The Great "What If" of World War I: The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand Fails

 

Archduke Franz Ferdinand and a Smiling Kaiser Wilhelm II

By Jack S. Levy and William Mulligan

Excerpted from: "Why 1914 but Not Before? A Comparative Study of the July Crisis and Its Precursors", Security Studies, 2021

Although changes in power and alliance relationships in both the Balkans and in Central Europe provide the core of an explanation for why the 1914 July Crisis, but not the 1912–13 Balkan crises, escalated to greatpower war, one additional difference in the two sets of crises also played a critical role: the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. 

A more complete answer to the why-1914-but-not-before question, however, requires the incorporation of Franz Ferdinand’s assassination, which went beyond a pretext for war. It eliminated the most powerful and effective proponent for peace in Vienna and fundamentally changed the nature of the decision-making process in AustriaHungary. Counterfactually, we argue that a hypothetical crisis with Franz Ferdinand present would probably have ended differently.

Sean McMeekin agrees that structural systemic factors were necessary conditions for World War I and emphasizes that they were present during the earlier crises without leading to war.44 He identifies the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand as the key difference in the July Crisis and argues that in its absence it is unlikely (but not impossible) that a greatpower war would have erupted. This is a classic powder-keg explanation and a fairly common response to deterministic arguments about the origins of World War I, though most of its proponents are not as explicit as McMeekin in linking the assassination to the question of why 1914 but not before.

The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand contributed to the outbreak of World War I in several ways. It added new reputational concerns to Austria-Hungary’s preexisting motivations for war by requiring a response. Critically, the assassination provided a plausible justification for military action in the eyes of leaders in Vienna and Berlin. The assassination was not simply a “streetcar” that would eventually come by and provide the necessary catalyst for war. The most recent streetcar came by in October 1913, and Serbian leaders helped derail it. The increasing stabilization of Balkan politics following the wars of 1912–13 reduced the likelihood of subsequent sparks.

The Fateful Day

The assassination provided additional ammunition to Conrad in his longstanding campaign for a preventive war against Serbia. It also removed an important constraint on Austria-Hungary by significantly increasing the probability of German support in several ways. It raised the principle of monarchial solidarity. The assassination also struck an emotional chord in William II, given his growing fondness for the archduke after their meeting only two weeks before, and it invoked his longstanding racial attitudes toward the Slavs. In addition, the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum in response to the assassination triggered strong Russian support of Serbia, including mobilization measures, which helped create a narrative in which Germany and its Austrian ally were on the defensive, a narrative that Moltke, as well as William II and Bethmann-Hollweg, believed to be necessary to mobilize domestic support for war, especially among the Social Democrats in the Reichstag. These considerations are fairly well known. We focus on another effect of the assassination—on the decision-making process in the Dual Monarchy. The assassination eliminated both the leading advocate for peace in Vienna and the military chancellery that reinforced his influence. As Samuel Williamson argues, Franz Ferdinand’s death was not only “the pretext and occasion for war”; it also “dramatically altered the political structure in Vienna in ways that virtually insured military action against Serbia.”

Franz Ferdinand’s influence on Austro-Hungarian decision making was based on rights and duties associated with his position as heir to the throne, and on the archduke’s personal relationships with the emperor and the foreign minister, which improved significantly after Berchtold replaced Alois Lexa von Aehrenthal in February 1912. The archduke’s influence was reinforced by the informal military chancellery that Franz Joseph created in 1906 for him to lead, and he began 1913 in his new position of inspector general of the armed forces. Franz Ferdinand used the chancellery effectively to access information about military plans and to broaden his political role.  With respect to military (but not political) matters,  Franz Ferdinand was now second behind the emperor. He had access to military information and the authority to question the strategies and plans of Conrad and the General Staff and to raise new issues. Scholars debate the extent of Ferdinand’s influence, but the comment of a senior Austrian official is telling: “We not only have two parliaments, we also have two emperors.”

The archduke strongly promoted cautious policies throughout most of the Balkan crises, with one brief but notable exception. After advocating restraint and siding with Berchtold against Conrad’s demands for mobilization measures at the beginning of the First Balkan War in October 1912, Franz Ferdinand shifted his position in early November after Serbian forces had routed the Ottomans. Persuaded by the military’s argument that Serbia was now free to act against the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he supported precautionary military measures in Galicia and joined a mission to Berlin that secured German support. In early December he persuaded Franz Joseph to reinstate Conrad as chief of the General Staff. He then tried but failed to persuade Berchtold and the emperor to initiate a military confrontation.

After this “momentary lapse,” Franz Ferdinand suddenly reversed course, embraced Berchtold’s search for a diplomatic solution, and split with Conrad. By the end of January 1913 he was emphasizing the risks of war with Russia and reacting strongly against Conrad’s continuing push for preventive war.  He urged Berchtold to oppose Conrad’s demands for war against Serbia in the May and October 1913 crises over Albania and instead to cooperate with Russia. Franz Ferdinand recognized Russia’s military strength, worried about Russian intervention in a Balkan crisis and about the reliability of Italy, and he feared the risk of nationalist and social revolutionary upheaval for the empire resulting from a general European war. Well aware of Austria-Hungary’s dependence on Germany, he worried any military campaign in the Balkans, regardless of its outcome, would increase that dependence. Franz Ferdinand was also the leading proponent of internal reform within the Dual Monarchy and feared war would make major reforms impossible.  As Williamson argues, “By late 1913 the archduke’s caution and aversion to military action was well established.”

The assassination removed Franz Ferdinand’s restraining hand from deliberations in Vienna, eliminating the one person who might have pressed both Berchtold and Franz Joseph for more cautious policies. It also eliminated an institutional center that provided legitimacy for those with more moderate views to access military information, question the emperor’s own normally bellicose military chancellery, and challenge Conrad himself.  Given Franz Ferdinand’s good relationship with William II, the assassination also eliminated a potentially valuable dynastic communication channel with Germany at a time of poor communication between Vienna and Berlin on both diplomatic and military matters. . .

Funeral Procession in Vienna

[Suppose the assassination attempt had failed?] It would have triggered a crisis and invoked some reputational concerns and a more limited pretext for some kind of military action, but it would have left Franz Ferdinand involved in decision making. We will never know the outcome with certainty, and a more through and systematic counterfactual analysis is necessary, but many leading historians have argued both that Franz Ferdinand would have opposed war and that his views probably would have prevailed in turning Franz Joseph against war. Alexander von Hoyos, a leading proponent of war in Vienna, said of Franz Ferdinand that “through his death, he has helped us to the decision, which he would never have taken, as long as he lived.”    Williamson concludes that “alive, Franz Ferdinand had acted as a brake upon the pressures for military action; dead, he became the pretext for war.

The removal of Franz Ferdinand from Austro-Hungarian decision making during the July Crisis went beyond creating a pretext. It left Hungarian prime minister Tisza the only top official to press Franz Joseph for caution immediately after the assassination. It also left Berchtold, hawkish but a weak personality and one open to persuasion,  alone to face Conrad and the generals. Williamson and Russel Van Wyk argue that “Berchtold probably would have remained committed to a policy of military, threatening diplomacy, everything short of actual war, an approach he had used during the Balkan Wars.”

With Franz Ferdinand and Tisza urging restraint, andwith Conrad and the generals applying the primary pressure for war, there is a very good chance the emperor would not have authorized military action. War would not have occurred, as no other country had incentives to start a war in 1914

Siegfried Sassoon in Palestine

On the rock-strewn hills I heard

The anger of guns that shook

Echoes along the glen.

In my heart was the song of a bird,

And the sorrowless tale of the brook,

And scorn for the deeds of men.

Sassoon the Young Officer

Siegfried Sassoon wrote the  words above not on the Somme but in Palestine, where he was posted for a little over a month in the spring of 1918. On a warm and pleasant morning in March 1918, Sassoon arrived in Gaza on a cattle truck. He had traveled all night with 12 other officers from base camp in Kantara, Egypt, and was relieved to escape the ragtime tunes and tiresome ribaldry of the mess. From Gaza, whose “fine hills” reminded him of Scotland, he proceeded through almond orchards and olive trees to Ludd, the railhead where soldiers and war supplies arrived and departed. Ludd’s proper name was al-Ludd, an Arabic name because it was then a Palestinian town full of Arabs. 

From al-Ludd, Sassoon and company continued to their final destination — a hilltop village with “dusky, narrow” streets eight miles northwest of Jerusalem. Captured from “Johnny Turk” barely two months earlier and turned into the division headquarters, it was called Ramallah. There was no sound of artillery here, noted Sassoon, and the silent landscape, “hoary in the twilight,” seemed infused with a sad, lonesome air. 

Sassoon was coming off his war protest/hospitalization period at Craig Lockhart hospital in Scotland.  He had become  frustrated that his protest had been neutralized, and  demanded that he be sent back to the Western Front. His appeal was initially met with an assignment training troops in Ireland.  Eventually, he was deployed to a front, only in Palestine, not France. 

The 31-year-old Sassoon arrived in Middle East flushed with celebrity and notoriety. Palestine, he knew, was a “warm-climate sideshow,” and he smarted at the thought of being shunted to guard duty.  Since his assignment now with the 25th Battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers was mostly defensive Sassoon spent most of his time mending roads littered with the stinking corpses of camels and trampled to “liquid mud” by ambulances and long lines of gray donkeys loaded with army blankets. It was dull, plodding work. He consoled himself by reading War and Peace, but his heavy cold and the incessant rain only worsened his mood. Though he faced no direct fighting in Palestine, everywhere around him was the grim business of war. “C’est la guerre — in an Old Testament environment,” he noted drily.

What he did not foresee was how deeply he would fall in love with the natural beauty of Palestine, and how loath he would become  to return to the soul-deadening trenches of France.  Slowly, the landscape revealed itself to him, “and what had seemed a cruel, desolate, unhappy region, was now full of a shy and lovely austerity. On one serene ramble outside Ramallah he wrote, “I escaped from the war completely for four hours.” The “anger of guns” he refers to in the sonnet quoted above, which he titled “In Palestine,” was more distant soundtrack than immediate menace. 

An  Older Sassoon

It was Operation Michael, Germany's first of five spring offensives that would draw Sassoon back to France.  All available bodies were need to stem the onslaught.  He was part of a draft that departed Alexandria on 1 May. and  was back on the Western Front by early June.  He soon managed, however to catch a non-fatal shot to the head—possibly by friendly fire—on 13 July 1918.  Siegfried Sassoon's days of combat were over, but The War, as we know, would remain with him the rest of his life. Sassoon died of stomach cancer on 1 September 1967, aged 80. He was buried at St. Andrew’s Church in Mells, Somerset. On 11 November 1985 he was commemorated as one of 16 Great War poets at Westminster Abbey, alongside Rupert Brooke, and his friends Robert Graves and Wilfred Owen.

Source:  Excepted from "Siegfried Sassoon and Palestine," Los Angeles Review of Books, 19 August 2014; Siegfried Sassoon: A Life by Max Egremont ·

The Spirit of ‘76: The Patriotic Epic That Collided With America's Espionage Act

Producer Robert Goldstein With the Cast of The Spirit of '76

By Mark Levitch, National Gallery of Art

In 1918, producer Robert Goldstein was convicted and imprisoned under the Espionage Act of 1917 for screening The Spirit of ’76, a movie about the American Revolution that authorities deemed subversively anti-British. Goldstein’s treatment exemplifies the curtailment of civil liberties in the United States during the war.

A Poorly Timed Epic

Robert Goldstein (1883), a son of German Jewish immigrants, opened a branch of his family’s costume firm in Los Angeles in 1912 to supply wardrobes to the burgeoning film industry. Following the success of David Wark Griffith’s (1875-1948) Birth of a Nation (1915), for which he was both the costumer and an investor, Goldstein sought to produce a similarly big-budget melodrama about the American Revolution.

This Pre-Release Advertisemant Proudly Proclaimed
the Patriotic Intentions for the Film

The Spirit of ’76 was completed shortly before the United States entered World War I in April 1917. It premiered in Chicago on 28 May, but only after the head of the city’s police censorship board – concerned that the film would arouse antagonism toward Britain, now a wartime ally – insisted that Goldstein cut scenes depicting British atrocities.

Before the film opened in Los Angeles in November, Goldstein was required to host a private screening for officials concerned about its anti-British content. The picture was approved, but it was seized after only two public showings when it was discovered that Goldstein had, after the special screening, reinserted the atrocity scenes. Goldstein later admitted doing so to make the movie more exciting.

Arrest and Trial

Goldstein was arrested for violating the Espionage Act (enacted on 15 June 1917). On 4 December 1917, a federal grand jury indicted him on three counts, charging that he had willfully attempted to cause insubordination among United States military forces by inciting hatred of Britain and its soldiers, and that he had done so to aid the German government.

At Goldstein’s trial, which began on 3 April 1918, the avowedly anti-German presiding judge gave the prosecution wide latitude to make its case that the film was intended to aid the German cause and reflected Goldstein’s deep-seated anti-British and pro-German sentiments. With anti-German feeling at its height, and with movies not constitutionally protected as free speech at the time, the verdict was a foregone conclusion. Convicted on two counts, Goldstein was sentenced to ten years in prison (later commuted to three years) and fined $5,000.

Aftermath and Legacy

The severe sentence and resulting bankruptcy of Goldstein’s company sent a strong signal to the wartime movie industry that it should avoid making films that could run afoul of the government’s strictures against unfavorable depictions of the country’s allies.

In his landmark study establishing modern First Amendment theory, Freedom of Speech (1920), Harvard law professor Zechariah Chafee, Jr. (1885-1957) cited Goldstein’s prosecution as an example of how the Espionage Act operated to unjustly punish expressions of opinion. Modern commentators agree that Goldstein’s reinsertion of the atrocity scenes was foolish but not traitorous, and that he was a victim of the government’s overly zealous curtailment of civil liberties.

No print of the film has survived.

Source:  Encyclopedia 1914-1918 Online

Muleskinner with the Marine Brigade, 1917-1919

Cpl. Alpheus Appenheimer, U.S.M.C.

Sixth Machine Gun Battalion, 4th Brigade of Marines, 2nd Division, AEF

(Volume 1: April 1917—May 1918)

by BJ Omanson, 2024

Reviewed by Carolyn Cole Kingston

Marine Machine Gun Platoon Training in France

This large-format volume of nearly 400-pages is an amazingly detailed view of Marine Corps training at Paris Island and Quantico in the United States, and the subsequent training in France in the foothills of the Vosges Mountains and the trenches southeast of Verdun, during the months leading up to the Battle of Belleau Wood. My grandfather, Major Edward B. Cole, and BJ Omanson’s grandfather Cpl. Alpheus Appenheimer fought together in that conflict as part of the 6th Machine Gun Battalion of the Marine Brigade, Second Division, AEF.

The personal story of Alpheus (Al) Appenheimer, through his letters home and those written to him from his wife and mother, is the thread that lends unity to the huge scope of the material covered.

For historians, those whose ancestor served with the Marine Brigade, or anyone interested in America’s participation in WWI, this book is an invaluable resource. The life and times of those who fought as part of that brigade is vividly shown through letters home, and accounts of everyday life for the average Marine— told for the most part through their own words, from descriptions of the makeshift plumbing at Paris Island, to the primitive barn accommodations in the French villages, to descriptions of individual villagers, to irregular measures taken by certain resourceful Marines to augment supplies of food and firewood. Detailed descriptions and diagrams of escort wagons, ammunition caissons and ration carts, harnesses and other equipment used by the muleskinners, anecdotes of individual mules are also provided, as well as extensive accounts of machine gun training and trench warfare training under the French.

Another aspect of Muleskinner with the Marine Brigade is its generous use of period maps showing the routes followed by 6th MGB and 2d Division across France, both by rail and by road, supplemented by precise schedules, timetables, and multi-page orders detailing how wagons and mules are to be loaded aboard train-cars, how much feed, hay and water is to be provided per animal, how much straw should be spread on the car floors, how many men should be assigned to each car, and so forth. These sections— which show many individual camps and make use of photographs and personal accounts— will enable readers to trace their ancestor’s path across France, and to visualize the conditions under which they travelled.

Another important feature of this comprehensive book is the layout of each page, making use of photographs, diagrams and background information in discreet boxes alongside the main text, which make the material accessible, interesting, and easy on the eyes.

Order HERE

I highly recommend Muleskinner with the Marine Brigade to anyone seeking a broader and more intimate look into the war as it was experienced by those who were there.

Carolyn Cole Kingston is the granddaughter of Major Edward B. Cole, U.S.M.C., Commander of the 6th Machine Gun Battalion during the war.

Constructing the Siegfried-Stellung, Prelude to Germany's Retreat from the Somme

New German Defenses at Cambrai

The irreplaceable losses in the "Big Battles" of 1916 raised awareness of a looming manpower crisis for all the war's original participants. None, however, more deeply felt the urgency of the hour than Germany, the most capable and driven of the Central Powers. The Kaiser and his allies were now engaged in a desperate war of attrition with a more populous coalition. Trading casualties at the same rate meant — with mathematical certainty — inevitable defeat. What to do in the west, though? After many pronouncements of "No Retreat!" Ludendorff analyzed the numbers and concluded he did not have a enough divisions to secure the the Western Front as it was configured in late 1916. The line needed to be shortened and strengthened. Inspired by the strategy  of defense-in-depth recommended by the respected German General Staff officer Colonel (later General) Fritz von Lossberg (1868–1942) planning was initiated. [Article] What grew out of subsequent staff studies was the almost incredible complex of reinforced concrete bunkers, deep zigzagging trenches, massive belts of barbed wire, and anti-tank obstacles that came to be known as the "Hindenburg Line." 

Though the name “Hindenburg Line” was coined by the British in 1916 for the first such defensive line constructed by the Germans in the Somme region, the name was later expanded to encompass all rear-area fortifications built by the German Army. The German name for the Hindenburg Line was the Siegfried Stellung.  By either name, the Hindenburg Line or Siegfried-Stellung was the most extensive fortification built by any army during World War I. For this article, however, Siegfried-Stellung refers to the first section of the defensive line in the Somme Sector, where its local completion would lead to Operation Alberich: the German Army 10-15 mile withdrawal to the new defenses in anticipation of an Allied spring offensive.

Although the order to build the Siegfried-Stellung was issued in late September 1916, construction did not commence immediately. The area under construction was exceptionally large – more than 500 square miles (1,400 square kilometres) – and nearly two months were needed to organize command and control, establish support infrastructure, lay out the defenses, and assemble materials and workers. At first, progress was hampered by the competing needs of civilian industry and the ongoing Somme battle, but once the Allied offensive ended in early December 1916, work picked up pace despite continued shortages of manpower and material.

To manage the construction programme, a centralized command structure was established. At OHL, overall supervision was assigned to Colonel Kraemer, a staff engineer, and General Ludwig Lauter, the Inspector General of Artillery. On the ground, under direct command of OHL, specially designated construction staffs oversaw building the fortifications along specific sections of the Siegfried-Stellung. These construction staffs were formed from various entities to include reserve headquarters, dissolved commands, and ad hoc groups of general staff officers. A typical construction staff was commanded by a general officer with a small group of artillery, engineer, machine gun, and signal officers. These staff officers surveyed the assigned sector, sited the defensive positions, and managed the logistics of construction. Teams of geologists were provided to advise how to avoid groundwater when surveying trench lines and other field fortifications, where to excavate deep underground dugouts, and where to find sand and gravel suitable for concrete work and road construction. Within the staff, a construction section directed the work of pioneer and labor companies assigned to the chief construction staff.

Bunker Construction

Building the fortifications required enormous amounts of labor and material. From October 1916 to March 1917, some 65,000-70,000 laborers worked on the fortifications. Many more laborers were used to build the fortifications of the other four withdrawal positions. The primary source of manpower was 50,000 Russian prisoners of war (POWs), even though under international law prisoners of war could not work on war-related activities. OHL also used 3,000 unemployed Belgian civilian workers as forced labor.

Both groups of workers were organized into labor companies and put to unskilled work such as digging entrenchments and earthworks. Twelve thousand troops from pioneer and reserve units and contracted civilians from German construction firms performed skilled labor for more complicated projects such as laying railway lines, building concrete emplacements, and tunneling dugouts. Material needs were equally huge. The concrete emplacements consumed most of the cement, sand, and aggregate production of occupied France, Belgium, and western Germany, as well as untold tons of lumber and steel. Significant quantities of gravel, sand, and cement were also purchased from the Netherlands. 

A Trench Under Construction

Construction followed an orderly sequence. First, the special construction staffs marked out the general line of the defenses. Then the infrastructure – roads, railways, temporary workshops, goods depots, power stations, and other life-support facilities – was put in place. Important was the network of feldbahnen (narrow-gauge field railways) for carrying building material and heavy equipment such as cement mixers to the vicinity of the construction sites. 

Withdrawal to the Siegfried-Stellung

Soon after work on the Siegfried-Stellung commenced, rumors circulated among German units that the Army was preparing to retreat along the Western Front. In response, OHL issued an official statement in November disclaiming any intention to withdraw. Ludendorff was adamant that the front would be held until forced back by an Allied offensive, and he directed that work continue to strengthen the frontline defenses of the Somme. However, as winter set in the strategic situation did not improve. Germany's army was exhausted and nearly half of its divisions were tied down in the East unavailable to reinforce the Western Front. The armaments industry struggled to produce critical war material, especially ammunition, needed to recover from the battles of 1916. The British and French Armies now had 40 divisions more than the German Army. With this situation in mind, Hindenburg and Ludendorff chose to remain on the defensive in the West while seeking victory in the east against Russia, while endorsing the unrestricted submarine warfare campaign against Britain to weaken its economy, a policy that ultimately provoked the neutral United States to war. 

By mid-January 1917, construction of the SiegfriedStellung was progressing well despite delays imposed by cold weather. The position's first line trench system, forward obstacle belts, and concrete works were finished and the second trench system, artillery observation posts, and artillery positions were partially completed. Army Group Crown Prince Rupprecht considered its part of the Siegfried-Stellung to be defensible and, to strengthen the northern flank of the position, began construction along the southern half of the Wotan-Stellung. On 28 January Crown Prince Rupprecht recommended to Ludendorff that the Siegfried-Stellung be occupied by mid-March before the Allies could launch their spring offensive. Ludendorff rejected the idea because of political and strategic reasons but directed OHL and the field commanders to consider other options such as a smaller-scale withdrawal to the Wotan-Stellung. 

However, none of the options solved the vexing problem of British and French numerically superiority. Only withdrawal to the Siegfried-Stellung, which would release 13 divisions from frontline duty and, just as important, free large quantities of munitions for redistribution to other divisions, offered any solution to bolstering the army before the next Allied offensive.

With no viable alternative, Ludendorff gave the order on 4 February to accelerate work on the Siegfried-Stellung and prepare for its occupation in five weeks Construction work on the Wotan-Stellung was deferred until March and the workers and material were reallocated to the Siegfried-Stellung. 

The withdrawal was codenamed Operation Alberich (named after the deceitful dwarf of the Nibelungenlied). Preparations began on 9 February. To impede Allied advance into the evacuated area, OHL ordered the systematic removal or destruction all material of military use. Towns and villages were razed, roads blocked by felled trees, crossroads cratered, railways torn up, bridges blown, and wells destroyed. Most of the civilian populace – some 125,000 people including the 45,000 inhabitants of St. Quentin – were evacuated. As the army withdrew, a large number of mines, booby traps, and delayed-action explosive charges were planted to cause casualties and delay the Allies. Security measures were taken to conceal construction of the Siegfried-Stellung and the preparations for withdrawal. Although only partially effective, the measures kept British and French intelligence from learning the purpose of the Siegfried-Stellung or Operation Alberich until it was too late to prepare an effective response. British reconnaissance aircraft first spotted the fortifications in November 1916; however, inclement weather, the use of screens and dummy works to hide construction, and German control of the airspace hampered further air reconnaissance. Even information gleaned from German deserters and captured Russian prisoners of war was not enough to give Allied intelligence a complete or timely picture of German intentions. 

The Complete Siegfried/Hindenburg "Project"

Withdrawal of troops commenced on 16 March. Thirty-five divisions of the First, Second, Sixth, and Seventh Armies simultaneously pulled out of the front line, leaving one third of their combat strength as a rear guard. Unprepared, the French and British armies were slow to pursue and no significant combat occurred. The withdrawal concluded four days later on 20 March, just 17 days before the Americans declared war.

Source:  Over the Top, January 2017, article by Patrick Osborn and Marc Romanych 

The Garden Slug: The Enemy of the Gardener Was an Ally to the Doughboy

PFC Sluggo Reporting for Duty

Originally presented by the University of California, Agriculture and Natural Resources Agency, 12 February 2019

By Anonymous

It's almost spring. Once again, my plants are prey to slugs. Damp overcast yet warmer days provide the ideal environment for these slimy shell-less mollusks. Their stealth but obvious presence is unmistakable. Hiding by day, foraging by night slugs slide across the smooth leaves of succulents, chewing erratic holes. Up and over the daffodils they glide, nipping off tender petal tips and leaving behind their tell-tale silvery mucous trail. Most gardeners agree that slugs have little chance of redeeming their repulsive reputation. 

But during World War I, this common but destructive garden pest saved countless American soldiers who themselves were falling prey to mustard gas. In 1917, when the Germans first used this deadly chemical weapon, troops had difficulty detecting it when entering a contaminated area or during a direct attack. The gas lingered in the trenches for days, especially during cold temperatures. 

Hydrochloric acid is produced when mustard gas comes in contact with moisture. Lung membranes are damaged. Severe respiratory complications follow. Thousands of soldiers were either incapacitated or died from exposure, along with horses and dogs — the military working animals also stationed on the Western Front. 

Then along came the slug — thanks to Dr. Paul Bartsch, a curator in the Division of Mollusks at the U.S. National Museum (currently the National Museum of Natural History). Curious why slugs (Limax maximus) in the furnace room of his home were sensitive to the fumes, he studied and tested their olfactory capabilities, discovering their extraordinary ability to protect the lung membrane by closing the breathing aperture. He also learned that their tentacles were so sensitive to smell they could detect the scent of fungi in gardens and in the woods. 

According to the Smithsonian Institution Archives, Dr. Bartsch's slugs were three times more sensitive than humans to mustard gas, reacting at levels of one particle per 10-12 million by compressing their bodies and closing off their breathing pores, then surviving the gas attacks without a problem — unlike the often fatal response of humans, horses and dogs. 

As a result, the U. S. Army in June of 1918, enlisted ordinary garden slugs to fight in the trenches. They were carried in by the troops. During their five-month tour of duty, these gas-detecting heroes saved thousands of lives by alerting soldiers to the presence of mustard gas. By observing the slugs' compressed bodies, soldiers could put on gas masks before they had any hint of this dangerous chemical weapon.

[Editors note:  I continue to search for some operational details about the deployment of the slugs and their human slug minders in action to share with our readers.  Please post any leads you may have in the comments section below. MH]

Lonesome Memorials #21: The Portogruaro, Italy, Charnel House

Click on Image to Enlarge

The city of Portogruaro (population appox. 25,000) lies 35 miles northeast from the Venice lagoon near the eastern border of the Veneto.  During the First World War, it was an important road and rail hub. From 1915 to1917 it sent supplies and troops north to support the Italian efforts to breakthrough on the Isonzo River line.  Then, in October 1917, things were radically changed through the breakthrough by the Central Powers at Caporetto as Italian forces retreated to the south of the city, where a new line was established on the Piave River.  For the next year—until the conclusive Battle of Vittorio Veneto, Portogruaro had the misfortune of being occupied by the enemy.

When the war ended, the belligerent nations had the remains of over 300,000 fallen scattered around the Isonzo sector to bury permanently.  Out of a decades-long effort grew a network of 58 cemeteries, and 11 mass burial structures known as Charnel Houses in this region (Ossuaria in France).  Over 700 fallen from nearby battlefields are interred at the beautiful Portogruaro Charnel House.  These fallen included Italian, Austrian, Hungarian, and Polish soldiers.  The beautiful structure shown above was constructed at the Portogruaro Municipal Cemetery. The shrine was recently restored on the occasion of the Great War Centenary commemorations. 

(Note:  I have been unable to find a photo of the interior of this Charnel House.  I have visited several others and they are uniformly elegantly designed.  If you happen to have an interior photo please contact me HERE, and I'll add it to this article. MH)

Portogruaro Bonus Entry

The city also has an interesting municipal World War I war memorial.  As you can see, it is in the equestrian style, usually reserved for heroic figures like the statues of Marshals Joffre and Foch in Paris, with a triumphant pose, and appears more modern than classical looking.  Below are some details from the town's website.

The work of sculptor Gaetano Orsolini, the monument was created in 1928. It features a tall marble base, engraved with the city's coat of arms on the front, along with a dedicatory inscription in memory of the fallen. It is located at the Piazza della Repubblica. On both sides, following a shield-like pattern, are the names of the 276 citizens of Portogruaro who lost their lives in the conflict. Four eagles are sculpted at the upper corners of the base, while above it stands an equestrian monument, depicting a soldier returning from war, holding an image of winged Victory in his hand. The sculpture draws on the Venetian tradition of equestrian monuments, particularly those of the medieval Scaliger Tombs in Verona, revisited with a modern sensibility.

Directions:

Let's assume you are driving from Venice's Marco Polo Airport:

• Take Via Triestina/SS14 to Raccordo Marco Polo
• Drive from A4/E70 to Portogruaro. Take exit Portogruaro from A28 Portogruaro - Conegliano/A28
• Take SR251, Viale Pordenone and Via Isonzo to Viale Cimitero in Portogruaro

SMS Seeadler – Germany's Deadly Three-Masted Commerce Raider

SMS Seeadler by Christopher Rave

SMS Seeadler (Sea Eagle) was a German raider under the command of Kapitänleutnant Felix von Luckner. She was the single, most successful sailing commerce raider of the war, a brilliant concept that made in general sailing ships the most innocuous-like predators imaginable. Seeadler was launched originally as  Pass of Balmaha on 9 August 1888, designed as a steel-hulled ship-rigged sailing vessel, 1,571 GRT, typical of the late trade tall ships, most of the time relegated to carry bulk, whereas more interesting, fragile, precious or urgent cargoes went by steamers. These tall ships were cheap, and therefore they still counted for a very large part of the merchant fleets of the time.

Sunk by Seeadler

Balmaha served for two years during the war under American ownership without incident, until her trip from New York Harbor in June 1915 to Arkhangelsk loaded with a cargo of cotton for Russian troops. After being boarded by Royal Navy and routed to Orkney Island  for inspection with a naval ensign and marines accompanying the crew, she fatefully crossed the path of U-36 in the North Sea.. 

U-36's Captain Ernst Gräff stopped her, made warning shots and started the usual boarding inspection, ending with the capture of the ship as he was unsure of the ruse, and the ship was ordered to sail to Cuxhaven as a prize ship with an ensign left on board. The American crew, resentful of the British, had the British marines locked in the hold. At Cuxhaven they were made prisoners while the Americans were cleared to return home. Meanwhile the ship was mothballed, waiting for a decision.

 Kapitänleutnant von Luckner

It was decided that the ship would be fitted out as an auxiliary cruiser to operate against British merchant shipping. After being outfitted as a disguised warship with an auxiliary engine, hidden traps for 105mm cannons under the main deck, prisoner rooms, two hidden heavy machine guns, and rifles for boarding parties., the re-commissioned SMS Seeadler was ready for action. She began her new career on 21 December 1916, sailing under the command of Kapitänleutnant Felix von Luckner, a larger-than-life swashbuckler and adventurer later nicknamed "the Kaiser's pirate."

The ship, which had been transformed into a Norwegian wood carrier, successfully  crossed the British blockading line, even after being boarded for an inspection. Indeed von Luckner has handpicked his crew for their fluency in Norwegian. That was the brilliant start of 225 days of rampage in two oceans, capturing 15 ships in the Atlantic and Pacific. The tall ship gained so much fame that she was chased by many British and American ships and at one point became their #1 hunting priority.

Crew and Officers of Seeadler

After a successful cruise in the Atlantic, von Luckner moved to the Pacific, where his luck changed radically. His ship was wrecked on Mopeilia, one of the Society Islands group, in 1917. Von Luckner and five others left the ship and crew in an attempt to capture a ship to rescue his stranded men. But their misfortunes continued when they were themselves captured and sent to New Zealand as prisoners of war. Back at Mopelia the remaining party managed to capture the small French trading ship Lutece, and set course for South America. They landed in Chile and were interned until the end of the war. 

After the war, with some promotional help from Lowell Thomas, his considerable personal charm,  and some well-publicized personal sailing voyages, Luckner became a worldwide celebrity. He died in Sweden in 1966 at age 84.

Sources: Torpedo Bay Naval Museum, New Zealand; The Naval Encyclopedia; Count Luckner, the Sea Devil by Lowell Thomas

Remembering a Veteran: "The Luckiest Man Alive", Capt. John Hedley, RAF

Captain John Herbert Hedley (1887–1977) was a World War I British flying observer/gunner credited with eleven aerial victories. Before his aircraft was shot down and he became a prisoner of war for the duration—the survival of both requiring a considerable amount of good fortune—he may have earlier survived an utterly astonishing near-fatal episode.

Captain Hedley was flying in a two-seater Bristol Fighter over France in January 1918 with his pilot Lieutenant Jimmy Makepeace when near-disaster struck. Makepeace put the plane into a steep dive and Hedley, who was standing to fire his gun—so the story goes—fell out. He reportedly claimed to have fallen 700ft  (213m) before landing back on the tail of the plane and crawling back into the cockpit as it came out of the dive.

During the war, correspondent Floyd Gibbons labelled Hedley the “luckiest man alive.” Hedley later capitalized on the moniker, emigrating to the United States where he was popular on the lecture circuit in the 1920s and ’30s. He became an accountant and died in Los Angeles in 1977.

A Postwar Speaking Program That Depicts
"The Long Fall" Version of the Episode

From the start, there have been skeptics about the original story.  As recently as 2014, the BBC quoted John Stelling, from the Land Sea and Air Museum, "Personally I'm not sure whether his story of actually falling out and tumbling down and falling back in is quite feasible. . . It's more likely that he would have fallen out of the aeroplane but still been holding on—or attached to—the aeroplane, then climbed back in the cockpit.'

In his postwar speeches, Hedley reportedly gave a variety of versions of the "fall." One that was reported in a postwar newspapers  had an explanation that might sound more agreeable to critics: When his pilot caused the machine to dive suddenly, he was thrown forward in the air. He had, however, retained his grasp on the machine gun and when the ‘plane straightened out he was flung back upon the fuselage. He then managed to crawl back into the cockpit. 

What ever really happened, even if Capt. Hedley doesn't qualify as "the luckiest" he certainly counts as "damn lucky."

Sources:  BBC, Canadian Legion, Wikipedia

My Old Man at the Preparedness Day Bombing

Preparedness Day in San Francisco, 22 July 1916

By Mike Hanlon, Editor/Publisher

About five years ago, I presented an article on "My Old Man's" adventures during the First World War as a newsboy for the San Francisco Call, Hearst's afternoon paper. That article (HERE) emphasized his activities during the Spanish Flu Pandemic and a somewhat parallel (timewise) Smallpox outbreak, when he was incarcerated in the notorious San Francisco Pesthouse.  If you haven't read the piece, I'd recommend it just to see the interesting list of people young George Hanlon was able to meet hawking the Call.

Included in that article is a mention that he was present at the Preparedness Day Bombing of 22 July 1916 on Market Street in which 10 people were killed and about 40 injured. At the end of this article, I'm going to present some photos and details about the event, but first I want to catch up with dad's involvement that day. Now, before I begin, this is all based only on My Old Man's account to me, repeated several times over the years, including once at the actual site of the explosion, shown above. However, I've been able to track down several of his other undertakings and found him—unlike Mom, who always claimed "he's making those stories up"—pretty reliable as a reporter.

His account of that day went something like this:

He was selling his papers two or three blocks up Market from the Steuart Street intersection (shown above) where the bomb would go off. When it detonated, he ran toward the blast, which he said had a "funny" smell. Police were already arriving on the scene and chased him back when he approached some of the bodies. For over an hour or so, he hovered around watching, as medical care arrived for the stricken and more police arrived to secure the area and investigate matters. He told me one hard-boiled police inspector named Greminger (?) recognized him from his regular corner at 22nd and Mission and told him to  "stay the #@!^& out of the way, Hanlon". (Quite interesting that he already gained recognition by the SFPD at age ten, no?)  

Dad claimed he was the only newsboy at the site for a considerable time, and people started approaching him to buy papers–in some cases thinking the Call had already produced a special edition on the bombing. The huge parade, nevertheless, continued relentlessly afterward, and Steuart Street was where parade groups formed up to turn on to Market Street. Dad told me it was quite memorable watching thousands of those shocked marchers gawking at the bodies and damage and then stepping out into the parade. Eventually, his straw boss came looking for him and ordered him back to his original outpost.

I Believe That Newsboy Is Probably My Old Man

Now to the point of this new article. A while back, I discovered a Pathe News film of the aftermath of the explosion online. I screen-captured this  frame above from the film  that shows a newsboy at the site. On the brief reel, he is the only newsboy that appears.  Dad was born on 12 December 1905 and he would have been about ten years, six mos. old on the day of the bombing. So, the kid looks just the right size.  Also, he once told me that his "uniform" as a newsboy was a cap, a type of short pants (I forget their name), and long stockings. The young man in the still also appears to be "in uniform".  With this evidence, I've naturally come to believe that he is, indeed, My Old Man. (I know there's a lot of wishfulness wrapped in there, though.) I can hardly blame anyone that's skeptical. After sitting on this image for almost a year,  I thought our readers might enjoy the tale, even if  you might have your doubts.

San Francisco's Finest Investigating the Crime Scene

Some Background on the Bombing

The sinking of the Lusitania in May 1915 sounded an alarm in the United States that carried far beyond San Francisco. The sense that, despite America's neutrality declaration and its apparent disconnection from the affairs of Europe, America might be drawn into the expanding conflict spread throughout the land. Military and naval reforms were initiated by Congress, officer training camps were opened, and much dramatic speech making came from proponents of "preparedness" such as former President Theodore Roosevelt and former Army chief of staff Leonard Wood. Predictably, an oppositional group quickly formed with anti-militarists, church groups, and radical segments of the labor movement in an uneasy alliance. President Wilson was ambivalent about the Preparedness Movement, as it came to be called, participating in some of its events, while retaining an anti-preparedness man, Newton Baker, as his Secretary for War.  

In San Francisco, the Chamber of Commerce with the support of Mayor Sunny Jim Rolph decided to celebrate and advance preparedness with a big parade, featuring 50,000 marchers accompanied by floats, bands, and lots of flags. Preparedness Day was scheduled for 22 July 1916; the procession would start near the Ferry Building on the waterfront, proceed down Market Street, and end at the new post-earthquake Civic Center. The opponents, however, were not rolling over. They widely broadcast a threat to take "direct action" against the event. Memories were still fresh on the West Coast over the 1910 labor-incited Los Angeles Times bombing that had killed 21.

At 2:06 p.m., about a half-hour after the parade began, a bomb concealed in a suitcase exploded by the corner of Steuart and Market Streets, near the Ferry Building starting point. Ten bystanders were killed and 40 more were wounded. The authorities, naturally, looked for the "usual suspects." Radical labor leader Tom Mooney, his wife, his assistant Warren Billings, and two others were soon charged by ambitious District Attorney Charles Fickert with the bombing. The Mooney-Billings episode attracted international attention. Two decades later when evidence of perjury and false testimony at the trial had become overwhelming, newly elected Governor Culbert Olson pardoned Mooney and commuted Billings's sentence to time served. Billings was pardoned in 1961. The actual  perpetrators have never been identified. One theory involves some anarchists, who had been targeting the Pacific Gas and Electric public utility company. Today there is no marker at the site of the city's most noted terrorist episode. 

Far From Suitable? Haig, Gough and Passchendaele: A Reappraisal

 

By Nicholas Ridley

Helion & Company 2024

Reviewed by Jim Gallen

Stretcher Bearers Crossing the Inundated
Passchendaele Battlefield

Far From Suitable? Haig, Gough and Passchendaele: A Reappraisal is an in-depth study of responsibility for the battle of Passchendaele and its legacy in Great War memory. The principal contenders are Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, Commander of British Armies on the Western Front and overall commander of the campaign, General Sir Hubert Gough, commander of the Fifth Army, the motor of the Battle during its first month, and General Sir Herbert Plumer, commander of the Second Army, positioned to Gough’s right. This is not narrative history.  Focusing on the first month of the offensive, it is an examination of the plans for the campaign, whether they were deficient, negligent or even reckless, and whether they caused unnecessary loss.

The Battle of Passchendaele, or Third Ypres, ravaged Belgium from 31 July to 10 November 1917. Initially intended to clear the Belgian coast of German forces, it advanced the British front a maximum of five miles and never came near achieving the depth of penetration which would justify the launch of the seaborne assault intended to link up with it. As the weather produced deep and cloying mud, movement for men, guns and animals became all but impossible. In the Spring of 1918, the gains achieved had to be abandoned to the German Georgette offensive.  Passchendaele, the name of the unfortunate village devoured in the battle, became the Great War’s synonym for military failure, one of “the most gigantic, tenacious, grim, futile and bloody fights ever waged in the history of the war” and “a muddy and muddle-headed adventure,” in Lloyd George’s words.

The First of Several Helpful Maps from This Volume

When the soldiers’ war of shot and shell goes silent, the historians’ wars of words and ideas occupy the field. Passchendaele is a case study of how histories change over time.  Objectives, strategies and concepts of victory and defeat are debated and changed and as perspectives lengthen.  Historical literature of the 1930s placed blame on Haig who ‘embarked upon an offensive whose strategic direction was a serious mistake…which was ‘doomed from the start’ by its own destruction by bombardment of the Flanders drainage system for which the Germans were, having had ample warning since Messines, very well prepared.” In the Official History written in 1948 in the wake of the Second World War, Historian Brigadier-General Sir James Edmonds diverted the narrative, writing that “Aspersions on the character of Field-Marshal Earl Haig should not require contradiction… but some refutation of the legend cannot be entirely neglected.”

Sir James redirected appraisals by claiming that the offensive was a success, contradicting prior claims regarding the effect of the weather and extent of casualties. Edmonds asserted that the battle achieved its essential purpose, keeping the enemy away from the French Army, then broken by mutiny, and “that the German losses at Passchendaele, the exhaustion, practically the destruction, of their best divisions, prevented complete success in their 1918 Offensives.”  Edmonds and historians who followed him set the stage for author Nicholas Ridley’s reappraisal.

Order HERE

Far From Suitable? consists of Ridley’s extremely detailed dissection of the evidence of objectives, facts, mental impressions, motivations and information that were available to each commander. To paraphrase Sen. Baker of Watergate fame, what did the generals know and when did they know it? As I advanced through this account, I felt that I was reading the notes of a lawyer preparing for trial. His biographical information confirmed the author’s career as a barrister.

I found this presentation to be an intensively researched argument over responsibility for the outcome of the Passchendaele Offensive. Details of the battle are only discerned by reference and inference.  I recommend it to Roads to the Great War readers with a deep interest in the inner workings of this offensive, so costly in its day, and so controversial in ours.

Jim Gallen

John Reed's Interview of Trotsky After the October Revolution

Entrance to the Smolny Institute, Where John Reed
Interviewed Trotsky

By John Reed

[JR] On October 30th, by appointment, I went up to a small, bare room in the attic of the Smolny Institute, to talk with Trotsky. In the middle of the room he sat on a rough chair at a bare table. Few questions from me were necessary; he talked rapidly and steadily, for more than an hour. The substance of his talk, in his own words, I give here [below]:

(Editor's Notes: 1.) The Bolsheviks seized power in Petrograd on 25 October 1917, according to the Julian calendar used under the Tsar, while the rest of the world used the Gregorian calendar, which recorded the date as 7 November 1917. Reed's dating is by the older Julian system.  2.) Since Reed was sympathetic to the Bolsheviks,  I'm presenting this under the assumption that he was accurately presenting Trotsky's responses. MH)

[LT] The Provisional Government is absolutely powerless. The bourgeoisie is in control, but this control is masked by a fictitious coalition with the oborontsi ["defensists"—those who advocated continuing Russian participation in the Great War to a victorious end] parties. Now, during the Revolution, one sees revolts of peasants who are tired of waiting for their promised land; and all over the country, in all the toiling classes, the same disgust is evident. This domination by the bourgeoisie is only possible by means of civil war. The Kornilov method is the only way by which the bourgeoisie can control. But it is force which the bourgeoisie lacks…. The Army is with us. The conciliators and pacifists, Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviki, have lost all authority—because the struggle between the peasants and the landlords, between the workers and the employers, between the soldiers and the officers, has become more bitter, more irreconcilable than ever. Only by the concerted action of the popular mass, only by the victory of proletarian dictatorship, can the Revolution be achieved and the people saved. . .

The Soviets are the most perfect representatives of the people—perfect in their revolutionary experience, in their ideas and objects. Based directly upon the army in the trenches, the workers in the factories, and the peasants in the fields, they are the backbone of the Revolution.

There has been an attempt to create a power without the Soviets—and only powerlessness has been created. Counter-revolutionary schemes of all sorts are now being hatched in the corridors of the Council of the Russian Republic. The Cadet party represents the counter-revolution militant. On the other side, the Soviets represent the cause of the people. Between the two camps there are no groups of serious importance…. It is the lutte finale. The bourgeois counter-revolution organises all its forces and waits for the moment to attack us. Our answer will be decisive. We will complete the work scarcely begun in March, and advanced during the Kornilov affair….

Trotsky with Supporters

Our first act will be to call for an immediate armistice on all fronts, and a conference of peoples to discuss democratic peace terms. The quantity of democracy we get in the peace settlement depends on the quantity of revolutionary response there is in Europe. If we create here a Government of the Soviets, that will be a powerful factor for immediate peace in Europe; for this Government will address itself directly and immediately to all peoples, over the heads of their Governments, proposing an armistice. At the moment of the conclusion of peace the pressure of the Russian Revolution will be in the direction of ‘no annexations, no indemnities, the right of self-determination of peoples,’ and a Federated Republic of Europe. . .

At the end of this war I see Europe recreated, not by the diplomats, but by the proletariat. The Federated Republic of Europe—the United States of Europe—that is what must be. National autonomy no longer suffices. Economic evolution demands the abolition of national frontiers. If Europe is to remain split into national groups, then Imperialism will recommence its work. Only a Federated Republic of Europe can give peace to the world.” He smiled—that fine, faintly ironical smile of his. “But without the action of the European masses, these ends cannot be realised—now.

 

Source:  Ten Days That Shook the World, John Reed