PBS’ The Great War comes to a close with hope for a peace that we know won’t last.
PBS’ The Great War came to a close in a very open-ended feeling finale last night. The truth is that many of the issues The Great War addressed simply aren’t solved or closed even today. In the end, your left with a melancholy and unsure feeling about not only the future of those involved in World War I but in many ways the future of our world today.
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If I have to pull away a lesson from The Great War it’s probably that good intentions are not enough. Woodrow Wilson entered the war wanting to form a better world, in the end however it was his own bitterness and reluctance to act that caused the downfall of what he strove for.
We saw Wilson push aside all other issues for women’s suffrage and African American rights to the great influenza epidemic in order to win his war. Yet when the price he had to pay was his own bitterness and ego he wasn’t willing to sacrifice to get the treaty which he claimed all this was for ratified.
Wilson is a complicated character in American history, but the lesson I feel like we need to take from him is that his good intentions were not enough. In order to great a better world you have to be willing to compromise and you have to look past what’s important to you and think about what’s important to others. Woodrow Wilson was unable to do this.
The Great War only lightly touches on World War I, there’s so much more to this great conflict. Hopefully people came away wanting to learn more about the war and thinking about how the war compares to our world today.
What did you think of the finale episode of The Great War? Let us know in the comments below.