German people, 10:56.720 --> 10:59.440 it's not to annihilate Germany as a country, 10:59.440 --> 11:04.440 it is to defeat and overthrow German autocratic regime 11:04.610 --> 11:08.013 and make it so that democracy can spread. 11:09.332 --> 11:12.165 (dramatic music)