A Lab of One's Own Reviewed by James M. Gallen

A Lab of One's Own

by Patricia Fara

Oxford University Press, 2018

The story of the Great War is not just the story of generals and Doughboys, kings and politicians, heroism and cowardice, life and death. It is also the story of the social change that flowed from and followed in the war's wake. A Lab Of One's Own is the story of women's suffrage and admission to scientific laboratories in Britain during the Great War.

The Great War caused great changes in Britain. Wartime demands and the numbers of men drawn to the front created both the demand and need for women to enter the work place. The recognition of the contributions of women provided support for women's votes.

In 1914 Britain was a cauldron of strife between business and labor, among classes and ideologies. The rise of a common enemy summoned men, and women, to rally for king and country. The demand for female workers in industry flowed from two forces As men entered the armed forces their places were taken by women. As the blockade halted German imports Britain found itself running out of scientific supplies, including electric generators, tungsten, explosives medical drugs, and high-quality glass for range-finders. As prominent citizens accused the government of causing the deaths of their sons by not providing adequate equipment, the demand for increased and improved production lead to the establishment of the Ministry of Munitions, which started establishing factories all over the country.

In the absence of trained and available men they were largely operated by women. By the end of the war three million women were working in industry. Their contributions to the war effort were recognized by Prime Minister Lloyd: "Who works, fights" and referring to women "(W)e have found that we could not carry on the war without them." Faced with such evidence women were added to the voters' rolls.

New munitions manufacturers expanded their capacity to produce cordite, a low explosive that had already replaced gunpowder as a propellant, and TNT, a high explosive previously made in Germany that was needed to fill shells. They relied on women to fill their workforces. They justified this necessity with the comment that "Girls are more diligent in work within their capacity than boys—they are keen to do as much as possible and are more easily trained." So valuable were women's' concentrations that Lloyd George told the House of Commons that "it is not too much to say that our Armies have been saved and victory assured by the women in the munition factories where they helped produce aeroplanes, howitzer bombs, shrapnel bullets, shells, machine tools, mines, and have taken part in shipbuilding."

Opportunities for women created by the war often evaporated with the return of peace. Female doctors who were deemed adequate to perform surgery on battle casualties were relegated to treat only women or to emigrate. In many other occupations returning men squeezed women back to their old occupations. Nevertheless, like toothpaste that cannot be put back into the tube, the world of Britain's women could not totally return to the previous status quo. Exclusion of women from occupations could no longer be justified on the basis of competency. Because of wartime training and expanded education, a higher proportion of women had professional qualifications in science, engineering and medicine, and more single women were demanding to earn their own living. Perceptions of the abilities of women were irreversibly altered. Women previously limited to food production were now permitted to move into the laboratory.

A Lab Of One's Own is not totally a Great War book. Its focus is a collection of story lines of scientists and suffragettes told through narratives of themes and biographical snippets of women who entered scientific fields and led the suffrage movement. I found author Patricia Fara's writing style to be uncoordinated and hard to follow. Perhaps that is because, as an American, I am not familiar with many of the personalities referenced. I think this work may be best appreciated by students of early 20th-century gender issues in Great Britain.

James M. Gallen

The Deep Roots of the Great War, Part 2: Forces for Change

What the Poets Foresaw
The river of time in its onrush
Bears along the affairs of men,
And drowns in the abyss of oblivion
All peoples and realms and kings…
Gavril Derzhavin, 1816

The Masque of Anarchy
Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many — they are few
Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1819

1824: Romantic poet Lord Byron dies in Greece attempting to aid insurgents fighting against the Ottoman Empire.

The First Railroad Opens for Business

1825 Urban Industrial Europe Emerges

The opening of the world's first railroad, Britain's Stockton and Darlington, helped launch industrial based economic growth unprecedented in human history; more industry, machines, and personal wealth followed. Workers needed for the new factories accelerated an epochal migration to cities from farms in ever increasing numbers. Seething, dynamic mega-cities proved much harder to control politically than the smaller, more dispersed populations of feudal days.

1800–1900: Dramatic European Population Growth, Especially Cities
Europe (not Russia)        150,000,000 to 291,000,000
Russia (Europe + Asia)   37,000,000  to 111,000,000
Paris, France                   548,000  to 2,714,000
London, England             865,000  to 6,581,000
Berlin, Germany              201,000 [1819]  to 1,889,000
Vienna, Austria                232,000  to 1,675,000

Vienna, Late 19th Century

The Fervor of Revolution Re-emerges

1825: Decembrist Revolt in Russia, initiated by idealistic officers is crushed, resulting in increased revolutionary activity by educated elites and increased secret policing of the population.

By 1830 a range of dissenters throughout Europe—from the elite intellectuals to street ruffians—inspired by fond memories of the French Revolution, were ready to return to the barricades. Fittingly a next revolutionary movement broke out in France, triggered by several severe freedom-limiting ordinances of King Charles X. Strikes and protests were followed by armed confrontations, which the army was unable to contain.  Charles abdicated. Several liberalizing reforms followed and, notably, the Tricolor replaced the white flag of the Bourbons. The turmoil and modest successes of the events in France inspired elites throughout Europe to call for their own peoples to rebel. Two future Great War combatants gained their independence. Greece, which had been fighting for a decade, was recognized by the European powers as an independent state, and Belgium declared its independence from the Netherlands, winning the guarantee of that independence, which would be honored in 1914. Poles who challenged the tsar, however, were crushed, and the fireworks fizzled in Italy and Prussia. The advocates of change, overall, however, were disappointed, but they would bide their time for another opportunity for revolution. It came a generation later.

Liberty Leading the People, Delacroix, 1830

Every time France sneezes Europe has a cold.

Count Metternich, 1848

Another series of revolutions challenging the Old Order broke out in Europe in 1848. This proved much more alarming to the established leadership, especially the old monarchies. Begun in Sicily, it spread to France, Germany, Italy, and the Austrian Empire. In France, King Louis Philippe was overthrown and replaced by the Third Republic. Elsewhere the rebellions all ended in failure, put down forcibly in some cases, in others ended by moderates who won some modest reforms, such as the short-lived Frankfurt Parliament. The liberalizers and revolutionaries were once again discouraged at failing to overturn the Old Order. Marx and Engels were inspired to write The Communist Manifesto.

We have been beaten and humiliated . . . scattered, imprisoned, disarmed and gagged. The fate of European democracy has slipped from our hands.

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, 1849

Engels and Marx

One fact is common to all past ages, namely, the exploitation of one part of society by another.

Communist Manifesto

The Deep Roots of the Great War: Part 1, Forces for Order

Prelude to Order: 

1. Revolution in France:

They made and recorded a sort of institute and digest of anarchy called the Rights of Man.

Edmund Burke

2. Then Came Napoleon

After the French Revolution degenerated into the bloodletting known as the Reign of Terror and the revolutionaries had levied a huge army first to defend and then to export the revolution, Napoleon was the man who stepped forward to restore internal order and redirect its campaigns. He overthrew the governing Directorate in a November 1799 coup and progressively assumed the offices of First Consul, Dictator for Life, and Emperor.

His ensuing 15-year campaign to become master of Europe under the guise of spreading the values of the Revolution traumatized the established powers by inspiring nationalists and haters of monarchy everywhere, rolling over the smaller city-states and principalities, and—to his credit—willfully imposing more modern and efficient legal and administrative forms throughout continental Europe. That one man could excel on the battlefield, as a lawgiver and empire-builder is astonishing. Even socialists today grudgingly credit him with destroying feudalism in Europe. Needless to say, the established powers of

his time concluded that they needed to defeat him, and finally did so in 1815.

1792–1815: Death toll in the Napoleonic Wars—2,100,000 

Post-Napoleonic Europe began with an effort by the Old Order, the political leadership that had led Europe since the birth of the nation-state—monarchs, aristocrats, officers of state, and the beneficiaries of crown policies and largesse—to maintain peace and their own station. This Concert of Europe soon faced economic, scientific, and social changes unprecedented in history, including irrational impulses for violence and revolution. The fear and animosity created as the Old Order attempted to restrain these impulses for both evolutionary and revolutionary change fueled the explosion that would come in 1914. 

The Congress of Vienna

Even before Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo, a peace conference was convened to arrange a post-Bonaparte peace. At the Congress of Vienna, the Old Order established a Concert of Europe, an alliance system to de-fang revolutionary France, keep each Great Power secure but unable to dominate the others, and to set rules of diplomacy that are still in force today. Its tenor was unsympathetic to both democracy and nationalism. The five dominant participants sought to strengthen the legitimacy of the established monarchies, to treat France fairly and return the Bourbon monarchy, and to institutionalize a "balance of power" grand strategy, with no single country becoming too powerful. War was to be avoided by "congresses," diplomatic conferences of the leading states. 

France, armée, Joséphine. . .

Last Words of Napoleon, 1821 

Europe Ascendant 

1820s: The Concert of Europe suppresses rebellions in Spain and Italy but supports Greek efforts to gain independence from the Ottomans.

1823: Great Britain backs the U.S. issuing of the Monroe Doctrine, which opposed the reestablishment of Spanish or other European rule in the revolting Latin American colonies.

1827: Russian, British, and French fleets defeat the Turkish and Egyptian fleets at the Battle of Navarino, effectively winning independence for Greece.

1832-3: Britain enfranchises middle–class men (Reform Bill) and abolishes slavery in its possessions. 

1837: The Victorian Age Begins

The reign of Queen Victoria symbolizes an age of confidence, restraint, and British world leadership. The United Kingdom becomes the leading economic power in the world, possessing the largest colonial empire.  European powers conquer and colonize most of Africa and parts of Asia during this period. While Victorianism is stereotyped as prudish, it was also the time when religion lost its decisive hold. Men begin looking increasingly to the growing institutions of industry and government for support and fulfillment.

No power on earth will succeed in moving Me to transform that natural relationship between ruler and people. . . into a legalistic or constitutional one and I will never allow a written piece of paper to come between Our Lord God in heaven and this country.

King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, 1847

Yet revolution came in 1848.

Tomorrow:  The Deep Roots of the Great War: Part 2, Forces for Change

Frogmen Sink a Battleship, Part II (A Roads Classic)

Part II:  Sinking SMS Viribus Unitis

by Brian Warhola

Rossetti and Paolucci struggled against the ebbing tide to work their way past the nets and reach the anchored Austrian battleships. “At length,” Paolucci wrote, “our endevours were successful.” It was now 3:00 in the morning.

The largest ship, the dreadnought SMS Viribus Unitis, lay closest to shore, and was chosen as the primary target. Swimming through sleet and hail, Rossetti and Paolucci saw the sky begin to brighten with dawn. As they reached the side of the Viribus Unitis, the torpedo unexpectedly began to sink.

Viribus Unitis

While Paolucci frantically struggled to keep the torpedo afloat, Rossetti located an intake valve that had accidentally opened, allowing air to escape from the cylinder. After shutting the valve, the two men rested in the shadow of the Austrian flagship for a few minutes. “Of all our trying moments,” Paolucci wrote, “this was undoubtedly the worst.”

Working their way down the long line of Austrian battleships, the two men reached the Viribus Unitis at 4:45 a.m. Rossetti removed one of the canisters of TNT from the front of the torpedo and attached it to the hull of the Viribus Unitis. Rossetti set a timer to detonate the 400-pound charge of TNT at 6:30.

As Rossetti and Paolucci pushed off from the side of the Viribus Unitis, they were spotted by a sentry on the flagship.The Italians tried to steer for shore, where they hoped to escape. Quickly, however, a boat was dispatched from the Viribus Unitis to capture them. Paolucci hastily armed the second canister of explosives and set it free in the ebbing tide. Rossetti flooded the torpedo’s air cylinder, letting it sink to the bottom.

The Italian officers were captured by sailors from the Viribus Unitis and taken back to the ship. There they were shocked to learn that during the night the Austrian fleet had mutinied and that the Austrian admiral had turned command of the Viribus Unitis over to a Yugoslavian captain named Ianko Vukovic. All German and Austrian crew members had been sent ashore, leaving the fleet in the hands of neutral Yugoslavian sailors.

It was 6:00 a.m. Knowing that in half an hour the TNT would detonate, Rossetti told Captain Vukovic, “Your ship is in serious, imminent danger. Save your men.” Captain Vukovic calmly demanded an explanation. Rossetti said “I cannot tell you; but in a very short time the ship will be blown up.”

Vukovic, wasting no time, shouted in German, “Men of the Viribus Unitis, save yourselves all who can! The Italians have placed bombs in the ship!” The Yugoslavian crewmen, on hearing this news, panicked and began to abandon ship. “We heard doors open and shut in a hurry, we saw half-naked men rushing about madly and clambering up the steps of the batteries, we heard the noise of bodies splashing into the sea,” Paolucci wrote.

Taking advantage of the sudden panic, Rossetti asked Captain Vukovic if they might save themselves. Vukovic agreed. Rossetti and Paolucci ran to the side of the ship and dove overboard. They were soon overtaken by a group of angry Yugoslavian sailors in a small boat, who took them back to the Viribus Unitis. “We thought,” Paolucci wrote, “that they intended to make us die on the doomed ship.” It was 6:20.

Back on the deck of the ship for the second time, Rossetti and Paolucci found themselves surrounded by a threatening mob of sailors. “Some of them were shouting that we had deceived them, while others wanted to know where the bombs were hidden.” Rossetti spoke up, demanding that he and Paolucci be granted fair treatment as prisoners of war. Vukovic ordered his men not to harm the Italians.

When 6:30 came, there was no explosion. Rossetti and Paolucci stared blankly at one another, wondering if something had gone wrong. Captain Vukovic was still attempting to restore order on the ship’s deck. Around the ship, crewmen who had abandoned the Viribus Unitis rowed in lifeboats, unsure whether to flee to safety or return to the ship.

At 6:44 the charge of TNT detonated. Rossetti and Paolucci were surprised that the delayed explosion made only “a dull noise, a deep roaring, not loud or terrible, but rather light.” Immediately, however, a huge column of water rose into the air at the ship’s bow and splashed down on its foredeck. In the moment of shock following the explosion, Rossetti and Paolucci once again asked permission to abandon the ship. Captain Vukovic shook their hands and pointed to a rope by which they could escape into the water, motioning to one of the lifeboats to pick them up.

Viribus Unitis Going Down

Dragged aboard the small boat, Rossetti and Paolucci turned to watch the Viribus Unitis slowly sink. “The Viribus Unitis heeled over more and more,” Paolucci wrote, “When the water reached the level of the deck, the ship capsized completely. I saw the big turret guns tumbled about like toys. . .On the keel I saw a man crawling until he reached the top. It was Captain Vukovic. He died a little later, after being struck on the head by a wooden beam when, after having extricated himself from the whirl of water, he was trying to save his life by swimming to shore.” Rossetti and Paolucci were taken as prisoners of war to an Austrian hospital ship to recover. There, they learned that the second canister of explosives, set free by Paolucci just before they were captured, had exploded against the hull of an Austrian ship called Wien, sinking it.

Three days later, on 4 November 1918, Italy and Austria signed a peace treaty. The next day the Italian fleet took control of Pola, and Rossetti and Paolucci were freed. The two men were presented with gold medals for courage. Rossetti was awarded 650,000 lire from the Italian government as a reward for his services. He presented this reward to the widow of Captain Vukovic, describing the deceased captain as “a war adversary who, dying, left me with an ineradicable example of generous humanity.” The money was used to establish a trust fund for widows and mothers of other war victims.

From our site Trenches on the Web; originally contributed by Paul Chrastina of Old News

Frogmen Sink a Battleship, Part I (A Roads Classic)

Part I:  The Plan and the Approach

by Brian Warhola

In the summer of 1918, as World War One was drawing to close, the Austrian Navy suffered a series of defeats at the hands of the Royal Italian Navy. The most powerful ships of the Austrian Navy retreated to the port of Pola, on the Adriatic Sea. The entrance to this harbor was protected by floating booms and barricades, designed to ensnare and destroy enemy ships. The Italian Navy made several attempts to attack the Austrian fleet at Pola but failed to breach the elaborate harbor defenses.

Austrian Battleships at Anchor in Pola Harbor

Lieutenant Raffaele Paolucci was an Italian naval surgeon who devised a plan to infiltrate the harbor at Pola and destroy the largest ships of the Austrian fleet. Although the sheltered enemy fleet seemed invulnerable to conventional attack, it occurred to Lieutenant Paolucci that he might be able to reach the Austrian ships by simply swimming to them, carrying explosives.

Paolucci consulted charts of the Pola estuary and concluded that, if he could be dropped off near the entrance to the harbor, “a swim of three kilometers would enable me to reach the objective."

Keeping his plan to himself, Paolucci began to train for the task of swimming alone into the harbor at Pola. At night Paolucci swam for hours in the lagoons of Venice, increasing his endurance until he could comfortably swim five miles without resting. As his stamina increased, Paolucci began dragging a 300-pound keg of water with him, to simulate the weight of an explosive charge he planned to take with him to destroy the enemy ships.

Lieutenant Raffaele Paolucci 

In May, confident of his ability to carry out his plan, Paolucci presented the idea to his commanding officers. He was advised of the obvious dangers attending such an undertaking but was told to continue his training.

In July Paolucci was introduced to Major Raffaele Rossetti. Paolucci learned that Rossetti had designed and built an entirely new kind of aquatic weapon, a manned torpedo that was perfectly fitted to the mission for which Paolucci had been preparing himself.

Using the long, slender shell of an unexploded German torpedo that had washed up on the Italian coast, Rossetti had built a sleek submersible craft that could be ridden through the water like a horse. Filled with compressed air that drove two small, silent propellers, Rossetti’s rebuilt torpedo was about 20 feet long, weighed one-and-a-half tons, and could carry a pair of riders through the water at a top speed of two miles an hour. At the front end of the apparatus were fitted two detachable watertight canisters, each of which had room for 400 pounds of TNT. The craft could be raised or lowered in the water by adjusting a series of control valves Rossetti had designed.

In the Italian naval shipyard in Venice, Rossetti and Paolucci practiced swimming and guiding the torpedo. “We had to be in the water,” Paolucci later wrote, “clinging to the machine, which moved slowly; we had to steer it with our bodies, and in certain cases were obliged to drag the apparatus ourselves. . .we accustomed ourselves to getting over simple obstructions and nets. . .we habituated ourselves to remaining in the water for six or seven hours at a stretch with our clothes on, and to pass ing unobserved beneath the eyes of the sentries posted along the Venice dockyard. . .we traversed the whole of the dockyard without our passage being perceived either by the numerous sentries, or by the officers in charge of them, who knew that the trial was being made.”

On the night of 31 October 1918 the two men and their hybrid water craft were brought within a few miles of the entrance to the harbor at Pola by a navy motorboat. Donning waterproof rubber suits, Rossetti and Paolucci slipped into the water, mounted their torpedo, and set out to sabotage the unsuspecting Austrian fleet.

Riding on the incoming tide, Rossetti and Paolucci submerged the torpedo until only their heads rose above the water’s surface. It was 10:13 p.m. as they set off for Pola. If all went well, Rossetti had calculated that it should take no more than five hours to deliver the explosives to the Austrian ships and return to the waiting Italian motorboat, which lay anchored out of sight of Austrian patrols.

As they approached the entrance to the harbor Rossetti shut off the air valve that powered the torpedo’s twin propellers. The two men then carefully guided the torpedo up to the first of the barriers that guarded the outer harbor. Enemy searchlights swept over the water, threatening to expose them to view. Each time, however, the searchlights passed over them without revealing their presence.

Major Raffaele Rossetti

Reaching the outermost barricade at 10:30, Rossetti and Paolucci found that it was made of “numerous empty metal cylinders, each about three yards in length, between which were suspended heavy steel cables." After waiting for an opportune moment, the two men lifted and pushed their craft over this obstacle, anxious that the sound of metal scraping on metal might alert Austrian guards on shore. Their struggles went unnoticed. “After great effort,” Paolucci wrote, “we got past the obstruction, when I felt myself seized by the arm. I turned around, to see Rossetti pointing to a dark shape which seemed to be advancing toward us.” An Austrian U-boat, running without lights and with only its conning tower above the water, glided past them and out into the Adriatic Sea, oblivious to their presence.

Restarting the torpedo’s motor, the two men steered slowly toward the seawall that guarded Pola’s inner harbor. While Rossetti waited in the shadow of the seawall, Paolucci swam ahead to look for the easiest entrance to the harbor. Instead, he found another obstruction, a gate made of heavy timbers studded with long steel spikes.

Paolucci swam back to Rossetti and told him what he had found. Rossetti decided to continue with the mission. The tide had turned, and the two men now fought the current, dragging the heavy torpedo up to the submerged gate.

Continued tomorrow. . .

Austria-Hungary's Bravest of the Brave

The monument shown above is located in the upper Isonzo River Valley at the foot of Mte Rombon, which—thousands of feet of higher—was a ferocious battlefield from 1915 to October 1917 when the German-Austrian Caporetto Offensive secured the area for the Central Powers.  Note that the soldier on the left is wearing a fez.  This indicates that he was a Muslim soldier of  the 2nd Bosnian regiment.  The inclusion of this figure indicates the respect the Zweier Bosniaken,  known as "the bravest of the brave," earned during their loyal service during the First World War.

Bosnian Mountain-top Machine Gun Position

While Bosnian Muslims served on most of the fronts where the K.u.K. fought, they are most remembered for their operations on the Italian Front.  In 1916, they captured Mte. Fior during the assault known as the Strafexpedition  (punishment offensive) on the Asiago Plateau. Further north they held Mte. Rombon against countless Italian attack prior to Caporetto, and then led the breakout deep into the Veneto after the October 1917 breakthrough. By war's end, the 2nd Regiment,  with 42 Gold Medals for bravery, held the highest number of such distinctions of any regiment in the K.u.K. army.

Field Marshal Conrad von Hötzendorf 
Decorating Soldiers of the 2nd Bosnian Rgt.

Where Poppies Blow: The British Soldier, Nature, The Great War Reviewed by Jane M. Ekstam

Where Poppies Blow: The British Soldier, Nature, The Great War

by John Lewis-Stempel

Wiedenfeld & Nicolson, 2017

A  Tommy and His Friend

Where Poppies Blow tells the story of World War One through the mirror of nature. It argues that the Englishman's patriotism in 1914–18 was closely bound up with nature worship—one of the key reasons for his volunteering to fight was the desire to keep intact the beauty of the countryside. Indeed, Lewis-Stempel demonstrates that "[f]or the generation of 1914–18 love of country meant, as often as not, love of countryside" (xxi). The eight chapters cover topics as diverse as the natural history of the British, birds of the battlefield, poems about horses, lice, and pests, disease, growing fruits and vegetables in the trenches, the importance of pets, British and empire naturalists who died on active service, and the quiet that came at the end of the war.

Nature was not only a powerful influence on soldiers, it was also where they lived: in the trenches, the soldiers "habited the bowels of the earth" (xxii). The ability of nature to endure inspired soldiers, nature had a palliative function by enabling soldiers to endure collective trauma, animals became much-needed friends in the turmoil of war, bird-watching was a favorite activity among officers, soldiers fished in village ponds and flooded shell holes, and flower and vegetable gardens flourished in the trenches. Many of the dead were buried in nature.

Edward Thomas,
Royal Garrison Artillery

Chapter One, "For King and Countryside", explores soldiers' diary entries as well as the poetry of Edward Thomas. The latter's "Adlestrop" is a famous example of the English soldier's love of the countryside. Adlestrop, in Gloucestershire, southern England, epitomizes the romantic view of nature that caused so many Englishman to sign up at the beginning of the war. Describing a train journey Thomas made in June 1914, during which he stopped at Adlestrop, the poem is imbued with the sweetness and perfume of glorious England:

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop-only the name.

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

It is no coincidence that Thomas believed that the greatest gift he could bequeath to his children was the English countryside.

Chapter Three, "All the Lovely Horses", is particularly moving. It demonstrates the English soldier's passionate love of his equine friends. The chapter includes the story of how William Parr, who served with the Canadian Field Artillery, overheard a driver say that if he were to die, he would wish to be buried with his horses. When the driver died just a few days later, Parr buried the driver and wrote the following lines to express his desire to be buried with his best friends:

And when the grand, great, final roll call comes,
To be the first upon parade we'll try,
Oh Lord of All please grant my only prayer,
To take my horses with me when I die. (137)
Chapter Five, 'The Bloom of Life', provides fascinating details about how soldiers managed to cultivate flowers, fruit and vegetables at the front. The journalist Carita Spence, for example, saw the soldiers' gardens at La Panne (Ypres), and wrote:

So the soldiers portioned off the rough earth beside the board walk that ran parallel to the rampart, and first they had a little vegetable garden, and next to it for beauty's sake a flower garden, and next to that a little graveyard, and then the succession repeated. (208)

There was, however, another side to the soldiers' love of fruit and vegetables. Captain Crouch gave a whole new meaning to the expression "trench raid" by encouraging his men to pillage the gardens of a nearby ruined village: "we get potatoes, rhubarb and spinach. This is very good for the men, and I encourage them to go out at night to get garden stuff" (207). Not surprisingly, Chapter Five also addresses the importance of the symbol of the poppy, referring not only to John McCrae's famous poem but also explaining how, long before McCrae's poem, the poppy had been an emblem of death, with its petals the colour of blood and its multitudinous seeds the colour of night. The poppy was also prevalent at Gallipoli.

Soldiers' pets played an important role in maintaining morale. Rabbits, for example, were kept as pets. A motorcycle dispatch rider wrote home to tell his relatives all about "Ration," a baby rabbit with a broken leg:

He has now grown up to quite a size, and although he cannot use one leg he gets about a lot. He goes into the cookhouse every day for his tea. We shall take him with us when we move, of course, as he is quite a favourite, and the pet of the section. (244).

The final chapter, "Quiet Flowed the Somme", describes the cemeteries, which constituted the "Empire of the Silent Dead" (311). Lewis-Stempel describes how the Imperial War Graves Commission ensured that the graves became gardens or small parks of remembrance and not merely "depositories for the deceased" (311).

Where Poppies Blow tells a side of the story of World War One that has been ignored or, at best, under-appreciated. Replete with fascinating extracts from diaries, letters, and poems, Where Poppies Blow helps explain how soldiers were able to endure the horrors of war. The eight substantial chapters and the photographs in the center of Lewis-Stempel's study provide a new perspective on the nature of war as well as the incredible ability of mankind to endure against the odds and to make the best of a world that had been neither envisaged nor chosen. It is a powerful and timely message in our troubled times of climate change and natural disasters.

Jane M. Ekstam, Østfold University College, Norway

A Great Anti-War Cartoon

"Enlisting the Neutrals" by Zurich cartoonist Karl Czerpien for the satirical magazine, Nebelspalter, August 1915.

Thanksgiving Day 1918: A Roads Classic

Happy Thanksgiving from the 

Roads Editorial Team

Much of the American Expeditionary Force found itself stuck in France after the Armistice. Every unit and base pulled out the stops that Thanksgiving to give the troops a wonderful meal. Here is the menu from the Second Aviation Instruction Center at Tours. It includes a lot of special recipes for Château-Thierry Sauce, Dressing of the Argonne, and some delightful-sounding delicacies like "Submarine Fruits [of the Sea]" and "Dardanelles Turkey." Thanks to contributor Terry Finnegan, who found this in the Gorrell Reports.

Click on Image to Expand

Now sit down ye warriors bold, eat, drink and sing as in days of old. Tis said that man and beast and bird some day has its inning. The turn comes now for men who fight; give thanks above "La Guerre est Finie."

Over the Top Magazine: The Complete Collection

As some of our readers might have read elsewhere, with the wrapping-up of the World War One Centennial commemorations, I have decided to conclude publication of my monthly subscription magazine, Over the Top.  December 2018 will mark the release of our final issue, the 144th.  However, all 12 years of the magazine will be available along with many other of our special features for purchase on our Complete Collection DVD.

Click on Images to Expand

Besides all the issues of the magazine the disk will include a long list of "extras" (listed on the cover) that we have published in conjunction with Over the Top and our other publications at Worldwar1.com.  The retail price for the DVD is $64.00.

Silent Landscape at Gallipoli Reviewed by Mike Hanlon

Silent Landscape at Gallipoli: The Battlefields of the Dardanelles, One Hundred Years On

by Simon Doughty (Author), James Kerr (Photographer)

Helion and Company, 2018

The Sphinx, North Beach, Anzac Sector

If you were to type "Gallipoli" in the little search box at the top left corner of this page and clicked enter, you will come up with a long list that includes 41 major articles and three book reviews we have previously presented at Roads to the Great War on the Dardanelles Campaign of 1915. I've contributed a large portion of these myself, since I've read much on the subject and led two tours of the battlefields there. What all of this set me up for, however, was to have my breath taken away when I opened up my reviewer's copy of Silent Landscape at Gallipoli.

Abandoned Artillery Piece, French Sector

Cemetery at Anzac Cove

V Beach, Cape Helles

It would be easy, and quite incorrect, to categorize this large-format work as a picture book. It does have 108 magnificent color photographs (examples shown here), including overhead and oblique aerial shots by gifted landscape photographer James Kerr, but it presents much more. Excellent accounts of the military operations written by Simon Doughty are included, as well as the observations, memories, and verse of various participants and interested parties. The gulp-inducing first page sets a serious and patriotic tone for the work quoting Homer's Iliad, "Without a sign, his sword the brave man draws, and asks no omen, but his country's cause."


Silent Landscape at Gallipoli is going to be a permanent part of my personal World War One library. It is a gem of literary "packaging" with the text, photos, and maps, all seamlessly integrated and beautifully laid out. Further, I learned much about the campaign I'd previously missed and am a little embarrassed to have discovered I sometimes brought my groups past significant sites I knew nothing of. For someone wishing to learn about what happened at the Dardanelles in 1915 and is just getting started, one couldn't do better than to combine readings of either Robert Rhodes James's or Alan Moorehead's Gallipoli classics with a study of this gem by Doughty and Kerr.

Mike Hanlon

Remembering the Tommies

The 1914 Original BEF Shortly After Arriving

Unlike France, Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary, Great Britain entered the First World War with a small, volunteer force. It believed it could rely on the Royal Navy for most of its contribution should general war come. But the war that came in 1914 seemed to be a land war on the European continent. War Minister Gen. Horatio Kitchener quickly apprehended that major increases in the British Army were needed. A mass volunteer army was recruited at his recommendation. They became known as "Kitchener's New Armies."

As the professional British Army was devoured in the futile 1914 and 1915 campaigns, the new units trained, fated to have their main entrance onto the stage of war on 1 July 1916 at the Somme. Alas, even the mighty recruiting effort of Kitchener proved insufficient to the demands of total war. Eventually, the nation turned to conscription to bring the war to its conclusion.

Recruiting Poster from Mid-War Period

● "Tommy" as a name for British soldiers came from the name in the sample paybook given to new recruits in Wellington's time: Thomas Atkins.

● The original 1914 British Expeditionary Force was composed of six infantry and one cavalry division. totaling 150,000 men.

● 5,704,416 Tommies from the United Kingdom (Great Britain & Ireland) eventually served in the war.

● About 2,670,000 volunteered, of which 1,186,000 had enlisted by 31 December 1914.

● About 2,770,000 were conscripted.

● 724,000 Tommies were killed; 2,000,000 were wounded; and 270,000 were POWs.

● Besides the regulars, the British Army overseas was supplemented by "Territorials," volunteer reserves, originally  intended for home defense, but who could opt for "Imperial Service" overseas.

● "Pals" battalions were special units of the British Army composed of men who enlisted together in local recruiting drives, with the promise that they would be able to serve alongside their friends, neighbors, and work colleagues ("pals"). By one count, there were 643 Pals battalions. 

A 1917 Illustration from The Sphere Depicts WWI's Tommy
As He Is Remembered Today

Canada's Golgotha

"Canada's Golgotha" is a 32-inch-high  bronze sculpture by the British sculptor Francis Derwent Wood, produced in 1918.  During the Second Battle of Ypres, rumors circulated that a Canadian soldier had been crucified on a Belgian barn door, a story the Germans denounced as propaganda. Whether truth or fiction, "Canada's Golgotha" illustrates the intensity of wartime myths and imagery.  Its first display in 1919 provoked an angry diplomatic exchange with Germany, which demanded details to back up the story. The crucifixion remains unproven. Today the statue is in the collection of the Canadian War Museum.

Remembering a Veteran, Capt. T.C. Montgomery, AEF, District of Paris

Captain Thomas Carlisle Montgomery, AEF, had a most interesting war. A lawyer in civilian life, he was commissioned as an infantry officer, but was reassigned to the the Headquarters of the Lines of Communication for Pershing's forces.  This led to his spending most of his WWI years in Paris.  Monty as he was known (but apparently as Carl for his mother)  wrote over 100 letters, typically weekly, typically Sundays, that chronicle detailed observations and constitute a diary in their entirety. The letters give a unique rear-echelon view of the wartime experience. They have been collected by Monty's nephew Merrill Boyce at the blog:  https://montyatwar.com/

In this early section from the series, we find Lt. Montgomery on his was to France.

On board S.S. Carpathia – at sea 
Sept. 30, 1917 

RMS Carpathia

Dear Mother —

This is our tenth day at sea and we are supposed to dock tomorrow or the next day so this might be on its way back to you soon.

Our destroyer escort met us yesterday afternoon and I think everybody felt better to see them coming over the horizon and very quickly thereafter get up to and take a position around us. Our ship is one of a bunch of fourteen coming over together all of which mount from 1 to 5 guns and we’ve also had a cruiser escort but, now that we are in the real submarine zone, all protection is welcome and the destroyers very comforting. 

Monty in Paris

I left Port—New York—the day I expected—Sept.10th—but also, as I thought, didn't come directly over. We went to another port where we waited on board ship for over a week for the convoy to assemble. There we officers were allowed to go ashore two days after first giving our word of honor not to attempt to communicate with friends or relatives. There are a bunch of troops aboard besides some 75 of us unassigned officers and the enlisted men certainly looked envious when we went to shore and they couldn't go. Felt sorry for them but they couldn't all be trusted not to give information which might have endangered all of us.

This ship is, as you may know, English—a Cunard liner, being the one which picked up the Titanic survivors several years ago. The officers and crew are typically English and have been an interesting type to me.

There are four of us to a stateroom and I consider myself lucky in my roommates. The senior is a prominent Boston lawyer of 43—Stackpole—and a Harvard law man. One of the others is also a Bostonian and a Harvard man of about my age while the third is a Yale man from New Haven of about the same age. 

Luckily we were quite congenial and also all fond of bridge so I have killed a lot of time very pleasantly at bridge. We have an hour conference on some military subject every morning, an hour of French and half an hour of physical exercise in the afternoon. The rest of the day is at our disposal and there's nothing much to do but read and play bridge. We also have a boat drill about once a day at the sound of the steamer’s whistle all running to our stations with life belts. It has become so much a matter of habit now that I believe if we were torpedoed we’d all go to our stations with very little excitement. 

The weather got rough the second day out and lots of the fellows were seasick but luckily I escaped. Didn't feel any too easy the first day of rough weather but after getting by that day, was all right. It calmed down a couple of days ago and is very smooth today.

Tell Kate I’ve lived in the sweater she gave me almost ever since coming aboard—it has been most useful. It will be hard to go back to a stiff collar and blouse when we land.

Two Columbians [i.e. Columbia University graduates] are on board who know Kate and Frank—Dr. La Bruce Ward and Captain Chisholm of the Engineers.

Three days later—as I write we are drawing up to the dock at Glasgow. Have been on deck since breakfast watching the hills of Bonnie Scotland. 

The next day—Didn't write any further yesterday as scenery was too interesting and I stayed on deck until we docked. Am now in Glasgow getting up town from the ship last night, and we go on to London tonight. Am very glad we got this opportunity to see Scotland for it has been most interesting. We are the first American troops to be in Glasgow and are a sight for the natives. They welcomed us with open arms and you hear expressions of good will from all sides. Haven't done any sightseeing yet but expect to go out on a tour this afternoon. Will write you again in a day or two when I find out where I’m to be.

Love to all, 

Carl

From:  Lieut. Thomas C, Montgomery,
Inf. - U.S.R. - American Expeditionary Force.

The AEF Keeps Fighting After the Armistice—in Northern Russia

An Eyewitness Account of the Battle of Toulgas

From: The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki Campaigning in North Russia 1918–1919

The Bolshevik whose frantic rearguard actions during the fall campaign had often been given up, even when he was really having the best of it, merely because he always interpreted the persistence of American attack or stubbornness of defense to mean superior force. He had learned that the North Russian Expeditionary Force was really a pitifully small force, and that there was so much fussing at home in England and France and America about the justice and the methods of the expedition, that no large reinforcements need be expected. So the Bolsheviks on Armistice Day, 11 November, began their counter-offensive movement, which was to merge with their heavy winter campaign. So the battle of 11 November is included in the narrative of the winter defense of Toulgas.

Toulgas was the duplicate of thousands of similar villages throughout this province. It consisted of a group of low, dirty log houses huddled together on a hill, sloping down to a broad plain, where was located another group of houses, known as Upper Toulgas. A small stream flowed between the two villages and nearly a mile to the rear was another group of buildings which was used for a hospital and where first aid was given to the wounded before evacuating them to Bereznik, 40 or 50 miles down the river.

The forces engaged in the defense of this position consisted of several batteries of Canadian artillery, posted midway between the hospital and the main village. In addition to this "B" Company, American troops, and another company of Royal Scots were scattered in and about these positions. From the upper village back to the hospital stretched a good three miles, which of course meant that the troops in this position, numbering not more than five hundred were considerably scattered and separated. This detailed description of our position here is set forth so specifically in order that the reader may appreciate the attack which occurred during the early part of November.

On the morning of 16 November, while some of the men were still engaged in eating their breakfasts and while the positions were only about half manned, suddenly from the forests surrounding the upper village, the enemy emerged in attack formation. Lt. Dennis engaged them for a short time and withdrew to our main line of defense. All hands were immediately mustered into position to repel this advancing wave of infantry. In the meantime, the Bolo [sic] attacked with about 500 men from our rear, having made a three day march through what had been reported as impassable swamp. He occupied our rearmost village, which was undefended, and attacked our hospital. This forward attack was merely a ruse to divert the attention of our troops in that direction, while the enemy directed his main assault at our rear and undefended positions for the purpose of gaining our artillery. Hundreds of the enemy appeared as if by magic from the forests, swarmed in upon the hospital village and immediately took possession. Immediately the hospital village was in their hands, the Bolo then commenced a desperate advance upon our guns.

At the moment that this advance began, there were some 60 Canadian artillery men and one Company "B" sergeant with seven men and a Lewis gun. Due to the heroism and coolness of this handful of men, who at once opened fire with their Lewis guns,  the advancing infantry was forced to pause momentarily. This brief halt gave the Canadians a chance to reverse their gun positions, swing them around, and open up with muzzle bursts upon the first wave of the assault, scarcely 50 yards away. It was but a moment until the hurricane of shrapnel was bursting among solid masses of advancing infantry, and under such murderous fire, the best disciplined troops and the most foolhardy could not long withstand. Certain it was that the advancing Bolo could not continue his advance. The Bolos were on our front, our right flank and our rear, we were entirely cut off from communication, and there were no reinforcements available. About 4:00 p. m. we launched a small counterattack under Lt. Dennis, which rolled up a line of snipers which had given us considerable annoyance. We then shelled the rear villages occupied by the Bolos, and they decamped. Meanwhile the Royal Scots, who had been formed for the counterattack, went forward also under the cover of the artillery, and the Bolo, or at least those few remaining, were driven back into the forests.

The enemy losses during this attack were enormous. His estimated dead and wounded were approximately 400, but it will never be known as to how many of them later died in the surrounding forests from wounds and exposure. This engagement was not [only] disastrous from the loss ofmen but was even more disastrous from the fact that some of the leading Bolshevik leaders on this front were killed during this engagement. One of the leading commanders was an extremely powerful giant of a man, named Melochofski, who first led his troops into the village hospital in the rear of the gun positions. He strode into the hospital, wearing a huge black fur hat, which accentuated his extraordinary height, and singled out all the wounded American and English troops for immediate execution, and this would undoubtedly have been their fate, had it not

been for the interference of a most remarkable woman, who was christened by the soldiers "Lady Olga."

This woman, a striking and intelligent-appearing person, had formerly been a member of the famous Battalion of Death, and afterwards informed one of our interpreters that she had joined the Soviets out of pure love of adventure, wholly indifferent to the cause for which she exposed her life. She had fallen in love with Melochofski and had accompanied him with his troops through the trackless woods, sharing the lot of the common soldiers and enduring hardships that would have shaken the most vigorous man. With all her hardihood, however, there was still a touch of the eternal feminine, and when Melochofski issued orders for the slaughter of the invalided soldiers, she rushed forward and in no uncertain tones demanded that the order be countermanded and threatened to shoot the first Bolo who entered the hospital. She herself remained in the hospital while Melochofski with the balance of his troops went forward with the attack and where he himself was so mortally wounded that he lived only a few minutes after reaching her side. She eventually was sent to the hospital at the base and nursed there. Capt. Boyd states that he saw a letter which she wrote, unsolicited, to her former comrades, telling them that they should not believe the lies which their commissars told them, and that the Allies were fighting for the good of Russia.

At daybreak the following day, five gun boats appeared around the bend of the river, just out of range of our three-inch artillery, and all day long their ten long-ranged guns pounded away at our positions, crashing great explosives upon our blockhouse, which guarded the bridge connecting the upper and middle village, while in the forests surrounding this position the Bolo infantry were lying in wait awaiting for a direct hit upon this strong point in order that they could rush the bridge and overwhelm us. Time after time exploding shells threw huge mounds of earth and debris into the loopholes of this blockhouse and all but demolished it.

Here Sergeant Wallace performed a particularly brave act. The blockhouse of which he was in command was near a large straw pile. A shell hit near the straw and threw it in front of the loopholes. Wallace went out under machine-gun fire from close range, about 75 yards, and under heavy shelling, and removed the straw. The same thing happened a little later, and this time he was severely wounded. He was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal by the British. Private Bell was in this blockhouse when it was hit and all the occupants killed or badly wounded. Bell was badly gashed in the face but stuck with his Lewis gun until dark when he could be relieved, being the only one in the shattered blockhouse which held the bridge across the small stream separating us from the Bolos.

For three days the gun boats pounded away and all night long there was the rattle and crack of the machine guns. No one slept. The little garrison was fast becoming exhausted. Men were hollow-eyed from weariness and so utterly tired that they were indifferent to the shrieking shells and all else. At this point of the siege, it was decided that our only salvation was a counterattack. In the forests near the upper village were a number of log huts, which the natives had used for charcoal kilns, but which had been converted by the enemy into observation posts and storehouses for machine guns and ammunition. His troops were lying in and about the woods surrounding these buildings. We decided to surprise this detachment in the woods, capture it if possible and make a great demonstration of an attack so as to give the enemy in the upper village the impression that we were receiving reinforcements and still fresh and ready for fighting. This maneuver succeeded far beyond our wildest expectations.

Company "B," under command of Lt. John Cudahy, and one platoon of Company "D" under Lt. Derham, made the counter attack on the Bolo trenches. Just before dawn that morning the Americans filed through the forests and crept upon the enemy's observation posts before they were aware of any movement on our part. We then proceeded without any warning upon their main position. Taken as they were, completely by surprise, it was but a moment before they were in full rout, running panic-stricken in all directions, thinking that a regiment or division had followed upon them. We immediately set fire to these huts containing their ammunition, cartridges, etc., and the subsequent explosion that followed probably gave the enemy the impression that a terrific attack was pending. As we emerged from the woods and commenced the attack upon upper Toulgas we were fully expecting stiff resistance, for we knew that many of these houses concealed enemy guns. Our plans had succeeded so well, however, that no supporting fire from the upper village came and the snipers in the forward part of the village seeing themselves abandoned, threw their guns and came rushing forward shouting "tovarish, tovarish," meaning the same as the German "kamerad." As a matter of fact, in this motley crew of prisoners were a number of Germans and Austrians, who could scarcely speak a word of German and who were probably more than thankful to be taken prisoners and thus be relieved from active warfare.

During this maneuver one of their bravest and ablest commanders, by the name of Foukes, was killed, which was an irreparable loss to the enemy. Foukes was without question one of the most competent and aggressive of the Bolo leaders. He was a very powerful man physically and had long years of service as a private in the old Russian Army, and was without question a most able leader of men. During this four days' attack and counter attack he had led his men by a circuitous route through the forests, wading in swamps waist deep, carrying machine guns and rations. The nights were of course miserably cold and considerable snow had fallen, but Foukes would risk no fire of any kind for fear of discovery. It was not due to any lack of ability or strategy on his part that this well-planned attack failed of accomplishment. On his body we found a dramatic message, written on the second day of the battle after the assault on the guns had failed. He was with the rear forces at that time and dispatched or had intended to dispatch the following to the command in charge of the forward forces: 

"We are in the two lowest villages—one steamer coming up river—perhaps reinforcements. Attack more vigorously—Melochofski and Murafski are killed. If you do not attack, I cannot hold on and   retreat is impossible. (Signed) FOUKES."

Out of our force of about 600 Scots and Americans we had about 100 casualties, the Scots suffering worse than we. Our casualties were mostly sustained in the blockhouses, from the shelling. It was here that we lost Corporal Sabada and Sergeant Marriott, both of whom were fine soldiers and their loss was very keenly felt. Sabada's dying words were instructions to his squad to hold their position in the rear of their blockhouse which had been destroyed.

It was reported that Trotsky, the idol of the Red crowd, was present at the battle of Toulgas, but if he was there, he had little influence in checking the riotous retreat of his followers when they thought themselves flanked from the woods. They fled in wild disorder from the upper village of Toulgas and for days thereafter in villages far to our rear, various members of this force straggled in, half crazed by starvation and exposure and more than willing to abandon the Soviet cause. For weeks the enemy left the Americans severely alone. Toulgas was held.

100 Years Ago: Whither Alsace and Lorraine?

French Troops Occupy Strasbourg

Alsace, except the Belfort district, and Lorraine had been annexed by the German Empire on 14 August 1870. Article 2 of the Treaty of Frankfurt (10 May 1871) provided Alsace-Lorraine inhabitants could choose French nationality up to 31 October 1872 but would in that event be obliged to leave the country. After that time, they would become Germans.

During the Great War, approximately 250,000 residents of Alsace-Lorraine were mobilized in the German army. They served mainly on the Eastern Front. The law of 5 August 1914 allowed some of them to gain French nationality by signing an act of engagement in the armed forces for the duration of the war. The majority of them were sent to North Africa and the overseas territories, some becoming workers in the weapons factories. 

Georges Clemenceau and Raymond Poincaré Visit Alsace

Those who chose to fight on the Western Front often took on an assumed name to avoid retaliation. The situation is also complex for civilians, sometimes interned in German or French camps on the suspicion that they were too Francophile or Germanophile.

From February 1915, a committee was tasked with looking into all the administrative, religious and school problems that would arise were Alsace-Lorraine to be reattached to France. On 6 October 1918, it was decided that the “Recovered Provinces” would be occupied by French troops in the same way as the liberated French departments.

On 17 November, the French army entered Mulhouse. The president of the Republic, Raymond Poincaré, born in Lorraine, and Clemenceau were hosted in Lorraine and Alsace from 8 to 10 December 1918. They bestowed the French marshal’s baton on Pétain on 8 December 1918 in Metz.

Petain Receives His Marshal's Baton in Metz, December 1918

After the initial joy, unease arose when Clemenceau opted for rapid assimilation, without taking into account the specifics dear to these populations, or even their language, which was not French. Lorraine became the French department of Moselle, while Alsace, was divided into Upper Rhine and Lower Rhine. Around 110,000 German residents were evicted, while the problem of “mixed” families emerged. Again, the Alsatians and some of the Lorrains were asked to choose between the French and German nationalities. They were divided into four categories, each with a specific identity card.

Source:  French Army Museum Blog