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World War I Causes and the Draft · Saberian History Lectures

0:00
Alright, wires on. So, what we've got going on,
0:03
last class we left off with America's entry into
0:07
the war. And also I dealt with the causes of
0:10
the war in generality. So one of the things I
0:12
have right here for you is a map of colonial
0:15
Africa. So, Africa is being carved up by major
0:20
European nations at the time. You have French
0:23
West Africa, which would include Mali and...
0:28
Libya, well, was kind of contested, and Morocco
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and Algeria. And then you have French Equatorial
0:38
Africa. You've got Nigeria and Cameroon, which
0:41
fell under the German sphere of influence. Angola
0:43
was sort of a contested area. Then you have German
0:47
East Africa over here, German Southwest Africa
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over here. You have what will become... a little
0:55
later, and you don't see it on the map here.
0:57
You have South Africa, which was originally Dutch.
1:02
Okay, it was originally Bantu. Then you have
1:05
the Dutch settling South Africa. They're called
1:07
the Boers. And then the British actually fight
1:10
a war in South Africa where they take South Africa
1:13
by force of arms. This is the Anglo -Boer War
1:16
of 1910. Okay, and so here you have... England
1:20
has a presence in Egypt, in Sudan, in Kenya.
1:24
And then you've got English in South Africa.
1:27
You've got Germans here. You've got the Belgians
1:29
here in the Congo. And then you've got Italy
1:32
in the Somaliland and Eritrea, which we now call
1:37
Somalia. And then Ethiopia has been independent
1:40
since the first century AD. Actually... Ethiopia
1:43
has been a fairly strong nation state going back
1:45
to the 5th century B .C. And so one of the laws
1:49
is nobody screws with the Ethiopians. Although
1:52
Ethiopia, even after retaining its post -colonial
1:56
independence, will become a client of the Soviet
1:58
Union during the Cold War. Alright, moving on.
2:01
Here's a map of political Africa afterwards.
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So you kind of see how some of the border lines
2:07
follow the colonial lines. prior to World War
2:12
I. Most of the lines in Africa are drawn in the
2:16
post -colonial era, which is after World War
2:19
II. World War II really does reveal the impotence
2:22
of these colonial empires. Okay. So, we talked
2:28
about the assassination of the Archduke and his
2:30
wife and the unborn child. Here's World War I
2:36
in Europe. For the Europeans it's 1914 to 1918.
2:40
For the U .S. it's April of 1917 to November
2:45
of 1919. Now the reason I use the term November
2:47
of 1919 whereas the Europeans think of the war
2:50
as ending as November of 1918 is November of
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1918 is the armistice which is when the fighting
2:56
stopped. November of 1919 is when the American
3:00
troops are coming home. So just because the fighting
3:03
stopped doesn't mean everybody gets to go home
3:05
especially when you're talking with an ocean
3:07
in the way. Moving on. Okay, so we talked about
3:15
the Alsace -Lorraine as a disputed territory,
3:18
also Germany contesting the territory with them
3:23
and Russia into modern -day Poland, and a naval
3:25
arms race between Germany and England. So, a
3:30
couple of things I want to talk to you about.
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So... And this map only shows you the European
3:36
side. You have the Austro -Hungarian Empire here.
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You have Germany here. You have the Ottoman Empire,
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which at this point is... Here's Anatolia, Turkey,
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Bulgaria. And then also the Ottoman Empire controls
3:53
the bulk of the Middle East. Pretty much from...
3:57
English -controlled Egypt to the Persian, to
4:00
modern Iran. So, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi
4:05
Arabia, and all those little emirates are under
4:08
Ottoman control. The one time you have peace
4:13
in the Middle East is because you have a tyrant
4:15
overruling them all. Okay. So, these are the
4:22
major battle lines, just to give you an idea.
4:26
So, one thing I wanted to talk to you about is
4:30
just how truly different World War I is from
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previous armed conflicts that the Europeans had
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fought. So, a couple of things you have to keep
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in mind. You have a number of technological innovations
4:45
that we think of as staples of modern warfare.
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You have automatic weapons. You have the machine
4:56
gun. Now, before you can have a machine gun,
5:05
some technological advancements have to occur.
5:09
Now, what was our first prototype machine gun?
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The Gatling gun, which goes back to like 1879.
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The Gatling gun was crank -operated. This is
5:19
belt -fed. Now, it's right around 1879, 1880
5:24
that you have a major innovation in small arms
5:26
technology. But it hasn't really been fielded
5:30
on a mass industrial scale in Europe until really
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World War I. And so 1879, I'm going to flip the
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light on so you all can see what I'm writing
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on the board. And I would say probably 1870s,
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late 1870s, you have self -contained cartridge.
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Now, self -contained cartridge is your modern
5:56
bullet. Okay, so how many of you have fired a
6:02
gun recreationally, either hunting or marksmanship?
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Okay, not as many as I would have hoped. Okay,
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if you actually take a bullet apart, which I
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don't recommend that you do, the actual bullet
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projectile part, or if you go to... sporting
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goods store, they actually have what are called
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reloading supplies for people who like to reload
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their own bullets. So you've got the bullet part.
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Then you have what's called the casing. The casing
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is usually brass, although sometimes it's steel.
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Inside the casing, you have the powder. At the
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bottom of the casing, you have what's called
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the primer. Previously, prior to the modern self
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-contained cartridge, like if you go back even
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to the Civil War, Civil War you don't have self
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-contained cartridge. What you would have is
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you would have the powder wrapped in paper with
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the ball. And so what you would do is you would
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take your mine rifle, you would put it on the
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ground, you would take out your cartridge, you
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would put it in your mouth, bite the bullet off.
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pour the powder down the barrel, put the ball
7:19
on the powder, take the ran rod, down it goes.
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You would take a, I want to say with the Minets,
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you actually had percussive cartridges that would
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go on the hammer at the back, shoulder the weapon,
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put the cap in, hammer goes down, hits the cap,
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that primes the powder, and down it goes. Okay,
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so here we have the primer, the powder, and the
7:44
bullet all in one case, which means you are no
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longer loading from the working end of the barrel.
7:51
You can now load from the rear. So now you have,
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not only does this facilitate the dawn of your
7:59
machine gun, you also have widely used in combat
8:04
the bolt action rifle. Now, bolt -action weapons
8:10
had preceded World War I, but this is the first
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deployment on massive scale. Yes, you had the
8:15
use of bolt -actions in the, I want to say they
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were used in the Spanish -American War, and the
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Europeans had used it against the African peoples
8:24
as part of their... colonization, but this is
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one of the times where you've got one army of
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people armed with bolt action weapons firing
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against another group of people with bolt action
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weapons. Now, what having a bolt action weapon
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does is you now have five to ten rounds in a
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magazine, so now you just pull, activate the
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bolt, that ejects the previous cartridge, then
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you have a magazine spring that loads the next
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round, push the bolt back into action, and then
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you're ready to go again. which compared to the
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many steps that you had to do with weapons like
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the mini rifle or the musket, that just increases
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the volume of fire for a single infantryman.
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Also, similar to the mini rifle, are these smoothbore
9:06
weapons or are they rifled? They're rifled, which
9:10
means your accuracy is far. So with your bolt
9:13
-action gun, you see this with the Mauser for
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the Germans, you see it with the Springfield
9:17
for the Americans, the Lee -Enfield for the British,
9:20
and the Mosin -Nagant for the Russians, you now
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have the ability to hit a target in trained hands
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at about 1 ,100 meters. And your rate of fire,
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because you don't ever have to move yourself
9:38
out of firing position, you just keep bolt churning
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it out, is much, much faster. So you have a higher
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volume of fire at a higher range. Now, you also
9:51
apply this idea of the self -contained cartridge.
9:55
to not just small arms, but artillery. So you
10:00
now have the concept of the self -contained cartridge
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being adapted to artillery. Again, even in the
10:06
time of the Civil War, if you had artillery,
10:08
you had to load the cannon from the front. Now
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with a self -contained cartridge, you pop the
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shell in. You close it, you let it rip, and then
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you eject the next cartridge and load the next
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one in. That greatly increases your volume of
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fire. Also at this point, you have exploding
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shells that are really effective because they
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not only have TNT in the charge, they have TNT
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in the projectile. So now you've got exploding
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shells that, again, have a higher volume of fire.
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Also, self -contained cartridge has your machine
10:49
guns, which, again, small arms, you're talking
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a .30 caliber round, which means something that
10:53
puts a hole in you one -third of an inch. Machine
10:56
guns, you're shooting .50 caliber rounds, which
10:59
means it puts a hole in a human being the size
11:00
of half an inch at greater succession. So now
11:03
with the machine gun, you are able to put down,
11:06
basically, you have two trained men manning a
11:09
machine gun. They can put down a wall of lead
11:12
in rapid succession. Yes? Was Simeo in the First
11:17
World War or was that the second? Say Simeo again.
11:20
I think you're mispronouncing it. Simeo? He was
11:23
the white dad? We do have the use of poison gas.
11:27
No, is this an assassin character? I'm unfamiliar
11:29
with the character. I think he was Finnish. Oh,
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is he a sniper? Yeah. I am thinking that might
11:41
have been later. I'm thinking that might have
11:43
been World War II. I'll double check. I know
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around the time of the Gatling guns, didn't we
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give some to Japan as well? Oh, no. I mean, once
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you have a military technology, especially with
11:54
American Enterprise, you sell it to whoever.
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I mean, yes. We're responsible for the difference.
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Well, I mean, okay, look. When you're a weapons
12:08
historian, there is an element of you... The
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person who makes a weapons system is essentially
12:19
an engineer solving a math problem. As Mikhail
12:22
Kalashnikov once said, I made a weapon to protect
12:25
the motherland. It's politicians who put it to
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bad use. I sleep very well at night. Anyway,
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so you've got exploding shells. You've got that.
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The machine gun, of course, you're talking .50
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caliber projectiles at high volume. By the way,
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how many of you have heard the expression, I
12:44
ran through the full nine yards? Nine yards is
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not a football term. Nine yards is the length
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of the belt for the machine gun. So if you're
12:53
thinking nine yards, take into account the fact
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that we are dealing with separations from the
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belt, but even just dividing it by two. Okay,
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36 inches, yes. Let's just figure you have a
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half inch round. With a little bit of spacing.
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But, you know, 36 inches times 9 is a lot of
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rounds. Okay. So that's that. Also, you have
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a couple of things that are kind of interesting.
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You have the use of poison gas. I'm going to
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get to poison gas in a bit. But never mind. I
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was going to make a crass joke about some of
13:27
y 'all's eating habits. But anyway. No? Too soon
13:30
for a school cafeteria joke? Poison gas? No?
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Alright, so you have the use of poison gas, you
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have mustard gas, I want to say sarin is already
13:42
used, and you also have the use of chlorine.
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Gaseous chlorine. And, you know, kind of a fun...
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Okay, not kind of a fun thing, but all right.
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And I know that the people over on podcasts are
13:59
probably going to think I'm a lunatic, but anyway.
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So mustard gas, it's a blister agent. You start
14:05
getting the sores in your armpits and in your
14:07
crotch. And then, of course, chlorine will blind
14:10
you. Chlorine, basically the way it works, it's
14:14
an irritant. And you expose a person to either
14:18
hydrogen cyanide or hydrogen chlorine, you basically,
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if you're exposed at a high enough level, your
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lungs bleed and you choke in your own blood.
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Now, actually, ironically enough, both Hitler
14:31
and Mussolini were gassed in the First World
14:34
War with chlorine. Hitler was temporarily blinded
14:36
at the time. Well, anyway, but the thing that
14:43
was actually kind of interesting, and then, of
14:44
course, sarin is a nerve agent. Basically, for
14:47
lack of a better word, you get exposed to it.
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It doesn't matter if it's breathed in or on the
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skin. Basically, your nervous system shuts down
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like you're a cockroach that just got hit with
14:55
bug spray. It's like, oh, we're done with this.
15:01
All of these come up. Now I kind of want to get
15:03
to the poison gas because it is largely in response
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to the use of fixed fortifications. So one of
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the things that you've got going on is you have
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all of these improvements in military technology.
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But what was the last war, the last major conflict
15:23
in continental Europe? Well, you have the Franco
15:31
-Prussian War, but even the Franco -Prussian
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War, you're still dealing with Napoleonic tactics.
15:41
People are still doing Napoleonic tactics with
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machine guns, bolt -action weapons, and poison
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gas. Now, let's have a quick review of what the
15:55
hallmark of the Napoleonic tactic was. What was
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the hallmark of the Napoleonic tactics? The assault
16:03
column. So the assault column is, I take a whole
16:07
bunch of not very well -trained people, put them
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in a group, after they've expended their small
16:18
arms, they fix bayonets, and they, at a dead
16:21
run, take on the enemy line. And they bum -rushed
16:28
the line, and the idea was, okay, you hit that
16:30
line hard enough, you can break through and you
16:32
can annihilate your enemies. And that works in
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the era of the Brown -Bess, where you have a
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slow volume of fire and a very limited effective
16:40
range. Where had we seen high -volume or high
16:45
-range weapon basically turning the crazy train
16:49
of the assault column into the death train? Not
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the revolution. The Civil War. The American Civil
16:58
War. The Europeans did not have an armed conflict
17:01
like the American Civil War on their continent,
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so they didn't adapt. And in some ways the US
17:07
actually appropriated European tactics on the
17:09
European theater. That actually wasn't that great
17:10
either. So, you've got the people trying to do
17:13
the crazy train thing. They're up against now
17:15
fixed fortifications. And so what the Europeans
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started doing, even though the US had done trench
17:19
warfare back in 1864, you actually have the Europeans
17:22
doing trench warfare. So what you do is you dig
17:24
a trench, so you're under the line of fire. You
17:26
have a mound from the dirt you just drug up.
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Oh, by the way, one agricultural improvement
17:30
that was developed in the United States was appropriated
17:33
for European warfare. How do you keep cattle
17:36
in on the Great Plains? Barbed wire. You put
17:42
barbed wire in front of your fortifications.
17:44
That way, even if you get hit with the assault
17:46
column, the first wave of your enemy attack gets
17:53
caught up on the barbed wire and you mow them
17:55
down with the machine guns. That's assuming you
17:58
don't hit them with the poison gas. And so what's
18:02
really kind of ironic, or what's really not really
18:05
ironic, really quite savage, is when you have
18:07
to go take an enemy fortification, you already
18:09
know that you're going to be walking over the
18:11
corpses of your friends to get past the barbed
18:13
wire. So let me show you the next slide. So with
18:22
an increased volume of fire, with increased exploding
18:24
shells, you actually have, whereas in the Civil
18:27
War you had battlefields, In World War I, you
18:31
had moonscapes. That used to be a green field
18:35
that was shelled into mud. Get the idea? Alright,
18:46
we talked about the U .S. neutrality, yes? U
18:50
.S. had given... Arms and food on credit to the
18:53
Allies had given some credit to the Central Powers.
18:56
The U .S. was playing both sides of the field,
18:58
depending on the industry, but not much. Brits
19:01
start searching U .S. naval, or start searching
19:04
neutral ships. That includes American ships,
19:07
violating American neutrality. The Germans, not
19:10
having a very strong surface fleet, resorted
19:12
to using untersee, or U -boats. One of the big
19:18
issues was May 7, 1915, the Lusitania is sunk
19:23
by a German U -boat without warning. They were
19:26
not given time to abandon the ships. September
19:29
of 1915, they sunk another vessel called the
19:31
Arabic. After that, there begins to be a negotiated
19:33
settlement between the United States and Germany
19:37
that Germany begins to restrict its submarine
19:39
warfare so that they're not targeting civilian
19:41
vessels. The U .S. begins to prepare. They pass
19:48
a revenue act to increase the amount of revenue,
19:50
to build up the size of the American fleet, and
19:53
to start raising funds to increase the size of
19:56
the peacetime army. The size of the peacetime
20:00
army is decided by Congress. 1916, the U .S.
20:06
has an election. Wilson gets a narrow win on
20:08
a campaign to keep the United States out of the
20:11
war. Now, January 1917, Germany announces that
20:16
it would resume unrestricted submarine warfare.
20:18
Basically, if it's not flying a German, Austro
20:21
-Hungarian, or Ottoman ship, it was a fair target.
20:23
They turn the seas into a free -fire zone. In
20:26
response, the United States severs its diplomatic
20:28
ties. The U .S. ambassador to Germany is recalled.
20:31
The German ambassador to the U .S. is recalled.
20:33
And when two countries aren't talking, guess
20:35
what they're getting ready to do? They're getting
20:37
ready to go to war. Now I'm going to show...
20:43
This slide, and then I'm going to go back to
20:45
chapter 19, because then this makes sense. March
20:48
1917. A secret communique between the government
20:55
of Germany and the provisional government in
20:59
Mexico. The German government... urged the Mexican
21:03
government to attack the United States. Now,
21:06
in and of itself, the Zimmerman telegram is not
21:08
that interesting. It is because most of us do
21:11
not have a very good history on the history of
21:13
Mexico. Which gets me to the other slide. I'm
21:18
going to get back to this in just a moment. Let
21:25
me get back here. So, back in 1911, Mexico loses
21:44
its strongman. 1876 to 1911, Mexico is governed
21:49
by a dictator by the name of Porfirio Diaz. It
21:52
is a period of peace through oppression. It's
21:57
called the Porfiriato. So when Porfirio Diaz
22:00
is no longer in power, what happens when the
22:03
strongman dies or leaves? Vacuum and nature abhors
22:07
a vacuum. You have a power struggle between the
22:09
major leaders. You have Madero, who was the man
22:12
to be, and then Huerta, who led a military junta.
22:15
So they're after each other. The U .S. had sailors
22:18
in Tampico who were arrested in April of 1914.
22:23
The U .S. then actually stages a landing at Veracruz
22:27
in reprisal. By the way, why do you land at Veracruz?
22:30
Who else has landed at Veracruz? There was Cortez
22:36
and somebody else. Taylor. Yeah. So during the
22:38
Mexican -American War, the U .S. landed troops
22:40
at Veracruz in anticipation to attack the capital
22:43
city. So you have American ships landing at Veracruz
22:48
as a punitive expedition. Now also, here's the
22:50
thing that most people don't appreciate about,
22:52
for lack of a better word, Mexican politics is
22:56
you have the official government in Mexico City,
22:59
also called the DFA. Does the government in Mexico
23:03
City really have absolute control over the entire
23:06
hinterland? No. And even less so in 1914, 1915,
23:14
1916. So in addition to the conflict going on
23:18
between Madero and Huerta, you also have regional
23:26
uprisings. You have the Zapatistas. in the South,
23:31
and you have Jorge Pancho Villa in the North.
23:37
Now, Villa, and I'm going to get to him in a
23:42
moment, so you have Jorge Pancho Villa leading
23:46
an uprising against the government in the North.
23:48
Now, Villa and his group, which are sometimes
23:50
called the Villistas, and sometimes they're called
23:53
the Bandidos. Bandidos means what? Bandits. This
23:59
guy was known for being especially bloodthirsty.
24:02
One time, there was a group of federal troops
24:04
that were sent to attack him. He and his men
24:06
slaughtered them, stripped their uniforms off,
24:08
put the uniforms on a train, sent them back to
24:11
the DFA and says, here are some more rappers,
24:13
send us some more tamales. I mean, this dude
24:17
was not on the top ten list of nice people. Now,
24:21
Villa crosses the border and raids Columbus,
24:25
New Mexico. So you now have American blood on
24:28
American soil. So you have incidences of cross
24:33
-border violence. The United States, in response,
24:35
sends a military expedition under command of
24:39
General Black Jack Pershing. This is the punitive
24:42
expedition. So basically, leading up to World
24:46
War I, you have had incidences of cross -border
24:49
violence and the United States invading Mexico
24:51
in reprisal for that cross -border violence.
24:56
And so Pershing is recalled shortly after the
24:59
intercept of the Zimmerman telegram. And so if
25:02
you start looking at the situation on the ground
25:05
between the United States and Mexico at the time
25:08
of the Zimmerman telegram, the idea that Mexico
25:10
would have attacked the United States was not
25:13
beyond belief. And so now with the Zimmerman
25:19
telegram, is the war over there really over there?
25:29
Now, I got to get into something that will really
25:34
mess with your skulls. U .S. declares war April
25:40
4th, 1917. Now, what was the previous armed conflict
25:46
that the United States was involved with prior
25:48
to World War I? Spanish -American War. If you'll
25:52
recall, during the Spanish -American War, they
25:54
had more troops than they knew what to do with.
25:56
They asked for a certain number of volunteers.
25:58
They got nearly twice that number, right? So
26:02
with this war, it was sort of a don't call us,
26:05
we'll call you. Congress, 24 days after the declaration
26:11
of war, passes what is called the Selective Service
26:15
Act. The first national draft in the United States.
26:20
Now, had there been armed conflicts in the United
26:23
States where a draft was employed? Yes, you had
26:26
the draft during the Civil War. The draft in
26:28
the Civil War was not national. It was in many
26:31
ways local. Local drafts to fill local units.
26:35
Does that make sense? This was the first national
26:38
draft. Now, here's the part that's kind of interesting.
26:45
While the American military establishment had
26:49
had contingency plans for a draft for years before
26:53
the First World War, from the passage of the
27:01
Act to the actual day that they had to register
27:03
every military -aged man, how much time are we
27:08
talking here? Do the math. April 28th. April's
27:14
almost over. They had just over a month and nine
27:18
days. All of May, five days into June. Yeah,
27:26
no. No. No, I get it. I mean, I thought that
27:30
too. And I was like, no, no. They did it in less
27:32
than two months. What do you got? Why did they
27:34
make the registration day so close to the...
27:36
Because they wanted to get troops in the field.
27:40
You get what I'm saying? I mean, you can't just
27:43
declare war. I mean, as Lyndon Baines Johnson,
27:45
if you're going to tell somebody to go to hell,
27:47
you've got to be able to send them there. Right?
27:51
Alright, now, here's the thing I want you to
27:53
think about for a moment. The United States declares
27:58
war on April the 4th. Now, at this point in American
28:02
history, America has had wars where there have
28:05
been drafts, but America does not have a national
28:09
draft yet. Now, what was the last major armed
28:14
conflict that the United States was involved
28:17
with? The Philippine occupation, which was caused
28:22
by what? Spanish -American War. And you may recall
28:26
that in the Spanish -American War, the country
28:28
had more volunteers than it knew what to do with.
28:31
And so for the first time in the armed conflict
28:34
history of the United States, the government
28:36
of the United States said to the people, don't
28:39
call us. We'll call you. Now, so April 28th,
28:50
Congress passes the Selective Service Act, which
28:54
is the first national draft. There are elements
28:57
of the Selective Service Act that are still in
28:59
force. I say that to people who will have to
29:02
register for the draft when they turn 18. We
29:05
still have it. Now, do we actually make you go
29:09
into the service yet? No, it's just a matter
29:11
of record keeping right now. But I want you to
29:14
think about this. This is 1917. And this actually
29:19
posed a number of challenges. So here's what
29:22
I mean by that. You have grown up in a world
29:28
where the world knows who you are. How many of
29:34
you have... A driver's license. How many of you
29:39
have a learner's permit? How many of you have
29:42
a student ID? And if you wanted, you could go
29:46
to St. Philip's and get a student ID made for
29:49
them. Yes? Right. Now, you have been born into
29:56
what I have called the bureaucratic state. Okay?
30:02
So let me introduce to you a concept that really
30:05
will blow your mind and frighten you. But anyway,
30:07
this is the concept of the bureaucratic state.
30:11
And really, the American bureaucratic state really
30:16
gets started in this period of time. So here
30:23
we have the bureaucratic state versus what I
30:25
would call the pre -bureaucratic state. Now these
30:31
dates are approximate, but we'll just say 1783
30:35
to 1917. I would say the bureaucratic state goes
30:40
from 1917 to now, or to the present. So let's
30:46
sort of backwards engineer the bureaucratic state
30:48
for a moment. I presume, albeit perhaps incorrectly,
30:56
that all of you were born in a hospital. Am I
30:59
correct? None of you were born at home. Okay.
31:05
So, you were born in the hospital. You were dragged
31:07
kicking and screaming into this world. And shortly
31:11
after you were born, the state had a document
31:14
that you exist. What do we call that? A birth
31:19
certificate. You may recall there was some great
31:22
controversy about the 44th president and some
31:24
birth certificate thing. I'm not going to get
31:27
into the birther movement. I'm just going to
31:29
point it out for cultural relevance. So you have
31:31
a birth certificate. That is your first entry
31:34
into the bureaucratic state. The state knows
31:36
when you were born, down to the day, down to
31:40
the minute, down to the hour. Yes? Huh? I just
31:46
looked at mine and it's 11 .5. Oh, okay. And
31:49
then, at some point, what's your next adventure
31:54
into the bureaucratic state? Party. Nope. Social
31:58
security. So you get a social security number.
32:02
How long does it take to get one? Michaela got
32:05
hers in less than two months. So you have a social
32:10
security number. Probably about the age of five,
32:14
you matriculate into school. Five or six. So
32:18
then you enter school and you are assigned a
32:21
number. Now, Emma, you moved. Yes. Within the
32:27
state or out of the state? Okay, so your number
32:30
in the old country is not the same as your number
32:33
in the new country. Your social security is the
32:35
same. You probably had to take your birth certificate
32:37
with you. But you had to get a new school ID
32:40
number. Not just within the school district.
32:43
Each of you has a unique identifier within the
32:46
Texan state. So even if you change school district,
32:49
that number follows you. So when you enter the
32:52
school, you have a school ID number. Then you
32:56
get your driver's license. By the way, Your driver's
33:03
license has your picture on it, doesn't it? Do
33:08
we have photo ID in the pre -bureaucratic state?
33:11
No. So now you have your driver's license. At
33:17
some point in your life, if you enlist, more
33:20
records are made. I'm not even going to get into
33:22
all the records that the state apparatus has
33:25
on you if you enlist. When you turn 18, gentlemen
33:28
and I believe, now ladies. You have to register
33:33
for selective service. If you travel abroad,
33:39
you have to get a what? A passport. If you get
33:47
married, you have to get a what? Marriage certificate
33:51
or marriage license. And when you die, and die
34:04
you shall, someone else gets to sign your death
34:11
certificate. Either the physician or the hospice
34:14
worker who is attending to you, or the justice
34:17
of the peace that finds your body. A little too
34:23
grim right before lunch? I know, sorry. That's
34:34
because I didn't get into the... I said find
34:36
your body. I didn't say that find your rotting
34:38
corpse with all the parasites. All right. Now,
34:47
in 1970... Oh, there's one other thing I forgot.
34:55
We'll put it over here. Voter registration. And
35:06
also tax records. Now, y 'all actually have taxes
35:10
on you really from about, oh, I would say probably
35:13
here. Most of you have tax records on you before
35:17
you have your driver's license. How many of you
35:19
worked a job before you got your license? That
35:21
means congratulations. There's a W -2 with your
35:24
name and your social security number on it. The
35:26
government already has a file on you. Some people
35:30
have bigger files than others. I kind of want
35:32
to see mine. I'm kind of interested. I'm still
35:34
convinced that the government's not doing its
35:36
job. What? Don't give me that look. All right.
35:44
Now, at this point in American history, most
35:49
people were born at home. No birth certificate.
35:55
How do you create a system to register your military
36:00
age population when you have very limited compulsory
36:05
education, very limited communication? Also,
36:07
what means of communication are at your disposal
36:09
in 1917? Newspaper, telegraph. Telephones, but
36:17
not in rural areas. Radio, depending on your
36:21
location. Yes? How do you even begin? So what's
36:26
really quite remarkable is you go from a place
36:30
of no national bureaucracy to registering every
36:34
man in the United States between the ages of
36:38
21 and 31. Now here's the part that's very interesting.
36:43
You did have voter rolls at that time. So this
36:52
becomes the question. In modern times, you register
36:55
for selective service at 18. The draft age nowadays
37:00
is 18 to, I believe, 31 or 32. But in the First
37:06
World War, it was 21 to 31. So if you were aged
37:10
21 to 31 on June 5th of 1917, you were eligible
37:19
for the draft. The reason they made the age 21
37:23
is that was the age you could vote. And they
37:29
had a record on you. So they had to use existing
37:35
record system. The one existing record system
37:38
they already had, which was the voter registration.
37:41
Now the other thing that was kind of interesting,
37:43
and I say this in a world where our different
37:45
arms of the federal government are not getting
37:47
along. As part of the Selective Service Act,
37:52
this was a massive undertaking. Think about in
37:55
the cities how many thousands of people would
37:58
have to be registered. You had to have people
38:00
go out into the hinterland to find people in
38:03
the countryside to be registered. And so who
38:06
do you conscript to conscript your population
38:09
when you have a very limited federal government
38:13
still? Other arms of the government. And so what
38:19
would you have to use as registration sites?
38:22
You'd have to use every city hall, every post
38:25
office, every county clerk. So what would happen
38:31
is the county clerk, a designated county physician,
38:35
and a designated county judge would be conscripted
38:40
into service. As terms of the act, the federal
38:42
government said, you, oh county judge, you will
38:44
make this happen. Do you suppose an attorney
38:51
general in Washington state was going to say
38:53
no? Oh, too soon for that? Now, that was law,
39:00
not an executive order. But no, they conscripted
39:04
the entire bureaucracy, state, local, and put
39:08
it in the service of the federal government to
39:10
register men for the draft. Now, what was really
39:12
quite remarkable is... They started the registration
39:16
on June 5th. And so what they did is they publicized
39:19
in every newspaper, in every language in this
39:22
United States, as if you are going to be between
39:24
the ages of 21 and 31, you will report to this
39:28
place at this time and be registered for the
39:32
Selective Service. They took down their names.
39:33
They took down their ages. They took down their
39:35
ethnicities. They took down all this different
39:37
information, their marital status. And they put
39:41
it on these cards. And then they put the cards
39:44
onto, or they transferred the information onto
39:48
punch cards. Now punch cards are basically perforated
39:51
scantrons. And do you want to know how long it
39:55
took them to get a count of how many men would
39:58
be available for service? Want to take a guess?
40:04
They actually had the primitive count in 24 hours.
40:10
It's amazing what you can do with Scantrons.
40:13
It's amazing what you can do with punch cards.
40:16
It's amazing what you can do with spreadsheets.
40:20
The United States had a record, had a primitive
40:26
count of their military population in 24 hours
40:29
in 1917. That should frighten everyone with what
40:34
information technology can do. Alright. Who got
40:40
drafted? Men between the ages of 21 and 31. Was
40:43
it a rich man's poor and a poor man's fight?
40:44
Not really. In this regard, I find myself contradicting
40:49
your last history teacher's favorite author,
40:51
Howard Zinn. Zinn was wrong. Actually, he wasn't
40:55
entirely wrong. He was just not right about this
40:57
war. Getting to... Here's what I mean. So, what
41:01
I did was I had to figure out who was drafted
41:05
and who wasn't. So, basically... I'm looking
41:08
at who's in the service from the state in World
41:09
War I, and you have all these different units,
41:13
but most of them are what we call, and so you
41:16
divide them into what are called volunteer units,
41:18
professional units, or draft units. And they
41:21
actually did. They created a separate U .S. National
41:24
Army as just the draft army, and then you had...
41:28
National Guard, people were usually enlisted
41:30
in that before the war. And then, of course,
41:32
if you're in the Navy, the Coast Guard, the Marine
41:34
Corps, those are units that you got into before
41:36
the war. Those were not necessarily units you
41:38
joined up. You were not asked to go into those
41:40
units. And so I tried to figure out who had actually
41:44
been in the conflict prior to. These are the
41:46
nationality breakdowns in the set. This is actually
41:49
the percentage rates. Where is it? And here we
41:53
go. Birthplaces, cross -tabulation, and census
41:57
year of resident aliens. Where is it? Ah, here
42:03
we go. Duncan Socio -Economic Index. So basically...
42:08
In social science, there's what's called the
42:10
Duncan Socioeconomics Index, and what you actually
42:12
find is that the wealthier you are in the First
42:17
World War, the more likely you are to be drafted.
42:19
The reason that is, is because unlike Vietnam,
42:22
you don't have a college deferment, and you don't
42:25
have as many exemptions. You don't have the plantation
42:28
deferment that they had in the South, and so
42:30
literally being wealthy didn't help you. You
42:33
couldn't buy your way out the way you could in
42:35
the Civil War. And that was deliberate by the
42:38
people running the draft. And so one of the things
42:40
that was kind of interesting is, okay, again,
42:43
before food supplementation, if you're well -to
42:46
-do, are you more likely to be in better physical
42:49
shape? Whereas if you're impoverished, you're
42:52
more likely to suffer from a nutritional deficiency
42:55
that would make you ineligible for military service.
42:59
And so in the case of World War I, you actually
43:02
had a higher likelihood of being drafted. The
43:04
farm owner was more likely to be drafted than
43:06
the farm worker. And you had exemptions for vital
43:11
industries. But again... you're more likely to
43:14
qualify to be in a vital industry if you're a
43:16
factory worker than if you're the accountant.
43:19
Does that make sense? And so really, it is sort
43:23
of a more equitable thing. Now one of the things
43:25
that was going on is they did conscript enemy
43:29
aliens into the army, but they were screened
43:31
usually. And one of the other things the book
43:33
actually talks about, makes a really big deal
43:36
about the draft resistance, it was not that big
43:39
of a deal. You're not talking massive protests
43:41
the way you have in Vietnam. You have some socialists,
43:45
you have some Jehovah's Witnesses, you have some
43:47
religious denominations that had objections to
43:49
war. Very often those people were still conscripted
43:52
and just placed in non -combat duties. Okay,
43:56
moving on.