100 years since World War 1

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Woodrow Wilson's fight to "make the world safe for Democracy," was his wartime slogan, but his wartime domestic policy left much to be desired on that front. Americans of German extraction were labeled as potential enemies, unleashing violence and discrimination directed against them (a young German American man had been lynched by a blood mad crowd, and the judge ruled in favor of the perpetrators, saying it was a patriotic murder). As pacifists were labeled and treated as enemies, so were the socialists they were often associated with, and saw their newspapers shut down. Organized labor like the Industrial Workers of the World (the IWW, or Wobblies) refused to give up their right to collective bargaining or going on strike during the war, and so were called Imperial Wilhelm's Warriors when the government crackdown came (they became communists in the eyes of the Wilson administration as soon as the Bolsheviks withdrew Russian forces from the war). Labor leader Eugen Debbs was sent to prison for violating the Espionage Act (about the grossest miscarriage of constitutional rights this country has ever see) by the Wilson administration, and was only freed by Wilson's Republican successor. Soon, blacks were being accused of harboring Pro-German sympathies, and soon after that, a new surge of nativism against immigrants emerged. It's no surprise that the Progressive Era that Wilson had ridden in on had died during this phase of his presidency, and with it a new upsurge of the radical right, with deportations of "radical" immigrants, the crack down on the gains by organized labor, the first Red Scare, and the rise of a nationally powerful KKK.

It was the first war fought with innovative technology. The tank was a significant invention, even though it never lived up to its promise. (They were too slow, and thus made easy targets.) Mortars were used for the first time by the Germans and were deadly efficient. Everyone knows about the aircraft battles, but most don't know about the aerial bombing of London. Gas was another terror weapon.

Wars were fought with 'innovative technology' ever since the Hittites experiment with heavy chariots to counter the Pharoah's fast light chariots three thousand years ago. Actually ever since Amoebas learned to engulf paramecia with psuedopodia billions of years ago.

But they started the 1914 war with new unprecedented technology, and innovated more technology as the war progressed at a rapid rate.

The war kicked off with new truly big gun heavy artillery, and with machine guns, which caused the war to become the stalemated war of attrition in the trenches that favored defense. As the war progressed they came up with grotesque innovations like poison gas (my granddad survived being gassed on the battlefield of France). They bombed London using Zeppilins, and later with heavier than air gotha bombers. Submarines proved deadly, and were able to sink millions of tons of merchant shipping (including the British luxury liner Lusitanania with 1100 killed -including almost 200 americans- helping to persuade American public opinion to favor intervention on the side of the allies. Kinda the Malaysian airline of that time.

Finnally in the final months- they came up with surper precise artillery. That enabled the use of the "walking barrage"( using big guns to rain shells like a curtain in front of your advancing infantry). That tactic combined with the crude tanks they had recently invented to finally break the trench deadlock and enabled war to become mobile again.

Much like WWII, we were on the frontlines of WWI before the Americans, though that was mainly because we still had close ties with Britain at the time, and as soon as they went, we went as well. I believe one of my distant ancestors on my mom's side actually fought in the war. As far as wars go, I've heard that WWI in particular was quite brutal and bloody, especially with the chemical weapons and trench warfare.

WWII was a "bigger" event, but somehow the idea of WWI itself just seems more harsh and depressing to me. I mean, WWII had the concentration camps and such, but the actual warfare itself, aside from the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, just seems "cleaner". Either that, or my image of it has been warped by too many movies and video games. Either way, I wouldn't have wanted to be a soldier in either war, and I am grateful for all the people who lost their lives protecting our freedoms in these wars.

The Pacific War was pretty brutal too.

Yeah....they were bloodthirsty, to THEMSELVES, primarily.

You're referring to Order No. 270?

WWI set the stage for WWII, if the US didn't intervene then then the harsh terms set upon Germany never happen and Hitler doesn't come to power in 32. Without WWI then the middle east wouldn't be so messed up. Woodrow Wilson was an evil man.