Between Sedan and Dreyfus: The French Officer Corps and Politics — A Roads Classic

General Boulange in His Prime

The defeat of the French Second Empire at German hands led to the creation of the Third Republic, a governmental system that placed power within the legislature and was plagued by ministerial instability and bureaucratic ineffectiveness. Most French officers, disproportionately Catholic, rural, and conservative, disliked and distrusted the anticlerical and pro-Parisian leanings of the government. The Third Republic, in their eyes, was a bastard child of the bloody Paris Commune and would, in all likelihood, last not much longer than the four years of the Second Republic (1848–1852). Then France could go back to a more authoritarian, conservative, and effective government that would support the army and promote traditional French values.

Joffre, 1889

The Third Republic was also rife with scandals, political intrigue, and persistent rumors of military-led coups. General George Boulanger's political movement of the late 1880s was the most famous but far from the only one of its kind. Boulanger combined right-wing authoritarianism and left-wing populism to build a movement that terrified the French government into a series of extreme measures that included ordering government employees to vote against the general and, eventually, exiling Boulanger himself. The threat only ended in 1891 when a love-sick Boulanger shot himself on the grave of his mistress, who had recently died of consumption.

Thus, French officers in the late 19th century often felt that they had more to fear from fellow French than they did from the Germans. Officers had to learn how to play the system and curry favor with politicians in order to survive the turmoil and intrigue of the Third Republic. Some, like Joseph Joffre and Maurice Sarrail, developed ways (albeit very different ways) to deal with political realities. Others, like Paul-Marie Pau, had promotions denied to them on the basis of their politics. In 1907 then prime minister Georges Clemenceau had to intervene personally to give Ferdinand Foch command of the French War College; a report shown to Clemenceau had accused Foch of giving higher grades to Catholics, and Foch had a Jesuit brother, but Clemenceau decided to back Foch anyway.

Foch Before the War

When French officers weren't worrying about politics in Paris, they were looking overseas. The way to make a career in the late nineteenth-century French Army was by distinguishing oneself in the empire. After the Franco-Prussian War, France looked to Indochina, Madagascar, Senegal, and, above all, Algeria, to recover lost glory. The Germans, for their part, did all they could to encourage French imperial interests, both to turn French attention away from the continent and in the hopes that imperial endeavors would keep France and Britain in constant conflict.

Virtually all of France's best known and best regarded generals had made their names in the colonies. Joffre, Hubert Lyautey, Charles Mangin, Joseph Gallieni, and countless others became French heroes for their work extending French influence to the corners of the globe. Given enormous powers, they learned to manage resources over tremendous distances, conquer problems of logistics, and balance military responsibilities with economic and political ones. To many of them, most notably Lyautey, the prospect of a war with Germany was infinitely less important than the expansion and solidification of the empire.

Source:  Over the Top, March 2007

The Veterans' Big Presence at the Antwerp Olympics

Joseph Guillemot (1899–1975), French winner of the 5,000-meter race, possibly best embodied the transition from war to sports for the athletes at Antwerp. Born in Le Dorat, France, Joseph Guillemot's lungs were severely damaged by mustard gas when he fought in World War I. Also, his heart was located on the right side of his chest. Despite this, Guillemot, an athlete of small stature (5'2", 118 lbs.), but with extraordinary vital capacity, won his regiment's cross-country championships.

Click on Image to Enlarge

In the next year, Guillemot won the French military championship, followed by his first national championship title in the 5,000-meter race in 1920. That qualified him for the Olympic Games. In Antwerp, the main favorite was Paavo Nurmi. In the 5,000-meters final, Nurmi devised a bold strategy in order to exhaust the dangerous Swedes Eric Backman and Runar Falk in the first part of the course. After three laps, Nurmi took the lead and built speed, with only Guillemot following doggedly. Halfway around, Guillemot still refused to yield, and Nurmi began to lose heart. On the final curve, Guillemot moved to pass Nurmi on the outside. Unaccustomed to final-stretch sprinting, Nurmi gave up completely and jogged to the finish line four seconds after Guillemot had broken the tape for the gold medal.

The 10,000-meters final was brought forward by almost three hours by the request of King Albert. Guillemot heard this after finishing a very large lunch. Fighting stomach cramps and shoes that were two sizes too big (his own shoes had been stolen), Guillemot had to be satisfied with the 10,000-meter silver.

Joseph Guillemot Receiving the Congratulations of
King Albert

After the Olympics, Guillemot won the International Cross-Country Championships in 1922 individually and led the French team to first place in 1922 and 1926. He won the French Nationals in 5,000 meters on three occasions but missed the next Olympics due to the disagreements with the French Athletics Union. He also held two world records: 2,000-meter (5:34.8) and 3,000-meter (8:42.2). Joseph Guillemot, a pack-a-day cigarette smoker, died in Paris at the age of 75.

Source: St. Mihiel Trip-Wire, October 2020

America’s U-boats: Terror Trophies of World War I

Click HERE To Order This Book

By Chris  Dubbs

Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2014

Reviewed William F. Bundy

Originally presented in the Naval War College Review, Autumn 2015

Chris Dubbs, a Gannon University executive, followed a fascination with his discovery of a First World War German submarine wreck in Lake Michigan. He pursued meticulous research through collections of First World War U-boat accounts and recorded American attitudes on the war and the public fascination with submarines. Throughout the book, he grabs the attention of readers as he skillfully recounts the arrival of the German freighter submarine Deutschland in the United States to reopen trade with Germany, the horrors that U-boats caused during the war, and the end of the war, when the allies claimed U-boats as war prizes. His well-cited account of events in the United States, at sea, and in Europe between 1916 and 1920 entertains readers with riveting images of German submarines and crews, the perils of war at sea, and public reaction and debates on the war. 

Dubbs offers an informative and historically accurate description of the impact U-boats had on the evolution of warfare and the subsequent employment of submarines as offensive weapons in war. He concludes his book with a note on the entrance of the United States into the Second World War, when Admiral Harold Stark, Chief of Naval Operations, ordered U.S. submarines to commence unrestricted submarine warfare against Japan, thereby disregarding the moral outrage against sinking ships without warning. USS Swordfish (SS 193) consummated the intent of that order nine days after 7 December 1941 when it torpedoed a Japanese freighter. Swordfish, commissioned on 22 July 1939, was certainly designed and constructed based on exploited First World War U-boat technology.

Dubbs has never served in our Navy or been identified as a naval warfare analyst; however, his account of submarine technology and warfare describes in compelling detail the phases of a revolution in military affairs brought about by offensive employment of submarines.

Dubbs details capability/countercapability phases and the evolution of technology that began a revolution in military affairs. While this aspect of the book is not Dubbs’s main focus, it serves as a textbook lesson for naval innovators and strategists in understanding the narrative on submarines and submarine warfare that continues today in the form of the U.S. Navy’s undersea warfare dominance.

Dubbs offers details on how Germany, with the initial advantage of superior submarine technology, executed a strategy designed to intimidate the United States and then threaten American and allied shipping at sea and American cities along the Atlantic coast. Imagine a Chinese high-speed freighter submarine arriving at the Port of Los Angeles to deliver bulk consignments of rare earth minerals. Imagine there were no known accounts of the Chinese freighter submarine being constructed or warnings of its passage until it surfaced west of Santa Barbara Island. Imagine its arrival in Los Angekes, with fanfare, public fascination, and U.S. government mortification.

This hypothetical arrival of a Chinese freighter submarine today is comparable to Dubbs’s account of the 1916 prewar arrival of Deutschland. Deutschland commenced its surface transit through the Chesapeake Bay bound for a call on the Port of Baltimore on 9 July 1916. Deutschland delivered not only rare dyes from Germany but also strategic communications that the British blockade of Germany was ineffective against German submarines and that German combat U-boats could arrive undetected along the Atlantic coast.

U-boat Deutschland with a Tug Outside Baltimore Harbor

Deutschland’s technology and apparent ability to transit the Atlantic established the first phase of a revolution in military affairs. It demonstrated superior German U-boat operational and functional capabilities to wartime enemies and potential adversaries.

Other accounts of German U-boat capabilities strengthened the initial demonstration of a strategic capability that provided Germany with a means of achieving strategic ends. Dubbs’s detailed accounts of U-boat exploits, while compelling reading, also inform present-day arguments for operating forward with superior war-fighting capability.

Throughout the book, maritime warfare is recounted in deep detail including tactical maneuvers and operational effects that have strategic consequences in warfare. Phases of a classic revolution in military affairs are brought into focus as submarine operations versus antisubmarine warfare illustrates a response cycle to the introduction of unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic. Wartime incidents described by Dubbs are certainly significant revelations for some readers and provide persuasive details related to military-political affairs for strategists. Those narratives alone are well worth a serious reading of Dubbs’s wartime U-boat operations.

The revolution in military affairs created by U-boats in the First World War had a dramatic effect on the public, the conduct of the war, and the near attainment of German strategic aims. According to Dubbs, German U-boats were a major focus in negotiating the armistices that ended the war.

Dubbs chronicles the debate by American Navy leaders on the benefits of taking U-boats as war prizes. They had to be convinced that there were benefits to crewing U-boats with American submariners and crossing the Atlantic. Dubbs also introduces American submariners in his account of these events. Those officers would later emerge as leaders of the submarine force in the Second World War. Their efforts to inject First World War U-boat technology into U.S. submarines formed the basis for the U.S. Navy’s undersea warfare dominance today.

America’s U-boats is an important book for naval warfare professionals and submariners. It conveys a near-complete history of the origins of submarine warfare and the revolution in military affairs that submarines have delivered to maritime and strategic warfare then and now.

William F. Bundy

Russian Soldiers Write Home

Russian Soldiers on the Dvina Front

A century has passed since the beginning of the First World War, and now only the letters from men serving in the tsar’s army on the Eastern Front allow us to fully feel the terror of the men that were involved in it.

Unlike in other European countries, the First World War in Russia has remained in some ways a forgotten conflict, overshadowed by the sheer effort and cost imposed upon the nation by the victory in WWII. Yet, for three years, Russian troops were in action against Austro-Hungarian and German troops on the Eastern Front, suffering huge casualties before the Bolshevik Revolution ended the country’s participation in the war.

With the outbreak of hostilities in 1914, Russia implemented the Provisional Regulations on Military Censorship, which allowed the government to review and seize any letters from the front if they contained any secret information.

Thanks to this regulation, we can now read these letters, which are located in the archives, especially in the Russian State Military Historical Archive, where several volumes of letters from the front have been preserved.

Unbearable battle horrors

At the initial stage of the war, many were full of illusions. “Of course, this is a tough enemy, but nothing that we can’t handle—and all fully believed in our final victory,” wrote Colonel Samsonov to his wife. "Everyone sympathizes with this war, and all are going hunting for Germans.” The thoughts of the coming victory were voiced in many letters of this period.

However, soon the battlefields were covered with bodies of the fallen, and their families began to receive letters of condolence. Then came the realization of the war as a personal catastrophe, and an awareness of the irreversibility of terrible events began to penetrate into the hearts of people.

“Heavy battles are taking place on all fronts daily,” wrote one Russian officer. “Many have fallen on the battlefield, and many more will fall. And who will return unscathed? All fields where there were battles are strewn with the killed and those dying from their wounds—our soldiers and the Germans. And how many more will fall? War... What a horror! Death and destruction all around.”

The lines in a letter by another Russian officer already sound as an antiwar appeal, as a desperate incantation: “Every person who ever was in a war, who participated in it, comes to understand what a great evil this is. People should strive to eliminate wars.”

Exasperation

Other letters relate the brutality of events in unflinching detail, documenting how battles became a slaughterhouse.

“We are defending a bridge,” writes one soldier. “Yesterday the Germans wanted to cross over to our side, but, after letting them come up to the middle of the bridge, we opened such hellish fire that the Germans were forced to run like mad. Piled on the bridge were literally mountains of corpses.

“Today they again wanted to cross, or to remove the corpses of their men. Our artillery with its accurate fire instantly cleared the bridge of the red-faced pork-butchers. To the right of us, they wanted to cross at any cost. They rushed neck-deep into the water, but our machine gunners and riflemen did not even let them reach the middle of the river.

“After the battle, they say that the river water turned pink. Yes, that is as it should be, since they sent here at least 5,000-6,000 men, and all of them remained in the river.”

Another soldier wrote about similar battles, unprecedented in their cruelty, recalling them with internal horror and a fluttering heart:

“We were in the trenches, and repulsed the attacks of the Germans, who never came closer than 400 steps, being forced to turn back and leave. Four times they came towards our trenches (we could clearly see their faces), but could not withstand our fire and turned back.

“Sazonov and I lay next to each other in the trench, shooting at their officers and selecting the bigger soldiers. Well, we dropped those damned ones! They walked in silence, without firing a shot, in a wall formation. We allowed them to come close to us, to the best shooting distance, and then opened up with a terrible barrage.

“The ones in the front dropped like rocks, and the ones behind them turned and ran back. Frost bit at our skins, and the hair on our heads stood on end. I think Sazonov, the sergeant and I, sent a decent number of Germans to the other world. Painfully close they came. Their faces were pale, when they came at us. It was terrifying. God forbid that this ever happen again!"

Shell Shock

There was probably nothing more horrible than a massive artillery "preparation." When absolutely nothing depends on the man, he just hugs the ground, waiting for the barrage to stop, but it goes on and on.

The intensity of such attacks reached such a level that, as one artillery officer wrote, “artillery shots merged into a general howl, the sun was darkened, and one could see no more than five steps ahead in the smoke that was created.”

Sometimes, the nerves of a person coming under such fire would give out, and then, as one officer wrote, “I wanted to cry.” Afterwards many were never able to hear the howl of shells without starting to sob at the next shelling:

“This incessant roar of guns and exploding shells, from which there is no peace, finally breaks the nerves. Our Colonel Zhelenin even started to cry, like a little boy, his nerves could not stand it. Rossolyuk also roars like an ox.”

Going Over the Top

However, even in this sheer hell of war, soldiers retained their clarity of mind and self-control, running out of the trenches, and pressing on with their attacks under a swarm of bullets. Here is how these inexorably draining moments before an attack were described by a Russian officer:

“Finally, the word was passed down the line: ‘Prepare to attack.’ Literally, an electric current passed through us; some started to adjust their ammunition, some, removing their caps, devoutly crossed themselves, involuntarily feeling the approach of the great moment; but already down the line flies the new order ‘forward’; men crossing themselves, pop out of the trenches, with the words: ‘Brothers! To the attack, forward.’

“Literally like ants, people began to jump out of the trenches, with eyes to the right, marching together, looking death right in the face.”

Deprivation, blood, trench dirt, and the deaths of comrades—that is what the First World War looked like to the ordinary Russian soldier, a conflict unprecedented for humanity at beginning of the 20th century in its scale and the number of war dead.

Source: "The Forgotten War, 100 years on: WWI in the Letters of Russian Soldiers," from Russia Beyond;  RIA Novosti (Photo)

Britain's Farm Labor Crisis

On 18 August 1914, the government called on farmers to increase the production of food and the area of agricultural land under wheat and cereal production. It asked farmers to commit to what was, at the time, a more labor intensive and financially precarious production system without any support or protection. Realizing that Britain was not producing enough food to feed the nation, the government continued to look overseas and forge new contracts for supplies from across the world.

Almost a third of male farm workers had gone to war along with mechanics and blacksmiths, work horses had been requisitioned, machinery was limited and fertilizers and feed were in short supply. By 1917, almost half of steam-ploughing sets were lying idle due to the loss of farm workers to the war.

Registering for military service was voluntary under what was known as the "Derby Scheme," However, from the outbreak of war, men were encouraged to sign up for military duty with a heavy recruitment campaign and regular  publications of propaganda. Replacing lost labor proved difficult as many of the men working on farms had enlisted; the Board and the War Office had to cooperate. In 1917, the War Office released men to help with the spring cultivation and harvest and the Women’s Land Army was formed to provide extra labor on farm

The government was reluctant to apply "essential" status to agriculture as it had done to mining and munitions. These industries had been deemed essential to the war effort and therefore the government ensured that the labor supply was maintained. As long as the food supply was maintained with imports the government saw little need for action.

Agricultural fairs were heavily targeted by recruitment officers and a significant number of men signed up. Historian P.E. Dewey reported that farms saw a loss of 170,000 men aged 18 and over between 1914 and 1918, around 17.5 per cent of the workforce. A lot of skills and experience were lost with these men, and when Britain was faced with food shortages from 1916 the government recognized that it needed to provide assistance for farms.

A National Registration Act was introduced in 1915 which listed men still available to sign up and these men were targeted. In May 1915, recruitment officers were instructed not to accept skilled farm workers so that they could remain on the farm to protect Britain’s food supply. Government was beginning to recognize that with the war continuing past Christmas, food supplies must be considered. Farming was emerging as an increasingly vital part of the war effort.

By autumn 1915, some of these skilled laborers became "starred" which made them exempt from military duties. Starred workers were in positions deemed essential to the war effort. Many of these protected skilled workers felt patriotic enough to attest their willingness to serve but were usually granted exemptions. In 1917, a Food Production Department was established by the Board of Agriculture to manage the distribution of agricultural inputs such as labor, feed, fertilizer, and machinery to increase the output of crops.

To help with a lack of labor the Ministry of Munitions became responsible for the production and distribution of agricultural machinery in a bid to increase the number of motor tractors used on farm. As a result of the Industrial Revolution, the Army had increased demands on industry as the new age of warfare meant using metals, chemicals and railways for transportation which contributed to delays in the distribution and manufacture of agricultural machinery.

Eventually, the War Office supplied farms with prisoners of war and British soldiers from 1917. By 1918, there were 14,000 prisoners of war and 66,000 soldiers employed in British agriculture. They also began to send experienced ploughmen back from the front line to assist, as this was a vital and skilled job. However, many of these men had been injured, and yet more labor was needed.

By 1915, the Board of Agriculture developed a scheme for training women to do agricultural work in agricultural colleges across the country. This training focused on milking and "light" farm work. The courses lasted for 25 weeks, and 218 women signed up, with 199 finding work afterward. On top of this, many women took it upon themselves to form women’s associations to find work in agriculture. There were also some private organizations, such as the Women’s Defence Relief Corps, which was taken over by the Board of Agriculture in 1917.

This led to the formation of the Women’s Land Army (WLA) in 1917. The aims of the WLA were to recruit women for agriculture, break down the anti-feminine bias, and organize "gangs" for farm work. If women were working on a farm for over 30 days, they were entitled to wear an armlet of military appearance to demonstrate to others that they were doing their duty for their country; the armlet was khaki with a red crown. By 1918, there were more than 223,000 women in agriculture, with 8,000 working in the WLA performing the same tasks as men to continue producing food for Britain. 

Source: "The Few That Fed the Many", NFUONLINE.com

Elsie and Mairi: The Angels of Pervyse—A Roads Classic

Many of those [women] who initially rushed to sign up [for war work] had never been farther than the boundary of their village, or town, and had known few people outside their neighbors and, later, those they worked with. Going to war was to be the big adventure, which brings me to two women who immediately saw the opportunity to blend adventure with service: Elsie Knocker (1884–1978) and Mairi Chisholm (1896–1981), who, arguably, became the most famous women of the Great War, as news of their courage reached Britain and, indeed, the rest of the world. They became known as the "Angels of Pervyse" after the village north of Ypres where they cared for the wounded for almost four years. 

"Elsie wanted to get away from the dreary post-Victorian life she was leading," says Flemish historian Patrick Vanleene, "and young Mairi thought Elsie could lead her to an adventurous life". In a letter to her aunt shortly after arriving in Belgium, Mairi wrote: "Fancy […] lolling about doing nothing when there is such a tremendous lot to do here. It's too rotten to think of."

An early turning point came when the women realized how many soldiers were dying because they were not treated soon enough, as the front lines were far from the base hospitals. Elsie and Mairi decided to do something about it. They left Munro's team, broke out on their own, and moved to the heart of the battle zone in Pervyse. 

Here the two women set up their first aid post in autumn 1914. Their rundown cellar house, Le Poste de Secours Anglais, as it became known, was just meters away from the Belgian front line. At first, they had help from former colleagues, but by the beginning of 1915, it was just Mairi and Elsie, risking their own lives to help save those of the Belgian soldiers.

In the Trenches with the Troops

As well as their medical work, Mairi and Elsie were a constant presence on the front line, often handing out hot cocoa and soup to the grateful Belgian soldiers. They were regularly mentioned in soldiers' diaries, poems, and songs and were given presents too. Before long, the women were known as the Madonnas or Angels of Pervyse.

As their reputation soared, so too did the publicity that surrounded the Angels of Pervyse. "People really wanted to meet them and to see the conditions they were living in, and in many ways just to be able to say they'd met them," says their biographer Diane Atkins.

Elsie and Mairi became celebrities of their day—British visitors to the Flanders Front would go to meet them; they were lauded in the press and treated like stars on their visits back to British soil. Their work continued throughout the war years, but in 1918 both were seriously injured in a gas attack and returned to the UK for treatment. The momentum behind their work was lost, and neither was in Pervyse when the Armistice came. After the war, they had a falling out over Knocker's second marriage, and they rarely spoke for the rest of their lives.

From Jackie Winspear's blog, Tony Langley, and the BBC

Friedrich von Payer—German Politician Prominent Briefly in the Last Days of the War

Von Payer (Right) with Prince Max von Baden

Friedrich von Payer (1847–1931) was vice-chancellor of the German Empire from November 1917 to November 1918. In November 1918, he was offered the position of Reich chancellor, which he declined. Born in the university town of Tübingen, he  first attended the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Blaubeuren, before he studied law in his native city. After establishing himself in the legal profession in Stuttgart, he helped to found the Fortschrittliche Volkspartei (Progressive People's Party, FVP), which carried on the liberal heritage of 1848. As a member first of the city council, then of the Württemberg state parliament, Payer represented the district of Reutlingen, Tübingen, and Rottenburg. For almost this entire period (1893–1912), Payer was also president of the state parliament and a member of the FVP. His term as deputy of the German Reichstag lasted from 1877 until 1918.

As the leader of the FVP faction, Payer was a key actor in Reichstag politics, making over 30 trips to Berlin between 1915 and 1917. Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg (1856–1921) was removed from power by an intrigue of the Army High Command in July 1917. In the ensuing governmental crisis, Payer was appointed vice-chancellor on 12 November. He opposed unconditional submarine warfare, as well as extensive annexations in the east. At home, he sought the democratization of the Reichs Constitution. Instead, Payer advocated peace negotiations with the Allies as outlined in the Friedensresolution (Peace Resolution) from July 1917, which the FVP signed. His views  brought him into severe conflict with German High Command.

Chancellor Georg von Hertling (1843–1919) resigned on 30 September 1918, in the face of unavoidable military defeat. Payer was one of only two candidates whom the parliamentary majority would accept. This was a unique opportunity in the history of the German Empire: the highest political office was within the grasp of the leader of a left-leaning party. Payer refused, explaining that his allegiance was to Hertling. Payer remained vice-chancellor and continued to exercise substantial political weight; he saw his candidate of choice, Prince Max von Baden (1867–1929), appointed Reich chancellor on 3 October.

In November 1918, the Deutsche Demokratische Partei (German Democratic Party) was founded as a successor to the original FVP. It was one of the few parties, along with the Social Democratic Party, which stood unconditionally behind the new republic. Famous members included Max Weber (1864–1920), the liberal politician Friedrich Naumann (1860–1919), Theodor Heuss (1884–1963), later the first president of the Federal Republic, Walter Rathenau (1867–1922), who became foreign minister in 1922, and Hjalmar Schacht (1877–1970), the president of the Reichsbank. Three months later, Payer was elected chairman of the new party. It was also in the first months of the new government that Payer took part in the National Assembly at Weimar, where he was one of only seven members of his party to vote for the acceptance of the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919. In 1920, at the age of 73, Payer retired from politics. 

Sources:  The Prussian War Machine; 1914-1918 Online

H. L. Mencken: the Greatest American Critic of the Great War:

The Great War was in some respects the most important event of Henry Mencken's early career. Of German ancestry and a distant relative of the late Otto von Bismarck, he enthusiastically opposed the war.  And—at least until 1917—openly rooted for the Kaiser's victory and a British defeat.  When America joined the hostilities he assumed the role of spokesman for the reaction against the worst elements of the war; it provided new ammunition for his endless battle against the abuses of the democratic system and the genus of men which Mencken had labeled Boobus Americanus.

Such efforts were not universally popular. The editor of Baltimore's Evening Sun was an Anglophile and a Wilson supporter, and Mencken's column became increasingly obnoxious to him, especially when Mencken led the opposition to Woodrow Wilson's renomination and re-election in 1916. Having tried unsuccessfully to turn Mencken's attention to other matters, his editors sent him to Germany as a war correspondent in 1917, announcing "Mencken is not neutral. He is pro-German."

When Mencken returned to Baltimore in 1917, the United States declared war, and Mencken found himself the target of the super patriots. Mencken was placed under surveillance by the Department of Justice. His mail was opened. Despite this opposition he remained true to himself throughout the war's remainder, although he ceased advocating a German victory. Underlying his attitudes about the war was Mencken's skepticism—he did not believe in equality between anyone and he did not believe in democracy at all. In 1920 he defined democracy as “the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” In the decade that followed World War I, H.L. Mencken became the single most influential commentator on the American scene.  Here are some of his pronouncements about the war, both during and looking back.

Henry Louis Mencken, After the War

1914 – Pro-Germanism

"Arrogance is a quality that is noticeable in all successful and efficient people. . . The German attuitude towards the world is simple. He tells the world to go to the devil. This German arrogance, is an affront to Anglo Saxon pride. . . Is the Teuton afoot for new conquests, a new tearing down, a new building up, a new  transvaluation of all values? ... [L]et us not be alarmed by his possible triumph. What did Rome ever produce to match the Fifth Symphony?”  

Baltimore Sun, 28 Sep 1914

Early British Propaganda

"When [the American] recalls the amazing feats of the English war propagandists between 1914 and 1917—and their even more amazing confessions of method since--he is apt to ask himself quite gravely if he belongs to a free nation or to a crown colony.The thing was done openly, shamelessly, contemptuously, cynically, and yet it was a gigantic success. "

Prejudices: Third Series, 1922 

"In brief, the doctrine was clearly laid down, not once but a thousand times, that it was an offense against the United States for any German, however calmly, however reasonably, to speak up for Germany. It was perfectly allowable for a horde of English special pleaders—e.g., H. G. Wells, Harold Begbie, Conan Doyle, Arnold Bennett, the Chestertons, Thomas Hardy, Winston Churchill—to fill the papers with the most atrocious attacks upon the Germans, but it was ipso facto an unfriendly and even criminal act for a German or a German sympathizer to bring forward anything in rebuttal.” 

Baltimore Evening Sun, 16 February 1915

The Lusitania

"RMS Lusitania was a ship carrying munitions of war; the whole world was given fair warning that she would be sunk at sight; the Americans who sailed upon her knew that they were taking their lives in their own hands; the English Navy failed to offer her the slightest protection; her captain steered her deliberately into waters in which two other large British ships had been sunk the day before.” 

Baltimore Evening Sun, 10 May 1915

The Execution of Edith Cavell

"The pro-English newspapers. . . wring tears from the boobs, and Dr. Wilson is dutifully protesting to Germany. But what if the Germans, in their answer, should refer ironically to the case of Mrs. Surratt? Or to the 20,000 Boer women and children done to death in English concentration camps in South Africa? ... The United States, with its hypocritical gabbling about “humanity,” stands before the world as the international Pecksniff and Chadband.”

Baltimore Evening Sun 23 Oct 1915

[Eleven days after the execution of Nurse Cavell, on Ocrober 23, his last "Free Lance" column appeared in the Sun. Mencken stated that it was his own decision to go on to other things, but others believed the column had been taken away from him.]

Battling the Hated Professoriat

“I accumulated,” wrote Mencken, “in those great days, for the instruction and horror of posterity, a very large collection of academic arguments, expositions and pronunciamentos; it fills a trunk, and got me heavily into debt to three clipping-bureaus. Its contents range from solemn hymns of hate in the learned (and even the theological) reviews and such official donkeyisms as the formal ratification of the so-called Sisson documents [famous forgeries] down to childish harangues to student-bodies, public demands that the study of the enemy language and literature be prohibited by law, violent denunciations of  all enemy science as negligible and fraudulent, vitriolic attacks upon enemy magnificos, and elaborate proofs that the American Revolution was the result of a foul plot hatched in the Wilhelmstrasse of the time, to the wanton injury of two loving bands of brothers.”

Prejudices: Second Series, 1921 

"The agitators against Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Wagner, Richard Strauss, [and] all the rest of the cacophonous Huns ... And the pathologists who denounced Johannes Müller as a fraud, Karl Ludwig as an imbecile, and Ehrlich as a thief? And the patriotic chemists who discovered arsenic in dill pickles, ground glass in  pumpernickel, bichloride tablets in Bismarck herring, pathogenic organisms in aniline dyes? ... And the Columbia, Yale and Princeton professors? ... [and] university presidents, such as Nicholas Murray Butler [1862-1947, president of Columbia University].”

Prejudices: Third Series, 1922

 

On America's Wartime Excesses

“There must be at least 100,000 detectives in the United States."

Letter, July 1918

"The posse of 'two thousand American Historians' assembled by Mr. Creel [in his Committee for Public Information] to instruct the plain people in the new theory of American history, whereby the Revolution was represented as a lamentable row in an otherwise happy family, deliberately instigated by German intrigue."

The American Credo, 1921

Looking Back at America's World War

"The history of the American share in the World War is simply a record of conflicting fears, more than once amounting to frenzies. The mob, at the start of the uproar, showed a classical reaction: it was eager only to keep out of danger. The most popular song, in the United States, in 1915, was “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to be a Soldier.” In 1916, on his fraudulent promise to preserve that boy from harm, Wilson was reëlected. There then followed some difficult manœuvres—but perhaps not so difficult, after all, to skilful demagogues. The problem was to substitute a new and worse fear for the one that prevailed—a new fear so powerful that it would reconcile the mob to the thought of entering the war. The business was undertaken resolutely on the morning after election day. Thereafter, for three months, every official agency lent a hand. No ship went down to a submarine’s torpedo anywhere on the seven seas that the State Department did not report that American citizens—nay, American infants in their mothers’ arms—were aboard. Diplomatic  note followed diplomatic note, each new one surpassing all its predecessors in moral indignation. The Department of Justice ascribed all fires, floods and industrial accidents to German agents. The newspapers were filled with dreadful surmises, many of them officially inspired, about the probable effects upon the United States of the prospective German victory. It was obvious to everyone, even to the mob, that a victorious Germany would unquestionably demand an accounting for the United States’ gross violations of neutrality. Thus a choice of fears was set up. The first was a fear of a Germany heavily beset, but making alarming progress against her foes. The second was a fear of a Germany delivered from them, and thirsting for revenge on a false and venal friend. The second fear soon engulfed the first. By the time February came the mob was reconciled to entering the war—reconciled, but surely not eager.

"There remained the problem of converting reluctant acquiescence into enthusiasm. It was solved, as always, by manufacturing new fears. The history of the process remains to be written by competent hands: it will be a contribution to the literature of mob psychology of the highest importance. But the main outlines are familiar enough. The whole power of the government was concentrated upon throwing the plain people into a panic. All sense was heaved overboard, and there ensued a chase of bugaboos on a truly epic scale. Nothing like it had ever been seen in the world before, for no democratic state as populous as the United States had ever gone to war before. I pass over the details, and pause only to recall the fact that the American people, by the end of 1917, were in such terror that they lived in what was substantially a state of siege, though the foe was 3000 miles away and obviously unable to do them any damage. It was only the draft, I believe, that gave them sufficient courage to attempt actual hostilities. That ingenious device, by relieving the overwhelming majority of them of any obligation to take up arms, made them bold. Before it was adopted they were heavily in favour of contributing only munitions and money to the cause of democracy, with perhaps a few divisions of Regulars added for the moral effect. But once it became apparent that a given individual, John  Doe, would not have to serve, he, John Doe, developed an altruistic eagerness for a frontal attack in force. For every Richard Roe in the conscript camps there were a dozen John Does thus safely at home, with wages high and the show growing enjoyable. So an heroic mood came upon the people, and their fear was concealed by a truculent front. But not from students of mob psychology."

Notes on Democracy, 1926

Mencken's  Credo

“I am an extreme libertarian, and believe in absolute free speech, especially for anarchists, Socialists and other such fools…. I am against jailing men for their opinions, or, for that matter, for anything else"

Letter, summer 1920

Sources: "Some Notes on Mencken in the First World War".  Menckeniana, Summer 1976 and Fall 2016; Letters of H.L. Mencken; Mencken's "Free Lance" Columns in the Baltimore Evening Sun and his "Prejudices" Series of Essays.

The Demographic Cost of World War One for Europe

Tyne Cot British Cemetery, Flanders

By  Massimo Livi-Bacci, University of Florence

Excerpted from DEMOGRAPHIC SHOCKS: THE VIEW FROM HISTORY; Center for Intergenerational Studies, 2001

In Europe proper—west of Russia—the twentieth-century demographic seismic shifts were due to wars, to the related human losses, civilian and military, and to the geopolitical revolution of the continent through population transfers, refugee movements, and the like. As a result of the modifications of warfare between the First and the Second World Wars—1939-45 warfare was less labor intensive and increasingly technological—the balance between military and civil losses had shifted, the latter having an increased share in the tally. With a relatively young age structure, fertility usually above replacement, and long-term falling mortality (excluding the war years), war losses were soon recovered by the European population. However, between 1913 and 1920 the population declined from 340 million to 337.7 million (-0.7 percent) against an increase from 97.2 million to 106.5 million (+9.3 percent) in the United States (Svennilson 1954, p. 63). The age group 15 to 64, however, increased from 210 million to 216.3 million (+3 percent). Military losses in the five largest belligerent countries—Austria-Hungary, Germany, Great Britain, France, and Italy—were close to 6 million (out of a total of 10 million for all of Europe, including Russia), from a total of 41.5 million mobilized men (one in seven) (Becker 1999, p. 80)

Did the war losses affect economic development? Human capital was depleted (mobilized men underwent a medical selection; the warfare exacted a high number of lives among officers; many of the survivors were sick or disabled). But the issue is complex: One must not forget that Europe was losing population through migration in the years before World War I, an outflow that came to a halt during the conflict, in some measure diminishing the negative impact of war losses. Moreover, during the war many women joined the labor force, replacing men in many activities, in the fields as well as in the factories. Many of these remained in the labor force once the war was finished. In the absence of reliable and comparable data on the labor force, Figure 5 relates the change in the male population of active age (15 to 64) between 1913 and 1920, and the change in GDP per capita over the same period, for fifteen European countries. 

Click on Chart to Enlarge

The figure shows a positive association between the two indicators and does not reject the hypothesis that depletion of human capital went hand in hand with a weak or negative performance of per capita income. However, it is likely that countries that suffered the most in terms of human losses were also those whose physical capital was most damaged by the conflict, and the association above may be in part spurious.

The case of France is interesting. It was the European country most deeply scarred by the warfare on its own territory, a strip 500 kilometers long from the North Sea to the frontier of Switzerland laid waste. Military deaths totaled 1.3 million, or 34 per thousand population, the highest rate in Europe (Becker 1999, p. 80). For a population with the lowest natural increase in Europe, the negative impact was serious. France had favored immigration during the war, particularly in the agricultural sector where the scarcity of manpower was mainly felt. Immigrants came from Spain, Portugal, and Greece, but also from Indochina and North Africa. After the war, the government, faced with the task of reconstruction and the restructuring of the economy, initiated a policy of immigration  particularly from Italy, Poland, and Czechoslovakia). Between 1921 and 1931 the foreign population increased from 1.5 million to 2.9 million, while 0.4 million foreigners were naturalized French. The gross inflow of foreign workers in the 1921-30 period was 1.7 million, mostly in agriculture, mining, and manufacturing (Garden 1988, pp. 106-7, 112).

The case of Britain was different. Human losses were lower than France’s (0.7 million against 1.3 million), and Britain’s demography was much more dynamic. It was quality, more than quantity, that mattered. A common opinion was that the war had been dysgenic because it had stripped the country of the best young people: Those who joined the armed forces enthusiastically and early, and who were in the forefront of the battle, were also more educated and skilled. The myth of a “Lost Generation” was created. J.M. Winter has tested the Lost Generation hypothesis against the available data: Officers had proportionally more killed, wounded, missing, and prisoners of war than other ranks. Members of the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford who joined the Army had a much higher proportion of casualties than average (Winter 1977).

The negative effects of the war on the elites were further compounded by the gender asymmetry created in the marriage market, forcing many women to renounce marriage and forgo reproduction. The higher toll of the elites in the war is supported by French and Italian data: Officers’ mortality was substantially higher than that of men of other ranks.

So one provisional conclusion is that war depleted the human capital in both quantitative and qualitative ways. In terms of per capita welfare, the losses may have had a depressing impact, at least in the short term. In the case of France, where losses had been very serious, immigration provided a solution.

From My Bookshelf: The Best Book for World War I Poster Enthusiasts

All my readers seem to know I love World War I posters.  Consequently, over the years I've advised some of them on the best place to shop for authentic specimens and I've received jpgs of some exceptional specimens I've used here on Roads. However, the best collection of posters from the war I've ever seen up to right now was this gift from my pal and traveling mate, Mr. Jack Kavanagh. In 2002, collector Gary Borkan and Schiffer Publishing of Pennsylvania put out this superb collection of posters. The posters are beautifully displayed with background information on the artists and technical details important to collectors. All types of posters are represented, recruiting, fund raising, government sponsored propaganda, voluntary organizations, and some postwar examples. The 450 selections are mostly from America and other English-speaking countries, with maybe ten percent from the other combatants. Below are images of some of the selections I particularly liked that I found online. Their quality is not up to the standard of the hard copy version of World War I Posters.  MH 

World War I Posters can be ordered HERE

Musée Jean et Denise Letaille, Bullecourt 1917: Not High-Techy but Top-of-the-Line

Bullecourt 1917  is a French museum located in Bullecourt about 12 miles southeast of Arras. Two major attacks by British and Australian forces were mounted nearby as part of the broader Battle of Arras in the spring of 1917. At the end of the battle, the Allies retained a small part of the Hindenburg Line, but it was of no tactical significance. Seventeen thousand Allied soldiers perished in the two Battles of Bullecourt. The British Army subsequently focused its attention on the battles in Flanders for the remainder of 1917.

For more than 30 years, the former mayor of Bullecourt, M. Jean Letaille OAM, and his wife Denise collected weapons, machinery, and other war relics left behind in nearby fields by Australian, British, and German soldiers during the war. While he was mayor, Jean created a small museum in the town hall to display many of these items, before relocating them to his barn and stable in 1995.

For many years, Jean and Denise warmly welcomed thousands of visitors, particularly Australians, whose ancestors fought at Bullecourt during the war. Sadly, Jean passed away in March 2012 and Denise a few years earlier. Before his death, Jean donated his unique collection and part of his property to the local community to allow for the major redevelopment of the museum in 2011–2012. The project was jointly funded by both the French authority, the Conseil Régional Nord-Pas de Calais, and the Australian Government. The updated museum officially opened on Anzac Day 2012.

The refurbished museum retains the structural features of the original barn and stable. However, the interior has been converted to accommodate modernized displays. The current "look," however, is much in the spirit of those old-fashioned types of military museums that prioritized presenting a lot of interesting stuff. Bullecourt 1917 does provide audio guides in French and English but generally eschews the interactive stations, multimedia technology, and immersive gadgets embraced by other military museums.

About the Surrounding Battlefields:

Over the years, we have published a number of articles touching on the fighting around Bullecourt.  Click HERE to access those articles.  If you visit Bullecourt, plan on spending the better part of a day visiting the museum, the battlefield sites, the memorials on the battlefield and in-town, and the cemeteries at nearby Écoust-Saint-Mein.

Finding Musée Jean et Denise Letaille, Bullecourt 1917:

Located via rue d’Arras, Bullecourt

Open from Tuesday to Sunday, 1.30 p.m. to 5.30 p.m.

October to March and 10.00 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. and

1.30 p.m. to 6.00 p.m. April to September.

Sources:  The Australian Department of Veterans' Affairs; Arras & Artois; Google Maps 

Working Together: German-Turkish Military Relations During the War

By Col. William T. Anderson, USMCR (Ret.)

I have been translating Col. Friedrich Freiheer Kreß von Kressenstein's (1870–1948) WWI diary, edited by Winfried Baumgart (2004)," as part of my project to write a biography of Lt. Col. (Ret.) Josef Bischoff. Bischoff commanded the Turkish Camel Regiment in the Sinai Campaign of 1916. 

These particular passages of the author’s introduction are very interesting and provide a rare glimpse into coalition warfare in the Great War: 

"Kreß was a member of the German Military Mission in Turkey, which had a total of around forty officers and was involved in the reform of the Turkish army. The number was increased by members of the German Afghan expedition and by German colonial officers. Kreß' judgment of his comrades was scathing, especially of the members of the last two categories. But he also considered the regular cadre to be 'by no means first-class, either socially or in terms of their service'. Many had fallen on hard times and had been deported to Turkey because of their debts, for example. Kreß condemned the officers of the former Afghan expedition, especially because of their alcoholic excesses. 

"In his memoirs, he accuses those who were responsible for sending such elements abroad: They had 'sinned grievously against our cause.' Another category of unpleasant comrades for him were 'the North German brothers'.” Their brusqueness of manner had already made an unpleasant impression on him earlier in southern Germany, and in the Orient, where people are "so terribly sensitive," they would have had an adverse effect.

Kreß (Seated Center) with His Turkish-German
Staff in Gaza, 1916

For Kreß, the prototype of this type of officer was General Erich von Falkenhayn, who was called to the Palestinian theater of war in July 1917. In his book Mit den Türken zum Suezkanal (With the Turks to the Suez Canal), Kreß elegantly ignores the general's "rough edges." In his memoirs presented here, he portrays him as an adventurer and gambler. He was the typical representative of the Prussian general staff school who believed that he could "achieve and enforce everything with a strong will and stubbornness." He had imagined that he had gotten to know the Orient and the Orientals well enough during his stay in China in the Boxer War. When the German officers in Palestine had tried to make it clear to him that "even with the strongest will" one could not stand up to the "Oriental passive resistance," he had described them as "already completely stupid" and simply replied flippantly: "Why haven't you trained them better during the three years you've been here."

Later, Baumgart comments on relationships with Turks:

"Kreß described it as a serious mistake that German and Turkish officers were deployed together. The conditions for this were simply not right. It was particularly bad that the German officers emphasized their sense of superiority over their Turkish comrades. The German colonial officers, in particular, let this slip: They regarded the Turks as their coolies. On the other hand, the Germans' service in the Turkish army was made more difficult by the fact that their Turkish superiors were much younger than themselves and had little practical experience and scientific training. Kreß points out that the Turkish Minister of War, Enver, was only 30 years old in 1915 compared to his own 45 years. The two “Djemals” ("the Great" and "the Little"), for whom he was chief of staff, were also several years younger than him.

As for the level of training of Turkish officers, Kreß did not speak well of them at all. The main obstacle to cooperation was the great jealousy of the Turks, with which they resisted any real or imagined interference by the Germans in what they called internal affairs. There was also a widespread rumor that the Germans intended to appropriate Palestine as a German colony after the war. The fact that, in addition to many German colonial officers, the former governor of Togo, Duke Friedrich zu Mecklenburg, was also sent to the Turkish battlefield, fueled the rumor.

(Editor's note: Late in the war, Kreß, in command of a small mission, was sent to Georgia, where he helped resist the Red Army. He retired from the German army in 1929 and died in Munich in 1948.)

Sources: Col. Friedrich Freiheer Kreß von Kressenstein's WW1 Diary, edited by Winfried Baumgart (2004); Library of Congress (photo)