Giant with Feet of Clay: The U.S. Army Enters WWI - Richard S. Faulkner

At the centenary of United States’ entry in to World War I, join noted and invigorating lecturer, Dr. Richard Shawn Faulkner, for an examination of how the U.S. Army met the myriad of difficulties presented in entering the fray in the Great War and the country’s effectiveness as a fighting force.
The John J. Pershing Lecture Series is presented in partnership with the Command and General Staff College Foundation.
For more information about the National WWI Museum and Memorial visit theworldwar.org

[@smithnwesson990]

Its amazing looking back that prior to ww1 the United States military ranked 18th in the world behind Romana. A lot has changed.

[@jamieyoho2310]

Just discovered Dr Faulkner! Very impressed

[@davidlemor]

Same as , very professional and informative .

[@filipeamaral216]

Colonel Richard S. Faulkner is one of my favorite lecturer. His narrative is always a pleasure and I feel like I am back at a bootcamp classroom. This subjet also interests me because the American military mission training the Brazilians for WWII had very similar complaints about our army preparation; it is an interesting parallel.

[@Skanzool]

Excellent presentation. Dr. Faulkner is one of the best historians and always gives very good lectures.

[@tlivingston001]

Great lecture and great lecturer! I enjoyed this very much.

[@tnarggrant9711]

Suicidal Cheerleader tactics is my favorite military niche.

[@paulconrad6220]

Awesome metal band name

[@edsteadham4085]

Just a fantastic lecturer.

[@sarapatricius8473]

Thank-you Dr. Faulkner for another most interesting lecture!

[@CatWithBagOnHead]

Laura's voice is like music

[@davidchardon1303]

Was the BEF, really the spearhead of the 100 days offensive ? On the Western Front, the 1 November 1918 : French Army : - 102 infantry divisions, 6 cavalry divisions - 2,659,084 men and 630,440 horses - 5,578 heavy guns and 1,626 trench guns - 50,700 chauchats and 30,664 heavy MG's - 1,272 tanks - 3,609 planes British Army : - 60 infantry divisions and 3 cavalry divisions - 1,721,890 men and 388,00 horses - 2,197 heavy guns and 2,570 trench guns - 20,000 lewis and 4,632 heavy MG's - 611 tanks - 1,678 planes (!!!) American Army : - 31 infantry divisions and no cavalry division - 1,821,449 men and 151,250 horses - 746 trench guns and 406 heavy guns - 18,465 light MG's (most of them being chauchat CSRG 1918 and the rest being BAR's) and 6,239 heavy MG's - 91 tanks (lol) - 2,032 planes

[@siddislikesgoogle]

That's over 6 million men combined. an astonishing number.

[@Swift-mr5zi]

In the final 100 days of the Great War the BEF engaged, and defeated, 99 of the 197 German Divisions in the West. Between July 18 and the end of the war, the French, American and Belgian armies combined captured 196,500 prisoners-of-war and 3,775 guns, while British forces, with a smaller army than the French, engaged the main mass of the German Army and captured 188,700 prisoners and 2,840 guns. British forces captured only 8,000 fewer prisoners and 935 less guns than the other allies combined

[@daniel8728]

Shocking to see how Americans 100 years ago felt about interventionism!

[@TalonAshlar]

Wilson was by no means committed to neutrality he allowed the cards to fall where they may and then intervened on the winning side.

[@virgil9303]

Sources?

[@creepincreeper9836]

He certainly wasn’t committed to neutrality but he started funding the brits and French pretty early in the war, while playing into British propaganda to help demonize the Germans.

[@PMMagro]

USA started out selling to "anyone" turning a blind eye to the British blockade off Germany. Not so ok with German U-boats though. Are they worse? Once Russia can't pay anymore and also France is out off cash USA accepts UK as payer and starts handing out exensive credit. Huge ones, to the Entente... Sure the British propaganda helped as the US goverment did not stop any and played into it. As the warexports to Europe grows and grows and the US loans to the Entennte are huge now USA NEED them to win to get paid within a decade or two almost. In that sense I agree but US was always pro Entente. Also the US need to be in the peace terms making for teh future no matter what.

[@edwardrichardson8254]

Woodrow (“He kept us out of war” Wilson entered us into that war not because of Lusitania (which the Germans rightfully sunk) but because we had extended the Entente around $10 billion in loans and goods and it looked as if that train was going to get robbed. The Doughboys were little more than America’s Pinkertons. Now I know Wilson was a HUGE democracy fanatic and utopian League of Nations global world order dreamer, but the war debt was the central gear turning all other gears in the American war machine. Not surprisingly, Wilson creates the federal reserve and was issuing so many liberty bonds left and right, Congress adopted its first debt ceiling, though the term is laughable now. The late great historian Ralph Raico referred to this as the Warfare-Welfare State and you see it repeated again in WW2.

[@rosesprog1722]

Yep, that's right, so much for freedom and democracy, he kept us out of the truth.

[@alganhar1]

Except the war was essentially won by the winter of 1917 - 1918, its just no one realised it. The RN Blockade was biting by that point, hard, Germany was low on several vital resources. It was being out produced by both Britain and France in Artillery, Machineguns, aircraft and other weapons of war *before* the US declared war. The Spring Offensives were scary but took nothing of strategic importance, and in exchange Germany lost a million men she could not replace, a huge proportion of them from her finest. And this is all before US troops entered the fight in significant numbers. To be frank Germany would have lost even WITHOUT the involvement of the US, what is true however is that US involvment meant the war was won in 1918 rather than 1919 or 1920, thus saved several million lives. However, this is with hindsight, and hindsight is easy, whether those there at the time realised this is far more debatable.....

[@rosiehawtrey]

Wrong. He came in because of the Zimmerman telegram. That was what pushed it over the edge.

[@spacemanspud7073]

Even if that's the case, Germany herself supplied a superb _caucus beli_ with the Zimmerman telegram. If you say only a serious threat of war is too slim of a reason to launch one, it's not as if Germany launched the current war for anything more (Also the U-Boat campaign was in full swing so Germany was literally attacking Americans)

[@lindencamelback2305]

Would our founding fathers think today's military (its size & importance in the world) be a scandal or our destiny?

[@mugwump58]

I opine that the Model of 1917 is a much better "combat" rifle than the '03.

[@alganhar1]

I have to agree, I always find it amusing how Sgt York is always shown as using a 1903 but in the action he won his Congressional Medal of Honour he was using a Model 1917.... I think the major downside of the 1917 compared to the 1903 was that the 1917 is a heavier rifle. The 1903 is a wonderful rifle, but If i was shoved back in time and given a choice of battle rifles for the period I would choose either the original Pattern 14 the Model 1917 was converted from, or the SMLE. The 1903 is a wonderful rifle, a friend of mine has allowed me to shoot his, but if I was around in 1916 I would prefer either the 10 round magazine and rapid fire of the SMLE, or the superb sight of the Pattern 14 which became, with adjustments for ammo, the sight of the 1917.... Which is good, as in the UK it was much easier to find a 1917 for my collection than it was to get hold of a 1903! So the 1917 became my US addition to my WWI rifle collection....

[@toomanyuserids]

Leave time on an Essex carrier or a flock of Fletchers or all the logistics goes back into the 30s. FDR got that right.

[@toomanyuserids]

We had seized ships in 1917 b ut if you don't have transport to the field you are useless

[@philiproseel3506]

Sons and "daughters" In 1917? Sons and daughter.

[@christopher480]

amazing video except one of his last comments.........how do you spend over a trillion dollars in Iraq if you dont have a large military industrial complex......so....yeah hes completely wrong. He should have said not as large as then.

[@roynormannlee]

U r lucky u didnt enter the war in 1915...

[@LucidFL]

28:26 Uh, does he realize all these immigrants are White?

[@anon-soso-anon]

Not by the standards of the day. Italians, Greeks, and Jews weren't considered white at the time. Irish were looked down on. The country wasn't as accepting as it is today. There were waves of immigrants and each group faced resentment and discrimination from segments of the American population.

[@DMU386]

Extremely different times. Italians, irish etc were considered second and third class citizens during this period in history

[@thermionic1234567]

“Sons and daughters!” What are you talking about? In World War One we had the good sense to keep women out combat.

[@quintenvankasteel2437]

Women served as nurses and in the signals corps in WW1

[@DMU386]

@@quintenvankasteel2437hence why he wrote “out of combat”

[@clivejones5546]

Why does the USA have a WW1 museum? You were hardly there.

[@edsteadham4085]

Clive my grandfather left our peaceful shores and was sent to Europe in the attempt to bring the catastrophe that Europeans created. Then my dad did the same in WW2. You're welcome. We appreciate the wonderful acreage Europe gave us for those beautiful cemeteries to bury our dead.

[@finallyfriday.]

"You were hardly there" applies to most of UK in the last 75 years.

[@edsteadham4085]

And if the us hadn't shown up when we did in WW1 the Germans never would have retreated. We brought men by the millions and guns and butter by the billions. Not to denigrate the heroic army's of the UK and Frances but this was not our fight. But we fought anyway. You're welcome.

[@edsteadham4085]

Hell my grandfather had already left Europe once (Italy) never I tending to return. Wilson and Pershing had other ideas.

[@angelaholtkamp7317]

This museum is the only one if its kind in the world. It offers a view of the whole war and not just one country. The people of Kansas City raised most of the money for the original museum within 2 weeks. They also renovated it in the early 2000's. It does not get any money from the federal government. There are a lot of memorials around the country for ww1. We had soldiers die over there and did not want to forget their memory. Not everyone could make it to over to Europe to visit their boys. Just because we did not fight in the war for very long does not mean it did not affect us. We forgave the war debt to our allies in both world wars. WW1 had a dramatic effect on the entire world and the decisions made by the treaty affected the rest of the 20th century. Close to one third of Americans have German ancestry. The use of German language was outlawed in some states. We helped supply both sides before we entered the war. Please don't belittle our involvement.