Connection Across Time

World War One serves a very big lesson for everyone today. Many people say that history is there so we can learn from our mistakes, and WWI was a very big mistake, that cost a lot of human lives. The world can learn what not to do, and can see the signs of the outbreak of a total world war. I think that WWI is one of the two biggest events in recent history that the world can learn from, with WWII being of course the second example. I think that these two wars will make countries think before acting, because they have seen what kind of destruction a "blank check" can do to the people of not only their country, but of the world.

American Event #2

Woodrow Wilson

 Charles Evans Hughes

My second US Event that happened in the same time frame as WWI is the Presidential election of 1916. The incumbent, Woodrow Wilson, ran against the republican candidate, Supreme Court Justice, Charles Evans Hughes. Woodrow won by a narrow margin, but won none the less. He used the slogan "He kept us out of war" during his campaign. I think this is very ironic, considering that very shortly after the election, the United States entered WWI. Had Wilson lost this election, the US may not have entered WWI, or Hughes may have had a very different approach to the war, changing how the US was involved.

American Event #1

My first US Event (not related to the war) is the opening of the Panama Canal, on August 15th, 1914. The US played a huge role in the construction of the Panama Canal, spending the ten years before the opening toiling away, building the humongous canal between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Before the US worked out a treaty with the Panamanians, the French had attempted to start construction on the Canal. Due to a lack of funds to finish the project, and major human losses, the French abandoned work on the Canal. The Canal was a major contribution to worldwide shipping, and made getting from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans and vice versa much easier. I think it is one of the greatest contributions that the US has made to the world as a whole, due to the fact that it is still in use, and is used by ships from all over the world on a daily basis.

Spotlight On...

Women in the War.
Women played a giant role in WWI as nurses, mothers, workers, and rarely soldiers. Not only did they care for their children and take care of the house, but many of them also cared for the hurt, wounded, and dying soldiers on the war grounds. I think that women do not get enough credit for the role that they played during WWI as nurses and mothers. Along with those two roles, women also took over the jobs of the soldiers that were shipped overseas, keeping the workforce going, as well as their families.

Art of the War

I chose these three posters to represent the artwork of the period, because there was a very large amount of political and recruitment posters during the first world war. The poster above is an American advertisement, trying to get people to help with the war. I chose this piece because it shows just how much people needed to do in order to keep up with the demands of wartime, and to keep their country going. The bottom left poster is an Irish military advertisement, trying to get Irishmen to volunteer but saying that it is the good Irish thing to do. I chose this particular poster because it shows how needy countries were for troops, and they went to different measures to try and get volunteers. I like this one because it tried to make men feel guilty for not being good Irishmen and enlisting, by essentially calling them bad countrymen. The bottom right poster is an American Navy recruitment ad, trying to get volunteers by saying that they would make a very big impact on the history of America. I like this poster in particular because I have always had a soft spot for the Navy (my grandfather was a sailor), and because like the others, it had a sort of guilt complex to it. I like seeing the different techniques that different armies and governments used to get more out of their citizens.

Important Figure #3

  My third and final important figure of World War One is
Ferdinand Foch
He was the general of the French Army during WWI and gained a lot of respect for his military work. His greatest achievement was being named the "supreme commander" of the Allied Armies. He was the officer who accepted the request of an armistice from Germany, and ended the war. I think that the acceptance of this request is what makes him on of the most important people in the war, because he was the one who O.K.ed the end of a long and bloody total war.

Important Figure #2

My second important figure is
Kaiser Wilhelm II
I chose Kaiser Wilhelm because of the fact that he was the leader of Germany, the biggest threat during WWI. His role as
emperor landed him on my list. His country was the one that was the biggest "instigator" in the war, and they were the ones who lost the most through the Treaty of Versailles. He led his country to fight the biggest war in history, and they ended up losing (although not technically, because the end of the war came through an Armistice, not a real "defeat"). The most important role he played in the war was his "blank check" to Austria that made the war start to spread all over Europe, and not just stay between Austria and Bosnia.