World War I is often remembered as the prelude to an even greater catastrophe two decades later. But the Great War was far more than an opening chapter to World War II. It was a dividing line in modern history—a moment when an old world began to collapse and a new one struggled to emerge.
In this episode of The Empire: A 250 Year American Story, we step back into the years before America became a dominant global power and explore the forces that pulled Europe—and eventually the United States—into a conflict unlike anything the world had experienced before.
The story begins with a rapidly changing Europe. German unification altered the balance of power. Imperial competition, nationalism, military expansion, and increasingly dangerous alliances created a continent filled with tension. Then an assassination in Sarajevo provided the spark. What followed was not inevitable. Governments made decisions, leaders took risks, and millions of ordinary people were swept into the consequences.
The war that many expected to be brief instead became an industrialized nightmare. Machine guns, artillery, poison gas, submarines, and trenches transformed the battlefield while casualty numbers climbed beyond anything previous generations could have imagined. The confidence that science, technology, and progress were making civilization safer suddenly looked terribly misplaced.
Meanwhile, America watched from across the Atlantic. President Woodrow Wilson promised neutrality while an extraordinary coalition of Americans argued passionately against entering Europe’s bloodbath. Others, including former president Theodore Roosevelt, insisted that America could not remain on the sidelines.
But neutrality became increasingly difficult to maintain.
This episode explores how the Great War transformed the world, why America was eventually drawn into the crisis, and how the catastrophe in Europe opened a doorway to a new role for the United States. America was about to step onto the world stage carrying enormous power—and equally enormous ideals about what that power might accomplish.
