Traveling World War I exhibit to visit Peters Township Library
Pittsburgh native Michael Neiberg has written two books about World War I.
Val Williams will present “Over There: The Music of WWI in America” with the Abbey Players.
You know, of course, that the attack on Pearl Harbor prompted the United States to enter World War II.
If you know the equivalent determining factor for joining the fight in World War I, congratulations. Alex Trebek should have a “Jeopardy” spot for you.
Although it once was known as the Great War or the War to End All Wars, the conflict that ended Nov. 11, 1918, has tended to fade from the American consciousness as everyone who lived through it has passed.
“That’s the reason I wrote the book,” historian Michael Neiberg said about “Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America,” which was published in October. “I wanted to take all this fascinating stuff about what Americans were debating, what they were talking about 100 years ago, and give readers a chance to understand what those debates were and understand how the American people were reacting to everything that was going on in Europe.”
Neiberg will share his insight during “World War I and America,” a program scheduled for Aug. 3 at Peters Township Public Library. His talk is preceded by “Over There: The Music of WWI in America,” presented by Val Williams with the Abbey Players, and the event concludes with the opening of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History’s “WWI and America Centennial Exhibit,” which runs through Aug. 24.
A Squirrel Hill native, Neiberg is chairman of war studies in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the U.S. War College in Carlisle, where he instructs students about historical models that can help them better understand global crises.
The crisis that followed the assassination of Austro-Hungarian Archduke in 1914 – Neiberg covers the details in his 2011 book, “Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of World War II” – had little immediate impact on the United States, as Americans in general weren’t all that concerned with what was going on across the Atlantic.
They started to care more, though, as German acts of aggression began hitting closer to home.
“That’s the big thing that I think changes America’s attitude and makes it our war, rather than just Europe’s war,” Neiberg explained. “When the Germans start committing sabotage acts here in the United States, which they undoubtedly did, killing Americans and destroying American property, then it’s not necessarily about what’s happening in Europe. It’s about what’s going on here.”
At the time, some leading Americans, including former President Theodore Roosevelt, expressed fear that should the United Kingdom lose the war, it would have to cede some of its possessions in North America to Germany.
“In 1916, the U.S. bought the Danish Virgin Islands from Denmark for exactly this reason,” Neiberg said. “And remember, the Panama Canal was opened in 1914, so the U.S. obviously is concerned about all of this. So what’s going on is Americans looking around and saying, ‘Hey, if we continue to be neutral, we’re going to make ourselves less safe, not more.'”
The tipping point – World War I’s Pear Harbor, if you will – occurred when the German Foreign Office sent a secret correspondence to Mexico in early 1917 proposing a military alliance between the two countries should the United States enter the conflict on the Allied side. According to the so-called Zimmerman Telegram, Mexico would recover Texas, Arizona and New Mexico in the event of an American defeat.
“It’s why the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915,” Neiberg said about the German U-boat attack on the British liner, killing 128 Americans, “is a big deal but does not lead the U.S. into war, and the events of the spring of 1917 do lead us into war. That’s the big difference. This one directly impacts us. If you live in the Western United States, this war is suddenly about you.”
World War I also was about Pittsburgh, of course, and Neiberg will cover some of the lesser-known local connections, including the roles of folks like Mary Roberts Rinehart and Col. William Thaw II.
And how did the war create “modern America”? Attend the Peters Township Public Library program, listen, learn and get ready for “Jeopardy.”