How does World War I poetry help us understand the complexity of the experience of the war? Why was poetry so important then? Why does the poetry of World War I continue to have such resonance? To answer these questions, the World War I Podcast

The Trenches: Reality vs Movies

Mar 14th, 2024 29m 34s

When most people think of World War I on the Western Front, they probably think of trenches. Trench systems were present along most of the 475 miles from the English Channel to the Swiss Alps. It wasn’t just one straight continuous line, howeve

The Lost Battalion - Part II

Feb 16th, 2024 29m 29s

Part IIIn 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

The Lost Battalion - Part I

Feb 12th, 2024 25m 6s

Part IIn 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

The Congress of Vienna and the Roots of World War I

Jan 4th, 2024 38m 12s

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

Learning from the Circus: Transportation and Logistics in WWI

Dec 4th, 2023 19m 14s

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

W.E.B. Du Bois and World War I

Nov 1st, 2023 18m 41s

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 Alli

Douglas MacArthur's 2nd Distinguished Service Cross and the Côte de Châtillon

Oct 11th, 2023 27m 52s

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 citati

The US Army and the Rehabilitation of Wounded Soldiers

Sep 7th, 2023 20m 7s

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 soldi

Portugal and the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps in WWI

Aug 2nd, 2023 39m 37s

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

Patriot Priests: French Priests in the French Army

Jul 2nd, 2023 36m 22s

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 furt

Identifying a World War I Unknown Soldier

Jun 6th, 2023 20m 40s

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 f

Sgt. York and the Other Sixteen

Jun 3rd, 2023 33m 3s

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 objec

The Order of Prince Danilo I

May 4th, 2023 45m 6s

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,

Ottoman and Turkish Perspectives on Gallipoli

Apr 21st, 2023 45m 24s

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

Woodrow Wilson and Women's Suffrage

Mar 15th, 2023 32m 35s

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 suffr

Mr. President, How Long Must We Wait?

Mar 1st, 2023 20m 50s

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

Charles Young: For Race and Country

Feb 9th, 2023 38m 10s

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 Me

Woodrow Wilson After World War I

Feb 3rd, 2023 40m 12s

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

Woodrow Wilson During World War I

Jan 17th, 2023 43m 46s

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

Woodrow Wilson Before World War I

Dec 28th, 2022 38m 42s

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 fascinat

Princess Mary's Christmas Gift

Dec 11th, 2022 36m 47s

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 cultu

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Nov 6th, 2022 48m

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 identifiab

The Cameroon Campaign (1914-1916)

Oct 24th, 2022 35m 50s

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

World War I and Modern Medicine

Sep 20th, 2022 48m 31s

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 prove