World War I Podcast

Part II In early October 1918, several companies of the US 77th Division found themselves surrounded in the Argonne Forest during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.  Led by Major Charles Whittlesey, the Lost Battalion, as it came to be known, survived a hellish six days. It’s a story many are aware of – but like most such stories – it’s likely that the popular version we are familiar with doesn’t have t...

Part I In early October 1918, several companies of the US 77th Division found themselves surrounded in the Argonne Forest during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.  Led by Major Charles Whittlesey, the Lost Battalion, as it came to be known, survived a hellish six days. It’s a story many are aware of – but like most such stories – it’s likely that the popular version we are familiar with doesn’t have th...

Between September 1814 and June 1815, against the backdrop of Napoleon’s exile to Elba and his brief return, the Congress of Vienna worked out a new way to balance the power of the Great Powers and avoid future conflict. This system was called the Concert of Europe. It was supposed to keep the peace, and indeed, on the eve of World War I, many people in Europe were celebrating a century of relativ...

In 1914, as German forces quickly outmaneuvered Allied armies in the opening days of the war, there was some suspicion among the Allies that the circuses that had traveled around Europe in the years before the war – many of which were owned by German families or had German names – had helped prepare the German army by perfecting the art of rapid and efficient mobilization and transport. Even Ameri...

When World War I began, the famed historian, sociologist, and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois was at the height of his influence. When the United States entered the war, he encouraged African Americans to “close ranks” and support the Allied cause. Tasked with writing a definitive history of the African American soldier in World War I, Du Bois ultimately came to be haunted by his support for...

In the winter of 1918, General John J. Pershing presented then Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur with his second Distinguished Service Cross. The award was for actions in France at the Côte de Châtillon between October 14-16, 1918. The citation ends with an interesting sentence: “On a field where courage was the rule, his courage was the dominant feature.” What happened there? What do we know ab...

In 1890, half of the US Government’s budget was devoted to disability pensions for Civil War veterans. This enormous financial burden combined with medical advances led to a different approach when it came to the US Army’s care of wounded soldiers in World War I. Far from the passive convalescent homes of previous wars, in World War I the US Army’s commitment to rehabilitation would mark a new cha...

Between 1914-1916, Portugal walked a delicate line. While actively engaged in an undeclared war with Germany in Africa, Portugal was not a combatant in Europe, nor did it officially declare neutrality. It stayed out of the war, but it provided support in a variety of ways to Britain – its historical ally. Britain hoped to maintain this arrangement for the duration of the war. In contrast, the Port...

When WWI began in 1914, Catholic priests were virtual pariahs in France. This was the result of a trend towards anti-clericalism that began with the French Revolution and continued in fits and starts into the 20th century. Prior to WWI, to further eliminate perceived privilege, France’s Third Republic made priests eligible for military service. Ironically though, this attempt to erase them as a di...

On Feb. 8, 2022, a local undertaker was digging a grave in the cemetery at Villers-sur-Fère, a small village in northeastern France near the Ourcq River, where the U.S. Army’s 42d Infantry Division pushed back German forces in 1918. At about four feet down, the undertaker unearthed human bones. He didn’t know it at the time, but he had found an American Doughboy.  Michael G. Knapp, Director of His...

On October 8, 1918, seventeen American soldiers of Company G, 2nd Battalion, 328th Infantry, 82nd Division flanked a German machine gun nest, surprising and capturing dozens of German soldiers. Acting Corporal Alvin York – a conscientious objector turned warrior – was credited with leading the squad and singlehandedly killing 20 Germans, knocking out 35 machine guns, and capturing 132. York later...

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby , Jay Gatsby tells the novel’s narrator about his World War I military service and a particularly heroic engagement in the Argonne Forest. He ends his story by explaining: “I was promoted to be a major, and every Allied government gave me a decoration – even Montenegro, little Montenegro down on the Adriatic Sea.” The decoration he displays is the Order of...

The Battle of Gallipoli was fought on the Gallipoli Peninsula from February 19, 1915 to January 9, 1916. The Entente Powers hoped to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war by seizing control of the Dardanelles and then putting the capital city of Constantinople in the crosshairs. The goal was to break the stalemate on the Western Front, relieve pressure on Russia, and ensure access to the Black S...

When WWI broke out in 1914, women in eight states – mostly in the west – had the right to vote. Women in the other 40 states that made up the US at that time did not have the right to vote. America’s involvement in the war spurred on many suffragists – who while not all united in their response to the war – viewed with hope President Woodrow Wilson’s framing of America’s involvement in World War I...

The ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920 removed obstacles to American women exercising their right to vote, but it didn’t happen without a fight - and the final stage of that fight took place against the backdrop of World War I.  Unlike their British counterparts who largely paused their activism during the war, some American suffragists redoubled their efforts during the war. To discuss Am...

In 2022, US Army COL Charles Young was posthumously promoted to brigadier general – a rank he likely would have advanced to during World War I. In 1917 he was the highest ranking African American officer in the US Army. A veteran of the 1916 Mexican Expedition, his name even appeared on a list of the campaign’s officers that GEN John J. Pershing recommended for future brigade command. Then, months...

Part 3 of 3. Andrew Phillps, curator of the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library in Staunton, VA returns to the World War I Podcast to discuss Wilson and the aftermath of World War I as well as Wilson's legacy as a wartime president. This is the last interview in a series of discussions that examined Woodrow Wilson’s presidency and World War I. Learn more about the Woodrow Wilson Presidential...

Part 2 of 3. Andrew Phillps, curator of the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library in Staunton, VA returns to the World War I Podcast to discuss Wilson’s evolving response to World War I and his role as a wartime president.  This is the second of several interviews that examines Woodrow Wilson’s presidency and World War I. Learn more about the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library: https://www.woodroww...

Part 1 of 3. Woodrow Wilson - the professor turned president and a very complicated figure in American history. He campaigned to be a domestic policy president and later in favor of neutrality but ended up a wartime president. WWI is a fascinating moment in the history and evolution of the American presidency, and Wilson is at the heart of that. To explore this topic,  we will be joined by Andrew...

In 1899, Queen Victoria decided to send a small brass box containing chocolate to her soldiers fighting in the Boer War. Approximately 123,000 of these gifts were distributed. They were well received and are a fascinating part of material culture from that war. World War I would see a similar royal gift – but this gift would not be directly from the sovereign – it would be part of a campaign led b...

During WWI, efforts were made on all sides to provide servicemen with identity tags to assist with identifying remains. This helped in some cases, but given the nature of the battlefields, many bodies were never recovered or were not identifiable. These servicemen made the greatest ultimate sacrifice. They not only sacrificed their lives – they sacrificed their identity. They are the “unknowns.” A...

Africa is sometimes referred to as a “sideshow” of World War I, but that label is misleading.  As with modern Europe, it is impossible to understand modern Africa without understanding it’s experience of WWI.  The Cameroon Campaign of 1914-1916 was a campaign fought in West Africa that involved engagements on land as well as a successful amphibious operation. It lasted a mere 18 months, but it con...

At the turn of the 20th Century, many in the West were quite confident that they were living in the most civilized era in history. Progress had at last won out over barbarism – or so it seemed. Then the battlefields of World War I quickly proved a charnel house – challenging not just the belief in man’s progress, but the limits of modern medicine. And yet, the horrors of the battlefield prompted a...

WWI saw a dramatic evolution in the technical collection of intelligence. From the start, SIGINT – the interception of communication signals – played a major role in the war.  As the war went on, it was clear that secure communications could mean the difference between victory or defeat. This led to the rise of code interceptors, code makers and code breakers. When the US Army arrived on the battl...

America’s path to World War I was complicated. Although committed to a nominal policy of neutrality for most of the war, the pre-war years for America involved an internal battle over the nation’s future. Most could agree that America should have a more dynamic international role – but that meant different things to different people – and it wasn’t just a debate between the traditional interests o...