American Experience (1988–…): Season 29, Episode 9 - The Great War: Part 2 - full transcript

On the evening of April 2, 1917,

President Woodrow Wilson and his
wife Edith left the Capitol

and headed to the White House.

Only moments earlier,
Wilson had asked Congress

for a declaration of war
against Germany.

It was the greatest applause
Wilson had heard

in his years in office.

After the speech, he and his
wife go back to the White House.

Wilson goes into his office.

And he puts his head down
on the table and he weeps.

And one of the men
on his staff said,



"But Mr. President,
what-what are you...

"what are you crying about?

"I mean you just had this
incredible response

in Congress."

He said, "Can you imagine
people applauding

my asking to bring us into war?"

And with that he put his head
down and sobbed again.

A shaken Wilson had
to confront the fact

that after struggling
for nearly three years

to keep America out
of the Great War,

he had now committed his nation
to a conflict

that had already left
millions dead.

We know from the record that
Wilson was filled with anxieties

about what he understood
that he was asking the country



to get itself in for.

He knew that he was asking
the country to sacrifice

in ways it had
never done before,

for a purpose that was not
all terribly well defined.

In his speech to Congress,

the president had proclaimed
that German aggression

was "a challenge
to all mankind."

"The world must be made safe
for democracy," he said.

"We shall bring peace and safety
to all nations

and make the world itself
at last free."

America was unique in the war

because it was not fighting
for survival,

it was fighting for an idea.

And Wilson's idea was
to preserve, develop,

defend a way of government
and, it was hoped,

spread that way of government
to the world.

Woodrow Wilson was fighting
for this ideal of democracy

on a global scale.

But what will it mean
to fight a war

on largely ideological grounds?

How do you rally a very
divided country behind that?

Americans began to notice
the posters almost overnight.

Within weeks
they were everywhere...

Plastered on buildings and
displayed in trolley cars,

hung in the windows of
restaurants and in barbershops.

America was suddenly at war and
the message was inescapable:

Loyal citizens were expected
to do everything they could

to support Woodrow Wilson's
crusade for democracy.

The campaign was the handiwork

of a former journalist
from Missouri,

George Creel, who had helped
Wilson retain the White House

in 1916, using the campaign
slogan, "He Kept Us Out of War."

Now, only a week after
the declaration,

Wilson turned to Creel to
convince Americans

to get behind the war
as quickly as possible.

"It was a plain publicity
proposition," Creel recalled,

"a vast enterprise
in salesmanship."

Wilson needed Creel's help.

Despite his eloquent call
for intervention,

Wilson knew the nation
was deeply divided

about the conflict.

Fifty members of the House
and six senators

had voted against
the war resolution.

Senator Robert LaFollette
of Wisconsin argued

that Americans opposed the war
by a margin of ten to one.

The Socialist Party of America,
under its leader, Eugene Debs,

denounced the struggle as
"a crime against the people

of the United States."

Eugene Debs was

an unyielding spokesman
for working class

and labor concerns.

He also strongly opposed
the U.S. entry into the war.

He believed that workers
of the world had more in common

with each other than they did
with the ruling parties

of the nations that were at war.

Further fueling opposition,

Wilson was making plans
to institute a draft.

In response, the anarchist
Emma Goldman founded

the No-Conscription League

and organized protests all
across the country.

The idea of the draft
is very controversial.

The idea that the government
can call on you

or call on you to give up
your son

to go put their life on the line

is absolutely counter to the
notion of American individualism

or what an American democracy
looks like.

Facing such determined
opposition,

Wilson and Creel conceived
of a plan

to galvanize support
for the war.

Creel was a pioneer,
you might say,

in the field
of public relations.

And then Wilson appoints him
the head of something called

the Committee on Public
Information,

which, not to put too fine
a point on it,

is essentially the U.S.
government's agency

for propaganda.

Creel was a passionate believer

in the rightness
of the president's cause,

and he saw it as his mission
to educate Americans

about the war's
enlightened aims.

His Committee on Public
Information, the CPI,

began in tiny quarters, but was
soon bursting at the seams.

The Division of Pictorial
Publicity featured posters

painted by famous illustrators,
like Charles Dana Gibson,

that portrayed the war
as a heroic fight

for democracy and freedom.

Pamphlets called
"Loyalty Leaflets"

and the "Red, White and Blue"
series

were printed by the millions
in 14 different languages,

explaining the principles
the country was fighting for

in simple terms that every
American could understand.

Wilson is asking the American
people to make the world safe

for democracy.

Germany had become a symbol
of autocracy, of violence,

of un-freedom that needed
to be destroyed.

"It was a fight
for the minds of men,"

Creel recalled, "and moral
verdicts took on all the value

of military decisions."

Creel saw his problem as
transforming the American people

into one white hot mass
of enthusiasm for the war

and the CPI went from
a bureaucracy of one person

to an army of about
100,000 people

in the space
of a couple of months.

Creel's propaganda campaign was
a mix of inspired improvisation

and disciplined commitment
to the government's message.

For Woodrow Wilson, however,
it wasn't enough.

He had long argued for a law
that gave him the power

to penalize disloyalty
and root out subversion

wherever it could be found.

On June 15, he got his wish.

Congress passed
the Espionage Act,

an unprecedented measure
that made it a crime

to collect, record, publish,
or communicate information

that might be useful
to the enemy.

The Espionage Act was passed
ostensibly to prevent espionage

but really it clamped down
on dissent.

It was used to battle any kind
of antiwar vocalization.

Wilson was a very
complicated man.

On the one hand
he was a professor,

he was a devotee
of the constitution;

at the same time
he was a very proud,

some might say egotistical man,

and from the moment America
entered the war,

he identified the cause
of the war with himself.

And he absolutely would not
tolerate any dissent

from anybody.

It's really kind of amazing how
quickly the public mood changed

from skepticism, reluctance,
opposition to war

to big majorities were
full-throatedly in favor

of the war.

It didn't just happen
spontaneously.

The government went about
the business

of deliberately cultivating
enthusiasm for the war

and deliberately suppressing
any negative voices.

The flood of propaganda and
the power of the Espionage Act

sent an unmistakable message
to the American public.

The time for open debate
was over.

The country was now
on a war footing

and every citizen was expected
to get in line.

On the morning of June 13, 1917,

the steamship Invicta was
brought up to the pier

at the French port of Boulogne.

Standing at the rail was the
commander of the American Army,

General John Pershing.

He had come to France
to give a symbolic boost

to America's new allies

and find out for himself
the status of the European war.

Pershing was a tall,
ramrod-straight career officer

with a lantern jaw
and manicured moustache.

One reporter wrote that
"no man ever looked

more the ordained leader
of fighting men."

If you had a song,

a World War I song
and you wanted it to sell,

the surest way to make sure
it did was to find a way

to put General Pershing's face
on the cover of the sheet music.

Pershing was made to sell a war.

He was a man that the mothers
and wives of soldiers

somehow felt that they could
trust with their boys.

As a young officer,
Pershing had served in the West,

leading the African-American
10th Cavalry.

He had gone on to distinguish
himself in heavy fighting

during the Spanish-American War

and in the jungles
of the Philippines.

Then, his expedition
to hunt down

the Mexican revolutionary
Pancho Villa

had made Pershing
front-page news.

But only two years before
his arrival in France,

his world came crashing down.

In August of 1915, his little
girls and beautiful wife

all perished in a house fire.

To have your whole family
wiped out in one fire

is just so heartbreaking
and horrific.

In the consequence
of such a breathtaking loss,

I think he almost found solace

in focusing on this
extraordinary mission

to win the war.

Pershing was a strict
disciplinarian

and quick to fire subordinates
who failed to measure up

to his exacting standards.

He worried about the welfare
of his men,

but never cultivated
their affection.

When he received his commission,

he was given command
of the entire American Army.

Not since Ulysses S. Grant was
made supreme commander

during the Civil War
had any general been given

such sweeping power.

But when Pershing had met
with the president,

Wilson hadn't offered any vision
for the conduct of the war.

"I have every confidence
that you will succeed"

was all he told his general.

Pershing, however,
was deeply worried.

For nearly three years,

as the United States stood
on the sidelines,

the warring nations of Europe

had battered themselves
relentlessly.

In 1914, the Germans invaded
France, through neutral Belgium,

only to be stopped by the French
and their allies, the British.

Both sides dug networks
of trenches

that soon stretched
from the English Channel

to the Swiss border.

Then they proceeded to hammer
away at each other,

gaining little ground
and suffering casualties

in the millions.

To the east, Germany and
her ally, Austria-Hungary,

flung themselves against
Russia's huge armies,

and by 1917, Russia seemed
on the brink of collapse.

Into this continent in chaos,

Pershing would have to lead his
American Expeditionary Forces.

Privately, Pershing knew

that no one in America's
military establishment

had ever contemplated the
immense task of training

and then transporting a
huge army across the Atlantic.

There was no plan, no
organization, no equipment.

When Wilson declares war,

the total armed trained force
of the United States

is less than a quarter
of a million men.

The British Army loses
more than that in one battle.

There was no reason to believe
from past history

that the United States could
build up a military that fast.

Arm them, train them,
equip them, and get them across.

The Germans were persuaded

that the United States
could not do it.

When Pershing arrived in Paris,

he was greeted with a tremendous
outpouring of emotion

from the war-weary French.

After a round
of social engagements

and ceremonial visits,

he met with French commander-
in-chief Philippe Pétain,

and the mood turned somber.

On June 16, Pershing was taken
on a tour of the front,

and the magnitude
of the Allies' predicament

quickly became clear.

Already, the French had lost
nearly a million men.

British losses approached
350,000.

Exhausted by
the unending slaughter,

tens of thousands of French
soldiers had mutinied

and refused to fight.

Only the execution
of the ringleaders,

Pétain's promotion
to commander-in-chief,

and his assurances of better
treatment for the men

prevented the army
from total collapse.

When asked about his strategy,

all Pétain would say was, "I am
waiting for the Americans."

With their own armies
on the brink of collapse,

French and British officers
argued

that without Pershing's troops,
the war would be lost.

Pershing resisted a tremendous
amount of pressure

to just hand over
American troops

to French and British command.

He didn't like the way
that they'd been waging the war

up to that point.

He didn't care
for trench warfare.

He thought the whole thing was a
big mess that was going nowhere.

Behind Pershing's intransigence
was a direct order

from the president
of the United States.

Woodrow Wilson wanted an army
that would receive full credit

for its victories
on the battlefield.

He insisted that American troops
operate independently

from the British and the French.

The American Army had to have
a major and independent role

because Wilson wanted to have,
after the war,

a major and independent role
in the peace.

The United States was the new
power, it was the future.

As his tour of the front lines
came to an end,

Pershing dispatched a cable

that sent shockwaves
through Washington.

He believed he would need
a million men in France,

perhaps as many
as three million.

And he estimated it would take
almost a year to get them there.

As he pondered the harsh
realities of the war

on the Western Front

and the immense challenge
of bringing American troops

to the battlefield,

Pershing was reminded
of what Pétain had said

when he first arrived...
"I hope it is not too late."

Johnnie get your gun,
get your gun, get your gun

Take it on the run,
on the run, on the run

Hear them calling you and me

Every son of liberty.

The song "Over There" quickly
became the anthem of the war.

It was a very important part
of Americans making peace

with the fact
that they had to go to war.

Make your mother proud of you

And the old red, white, and blue

Over there, over there

Send the word, send the word
over there.

It's a song whose lyrics
and rhythm combine

to get you up out of your chair,

and want to go out and do
something great.

Over there, over there.

Everybody around me was going
crazy about the war.

I had as bad a case of war fever
as the next fellow.

Worse probably.

Because when America went into
the war I'd made up my mind

that for once I was going to do
the same thing

everybody else was doing.

And we won't come back
till it's over over there.

John Barkley was just one
of tens of thousands of men

responding to the Wilson
administration's call

for soldiers.

He had grown up fishing and
hunting along Scalybark Creek

in the rough farm country
of western Missouri

and claimed his skills as a
frontiersman could be traced

back to his distant ancestor,
Daniel Boone.

Barkley was swept up
in the enthusiasm for the war,

but the reality was he had
little choice in the matter.

In order to just
enter the war at all,

the United States has to raise,
from nothing,

an army of millions.

But they can't rely
on volunteering

because it just would take
too long,

so they realized that they
needed to have

some kind of draft.

The idea of the draft
was controversial

in the very beginning
because the draft implies

that men don't want
to fight this war

and you're forcing
the country to fight.

There'd only been a draft one
prior time in American history,

in the Civil War,
and it did not go well.

There were anti-draft riots in
the North during the Civil War.

Wilson was very self-conscious
about that.

Wilson has a big sales job

that he has to make
about conscription.

And so he doesn't call it
conscription

and he doesn't call it
the draft.

What does he call it?

He calls it Selective Service.

Wilson's plan was designed
to tap into

the nation's spirit
of volunteerism.

Men like Barkley
were urged to register

and the government would then
select who would serve

and who would remain exempt.

The whole system traded
on the idea

that we the government
are simply

facilitating volunteering.

This idea that there is
something noble and patriotic

about service and that's the
emotion we are going to mobilize

to get people to do their duty
even against their will.

Even though the government
is reaching in

and pulling Johnny
out of the living room

and putting him into uniform,

it seems like they had
volunteered to be drafted.

On June 5, 1917, nine-and-a-half
million American men,

from Cedar Rapids, Iowa,
to Great Falls, Minnesota,

from Bedford Stuyvesant
in Brooklyn

to San Francisco's Chinatown,
marched into city halls

and county courthouses
to register for the draft.

Each man filled out
a registration card,

noting his occupation
and his place of birth.

At the bottom,
the instructions read,

"If person is of African
descent, tear off this corner"...

The first step in the creation
of a strictly segregated army.

African American troops
were very explicitly seen

as a problem.

That's how they were described
by the War Department,

the "problem" of black officers.

A senator from Mississippi,
I think correctly, says

once you draft a Negro man
and give him a gun

and tell him to fight with it,

it's one short step
for him thinking

that he should fight for his
rights at home.

Although millions registered,

not everyone agreed to serve
in the new American Army.

On his draft card
under the question

"Do you claim exemption
from draft?"

Alvin C. York wrote,
"Yes, don't want to fight."

Another man was even more
direct,

asserting that war was "murder."

In the end, 64,000 men
claimed exemptions

as conscientious objectors.

More than three million others,
known as slackers,

evaded the call to arms
altogether.

The resistance did nothing

to stop the Wilson
administration's plans.

On July 20, a crowd of
dignitaries and journalists

filled a hearing room
in the Senate Office Building.

As the newsreel cameras rolled,

the first draft
of the Great War began.

By the end of the day, more than
680,000 men had been selected.

The composition of draftees
is as mixed as America...

Poles, Scandinavians, Germans.

There are African American
soldiers,

Native American soldiers,
Latino soldiers.

There are Mexican-Americans from
New Mexico and Texas...

Tejanos...
And also Puerto Ricans.

José de la Luz Sáenz,

a schoolteacher from Realitos,
Texas, was not called up

in the first round of the draft,
but he tried to enlist anyway.

I was hungry for adventure
and accustomed to hard times.

I welcomed anything.

I knew that in the midst
of the ruinous world war,

it was necessary
to show everyone

that I was a true representative
of our people.

John Barkley was told
to report to Camp Funston,

in northeastern Kansas.

I didn't have many goodbyes
to say.

There were my dogs
and my old horse Charley

and my family and a girl.

Just before leaving for camp
I got really engaged to my girl,

with a ring and everything.

It was the most important thing
that had ever happened to me,

except getting in the Army.

In the face of determined
opposition,

Woodrow Wilson had succeeded
in laying the groundwork

for the biggest armed force
the United States had ever seen.

And yet, Wilson knew that
millions of men in uniform alone

would not be enough to bring
America's power to bear

on the conflict.

"It is not an army that we must
shape and train for war,"

he proclaimed.

"It is a nation."

Now is the time to fall in line

You swore that you would,
so be true to your vow

Let's all be Americans now!

Not since the arrival
of the Ringling Brothers Circus

could New Yorkers remember
so many elephants

marching down Fifth Avenue.

They were part of a huge rally
to sell Liberty Bonds,

an innovation created
to get the American public

to not only support the war,
but to invest in it too.

In charge of selling
these new bonds was George Creel

and his Committee
on Public Information.

The Liberty Bond drives opened
up a fire hose of propaganda.

The CPI mobilized movie stars
for the Liberty Loan message...

Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin,

all of the greatest stars
of their day.

Celebrity culture is just
starting to emerge,

and they can turn out crowds,
and those crowds then become

some of the biggest rallies

that you see on the home front
during the war.

You swore that you would,
so be true to your vow

Let's all be Americans now.

Hollywood studios
were also happy to help,

staging one
of their war pictures

in New York's
Van Cortlandt Park.

Theaters across the country
showed films

like The Kaiser: The Beast of Berlin,

The Prussian Cur,

and The Claws of the Hun.

Creel even found a way to push
his message

when the movie screens
were dark.

In between every reel of film,

there was a four-minute break

when the projectionist
had to change the reels.

Somewhere along the way, someone
at the CPI hit on the idea

that this was a perfectly
captive audience

for the delivery
of the war message.

Night after night,

prominent members of the local
community would stand up

and deliver short
patriotic speeches.

They became known as the
"Four-Minute Men,"

and what began in movie theaters

quickly spread to any venue
where an audience assembled.

In New York, Creel's volunteer
army addressed

half a million people each week.

Ten men gave talks in Yiddish,
seven in Italian.

President Wilson himself gave
a four-minute speech.

These four-minute men
would give a talk

on some aspect of Americanism.

Why we are fighting,

what are the principles
we're fighting for?

The appearance of spontaneity

masked a carefully scripted
government message.

"These were no haphazard talks
by nondescripts,"

Creel insisted,
"but the careful, studied,

"and rehearsed efforts of the
best men in each community,

"each speech aimed
as a rifle is aimed,

and driving to its mark with
the precision of a bullet."

They were guided
by a central authority,

but always in the own words

of the individual giving
the speech,

and he was usually a person
who was known in the community.

He was not saying, "This is
what the government says."

He was saying,
"I'm an intelligent person,

"successful person.

"This is what I think.

You should think this way too."

The federal government figures
out ways to come to you.

Want to watch a movie?

Up pops a Four-Minute Man

to give you a little speech
about the war.

Go to the county fair?

As you're walking in,
somebody comes up to you,

"Would you like to subscribe
to war bond?"

Go to work, you're going to have
to agree to donate

a portion of your paycheck
to buying a war stamp.

There are a myriad of ways

in which the federal government
inserts this propaganda

into your daily life.

It's impossible to escape
from it.

The success of the first round
of the draft

presented the Wilson
administration with a problem.

They had nowhere to put
their new soldiers.

In the summer of 1917,

the government embarked on a
crash program

to build 16 Army compounds
that would accommodate

up to a half a million draftees

from every corner
of the country.

Camp Funston was carved out
of a meadow in just five months.

It encompassed 3,000 buildings
sprawling over 2,000 acres,

mostly two-story barracks,

but also a library, hospitals,
an arcade filled with stores,

restaurants, movie theaters,

and the biggest pool hall
in the state of Kansas.

John Barkley and his fellow
recruits had little time

to enjoy the amenities.

Camp Funston was a dismal place.

They started us out at once
on close order drill

and calisthenics,

and they gave it to us on
a 14-hour-a-day schedule.

I didn't mind the drilling half
as much as I did the monotony.

Barkley found himself surrounded
by a babel of strange accents,

exotic languages,
and alien customs.

The bunks were only
a few inches apart,

and there was a Mexican
in the one next to mine.

He was pretty sick,
but he never complained,

and I got to like him.

While the Army is segregated
for African Americans,

Native Americans
and Mexican Americans

are still seen as white.

So they're included with the
rest of the white soldiers.

Before this time,
most Americans associated

only with people who were
just like them

in terms of background.

But all of a sudden you've got
this national army

and people don't have
the luxury or the liberty

of sticking to their own kind
anymore.

No place typified the teeming
diversity of the new army

like Camp Upton on Long Island.

It received thousands of men
from what was known

as the Metropolitan Division,

all drawn from the streets
of New York.

It's also called
the Melting Pot Division,

Statue of Liberty Division.

It's said that the enlisted men
speak 42 different languages

not counting English.

The officers came
from the city's upper class,

including Wall Street lawyers,
prominent businessmen,

and members
of the political elite.

These guys are dealing
with the ghetto rats,

the Italians from Little Italy,

the Jewish tailors
and pants pressers

from the Lower East Side,
the Chinese from Chinatown,

and they're supposed to not only
make them into soldiers,

they're supposed to make them
Americans.

In the decades leading up
to the Great War,

as many as 23 million immigrants
had poured

into the United States.

By 1917, a third of Americans
had been born in a foreign land

or had a parent who had
emigrated from abroad.

This was a moment of massive
immigration in our society

and there were lots of questions
in the air

about just how well could this
society absorb immigrants

on this scale.

Some people saw mobilization for
the war as a way to accelerate

their assimilation.

"This process will be going
on for weeks,"

the New York Sun declared,

"and Uncle Sam will have
accomplished

"the biggest part of his task
welding a great national army

from this tremendous melting pot
at Camp Upton."

Some of the officers used to say
that a shared military service,

sharing the same pup tent,

would yank the hyphen out of all
these immigrant communities.

That was the phrase
that they used.

So they would no longer be

Italian-Americans
or Polish-Americans,

they'd just be
plain old Americans.

"This will be the greatest army
of them all," the Sun boasted.

"Millionaires bunk next to lads
from the East Side,

"and they both like it,

"and men who were earning
$25,000 a year on Wall Street

"lock arms with boys who used
to make their 18 a week,

"and sing their hearts out.

"Tell me they won't make
soldiers!

Just watch 'em."

If you look at the American Army
in 1917,

you see young men from all
these different countries

around the world,

including immigrants from
the countries against which

the United States
is now fighting.

For many during the war, the
hyphen became the real enemy.

It was the sign
of divided loyalties

and the sign of an obstacle
to American national unity.

The real challenge, of course,

is for people whose ancestors
came from Germany.

- Immediately after the U.S.
- had declared war,

local governments,
civic organizations,

and even ordinary citizens began
an attack on German Americans

and their culture.

There are children who are
instructed by their teachers

to cut German songs

out of the music books that they
use in their classrooms.

There is a public stein-breaking
fest at one point,

to keep people
from drinking German beer.

There's even, in one town
in Ohio,

a really gruesome slaughter
of German dog breeds.

But it's important not to let
these ridiculous stories

overshadow what is really

a wholesale destruction
of an ethnic culture

in the United States.

Germans were pressured to stop
playing German music,

to stop going to German plays.

And when I say Germans,
I mean German-Americans

whose ancestors might have been
in this country

since before the Revolution.

The anti-German hysteria
even extended

to the federal government.

The CPI published an article
with tips on how to identify

people who were pro-German.

The president issued a decree

that made any German living
in the United States

register as an "enemy alien."

Almost 500,000 men and women
were photographed,

fingerprinted, and interrogated

about their loyalty
to the United States.

The program was administered
by a 22-year-old member

of the Department of Justice,
J. Edgar Hoover.

By the fall,
a new series of camps

capable of housing thousands
of people had sprung up

in Utah, Georgia,
and North Carolina

not to train new recruits
but to imprison anyone

that the government considered
a threat to its security.

There was tremendous pressure
on new immigrants to conform,

to have American flags,
to sing American songs.

We welcomed you here,
now you're here, you're with us

and you're only with us.

While newly drafted soldiers
stabbed dummies with bayonets

in camps all across the country,

another group of recruits
practiced their drill steps

on the streets of Harlem.

The African-American
15th National Guard

was mustered into service
in July of 1917.

Community leaders in Harlem
had lobbied for the creation

of an all-black regiment
for years.

They petitioned the state
legislature of New York.

The legislature comes back
and says,

"Okay, but you have to raise
the money to equip the unit.

And you also have to accept
white officers."

A prominent lawyer named
William Hayward took command

and set about recruiting

to get the regiment
up to full strength.

Hayward wasn't going to be able
to command any other regiment,

that's for sure.

And, in fact, many of the
officers in the 15th New York

who were white could not get
high-ranking officer positions

in other units.

The 15th was this, sort of,
place of last resort

for many of these
rich, white men.

The New York 15th was forced
to beg for equipment

from other units

and train in the backyards
and empty lots of Harlem.

Still, the regiment was able
to attract

some of the black community's
prominent athletes

and entertainers,

including the celebrated
ragtime conductor

and band leader
James Reese Europe.

James Reese Europe is an eminent
musician in New York.

Starts an orchestra that's
the first black orchestra

to play at Carnegie Hall.

When the 15th New York National
Guard is formed, though,

he decides that he wants to join
for the same reason

that a number of
African-American men joined.

They see it
as this potent symbol

of African-American manhood.

Our race will never amount
to anything

unless there are strong
organizations of men

who stand for something
in the community.

It will build up the moral
and physical Negro manhood

of Harlem.

But to accomplish these results,

the best men in the community
must get in the move.

Europe convinced his writing
partner, Noble Sissle,

to enlist.

When Hayward asked them
to form a regimental band,

the two took up the challenge.

The band is just huge.

Europe argues
for, at minimum, 40 men,

I think gets a few more
than that.

Realizes that he needs
a stronger wind section,

so goes down to Puerto Rico

and recruits Afro-Puerto Rican
clarinetists mostly,

but trombone players as well.

So he's got this crazy,
super American mix

of the black diaspora...

Spanish speakers,
English speakers,

folks with a nutty Southern
dialect, all wrapped up.

Wilson's declaration of war
brought a new urgency

to the New York 15th's mission.

By the summer of 1917,
Noble Sissle watched

as the regiment began to attract
recruits in record numbers.

Our daily procedure was to put
the band on top of the bus

and ride down
in a colored section.

Then we would start the band
playing the "Memphis Blues."

Once we got the bus crowded,

we would make a bee line
for the recruiting office.

A pen put in their hands,

and before they were aware
of what was going on,

they had raised their right hand
and found themselves

jazz-time members of
Uncle Samuel's Army.

Young African-American men
from all across the country

were drawn to the new unit
from Harlem.

Henry Johnson was a
baggage-handler from Albany;

Needham Roberts, a drugstore
clerk from Trenton;

Leroy Johnston, a minister's son
from Arkansas.

When Wilson frames the war
as a war for democracy,

he offers up something

that seems to promise
for African-Americans

expanded possibility.

They go into the war thinking,

"If we demonstrate
that we are capable,

"that we have this ability,
the country won't be able

to help
but redeem their promise to us."

Faith in Wilson's assurances,
however, were hard to reconcile

with the brutal reality of race
relations in America.

New York was a segregated city.

Blacks have no political power.

So some blacks are saying,
"Why should we be fighting

"for this nation and these,
you know, white people

who are oppressing us?"

The situation in the Jim Crow
South was even worse:

a toxic mixture of rigid
segregation

and almost daily episodes of
racially motivated brutality.

In July, in East St. Louis,
Illinois,

an exchange of gunfire
between blacks and police

provoked an explosion
of mob violence

that reduced entire
black neighborhoods to ashes

and left hundreds of men,
women, and children dead.

Seven weeks later,

a battalion of black troops
stationed outside Houston

encountered a campaign of
harassment and violence

from local whites.

They responded by marching
into the city

and engaging in a pitched battle
with police.

This was the worst fears of
white Southerners come true.

A group of black soldiers
taking up arms

and killing white people.

There was a hasty trial.

13 soldiers were executed

without the opportunity
to appeal their convictions.

And they very quickly became
martyrs.

Throughout the summer
of bloodshed,

the president said nothing.

Woodrow Wilson grew up
in the South.

By any measure Woodrow Wilson
was a racist.

He introduced Jim Crow
to Washington, D.C.

At a time when it was just
starting to loosen up,

he brought it back and it became
for all intents and purposes

the law of the land.

Wilson is so disappointing.

Because on the one hand he's got
this abstract vision

of a more just world

that has all of this potential
and possibility in it.

And then on the flip side,
for all of his big ideals,

he is such a narrow-hearted
little man.

Angered by Wilson's refusal to
speak out against the violence,

8,000 demonstrators conducted
a "silent protest parade"

down Fifth Avenue.

They marched to the sound
of muffled drums,

carrying signs that read:

"Mother, Do Lynchers Go
to Heaven?"

And "Mr. President, Why Not Make
America Safe for Democracy?"

In the midst of this atmosphere
of racial violence and protest,

the men of Harlem's
15th were sent

to Spartanburg, South Carolina,
to receive their final training

before shipping out to France.

They show up in Spartanburg

a month after black soldiers in
Houston had marched on the town.

And so the folks of
South Carolina are determined

to make sure that this
particular set

of black soldiers, Yankees,

come down, right,
stay in their place.

And the military leadership
is incredibly jittery.

They don't want another Houston
on their hands.

For a couple of weeks,

they walk the edge of possible
violence in the town.

They manage it pretty well.

What they're fighting here is,
if they get into trouble,

the Army will have an excuse
not to send them overseas.

On the other hand,

if the white officers let the
local whites abuse their troops,

they lose face with their men.

To try and diffuse tensions,

William Hayward organized
a band concert

in the town's public square.

He also asked his men to pledge
that they would avoid violence

of any kind, even if provoked.

The regiment responded
with a "sea of hands."

Noble Sissle goes to buy
a newspaper

in the lobby of a hotel
and gets into an altercation

with the white man
behind the counter.

A crowd gathers and not only
are the blacks squaring off

against the whites in the room,

but the white national guardsmen
from New York

are backing their fellow Yankees
against the local Confederates

and James Reese Europe says,
halt, stop.

Brings the whole incident
to an end,

marches his men out of there
and averts violence.

The 15th emerged stronger

because of its ordeal
in Spartanburg.

But there were other reminders
of blacks' second-class status

in the American Army.

Anxious to burnish the
reputation of his regiment,

Hayward petitioned
to have it included

in the famous Rainbow Division,
drawn from National Guard units

from more than half the states
in the nation.

Hayward asks
the Rainbow Division

if the 15th could join them,
and the response to his request

is "black is not a color
of the rainbow."

And, of course,
neither is white.

By the fall of 1917,
the scale of the challenge

confronting American
mobilization

was beginning to sink in.

The Quartermaster Corps
estimated it would need

17 million woolen trousers,
22 million flannel shirts,

26 million shoes.

The U.S. would need more than
two million new Enfield rifles.

5.6 million gas masks,
and a flotilla of merchant ships

to transport it all
across the Atlantic.

Meanwhile, the nation's
newest soldiers

were mustered into service
as quickly as possible.

On September 4, 1917, President
Wilson, members of his cabinet,

and the leadership of Congress
led a parade

from the Capitol
down Pennsylvania Avenue.

They were there to honor 1,400
newly drafted men

from the District of Columbia.

When he reached the White House,

Wilson stepped onto a reviewing
stand, and the new recruits,

still in their civilian clothes,
marched past.

"Tears stood
in the president's eyes,"

reported the New York Sun,

"as he looked down the
irregular, undisciplined ranks."

As Wilson walked back
to the White House,

he saw a familiar sight: members
of the National Woman's Party,

maintaining an angry vigil
outside the Executive Mansion.

They were led by the radical
suffragist Alice Paul.

A child of devout Quakers
from Philadelphia

and armed with a doctorate
in sociology,

Paul was a formidable adversary.

One reporter wrote that she was

"as incapable of deviation
from a set purpose

as the tides are of altering
their dedication to the moon."

Back in January,

Paul and her small band
of a dozen suffragists

had been the first Americans to
actively picket the White House.

When war was declared in April,

most mainstream suffrage groups
suspended their efforts.

Not Alice Paul.

"If the lack of democracy
at home

weakens the fight for democracy
3,000 miles away," she declared,

"the responsibility is
with the government

and not with the women
of America."

Alice Paul is deeply critical
of Wilson.

She turns his language back
on him, and says,

we are going to continue pushing
for the vote, through the war.

At first, Wilson
sort of ignored them,

condescended to them,

had hot chocolate sent out
from the White House kitchen

to keep them warm
on winter days,

but it became increasingly
embarrassing

that these protests
were happening.

And over time, Wilson
wanted the protesters gone.

The president came to see the
defiant women outside his window

as a threat to the war effort

and conspired
with the Washington police

to crack down on them.

In June, when the suffragists
raised a banner

reading "This Nation
is Not Free,"

mobs of angry men and women
assaulted them,

throwing eggs and tomatoes
and shredding their signs.

Police and Secret Service men
on the scene did nothing

to stop the violence,

intervening only to arrest the
women for "obstructing traffic"

and "loud and boisterous
talking."

You got to love these women

because, you know, they're
jailed, bad press for Wilson.

He says, go ahead, let them out.

They get released, boom,

right back in front
of the White House.

It's like they are not going
to be deterred, right.

They're the radical voice.

When the women unveiled
a new sign

that proclaimed "Kaiser Wilson,"

the violence against them
only increased.

On October 20, Paul herself
was arrested

and sentenced to seven months
in a Virginia prison.

The suffragist press made
heroes and martyrs

out of Paul
and her fellow prisoners.

One article proclaimed that,
"In spite of the dampness

"and chill of the old stone
building,

"which forces the women to wrap
themselves in newspapers,

their spirit is undaunted."

Alice Paul knows that
imprisoned women suffragists,

particularly young,
middle-class women,

make very good newspaper copy.

So she encourages women to stay
arrested, to refuse to pay bail.

Shortly after arriving
at the prison,

Alice Paul went
on a hunger strike.

Doctors forced a tube down
her throat three times a day.

When she became too weak to stay
in her cell, she was transferred

to the hospital,
then the psychiatric ward.

By November 24, Paul had
gone weeks without food.

Most Americans, I think,

thought that Alice Paul
was crazy,

that she had gone too far.

But then a crucial thing
happens.

Late one night in prison,

Alice Paul is visited
by a close Wilson confidante.

Now, we don't know why he went.

We don't know what they said.

But we do know that very soon
after this visit,

Alice Paul encouraged the
National Women's Party

to call off their protests.

And we also know
that very soon after that,

Woodrow Wilson came out
in support of women's suffrage.

Wilson understands that these
are women who are resilient,

who will not give up.

Alice Paul is a force of nature.

The publicity was destroying
the credibility

of the Wilson administration
in many people's minds.

So a deal is struck.

There are images,
and a lot of press coverage

of the women leaving
that prison in blankets,

many of them skeletal because
they've been on hunger strikes.

There's the political reality
for politicians

like Wilson and others
that women are a force.

Despite the possibility
of progress,

Alice Paul continued to accuse
the government of hypocrisy.

"We are imprisoned not because
we obstructed traffic,"

she said, "but because we
pointed out to the president

"that he was obstructing the
cause of democracy at home,

while Americans were fighting
for it abroad."

During the war years,
visitors to the White House

had cause to be concerned
about their own safety.

An aggressive ram, with a
penchant for chewing tobacco,

kept jealous guard over Woodrow
and Edith Wilson's flock

of 18 sheep that grazed
on the grounds.

It regularly attacked members
of the White House staff.

But the ewes produced fine wool,

so the ram remained a menacing
presence on the South Lawn.

The sheep were part
of the Wilsons' effort

to set an example by personally
supporting the war.

The sale of White House wool
raised tens of thousands

of dollars for the Red Cross,

and Edith knitted socks
for soldiers.

She also signed a food pledge,

vowing to forego meat,
wheat, and sugar,

so more of these vital supplies
could be sent overseas.

The First Lady's conservation
efforts helped launch a campaign

to mobilize the nation
around food.

With most of Belgium
and large parts of France

under German occupation,
and farmers off at the front,

millions of Europeans were
struggling to survive.

America, on the other hand,
was an agricultural powerhouse,

whose output of food could
become as important

as its manpower
or its financial resources.

In December 1917,
Herbert Hoover,

America's first food
administrator,

proclaimed "food will win
the war."

It became evident that food was
going to be a weapon in the war.

Herbert Hoover immediately
worked to get Americans to think

that saving food
and conserving food

was the most important thing
that they could do

as individuals
to help the effort.

As many as 500,000
women volunteers

fanned out across
their communities,

urging neighbors to join Edith
Wilson and sign a food pledge.

14 million families put a sign
in their window

showing that they were behind
the campaign.

There was no rationing,

but there were suggested days

where people should give up
certain foods.

Tuesday was a meatless day,
Monday was a wheatless day,

Saturday was a porkless day.

So if someone was buying meat
on a Tuesday,

if you could smell meat coming
from your neighbor's house

on a Tuesday, I think it helped
with the informal surveillance

of friends and neighbors.

They were very sophisticated
in the ways that they tried

to persuade people.

Local newspapers published
the names of people

who contributed or not.

There was a tremendous amount
of pressure, visiting of houses.

And there were lots
of consequences...

Firing from jobs,
being ostracized in a community.

Americans came to feel watched
and came to live

as if they were watched.

There's a real sense of unease

and also maybe of distrust
on the home front.

In some communities, when they
did Liberty Loan drives,

a Liberty Loan committee might
be composed of bankers of a town

who knew who had how much money,

and if they knew that someone
hadn't bought a bond,

the committee might pay
a friendly visit

to see why you hadn't
bought a bond.

And if you still didn't,

then another group of people
might come later at night

with a less friendly visit.

Volunteer organizations
sprang up

to help enforce
the new conformity.

The largest was the American
Protective League,

with over 600 branches and
250,000 card-carrying members

across the country.

These vigilante groups were
there to make sure

that every American was doing
his or her patriotic duty.

Imagine that you're going about
your business,

especially if you're
an immigrant

whose Americanism
is in question anyway,

and you never know where you go

if what you're saying
is being listened to.

At times it was an official in a
uniform, but as often as not,

it was your teacher,
your minister,

the president
of the women's club

who was keeping an eye on you.

Even the famous community
organizer and committed pacifist

Jane Addams could not resist
the pressure.

After weathering a storm of
harsh criticism in the press,

she embarked on a government-
sponsored speaking tour

to rally support
for the food effort.

To oppose the war was a very
difficult position to take

and a dangerous position.

To be an activist even
of a respectable type

like Jane Addams
was very difficult.

You became a public enemy

if you refused to step in line
and support the war.

In late December 1917, an aging
tramp steamer named Pocahontas,

carrying James Europe and the
rest of the New York 15th,

sailed past
the Statue of Liberty.

Anxious to avoid
any more racial incidents,

the Army had shipped
the regiment overseas.

They were now on their way

to join some of the first
Americans in France.

General Pershing had only
four divisions stationed

in relatively quiet sectors
of the Western Front,

where they were
undergoing training

alongside French
and British units.

They participated in
reconnaissance patrols,

and endured artillery
bombardments and sniper fire.

Already 162 Americans
had been killed and 475 wounded.

But when the 15th arrived at
the port of Brest on January 1,

they were promptly assigned

to the logistical arm
of the military,

known as the Services of Supply,

and given the dirty work
of the Army... clearing swamps,

unloading ships, digging graves.

The overwhelming majority
of the men

in these labor battalions
were black.

Most black troops who served
in the Services of Supplies

recognized that this was not
what they signed up for.

This was not their ideal
of what a soldier meant.

They were manning shovels
instead of rifles.

If you're not in a position
to show bravery and courage

as a fighter, then you're not
really a complete soldier.

These are the things
of which soldiers are made

and heroes are made

and what we write about.

We don't write about those
who are digging ditches

or burying the dead.

On the one hand,
these soldiers are so proud

that they are serving.

At the same time,

the Army leadership
is not excited

about having black soldiers.

They are determined that black
soldiers won't see combat.

And their fellow soldiers
are really concerned

that military service doesn't
give them any big ideas

about democracy at home.

For two months, the 15th worked
as laborers in France

and became increasingly
disillusioned.

William Hayward pulled strings
to try and get his unit

to the front lines, while the
regiment's band played concerts

for the men to keep up
their spirits.

One day a pair of talent scouts,

looking for entertainment
for soldiers on leave,

heard them play.

It was an "organization
of the very highest quality,"

they reported,
"led by a conductor of genius."

Europe and his band were sent
south to a rest camp,

stopping all along the way
to give concerts.

When the band relaxed their
military reserve

and launched into
the "Memphis Blues,"

Noble Sissle witnessed
the reaction.

Colonel Hayward has brought
his band over here

and started ragtime-itis
in France.

Ain't this an awful thing
to visit upon a nation

with so many burdens?

But when the band had finished

and people were roaring
with laughter,

I was forced to say
this is just what France needs

at this critical time.

As the reputation
of the New York 15th grew,

it became harder
for General John Pershing

to let them languish

with the rest of the black
troops in labor battalions.

The French and British,
meanwhile,

continued their desperate pleas
for reinforcements.

The French are crying
for American combat troops.

The 15th New York is the most
famous American regiment

in France.

So, Pershing loans them
to the French.

Pershing gives the 15th
to the French

because he's not giving any
white troops to the Allies.

He basically says,

"I'll give you a group
that I don't have much use for."

This turns out to be
a great deal for the 15th,

because they're sent
to a commander

who's used to commanding
African and Arab troops.

He says, "They're black,
my Senegalese are black.

"Okay, let's train them
to be soldiers

as we would any other soldiers."

And so he puts them through
a course of training

where the action
is not too heavy

but you can learn the ropes.

For black Americans,

immersion in the French army
was a disorienting plunge

into a new world.

Many struggled to understand
their French officers,

adjusting to new uniforms,
new rifles,

and the realities
of trench warfare.

Gradually, Sissle
and his fellow soldiers

began to feel more confident.

What they couldn't get used to,
however,

was the way they were treated.

The French soldiers treated
our boys with all the courtesy

and comradeship
that could be expected.

You could see them strolling
down the road,

each hardly able
to understand the other,

as our boys' French was
as bad as their English.

The French officers had taken
our officers

and made pals of them.

It wasn't so much that
the French were colorblind

or universally embraced
African Americans,

but for the Americans
it represented possibilities

of a different type
of racial interaction.

Someone once wrote about
the etiquette of Jim Crow,

that, you know, folks didn't
think about white supremacy

any more than a fish thinks
about the wetness of water.

But when you step out of a
system that people have told you

is the only way that is possible
and then you look around

and there are all of these
people in the world

working under a different set
of rules.

It changes people's imagination
of what they can do

and what everyone else
should be doing.

The New York 15th's journey
from Harlem

had been an arduous
and unpredictable one.

Now with the help of their
French counterparts,

it seemed as though they were,
at last,

ready to prove themselves
on the front lines.

It is very, very hard
to register

how high the casualties were
in the First World War.

Americans I don't think
have ever seen

how simply catastrophic
and destructive it was,

how stupidly ugly it was
in destruction of human life,

limb, property, everything.

War degenerated
between 1914 and '18.

And once you turn on
brutal violence,

you can't just turn it off.

In its fourth year,
the Great War continued to claim

appalling casualties
on both sides.

Now, as millions of young
Americans prepared to ship over

to France, Woodrow Wilson
was determined

that the cause they were
fighting for

would be as great
as the sacrifice

he was asking them to make.

On January 6, 1918, the
president gathered up his notes,

took to his study,
and began work on a speech.

Ever since the outbreak
of the war,

he had sought a pivotal role
for America in the conflict.

He wanted to advance
the nation's strategic

and economic interests, but he
also imagined a sweeping moral

and democratic transformation
of the struggle,

one that would reshape
the post-war world.

By 1917, Wilson knows,
the American public know,

how horrible the war is.

And so he needs to make this
a war that will matter,

a war that will change
the world.

Events in Russia added another
dimension to Wilson's mission.

In October, the revolutionary
Bolsheviks,

led by Vladimir Lenin,

had formed a new government

and vowed to make peace
with Germany.

They offered the world a vision
of socialist equality,

and an end
to the corrupt empires

that had oppressed workers
for centuries.

MARGARET MacMlLLAN:
Lenin, who was in his own way
as great a speaker

and a propagandist
as Wilson was,

said that we are going to build
a new world order,

this is the end of the divisions
among nations,

we're going to build a different
sort of world.

And I think Wilson felt
he was under some pressure

and perhaps obligation to make
the American position very clear

and possibly stake out
a leadership role

for the United States
in any peace that was to come.

On January 8,
the president traveled

down Pennsylvania Avenue
to the Capitol.

Before a joint session
of Congress,

he reiterated why he had felt
compelled to enter the war.

Then, in 14 separate points,

he outlined a plan
for the war's end.

Germany must retreat
back to its borders.

Freedom of the seas
would be restored.

Governments were to respect
the self-determination

of their citizens.

If you're Wilson

and you really want to live up
to the sloganeering

that you used in the war,
if this is not just propaganda,

you don't just have to win
the war,

you have to set up
the conditions

that would really create
that world

you were selling everyone on.

If you want to make a world safe
for democracy,

what's the structure for that?

What's the framework?

This is a realistic way

to go about creating
an idealistic future.

Wilson believes
that this is what

the war is for, right?

That America entered the war

in order to determine
the terms of the peace.

It was the 14th point

that Wilson felt was to be the
keystone of the post-war world:

a League of Nations that would
arbitrate conflicts

between countries.

The League of Nations would be
some kind of new forum

for the resolution of
international disputes,

something really
that never existed before.

Wilson is asking Americans
and the world

to take an enormous leap
of faith

to give up national interest
and national sovereignty

and to give a chance for
international organization

and international arbitration.

There were people already
beginning to think

that the conditions
of modern warfare

were just so unimaginably
destructive

that mankind had to find some
other way to resolve

these perennial conflicts

that the human race seems to get
itself involved in.

MacMlLLAN:
Underlying the whole speech
is this idea

that you can build
a better world order.

This is really an enunciation

of what the United States is
going to be like as a player

in world affairs.

You've got the president saying,
"We're going to get out there,

"we're going to get involved,

"and we don't see ourselves as
just policing our own back yard.

"We see ourselves as somehow
policing the world

and helping the world to find
a better way forward."

Congress greeted Wilson's speech
with a sustained ovation.

It received glowing reviews
and banner headlines

across the country.

Around the globe, the response
was equally positive.

The Star of London gushed
that Wilson was

"the greatest American president
since Lincoln."

When we look back at claims

that this would be the war
to end all wars,

we think that Wilson and
the American people were naïve

to think such a thing
would be possible.

But if you don't ever articulate
that as a national goal,

as an international dream,

well, then you're definitely
never going to accomplish it.

I think Americans believe in
Wilson's vision of the world,

not because they think
it is true,

but because they want it
to be true.

We all know that America is
a nation with interests

that sometimes compete
with those noble goals.

But I think Wilson almost better
than anyone else

articulated that wish,
that better hope

that Americans have for
themselves in the world.

If you've been born and brought
up in the Middle West,

it's a thrill that comes
once in a lifetime...

Your first sight of the ocean.

I'd often stood on top of a hill
at home

where I could see
fields of corn,

with the wind blowing over them,

stretching miles
in every direction.

I used to wonder if their waves

looked anything like the waves
of the ocean.

I saw now that nothing else
in the world

could look like the ocean.

When John Barkley, the young
recruit from Missouri,

stepped off the ship in France,

he was part of the largest
movement of soldiers

across the Atlantic in history.

In just over a year,
the United States had recruited,

drafted, trained, and equipped
over 400,000 men

to fight in the Great War.

Millions more were on their way.

José Sáenz had left his tiny
town near the Rio Grande

and was now almost 5,000 miles
from home.

I am finally in France,
heroic France.

I am eager to do my part
in the great tragedy.

We may not be as disciplined
as the sons of Germany,

but we are committed to fight
for what is only understood

by the sons of democracy:
liberty.

The Americans were called
"doughboys,"

a slang reference to
the infantrymen's buttons

that resembled a doughnut.

Pershing encouraged the nickname

to give his army
a distinctive identity.

His troops liked it too.

The mere arrival of these
fresh American troops

who were healthy,
who were well-fed,

who were well-equipped,
who were eager,

and, most of all,
who were marching east

instead of retreating west

had a great effect
on French morale.

Each month, another 200,000
Americans flooded into France.

Like John Barkley, few had
any idea what awaited them.

I am feeling better than
I ever did in my life.

When the war is over
and I come back,

I will tell you
all about France.

All about its good wine.

You talk about booze
in the States,

they never saw any liquor.

You can go into any wine joint

and get any thing
from 50-year-old wine

up to alcohol,

and believe me, the soldiers
show the French how to drink.

Full of swagger
and self-confidence,

the green American troops
were being thrust into the war

at a critical stage.

The Germans had gambled
that they could prevail

before the Americans arrived
in force.

With Russia out of the war,

the German High Command
was able to transfer

more than half a million
seasoned troops to the west.

In a series of offensives
beginning in March 1918,

German forces attacked
up and down the Western Front.

The quiet sector where the
New York 15th was stationed

was suddenly filled
with enemy patrols

testing the strength
of the American defenses.

Since their arrival in January,

the men from Harlem had become
a more cohesive regiment.

Lieutenant James Europe
was cited for bravery

after participating
in a nighttime raid

across the blasted landscape
known as No Man's Land.

In the early morning hours
of May 15,

privates Henry Johnson
and Needham Roberts

were standing guard
at listening posts

20 yards in front of their own
lines when they heard a noise.

In the dead of night they heard
mysterious sounds,

sounding like wire cutters

and realized that
a German raiding party

was encroaching
on their position.

Johnson and Roberts sounded
the alarm

as a volley of German grenades
exploded all around them.

Almost immediately,
Roberts was badly injured.

Henry Johnson began
to fight back,

killing one German soldier with
his rifle at point blank range.

A second German rushed
towards him,

firing a pistol and wounding him
in the thigh and foot.

Johnson swung his rifle
by the barrel

and clubbed him senseless.

He pulls out this
what he calls a bolo knife,

which is a heavy,
two-bladed knife.

Another German comes in
to finish him off,

he rises up with the bolo,
disembowels the guy.

At this point he's been shot
half a dozen times,

in the foot, in the face,
in the arm.

As the Germans retreated,
Johnson kept throwing grenades

until he passed out
from loss of blood.

He had been wounded more than
20 times, mostly from gunshots.

When the light dawns
the following day,

there are half a dozen corpses
of German soldiers

and blood trails marking another
half dozen wounded

who have crawled away
through the wire.

The next morning,
a proud William Hayward

arranged for a group of
reporters to be escorted

to the scene of the fighting.

It's this story that is picked
up by all of the papers,

black press and white press,
as a story of heroism.

The white press is a little
more given to stereotype

and minstrelsy.

And the black press,
on the other hand, builds him up

into this superhuman hero

that is emblematic of all black
manhood and all black potential.

Henry Johnson and Needham
Roberts became household names.

They were the war heroes

that black America
had been searching for.

Johnson and Roberts are
literally the first heroes

of the war because
there's a censorship

that prevents the naming
of any American unit or soldier,

but because the 15th is serving
with the French,

they don't come under
censorship.

And it goes into the newspapers

as the "Battle
of Henry Johnson."

Johnson and Roberts are awarded
the Croix de Guerre

by the French Army, which is
the highest military honor.

This is a monumental event
for the morale of the regiment

and also for their
self-confidence.

It was proof of what
they were capable of doing.

You know, "We're some bad dudes
and there's a lot more to come

and a lot more
that we have to show."

Out of all the publicity,

the press conjured up a nickname
for the regiment.

From that point forward,

the men from New York
would be known

as the Harlem Hellfighters.

The success was a vindication
not only for the New York 15th,

but for the hopes
of African Americans

all across the country.

"Let us, while this war lasts,
forget our special grievances,"

the activist W.E.B. Du Bois
wrote,

"and close our ranks,
shoulder to shoulder

"with our white fellow citizens

"that are fighting
for democracy.

If this is our country,
then this is our war."

There's a black solider from
Virginia who filled out a survey

about his war experience
after the fact.

And they asked him what the war
had done for him.

His response was,
"I have the world's experience."

He had lived his whole life in
this corner of coastal Virginia,

and being dropped into
the current of world events

had made him realize
he was a global subject.

I think his answer
and his experience stands in

for all of the folks for whom
the war for democracy

was really about defining
what it meant to be an American.

As Americans were beginning
to fight and die in France,

the war was also generating
casualties at home.

An Indiana farmer named James
Goepfrich had to take refuge

in the county jail
when a mob found out

that he had threatened
a Liberty Loan committee

at his front door.

Adolph Anton, a bartender from
Ashland, Wisconsin,

was tarred and feathered
for his "pro-German utterances."

A German-American coalminer
named Robert Prager was accused

by some of his coworkers
of being a spy.

A mob formed and stripped Prager
of most of his clothes,

dragged him through the streets,
and hanged him from a tree.

The Washington Post
celebrated the murder.

Big parts of the American public
lost their minds

about the nature of the society
they lived in

and the threat they faced
from their neighbors

who happened to have
German names.

Rather than reining in
the violence,

the federal government took
steps that fueled

the climate of hysteria
sweeping the country.

At Wilson's urging, on May 16,
1918, Congress passed a new law

called the Sedition Act

that made it illegal to say
almost anything

against the United States
or its armed forces.

The Espionage Act was considered
not even strong enough,

so it's amended in 1918
with the Sedition Act

that basically creates
enormous penalties

for not only speaking out
against the war effort

or obstructing it, but really
for criticizing America

in almost any way.

The maximum sentence
was 20 years,

just for going to a bar

and grumbling about
food restrictions

to somebody who was sitting next
to you at the bar.

Or questioning what we were
really fighting for...

Anything at all that might
interfere with the war effort,

with morale of troops.

The Sedition Act is probably
the greatest suppression

of free speech
that the country has ever seen.

Wilson had a very firm
conviction

that he was going to do
everything he could

to protect his fighting men.

That meant if anyone was going
to say something

that might put an American
soldier in further harm's way,

he, the president,
could step in and stop it.

A draft which forced people
to put on a uniform

is a very severe curtailment
of the liberty of individuals.

For Wilson, the nation has to be
united in order to justify

this possible death sentence.

Civil liberties became a price
that had to be paid

in order for a democratic nation
to wage war.

The passing of the Sedition Act
prompted a wave

of new crackdowns and arrests.

A poet who wrote a satirical
piece about the United States

was imprisoned.

When a Bavarian waiter cursed
the slow speed

of the New York City subway,
he was promptly arrested.

The conductor of the
Boston Symphony Orchestra

supposedly refused to play
the "Star Spangled Banner"

and found himself
in an internment camp.

No one was safe from the reach
of the new law.

Even one of the nation's
most articulate

and respected political figures,

the socialist and labor leader
Eugene Debs, was arrested.

Debs is a symbol

of unending opposition
to the war.

He gives a speech at a picnic
in Canton, Ohio,

saying things he's said before.

But the Justice Department
decides he has to be

cracked down on at this point.

So he's arrested
and put in jail.

Wilson denounced
the radical leader.

While "the flower of American
youth was pouring out its blood

to vindicate the cause
of civilization,"

the president wrote, "this man,
Debs, stood behind the lines,

sniping, attacking,
and denouncing them."

At the start of the war,
Wilson predicts

that once the war starts,
once they're in the war,

Americans will forget everything
they ever believed

about civil liberties.

But in fact it's Wilson
who forgets

everything he ever believed
about civil liberties.

Becoming the president
of a nation at war

with a population that's not
entirely behind the war,

he adopted the most stringent
methods to limit dissent

and limit resistance
to the war effort.

Wilson was a man who was able
to carry two contradictory ideas

in his mind at the same time
and not go crazy.

He absolutely had no qualms
doing what he did at home,

all the while waging a war
to make the world safe

for democracy.

By the late spring of 1918,

General John Pershing's
American Army had grown

into a force approaching
one million strong.

All the while he had steadfastly
refused to allow his men

to fight under French command.

But the situation
on the Western Front

threatened to force his hand.

During a tour
of the battlefield,

Pershing shared a meal with
a French general and his staff.

"It would be difficult
to imagine

a more depressed group
of officers," Pershing recalled.

"They sat through the meal
scarcely speaking a word

"as they contemplated
what was probably

the most serious situation
of the war."

The German spring offensives had
been devastatingly effective.

Elite storm troopers
penetrated Allied lines,

allowing German divisions
to pour through the break,

rupturing the stalemate
that had existed for years.

Now German troops had advanced
to within striking distance

of Paris...

Their huge siege guns lobbing
shells into the French capital.

Prime Minister Georges
Clemenceau made plans

to evacuate the government
to Bordeaux.

Thousands of Parisians
fled the capital.

The Germans are bearing down
on Paris.

I mean they're within 50 miles.

They can hear the guns.

They can almost feel
the concussion it's so close.

The stakes could not
have been higher.

On May 30, the French
commander-in-chief,

Philippe Pétain,
came to see Pershing.

The general guided the American
commander to a map on the wall

and pointed to the town
of Château-Thierry

on the Marne River.

Couldn't Pershing commit
his men, he implored,

to help hold the line here?

Pershing gave the only answer
he could.

Events go faster
than Pershing expects.

Pershing had plans for a lengthy
training program

for American soldiers,
but once the Germans begin

their spring offensives towards
Paris, he's faced with a choice,

do you let the Germans advance

or do you just start throwing
men into battle

before you feel they're ready

because the situation requires
you to do that?

Pershing committed 56,000
doughboys, under French command,

and rushed them towards
the front to save Paris.

A weak point in the French line
was in danger of giving way.

It was centered around
an ancient forest

near Chateau Thierry that the
Americans called Belleau Wood.

Belleau Wood was
a hunting preserve

for French aristocrats.

It was about half the size
of New York's Central Park.

Very twisted growth.

Very dense.

As German soldiers
moved into Belleau Wood,

they saw it was a natural
fortress of dense trees

and rocky outcroppings.

They fortified it with
hidden machine gun nests

and layers of barbed wire.

One American officer remembered
the wood as a "dark threat,

"dangerous as a live wire,
poisonous with gas,

alive with snipers."

To stop the German advance,

the French needed to take back
the woods.

They gave the job to a brigade
of the U.S. Marines.

Founded as a fighting force
on board naval vessels

during the Revolution,

the Marine Corps had seen action

in almost every
American conflict since.

The Marines were conditioned
to be very, very hard men,

to take anything, to never
give up, to never retreat.

But they were also simply
better trained as marksmen.

Marine units were rushed
into position

on the morning of June 2,

along a four-mile front with
Belleau Wood at its center.

French forces were in the midst
of a full-scale retreat.

As he passed by, a French major
ordered an American captain

to withdraw as well.

"Retreat, hell!"
the captain shot back.

"We just got here."

The dense forest of Belleau Wood

was interspersed
with farmers' fields.

And they were all planted
with wheat.

What this meant is that
to approach Belleau Wood,

the Marines had to advance out
in the open through this wheat.

An American war correspondent
was with the Marines that day.

It was "a beautiful sight,"
he wrote,

"these men of ours going out
across those flat fields

"towards the tree clusters
beyond from which

the Germans poured a murderous
machine gun fire."

Rows of Marines were cut down.

As the men struggled across
the field,

a gunnery sergeant yelled,
"Come on, you sons of bitches,

do you want to live forever?!"

Once the Americans gained
a toe-hold in the woods,

the two sides proceeded
to hammer away at each other

in a murderous exchange.

Sections of Belleau Wood
changed hands seven times

over the course of the battle.

The fighting was too intense
to bring in reinforcements,

food, or medical supplies.

Bodies lay where they fell,
decomposing in the intense heat.

Soldiers survived by scavenging
food from the corpses

and drinking stale beer
from dead Germans' canteens.

The Marines were on their own.

There was found on the body
of one young German soldier

a letter to his family
in which he said

the Americans are insane,
they want to kill everything.

This perception
was absolutely accurate.

And they did it,
and they did it with guns,

they did it with bayonets.

They would have done it with
their bare hands if they had to.

Finally, after three weeks
of near constant combat,

the Marines took
their objective.

On the morning of June 26,

their commander received
a simple message.

"Woods now U.S. Marine Corps
entirely."

Somehow, the Marines at
Belleau Wood had held the line.

Now, everything depended on
whether the Americans

could help stop the German
advance outside the small town

of Chateau-Thierry.

John Barkley and the rest
of his Third Division

were stationed on the southern
bank of the Marne River,

the last obstacle standing
between Paris

and the advancing Germans.

The artillery fire had stopped,

but the machine guns
were still banging away.

I consulted my map
and then I knew where we were.

Just over that hill
was Château-Thierry.

We started up the hill
toward the sound of the guns.

For months I'd heard, thought,
lived, nothing but war.

And I hadn't known
a damned thing about war.

Now it had really begun for me.

This is the crisis moment.

The American Army is there
to stem the German tide

at a moment when nobody really
knew they could do it.

The Germans launched a massive
offensive along the Marne.

They knew they had to get things
done very quickly

or else things were going
to turn against them.

And there's a ferocity
and a desperation

in the Germans' attack
on that day.

It really was, for them,
do or die.

On the opposite banks
the Germans were swarming.

Just to our right they were
forcing a crossing by boats

and pontoons.

Many of them were already
on our side of the river.

It seemed to me at first

that I was the only one
firing on that crowd.

And then a couple
of machine gunners

hidden on the slope above me
chimed in...

One good machine gun
and one sickly one,

which seemed
not to be working well.

The sound one was flaying groups
of Germans on the far bank.

But they went right on.

Despite appalling casualties,
the Germans kept coming,

pushing across the river and
through the wheat fields

toward the Allied lines.

French forces on either side
of the Third Division fell back,

exposing the Americans' flanks.

Barkley and the rest
refused to retreat.

They dug into their position
and kept on firing.

The Germans couldn't locate me,

and I went on
piling up the score.

I had to wrap a bandoleer
around my hand

in order to hold my rifle.

It was burning hot.

I dropped down behind the bank
a moment to pour water

from my canteen over the gun
and through the barrel.

My ammunition was nearly gone.

Through the curtain of dust,

the noon sun looked like
a smoky ghost of itself.

The Third Division pushed the
Germans back over the river.

It was the only place
along the Marne

that the Germans
were pushed back that day.

And because the Germans were
held up at the western edge

of the line,
they weren't able to proceed

with the rest
of their offensive,

and the offensive stalled.

Three days later, the Allies
launched a counter-offensive

that drove the Germans back
across the Marne.

For its dogged determination,

the Third Division would earn
the nickname

"The Rock of the Marne."

At Belleau Wood, almost 5,000
Marines were killed or wounded.

Yet three weeks of
savage fighting imbued them

with an aura of tenacity that
would become an indelible part

of their identity.

The Germans had been
fed the line

that the Americans can't fight.

So they weren't really prepared
for this,

and I think from this point on

they have a very
different opinion

of whom they're up against.

What came to be known as the
Second Battle of the Marne

was a pivotal moment
in the Great War,

and a rite of passage
for the American doughboys.

After weeks of intense fighting,

thousands of men
in John Barkley's division

had been killed or wounded.

He had emerged from the fighting
unhurt, but not unscathed.

My birthday is the 28th.

I don't know how old I am,
I lost my age at the front.

It is very often that case.

The jar of shells and the rumble
of artillery changes everything

with a man morally, makes a man
look at things different.

Throughout June
and July of 1918,

the names of thousands of
Americans killed in the fighting

began to appear in the pages
of the nation's newspapers.

It was the bloody harvest that
had so tormented Woodrow Wilson

as he led his country into war.

Anxious to avoid
the grim spectacle

witnessed throughout Europe of
mourners dressed all in black,

Wilson approved a proposal.

Grieving mothers and widows

"should wear a black band on
the left arm with a gold star

"for each member of the family

who has given up his life
for the nation."

The president knew

that many more women
would be wearing armbands

in the months to come.

General John Pershing was about
to lead his American troops

into the decisive conflict
of the war.

A victory would validate
America's place

on the battlefield and cement
Woodrow Wilson's claims

for influencing the peace.

No one could have imagined
that it would be the biggest

and deadliest battle
in American history.