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 wave of medical innovations that form the basis of modern medicine today. To discuss this...

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 battlefields of France, it had to quickly find ways to encrypt its communications. One solution was to...

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 or political parties. Powerful progressive forces splintered over the nation’s response to the...

Prior to World War I, most people regarded the National Guard as the militia, not as a valuable part of the nation’s strategic reserve. The 1916 National Defense Act – a piece of legislation that a young officer named Douglas MacArthur helped the US Army lobby for – would lay the groundwork for National Guard units to be activated into Federal service. In 1917, as the United States prepared to fight in Europe, National Guard units across the country were activated into Federal service....

The World War I Podcast is going on a brief hiatus for a month. During this short break though – feel free to keep sending in topic suggestions or if you’re an author or publisher, keep sending those review copies. If you visit the Memorial’s website, you can also fill out a suggestion form online. We can’t cover everything and the volume of requests is high – but listeners play a really important role in helping us identify unique and interesting topics – and we enjoy hearing from...

Throughout history, war has had a profound impact on the natural environment. It is frequently linked with famine, pollution, and other ecological disruptions that lead to disease or plagues of pests. Often however, we tend to think of the environmental impact of a conflict as limited to the area of the actual battlefield. The Western Front battlefields of WWI seem like the perfect examples of ecological disaster – and yet – the damage to rivers, fields, and forests in these areas was not the...

When World War I began in Europe, American journalists rushed to cover the war. Most assumed they would cover the new war as they had covered other wars, but the scale, brutality, and duration of the war required a more diverse and comprehensive type of war coverage. As Europe fully mobilized and the boundaries between battlefield and homefront blurred, many editors sought to capture a more complete picture of the war by also exploring the war from a “woman’s angle.” To discuss this “angle,”...

The Tour de France is one of the greatest endurance competitions in the world. An annual multi-stage men’s bicycle race, the Tour takes riders through France, and occasionally through neighboring countries. The competition began in 1903 and 2022 will see the 109th edition of the race. Only WWI and WWII have cancelled the competition. In the case of WWI, the Tour returned roughly seven months after the war ended. This 1919 Tour took place at a very interesting moment – as people in France...

When World War I began in Europe, American journalists rushed to cover the war. The decades prior to 1914 had been filled with colonial conflicts, revolutions and wars around the world. Many reporters assumed they would cover the new war in Europe as they had covered other wars. However, the scale, brutality, and duration of World War I forced journalists to rewrite the traditional rules of reporting and to find creative ways to access information about the war to try to keep the American...

During World War I, General John J. Pershing considered Douglas MacArthur his finest battlefield commander and George Marshall his finest staff officer. Pershing preferred Marshall to MacArthur but acknowledged that they were very different men. To Pershing, Marshall had a military mind, while MacArthur had a warrior mind. The military mind exists, according to Samuel P. Huntington, “in a world of grays.” In contrast, MacArthur’s warrior mind was “one of blacks and whites and loud and...

World War I had a profound effect on the French wine industry.  The Champagne wine region was a battleground for most of the war. In addition, the loss of markets, labor shortages and production problems presented huge challenges for the industry. Despite these challenges, wine was a growing part of French national identity.  It also played a daily role in the war. French soldiers received a daily wine ration because French military leaders and doctors considered wine a fortifying tool that...

Today when most people think of the USMC in WWI, they think about Belleau Wood. They don’t tend to think of the role Marines played in taking Blanc Mont in the Champagne sector in 1918. The French understood the importance of Blanc Mont, but World War I historians tend to devote just a sentence or a footnote to the battle. To discuss the story of the Marines at Blanc Mont, we sat down with Lieutenant Colonel Peter F. Owen, USMC (ret.) and Lieutenant Colonel John Swift, USMC (ret.), co-authors...

When the US entered World War I, Douglas MacArthur was a major attached to the US Army General Staff. About 14 months later, he was a brigadier general. Prior to the war’s conclusion in November 1918, he was on the verge of a promotion to major general. Wartime promotions in the National Army raised many career officers like MacArthur, George Marshall, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and George Patton several grades. After the war though, these officers typically reverted back to their pre-war rank in...

Due to farming, construction, or archeological projects, the remains of soldiers killed in World War I continue to be unearthed along what was once the Western Front.  Although the conflict ended more than 100 years ago, historians, archaeologists, and scientists are able to identify dozens of these soldiers each year.  To discuss this work, we recently sat down with military historian and archaeologist Andrew Robertshaw.

The Chronicles of Narnia has sold more than 100 million copies in 47 languages. The Lord of the Rings has sold 150 million copies in 38 languages. The authors, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, were combat veterans of World War I. Great historians and statesmen have written that World War I left mankind in an abyss of desolation - and the idea of a lost generation emerging out of this war is a popular one. That might only be part of the story though. For some, like Lewis and Tolkien, the war...

World War I was a very interesting and complicated moment in the U.S./Philippine relationship. Many Filipino's supported the war effort - hopeful that a war to make the world "safe for democracy" would also lead to Philippine independence. Filipinos served in the U.S. military, others bought war bonds, and a Philippine National Guard was created in the hope that it could add  25,000 men to General Pershing's American Expeditionary Force. To explore this relatively overlooked part of World War...

When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, baseball had been America's national past time for about 60 years. The start of the war also coincided with the start of the 1917 MLB season. Many professional ballplayers would serve in the military, forcing MLB's response to the war to evolve over the 1917-1919 seasons. At the same time, American troops in Europe created hundreds of baseball diamonds and played thousands of baseball games during the war and the occupation that...

Go behind the scenes at the National Museum of American History as we explore five interesting WWI artifacts that are currently in storage.

During World War I, Marguerite Harrison became the first female foreign intelligence agent employed by US military intelligence. While relatively unknown today, she played a major role in normalizing the idea of a woman working in American intelligence.

Jim Zobel and Amanda Williams of the MacArthur Memorial briefly discuss MacArthur’s WWI illness and the impact of the Spanish Flu on the Western Front.

From the Schlieffen Plan to Verdun, the critical years of 1914-1916 set the stage for major upheavals in 1917. For expert analysis of this period, we sat down with Dr. Michael Neiberg, author of Fighting the Great War and Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of World War I, to discuss the strategy and major events of the Western Front and how 1914-1916 influenced the post-war peace.

By the end of 1916, the Allied and Central powers were exhausted and were facing serious political, economic and social problems. For Russia, a country already struggling with the structural problems of autocracy, the troubles of 1916 led to revolution. To learn more about the timeline and particulars of the Russian Revolution, we had a conversation with Dr. Colleen Moore, Assistant Professor of History at James Madison University.

Many small countries entered World War I with the hope of gaining some sort of advantage in the post-war period. Most of these countries did not contribute troops or any other substantial aide. Siam is a notable exception. To learn more about Siam's participation in World War I, we spoke with Dr. Stefan Hell, author of the book Siam and World War I: An International History.

While radio and telephone were becoming more and more a part of the battlefield, these communication technologies also had weaknesses on the World War I battlefield. A secure, reliable, low tech communication option was needed. Armies on both sides turned to Homing Pigeons to provide this vital link. We sat down with Dr. Frank Blazich, Curator of Modern Military History at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History, to discuss the U.S. Army's pigeon service and how...