was/were do do something 'Was/were to do something' Longman define this phrase as: Used when talking about a time in the past to say what happened later. Example: this discovery was to have a major effect on the treatment of heart disease. I don't thoroughly.comprehend it. I know the meaning of present tense (is/are to do sth) and the conditional one (if sb was/were to sth), but the simple past form of it, is a kind of ambiguous. Does it mean "unfulfilled intention"? P.s. Sorry about the topic sentences, it is a typo.