Harlem Hellfighters

More than 2 million Americans served in Europe during World War I. Eager to promote democracy around the world, many entered the war with great enthusiasm. But their first taste of battle left them more realistic about the horrors of war.

After reading the excerpt from Max Brooks The Harlem Hellfighters answer these questions in your Interactive Student Notebook:

1) Why did so many men, especially African Americans, enlist to go 'Over There?'

2) Would you stay or would you go?  Why?

3) Why is the large number of casualties during World War I typically not discussed?

4) Many of the 369th Regiment decided to stay in France after the war. Why might they have done this?

5) What comparisons can you make between the Harlem Hellfighters and the Buffalo Soldiers?

Zimmermann Telegram

In January of 1917, British cryptographers deciphered a telegram from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to the German Minister to Mexico, von Eckhardt, offering United States territory to Mexico in return for joining the German cause. This message helped draw the United States into the war and thus changed the course of history. The telegram had such an impact on American opinion that, according to David Kahn, author of The Codebreakers, "No other single cryptanalysis has had such enormous consequences." It is his opinion that "never before or since has so much turned upon the solution of a secret message." In an effort to protect their intelligence from detection and to capitalize on growing anti-German sentiment in the United States, the British waited until February 24 to present the telegram to Woodrow Wilson. The American press published news of the telegram on March 1. On April 6, 1917, the United States Congress formally declared war on Germany and its allies.

Can you decode the message?

The first 'wall' along our southern border with Mexico was started during WWI 100 years ago; not because we feared the Mexicans or radical Islam, but because we feared the Germans!

What is the legacy of the Zimmerman Telegram today?

You Sank My Battleship!

Battleship wasn't always a board game. The original version, reportedly created as a French World War I game, was played on square grids, and each player drew in where their battleships were located. It wasn't until 1931 when the Milton Bradley Company turned what was a simple two-player, paper-and-pen game into the popularized children's board game. The gist of the game -- both then and today --is to capture or sink the other person's battleships through a series of strategic moves.

Many variations have appeared over the years from the distinctive plastic ships and pegboards of the classic board game to numerous online versions. Our classroom version brings us full circle to World War I: the large 'aircraft carrier' has been replaced with the historic Lusitania and the submarines with German U-boats. Can you sink American neutrality?

1) Which boat do you think is the most valuable? The least? Why?

2) What strategies did you develop as you played the game?

3) Why did the Germans target a defenseless passenger ship like the Lusitania? How did the attack pull America closer to war?

4) What was the Sussex Pledge? How did the German U-Boats change the 'rules of engagement?'

5) What modern weapons have changed the way we fight wars today?