We’re on our way out to Washington, D.C. because I’m going to give a paper on software quality at the World Congress on Software Quality next week. So we decided to make this an RV trip to Washington and then pick up our missing states (S. Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama for both of us, and Arkansas and Oklahoma for me) to have visited all 50 states. So this will be a quick trip out to the East Coast with a more leisurely return. Yesterday, was all driving through Colorado and Kansas. Today, is our first tourist stop, the National World War I museum in Kansas City, MO.
This museum is not quite 2 years old. We’re here because last year, we found out how little we knew about WW I, when we visited Canada’s War Museum. The museum starts with a glass bridge over 9000 poppies, each representing a 1000 lives lost in WW I. An introductory film leaves you with the impression that no one is really certain why WW I began – yes, there were a lot of secret alliances built between countries over the previous decades, a lot of countries had built a lot of war munitions, Europe was beginning to taste more democracy rather than being ruled a monarchs, and, of course, there was the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Slovakia. But it seems like it just started, and then escalated quickly to a world war because of the alliances.
Germany’s plan was to quickly conquer France by going through Belgium to conquer Paris, then handle the Russians on their Eastern Front. But they got bogged down north of Paris, and the French counter-acted through a hole in their lines. This led to the trench warfare of the western front. The combination of several lines trenches, barbed wire protecting them, and machine guns meant little forward progress was made by either side for years. While there were many offensives, they were costly in the lives lost, and seldom were permanent gains.
Another movie explained how the U.S. finally entered the war. It was partly the German U boats sinking passenger ships, but mostly the Zimmerman letter to Mexico asking them to go to war with the U.S. This finally persuaded President Wilson and congress to enter what they considered a European war. The combination of American troops and tanks that could clamber over barbed wire and protect the soldiers from machine guns allowed enough of an offensive against the Germans to end the war.
This museum is not quite 2 years old. We’re here because last year, we found out how little we knew about WW I, when we visited Canada’s War Museum. The museum starts with a glass bridge over 9000 poppies, each representing a 1000 lives lost in WW I. An introductory film leaves you with the impression that no one is really certain why WW I began – yes, there were a lot of secret alliances built between countries over the previous decades, a lot of countries had built a lot of war munitions, Europe was beginning to taste more democracy rather than being ruled a monarchs, and, of course, there was the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Slovakia. But it seems like it just started, and then escalated quickly to a world war because of the alliances.
Germany’s plan was to quickly conquer France by going through Belgium to conquer Paris, then handle the Russians on their Eastern Front. But they got bogged down north of Paris, and the French counter-acted through a hole in their lines. This led to the trench warfare of the western front. The combination of several lines trenches, barbed wire protecting them, and machine guns meant little forward progress was made by either side for years. While there were many offensives, they were costly in the lives lost, and seldom were permanent gains.
Another movie explained how the U.S. finally entered the war. It was partly the German U boats sinking passenger ships, but mostly the Zimmerman letter to Mexico asking them to go to war with the U.S. This finally persuaded President Wilson and congress to enter what they considered a European war. The combination of American troops and tanks that could clamber over barbed wire and protect the soldiers from machine guns allowed enough of an offensive against the Germans to end the war.
World War I Tank
