Bombs Away! (April Fool's Day - 1915)

I guess, I should have waited until next April 1st to publish this article, the substance of which I just discovered, but I couldn't wait. MH

On 2 August 1915, the Atlantic Constitution published this report:

Source: The Museum of Hoaxes

Florida, USA, Goes to War

 

When the United States entered World War I (1914-1918) on 6 April 1917, Florida was a sparsely populated state, with only 925,641 inhabitants. Florida’s abundance of open, arable land and year-round warm climate made the state an ideal location for military training, technological development and increased agricultural resource production.

Soon after the Great War erupted in Europe during the summer of 1914, both the Florida Naval Militia and Florida National Guard saw enrollment increases. That same year, the United States Navy opened the nation’s first aeronautic training center, Naval Air Station Pensacola, where over 6,000 officers and enlistees would complete training by the war’s end in November 1918.

Thousands of Floridians joined the millions of other Americans heeding President Woodrow Wilson’s call to make the world “safe for democracy.” Although the United States was involved in the global conflict for only 19 months, the war still impacted the social, economic and environmental conditions of Florida. Of the 4 million American men and women who joined the armed services between 1917 and 1918, 42,030 were Floridians.

Florida Draftees Departing Gainesville for Training Camp 

The Sunshine State's subtropical coastlines and wide-open inlands became the site of numerous military training and intelligence facilities during WWI. The largest installment was U.S. Army Camp Joseph E. Johnston in Jacksonville. Originally known as Black Point, the National Guard first used the site beginning in 1909. When the war came, the U.S. Army renamed the site Camp Joseph E. Johnston and opened it as an Army Quartermaster training camp in November 1917. The camp grew to include over 600 buildings and at one time held a population of just under 27,000. Additionally, five of the nation's 35 flying schools operated in Florida: Naval Air Station Pensacola, Curtiss Field and Chapman Field in Miami, and Carlstrom Field and Dorr Field in Arcadia. 

In May 1917, Congress passed the Selective Service Act, requiring all men between the ages of 21 and 31 to register for the draft. The law set Florida's initial draftee quota at 6,325 enlistees. Beginning in July 1917, the first round of recruits went out of state to train at either Camp Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina, or Camp Wheeler near Macon, Georgia. An additional 36,000 more men and women would come from all over Florida to join the military during the war. In total, 35,829 joined the Army, 5,963 joined the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard and 238 joined the Marine Corps.

Two Floridians Serving in the Band at
Camp Jackson, Columbia, SC

On the home front, the war injected a renewed patriotism into Floridians’ hearts and minds. Countless others performed their patriotic duty by purchasing liberty bonds, volunteering with service organizations, and conserving food and raw materials. The 1917 Florida Legislature passed the "Flag Law" mandating that "the flag of the United States be displayed daily" in every state government and public school building. State health officials warned that "not only a future military army, but future industrial army" depended on raising healthy children.

Food became Florida’s most important contribution to the war. When the director of the U.S. Food Administration, Herbert Hoover, decreed that "food will win the war," Floridians responded by ramping up food production in the state. Exactly one month after the U.S. entered the Great War, Governor Catts issued the "National Crisis Day" Proclamation, imploring all Floridians to make "every practical effort ... toward the increasing of food supplies in this state and in the United States." Officials from the Florida Department of Agriculture encouraged people to fulfill their "patriotic duty" by raising their own livestock and growing beans, corn, onions and wheat for both personal consumption and exportation.

Out of this heightened nationalism came a closer relationship between the operations of the state and federal government, but it also brought about some domestic shifts. Anti-German sentiment swept many pockets of the country, and African-Americans, searching for better job opportunities and racial tolerance, flocked en masse to northern factories. Women suffragists leveraged President Wilson’s appeal for global democracy to expose American democracy’s own shortcomings.

Florida women of all races and social strata worked and volunteered on the home front. Though it had a little over 100 local chapters nationwide in 1916, Red Cross membership significantly expanded to meet the demands of war, and dozens of new chapters opened in Florida by 1920. Members trained as nurses, organized liberty bond drives, knitted socks and sweaters for soldiers, rolled bandages, made comfort bags and disseminated public health information. The Junior Red Cross opened numerous branches at grammar schools in Florida, giving children the opportunity to do their part in the war as well. The Young Women’s Christian Association established 50 "hostess houses" at training camps throughout the country, including one at Camp Johnston and one at Carlstrom Airfield. Hostesses created a homey yet structured environment for soldiers to meet with their "sweethearts" and other family members.

Future First Lady of Florida Mary Call Darby Collins with
her mother “knitting their bit” for the Red Cross

Between 1917 and 1918, the material and intangible sacrifices of Florida’s civilian army aided in securing Allied victory in Europe. After the armistice, the Sunshine State’s economy simultaneously benefited from increased civilian buying power brought on by post-war deflation and Florida’s new image as an untapped source of high-return real estate investments.

After the November 1918 armistice, veterans from Tampa to Tallahassee began returning to the familiar comforts of home. Their communities greeted them with displays of jubilant appreciation. But adversity and charitable work did not stop with the Allied victory in Europe — a widespread influenza outbreak that began in 1918 would keep Florida volunteers occupied well past the war’s end. The Red Cross gathered and distributed medical supplies and food; transported doctors, patients and the dead; and treated victims and their families. Relief workers opened portable soup kitchens for victims unable to prepare their own meals. 

World War One Memorial, Jacksonville, Florida
Dedicated Christmas Day 1924

The Great War left a lasting impression on Florida — especially on the state’s economy. The Sunshine State’s increased agricultural production during WWI primed much of the land for the big real estate boom of the 1920s. Prospective buyers came from all over the country in hopes of turning Florida ground into profit. The Pennsylvania Sugar Company, the Florida Sugar and Food Products Company, the Moore Haven Sugar Company, and the Southern Sugar Company each purchased thousands of acres of sugar cane fields in the early 1920s. As a result of the post-WWI Florida land boom, the state’s population exceeded 1.2 million by 1925. Twenty years later, by the end of the Second World War, Florida’s population had doubled to 2.4 million residents. Florida was well on its way to becoming one of the nation’s most populous and prosperous states.

Source: The State Library and Archives of Florida

Why Was Lawrence of Arabia So Disillusioned at the End of the Movie?

Peter O'Toole as Lawrence, Claude Rains as Dryden, Jack Hawkins as Allenby

At the end of Lawrence of Arabia, T.E. Lawrence is obviously deeply unhappy because his grand vision of uniting the Arab tribes has collapsed into tribal infighting and he learns the diplomats have been up to mischief, leaving him feeling used by the British Government. German journalist Bernhard Zand of Der Spiegel gave a fairly detached (at least non-British) analysis of what was going on behind the scenes in those days.

In no other theater of World War I are the results of that epochal conflict still as current as they are in the Middle East. Nowhere else does the early 20th century orgy of violence still determine political conditions to the same degree. . . Perhaps most important, however, was the wanton resolution made by two European colonial powers, Britain and France, that ordered this part of the world in accordance with their own needs and literally drew "A Line in the Sand," as the British historian James Barr titled his 2011 book about this episode.

The Allies' defeat at Gallipoli marked a strategic turning point in the war in the Middle East. Because their plan to strike at the heart of the Ottoman Empire failed, the Allies began focusing on its periphery — targeting the comparatively weakly defended Arab provinces. It was a plan which corresponded with the Arab desire to throw off the yoke of Ottoman rule. In July 1915, Sir Henry McMahon, the High Commissioner of Egypt, began secret correspondence with Hussein Bin Ali, the Sharif of Hejaz and of the holy city of Mecca. He and his sons, Ali, Faisal and Abdullah —  together with the Damascus elite —  dreamed of founding an Arab nation state stretching from the Taurus Mountains in southeastern Turkey to the Red Sea and from the Mediterranean to the Iranian border.

In October 1915, McMahon wrote Hussein a letter in which he declared Great Britain's willingness —  bar a few vague reservations —  "to recognize and support the independence of the Arabs within the territories in the limits and boundaries proposed by the Sherif of Mecca."

The Arabs fulfilled their part of the agreement. In June 1916, they began their insurgency against the Ottomans —  a decisive aid to the British advance from Sinai to Damascus via Jerusalem. Their revolt was energized by the British archeologist and secret agent Thomas Edward Lawrence, who would go down in history as "Lawrence of Arabia."

Britain, though, did not fully live up to its part of the deal. In a dispatch sent in early 1916, Lawrence wrote that the Arab revolt would be useful to the British Empire because, "it marches with our immediate aims, the break-up of the Islamic 'bloc' and the defeat and disruption of the Ottoman Empire." But in no way were the British thinking of the kind of united Arab state that Hussein and his sons dreamed of. "The states the Sharifs would set up to succeed the Turks would be … harmless to ourselves…. The Arabs are even less stable than the Turks. If properly handled they would remain in a state of political mosaic, a tissue of small jealous principalities incapable of cohesion."

Far more important to the British than their Arab comrades in arms were the French, with whom their troops were fighting and dying in untold numbers on the Western Front. "The friendship with France," British Prime Minister David Lloyd George later told his French counterpart Georges Clemenceau, "is worth ten Syrias." France was a colonial power that had long laid claim to the Christian provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Great Britain would have preferred to control the region alone, but with their common enemy Germany bearing down, London was prepared to divide the expected spoils.

Even as McMahon was corresponding with Sharif Hussein, British parliamentarian Sir Mark Sykes was negotiating a contradictory deal with the French diplomat François Georges-Picot. It foresaw the division of the Arab provinces which still belonged to the Ottomans in such a way that France would get the areas to the north and the British those to the south. "I should like to draw a line from the 'e' in Acre to the last 'k' in Kirkuk," Sykes said as he briefed Downing Street on the deal at the end of 1916.

 

The so-called Sykes-Picot Agreement was an unabashedly imperialistic document. It took no account of the wishes of the peoples affected, ignored the ethnic and confessional boundaries existing in the Arab and Kurdish world and thus provoked the conflicts which continue to plague the region 100 years later. "Even by the standards of the time," writes James Barr, "it was a shamelessly self-interested pact."

The document initially remained secret. And by the time the Bolsheviks completed their revolution in Moscow in 1917 and made the Sykes-Picot Agreement public, the British had already signed another secret deal —  one which neither the Arabs nor the French knew about.

On Nov. 2, 1917, Foreign Minister Arthur James Balfour promised the Zionist Federation of Great Britain "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." There were several factors motivating the British to grant the oppressed Jews the right to self-determination and to give them a piece of the Ottoman Empire for that purpose. One of the most important was the accusations of imperialism against London that had grown louder as the war progressed. Not that the imperialists in the British cabinet shared such concerns. But it bothered them, particularly because one of the critics, Woodrow Wilson, had just been reelected as US president.

"Every people should be left free to determine its own polity, its own way of development, unhindered, unthreatened, unafraid," Wilson intoned in January of 1917 on the eve of America's entry into the war. At the time, Wilson was unaware of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, but the British suspected that they would ultimately have to come clean with their new ally. As such, the Balfour Declaration can be seen as an effort to guard against the expected US reaction to Britain's arbitrary redesign of the Middle East.

 

Now Back to the Movie: 

In the film, Lawrence seems to learn of the Sykes-Picot agreement only at the end of hostilities when he returns to Cairo to meet with General Allenby, Faisal, and the diplomat Dryden (a fictional, composite British foreign service officer). He has previously been disappointed by the post-victory inter-Arab fragmentation he had witnessed in Damascus. Now he has further discovered that Faisal, who is to become a king, has cynically acquiesced to the new arrangement.  After Lawrence's exit, Faisal and Allenby concur that they are both glad to see his departure.

T. E. Lawrence, however, likely first learned of the secret Sykes-Picot negotiations in May 1917, when he met with British diplomat Mark Sykes. Also, he must have previously heard of the Balfour Declaration almost immediately after its release in November 1917, when the Bolsheviks published the secret diplomatic files and Turkish forces publicized them in the Arab press.

Contrary to the movie, Lawrence must have been wrestling with the duplicity in the Allied relations with the Arabs long before the meeting in Cairo.  Indeed, he alludes to this in  Seven Pillars of Wisdom, when he wrote: "I had to join the conspiracy and assure the men of their reward. Better we win and break our word than lose."

Sources: Excerpted from "What World War I Did to the Middle East", Der Spiel, 31 January 2014

Weapons of War: The Lebedenko or ‘Tsar’s Tank’

 

Modern Full-Scale Mockup of the Tsar's Tank in Moscow

By James Patton

Before World War I, the armored fighting vehicle (AFV) had been merely a tantalizing concept. Even Leonardo da Vinci had taken a stab at it, with sketches of a human-powered AFV, even mounted with cannons. In the 15th century, a Czech general had actually built some armored wagons, fitted them with artillery, and used them effectively. In 1903 the fantasy author H.G. Wells had imagined a hundred-foot long AFV, also with cannons, and large enough to carry about 40 soldiers. He even included a retractable fixed turret that could be raised like a periscope. 

Armored automobiles existed before the war, but they did not prove useful off-road. They couldn’t span obstacles such as walls, fences, trenches, ditches and shell holes. Plus, since they were armor-plated and carried weaponry, they were too heavy to get traction on soft or muddy ground. The solution to this was a long time in coming. Beginning in 1825 with Sir George Cayley’s (1773–1857) “Universal Railway”, numerous inventors in several countries had tweaked the idea of having the wheels run on a hard surface rather than directly on the ground. In 1901, Alvin Lombard (1856–1937) of Waterville, Maine, produced the first workable tracked vehicle, a steam-powered lugger that pulled skids of logs. In England, Richard Hornsby & Sons of Grantham were developing a similar heavy hauling vehicle, but repeated efforts to interest the Royal Artillery were unsuccessful, and their vehicle never made it past prototypes. 

In 1908 Benjamin Holt (1849–1920) of Stockton, California, paid Lombard $60,000 for the right to use his patent and made the first tracked vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine. In 1911 Holt also bought the Hornsby patents for £4,000. Holt’s  track system, which he renamed the “Caterpillar,” became the basis for all of the AFV’s developed by the British and French, which became known by the British code word, “TANK.” The tracks solved the weight problem by distributing the weight of the vehicle over a greater surface area without needing additional drive train, and are still the standard for all the world’s tanks.   

A WWI-Era Holt Tractor

While all of this was going on in the West, over in Russia there evolved a different approach to the problem. It was noted that the Turkic povozki carts, which were used to haul goods in Southern Russia, had oversized front wheels, which enabled them to carry heavy loads across fields, on dirt roads or cobblestone streets. There seemed to be a rule here: the bigger the wheels, the rougher the terrain that could be traversed. Thus by “super-sizing” the front wheels, a vehicle could be built that could breach enemy defenses. This idea was referred to former Captain Nikolay Lebedenko (1879–1948?), the head of a private military and technical laboratory in Moscow, who was at the time engaged in the development of better fuses for artillery. In May 1915, he proposed the construction of an armored vehicle with huge front wheels (about 8 meters in diameter), which sort of resembled  a gun-carriage. He recruited two young engineers, Boris Stechkin (1891–1969) and Alexander Mikulin (1895–1985) as assistants.  Mikulin later reminisced: "Nikolay Lebedenko invited me to come to his office, he locked the door and whispered to my ear: 'Professor Nikolay Zhukovskiy (1847–1921) referred you as a skillful engineer [both Stetchin and Mikulin were also Zhukovskiy’s nephews]. Do you agree to work on the project of the machine that I invented? Such machines will help to break through the whole German front just within one night, and Russia will win the war.'"

Lebedenko designed a heavily-armed, motor-driven three wheeled battle machine, weighing some 40 tons, like an inverted tricycle, except with  the rear wheel being used for steering, and driven from the front by  two very large spoked wheels, almost  9 meters in diameter. These wheels  were attached to an armored hull, which was shaped like a tuning fork, tapering  down to the two-part rear wheel, smaller but not really small (2 meter diameter). There would be two 76.2mm guns and several M1910 Maxim machine guns in a top-mounted centrally placed but non-rotatable turret, and a line of yet more machine guns along each side to protect the tank from enemy infantry. There was even a small weapons turret on the bottom. The overall height with the turret would be 12 meters.

The front wheels (designed by Zhukovskiy) had a T-shaped metal mid-section. A wooden overlay was then fastened to the shelf of the T-beam. Each front wheel was powered by its own 240 hp Maybach MbIVa six-cylinder gasoline engine, two of  which had been salvaged from a crash-landed Zeppelin. Each engine drove an automobile wheel, which was pressed down until it touched the wooden overlay of the big wheel, and by counter-rotating, the automobile wheel delivered power to the big wheel. Since these were aircraft engines that were designed to operate in a slip-stream at cool  high altitudes, on the ground they were prone to over-heating, especially if stressed, so a mechanism had to be designed to automatically disengage the driving wheels to protect the over-heated engines from seizing up. It was thought that, on smooth flat ground, the behemoth should be able to reach a top speed of 17 km/—faster than any  other AFV then in service. 

Lebedenko likened the design to a hanging bat, and called his invention "Netopyr," which is the Russian name for Pipistrellus (a genus of smooth-nosed bat), but instead it was officially known as the "Lebedenko," and  later it was whimsically tagged as "The Tsar’s Tank.” Modern writer Peter Suciu has described it as "something out of Steam Punk."

Lebedenko built a working scale model, made from wood, and using the clockwork spring motor from a gramophone for power. He was given the opportunity to demonstrate this model to Tsar Nicholas II, who was much impressed when the model made it across some obstacles, including climbing over a stack of law books. The sight of a three-wheeled, cart-shaped vehicle rolling swiftly across his carpet delighted the tsar and the project was given royal approval. Lebedenko was directed to proceed to build a prototype, with a budget of 210,000 rubles, and the tsar got to keep the model, but it was lost after the revolution. 

Depiction of the Tank in the Field

The construction progressed quickly, and at the end of July 1915 the prototype was ready for its first trials. Because of its weight and size, it had to be designed and built in sub-assemblies, which would be individually transported to the front and field-assembled before going into action. The prototype had no artillery, due to a shortage of guns at the front. When it was assembled at the proving ground 60 km from Moscow, it was found  to weigh nearly 60 tons, 50 percent more than specified, mainly due to thicker gauge steel having been substituted. Nevertheless, the field test in front of an imperial commission went ahead as planned. It started well, the prototype moved speedily over firm ground, negotiated ditches and crushed a birch tree, but  when it moved into a wetland, the  rear double-wheel got stuck, and the engines couldn’t deliver enough torque to free it from the muck. It was later determined that the proximate cause was that the rear wheels were too small for the weight that they were carrying. The prototype remained there, bogged down, for the rest of the war and even through the revolutionary wars, until it was finally scrapped in 1923. Several photographs and drawings of the original prototype are available today, and there is also a full-scale replica on display at the T-34 Tank History Museum in Moscow.

Besides insufficient engine power and the bad weight distribution,  there were other drawbacks with the design. Due to its size and high profile, the Lebedenko would have been an easy target for enemy field artillery. The large front wheels were spindly and the spokes could be destroyed by machine guns or even volleys of rifle fire. The 76.2 mm guns would have had a no-fire zone looking directly ahead due to being located outside of and behind the front wheels.

After the field test fiasco, Mikulin and Stechkin were certain that the problem could be solved by purpose-built, more powerful engines. Both continued to design engines, and eventually became experts on aircraft engines. Meanwhile, the Russian Army observed that both France and Britain had successfully developed the afore-mentioned tanks that ran on caterpillar tracks, so the  the Lebedenko project was cancelled. By then it had cost about 250,000 rubles.  As for Nikolay Lebedenko, in 1917 he  chose to flee from Russia, heading for the U.S. 

Sources: Russia Beyond, Landships, Amusing Planet, The Armory Life, Wikipedia, Yandex

 

What the Present-Day Habsburgs Think About World War One

Karl Habsburg-Lothringen 

Karl Habsburg-Lothringen—grandson of the last Austrian emperor Charles I and current head of the House of Habsburg–Lorraine—is a politician, public figure, and journalist. He today resides in Salzburg and was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2023, which was followed by surgery.

In October 1996, Habsburg was elected to the European Parliament for Austria as a member of the Austrian People’s Party. His father, Otto von Habsburg, championed the concept of a united Europe, even before the creation of the EU. Karl continues this legacy as an honorary president of the Pan-European Movement of Austria, which he led from 1986 to 2024.

Speaking as the current head of the House of Habsburg, he believes that World War I was a tragedy driven fundamentally by nationalism rather than the fault of any single state.  In a 2014 interview with The Guardian he stated the major powers were ready for war anyway when heir to Habsburg empire was assassinated and that his family should not be blamed for causing the war. 

He believes, "If you were to simplify it, you could say that the shooting in Sarajevo started the first world war. But if there hadn't been the shooting in Sarajevo, it would have kicked off three weeks later somewhere else."

He maintains, and there's considerable evidence to support him, that his grandfather, the last Austro-Hungarian Emperor Charles I,  "inherited the war" and actively sought to end it. "He had nothing to do with it. In addition, he had made several attempts to pacify the situation, which he was criticized for at the time, and he used family contacts to lead peace talks."

Charles I "clearly saw that a basic problem was the situation of the Slavic people within the Habsburg empire. Maybe he also realized that the Serbs saw him as their main enemy," Habsburg-Lothringen said, "because he wanted to balance out, but essentially minimize, the dominating influence of the Serbs among the Slavic people."

Ferdinand Habsburg-Lothringen

Incidentally, his successor (heir apparent) to the headship of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine line  is his son, successful race car driver Ferdinand Habsburg-Lothringen.

"Young Fellow My Lad" by Robert Service

Robert Service Poet Laureate of the Yukon
He Would Serve as a Red Cross Ambulance Driver in the Great War

"Where are you going, Young Fellow My Lad,

    On this glittering morn of May?"

 

"I'm going to join the Colours, Dad;

    They're looking for men, they say."

"But you're only a boy, Young Fellow My Lad;

    You aren't obliged to go."

"I'm seventeen and a quarter, Dad,

    And ever so strong, you know."

           

"So you're off to France, Young Fellow My Lad,

    And you're looking so fit and bright."

"I'm terribly sorry to leave you, Dad,

    But I feel that I'm doing right."

"God bless you and keep you, Young Fellow My Lad,

    You're all of my life, you know."

"Don't worry. I'll soon be back, dear Dad,

    And I'm awfully proud to go."

           

"Why don't you write, Young Fellow My Lad?

    I watch for the post each day;

And I miss you so, and I'm awfully sad,

    And it's months since you went away.

And I've had the fire in the parlour lit,

    And I'm keeping it burning bright

Till my boy comes home; and here I sit

    Into the quiet night.

           

"What is the matter, Young Fellow My Lad?

    No letter again to-day.

Why did the postman look so sad,

    And sigh as he turned away?

I hear them tell that we've gained new ground,

    But a terrible price we've paid:

God grant, my boy, that you're safe and sound;

But oh I'm afraid, afraid."

           

"They've told me the truth, Young Fellow My Lad:

    You'll never come back again:

(Oh God! the dreams and the dreams I've had,

    and the hopes I've nursed in vain!)

For you passed in the night, Young Fellow My Lad,

    And you proved in the cruel test

Of the screaming shell and the battle hell

    That my boy was one of the best.

           

"So you'll live, you'll live, Young Fellow My Lad,

    In the gleam of the evening star,

In the wood-note wild and the laugh of the child,

    In all sweet things that are.

And you'll never die, my wonderful boy,

    While life is noble and true;

For all our beauty and hope and joy

    We will owe to our lads like you."

From Rhymes of a Red Cross Man

Robert Service's brother, Lieutenant Albert Service, was killed in France in August 1916.

TRAGEDY AND REVENGE: The Battles of Coronel & the Falklands, 1914

The Last of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau
William Lionel Wyllie, 1918

Steve R Dunn 

Seaforth Publishing 2025

 Adrian Roberts, Reviewer

The naval battles of 1914 such as Battles of Coronel and the Falklands, and others such as the destruction of SMS Emden, were the first use by European nations of the warships that they had been developing for the previous forty years, fighting at distances of thousands of yards with explosive shells that could smash through several inches of armour. They were also the beginning of the end of fighting battles according to the ancient ideals of chivalry, honour and sacrifice. 

Honour is emphasised in this book by Steve Dunn, a leading authority on WWI naval warfare. The book is particularly strong in describing how decisions were made, at the Admiralty in London as well as at sea, and how the personalities of the leading commanders and politicians affected those decisions. 

To simplify the history for the sake of this review: when World War One broke out the crack squadron of the Imperial German Navy, the Asiatic squadron, was at its base in the German colony of Tientsin in China (now Qingdao). Commanded by Vice Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee, it consisted of the state-of-the-art armoured cruisers Scharnhorst  and Gniesenau  and the light cruisers Dresden, Leipzig and Nürnberg. They put to sea and crossed the Pacific with the intention of going into the Atlantic and potentially destroying much of the vital merchant trade around South America, and becoming a valuable resource if they made it back to Germany. 

There was a considerable amount of indecision and delay in the British Admiralty. Winston Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty which was a political post not a Naval one, but nevertheless he had a tendency to over-rule the naval experts. The First Sea Lord was Admiral Prince Louis of Battenberg; the Chief of the War Staff was Vice Admiral Doveton Sturdee. Neither was particularly decisive: also Battenberg was under unjustified suspicion due to his German ancestry and Sturdee was an unpopular character. Eventually they ordered the British second cruiser squadron which was the nearest to South America to intercept the German squadron. Commanded by Rear Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock, this eventually consisted of the protected cruisers Good Hope and Monmouth, the light cruiser Glasgow and the armed merchant cruiser Otranto. Spee's Scharnhorst  and Gneisenau were each equipped with a main armament of 4 x 8-inch guns. Good Hope had two 9.2-inch guns but they were older and with a shorter range then the German 8-inch weapons. Good Hope's secondary armament and the entirety of Monmouth’s armament were 6-inch guns, and some of those were mounted in casements one above the other in the hull sides with the lower ones so close to the waterline that they could not be used in rough weather. Both Cradock and the Admiralty in London knew all this, and the book goes into great detail as to what Cradock's orders were and why no reinforcements were sent. 

Under Admiral Jackie Fisher's reforms the Royal Navy had developed a new class of warship, the battle-cruiser. This was essentially a battleship-sized vessel with a battleship’s 12-inch guns but with thinner armour to reduce weight and so increase speed: which was fine so long as they were used for their intended purpose of hunting down enemy cruisers rather than engaging similarly armed warships. However none of these vessels could be made available at the time. Cradock knew that the armoured cruiser Defence was in Gibraltar and could get to the South Atlantic fairly quickly and would probably be at least the equal of the German vessels. He requested that it be sent and at one time believed it was coming but the Admiralty did not permit it to go. 

Certainly, Cradock believed that his orders were to engage the enemy, and if there were any ambivalence about the orders, as an officer of the old Nelsonian school he was not going to refuse combat and risk the reputation of himself, and more importantly of the Royal Navy to which he was utterly loyal. His only potential reinforcement was the old battleship Canopus, but its arrival was delayed and it may well have been more of a liability than an asset. When Cradock’s squadron lined up against the German Asiatic squadron off the Chilean port of Coronel on the 1 November 1914 he must have known what the outcome would be. His ships were silhouetted against the setting sun; the sea was too rough to use the lower casemates and Good Hope’s forward 9.2 inch gun was disabled early in the action. Good Hope and Monmouth went down with all hands, 1640 men including Cradock which is more than the Royal Navy lost at Trafalgar. This was Britain’s first naval defeat since 1814.

This concentrated minds at the Admiralty. Battenberg had been replaced by 73-year-old Jackie Fisher. You wouldn’t have wanted Fisher as your boss and when he was wrong he was very wrong, but when he was right he was very right and he could certainly get things done. The battle-cruisers Invincible and Inflexible were being prepared for action at Devonport and were supposed to be ready to go in a week. Fisher telegrammed the dockyard captain and ordered in no uncertain terms that they were to sail in three days: and they did! (As a British person I can’t help comparing this with 2026 when the Royal Navy’s only serviceable destroyer HMS Dragon took three weeks to get out of dock when the Iranian war broke out and arrived too late to be of any use).  

Fisher ordered Sturdee to lead the task force personally, in Invincible. They set off for the Falklands where they were joined by the light cruisers Glasgow, which had survived Coronel, Kent, Cornwall, Carnarvon and Bristol. I had not realised before reading this book how concerned the Falkland Islanders were about invasion by the Germans. At this point no one had any idea where the German fleet was. Sturdee’s squadron arrived at Port Stanley and started to take on coal on 6 December. Von Spee's squadron arrived on the morning of the 8th of December: if he had arrived a day earlier he would have caught the British squadron still being coaled and unable to put to sea. Von Spee knew that he was doomed once he went into action with the battle-cruisers. He could conceivably have escaped by bypassing the Falklands once he was aware that they were there, but he chose to bring them to action. In the event Sturdee’s squadron was able to put to sea and the battle-cruisers’ 12-inch guns had the German armoured cruisers at their mercy. Scharnhorst went down with all hands including von Spee; Gneisenau went down with most of her crew. Meanwhile the light cruisers had their own battle; Nürnberg and Leipzig were sunk; only Dresden escaped. The Germans lost 2094 men; the British just seven. 

Order HERE

At home this was celebrated as a great victory: but the British fleet had a massive technological advantage. A British Captain suggested that “it is ironic that Sturdee, the man mainly responsible for the loss of Cradock’s squadron [is] the person who profits principally from it…the enemy ran into his arms…” Churchill does not come out of the episode well: he made considerable attempts to shift the blame for the defeat at Coronel including blaming the deceased Cradock whom virtually all the rest of the Navy defended. The book’s author, Steve Dunn, clearly regards Cradock as the hero of the story, and certainly he should be more famous as he encapsulated what the British like to see as the virtues of honour, loyalty and courage in the face of adversity. 

TRAGEDY AND REVENGE is all that such a book should be; it is readable and balanced; it investigates the background of events as well as the action; there is a copious index and bibliography and every point that made is referenced. The only slight quibbles are that it could have done with maps of the actions as well as the locality, and the title which was probably chosen by the publisher could be a problem if someone was trying to search online for such a book using the terms Coronel or Falklands. And it does assume a certain level of knowledge of maritime subjects and WW1 naval warfare: admittedly most readers will have some of that knowledge but there are some who may, for instance be perturbed by the statement that on Glasgow the officers’ heads were destroyed, and think this was a tragic occurrence rather than merely an inconvenience.

Adrian Roberts, May 2026

The Challenges of America's First Motorized War

 

Lafayette, We Are Here!

The American Expeditionary Force (AEF) required a massive fleet of approximately 82,500 motor vehicles. About half the total were trucks including 8,000 the famous standardized "Liberty Trucks" (such as the FWD Model B) Other types of transport vehicles, ambulances, and approximately 2,000 Cadillac touring cars used for transporting military officers made up the rest.

The U.S. Army's only previous experience in deploying motorized transportation had been the recent Punitive expedition into Mexico, in which General Pershing had 731 vehicles. When the nation was called to war,  the trans-oceanic deployment of America's army, the 100-times increase in scale, the sped-up learning curves for transport units and personnel, guaranteed that it would be extremely challenging and problem-filled. And it was.

Vehicle Park at the Gièvres, France, Supply Depot

An interesting 2004 article "Grinding Gears: The AEF and Motor Transportation in the First World War" (Link) does a wonderful job cataloging the many difficulties Motor Transport Corps faced, "some of which were unavoidable; others were self-inflicted, and still others [that] could have been avoided. After digesting it, any reader would be left wondering how the AEF ever managed to get to a battlefield, let alone fight and win a battle. Here's a listing of some the issues the authors pointed out:

• The U.S. Army decided to rely more heavily on motor transportation than animals than any other army in the Great War. [However, the AEF still required over one million horses and mules to support the forces in the field.]

• Inexperienced and undisciplined truck drivers often caused delays, breakdowns, and massive traffic jams.

Classic AEF Traffic Jam at Esnes
(Note Mix of Motorized and Animal Transport)

• This in turn creates the need for proportionately larger mechanical maintenance and spare parts supply operations, as well as higher-level vehicle-friendly road maintenance.

• Mechanics? There were never enough mechanics.

• Failure to predetermine the level of control for the vehicles. Army, Corps, Division, Regimental? The AEF insisted on retaining divisional control of motor vehicles until nearly the war's end. This policy restricted the flexibility of the AEF's corps and army formations, because they could not count on having truck transportation at necessary times. 

• Lack of attention from the highest levels. Issues regarding motorized vehicles did not receive the same attention as the AEF's highly successful railroad operation. 

The author's of "Grinding Gears," however, do point out that there was one insurmountable issue for 1917–18: that the deployment of a huge expeditionary force to distance shores requires a commensurate amount of shipping space.  In the Great War, that factor was intensified by the Allies requests to give precedence to  live bodies over supplies and weapons.

Of even greater disappointment, the U.S. Army did not take to heart all the lessons learned during the war. The idea of a separate transportation branch died with America's postwar military cuts, and would not be resurrected until a new war demanded it in 1942. While the interwar army's small size forced such reductions, the military establishment also failed to heed the problems of operating many different vehicle models. When the army embarked on a major motorization program in 1926, it adopted 360 vehicle types. Not until 1939 did the army finally decide on just six models, greatly simplifying maintenance. The Army had, however,  organized a transcontinental test convoy of 65 trucks that taught it a lot of lessons on motorized transportation and its staff happened to include a certain officer who was destined to command Allied Forces in Europe in the next big war. [Article]

For Memorial Day 2026: Embrace the Grandeur of America's Suresnes Cemetery Outside Paris

(All the Images Here Can Be Enlarged by Clicking on Them)

The Main Entrance, Suresnes American Cemetery

The American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) maintains 26 permanent American military cemeteries, 31 federal memorials, monuments, and markers, in 17 foreign countries. More than 200,000  of America's fallen service members are honored at these ABMC sites. One of those cemeteries is located on Mont Valérien in historically important the Parisian suburb of Suresnes. Although, it is one of the smaller ABMC cemeteries, it is especially admired for it's dramatic location, history, and beauty. 

It is also the only ABMC cemetery with burials from both World Wars. The 7.5-acre cemetery contains the remains of 1,559 Americans who died in World War I and 24 unknown dead of World War II. The cemetery also honors approximately 1,000 missing service members—lost or buried at sea—whose names are inscribed on bronze plaques inside the chapel.  Rosettes mark the names of those since recovered and identified.

View from Blvd Washington, Suresnes

A Spectacular Location

The cemetery at Suresnes was established in 1917 by the Graves Registration Service of the Army Quartermaster Corps. A majority of the World War I Dead buried there died of  wounds or sickness in hospitals located in Paris or at other places in the Services of Supply. Many were victims of the influenza epidemic of 1918–1919. Loaned in perpetuity to the United States, it became the site for America's first permanent overseas cemetery. The significance of the cemetery to France is underscored by its location overlooking Paris, and its close proximity to Versailles. The American Cemetery is adjacent to a historic Fort Mont Valérien which is now a memorial to the French resistance movement of World War II.

View from Mont Valérien

 Looking East on a Clear Day, the Bois de Boulogne,
Eiffel Tower, (3.5 miles) and the Pantheon Can Be Viewed

Sunrise Over the Cemetery

A Distinguished History

The cemetery was dedicated by President Woodrow Wilson during Memorial Day ceremonies of 1919, just a month before the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. This  made Suresnes the nation's first overseas  military cemetery. Originally supervised by the Army's Graves Registration service, the cemetery's administration passed to the American Battle Monuments Commission in 1934. The Commission—established in 1923 under General Pershing's leadership—had been responsible for construction of the chapel and landscaping of the grounds, which were completed in 1932. 

At the end of World War II, it was decided that this particular cemetery should serve to commemorate the Dead of both World Wars, making it unique among the ABMC cemeteries. An additional grave plot was created as an eternal resting place for the unidentified remains of 24 World War II Unknowns. Commemorative loggias and with separate war  memorials were also added to the original chapel. Since the Great War, Suresnes has been the site of annual Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and joint French-American commemorations. On 11 November 2018, it was the site of the remembrance of the 100th Anniversary of the Armistice with President Donald Trump in attendance.

Original Dedication Plaque

Suresnes Cemetery Was Dedicated by President Woodrow Wilson During
Memorial Day Ceremonies, 1919

Memorial Day 1922  

Suresnes American Cemetery is the ABMC cemetery with the highest number of women interred—24 in total. These women played a crucial role in World War I as nurses, secretaries and even one of the famous telephone operators, also known as “Hello Girls.”

General Pershing,  Marshal Foch, and Other Notable French and Belgian WWI Commanders Visit in 1927

A Gold Star Mother Visits Her Son's Grave in 1930

When it was decided that Suresnes should serve to commemorate the Dead of both World Wars, and additional grave plot was created as an eternal resting place for the unidentified remains of 24 World War II Unknowns. Commemorative loggias were also added to the original chapel.  The World War II section was dedicated in 1952 in a ceremony presided over by General George C. Marshall, then Chairman of the ABMC.

Construction of the New Loggias

100th Anniversary of the World War I Armistice, 11 November 2018

An Elegant Design 

The original entrance and chapel were designed by architect Charles A. Platt of New York. The landscape design for the Suresnes American Cemetery was created by the French architect and landscape designer Jacques Gréber.  His landscape plan features symmetrical pathways, perfectly aligned crosses, and expansive terraces designed to take advantage of the dramatic elevation and provide panoramic views of Paris. Charles Platt's sons, William and Geoffrey Platt, would later design the loggias and memorial rooms which comprise the loggias added to the chapel after World War II. 

The Graves of the Fallen Are Perfectly Laid Out,  the Crosses and Landscaping in Accordance with the High Standards for All ABMC Cemeteries 

The Additional Plot for the 24 World War Two Burials of the Cemetery

Above the Chapel Entrance Is Inscribed:
PEACEFUL IS THEIR SLEEP IN GLORY

The Chapel 
The "Angel of Victory" Bears a Palm Branch for the Graves of the Fallen

The two "loggias", dedicated post-WWII, are two covered, open-air galleries that flank the central memorial chapel. In the rooms at the ends of the loggias are white marble figures in memory of those who lost their lives in the two wars. Inscribed on the loggia walls is a summary of the loss of life in our armed forces in each war, together with the location of the overseas commemorative cemeteries where our war dead are buried.

The WWI Loggia and Memorial Entrance Added in 1952
A Matching WWII Complex Is On the Other (North) Side of the Chapel

At the end of the south loggia, one enters the World War I memorial room and faces a pure white statue entitled “Remembrance.” This graceful figure was created in Carrara marble by the American sculptor John Gregory, of New York, New York. The walls and floors of the memorial room are of Italian marbles of varying shades and give a rich subdued effect to highlight the statue.  The WWII room houses a statue titled "Memory," by American sculptor Lewis Iselin.

Relief in the WWI Loggia
(The WWII Loggia Has a Similarly Themed Relief)

An ABMC Staff Member Discusses the WWI Memorial Statue
"Remembrance" with Visitors

Visiting Today

Here are some practical points about visiting Suresnes American Cemetery

Address: 123 Boulevard Washington, 92150 Suresnes, France

Hours: Open daily from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Closed on Christmas Day (Dec 25) and New Year's Day (Jan 1).

Cost: Free, no booking required in advance

Train / Tram: Take the Transilien train (not the Metro) from Gare St. Lazare to the Suresnes Mont Valérien station, or take the tram to the La Défense station. From the Suresnes station, it is about a 10-minute walk uphill to the cemetery.

Taxi/Ride-Share: Approximately a 5-mile (10 to 15-minute) drive from central Paris.

The Visitors Center

Grave Sites on Special Occasions 

Every Memorial Day, Each American Battle Monuments Cemetery Holds a Commemorative Event Like This One at Suresnes in 2016

A Personal Note

On my battlefield tours, I've taken seven groups to visit Suresnes American Cemetery. Most the individuals had never heard of it before. Almost without exception, upon arrival, they were extremely taken by the beauty of the site, and as we departed, collectively, they were always quiet and reflective. If you are ever in Paris and wish to see a memorable and moving example of how the United States honors its Fallen, please consider stopping off at this splendid shrine. MH

P.S.

By All Means—A Visit to Suresnes American Cemetery Can Be Combined with a Visit to the Magnificent Lafayette Escadrille Memorial. It's just a 4-Mile Drive Away

Thanks to Suresnes Superintendent Carly Mathieu for the support on this article.  Photos are mostly from ABMC sources, Wiki Commons, and the Library of Congress.