Use this episode to set the stage for student understandings of the long-term effects of World War I on world and U.S. history. Through autobiographical accounts and footage from Germany, students learn about mass mutinies, strikes and other events that caused the collapse of the war effort, which enabled German leaders after the war to claim that its army had not been defeated on the battlefield. Explain how German actions provoked the U.S. into the war, delivering a psychological boost to the Allied cause. And show students how the end of the war opened an opportunity for President Woodrow Wilson to propose a new world order based on the principles of democracy. Focusing on the months preceding and just after the cease fire, this episode explains how the brutality of trench warfare was brought home to city streets in the forms of political assassinations, revenge, starvation and anarchy.
Students learn how the war changed the world and why positive change was so difficult to attain.
Firsthand accounts express the painful bitterness of German reparation and explain how the death of the Tsar affected the Russian people. Students explore many events and conditions that foreshadowed the post-war world, including the emergence of the Dada Movement, the efforts of Herbert Hoover to bring relief to millions, the confrontations between Bolsheviks and Allied forces in Russia and the prolonged blockade of Germany. Archival footage and first-person accounts describe how world leaders in Paris partitioned nations and unknowingly set the stage for conflicts to come. This final episode explores the aftermath of war and the failed peace, including the painful efforts to deal with the losses suffered during the war and the climate in Germany that launched the political career of Adolph Hitler. A comprehensive Teacher's Guide with eight modules for instruction and assessment.