up next, timothy orr explains why the first world war with was unique. then a discussion on oh the archaeology of the western later, maritime archaeologist joseph hoyte talks about naval confrontations during that time. american history tv visited norfolk, virginia, to a symposium harking the world war i centennial. ethics timothy orr describes how world war 1 was different from previous wars and highlights major battles this introduction is about a half hour.

at this time dr. timothy orr will'd rour sessions, a of professor of history at old dominion university specializing in american military history and the hicks of the civil war. he's written on union mobilization and the lives of union soldiers. his research focuses on partisan conflict in the army of the potomac and also, a diverse set of interests, u.s. naval dive bombing during the battle of midwayment he teaches american history, virginia history and the history of the civil war and reconstruction. dr. timothy orr. [ applause ] >> on september 13, 1917 a soldier received the iron cross second class. one of 5.1 medals !aácgwt by the

german army. he was not pleased. he first said the medal offed him a sense of compensation for services but the more he looked at it the more despicable the medal appeared. the day after he received it he wrote, when i was left alone for a few minutes with the cross i had different thoughts from he focused on the colors and said he began to5p'z imagine th nightmare colors he had seen on the western front. all things that were black but crusted in yellow. he wrote, it seemed like the cross were made of shell splinters, black blood congealed on a yellow dead face.

ban daniels crusted with pus, strangled cries of horse voices, gangrene flesh on a leg. the thought unsettled him. he was scheduled to return to the front the next day. he didn't want to see all those black and yellow sights again. four days later he was killed. his opinion of the hollowness of glory well defined the ex peeshs of the great war. the symbol of the iron cross took on two meanings. one, the symbol of courage and fortitude. the other, the emblem of suffering and death. one was the vision of the strategist and politicians with the medal ought to symbolize. the other was a vision of the soldiers, those who remembered

high minded ideals, love of country and patriotism were essential to the human character. how could such a transformation happen so quickly? i would contend that the sweeping forces of organization accounted for the speed with which humanity destroyedist from 1914 to 1918.t2pqf strategist plans accelerated that the restraints were broken

down. in short the emphasis on order and organization produced the senselessness and chaos that marked the battles in the western front. a cursory survey of the military history of the great war from strategic levels to the world view of the ordinary fighter gives one the sense that organization and disorder went hand in hand. when the great war began it didn't find the military planners in europe flat footed, unrehearsed or unaccepting of the new conflict. indeed for years with france and germany possessed precise plans of invasion. plan, namedíjp for the chief of staff from 1891 to 1906. this strategy entailed a massive movement through belgium, bypassing france's fortresses with five german armies constituting a massive right hook against the french defenses. although the new chief of staff greatly altered the strategy in the years before 1914, the thrust and inadequacies are

firmly in place. the french possessed an elaborate plan labeled plan 17. one constantly tinkered with in the months before the war involving a massive offensive sbened to slam into the german left flank on the border between lorraine and alsace. nooert of the nations felt unreadiness when the diplomatic situation broke down this the summer of 1914. both offenses ran into trouble. the frempbl assault ground to a halt first. three armies copping to a stand still by mid august. fresh from the crossing of the english channel.

neither side gain pd an advantage. by mid october they were out of land. the allies and the central powers created a stalemated sector. extending to the swiss border in the south. the early phase of the war was eye opening in regard the to how quickly they became demoralized staring into the face of battle. one german soldier joined up in august a 1914 because, in his words, he felt ashamed to be seen in civilian1b clotheses. he told his parents he could not live in a peaceful city anymore. pointing a petty, weak face at the enemy. certain he meant to die in a glorious cause he wrote home, dear father, good mother, please this. it would be a good thing if you two would, with brave hearts and firm self-control, get

accustomed to the idea that you will not see me or my brothers again. if bad news comes, you will be able to receive it more calmly. however within three weeks he had trouble squaring his glorious cause with the inhuman nature of combat. his first battle was long, loud, and offered him no opportunity to even see his foe. he wrote home, this ghastly battle is raging for the fourth day. like most battles in the war it hases consisted of an appalling or a realliry duel. i'm writing this in a grave-like hole i dug for myself. the shells are so thick today before and behind us that one may regard it as only thanks to the special mercy of god if one comes out safe and sound. 11 days later, taken ill he was eager for peace again. he wrote, i can hardly believe it, but it is true. i'm on my way to you and home. oh, how happy i am to see a

brighter world again instead of the world of horror. i am at last free from the secret dread which haunted me that i should neveree your world again. unless an unforeseen obstacle shall arise, i shall look into your dear eyes once more. unfortunately an unseen obstacle did arise. he never returned home. four days later he was dead from tetanus. those soldiers who succumbed to the war's early effects in summer of 1914 were spared the grim horrors of the later years. the opening months offered no easy combat as the war of maneuver transformed into a bloody stalemate on the western front sharp conflict took place on the other side of europe. they meant to squeeze from the eastern direction. the german army stalled for time until the western front was decided. it was here that the outnumbered

germans show cased masterful tactics. at the end of august the german 8th army nearly annihilated the russian army capturing 92,000 prisoners. the russian advance made better progress driving the austrian army almost to the german border. but the arrival of german reinforcements from prussia brought toyota a halt by mid december. just like the western front the east was quickly transformed into a stalemated line where the two sides jockeys indecisively, searching for a way to breach the opponent's elaborate defenses. although the eastern front represented near hell on earth, for the next two years the warring powers focused on the west. by the end of the war that chopped up 7.9 million allied soldiers and 5.6 million soldiers attached to the central powers. the two sides strengthened their defensive positionses with barbed wire, land mines and a labyrinth of bunkers rendering frontal assaults s impractical.

foray into no man's land. forward we went, step by step, up right two, too proud to duck before the whistle of bullets. a corporal was killed beside me. on my right a man was shot in the arm. i got a uh bullet through my mess tin. we were supposed to fire but could see no enemy. we went further on getting into complete disorder. no officers left. comrades falling. still we went on. suddenly, tick tack, our own machine gun was firing at our backs. that finished us. we went back,disappointed, grinding our teeth. then we heard the cries of oh badly wounded comrades lying, still under heavy fire. two comrades and i crawled out but could not get them in. weeks later we add a vanced again and i came upon them on patrol and had to crawl over them, rows of dead bodies.

he was killed soon after in may 1915. throughout 1915 and 1916, the allied and central powers sought alternatives, tactical and technological, something to break the stalemate. they attempted poison gas, aerial reconnaissance, tunnelling and special infiltration units. none of the alternatives remodeled the essential point of the offensive, that breaking through the western front required at some level a mass infantry attack against no man's land. the first allied attempts to break the stalemate through masked assault began many the spring of 1915. they didn't let up. every day some small engagement occurred along the line. the two largest offensives came in 1916. from february to august. general irk van falcon han committed # 1.2 million soldiers at ve rdun. by the end the french admitted

to 337,000 casualties. the germans suffered somewhere about 281,000. despite months of heart ache and aggression the battles barely altereded the front lines, driving them a few miles here and there. nothing decisive enough to break oo either side's commitment. just as the battle sputtered to a close the british organized an offensive. planned an attack along a 20 mile front using the british fourth army and a portion of the frempbl fifth. )ár guns rained 1.5 million shells into german lines. on july 1, british infantry rolled forward. destruction with the artillery. the germans retaliated inflicting 30,000 casualties in an hour. by the end of the day the number rose to 57,000. the offensive droned on until

november adding 630,000 additional allied casualties but doing nothing to break the deadlock. the fighting had a devastating effect on the survivors. even the most hearty soldiers felt the urge to cease action, commit acts of mutiny for the sake of xfmlself-preservation. lieutenant henry desagenau, a french officer, squatted in a shell hole on june 30 deciding he'd had enough. he claimed when his head started buzzing uncontrollably. he admitted in the journal he sat down and awaited an unfriendly shell to land in the hole and kill him. it would free him from war without feeling pain and without knowing it. soon, wounded enlisted men seeking an authority figure started to fill the hole beside him, asking for help. what can he do? he asked. there are clouds of smoke. the air is unbreathable. there is death everywhere.

going on he described the human wreckage that piled up in the crater. at our feet the wounded groaned in a pool of blood. two are breathing their last. one, a machine gunner was blinded. with one with eye hanging out of the socket and the other torn out. in addition he lost a leg. the second man hases no face. an arm blown off and a horrible wound in the stomach. moaning and suffering, one begs me, lieutenant, don't let me die. i'm suffering, please help me. the other, perhaps more gravely wound implores me to kill him. lieutenant, if you don't want to, give me your revolver. frightful, terrible moments frightful, terrible moments while the cannons harry usr we are splattered with mud and earth. for hour it is groanses continue until 6:00:tlúu p.m. they die before our eyes without anyone being able to help them. the dramatic loss of life didn't halt the allies' fondness for

the oi. in 1917 they increased the the frequency with which they tested the german defensive perimeter knowing the over throw of the government in russia would knock out their strongest ally, the new british and french field commanders, general hague and general robert neville planned a series of offenses to are a advantage the hindenburg line. the oi from april to may, the offensive of june to december. the offensive of november to december all came to screeching halts. the germans mastered their defensive system offering an elastic defense which allowed troopses to penetrate the front line entrenchments only to find more serious systems of interlocking fields of fire in the secondary and tertiary lines to the rear. by giving ground the sound of the first artillery barrage the germans minimized losses losing ground temporarily only to retake it again, inflicting heavy losses against the british

and french. the british lost 47,000 men at crambry and got push ped back to the initial line of departure. despiteva1ñle9ljtories in 1917 remaining on the defensive the german armieses elected not to sit passively. with the u.s. entering in on the side of the allieses, german high command believed the armieses were under the clock. they had to bring a decisive victory before the american expeditionary force entered the fray. working with the staff over the winter major ludendorf had an offensive. on march 21 the michael offensive started. utilizing an attacker formation in depth. 32 infantry divisions supported by 27 in reserve the germans plowed into the british position, push ping it back 35 miles. the largest surge on:kkw the wen front in terms of mileage of the war.tbyky]ññ still germany's michaelle offensive didn't achieve its

goals. no decisive reach occurred. british generals plugged the lines with reinforcements. undeferred there were four more attackses in the area. by the time it was over july 17 another 688,000 german soldiers were casualties. by the end of the german spring offensive signalled an important change in the allied war ert. the american force had arriveded in significant numbers. the u.s. ented the war in april 1917. mobilization the states raised 3.6 million soldiers, the first 50,000 arrived at summer with 250,000 more arriving each month in 1918. the german spring offensive made its last gasp attacking a newly arrived american division at the battle of the marn but american troops held firm. now charged with coordinating all the allies in the western front, ferdinand fok initiated a

counter offensive, attacking the salient where the german advance stopped. it went better than anticipated, reducing the pocket known as the black day of the german army. spurred by american general john pershing who was not content to let soldiers sit in the trencheses long there were two simultaneous offensives. one at sam yell and the others at the musemrd2k r. gone sector. this lasted september 26 until november 11. like all the other offenses prior, the assault was disappointing. the offenses stopped well short of the objective, sustained 117,000 casualtieses including 26,000 killed. to the americans, fresh faced and untroubled by years of failure the war was nothing like they imagined. although they accepted the death toll for what it was they had a

hard time accepting the fact that every area, even the rear echelon positions were dirty, unsanitary and unsafe. 27-year-old corporal ross j. petijohn found himself at the forefront of the last offensive. he found it hard to consent to the filthiness of the war around him. marching he noted the horrible conditions on the road. it was pouring down rain, he noted on september 2. as dark as pitch in the woods. we got the order to form single file and place a hand on the shoulder of the man in front of us. we crossed a stream ons:dñ a na foot bridge and were told to sleep anywhere we pleased. cold mud i flapped. my tin hat served as pillow. much of the journal described the death of friends who died from effects other than wounds in battle. in early september 1918 he recalled the death of a man in his unit who shot himself.

he wrote, a soldier of our battery named lloyd whitmore from oregon decided he had enough. he leaned against a tree and put the muzzle of oh his rifle under his chin, pulled the trigger. his brains scattered on the ground. his reason, near as we could find out was uh he had a venereal disease. he was under arrest and was in the isolation squad at the battery. he manualed he was getting worse. ÷ the trouble he had gotten into. he decided to stay in france. the most bitter memory was not of the war but of the em bar indication camp where they spent weeks waiting to leave france after the war ended. the condition were miserable and the treatment of u.s. troops so poor he called it a death camp. by february 1919, more than 3300 u.s. troops died and were buried there. he wrote to his paper. germanumk prisoners were never

treated so brutally as the american soldiers are treat ed.z we had men die of pneumonia by the hundreds each week. when he returned to the states he scratched out a poem which described the most hellish moment as the time spent waiting to go homement we have killed a million and tried to take our bets. we plucked them from our oh toenails and scratched them from our oh heads. we have stood a million inspectionses in the rain. we have loaded ships and coal skous to the labor gave us pain. we went about our duties with all kinds of pep and zest. for we knew it would be heaven when we had gotten out of breast. when the last fatigue sounded and we lay aside our cares, wen they wouldn't even/2 dust down golden stairs. when the angels bid us welcome and all generals are barred. when kindergarten come is held we'll hear saint peter calling to the blessed you have earned eternal happiness. you have done your hitch in

breast. four years of conflict produced 10 million military dead and 6 million civilian deaths. it was a heavy death toll. to some it might be stomached if the world leaders made krek tys preserving international peace and security for generations to come. perhaps the memories of those who perished between 1914 and 1918 might have meaning. the world leaders already had made solutions, the league of nations. spurred largely by the philosophy of oh woodrow wilson this organization founded as a result of the paris peace conference took up a primary mission of preventing wars through international disarm menlt and settling disputes through arbitration. many on oh servers had doubts. the in the united states, a 79-year-old veteran of the american civil war finished writing a massive 322-page memoir recounting service in the union army. he experienced seeing 620,000

dead piled up before in a similarly short four-year period. in that war the+,n union army accomplished a terrific thing. it saveded the nation from tearing itself apart. now white was less keen on the results of the so far bloodiest war in human history. it was 1921. one year after the formation of the league of nations. having seen the way that war had changed since the days when he helped kill the southern rebellion, white looked at armed conflict with great pessimism. the reminder he used to close his memoir which predicted the end of world war with 2 was a prompt about the primordial nature of human kind and the nations to which they belonged. as long as we have nations we'll have war. as long as we have strong nations with faithful citizens we'll have bloody wars. we would like to believe that the greater national spirit will revail leading to short wars and prolonged peace, oppositional

devotions create deadlocks, creating war for the sake of it. thus white, a veteran of a 19th century war cast the warning upon human kind in the 20th century. my faith in the league of nations to sprent war is low. i cannot see how human ideas and opposition to human ideas can be settled when opposite parties aren't earnest except by force. self-interest makes man's ideas second nature. making it impossible for him to abandon it and only when forced to do so.1kq questions handled by the league of nations will bring war to the people of earth in no small measure. perhaps i am wrong. i hope so. i hope so, too. thank you very much. [ applause ]

>> you have been watching american history tv. we want to hear from you. follow us on twitter at cspan history. connect with us at facebook.com/cspan history . leave comments, too. check out the upcoming programs at cspan.org/history.mhl÷ >> all this week we are featuring american history tv programming. we'd like your thoughts on the showsment e-mail us at americanhistorytv@c-span.org to leave comments and suggestions. we'd like to tell you about some of the other american history tv programs. join us every sunday at 4:00 p.m. eastern for reel america featuring or kooifl films by government institutions. join us on oh a journey through the 20th century. that's reel america sundays at 4:00 p.m. eastern on american

history tv on c-span3. >> here is a look at some of the programs you will find christmas day on the c-span networks. holiday festivities start at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span with the lighting of the national christmas tree, the white house christmas decorations with first lady michelle obama. and the lighting of the capitol christmas tree. just after 12:30 p.m., celebrity activists talk about their causes. then at 8:00, supreme court justice samuel aleto and jeb bush on the bill of rights and the founding fathers. at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span 2 look at good writing. then the feminist side of a superhero as jill lepore looks at the secret history of wonder woman. pamela paul and others talk about reading habits. on american history tv on c-span3 at 8:00 a.m. the fall of

the berlin wall with foot tanl of president george bush and bob dole with speeches from john kennedy and ronald reagan. choices@rnñ how theyxktpt reprd tjws styles of thef;ntñ andhyzç at 10:00, former nbc n anchor tom brokaw on more than 50 years of reporting on world events. this christmas day on the c-span networks. for a complete schedule go to c-span.org. >> with live coverage of the u.s. house on c-span and the senate on c-span 2 on c-span3 we complement the coverage by showing you the most relevant congressional hearings and public affairs events. on weekends, c-span3 is home to american history tv with programs that tell our nation's story including six unique series, the civil war's 150th anniversary visiting battlefields and key events. american artifacts, touring museums and historic sites.

history bookshelf with the best known american history writers. the presidency, looking at the policies and legacies of the commanders in chief. lectures in history with top college professors looking at america's past and reel america featuring government and educational films from the 30s through the 70s. c-span3, created by the cable tv industry and funded by your local cable or oh satellite provider. watch in hd. like us on facebook. follow us on twitter. american history tv visited the macarthur memorial in virginia which was hosting a symposium marking the world war i centennial. up next, we'll hear from andrew robert shaw, co-author of "digging the trenches, the archaeology of the western front." he talks about efforts to identify the buried remains of previously unknown soldiers and what archaeological excavations reveal about life in the

trenches. his talk is about 50 minutes. >> good morning. our first panel of speakers today will share their knowledge about archaeology in the great war. our oh first speaker is andrew robert shaw, a military historian, author and broadcaster. he was previously the head of education at the national army museum in london. after that, director of the royal logistics museum in cam berlee. he lectures for the norwegian army and is providing historical consultation for a series of events planned by the bbc entitled the first world war with at home. for over 25 years he's led several archaeological projects on the western front. many of which have been featured in television series like finding the fallen, the trench detectives and time team. he's the author of 15 books including digging the ch