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On April 6th, 1917,

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the United States of America
declared war on Germany.

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For two and a half years, the most
powerful nation in the world

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had stood apart
from Europe's mortal struggle.

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Now at last she was drawn in.

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Many months would pass before her
soldiers could be ready for battle.

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But to the war-weary Allies, she
brought a new vision of victory.

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CHEERING

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America had travelled a long road
since August 1914.

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The outbreak of war in Europe
at first barely touched
the American people.

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Its coming took a form
hardly physical at all.

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It came as newspaper dispatches
from far away in the distance
and even farther away in spirit.

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The dispatches
were as if black flocks of birds
frightened from their rookeries

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came darting across the ocean,
their excited cries
a tiding of stirring events.

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In 1914, Europe's quarrels seemed
to be no concern of Americans.

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They were a nation
born out of the need to become
and remain separate from Europe.

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George Washington
had expressed their creed...

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Why quit our own
to stand upon foreign ground?

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Why, by interweaving our destiny
with that of any part of Europe,

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entangle our peace and prosperity
in the toils

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of European ambition, rivalship,
interest, humour or caprice?

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FAIRGROUND MUSIC PLAYS

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The separatism which inspired
the first Americans helped to drive
forward the new nation's expansion.

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In the 19th century, millions
of personal decisions by Europeans

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to break away from the fetters
of the Old World

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brought a swift increase
of population to America.

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Every immigrant fought
his private War of Independence

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when he took the decision to uproot
himself from the land of his birth
and cross the Atlantic.

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Give me your tired, your poor

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Your huddled masses
yearning to breathe free

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The wretched refuse
of your teeming shore

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Send these, the homeless,
tempest-tossed to me.

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These Americans
wanted no part of Europe.

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It was a new world
that they were seeking.

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They found the fruits
of isolationism sweet.

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They acquired greater wealth
and material power
than the world had ever known.

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In America,
men could make vast personal
fortunes with astounding speed.

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Andrew Carnegie, when he retired,
gave away 350 million.

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America was the land of promise.

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Poor men could grow rich
almost overnight.

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They could also remain very poor.

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In the Dust Bowl, in the factories
of Detroit, Baton Rouge or Chicago,

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in the cities with their slums
which matched the slums of Europe,

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there was squalor, misery,
bitterness.

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For many immigrants and their sons,
it was a poor exchange

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to escape servitude
to Europe's hereditary princes,

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only to find servitude
to Wall Street's tycoons.

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Tycoons were tough.

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The first battles of American
trade unions were battles indeed.

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32 men were killed
in a coalfield strike in Colorado.

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A bomb in the printing works
of a Los Angeles newspaper
killed 19 people.

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Then we went to hear Emma Goldman
at the Bronx Casino,

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but the meeting was forbidden
and the streets were crowded.

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There were moving vans, said to be
full of cops with machine guns.

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Everybody was talking machine guns,
revolution,

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civil liberty, freedom of speech,

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but some got beaten up by a cop
and shoved into a patrol wagon.

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Everyone said it was an outrage. And
what about Washington and Jefferson?

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Yet America offered abundant space
to her people,

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with a sense of promise
never far away.

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By the turn of the century,

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the frontier, the legendary, luring
frontier of the West, had vanished.

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From the Atlantic to the Pacific,
the nation was won.

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Americans who had confined
their expansion within their coasts
began to look beyond them.

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While Britain was fighting in
South Africa, America fought Spain

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and became a surprised imperialist.

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She freed Cuba and she acquired the
rich Philippine Islands and Hawaii.

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Spokesman of the extrovert American
mood was Theodore Roosevelt,
twice Republican President...

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Our nation,
while first of all seeing
to its own domestic wellbeing

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must not shrink
from playing its part

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among the great nations without.

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Speak softly

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and carry a big stick.

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Roosevelt's
bounding personal vitality

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matched that of a nation whose
pioneer days were barely finished,

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which recognised no challenge
which the human muscle and spirit
could not overcome.

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After his presidency,
Roosevelt departed for a long tour
of Africa and South America.

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He had made America's voice heard
in the world's affairs.

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He intervened in the Russo-Japanese
War, spoke up when France and
Germany quarrelled over Morocco,

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seized Latin American territory
to build the Panama Canal.

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His ideas carried the American
people beyond their present
understanding of themselves.

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In 1914,
after 20 years out of office,

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the Democrats swept back to power
on the rallying cry of "Reform".

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President Woodrow Wilson
voiced the nation's concerns.

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We have been proud
of our industrial achievements,

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but we have not hitherto
stopped to count the human cost.

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Our duty is to cleanse,

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to reconsider, to restore...

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every process of our common life.

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When war broke out in Europe,

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America's president seemed likely
to keep her out of it.

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Woodrow Wilson was an austere,
withdrawn intellectual, the son
of a Presbyterian clergyman.

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He had lived in the seclusion
of the academic world.

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His orderly mind found difficulty
in grasping the complex dilemmas
of the world outside the campus.

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But all his instincts
were for peace.

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Sometimes
people call me an idealist.

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Well, that is the way
I know I am an AMERICAN.

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America is the only idealist nation
in the world.

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ENTHUSIASTIC CHEERING

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The idealism of the American people
was often confused

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and coloured with the boastfulness
of a young and thriving country.

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Any American mechanic could see that
if the Europeans hadn't been a lot
of ignorant, underpaid foreigners

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who drank, smoked, were loose about
women and wasteful in their methods
of production, there'd be no war.

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Most Americans were well satisfied
when Wilson stated the nation's
posture towards Europe's war...

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We must be impartial in thought,
as well as in action.

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Must put a curb upon our sentiments,
as well as upon every transaction

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that might be construed
as a preference of one party
to the struggle before another.

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Many Americans of British origin
were two ways torn.

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It was New England which had first
rebelled against King George.

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The memory of rebellion,
long distrust of British policy,

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some irritation at the sight
of the Union Jack in Canada,

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conflicted with an instinctive
condemnation of German aggression.

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Affection towards France,
which had helped the colonies
in their rebellion,

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then imitated them by becoming
a republic, was another factor.

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And 15 million Irish Americans
whose forebears had been forced
to emigrate by hunger and poverty

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could not easily forgive
their English oppressors.

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There were millions
from Russian territories -
Poles, Ukrainians, Jews -

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with memories of pogroms
and the secret police,

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who loathed the notion
of a Tsarist victory.

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There were over 11 million
Americans of German descent.

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Many were powerful figures, willing
to put forward Germany's case.

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England's only grudge was that
Germany has grown commercially,
financially and industrially

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to a position which threatens
to crowd England into a second rank.

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Jealousy appears to control
this English attitude.

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And what is Germany fighting for?
Does she want anything from anybody?

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She wants to be left alone.

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The delicate balance of American
sympathy was soon disturbed.

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Germany's invasion of Belgium
outraged American opinion.

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Life magazine wrote...

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If we see anything right at all
in all this matter, Belgium
is a martyr to civilisation.

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Sister to all who love liberty
or law, the great unconquerable fact
of the Great War is Belgium.

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Strict impartiality was easier
to proclaim than to preserve.

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As the impact of war sank in,

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invasion, destruction, atrocity,
authentic or not,

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American opinion swayed
upon a deep underwater tide.

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Yet this tide of pro-British
sentiment might be reversed

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by the exigencies of war itself.

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The exercise of British sea power
had always grated upon America.

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Britain's blockade of Germany meant
the searching of American ships,
the seizure of contraband cargos.

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A flood of protests
poured into the White House.

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The British Chancellor of the
Exchequer, Lloyd George, wrote...

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Germany's chief power was on land,
Britain's on the sea.

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Germany's invasion of Belgium,
her devastation of France,

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might arouse disinterested wrath
in America, but it did not touch
American pockets.

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On the other hand,
Britain's firm measures

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to prevent contraband of war
from reaching Germany

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and her wide and constantly widening
interpretation of contraband

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caused serious inconvenience
to American shipping and direct
interference with American business.

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Left to itself, this friction might
have developed into a fatal sore,

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but German action swung the tide
of sympathy against her once more.

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U-boat attacks on merchant ships,

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sunk with their crews aboard
or left to die in their boats,

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were more shocking
than the Royal Navy's blockade.

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The loss of America's trade with
Germany was not to be such a blow.

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She found a new, insatiable market.

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The Allies would buy all the
munitions that America could make.

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A temporary slump
turned into an unprecedented boom.

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Righteous sentiment might coincide
with self-interest after all -

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an ideal circumstance
for judicious propaganda.

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In the field of propaganda, the
Allies enjoyed a vast advantage.

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The Royal Navy had ripped up
the German transatlantic cables
from the ocean bed.

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Only the Allies now had direct
access to America's public ear.

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As the months went by,

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the Allied version of events loomed
ever larger in the American press.

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Gradually the true meaning
of neutrality was eroded.

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Yet, for a while,
its outward forms remained.

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In May 1915, there were
great issues at home to distract
American minds from Europe's war.

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Prohibition was one of them -

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a cause
which stepped into every home.

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Already 14 states had gone dry

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and a nationwide campaign
was demanding total prohibition
of the sale of alcohol.

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There were dissenters.

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Campaigners for women's rights
were active

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and women, on the whole,
also supported Prohibition.

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In May, the fastest British liner
afloat, the Lusitania,

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left New York for Liverpool.

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Aboard were 2,000 passengers
and crew...

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and 5,000 crates of ammunition
for the Allies.

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On the day before, the German
Embassy in Washington had published
an announcement in the press.

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This warned that Allied ships,
including passenger liners,

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were liable to be sunk by U-boats.

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It meant that the Lusitania's
passengers travelled at their own
risk, but few paid much attention.

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On May 7th, Commander Schwieger's
U-20 was waiting for her.

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She fired two torpedoes.

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EXPLOSION

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Her commander noted in his log...

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Great confusion on board. Lifeboats
being cleared and lowered to water.

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Many boats crowded, come down bow
first or stern first in the water

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and immediately fill and sink.

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1,153 people went down
in the Lusitania,

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including 114 American citizens.

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Some of the Lusitania's dead
were brought to Ireland for burial.

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The American press
blazed with indignation.

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Germany has affronted
the moral sense of the world

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and sacrificed her standing
among the nations.

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The sinking of the Lusitania
was deliberate murder.

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Once more, the pendulum of American
sympathy took a violent swing.

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It was no longer just a question
of which side America favoured.

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It became a matter of whether
America herself might fight.

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Theodore Roosevelt said...

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This represents not merely piracy,

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but piracy
on a vaster scale of murder than
old-time pirates ever practised.

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It is warfare against innocent men,
women and children on the ocean

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and our own fellow countrymen and
women who are among the sufferers.

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It seems inconceivable

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that we can refrain
from taking action in this matter,

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for we owe it not only to humanity,
but to our own national
self-respect.

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Amid all the passion,
President Wilson kept his head.

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The principles of a lifetime
sustained him.

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The example of America must be
the example not merely of peace
because it will not fight,

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but of peace because peace is
the healing and elevating influence
of the world and strife is not.

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There is such a thing
as being too proud to fight.

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Proud, certainly. And rich. America
was now the arsenal of the Allies.

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HER booming prosperity was closely
linked to THEIR fortunes.

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If U-boats could not check
the flow of vital war material
from America to Europe,

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Germany must try other ways.

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She turned to sabotage.

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Warehouses and factories supplying
the Allies were burnt down,

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bombs were planted,
a huge espionage and sabotage ring
was uncovered.

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It had spent nearly 30m of German
government money, disbursed through
the military and naval attaches.

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America insisted on their recall.

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Her relations with Germany
deteriorated further still.

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Yet the months went by
without any definite consequence

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of America's ripening hostility
towards the Central powers.

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The anniversary of the Lusitania's
sinking approached.
It was April 1916.

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Suddenly once more the pendulum
took a counter-swing.

227
00:21:12,880 --> 00:21:18,360
The Easter Rebellion in Ireland
was suppressed by British forces.

228
00:21:18,360 --> 00:21:23,240
The execution of captured rebels,
spread over ten days,

229
00:21:23,240 --> 00:21:28,880
infuriated
millions of Irish Americans
and revived their ancient hatred.

230
00:21:28,880 --> 00:21:31,920
The British ambassador
in Washington reported...

231
00:21:31,920 --> 00:21:35,600
The attitude towards England
has been changed for the worse.

232
00:21:35,600 --> 00:21:39,920
Our cause for the present
among the Irish here is a lost one.

233
00:21:42,840 --> 00:21:46,120
In America,
1916 was an election year.

234
00:21:49,400 --> 00:21:52,080
The war was the dominant issue.

235
00:21:52,080 --> 00:21:56,400
The election campaigns
of the parties crystallised
the sway of opinion.

236
00:21:56,400 --> 00:22:03,960
Neutralism, the desire to stay out
of the war, still possessed a
doughty champion in the President.

237
00:22:03,960 --> 00:22:08,720
Support for this policy was strong
in the Midwest and Pacific states.

238
00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:14,120
Europe's war
seemed more remote there
than on the Atlantic seaboard.

239
00:22:14,120 --> 00:22:19,560
At the Democratic convention,
Wilson was renominated
presidential candidate.

240
00:22:19,560 --> 00:22:23,760
The chairman quoted
from the Sermon on the Mount.

241
00:22:23,760 --> 00:22:26,440
Blessed are the peacemakers

242
00:22:26,440 --> 00:22:30,520
for they shall be called
the children of God.

243
00:22:30,520 --> 00:22:33,200
He was applauded to the echo.

244
00:22:35,280 --> 00:22:37,800
Up and down the United States,

245
00:22:37,800 --> 00:22:42,520
Wilson's campaign slogan was,
"He kept us out of the war."

246
00:22:42,520 --> 00:22:49,120
The Republican candidate against
Wilson was Charles Hughes, strongly
backed by Theodore Roosevelt.

247
00:22:49,120 --> 00:22:51,640
Their policy was preparedness.

248
00:22:51,640 --> 00:22:54,160
They wanted a bigger army,

249
00:22:54,160 --> 00:22:58,560
universal military training, more
aggressive American leadership.

250
00:22:58,560 --> 00:23:01,080
Roosevelt taunted Wilson with...

251
00:23:01,080 --> 00:23:07,120
The shadows of men, women
and children who have risen
from the ooze of the ocean,

252
00:23:07,120 --> 00:23:09,640
the shadows of babies,

253
00:23:09,640 --> 00:23:13,480
gaping pitifully
as they sank under the waves.

254
00:23:13,480 --> 00:23:16,720
The shadows of deeds
that were never done.

255
00:23:16,720 --> 00:23:22,160
The shadows of lofty words
that were followed by no action.

256
00:23:22,160 --> 00:23:23,800
The shadows...

257
00:23:23,800 --> 00:23:25,560
of the tortured dead.

258
00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:32,240
Woodrow Wilson was re-elected,
but his majority fell sharply.

259
00:23:32,240 --> 00:23:35,800
The portents
were becoming unmistakable.

260
00:23:35,800 --> 00:23:39,320
Yet Wilson clung to his ideal
of peace.

261
00:23:39,320 --> 00:23:45,480
There will be no war.
This country does not intend
to become involved in war.

262
00:23:45,480 --> 00:23:50,160
It would be a crime against
civilisation for us to go into it.

263
00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:55,560
Once again,
it was Germany's own acts which
swung the balance against her.

264
00:23:55,560 --> 00:24:01,120
On January 31st, 1917, Germany
informed America of her intention

265
00:24:01,120 --> 00:24:05,240
to carry out
unrestricted submarine warfare.

266
00:24:05,240 --> 00:24:08,680
This meant that all shipping,
including neutrals,

267
00:24:08,680 --> 00:24:10,920
whether carrying contraband or not,

268
00:24:10,920 --> 00:24:14,720
would be sunk at sight without
warning anywhere in Allied waters.

269
00:24:17,600 --> 00:24:24,680
Stage by stage,
President Wilson's campus ideals
were battered down by war reality.

270
00:24:24,680 --> 00:24:29,160
Stage by stage, he resisted
the evidence and its implications.

271
00:24:29,160 --> 00:24:33,080
I refuse to believe that it is the
intention of the German authorities

272
00:24:33,080 --> 00:24:37,120
to do in fact what they have warned
us they will feel at liberty to do.

273
00:24:37,120 --> 00:24:42,520
Only overt acts
can make me believe it.

274
00:24:45,720 --> 00:24:48,680
Wilson was forced to believe.

275
00:24:48,680 --> 00:24:51,640
As vessel after vessel went down,

276
00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:54,840
Germany's ruthless determination
became evident.

277
00:24:56,000 --> 00:24:59,360
The German ambassador in Washington
was handed his passport.

278
00:24:59,360 --> 00:25:05,520
America broke off diplomatic
relations and drafted a bill
to arm her merchant ships.

279
00:25:05,520 --> 00:25:08,320
Now she stood on the brink of war.

280
00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:14,560
The last act needed to drag her in
was not slow in coming.

281
00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:23,840
In 1917,
four-fifths of America's small army
was embroiled with Mexico.

282
00:25:23,840 --> 00:25:28,720
Relations between the US and her
Latin neighbour were never easy.

283
00:25:28,720 --> 00:25:32,560
The border along the Rio Grande
was rarely quiet.

284
00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:36,600
Mexico's successive revolutions
alarmed America,

285
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:41,240
threatened her commercial interests
and the lives of her citizens.

286
00:25:42,440 --> 00:25:46,480
To Germany, this distant
preoccupation was a godsend.

287
00:25:46,480 --> 00:25:51,520
If the American army was busy in
Mexico, it couldn't come to Europe.

288
00:25:51,520 --> 00:25:55,400
Germany proposed an alliance
to the Mexican government.

289
00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:59,440
Germany makes Mexico a proposal
of alliance on the following basis.

290
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:02,520
Make war together,
make peace together,

291
00:26:02,520 --> 00:26:06,680
generous financial support
and an understanding that Mexico

292
00:26:06,680 --> 00:26:12,120
is to reconquer the lost territory
in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

293
00:26:12,120 --> 00:26:16,120
We suggest Mexico should invite
Japan's immediate assistance

294
00:26:16,120 --> 00:26:19,200
and mediate
between Japan and ourselves.

295
00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:26,480
This was the secret
Zimmermann telegram,

296
00:26:26,480 --> 00:26:30,920
one of history's
most explosive documents.

297
00:26:30,920 --> 00:26:34,920
British naval intelligence
had broken the German codes

298
00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:40,560
and selected its moment carefully
to inform America
of the contents of the telegram.

299
00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:42,640
They came as a thunderclap.

300
00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:46,680
This was a conspiracy to attack the
very homeland of the United States.

301
00:26:49,120 --> 00:26:51,600
Isolationism withered away.

302
00:26:51,600 --> 00:26:53,520
The Peace Party collapsed.

303
00:26:56,520 --> 00:26:59,360
The fire-eaters rose
in their wrath,

304
00:26:59,360 --> 00:27:04,160
headed by a characteristic bellow
of rage from Theodore Roosevelt.

305
00:27:04,160 --> 00:27:10,440
This man Wilson is enough to make
the saints and the angels, yes,
and the Apostles, swear

306
00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:12,600
and I would not blame them.

307
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:15,840
My God! Why doesn't he do something?

308
00:27:15,840 --> 00:27:20,680
If he does not go to war with
Germany, I shall skin him alive.

309
00:27:22,360 --> 00:27:25,760
This was the end
of the President's dream of peace.

310
00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:29,280
While he took
his last agonising decisions,

311
00:27:29,280 --> 00:27:32,440
Germany for the last time
fortified his resolve

312
00:27:32,440 --> 00:27:36,880
by torpedoing three American
merchant ships in one day.

313
00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:41,080
Now there was no choice.
The peacemaker must go to war.

314
00:27:41,080 --> 00:27:48,720
On April 2nd, 1917,
Woodrow Wilson drove to the Capitol
to deliver a momentous address.

315
00:27:48,720 --> 00:27:54,240
The wrongs against which we array
ourselves are not common wrongs.

316
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:58,080
They cut to the very root
of human life.

317
00:27:58,080 --> 00:28:01,120
I advise that Congress declare

318
00:28:01,120 --> 00:28:06,800
that it formally accept
the status of a belligerent
which is thrust upon it.

319
00:28:06,800 --> 00:28:11,920
It is a fearful thing to lead
this great peaceful people into war,

320
00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:15,960
into the most terrible
and disastrous of all wars,

321
00:28:15,960 --> 00:28:19,720
civilisation itself
seeming to be in the balance.

322
00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:23,560
But the right
is more precious than peace.

323
00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:27,200
The world must be made safe
for democracy.

324
00:28:32,520 --> 00:28:35,280
Wilson spoke for the whole nation,

325
00:28:35,280 --> 00:28:40,760
yet the ecstatic cheers with which
it applauded him only filled him
with sorrowful wonder.

326
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:45,280
My message today was a message
of death for our young men.

327
00:28:45,280 --> 00:28:49,240
How strange it seems
to applaud that.

328
00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:52,040
America was at war at last.

329
00:28:52,040 --> 00:28:58,080
The mood which swept her
echoed the passionate violence
of Europe in 1914.

330
00:28:58,080 --> 00:29:00,600
Winston Churchill wrote...

331
00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:05,600
Pacifism, indifference, dissent
were swept from the path

332
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:09,120
and fiercely pursued
to extermination.

333
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:13,080
And with a roar of slowly gathered,
pent-up wrath,

334
00:29:13,080 --> 00:29:17,000
which overpowered in its din
every discordant yell,

335
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:19,560
the American nation sprang to arms.

336
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:21,400
CHEERING

337
00:29:22,440 --> 00:29:29,120
All America's competitiveness,
all her genius for publicity, were
channelled into the war effort.

338
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:32,960
The first war loan
was oversubscribed by 50%.

339
00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:35,480
Anti-German feeling ran riot.

340
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:39,200
Wagner's music was banned.
Dachshunds were stoned.

341
00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:43,040
Sauerkraut was rechristened
liberty cabbage.

342
00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:48,320
And Potsdam, Missouri, hurriedly
changed its name to Pershing.

343
00:29:55,600 --> 00:29:57,720
Newspapers, magazines and posters

344
00:29:57,720 --> 00:30:00,960
provided constant fuel
for the nation's passion.

345
00:30:00,960 --> 00:30:04,880
Even in a prayer before
the House of Representatives,
Germany was remembered.

346
00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:09,760
Thou knowest, O Lord,
that no nation so infamous, vile,

347
00:30:09,760 --> 00:30:15,160
greedy, sensuous, bloodthirsty,
ever disgraced the pages of history.

348
00:30:15,160 --> 00:30:18,360
Young men swarmed
into recruiting centres.

349
00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:23,400
But with memories of the breakdown
of volunteering in the Civil War,

350
00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:26,920
the government
rushed through a conscription bill.

351
00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:31,280
Every male between 21 and 30 had
to register for military service.

352
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:35,440
Only 4% of the ten million
available failed to do so.

353
00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:40,000
680,000 were selected by ballot
for the first draft,

354
00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:43,240
the most America could possibly
equip and train at once.

355
00:30:52,720 --> 00:30:55,200
ENTHUSIASTIC CHEERING

356
00:30:55,200 --> 00:31:01,080
American womanhood, determined not
to miss this opportunity of proving
itself equal in a man's world,

357
00:31:01,080 --> 00:31:03,880
joined the war effort
with equal fervour.

358
00:31:21,600 --> 00:31:24,840
The task which faced America
was tremendous.

359
00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:27,360
President Wilson said...

360
00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:32,760
It is not an army that we must shape
and train for war. It is a nation.

361
00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:37,400
American industry was heavily
committed to supplying the Allies.

362
00:31:37,400 --> 00:31:42,440
Now the Secretary for War needed it
to arm and supply her own soldiers.

363
00:31:42,440 --> 00:31:47,760
War is no longer Samson
with his shield and spear and sword,
and David with his sling.

364
00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:52,960
It is the conflict
of smokestacks now, the combat
of the driving wheel and engine.

365
00:31:56,040 --> 00:31:59,480
The government called in
the great business tycoons.

366
00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:05,520
Bernard Baruch was placed
in charge of coordinating
all the nation's resources.

367
00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:09,360
Private shipping was commandeered
and new shipyards were built

368
00:32:09,360 --> 00:32:15,400
for the enormous task of
transporting and supplying an army
across 3,000 miles of ocean.

369
00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:41,000
Agriculture and food conservation
were organised and publicised.

370
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:43,920
Life magazine urged its readers...

371
00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:48,640
Do not permit your child to take
a bite or two from an apple
and throw the rest away.

372
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:53,720
Even children must be patriotic
to the core.

373
00:32:53,720 --> 00:32:59,960
Like Britain in 1914,
America was a naval power
with only a small regular army.

374
00:32:59,960 --> 00:33:03,960
Immediately she placed her fleet
at the disposal of the Allies.

375
00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:16,600
On May 4th, 1917, the first
American warships reached Britain.

376
00:33:16,600 --> 00:33:20,680
Admiral Beatty welcomed the
reinforcement to Britain's fleet.

377
00:33:27,560 --> 00:33:29,600
But it was the American army,

378
00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:34,240
the influx of her inexhaustible
manhood, that Europe was awaiting.

379
00:33:34,240 --> 00:33:39,360
It was hard for the Allies to grasp
the problems that faced the USA.

380
00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:43,360
The strength of America's army
was only 80,000 men

381
00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:46,400
and most of them
were on the Mexican border.

382
00:33:46,400 --> 00:33:51,840
To turn this tiny force
into a trained army of hundreds
of thousands, perhaps millions,

383
00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:53,160
was a stupendous task.

384
00:33:57,200 --> 00:34:02,400
Huge camps were built
at breakneck speed and men began
training in them almost at once.

385
00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:07,640
The peaceful nation adapted itself
to war with a speed and efficiency

386
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:10,640
which the President
had grimly prophesied.

387
00:34:10,640 --> 00:34:13,440
Once lead this people into war

388
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:17,400
and they'll forget there was ever
such a thing as tolerance.

389
00:34:17,400 --> 00:34:23,240
A spirit of ruthless brutality
will enter into the very fibre
of our national life.

390
00:34:23,240 --> 00:34:26,600
BATTLE CRIES

391
00:34:26,600 --> 00:34:30,520
Conflicts arose
between America and her allies -

392
00:34:30,520 --> 00:34:34,920
conflict between America's need
for munitions and Allied needs,

393
00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:39,640
between the demand of the Allies
for immediate reinforcements

394
00:34:39,640 --> 00:34:43,400
and America's determination
to build a great army,

395
00:34:43,400 --> 00:34:45,800
as befitted
her station among the powers.

396
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:51,480
Allied missions, headed
by Marshal Joffre for France,

397
00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:55,600
and by Mr Balfour and General
Sir Tom Bridges for Britain,

398
00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:57,680
pleaded for American soldiers.

399
00:35:00,120 --> 00:35:02,200
The Allies would have to wait.

400
00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:06,240
America was irrevocably determined
upon her course.

401
00:35:06,240 --> 00:35:12,200
The Yanks were coming, but they
would come as a United States Army
with a United States general,

402
00:35:12,200 --> 00:35:14,680
General Joseph Pershing.

403
00:35:14,680 --> 00:35:18,200
They would come in the fullness
of time and not before.

404
00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:23,920
Until then, the Allies must
make shift to do without them.

405
00:35:28,080 --> 00:35:31,680
But for encouragement,
as a token of what would follow,

406
00:35:31,680 --> 00:35:37,320
a handful of Americans
headed by Pershing
came to Europe to show the flag.

407
00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:40,880
They disembarked at Liverpool
to a hero's welcome.

408
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:43,600
As we stepped off the gangplank
onto British soil,

409
00:35:43,600 --> 00:35:47,320
the band struck up
The Star-Spangled Banner,

410
00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:51,120
this being the first time in history
that an American army contingent

411
00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:53,240
was officially received in England.

412
00:35:53,240 --> 00:35:56,400
BAND PLAYS US NATIONAL ANTHEM

413
00:35:59,920 --> 00:36:02,560
ENTHUSIASTIC CHEERING

414
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:08,600
They went on to London, followed
by the same tumultuous cheering.

415
00:36:08,600 --> 00:36:12,520
MUSIC: Elgar's
"Pomp And Circumstance March No 4"

416
00:36:41,920 --> 00:36:44,440
Pershing was greeted by the King.

417
00:36:44,440 --> 00:36:51,280
It has always been my dream that
the two English-speaking nations
should some day be united

418
00:36:51,280 --> 00:36:53,800
in a great cause.

419
00:36:53,800 --> 00:36:56,320
And today my dream is realised.

420
00:36:57,600 --> 00:37:02,880
Together, we are fighting
for the greatest cause
for which peoples could fight.

421
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:07,280
The Anglo-Saxon race
must save civilisation.

422
00:37:11,920 --> 00:37:15,080
The triumphal progress
continued into France.

423
00:37:15,080 --> 00:37:17,600
# Over there, over there

424
00:37:17,600 --> 00:37:21,760
# Send the word
Send the word over there

425
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:26,640
# That the Yanks are coming
The Yanks are coming

426
00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:31,200
# The drums
rum-tumming everywhere... #

427
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:33,400
In Paris, it swelled to a frenzy.

428
00:37:34,600 --> 00:37:37,800
# Send the word
Send the word over there... #

429
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:43,760
All felt that they were present
at the magical operation
of the transfusion of blood.

430
00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:49,640
Life arrived in floods
to reanimate the mangled body

431
00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:55,200
of a France bled white by the
innumerable wounds of four years.

432
00:38:06,960 --> 00:38:09,680
At his new headquarters
in the Hotel Crillon,

433
00:38:09,680 --> 00:38:14,440
Pershing was called out
onto the balcony by the crowd
in the Place de la Concorde.

434
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:19,640
A breeze caught the folds
of the French flag
and in a spontaneous gesture,

435
00:38:19,640 --> 00:38:23,960
the normally unemotional
American pressed it to his lips.

436
00:38:23,960 --> 00:38:25,560
CHEERING

437
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:27,760
BAND PLAYS "Over There"

438
00:38:38,520 --> 00:38:45,120
No conquering army could have had
a more rapturous welcome from
its own people than France gave

439
00:38:45,120 --> 00:38:51,640
to this handful of inexperienced,
untried, but vigorous and cheerful
American soldiers.

440
00:38:51,640 --> 00:38:57,440
As yet, their fighting value
was almost nothing, but
their moral effect was everything.

441
00:38:57,440 --> 00:39:03,560
To the onlookers in the streets
of Paris, it was one of the most
poignant moments in history.

442
00:39:03,560 --> 00:39:07,640
The New World was coming
to redress the balance of the Old.

443
00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:14,720
# And we won't come back
till it's over over there

444
00:39:18,720 --> 00:39:22,880
# And we won't come back
till it's over over there. #