harpathian" to put it on bottom. again, there was no loss of life here and it was a fairly cordial way to sink someone's ship. again, this one here is a little farther north on hatteras. the continental shelf sticks out a little bit further in this area so we believe this wreck should be in something like 130 to 200 feet of water. it's still a manageable area. this ship was sunk by the u-140. this was a pretty spectacular event. it was the only -- it was the only loss the u.s. coast guard had during world one 1. it was sailing south from new york folk, coming around cape hatteras around diamond shoals when it started getting shelled by the 140 which is an alarming thing to have happen to a merchant vessel so it began a

zigzagging pla noofr th ingin g were taught to avoid being hit by a torpedo. in essence, it is like not being hit by a sniper. in doing this they came across an area called diamond shoals. though the shells weren't doing that much damage, the bottom of the ocean did. so it slammed into the shoals and ran aground and was stuck hard aground and still being shelled. now during the process of this, the diamond shoals life ship -- this was a purpose-built light ship built in 1899, was anchored over diamond shoals for the specific pumps of warning ships that you can run aground there. it was sitting there, crew of five folks on board. they had this huge mushroom anchor. between firing up the blows and removing that mushroom anchor it generally took them about five hours to get under way.

so it's not very efficient, as very much considered a stationary vessel. they usually didn't move at all, and was relieved by crew from another vessel. they were close enough to the merrick that they were able to see the merrick being shelled. and harassed by this u-boat and they beautyfully started radioing in this activity and the position to try and call for some assistance, and unfortunately, the 140 also had a radio, and were able to hear this. said well, we don't want that happening, so they started -- the mirek was still hard aground so they started steaming over towards the diamond shoals lightship and began shelling that. now these guys having about a five-hour process to get under way decided it would be better just to drop the little lifeboats and head for shore. so they abandoned ship, and this was actually sunk by surface

gunfire from the u-boat. after that sunk, the 140 returned to the merrick and sunk that, as well. so that brings us to the mirlow, the last vessel lost off north carolina. we're unclear again where this is. this was a british tanker. i have it here saying it was sunk by a torpedo. there was speculation whether it was sunk by a torpedo or sunk by a mine. we know that mines were laid in this area by the 117. and some of the war diaries are confusing as to what vessel it hit with torpedoes versus where it laid mines. it's possible it struck a mine. i would suggest it's more likely that it struck a mine than was torpedoed. particularly given the crummyness of the torpedoes of the era. often just bounced off your ship. this story is of particular

significance and interest to the u.s. coast guard. so this was -- it struck a mine just about 10 miles off of wimble shoals and was carrying fuel. there were thousands of gallons of fuel oil immediately spilled into the ocean and burst into flames. there were 52 crewmen aboard and they began immediately to abandon ship. one of the lifeboats turned over into the fire while the others were able to kind of cobble and get into the lifeboats. now, meanwhile, ashore, there's the life saving station, which is on the outer banks, that's crewed by men round the clock. the captain of that life-saving station, captain midgette, they can see this burning off the coast and they get into their surf boats and head out to try and do, lend whatever help they can. when they get to the scene, there's so much fire and smoke burning in the area they really can't see much of anything at all. but they can sort of hear some calls for help. and there was an area that was totally engulfed with flames.

they describe it as literally walls of flames. there was sort of an kind of an alcove of -- that was created by this circle of flames, with just one tiny little opening corridor that they could paddle their lifeboat through. and these guys paddled in, and their clothes were catching on fire as they were paddling in to rescue these guys. the boat in the sent irof this alcove was overturned with guys coming up, shouting and jumping up back underneath the boat to, you know, almost certain that no one was hearing them. they pull six of these guys out of that area. and sent them back to shore. they then went around the flames and found another lifeboat where the men had all their clothes had been catching on fire. so they stripped them. they were totally naked beating at things with their clothes. and again they were able to rescue those men as well. this is really this harrowing story of rescue. and the crew of the life-saving

station was awarded the gold life-saving medal which for the u.s. coast guard is the equivalent of the medal of honor. the highest honor that they bestow. it's a really important heritage for the u.s. coast guard in conjunction with the diamond shoals lightship, which is a coast guard asset, or would have been a coast guard asset. so what we've done as i said, we were trying to look at these areas as part of this interconnected landscape, so we've started to do some modeling. we've done a lot more of this for world war ii, starting to get into it for the world war i. this is showing area that would reasonably have had air cover e coverage, where the enemy mine field was placed by the 117. the different shoals, and geographical restrictions of things with the continental shelf so we started to try to remodel this area to understand it better. looking at these different features in the landscape like the proximity to onshore

life-saving stations. where things are. so you can see this is the minefield area. where the 117 set his mines. we believe that the mirlo was in this area adjacent to the station here. which makes it strange that no one knows exactly where these sites are. given that they're so close to the shore. so that's where we are now with our research, and what we're planning on doing, beginning this summer, is looking at where these things are so we started to try and figure out exactly where we think these things may be. the harpathian, again, i said this looks -- there was a survey that was done in 1944 by a coast guard cutter called the gentian that was really trying to locate the remains of world war ii vessels. and it came across a vessel in this area that had claimed as the harpathian but based upon all the other vessels of the gentian survey they didn't know

where they were. but there's some possibility that this could be a search area to look in, and locate it. so what we would do is go out there, probably with side-scan sonar or underwater vehicle called an auv, which is an autonomous vehicle that you can put underwater that would run a sonar survey to try and idea the remains of those sites. and then we would go with divers to try and identify and put specific site identification on the wreck site. the mirak, we believe is -- will present us with a pretty good opportunity to locate this wreck. chiefly because of its association with the diamond shoals light ship. and we know the diamond shoals light was -- it was a stationary asset that was charted, and as a result of that, is the only vessel that we actually know its location currently. this is an image that we

collected a couple of seasons ago. this little blush here, which doesn't really tell you very much, is the wreck itself, of the lightship, light vessel 71. there is, you can't see it from the glare where i'm standing. there's another blip on the bottom, that was that massive mushroom anchor that they weren't able to pull up. we know where this site is. and we know that the merak had run aground, and was subsequently sunk within visual sight of that. which would have been not much more than 13 miles, probably less. and we know its general direction from the reports of the crew on the light vessel. so, we think that it's pretty realistic that we could develop a survey that will allow us to try and find the remains of that site. again these are difficult things to do in the oceans. lots of variables that have to be managed. but, given that we have those

positions from the light vessel and all these other after-action reports and things that are published by the navy we can kind of narrow down the area that we think is likely and run out there the sonar and sort of mow the lawn and see if we can turn anything up. typically we use side-scan sonar for a magnetometer which is somewhat similar to a metal detector but it's a toad system that deflects fluctuations in the ambien magnetic field of the earth. so again the mirlo is another one that we really would like to find. this one has been perplexing to people for a number of years. there's a site that is in this area that is locally called a green buoy wreck that many people have speculated would be the remains of the mirlo. however, we believe it could be actually the remains of a world war ii ship called the san devileno. it has some diesel engines on board. and the mirlo would have had

boilers. again that's when the expert -- everybody is an expert that ever dives on a ship wreck. so we're hoping to find the mirlo. this would be a great story for the u.s. coast guard, and that their heritage. we just signed a memorandum of agreement with the u.s. coast guard to manage the wreck of the diamond shoals lightship. so we will be going out this summer to do a survey of this site. and try and learn as much as we can of the vessel. aside from having been sunk as a result of world war ii enemy action, which by the way the u-115, when it came in to u.s. territoryial waters, was the first invasion of the united states since the war of 1812. so we think this has great significance. to our national heritage. and we will be looking at this vessel. it's significant from that point but just from a maritime history

and heritage standpoint the vessel itself was built in 1899. was a really unique vessel type that was a composite construction. that was built in bath, england. and there was a purpose-built lightship a very early example of this unique vessel type. so it's a very rare, very rare shipwreck to be able to explore. we have some other areas in this site that look reasonably intact. what i mean by composite built was iron framed but had a wooden hull. obviously the wood and the sea water degrades quite quickly, so you would have basically just the sort of skeletal remains. that would be my only skeleton picture if i had it of the diamond shoals lights. so this are our future efforts. we're hoping to get back out there, and begin to characterize these more completely as we've done with some of the wrecks associated with world war ii. we just completed, as i said, a

multiyear study on world war ii shipwrecks and located the remains recently of the u-576, which is a german-type seven cu-boat that still has 45 sailors left inside, and with the conclusion of that we're moving on to these world war i sites to hopefully celebrate those, get people to understand that we do have world war i battlefield here in america. and it can be visited if you just slap on some dive gear and take a look. [ applause ] >> questions? >> have you had any progress in the gulf of mexico or do you anticipate any? >> we have worked-we worked really closely with the bureau of ocean and energy management, they've got an archaeological

contingent, and they have done -- we've done some work in the gulf of mexico related to world war ii. we haven't done anything with world war i. but there was a discovery of the robert e. lee, and the u-166 about ten years ago in deep water, so the u-boats in world war ii were all over the gulf of mexico. but not so much in world war i. >> i am a proud descendant of a victim of one of those submarine attacks in world war ii. my uncle's ship was sunk off the coast of new jersey as it was coming into new york city in march of 1942. but i want to ask you a question about a bigger ship. i had students tell me that they've gone diving to see the wreck of the big german battleship that billy mitchell used to prove his ideas about air power.

do you think something about that? have you explored that? or is that a goal? >> yeah, so the ospreyland and a number of other vessels, even some u.s. vessels, the "uss new jersey" and the "uss virginia," a couple of -- actually the 117. which was one of these vessels, was taken as a prize after the war. a lot of these vessels were used in military testing and bombing. brigadier general billy mitchell was the individual that proved to the u.s. navy that you could sink battleships using aircraft. and a lot of that -- a lot of those test demonstrations were done off the coast here of virginia, and some more limited in north carolina. and they were quite successful in proving that aircraft and air power was a naval asset. so the ospreyland is a shipwreck that people do dive off of

virginia's quite deep. i think there's only been a handful of people that have dove it. the new jersey and virginia are in about 250 to 300 feet of water. so they're tricky dives. but you know, there's a whole another layer when we're looking at this area, we kind of looked at it from this battlefield archaeology and we're looking at it from this broader idea of this maritime cultural landscape. we're looking at other facets other than just world war i and world war ii and we've started to look at this sort of these noncombat military losses, which are the billy mitchell fleets, as well. so it's very interesting. and i would say that the -- the merchant marine connection to a lot of the work that we are doing, particularly for the world war ii stuff is really sort of the main impetus for the reason that we're doing it, because of the merchant marine story is very sort of underplayed in the significance. they weren't given veteran status or recognition for years and years.

and so what we really wanted to do in celebrating this history of america's involvement in these wars off the coast was to promote the contribution of the merchant marine, and we had -- there's one ship wreck called the dixie aero that was lost off cape hatteras in about 90 feet of water that we've done some work on, some survey, and the captain of that boat was killed. his name was jan johanson. and we've tracked down his daughter, who was 3 years old at the time that he was killed. she's now in her 80s. and she's just 80 now. and we brought her and her grandson out on the site. and did a wreath-laying ceremony. so that's really the reason that we're doing a lot of this stuff. >> in 1918 the "uss san diego," a heavy cruiser, was the largest u.s. naval vessel sunk by one of these u-cruisers in world war i off long island literally within

view of the shoreline. is there any attempt to survey that wreck? >> yeah, that wreck actually, it's really only in about 140 feet of water. and so, we haven't done a full archaeological survey of that site. but it is a site that is very popular for recreational diving tourism in that area. people do dive it. our -- my research is focused pretty much on the north carolina region. just because of program atically that's where i operate. but the san diego is definitely a very high profile site. probably the most significant vessel lost off the coast during world war i. >> there's been a great deal of additional speculation that the "lusitania" had munitions on it, and they were supposed to be doing some diving, and bringing about. do you know anything more about that? >> i'm not sure.

i've heard this discussion. i haven't looked into it enough to know where i sat on it. but of course the "lusitania," there was a lot of backlash, as we all know, when the "lusitania" was sunk. the germans sort of started to backpedal and defend their position on having sunk it because of the significant loss of life. one of the claims they made was that it was carrying these munitions which has been a point of debate for some years now that there's a very deep site. people do dive it. but it's kind of a restricted site for operations, one because of its difficulty in getting to, and the other is there's some quirks in the admiralty law on who owns wrecks and access to things. and there's an individual that filed admiralty claim for the u.s. on the "lusitania." so it's difficult to get out there and do research. sir? >> you spoke earlier about how this is one of the less

publicized parts of both world war i and world war ii. what are the reasons you think that is? why is it not really in the public consciousness? >> that's a great question. so this is something that we've kind of grappled with because we think this is really significant because we are really depleted of physical sites to visit and experience. these massively important engagements. and why don't people realize that this is a thing. the reason for that is in world war i it was very, much smaller scale. in world war ii it was pretty significant. very big problem on the east coast. speaking specifically for the united states. the reason that it's a little bit underknown, or very underknown, is there's a couple of things going on. one is, at the time, there was a concerted effort on the part of the government and the media to

downplay it. not so much to cover it up, but they generally weren't promoting this notion that our merchant vessels were being sunk. in world war ii, it was -- in the first six months, you had almost a ship every other day on average sunk off of just off of north carolina alone. the fact that that wasn't something people were talking about is because they didn't want to induce panic, essentially. they dissident want people talking about the movement of movements of ships. this is where the notion of loose lips sink ships come from. there was a general idea to just kind of, let's not talk about that too much. because it was so early in the war, and we were getting pretty badly betten in that. until the convoy system kind of came together to ameliorate that threat. it was pretty -- pretty hush-hush. to a degree.

just from a perspective of morale. i should also say, the position that the u.s. had on german u-boats was much different. we believed that they were not technically capable of some things that they were. we find of thought that maybe our u-boats were the best u-boats or submarines. and weren't able to understand that the youboats were operating quite as far afield, and with quite as much -- they had much higher depth capabilities or torpedoes were much better. these types of things. >> are there any plans to expand the monitor sanctuary to include the diamond shoals light ship? >> yeah, absolutely. so the -- we have the site of the "uss monitor" is just the one mile radius around that shipwreck itself. and as we look at all these other sites and we realize how

important they are to the american history, and our involvement in these wars, we've started to look at what is there. towards that end this is the basis for the study, we're required if we're going to claim that an area is nationally significant, our responsibility is to though that scientifically. this is centered around doing a significant assessment, understanding what the resources are, what the level of preservation is, and then we can say, well these areas make sense to be included for protection. these areas may not because they may not be as significant or they may be so heavily degraded that they're not warrant inclusion. but that is a process that we're exploring very, very in-depth. we have an advisory council to help us manage the site of the monitor that's made up of people in academia and the general public and they made a recommendation to us a couple of years ago to look in to this idea of expanding the boundaries

to include some of these more historic wrecks in the same region. >> with one of the slides up on the screen it prompts two questions really, the first one is the second world war the german germans the operation drum beat concerted effort to go after u.s. shipping the question is part one would be is, is there a concerted effort to do the same thing, or was it more ad hoc with an effort for the germans to target u.s. shipping? and the second question is more collectly to the slide what happened to the three u-boats you talked about? did they all three survive the war and become prizes? what was the case there? >> the 151 was a prize, went to britain and was ultimately broken up. for scrap. the 117 is sunk off of virginia but it was a prize that was sunk

as a target vessel. not sure off the top of my head what happened to the 140. but generally, if it hadn't been sunk during the war it could have been taken as a prize. >> your first question is question, that when the british -- when the -- during the interwar period there was heavy sanctions put on german navy for what they could do with their naval assets. there's a thing called the anglo german naval treaty that specified the amount of tonnage that they could build to specific vessel types. so what they did was they sent all of their basically all of the germans submarine experts to place unless south america, in other countries, to develop submarine technology outside of germany. and then when the war came back on they brought them back in and began developing these technologies. but in the initial -- in world war i the initial focus was on sinking capital ships. but they realized the real

success was in sinking merchant ships. so when world war ii began, the focus was immediately on predominantly on the sinking of merchant vessels. and they -- tactically they operated much differently, as well. they believed they would be able to sink, and negotiate the convoy system by these wolf pack tactics that didn't exist in world war i. this is where you'd have these u-boats that were sort of sent up as the sent ri patrols. they would see a convoy coming in. they would radio in other u-boats in the area and then kind of follow along with the convoy and do damage that way. so it was definitely a converted effort. >> we have time for one or two more questions. >> is there an environmental

reason for concern over the mercury in the submarines? would you say there's submarines out there, there are some, but is there a conservative effort or worry to remove the mercury? >> so there's one vessel in the british isles, and that one there is definitely concern over it. i believe they tried to cap that site. the sites in u.s. waters, particularly world war ii sites, they didn't really have mercury aboard. they would have had this bunker sea type fuel. but that -- there has been some concern really in the '60s there was a big push and then recently in the last few years there's been a lot of concern over the really the merchant vessels, which the primary focus of these ships was to sink tankers. and the tankers were often carrying large storrs of kerosene, fuel oil, heating oil, all these different grades of oil.

there was this general notion that there might be, you know, these hundreds of vessels that are sitting within distance of our shores that have been decaying for the last 70 years and may suddenly void these bits of oil into the sea water. this is generally based on site formation processes, and the degradation of those vessels. not really a big threat at this point. any other questions? thank you. [ applause ] you've been watching c-span's american history tv. we want to hear from you. follow us on twitter@c-span history. connect with us on facebook at facebook.com/cspan history. or you can leave comments, too. and check out our upcoming programs at our website, c-span.org/history. here on c-span3 all this week we're featuring american

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american history tv visited the mcarthur memorial in norfolk, virginia, hosting a symposium marking the world war i centennial. coming up next in a previously recorded segment historian sean mcmeekin takes viewer calls on the state of europe just prior to the beginning of world war i. he talks about how the assassination of the austrian arch duke franz ferdinand led to what he calls a countdown to war. this program is about 25 minutes. >> american history tv is live from the mcarthur memorial in norfolk, virginia, where the world war i centennial symposium is on its lunch break. until they return we're joined by sean mcmeekin, author of "july 1914: countdown to war." mr. mcmeekin appreciate you joining us on american history tv. >> thank you for having me. it's a pleasure to be here. >> a century since world war i,

there continues to be a debate about which nation was responsible for the start of the first world war. take us back to america in 1914. 1915, 1916. was that debate about who was responsible taking place in the united states at that time? >> it was not necessarily the most important question in u.s. politics. i think probably for the woodrow wilson administration, the key thing was to keep the united states out of the war. i think certainly if there had been a different president in the white house, possibly theodore roosevelt, might have taken a different line. he was quite clear about the fact in 1914 that i think he saw the germans as, if not necessarily to blame for the war, then certainly a greater threat for the united states than the entent powers, france, britain and russia. as far as 1916, again once again woodrow wilson was running for office, in part on the pledge of keeping the united states out of the war.

i think in the long run, it did become -- once the question came on the table in 1917, what we might call the rendering of the question that is to say the dramatic rendering of the question of war guilt did become a big part of the story and that's when you really got to see a huge ramp-up in kind of the propaganda against the germans and the kaiser and so on. but back in 1914, i think most americans were genuinely bewildered by what was happening in europe. when colonel house went to europe on a somewhat unofficial mission for president wilson in may of 1914, you know, he said quite famously, it's like militarism run stark mad. what's not always appreciated about this remark is that he actually singled out the entente powers. he said whenever england consents, then france and russia will close in on germany. and so that's how it looked to a u.s. envoy. on the eve of the first world war. a few years later, i think it

would look slightly differently. that probably had more to do with german behavior, particularly in the atlantic ocean, behavior of the u-boats sinking merchant vessels and so on. i think it took time for the press to ramp up in the denunciation of the germans. it really wouldn't have flown quite so well back in 1914 when i think most americans were just getting up to speed on what was happening in europe. >> if our viewers have questions for sean mcmeekin our phone lines are open. enelectoral under, 202-585-3880. and if you're in the mountain and pacific regions, 202 -- 585-3881. with the benefit of 100 years of history to look back on where do you assign the blame? do you think history has assigned it correctly? >> i think everyone wants pat answers to this question. the ask if the assassin who murdered the arch duke franz ferdinand several years later on his death bed, he was in prison,

the war was still raging, they asked him if he had any regrets. he said quit pittly, well if i hadn't done it the germans would have found some other excuse. so he was an early proponent of the german war guilt school. said against this the man who authorized princip, the head of serbian military intelligence, he wrote down a confession that in fact back in 1914 when he had unleashed princip and the other assassins in sarajevo that he had the green light from the russians and that they actually provided the funds for the assassination. so there's almost the evidence that one could use to marshal a case for one side or another. 9 way i come down in my own blocks is what ambiguous. i do assign far more share of the blame to both france and russia who have gotten off somewhat easily in much of the literature on the war in part because so many of the documents related to french and russian

policy from july 1914 were destroyed. far more than actually went missing on the austrian side. i would by no means deny the aust row hungarians the responsibility. they sent an ultimate yum to serbia and then declared war on serbia which to some extent sent the dogs of war hauling. one has to resh by the time austria-hungary dispatched its ultimatum and declared war on serbia particularly in the latter case the declaration of war on serbia, russia had already begun its military preparations. russia had already been secretly mobilizing for three days before austria-hungary declared war on serbia on july 28th, 1914. so in the end the question of intentions, intent, war guilt, i think one of the great things about this question it's very difficult to resolve it satisfactorily for all parties. in the end that's why historians continue to be fascinated by it. because there are no easy answers to this question.

you can find evidence to support just about any case. again my own case is one i like to think of balance, although of course, some people who have read my books say that i actually pin more blame on france and russia. i think that's partly because i'm aiming for a kind of corrective function, that is to say, to get people to think beyond the usual frame of just looking at the germans. because after all, it's not just the germans who brought a war about that initially had six belligerents, and ended up embroiling the entire world including the united states. >> just a few of sean mcmeekin's books "july 1914: countdown to war and the russian origins of the first world war." he is a professor of history. at bard college. he is joining us for the next 20 minutes or so. taking your calls on american history tv. let's go to david from rochester, new york. david, good morning. >> nice to talk to you. i have read your books on world war i and i enjoyed reading

them. the insight into the ottoman front is very interesting. do you know norman stone and his book on the eastern front in world war i? any kind of influence on your work? thank you. >> mr. mcmeekin? >> thank you, david for your question. very interesting you are calling from rochester. that is my hometown and where i grew up. i'm quite fond of the place. it's funny you ask about norman stone. he is actually a good friend of mine. and yes his work on the eastern front published in the 1970s is something of a touchstone for my own work. i mean norman himself is actually quite fond of saying that by now, four decades later, someone should have come along and made his book obsolete. to date no one has really quite done that. on the eastern front, that is to say primarily the eastern european front, the sector of the war pitting germany and austria-hungary and their allies including bulgaria and the

ottoman empire against russia is much less studied in the western front to this day the russians have not actually published an official mill trer history or chronicle. the only ironic thing in retrospect about this book if you look at norman stone and his career is he's actually been in turkey now since the mid 1990s, teaching mostly in ankara where i used to teach. however, turkey doesn't play much of a role in that book. and i think that's just because of the timing of the research and the writing of it. when norman stone was first researching the eastern front, kind of the height of the cold war in the '60s and '70s, turkey wasn't really registering. that is to say, it was kind of a backwater in the cold war. you know, aside from maybe playing a role as a bit player in the cuban missile crisis, you didn't hear much about turkey. today, of course, things are very different. the 1990s reminded us of the importance of the balkans, wars in the former yugoslavia, levin has brought us face-to-face with the middle east, the ottoman legacy there. i if i if norman had the book to

write over again today he would pay more attention to turkey, the caucasian front, the direct front pitting turkish against russian troops, and these are things he knows a great deal about, i've spoken to him about them. but it is interesting they don't factor that much in to that study. and i think part of that is again just the time in which we live. and the time which i'm writing, turkey is more in the news. the middle east is more the news. so it's probably more of a natural thing for me to sort of turn in that direction. but thank you for the question. >> bill is up next from hickson, tennessee. good morning, bill, you're on with mr. mcmeekin. >> good to see an intellectual on tv. like that. i did have a few questions about woodrow wilson's motivations. they say the zimmerman telegram is what really got the u.s. into the war. but really, the united states really give -- or could mexico

really have aligned the germans with a realistic prospect or was it just a pretext? the other two things really quickly are first of all, there was like a $14 billion debt i think that 9 allied countries owed the united states. that the united states would have defaulted on if, you know, if germany had won, that's the equivalent of about $1.4 trillion today. and plus, wilson also had fired william james brown and i think for being too pacifistic didn't he before all of this? i'll hang up and let you talk. >> mr. mcmeekin feel free to take those questions in any order. >> oh, well sure. well thank you, bill. those are great questions. and you raise some fascinating points about the u.s. position in the war. you're absolutely right that by 1916 and even more so 1917, the united states, and particularly financial interests, did have to some extent a vested interest in at the very least the entente powers winning the war so that they could pay back all of these debts. this was true even of the

russians who had begun raising loans in the u.s. bond market beginning in 1916. so that is all entirely true. i think the woodrow wilson administration was on the fence. not entirely like the way fdr would be viewing the european war, and eventually japan in the second world war. that is to say, his own policy, this is in the case of fdr, i think would have been to go in. but he did, of course have to think about both public opinion and congress. in the case of the wilson administration, it was complicated further he by the fact that wilson had essentially run for re-election in 1916 largely on this platform of having kept the u.s. out of the war. so he was hamstrung to some extent by his own political rhetoric. by the fact that there was certainly no groundswell of public support for intervention. the zimmerman telegram played, i think, a final to some extent decisive role but of course this was not alone. we shouldn't vie it in isolation. what prompted the zimmerman

telegram sent by arthur zimmerman of the german foreign office to mexico city was essentially this offer that if mexico could help out the germans, if the united states entered the first world war by keeping them tied down. and mexico, of course, was in the middle of its own revolution, a decade-long conflict there. if the u.s. could get embroiled there then mexico would have the chance of regaining some of the territories lost in the 1840s, of course arizona, new mexico, nevada, possibly parts of california, though california was not mentioned in the zimmerman telegram. what prompted this is the germans themselves unleashed unrestricted submarine warfare, that is to say no more warnings when they were going to fire torpedoes or drop bombs on merchant vessels. no more women and children to the lifeboats. they knew that might enrage american opinion. they knew it might bring the u.s. into the war and so pro-actively and quite foolishly the germans sent this telegram. i think in the end it furnished what might call the final part of the case.

there's not alone responsible for the u.s. entry into the war, but it did allow the financial argument wilson was able to present to congress in 1917. >> mr. mcmeekin we're also taking questions from our facebook page, as well. simone writes how could the war have been avoided? was there any way it could have been stopped once it started? >> before it started, i think it could have been stopped. this would have required very different and much defter statesmanship on the part of several statesmen trying to prevent the war. we shouldn't forget many statesmen were trying to bring it about or at the very least exs aer bait tensions. the simplest way of putting this is absent the assassination of arch duke franz ferdinand in sarajevo i don't think the first world war would have broken out. that is to say a broad conflagration. i think there might have been a third balkan war. two had been previously fought since 1912 breaking out between turkey and greece which need not

have embroiled the larger powers because none of them had a direct stake in that fight. you could pick various moments in the course of july 1914, have the germans pulled the reins on the austrians sooner, had the austrians behaved more decisively, thad hey waited four weeks ahowing the coalition against them to develop, had serbia accepted the ultimatum, that's another what-if. there are all kinds of what-ifs in july that would have led to a very different scenario. once the war broke out then you're getting into military history. there we have here professor helger hole wig talking about the battle of the marne. there are germans who wanted a divisive victory in the fall of 1914. had the coalitions played out differently, had the ottomans not entered the war, many, many scenarios might have led to a different outcome. i don't think however, once the war had begun, that is once hostilities had been unleashed and all the great powers were mobilized by that point, i don't think the war could have been prevented. >> several callers waiting to

chat with you in our last 10 or 15 minutes or so. gene is in hyattsville, maryland. hello, gene, you're on with mr. mcmeekin. >> okay, thank you. first of all professor, i'm sorry, i haven't read your book or seen it, so i'm really glad that this c-span is -- having you on their show. what i'm actually curious about, i think, is much of what i know about world war i is really related to things i learned many years ago reading barbara tuchman's various books. and i wondered if you could comment on your feelings about her take on world war i, and its causes and so on? i would appreciate that. >> sean mcmeekin? >> well, thank you, jean, that's a great question. and i hope maybe i'll have a chance to win you over as a reader. i'm actually quite bond of barbara tuchman's books and i've been heavily influenced by them. the guns of august, it would be remiss of me simply to sit here and bash barbara tuchman because

to some extent that book has inspired me to a lot of my own work and to write at least three of my own books. all that said there are some problems with the guns of august. it is a bit dated in part because again at the height of the cold war as i was alluding before when i was talking about norman stone, but this is even more an extreme case with barbara tuchman, she just isn't looking at the balkans at all. she, in fact, says this directly in her forward. that she will not cover austria, hungary, and serbia. or essentially the entire balkan front. now she has her reason for this. she said it would needlessly complicate the story, lead to tiresome length and so on. it is true it's almost such an inexhaustbly complicated story you can see why she left it out. but she didn't just leave out the balkans. she left out the entire july crisis. if you read the book closely you'll notice she devotes only one line to sarajevo, and one paragraph to the entirety of the july crisis. so her book is not really about the outbreak of the first world war in terms of causation, in terms of the diplomatic

narrative, in terms of the drama between the european capitals in july. she picks up only on august 1st, and unfortunately she actually gets one major date wrong. that is the night of 31 july 1914, it's a friday, and she says this is the night when the french government essentially president premier are woken up in the middle of the night by the russians, who have been given this ultimate imby the germans, desperate to see what france will do. unfortunately, she misdated this by two days. this encounter actually took place on wednesday, two days before the germans sent the ultimatum. what prompted it was actually a message from st. petersburg, from the foreign minister there to his ambassador in paris, saying that owing to our inability, that is russia's inability to accede to germany's desire that we cease mobilizing we must now regard war as imminent. if she had dated this correctly she would have had an entirely different interpretation of the outbreak of the war. complicated to an extreme degree the argument that she's

essentially trying to present about german militarism, war guilt and so on and so forth. what is ironic about this, and again i say this with respect because barbara tuchman is someone whose work i admire in the whole, elsewhere she actually wrote very, very, i think, eloquently about the importance of chronology and getting the facts straight. unfortunately in this case, she did not. but in some of her other books i think she did a much better job. it's still a great read, though. but one should read it with caution. the guns of august. >> hood river, oregon is next. jeff is on with professor mcmeekin. go ahead, jeff. >> professor, thank you for writing your recent book. i look forward to reading it. i've read your past books. very interesting. another what-if scenario to ask you, if the germans would've captured paris in the first big push of the war, do you think france would have sued for peace? or do you think it would have fought on?

how do you think that would've affected the other allies? thank you. >> thank you, jeff, for a great question. i have to say that the battle of marne is not -- not necessarily my particular bailiwick. but of course, this is one of the great questions of the war. that is to say, a decisive german victory in 1914. what sort of a different world might that have made. well to begin with we can say that moltke, chief of the german general staff, made several questionable decisions, both in the lead-up to the war, when he was altering to some extent the original design of the so-called sh leaven balm. initially for diplomatic and strategic regions he weakened the right wing, which is to say he did not want german troops to violate dutch neutrality. that is holland or the netherlands. but rather only belgium. and that forced them into the kind of narrow aperture of liege

in belgium which did slow them down. he also famously pulled back two corps from the advancing right wing of the german armies to the eastern front because russia had invaded east prussia. he also peeled off nearly half of the troops on the german left wing who originally designed a kind of tempt the french into al says lorraine in order to make it even easier for the germans to wheel around on the right. apparently he was tempted by some kind of colossal canay, develop endeveloping the french, instead of circling them from behind. the essence of your question is more about the consequences. there i think you're right to pinpoint real serious consequences. i don't know exactly what they would have been. my own view is that had the french armies been developed, defeated, most of the men taken prisoner with the rest left behind, then yes france would have had to sue for peace. i do not think that britain

would necessarily have made peace right away. however. one should remember that the russians were still quite strong on the eastern front. even after losing the famous battle of tenonberg they were able to reinnovate east prussia just about a month after that. they were advancing against the austrian hung arians in galicia. however the germans would have been in a very strong position to wield their own strength around against the russians, possibly the russians would have had to sue for peace themselves in a matter of months. and then the scenario might have been closer to what military planners had originally envisioned that is to say a reasonably short war, decisive, violent, bloody, but over within several months. i do think that had happened it would have been difficult to arrange i lasting peace settlement but not impossible and the world would almost certainly have been in general a more peaceful and orderly place than the one which, of course,