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Like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. This year is the centennial of the beginning of world war i. To mark the occasion the National World war i museum in kansas city hosted a panel of historians to discuss causes and enduring impact of european conflict. This is 1 hour and 10 minutes. I think if we look back a century ago to the start of the First World War, it seems that the world is still at war, we saw a passenger plane shot down leaving hundreds dead in the clash between ukraine and russia, conflict in syria, what, you might ask, does this have to do with world war i. The answer might surprise you. Im barbara pinto, ill be moderating our discussion today. And first i will introduce you to the gentlemen who will bring this discussion to life. On the left is dr. Chad williams associate professor and chair of afro american studies. Next to him, dr. Braiden tunsel from the university of south florida. Executive direct over fie alpha theta National Honor society and board member of the world war i association. And last but not least, author of borrowed soldiers, americans under british command 1819, he is a National Archivist who also teaches history at the u. S. Naval academy. Thank you for joining us. Gentlemen, our panel of experts will be answering questions from me. If youre watching live, they can also answer questions from you as well. Theyll be taking questions from our audience. You can tweet questions to us Facebook Page at world war i spelled out. World war i centennial commission. We have been watching this cries unfold the past few weeks. He filed this report for us last week before the most recent round of cease fires. Somehow i ended up at the wrong war, on sunday morning i had a ticket to iraq and by monday evening, i was on my way to gaza. Since i have been here, i have seen a failed cease fire, i have seen an escalation, i have seen hamas, the, that pretty much runs gaza accused of targeting civilians with these multiple rocket attacks out of gaza. They have eventually as of today killed one person. I have seen israel say they were striking military targets and among the 213 people they have killed, according to outside organizations, Something Like half or more of those people are civilians. Some of whom are seen up close. 213 killed now, 1,565 wounded as of today. And if you look at the skyline behind me, there have been plumes of smoke because of the israeli air, land and sea strikes that have sieged this area. There have also been multiple rocket attacks coming out of this area, and of course we have seen the results in the streets. There have been dozens of homes of hamas leaders. Some political. All destroyed, buildings like the police station, the ministry of the interior. Any center of power here in town has been targeted, the israelis have struck over 1,000 targets and they say they have thousands more to go. I talked to families today who left their homes days ago, heard about a ceasefire yesterday and were told again with israeli leaflets dropped from the sky to leave their homes near gaza, and return to gaza, a city is not prepared to handle the 100,000 people that have been asked to leave their home. There is likely to be a humanitarian crisis here. This is a city with a shortage of water, there is a shortage of electricity, most people get about 8 hours a day. And there is a shortage of food. This place has 50 unemployment. 80 of people here live in poverty and receive food aid. And i have noticed that this is a conflict with no end in sight. I was at the home of a hamas official today, that was destroyed, his name was mahmoud zahar. Whats interesting is that in 2004 his home was destroyed, his son was killed and his wife was injured. Another son was killed in a separate engagement with israel. And then here today, it all happens over again. And we await a ceasefire and hope whatever happens at the end of this conflict will make a substantial difference between israel and palestine over the long run. This conflict seems to have no end. But the beginning may have been more clear cut. How does this fighting in israel and gaza relate back to world war i . Its a pleasure to be here. You have to know world war i to understand the conflict going on now. In 1914, sheriff hussein, an arab leader, a local arab leader approached the British Government about alliance because the turkish empire controlled all the middle east. In 1915, you have the famous mcmahonhussein correspondent where the arabs are told, yes, you can ally with us, but we will control iraq and all these areas, we will be supreme. Thes areas, we will be supreme. And its accepted after a long silence. But the key is in 1918, the here the british informed the jewish people that they would have a new homeland and assured the arabs that they would not be disturbed. Using the word disturbing, the british never intended any of what they said in this time. You have to remember, britain was the largest imperial empire in the world, closed 25 of the earths surface at this time. In 1918, you have a military cam palestine, which was on the level of what they anticipated for world war i, but the key to winning palestine for the british is it would cover the flank for the suez canal. It was a gem zostone in their empire. The tragedy that a lot of people are not aware of. And this is what the arabs look back with a lot of dislike, on july 7, 1918, a joint declaration was made by the british and french governments promising that if the arabs continued to fight against the turks they would be given their independence and agreement. This was going to happen over and over again, and was never intended. When the war ended, the british soldiers, actually most of them were indian, asian and african. There was an immediate mobilization because people at home wanted the war to end. What happened was, no one anticipated but between 1919 and 1922, every area, because theyre not states yet, in the middle east rose up p and revoted. Because at versailles, they thought president wilsons selfdetermination gave them their freedom. Wilson and lloyd george and clemsonson only intended that selfdetermination to be in europe. So you had these uprisings. In 1922, they finally start to stettal down and iraq and egypt become quote, independent. No, the british still control them. They want the oil in mesopotamia, which is todays iraq, because they originalably did a mess sew poe tanian the first real weapon required oil. But it in the 1920s, that the arabs nationalism starts to rebuild and with it islamic evolution. In 1935, you have a major af9 uprising and palestine is crushed, but where the trouble starts before the Second World War is that in 1939, the British Government issued their socalled white paper or white statement, where they said you cannot have independence for ten more years and it caused a lot of trouble. Now what happens when world war ii breaks out, is that many of the arab leaders will support the nazis because its the imperialistic british and french who have controlled them. This becomes important but also the fact that hitlers army beat france in 1940 and embarrassed the british in 1941 and 42 in the pacific. The middle east is never again going to be the same. Again in 41, syria and lebanon are promised their freedom at the end of the war. This has to has been because by then britain and france are defeated as major imperialistic powers. The key here is 1947 after world war ii. This is when the british decide they cannot handle the religious problems in palestine or india, we want to turn it over to the u. S. And we said no. But to make a long story short, as soon as the United Nations are claims the birth of israel, there is a war in 1948. There are other wars, 67, 73, this brings in the great powers, because after world war ii, in africa, asia and particularly in the middle east, all the nationalists could get weapons they could not get before. Between 67 and 73, the arabs switch to a ill wrap up by saying you have the Palestinian Liberation Organization with arafat and now its hamas controlling that area, i call it a more dangerous ireland, its over religion, but this is not going to be settled for a long time. Youre saying it all goes back to world war 1 . All the way back to world war i at the beginning. We need to think of world war i as an imperial war. In many respects that was a war about empire, all of the major blij rents were major imperial powers, controlling vast amounts of land, resources as well as people all around the world, in africa, in asia, in the middle east, and many observers at the time, recognized that the roots of the war lay in the National Rivalries over imperial control, over these different parts of the world. So its important to think about whats happening today, in gaza, in israel, in ukraine, but also in other areas, in iraq, syria, as was mentioned, in africa, and sudan. The congo, as being the results, the legacies of imperialism, the drawing of National Borders that many many respects were arbitrary that disregarded the national, ethnic and religious identities of the people who live there had. When we think about what world war i means today in our current world, in many respects were still experiencing the struggles over selfdetermine nation that emanated the hopes and aspirations of many all over the world at the end of the war and are still being fought for today. Just to sum it up, one of the points that dr. Thompson made about the end of the war, the armies were more interested in demobilization, getting people home, and that was reporting about whats going on in the middle east, but it really wasnt much of a concern in this country, but as time went on, after the war, were celebrating, were moving on from the war, it wasnt possible in the middle east, and things were exacerbating and of course getting worse, and now were concerned and its the top news story thats going on. Russia and ukraine, seems to be spinning out of control. Also with these groups during world war i, how did this all start . Trouble between the ukraine and the great russians, the moscowvites start back in the middle ages, but with world war i, in 1918, the germans had conquered a good part of the eastern part of europe and the russians had dropped out of the war with the revolution in 1917. The ukrainians declared themselves a separate republic. The treaty was negated with the peace treaty at versailles. But i want to mention, which is is critical to understand the ukrainerussia and other things. At the end of the war, we all know four empires collapsed. German, austria hungarian, russian and turkish, this whole area is where youve got to understand the Second World War is going to be born because the peace treaty of versailles did not resolve what world war i was fought about but actually is going to increase the problems, my colleagues will go into that later. But i want to mention in 1920, poe land was reborn. It had not existed since 1795. Well the poles went to war against the balshivic ss. They also got control of the polish territory. The treaty of versailles could object hold if the United States was there and our senate voted down the treaty, so the treat which depended on britain and france policing the treaty. Britains not going to do it. Her biggest trade partner is germany, so shes not going to do it. But the danger was in the east, because the treaty of versailles was dead if germany or the soviet union became great powers and they did about the same time and their mutual enemy was poland. If you realize this, you understand better the match nations with hitler in the western front achkd the eastern front. But in the war, the ukrainian nationalists fought both the soviet and the ukraine and continued until 1947. Lady president crew chef will threaten and send plague germs for pregnant women and children and it says ukrainian nationals get out of the forest or your women and children die and that ended that. But when you start the cold war, the soviet union takes the Eastern Empire as a protected area against invasion from the west, keeping the threat of germany which is dead in 1945. However, what happens then is, and Many Americans arent aware of this, one quarter of the former soviet union atomic missiles are still in the ukraine. And by the fact that we are trying to toy with the ukraine and support them again in the eu. Its the same and cuba and the United States in 62. And excusing the people in the proesz, i dont believe the press because most of what they say is ball loney, the in fact their entire navy consisted of almost all ukrainian sailors. So we Start Playing and trying to get them to revolt, which we never do, of course. Putin has a right and that is only going to be resolved after much more blood shed, it is not going to end overnight. Thank you. Just to add one, again to circle it back to the First World War, a lot of people dont know that there were american troops in north russia and siberia and there were regiments when other american troops were winding down on the western front, we still had troops well into 1919 and later who were also sin support of the white russians and there were a number of americans who lost their lives in an area we dont think of as an area of war. In fact josef stalin said that the cold war began when troops landed in 1919. You talk about how all this circumstan circles back to the First World War, and that seemed to precipitate even more war. Did the people who came up with the treaty of versailles and the other agreements, what did they not understand . I think part of it, when you look at the french, for example, there was a lot of anger, of course, they wanted retribution against the germans, a lot of their infrastructure was destroyed, a lot of citizens, the same thing with the belgins, a lot of their populations died at the hands of germans, so you have a lot of anner, you have a lot of animosity of going after the germans, and i think that animosity let to the germans having this treaty and the United States was kind of on the peripheral, as president wilson was kind of running it as the referee, it was never ratified in the United States and it ended up being more, i think, of the other allies kind of controlling things at the table. Well, i think in some ways it also reflected the limitations of american influence, when it came to the effort of internal dynamics of europe and really the deep seated hostilities that were at the core of the war, and how the wilson and all of his idealism, self determination, creating an International Order of diplomatic relations was not ultimately effective in appea appeasing the different nations that were trying to sit down at the table and to resolve this great conflict, which ultimately led to the next great conflict of the 20th century. But i think even looking more specifically at the american perspective, and wilson specifically, his lack of attention to domestic affairs, the fact that when he was in versailles negotiating the peace treaty, america is inflames, you have race riots taking place in the country, you have labor unrest. You have a tremendous amount of domestic upheaval, that affected the politics of getting the treaty passed through congress, which ultimately didnt happen. So i think theres a number of different factors looking from the perspective of the United States and wilson specifically, that speech why versailles was also a failure. George clements played wilson like a fiddle. In particular, you mention about the league of nations, the main weakness that had no army was controlled by britain and france, as the u. N. Was when it was originally created in 1942. Whenever wilson would stand up and say this is how he gave into the mandates for asia, africa and the middle east. He was convinced by lord george and clemmen son who had to be snickering under his breath. But in the middle east, they will be free soon. And wilson fell for it. The main other point is, because im a european historian, is the austria hungarian empire was destroyed, created seven countries that could not exist alone and nationalism was the key. And this, if you go back to what i said earlier, if germany becomes a great power of the soviet union, these countries are there for picking, because they were nationalistic, each one had at least onethird of other races within them. And they all wanted to rule on their own and wilson never visited the battlefields once, never understood what the war was about. And i hate to say it lloyd george and clemmons came out the winners in versailles. I think its important to take a closer look back at the four years that were world war i. How to describe that war . History channel asked some historians and authors to give it a try in one word. If i had to choose one word to describe world war i it would be cataclysmic. The one war would be catastrophic. Transformational because nothing was the same once the war was over. The one word to describe world war i is destructive. I would choose the word mistake, stupid, thats how i would encapsule late the first would war. World war i did not have to happen. There was no inherent reason, it literally was dumb. A person during wo