I’ve still got that post coming about the Jessie Scout, but, I’ve been thinking…
Is the First World War one of the least examined wars in the history of the United States? If so, why do you think so? If not, why?
Maybe you should read this Memorial Day write-up (from 2008) by UVa Prof. Ed Lengel, and then give me some thoughts based on what Lengel said.
I’m of the opinion that it is a forgotten war, and that the deeds and sacrifices of those who served in it are also forgotten. Perhaps it’s simply that it has all been overshadowed, in popular American memory, by the Second World War. Of course, I’m not saying that the Second World War isn’t important.
Also, what makes the First World War interesting? If you don’t find it interesting, how might it be made more interesting?
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Bill Newcomer
June 16, 2011
It would take a whole post of my own to answer this. (And on reflection I realized I’ve already done a few posts on the matter.) On a historical cultural philosophical level, in WW-I was the beginning of the death of the optimisim of the modern age and in the blood soaked trenches of France and eslswhere were sown those seeds that would bear fruit in the pessmisim and anomie of post-modernity. We see that in things like Ernest Hemingway’s “Farewell To Arms” and Robert Graves autobiography “Away from All That”. To understand that cultureal/philosophical shift, we need to underestand what happened in that “War to end all wars”. (For any interested, my post on that is here: hirotao.blogspot.com/2007/06/growing-up-with-forrest-gump-conception.html)
On a personal level, my Great-Uncle George Britton was killed exactly 3 weeks before the Armistice during the Muse-Argonne offensive. ( I’ve told what I know of his story at neukomment.blogspot.com.) Given all the other hardships, trials, and tribulations my Grandmother had through her life, I’ve wondered why did her little brother have to be killed on top of everything else. Upon seeking his military records, I was very disappointed to be told that a number of WW-I service records had been destroyed in a fire. It is only more recently via the Internet, that I was able to put together a few of the fragments of his story.
Growing up in the 50’s and 60’s, all the war movies were about WW-2. The TV programs were also about WW-2. There was almost nothing about WW-I except the movie about Sgt. Alvin York.
I believe it was the media focus on WW-2 that pushed WW-I into the background. After WW-I the media technology was not there to tell the story in the way it was for WW-2.
( I apologize for including links to my own stuff. I usually try to avoid doing that in commenting on another persons blog. .)
Robert Moore
June 16, 2011
I can understand some disappointed coming off from what folks thought would be the war to end all wars but did they really believe that as possible?
Robert Moore
June 16, 2011
By the way, Bill, that death of optimism angle is interesting, and one I haven’t considered before you mentioned it.
Bill Newcomer
June 16, 2011
Robert, Here is a quote from “The Guns of August” that speaks to the loss of optimism:
“When at last it was over, the war had many diverse results and one dominiant one transcending all others: disillusion. “All the great words were cancelled out for that generation.” wrote D. H. Lawrence in simple summary for his contemporaries. If any of them remembered, with a twinge of pain, like Emile Verhaeren, “the man I use to be,” it was because he knew the great words and beliefs of the time before 1914 could never be restored.”
(The Guns of August; Barbara W. Tuchman; (1962, Bantam Books edition, 1976); (Page 489)
Lyle Smith
June 16, 2011
I don’t think WWI is totally forgotten. The Korean War seems to me to be the most forgotten war. It’s like that conflict never happened and North Korea is North Korea for some other reason than because of what happened in the early 50s. However, I think I get why WWI seems forgotten, and that’s because America wasn’t involved in it for very long and its impact wasn’t overly bearing on America like it was to the United Kingdom, France, and Germany (and all the other countries seriously involved).
WWI is a terribly interesting conflict though (the largess of it; the modernity of it; the violence; the 19th century politics of it), but as an American your going to be mostly studying from a non-American perspective and in another language than English. I don’t know, I feel like a lot of Americans have read Barbara Tuchman’s “Guns of August” and know something about this conflict though.
Robert Moore
June 16, 2011
I believe the short on years, short on memory may be one of the factors in play, though I’m not sure to what extant.
As for WW1 and Korea… well, there is a National Monument in D.C. to Korea, but nothing for WW1.
Lyle Smith
June 16, 2011
That’s a really good point. However, where I’m from the centerpiece of the university I went to is the State’s WWI memorial tower. And now the city I live and work in has the last WWI era battleship on display. So there are some memorials and artifacts to the war out there.
jgo
June 16, 2011
I agree that it is largely a matter of more recent war and its coverage pushing WW1 into the background. The histories written before WW2, certainly give extensive coverage of the efforts on the home-front to sell bonds, gather supplies, manufacture various things used in the effort, local soldiers, etc., and some of them are becoming available on-line as their copyrights expire.
Several of the relatives enlisted, and there are memorable stories of, e.g. the functionally blind uncle who tried to memorize the eye charts so he could enlist. I barely remember him as being quite a character from the annual pilgrimage to visit some of the relatives, and, for a time, was the custodian of his disintegrating 1888 Ridpath’s History which held his newspaper clippings.
Robert Moore
June 16, 2011
It’s interesting that you mention the homefront as I believe WW2 has hugely overshadowed civilian sacrifice in WW1. The wheatless and meatless days of 1917-18 are not as easily recalled as the gas rationing… just one example.
Jimmy Price
June 16, 2011
I’m not so sure that WWI is under examined. While it might seem that way on the surface, there are loads of sources just begging for someone to examine them. For instance, when I was doing research for my recent exhibit “Ready To Do My Part:” Henrico County & WWI, I found an astonishing amount of material in the files of the Virginian War History Commission at the Library of Virginia. I was able to go through original letters and diaries from local troops that probably hadn’t been touched since they were boxed up and archived. In the 1920’s Arthur Kyle Davis planned to write a multi-volume history of Virginia’s part in the First World War and established the VA War History Commission. The project died off in the late ‘20’s, but all of the material that was collected is still sitting in boxes waiting for someone patient enough to go through all of the wonderful data that was collected by the commission. I’m not sure how things are in other states, but in VA we are just waiting for the right historian to come along and put the pieces together. There have also been a slew of great books on American involvement in WWI (Borrowed Soldiers by Mitch Yockelson, The Long Way Home by David Laskin, To Conquer Hell by Ed Lengel, The Remains of Company D by James Carl Nelson, Freedom Struggles: African Americans and World War I by Adriane Lentz-Smith are all good examples) but the question remains – who’s reading them?
As far as popular culture goes, no one has bothered to make a good WWI movie in the same vein as Saving Private Ryan. For those of us who like older fare, The Big Parade, Sergeant York, and The Fighting 69th are all loads of fun to watch, but anyone who’s seen one of the Spielberg/Hanks epics will think they look outdated and cheesy. The Lost Battalion was OK, but was made for TV and got some facts royally screwed up while Flyboys is hardly worth mentioning. The foreign market has made some great WWI flicks lately (Joyeux Noel & My Boy Jack come to mind) but was also responsible for the Canadian turd known as Passchendaele. The stories are out there for any Hollywood producer to exploit, and I heard a rumor that someone was going to make a film about the Harlem Hell Fighters, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
As far as whether or not the First World War is interesting well…I sure think it is! I’m not so sure that people find it boring as much people don’t really understand what the heck it is in the first place. Trying to explain how the war started and then how America got involved is extremely complicated and it’s easy to lose people along the way. That being said, it is truly impossible to understand the events of the 20th Century without understating the First World War and the decisive role America played in it. How to get people interested is beyond me, though…
Bill Newcomer
June 17, 2011
Jimmy,
What was your take on “Gallipoli” (produced by Peter Weir and staring a young Mel Gibson)? I know we tend to focus on France because that is where our Ameerican boys fought and died. “Gallipoli” made real impression on me when I first saw it.
Jimmy Price
June 17, 2011
I think Gallipoli was a fantastic film (although my wife didn’t agree – maybe it was the weird synthesizer music). Another good film about ANZAC troops during WWI is The Light Horsemen, although I think it might be hard to find these days.
Roger Christman
June 21, 2011
Mr. Price,
I am the archivist at the Library of Virginia who processed the Virginia War History Commission records in the early 2000s. I’m glad you found the collection helpful. For those interested, the complete finding aid is located here: http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaead/published/lva/vi00958.xml.frame
Roger Christman
Robert Moore
June 18, 2011
One of the things that struck me while visiting the National WW1 Museum in Kansas City was why wasn’t there more about the A.E.F.? Granted, they did have some great stuff, but somehow, I was expecting more. They did a nice spread on stuff from all major countries involved.
I need to return to the US Marine museum in Quantico as I recall they did a pretty good review of their time in the First World War.
Tom Powers
June 19, 2011
Consider that major US involvement in the combat was for all of six-eight months, and less than that for most. The first significant involvement of U.S. troops is the hasty, desperate commitment of some in an effort (successful) to halt the German Spring offensives of 1918. American troops don’t get fully involved until the St-Mihiel Offensive in September of 1918. The Armistice was in November. Whjile Americans certainly fought before September, there was no distinctive American effort — American sector, American-led, nearly all American troops, until then. That was all easily overshadowed by the seconde war.
Soldier's Mail
July 1, 2011
Actually, American troops of the 26th Division were the first to have an entire sector entrusted to them (Toul Sector) in March, 1918. They were American-led, the first complete division to arrive in France (October, 1917), and remained in combat for the longest period (10 months). Much happened of great significance involving US Forces long before the St. Mihiel Offensive occurred.
Regarding why WWI is overlooked in American history, it is precisely because the survey-style courses popular in public education treat it as a mere speed-bump between the Civil War and Great Depression. From the perspective of military historians, it is completely overshadowed by the events of WWII which occurred within a generation afterwards. Particularly for Americans, the war was both relatively short and distant although it is actually the foundation for the unfinished business that motivated WWII. While it had a huge domestic impact on the Home Front at the time, it was swept away in the events that followed. The best American historical accounts were written in the years from 1919-29 or so.
Visit Soldier’s Mail to read the letters home from a New England doughboy while on the front lines of American involvement in the Great War from the hot sands along the Rio Grande to the cold mud along the Meuse. The Bibliography page also features a great selection of digital archive material for resources long out of print.
Marc Ferguson
June 20, 2011
Domestically, the Great War had a huge impact on American society. Much of the government propaganda apparatus use to sell the war was put to great effect in advertising during the 1920s; ideas about loyalty and Americanness, including a resurgence of nativism, emerged from the period; the Red Scare, which gave birth to J. Edgar Hoover, and a renewed effort to suppress unions were also a byproduct. A blind faith in American business, partly from public fatigue over American involvement in European war and the huge spur to production brought about by government/business cooperation during the war, contributed considerably to the Wall Street collapse and the Geat Depression. David M. Kennedy’s _Over Here: The First World War and American Society_ is a great source for the changes brought about by American involvement in that war.
As a kid, I was very interested in that war, and recall reading books about it, being fascinated by the aireal (sp?) combat (dogfights), the terror of trench warfare, and being stirred by the song Over There.