How the Germans Underestimated the Tommies (At Least Early On)

 

By George Kerevan

As a consequence of the long intermarriage of the British and German royal families, upper-class Germans knew upper-class Britain quite intimately during the decades before the First World War. Families and businesses were intermingled and it was common for young Germans to attend school or university in Britain. In turn, the British were in awe of German high culture, its literature, music and science. British universities were even persuaded to import that strange German innovation, the research degree or PhD. As a result, many German army officers spoke perfect English and had a deep working knowledge of British society — or thought they had. They were not impressed by what they saw. Upper-class Germans thought the English had become debased by Celtic and Jewish influences, and by a selfish concentration on commerce as opposed to heroic Wagnerian values and a love of science and the arts for their own sake.

So the Germans entered the First World War with contempt for the decadence of British culture. When the first British troops taken prisoner in 1914 sportingly tried to shake hands with their captors, they were beaten up for their pains. The Germans disdainfully characterized this British national characteristic as “sportsidiotsmus”—meaning they were un-serious and ignorant.

The Prussian military believed the French and Russians were brave and worthy enemies, while the Brits were only in it for the money. Ordinary rank-and-file Germans were taught to believe the British started the war out of jealousy and were paying the French and Russians to encircle the Fatherland.

[The Germans assumed that the disillusioned British deserters they interrogated were typical Tommies:]

One German report on 35 British soldiers captured at Ypres on 12 February 1916 sums up the received Prussian wisdom: “crooked legs, rickety, alcoholic, degenerate, ill-bred, and poor to the last degree.” Another intelligence report referred to the “poor little men of a diseased civilisation.”

[Thus, the Huns were shocked by the tenacity of the British Army—and by the high technology they brought to the war.]

Source: From a 2006 review of Through German Eyes: the British and the Somme 1916, by Christopher Duffy published in The Scotsman

The Attack of the Dead Men: The Russian Defense of Osowiec Fortress – Video

From your Editor:  The narration of this video is overly dramatic and some the details presented sound shaky, but it's a whale of a story anyway.  You won't be bored. MH

The Wartime Paintings of German Soldier Hans Baluschek

Introduction: Hans Baluschek (1870–1935) was a German painter, graphic artist and writer. Despite his age, he volunteered for army when war broke out and served on both the Eastern and Western Fronts.  He recorded his experiences in paintings. Baluschek was a prominent representative of German Critical Realism, and as such he sought to portray the life of the common people with vivid frankness. His postwar paintings centered on the life of working class Berlin. Baluschek belonged to the Berlin secession movement; a group of artists interested in modern developments in art. These selections are from his 1916 collection, Der Krieg 1914–1916 (The War). My friend Walt Kudlick discovered Der Kreig and scanned the images for a slideshow and my former website of those days.

Click on Images to Enlarge 

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Remembering a Veteran: Lt. Orlando Henderson Petty, MD, United States Navy (Assigned 5th Marines) MoH

Lieutenant Orlando Petty
(Apparently Prior to Presentation of the Medal of Honor)

By John F. Andrews

Orlando H. Petty was born on 20 February 1874 in Cadiz, Ohio. Some accounts list is place of birth as Harrison, Ohio. The forms he filled out by hand list Cadiz. He was the son of Asbury F. Petty and Sarah Kyle. His twin brother was Orville Anderson Petty. He graduated from Muskingum College, and then went to medical school at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, graduating in 1904. He married Marcia Mellersh in 1908. They had two children, Clara and Orville. He died on 2 June 1932, at the age of 58, in Philadelphia, PA. 

After Petty completed his training, he continued on the faculty at Jefferson and specialized in metabolic disorders (what we would refer to as endocrinology today). At the age of 42, he joined the U.S. Naval Reserve Force and was commissioned as a lieutenant, junior grade, on 5 December of 1916. 

In a letter received by the USN on 3/29/1917 he wrote:

To Surgeon General, USN

Subject: Request for assignment to active duty in the event of hostilities or if services are now needed will gladly serve in the interhostile period. In the event of hostilities or if my services are now needed I respectfully request assignment to active duty. As I am actively connected with two hospitals I would perhaps be more efficient with a hospital assignment. If such is not available I will well and faithfully perform whatever service you may assign me.” 

He shipped over to France in July of 1917 on the USS Henderson. He was stationed in St. Nazaire, France from August to November 1917. 

He was transferred to the medical staff serving the USMC 5th Regiment, AEF, on 8 May 1918 (USN Reserve Force class 4). His commanding officer was Lt. Commander Paul Dessez. He worked in the battalion aid station in Lucy-le-Bocage where he performed under arduous conditions. The aid station was subjected to heavy artillery barrages and gas attacks on multiple occasions during his work there. The events depicted in Our Desperate Hour: A Novel of the Battle of Belleau Wood are this author’s recreation of events described in available historical records. Petty was severely gassed while struggling to treat and rescue USMC Captain Lloyd Williams [of "Retreat? Hell, we just got here!" renown] on 11 June 1918.

 

Enemy Artillery Damage at Lucy-le-Bocage

Petty was evacuated and after degassing was admitted to Field Hospital Number 16. This was the hospital for gas cases located in Luzancy, France. It is a bit unclear how long he was there. His service records indicate admission on 11 June 1918 and discharge in “Jun 1918.” He was an inpatient at Officers Hospital #4 from 11 August 1918 to 1 September 1918. This was probably American Red Cross Military Hospital Number 4 in Paris. The exact location of that hospital in Paris is unclear. Another record showed him receiving care at Base Hospital #101 for bronchitis (probably due to the gas exposure) on 27 August1918. Yet another record showed him at Red Cross Hospital #3. From 1 September 1918 to 13 December 1918, one record has him assigned to US Navy Base Hospital 5 in Brest, France. He was transferred to the US Naval Air Station, Pauillac, Bordeaux, France on 16 October 1918. It appears that his time in the hospitals from September through his debarkation back to the U.S. in December was partially for treatment and that he probably continued to serve in a reduced duty fashion on the medical staff. According to Veterans Bureau records, his diagnoses included:

1.  Gassed

2.  Fibroid phthisis

3.  Chronic enteritis and colitis

4.  Gall bladder infection  

Fibroid phthisis is an antiquated term that included cases of tuberculosis complicated by chronic lung scarring along with other non-tubercular lung scarring. The thought at the time was that the non-tubercular cases (such as the condition we now call black lung disease) eventually became infected with tuberculosis. This disease, however, could be confused with other forms of fibrotic or scarring diseases of the lungs, including scarring in the aftermath of mustard or other warfare gas exposure. The “Chronic Enteritis and Colitis” was probably a form of persistent or chronic gastroenteritis, which in another report was listed as dysentery. 

Petty’s gas mask was torn while he carried Captain Lloyd Williams away from the destroyed battalion aid station in Lucy. During the evacuation and for an undocumented time afterward, he treated Williams and others without the gas mask in the midst of a gas attack. This exposed his facial skin, eyes, nose, mouth, and lower respiratory tract to mustard gas (the main gas apparently used in that attack). This would have left him with skin and eye inflammation. Swallowed mustard gas could cause gastroenteritis. When inhaled, mustard gas commonly caused chemical bronchitis that was often complicated by pneumonia. Heavy exposure could cause a non-infectious inflammatory reaction in the lungs that could lead to the formation of scar tissue that today would be called pulmonary fibrosis. At that time might be difficult to distinguish this from the after-effects of tuberculosis. The diagnosis of “Fibroid Phthisis” could be entirely due to the late effects of the gas exposure. However, tuberculosis was common in that era, and many physicians were exposed to it and became infected. Some of those would be left with chronic lung scarring. Radiology was a new science in that era, and chest x-rays were not a routine procedure. Thus, it was unlikely that he had baseline chest X-rays unless he had prior tuberculosis.

 

Aid Station at Belleau Wood

He left France on the USS De Kalb and arrived in the U.S. on 19 December1918. He was honorably discharged from active service on either 19 or 21 December 1918 and returned home. He continued to serve in the U.S. Navy Reserve Force after that. In 1921 the Congress reduced the appropriation for the U.S. Navy Reserve Force from a requested $12 million to $7 million. This led the Navy to drastically reduce its reserve force. In this process, Petty was honorably discharged from his “class 2” reserve commission on 30 September 1921. He applied for reinstatement in what was termed a “class 6” commission in October of 1921, but the Navy denied his application. The record of this stated that he was denied due to the fact that they had not received his application before the deadline of 1 January 1922. While he filed an application in October of 1921, the application must have not been complete. 

Petty applied for Veterans Bureau War Risk insurance compensation for his service-related disability in February of 1922. This was approved. Later records indicated that the disability was rated as “not less than 30%,” though the exact physical deficits were not clear.

 

Postwar Photo

At some time between 1922 and 1927, he applied for a commission in the U.S. Army Reserve Medical Forces. There was a statue that stated that service members receiving compensation for service-related disability were ineligible to serve in the reserve forces. The Army surgeon general waived this exclusion for Petty, who held the rank of major until at least 1927. 

In 1927, Petty discussed the possibility of a transfer from the Army back to the Navy. The 4th Naval District was planning to establish a group of six specialists to serve as the nucleus of a special medical unit attached to the USMC. They wanted Petty to be one of their members. He passed a physical exam and was ruled fit for that duty and offered a commission as a lieutenant commander in the Volunteer Naval Reserve, for Special Service [USN MC-V(S)]. However, the surgeon general of the Navy could not waive the statutory exclusion of those receiving Veterans Bureau compensation. On that basis, Petty withdrew his application to the Navy. 

After the war, Petty returned to Philadelphia. He took a position at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a professor of metabolic diseases. He also served as the personal physician of Philadelphia mayor Harry Mackey. He was appointed to head the Philadelphia Public Health Department in 1931. During that time, he was active in the field of metabolic diseases and authored a number of articles and a book: Diabetes: Its Treatment by Insulin and Diet. 1924, Philadelphia, PA. F.A. Davis. This book went through a number of printings and was apparently quite well received.

 

Lt. Petty's Grave, Roxborough, PA

The details of Petty’s health after the war are unclear. He was found dead in his bedroom, shot through the heart with his military service pistol, on 2 June 1932. The death was ruled a suicide. His family stated that he had been in ill health. He is buried in St. Timothy Churchyard, Roxborough, PA. 

Lieutenant Orlando H. Petty’s awards include: 

U.S. Navy Medal of Honor citation of Lieutenant Orlando H. Petty, (M.C.), USNRF 

"For extraordinary heroism while serving with the Fifth Regiment, United States Marines, in France during the attack in Bois de Belleau, 11 June 1918. While under heavy fire of high explosive and gas shells in the town of Lucy, where his dressing station was located, Lieutenant Petty attended to and evacuated the wounded under the most trying conditions. Having been knocked to the ground by an exploding gas shell which tore his mask, Lieutenant Petty discarded the mask and courageously continued his work. His dressing station being hit and demolished, he personally helped carry Captain Williams, wounded, through the shellfire to a place of safety." 

U.S. Army Distinguished Service Cross

The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Lieutenant (MC) Orlando Henderson Petty, United States Navy (Reserve Force), for extraordinary heroism in action while serving as Medical Officer attached to the Fifth Regiment (Marines), 2d Division, American Expeditionary Forces, in France during the attack in the Boise de Belleau, 11 June 1918. While he was treating wounded under bombardment of gas and high-explosive shells, Lieutenant Petty was knocked down and his gas mask torn by a bursting gash shell, but he discarded his gas mask and continued his work. Later, when his dressing station was demolished by another shell, he helped carry a wounded officer through the shellfire to a place of safety. 

U.S. Army Silver Star Citation

By direction of the President, under the provisions of the act of Congress approved July 9, 1918 (Bul. No. 43, W.D., 1918), Lieutenant (MC) Orlando Henderson Petty, United States Naval Reserve, is cited by the Commanding General, SECOND DIVISION A.E.F., for gallantry in action and a silver star may be placed upon the ribbon of the Victory Medals awarded him. Lieutenant Petty distinguished himself by gallantry in action while serving as a Medical Officer with the Fifth Regiment (Marines), 2d Division, American Expeditionary Forces, in action at the Bois de Belleau, France, 11 June 1918. Under heavy shell fire of both high explosive and gas shells, Surgeon Petty attended to the evacuation of all wounded with extraordinary valor. Being knocked to the ground by an exploding gas shell and, tearing his mask, he discarded the mask and continued his work in a most courageous manner. When his dressing station was hit and demolished, he personally helped carry a wounded officer through the shell fire to a place of safety.

Croix de Guerre, with Palm awarded, 1919, by the French government.

Sources: Thanks to André Sobocinski at the Office of Medical History, Communications Directorate, US Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery for his help finding Lt. Petty’s service records; “Military Times” Hall of Valor; Naval History and Heritage Command; U.S. Bureau of the Census.

Financial Finagling in the Great War: The Pittman Act of 1918

The Owners of Nevada's Crown Point Mine
Benefited from the WWI Legislation

By James Patton

Back in the 1950s I was interested in coin collecting. In those oh-so-bygone days before President Lyndon Johnson’s administration, all U.S. coins of value higher than the nickel were made of .90 fine silver. As a kid, the only coins that I could afford to collect were dimes, but I remember other collectors lamenting about the shortage of silver dollar coins. At the time I didn’t know that this shortage was caused by World War One.

When passed by Congress, the Pittman Act (23 April 1918) was a seemingly innocuous piece of “Pork Barrel” sponsored by Sen. Key D. Pittman (1872–1940) (D-Nev.) to support the price of silver and thus benefit the mining economies of eight western states, especially his own. 

Senator Pittman

Silver dollar coins had become unpopular due to their weight and clunky size (1 ½ inches in diameter), so the U.S. Treasury was stuffed with the coins returned by the banks, even though the mints had stopped producing them in 1904. The Pittman Act directed the conversion of up to 350 million of these "surplus" silver dollars into bullion, which would either be sold "to assist foreign governments at war with the enemies of the United States" or used to mint additional silver dimes, quarters, and half-dollars, known as subsidiary coinage. As Pittman intended, most of the bullion was sold to the British at the above-market price of $1 per ounce.

Westerners were concerned that the withdrawal of so many silver dollars would be a prelude to retiring the coins altogether. (Their fears were well founded, as paper "silver certificates" in $1 denomination were issued starting in 1929, and later themselves replaced by Federal Reserve Notes in 1964.) Pittman also included a provision in his act directing that the number of dollars so converted would be replaced by bullion purchases for new dollar coins which would be minted over the period from 1920 through 1934, using silver purchased  from U.S. mines at the fixed price of $1 per ounce (reduced to 71 cents in 1939, then raised to 90 ½ cents in 1946), which was a financial windfall for the American silver miners. This marked the first time in history that the U.S. government agreed to support the price of a commodity. This was an idea that caught on quickly, leading to the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, which is still an important part of American farming today. 

The number of coins that were melted down came to 270,232,722 including 11,111,168 used for subsidiary coinage. This amount was about half of the existing silver dollar coins.

American Silver Dollar

So what exactly did this have to do with World War One? That part of the story begins in India, of all places.

Although a British colony, India had a large, autonomous economy and it was supplying huge quantities of materials and manpower to the British war effort. The colonial government was paying for these costs with rupee notes, supposedly backed by silver, but in fact there was insufficient silver in the treasury reserve. In popular parlance, the government had been "running the printing presses," creating money that had no residual value. 

This dirty little secret got out in early 1918, possibly leaked by Germany, and India was plunged into crisis. To stave off an economic meltdown, many bank failures, ruinous inflation, and civil unrest that would require many thousands of Indian and even British soldiers to quell, the British needed to get their hands on a lot of silver bullion quickly, and the only place that they could get it was out of the U.S. Treasury. Of course, in 1918 the British didn’t have the cash to buy those melted-down dollar coins, but, no worries, the U.S. government let them offset the amount owed against U.S. debt for such items as the British ships that were carrying American troops and supplies to France, 400,000 Brodie helmets, gas masks, horses, and other gear. Voilà, problem solved.

There was one more little twist to this deal. When the old dollars were melted down, the $250 million reduction in the money supply was covered by the issue of the brand-new higher denomination (not $1 or $2) Federal Reserve Notes, which were not backed by silver, only guaranteed by the Fed. A new silver dollar coin which was called the Peace dollar because it was supposed to memorialize the U.S.-Germany Peace Treaty of 1921, was introduced in that year. As these coins were struck, they were released to the banks through the Federal Reserve System as repayment of the Pittman notes, which was an off-budget transfer. 

Pittman was a senator from 1913 to 1940 and chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee during the early years of the Second World War. Through his career he authored several more important pieces of legislation, including the Pittman–Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937, which set up a formula for sharing of federal excise tax revenue with the states for their wildlife management efforts (which is still in effect) and the second Pittman Act in 1938 which, along with the Neutrality Act of 1939,  established the concept of “cash-and-carry” neutrality.

Site of the Senator's Demise

Details of Pittman’s death are controversial. Although his date of death was officially reported as 10 November 1940, he had suffered a serious heart attack on 4 November, the day before the general election. It was alleged by some that he did not survive, but the party leaders decided to suppress that news so that Pittman could be re-elected. If he then were to die after re-election, the law provided that the Democratic Governor Edward Carville would appoint a successor. If he was already dead when elected, there would have to be a special election. An embellishment to this story is the detail that Pittman’s body was kept for five days in a bathtub full of ice in Tonopah’s Mizpah Hotel (which is still there) before  taken to the hospital in Reno, where he was pronounced dead. 

Dos Passos's Three Soldiers Reviewed by F. Scott Fitzgerald

 By John Dos Passos

George H. Doran Company, 1921

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Reviewer

With the exception of a couple of tracts by Upton Sinclair,  carefully disguised as novels but none the less ignored by the righteous booksellers of America, Three Soldiers by a young Harvard man named John Dos Passos  is the first war book by an American which is worthy of serious notice. Even The Red Badge of Courage  is pale beside it. Laying Three Soldiers down I am filled with that nameless emotion that only a piece of work created in supreme detachment can arouse. This book will not be read in the West. Main Street was too much of a strain. I doubt if the “cultured” public of the Middle Border will ever again risk a serious American novel, unless it is heavily baited with romantic love.

No, Three Soldiers will never compete with [the Valentino film] The Sheik  or with those salacious sermons whereby Dr. Crafts  gives biological thrills to the wives of prominent butchers and undertakers, nor will it ever do aught but frighten the caravanserie of one-hundred-and-twenty-proof Americans, dollar-a-year men, and slaughter-crazy old maids who waited in line at the book stores to buy and read the war masterpiece of the Spanish Zane Grey, the one that is now being played in the movies by a pretty young man with machine oil on his hair. [Valentino also starred in Valentino had the lead role in the movie version of Blasco Ibanez’s The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.]

To a dozen or so hereabouts who require more seemly recreation I heartily recommend Three Soldiers. The whole gorgeous farce of 1917-1918 will be laid before him. He will hear the Y.M.C.A. men  with their high-pitched voices and their set condescending smiles, saying, “That’s great, boys. I would like to be with you only my eyes are weak. * * * Remember that your women folk are praying for you this minute. * * * I’ve heard the great heart of America beat. * * * O boys! Never forget that you are in a great Christian cause.” [Dos Passos apparently didn't cotton to the YMCA volunteers during his tour of duty.]

He will hear such stuff as that, and he will see these same obnoxious prigs charging twenty cents for a cup of chocolate and making shrill, preposterous speeches full of pompous ministers’ slang. He will see the Military Police (the M.P.’s) ferociously “beating up” privates for failure to salute an officer.

He will see filth and pain, cruelty and hysteria and panic, in one long three-year nightmare, and he will know that the war brought the use of these dungs not to some other man or to some other man’s son, but to himself and to his OWN son, that same healthy young animal who came home two years ago bragging robustly of the things he did in France.

Dan Fuselli, from California, petty, stupid and ambitious, is the first soldier. His miserable disappointments, his intrigues, his amiable and esurient humanities are traced from the camp where he gets his “training” to postwar Paris where, considerably weakened in his original cheap but sufficing fibre, he has become a mess-cook.

The second soldier, Chrisfield, a half-savage, southern-moraled boy from Indiana, murders his fancied oppressor—not because of any considerable wrong, but simply as the reaction of his temperament to military discipline— and is A.W.O.L. in Paris at the end.

These two inarticulate persons are woven in the pattern with a third, a musician, who is in love with the mellifluous rhythms of Flaubert. It is with this John Andrews, the principal protagonist of the story, that John Dos Passos allows himself to break his almost Flaubertian detachment and begin to Briding-ize  the war. This is immediately perceptible in his style, which becomes falsely significant and strewn with tell-tale dots. But the author recovers his balance in a page or two and flies on to the end in full control of the machine.

This is all very careful work. There is none of that uncorrelated detail, that clumsy juggling with huge masses of material which shows in all but one or two pieces of American realism. The author is not oppressed by the panic-stricken necessity of using all his data at once lest some other prophet of the new revelation uses it before him. He is an artist—John Dos Passos. His book could wait five years or ten or twenty. I am inclined to think that he is the best of all the younger men on this side.

The deficiency in his conception of John Andrews is this: John Andrews is a little too much the ultimate ineffectual, the Henry-Adams-in-his-youth  sort of character. This sort of young man has been previously sketched many times—usually when an author finds need of a mouthpiece and yet does not wish to write about an author.

With almost painstaking precaution the character is inevitably made a painter or a musician, as though intelligence did not exist outside the arts. Not that Andrews’ puppet-ness is frequent. Nor is it ever clothed in aught but sophistication and vitality and grace; nevertheless the gray ghosts of Wells’s heroes and those of Wells’s imitators seem to file by along the margin, reminding one that such a profound and gifted man as John Dos Passos should never enlist in Wells’s faithful but aenemic platoon along with Walpole,  Floyd Dell and Mencken’s late victim, Ernest Poole.  The only successful Wellsian is Wells. Let us slay Wells, James Joyce, and Anatole France  that the creation of literature may continue.

Order HERE

In closing I will make an invidious comparison: Several weeks ago a publisher sent me a book by a well-known popular writer, who has evidently decided that there is better pay of late in becoming a deep thinker or, to quote the incomparable Mencken, “a spouter of great causes.” The publishers informed me that the book was to be issued in October, that in their opinion it was the best manuscript novel that had ever come to them, and ended by asking me to let them know what I thought of it. I read it. It was a desperate attempt to do what John Dos Passos has done. It abounded with Fergus Falls mysticism and undigested Haeckel,  and its typical scene was the heroic dying Poilu  crying “Jesu!” to the self-sacrificing Red Cross worker! It reached some sort of decision—that Life was an Earnest Matter or something! When it was not absurd it was so obvious as to be painful. On every page the sawdust leaked out of the characters. If anyone wishes to cultivate the rudiments of literary taste let him read The Wasted Generation by Owen Johnson and Three Soldiers by John Dos Passos side by side. If he can realize the difference he is among the saved. He will walk with the angels in Paradise.

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

Source: St. Paul Daily News, 25 September 1921

(Thanks to the cousins Cynthia and Donna for suggesting a review of Three Soldiers!)

July 1920: Denmark Regains Some Lost Territory

Historically Contested Schleswig-Holstein

The Schleswig-Holstein question, was a 19th century controversy among Denmark, Prussia, and Austria over the status of Schleswig and Holstein. At this time the population of Schleswig was Danish in its northern portion, German in the south, and mixed in the northern towns and center. The population of Holstein was almost entirely German. After much contentious diplomacy, a rebellion—inspired by the Paris revolution of February 1848—led to an intervention in support of the rebels by Prussia. International opposition, however, forced the Prussians to withdraw and the Danes viewed the outcome as a victory. Matters festered, however. A succession crisis of 1863 gave the new German chancellor Otto von Bismarck a fresh opportunity to intervene and annex the duchies.

In the ensuing German-Danish War (1864), Danish military resistance was crushed by Prussia and Austria in two brief campaigns. By the Peace of Vienna (October 1864), Christian IX ceded Schleswig and Holstein to Austria and Prussia. In 1866, after Prussia had beaten Austria in the Seven Weeks War, both Schleswig and Holstein became part of Prussia.

Pro-German 1920 German Plebiscite Poster

Following Germany’s defeat in World War I, separate plebiscites were held in 1920 in the northern and southern portions of North Schleswig so that their respective inhabitants could choose between Denmark and Germany. The northern part of North Schleswig voted 70 percent to join Denmark, while the southern part voted 80 percent to remain within Germany. The northern part of North Schleswig thus became part of Denmark as the Danish province of Slesvig, effective with King Christian X's ratification of the treaty with Germany on 6 July 1920. The resulting Danish-German boundary in Schleswig has lasted to the present day with a minor adjustment following the Second World War and is no longer a matter of contention.

Present-day Border (Compare to Historic Map Above)

Sources: Encyclopedia Britannica Article; Wikipedia

Don't Miss the 1932 Version of Farewell to Arms

In 1932, A Farewell to Arms became the first Ernest Hemingway novel to make it to the silver screen. I read once that Hemingway disliked it as insufficiently pessimistic. Both my parents, who saw the film separately when it came out, thought it was a wonderful romance but not much of a war movie. Mom said, though, it was when she knew that Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes would both be big stars. The last time I viewed it, I found myself conceding that it is more a tragic love story than an exciting action tale. Yet, I still think it's a must-see for all World War One buffs. If nothing else, it helps in moving one's historical horizon beyond the Western Front. There WAS another war with a very different emotional atmosphere going on in Italy at the same time.

Most likely our readers are familiar with the plot, which is set on the pre- and post-Caporetto Italian Front, near the Piave River where Hemingway himself was wounded. American ambulance section chief Lt. Frederic Henry (Cooper) encounters British nurse Catherine Barkley (Hayes) when he's drunk. Naturally, the first impressions are not good. However, fate intervenes. They meet up again on a blind date and romance blossoms. It expands to the point that Catherine finds herself with child and is dispatched to distant Milan. Frederic, however, is subsequently wounded in action and finds himself cared for by Catherine at that very hospital in Milan. Complications and tragedy follow, but I'll leave it there.

Some notable attributes of the film are the Academy Award-winning cinematography, which was ground-breaking for the time (see the still above), and the well-played, heart-wrenching ending with both Cooper and Hayes at their dramatic best. Also deserving of a special mention is Adolph Menjou, who almost steals the early part of the movie as Frederic's cynical sometimes friend, sometimes manipulative supervisor Capt. Rinaldi. A Farewell to Arms is fairly easy to find. It's available for streaming (usually for a charge) on numerous streaming outlets. By the way, the 1957 remake with Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones has some great on-location mountain photography, but that's its sole merit. MH

Remembering Canadian Military Historian Tim Cook

Tim Cook at the Vimy Ridge Section of the
Canadian War Museum, Ottawa

The study of First World War History suffered a major loss this past Sunday when the death  at age 54 of Tim Cook, Chief Historian and Research Director of the Canadian War Museum, was announced.  He had been suffering from Hodgkin's disease for some time. He was a subscriber and contributor to Roads to the Great War since its inception. The articles drawn from his work can be found HERE.

A number of sources have presented tributes to Tim and his enormous body of  work. From the CDC:

Tim Cook, the chief historian at the Canadian War Museum and the country’s “pre-eminent military historian,” has died, the museum announced Sunday.  Cook was "a passionate ambassador" for both the museum and Canadian military history, and his contributions to the Ottawa museum over the past two-plus decades have been "enormous," said the museum's president and CEO Caroline Dromaguet in a statement. 

Cook published more than 19 books plus many articles and won numerous awards,  including the Ottawa Book Award for literary non-fiction on four separate occasions.  His notable works include: 

• Vimy: The Battle and the Legend

• No Place to Run: The Canadian Corps and Gas Warfare in the First World War 

• At the Sharp End, Volume One: Canadians Fighting the Great War 1914-1916

• Victory 1918: The Last 100 Days

• The Necessary War, Volume 1: Canadians Fighting the Second World War: 1939-1943

• The Good Allies: How Canada and the United States Fought Together to Defeat Fascism

The National Post had this to say about Tim Cook's career:

He was the historian the media turned to when Canadians needed someone to talk of Canada’s military legacy. And for good reason. Cook embraced his role as a public historian. He was both prolific and expert — the author of nineteen books and many more articles; he could tell a story that was accurate, meaningful, and compelling. He respected both the past and the people whose stories he told. He didn’t shy away from the horrors of war nor its moral warts but he also gave credence to the contingencies and pressure of the era. It’s a sad day for Canada. But also an opportunity to pay respect to a great historian and the works he created.

Tim Cook came by his profession honestly — he was the son of two professional historians. But he also caught his passion for military historian at Trent University in the classes of Stuart Robson who would make the wars come alive — singing trench songs live in lecture. (I recall these lectures myself as I was a couple of years behind Tim at Trent.) Cook went on to do academic work at the Royal Military College and then followed it up with a PhD in Australia. He worked at our national archives and then took up a position at the Canadian War Museum in the early days as it found its new prominent home in Ottawa. 

At the War Museum Cook helped shape how Canadians saw their past in person. He insisted that museums could be true to scholarship, respect the experience of veterans, and engage the public. . . 

A strong, stoic Canadian, Tim Cook gave to his family, his community and his country. He deserves a place of honour as one of our greatest storytellers.

Recommended Download: First World War Doctrine and the Modern [Russia vs Ukraine] War of Positions by Josiah Mosser

 

U.S. Troops East of the Meuse, November 1918

For anyone interested in the connections and relevance of First World War combat methods and doctrine to 21st-century warfare. Author Josiah Mosser examine the effects of technological advances (like drones) in this 2024 article from Military Review focusing on the Russian-Ukrainian War. He also examines the similarity of Russian defensive methods to German elastic defensive doctrine in the Great War.

A Soldier from Ukraine’s 10th Separate Mountain
Assault Brigade “Edelweiss” Fires a Mortar

Download the full article in PDF format HERE

Saving the Belgian Army — To the Yser!

Belgian Soldiers Defending Antwerp

By David Craig

Often overlooked in any history of the First World War are the events in Belgium between the declaration of war and the stabilization of the Western Front in late October 1914. The Belgian Army was regarded as an irrelevance by German planners. It was their intent to destroy Belgian fortifications that threatened German movement toward France, brushing aside the tiny and poorly trained Belgian Army while dealing with the remainder of Belgium at a later date. The tiny Belgian Army was composed of two parts: the garrison troops, who manned the fortresses on which defense largely relied, and the ground-maneuver troops, who manned entrenched positions between the forts and provided mobile operations.

German plans for dealing with Belgium proceeded as planned. At Liège, the town was taken on 6 August, and the major fortresses, which covered the Meuse crossing, were shelled with newly arrived and specially designed long-range Krupp 420mm siege howitzers on the 12th, the final fort surrendering at 8:30 a.m. on the 16th. On the 19th, the Germans attacked the Namur fortress, again with Krupp 420mm howitzers. By the evening of the 23rd, five of the nine forts at Namur were in ruins. At midnight the survivors of the Belgian garrison made their escape. Any major Belgian threat to the German advance into France was no more.

The Belgian Army retreated into the "National Redoubt" of Antwerp, where it was vainly hoped that the huge double ring of forts would enable a successful defense. The weakness of fortress defenses when attacked by German "super heavy" artillery was added to by the Belgian Army's clearing of the field of fire between the forts, an action which only improved the German ability to spot for their guns, which outranged those of the defense.

On 29 September the Germans attacked the outer ring of forts. By 6 p.m. the first to fall, Wavre-Sainte-Catherine, was so badly damaged it was abandoned. The British Official History remarks that “The German shooting was extraordinarily accurate and was, to all intents, range practice, without hindrance from the Belgians, whose guns were outranged. Practically all hits were on vital parts of the forts.” On the same day Belgian Army headquarters began planning the abandonment of Antwerp and a move to Ostend.

The relief of Antwerp became a major concern. French Supreme Commander Joffre, hard-pressed on all fronts, could promise only a Territorial division and a Marine brigade from Le Havre as a French contribution, to arrive around 10 October. The British, at the instigation of Lord Kitchener, undertook to send their 7th Division and 3rd Cavalry Division, both then in England.

National Redoubt Antwerp & the Withdrawal West

Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, and ever a man of action, did have men immediately available, a brigade of Royal Marine Light Infantry under Navy command. Hastily thrown together, this force arrived at Dunkirk on 19/20 August. It had been augmented by Royal Navy aircraft and armored cars. By 30 September this force was patrolling the area between Dunkirk and Cassel. On 3 October, Churchill himself travelled to Antwerp and offered British help to the Belgian government. On the same day, four battalions of the Royal Marine Brigade set off for Antwerp, arriving by train at 6 a.m. on 4 October.

On the night of 7/8 October the British 7th Division and 3rd Cavalry Division landed at Zeebrugge and concentrated at Bruges, with orders to cooperate with French forces in Belgium and support the Belgian Army defending Antwerp. However, on the 6th, the Belgian Field Army had already crossed the Scheldt River to facilitate a withdrawal, and the situation in Antwerp itself had continued to deteriorate. The only good news was that the long-delayed French aid, in the form of a brigade of French Marines, had left Paris on the way to Belgium.

On the morning of 8 October the decision was made to evacuate Antwerp in the face of increasing German pressure. The withdrawal was made in some confusion over the next 48 hours, with the majority of the Royal Marine brigade withdrawn. The British force, which meanwhile had landed at Zeebrugge, was placed under the command of Sir John French of the BEF, moved from Ghent toward Ypres. The remains of the Belgian field army, dispirited and in some disorder, joined civilian refugees clogging the roads to the coast or made their way into Holland. After more than two months of continuous action against overwhelming odds, they were exhausted and needed rebuilding, but they still existed.

When the Germans accepted the surrender of Antwerp on the morning of 10 October, they found only the military governor, his staff officer, and a handful of men from the fortresses. The rest had successfully escaped. The Belgian stand at Antwerp, while failing to hold the city, bought the BEF and the French valuable time and employed large numbers of German troops that would otherwise have been available to fight in the crucial battles on the Marne and Aisne rivers.

The Belgian Army Marching to the Yser

Proposals for the Belgian Army were that it should withdraw west of Calais to regroup. Albert saw two great dangers in this. He knew that any attempt to take his army under French command would be resisted by his Dutch-speaking soldiers (who made up most of the lower ranks), and he also saw that if he abandoned Belgian soil he could be usurped as king. It was finally agreed that the Belgian Army would concentrate in the Dixmude-Nieuport-Furnes area, just inside Belgium, with the French marines of Admiral Ronarch on their right in Dixmude. By the 14th of October, the Belgian Army started to prepare positions along the Yser, and it would be this small strip of Belgium which would be defended by Belgian soldiers, commanded by their own king, until the end of the war.

Map Series #28 Relative Sizes of the European Powers Superimposed on the United States

Click on Map to Enlarge 

Library of Congress Collection

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The Influence of Douglas Haig, The Educated Soldier by John Terraine

 By John Terraine

Cassell, 1963

Commentary by Christopher M. Hand

Generals Haig and Pershing

Much of the controversy that surrounds the late John Terraine (1921–2003) is undeserved. When his work is placed in a larger historical context, his arguments and thesis appear to be consistent, forceful, convincing and above all balanced. He is to be admired for his conviction in the face of what must, at first, have seemed to have been an overwhelming majority opinion against his arguments. That he has stuck with it for over three decades speaks volumes. It is these attributes that have won him his influence. John Terraine's work is essential to any balanced study of the First World War and any work that does not include him is probably incomplete. 

In 1963, John Terraine published Douglas Haig, The Educated Soldier. This is Terraine's first biography and it seems oddly placed. Given the broad scope of his later books one asks if it would not have been better to concentrate on Haig at the end. Regardless, Terraine  chose Britain's most challenging figure as a vehicle to explain the larger issues, and in doing so also attempted to rehabilitate Haig's reputation. It is in this biography that Terraine introduces two of his major themes, his support of Haig as a capable and competent commander and his views on the Western Front and the BEF as being instrumental in defeating the Germans. The reviews were mixed. An American review by Elbridge Colby in Best Sellers calls it "unabashedly partisan"  and criticised the book  and Terraine for being anti-American. The Economist found it thorough but not a lively read and accused Terraine of being to quick to praise Haig. "He [Haigl deserves rehabilitation but not an accolade; and in seeking the first objective, Mr. Terraine has been perhaps a little too willing to award the second distinction."  

. . . One of the more interesting insights was made in the Times Literary Supplement where Terraine's Douglas Haig was favourably compared to Duff Cooper's Haig, and claimed that Terraine's book could "take its place beside Cooper's as an outstanding biography, "  as the book made excellent use ofthe sources available. Travers also considers that Terraine's Haig is "pretty good," and that it is well researched, and well written, although he still labels Terraine as an "apologist." Dennis Winter in his recent book Haig's Command also accused Terraine of being an apologist for 'Haig the Butcher'. Terraine counters such accusations by stating that he has nothing to apologize for, and neither did Haig.

Whether it was praised or condemned, it was Douglas Haig which created an audience for Terraine's work, and which established him as a historian who's point of view had to be considered. From this point on, his work became increasingly more analytic in nature and began to reflect that wider view of military history championed by Michael Howard. 

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To a certain extent Terraine's influence on the historiography of the First World War exists simply because he wrote so much [since his Haig biography], but also because much of what he has written runs contrary to the accepted view of Britain's role in the war. Despite his relatively late start as a publishing historian,  he prove[d] to be a prolific writer. From 1960 to 1982 Terraine published nine books on the First World War along with several other major works, notably his biography of Lord Mountbatten. During that period he was also editor for Brigadier-General J.L. Jack's diary, and J.F.C. Fuller's The Decisive Battles of the Western World and Their Influence Upon History. He also wrote for several journals and is listed as a regular contributor to History Today, Spectator, the RUSI Journal, the Listener and Punch magazine. 

Christopher M. Hand

For more on John Terraine, read my article on my 1989 interview with him, "Tea and Biscuits with John Terraine", HERE. MH

Source: Excerpted from "John Terraine A Study of a First World War Revisionist", Canadian Military History, Volume 6, Number 2, Autumn 1997.