The Anthem of the Anti-Preparedness Movement: I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier

Preparedness Themed Lusitania Poster

After the Lusitania sinking of May 1915, Americans began debating the need for military and economic preparations for war. Strong opposition to “preparedness” came from isolationists, socialists, pacifists, many Protestant ministers, German Americans, and Irish Americans (who were hostile to Britain). Just earlier, one of the hit songs of 1915, “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier,” by lyricist Alfred Bryan and composer Al Piantadosi, had captured widespread American skepticism about joining in the European war. 

With the Lusitania tragedy, interventionists and sympathizers for the Allied cause like former president Theodore Roosevelt increasingly beat the drums for preparedness. Anti-interventionists made sure the song stayed popular. Roosevelt’s retort to the popularity of the antiwar song was that it should be accompanied by the tune “I Didn’t Raise My Girl to Be a Mother.” He suggested that the place for women who opposed war was “in China—or by preference in a harem—and not in the United States.”

Listen to the Song Here

Lyrics

Ten million soldiers to the war have gone,

Who may never return again.

Ten million mothers' hearts must break,

For the ones who died in vain.

Head bowed down in sorrow in her lonely years,

I heard a mother murmur thro' her tears:

Chorus:

I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier,

I brought him up to be my pride and joy,

Who dares to put a musket on his shoulder,

To shoot some other mother’s darling boy?

Let nations arbitrate their future troubles,

It’s time to lay the sword and gun away,

There’d be no war today,

If mothers all would say,

I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier.

Source:  History Matters

An Emerging Technology Just in Time for the Great War: Aerial Photography

Earliest Surviving Aerial Photograph
Boston, MA, USA
Taken from a Balloon, 13 October 1860

I've come across a fascinating 1995 article by an Italian historian/journalist (?) named Tiziana Carrozza that explores the pre-WWI development of aerial photography. I can't find anything about her career (I'm assuming she's a lady based on the female form of her given name), but she has done some impressive research on the subject. 

Aftermath of the 1918 Zeebrugge Raid

Below are some key excerpts from the 13-page article: "The Eye Over the Hill. Aerial Photography up to the First World War." The full article can be found HERE:

Fairly soon after the invention of photography, some extravagant people started experiments with a camera taking photographs hanging from a flying pigeon. The attempts with cameras attached to birds went on at least until 1907. . . Unfortunately, pigeons are not very keen on scientific experiments. A big problem with them was getting them to fly smoothly. Things went better with captive balloons and kites. At least, they didn't change their course voluntarily. 

In a letter of 25 August 1895, Graf von Zeppelin wrote to the War Ministry:

Through their quick and long flight [ ... ] the lighter-than-air craft become a means of strategic information as they have never been before. At a greater distance, the  assembly and the movement of an enemy army. can be discovered and observed, while carrier pigeons can inform the Headquarters.

 

An RFC/RAF Observer/Photographer with His Camera

Some ten years before, Aime Laussedat, an officer in the Engineer Corps of the  French Army pioneered the application of the invention of photography to simple observation from the air. He put into practice the suggestion made by the geodesist Dominique Francois Jean Arage in 1839 of using the daguerreotype for topographical maps. A real handicap to early aerial photographers was the poor quality of the sensitive material for the plates used in the cameras. An exposure of four hundred seconds was too long, and the photographs were rarely sharp enough to be of any use. By then, the exposure time of a plate had been reduced to eighty seconds by the use of bromine in the emulsion. 

Later on, in the 1850s, the exposure time was further reduced to one-tenth of that of the bromine daguerreotype. This improvement showed that the application of photography for aerial reconnaissance was only a matter of time. In 1856 Felix Nadar, a French civilian, photographed Paris from a captive balloon using the daguerreotype process. The first aerial photographs were just experiments in using the camera in every possible situation; once more appreciable results were obtained, they were considered as pictorial works to be shown in exhibitions for the amazement of a paying public. At the Paris exhibition in 1867 the public could, in fact, admire a map of Paris based on photographic surveys.

Union Army Balloon Corps "Intrepid"
Launched for the Battle of Seven Pines

 

The Balloon Corps of the United States was the first to apply aerial photographs to military operations. Since 1861 some civilian balloonists had been working unofficially with the U.S. Army. Their activity was considered of little significance by most of the officers. This attitude persisted even after 1910, when the Wright brothers invented the aeroplane. [sic: the Wright brothers first flew in 1903]

In Germany, people like Graf von Zeppelin had to push very hard to make the higher ranks realize the importance of observation and reconnaissance from the air. . . in 1898 Oskar Messter flew in a balloon called  Condor with the Flying Officer Bartsch von Siegfeld and took some successful photographs, which did not seem of great interest or use. Until July 1914 the crew roster for a lighter-than-air craft did not include a photographer, but only an observing officer. At the very least, the authorities' position regarding aerial photography was contradictory. While on the one hand, they seemed to be unaware of the tactical implications of the new technology, on the other they were alarmed by the danger of espionage connected with aerial photography. 

British Mine Craters at St. Eloi, Flanders

 

To War

The aerial camera was of great help for the Italians in the Italo-Turkish war of 1911–1912. Taking advantage of French experience in the matter, and using single-seater biplanes, the Italians were easily able to overwhelm the Turks, who used a classic war strategy. Another rehearsal for aerial photography, before the Great War, was the conflict between the Turks and the Bulgarians in 1912.

Though both conflicts showed the great importance of aerial reconnaissance, its widespread application dates from the early days of the First World War. The delay is difficult to explain, particularly if one takes into account a British patent for "A New or Improved Apparatus for Obtaining Bird's-eye Photographie Views", applied for as early as 1891, which says: "The present invention is applicable more especially to military operations, by taking photographic bird' seye views of fortifications or other positions occupied by an enemy, from a dist;mt position where they are not visible."  In fact, while most European countries used aeroplanes regularly before 1914 for surveying, no air unit had been trained or equipped to take pictures. 

Aerial photography was a genuinely new departure, far more so than the tank or the steel helmet. lt was the logical reaction to a completely changed way of making war, the off-spring of the first technological war in history. That is probably why it was not until the beginning of 1915 that the importance of photography was apparent, resulting from improvements in the type and general stability of aeroplanes. After die deadlock arising from the inauguration of trench warfare and new and more sophisticated camouflage, it was obvious that the old methods of obtaining intelligence information were out of date. The aeroplane replaced the cavalry and the ground scout of former days, and greater and greater demands were made on photography. 

British Camera Maintenance Shop

 

Unstable aeroplanes and inadequate photographic equipment made the first experiments very unsatisfactory for the requirements of reconnaissance. A very large proportion of the photographic work had to be done in unfavourable weather conditions, and this posed problems, in particular, atmospheric haze and thick clouds. While nothing could be done about cloudy weather except to hope for gaps in the clouds, the refraction of light rays caused by the minute particles composing haze could be overcome by using orange-coloured filters.

In fact, it was found that these filters greatly improved the quality of photographs taken in hazy weather, even if they stopped a large amount of light and reduced the "photographic day" to the period from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

It was only from the beginning of 1916 onward that aerial photography was conceived as a means of spying on the enemy's manoeuvres. Probably up to that date, photograph interpretation had not been sufficiently developed for its possibilities to be fully realized. 

Devastated Village of Vaux, Marne Sector

 

Carrozza's article continues with technological discussions of wartime  developments regarding flying operations, cameras, film and plates, stereoscopic photography and other matters. It concludes with this paragraph on the combatants' response to the new technology.

The form that the battlefield took in the Great War, the daily thickening network of trenches, the rapid discovery of the enemy gun emplacements required a precision in reconnaissance that only photography could give. The response to aerial photography was to develop highly sophisticated and effective forms of camouflage. Every attention was paid to keeping weapon positions secret, even to the extent of having troops wear biscuit tin lids on the soles of their shoes, which left prints that were less striking than foot-prints and, even if seen, did not show the direction in which they were marching. This in its turn forced the aerial photographers to elaborate methods of constructing stereoscopic views of the ground in order to enable the interpreters of the photographs to detect even the most carefully disguised units. 

Also: See our earlier article "Sources of Frontline Intelligence: Aerial Observation from Airplanes" by Terrence J. Finnegan"  HERE

Other Sources:  Over the Top, February 2009; Above and Beyond, 13 October 2014

Remembering the Eddystone Munitions Disaster

SPRINGFIELD (MA) REPUBLICAN, 11 April 1917

By Jerry Jonas

Originally published on the 100th anniversay of the disaster in Phillyburbs. Some additional details and these photos have been added by the editor. MH

Last Wednesday [10 April 2025] marked the [108]th anniversary of one of the greatest wartime disasters in American history, and it occurred during World War I here in the Delaware Valley, just a couple of miles south of today’s Philadelphia. 

For weeks, the plant management had been running ads in the Philadelphia newspapers recruiting young girls to fill hundreds of jobs. Britain contracted with the Remington Company to produce rifles, and Remington subcontracted part of the work to Baldwin. When their need for munitions outstripped their industrial capacity, Britain and France (and later Russia) also contracted with Baldwin to produce artillery shells. The munitions manufactured at Eddystone were shrapnel shells, an anti-personnel device. One Eddystone plant built the entire shell—from building the shell to shaping the brass cartridge—and filling the cartridge with black powder. Most of this work was being done by women and girls.

About 400 women and girls worked in the plant’s F building. That building housed about 40,000 loaded shells and was divided into three sections: the pellet room, the loading room, and the inspection room. In the pellet room, about 100 girls made the black-powder fuses that would eventually be used to detonate the shells. In the loading room, dozens of additional girls inserted the fuses into the shells, which were then filled with loose black gunpowder. The finished shells were then taken to the inspection room, where they were given a final quality checkup.

Somewhere between 9:55 a.m. and 10:10 a.m. on 10 April, the F building was rocked by a violent explosion. As described in the next day’s New York Times, 18 tons of black gunpowder had ignited, setting off thousands of shrapnel shells and causing "a series of detonations that shook a half dozen boroughs within a radius of ten miles of the plant."

This was followed by a series of smaller, intermittent explosions and then a large one in a building filled with black powder. The shrapnel blasts injured not only workers but also many first responders, including a fireman who lost a leg to a bullet. The explosions killed at least 133 employees and severely injured, maimed and badly burned an additional 500. The majority of those killed were the women and young girls who worked in the loading room. “We had but a minute to reach the door,” a survivor told the Chester Times (now the Delaware County Daily Times) newspaper, “but many of us never got that far. Some were killed and others were injured by flying bullets.”

After an appeal for help was flashed, local residents rushed to the plant in cars and trucks to help transport the wounded to hospitals. Students from the Pennsylvania College arrived and proved helpful with crowd control. Numerous fire companies from Chester and Philadelphia raced to the scene. 

Post-Explosion Crowd

All of the regional hospitals—Crozer, Chester, Taylor, and Media—were packed as doctors and nurses rushed to aid as many as they could. By 11 a.m., the hospitals were so full that the Chester Armory was converted into a temporary hospital, with Boy Scouts, National Guardsmen, and members of the Red Cross arranging cots in the drill hall. The Times described Chester Hospital as “corridors and side rooms lined with swathed forms, nothing visible of the person except for the tips of their noses. Intermittent screams of the suffering could be heard from the halls.”

Faces and bodies of the victims were blackened, as the powder had been blown into their flesh. Several bodies were discovered floating in the nearby Delaware River, where they either jumped to escape the fire and drowned or were blown into the river by the explosions. Many victims were identified only by their clothing, and at least 55 were never identified. Body parts were gathered and interred in a mass grave in the Chester Rural Cemetery.

Preparing the Victims for Burial

Some investigators suspected German saboteurs were behind the tragedy, since the plant had been supplying arms and ammunition to Germany’s enemy, Great Britain, and especially since the U.S. had only days earlier entered the war against Germany. Many (including plant employees) assumed that lack of appropriate safety standards at the plant was the actual cause of the disaster, but no real conclusions were ever reached. 

While it today seems unbelievable, less than two weeks after the tragedy, the Eddystone munitions plant was reopened, and over 900 girls had reportedly applied to work there. Girls with German backgrounds were not hired. Today, the victims of the 1917 explosion are considered by many historians to be among the very first American casualties of World War I.

Sources:  Phillyburbs.com; ABC Channel 27; WWI Centennial Commission; Wikipedia; Delco.Today; Timothy Hughes: Rare and Early Newspapers 

Carl Bobrow's Aerial Ascendancy Series

Sample Illustrations from the Series

By Carl J. Bobrow

Aeronaut Books, 2025

Reviewed by Steve Suddaby

As a lover of WWI aviation, I was initially concerned that I wouldn’t find prewar aviation histories very interesting. I had no reason to worry! Carl Bobrow, Alfred Verville Fellow and retired Smithsonian Institution National Air & Space Museum staffer, presents fascinating descriptions of the earliest years of aviation in the Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and German Empires. Each volume helps the reader understand the genesis of these empires’ successes and failures in aviation during the war itself. The Russian and Austro-Hungarian histories are particularly enlightening because those two empires have always been underrepresented in English-language research on the Great War.

Aerial Ascendancy: Volume I
Russia’s Path to the Skies

Carl Bobrow’s writing style greatly enhances the reader’s understanding of these technical and complex topics. He writes short chapters. His photo captions are long and detailed. The end notes are given chapter-by-chapter, where they’re easy to find and often provide insightful background in addition to just citing sources. His electronic enhancement of the photos and their large size make them unusually clear and sharp, as if they were black-and-white photos taken in 2012 rather than 1912.  

Aerial Ascendancy: Volume II
The Rise of Flight in Austria-Hungary

Bobrow’s approach to “military” history is more wide-ranging than that of most authors. He discusses civilian pilots (including women), mechanics, aviation manufacturing companies, international air meets, promotion of aviation by aristocrats and industrialists, government policies that affected aviation companies, academic research into flight, aerial photography, naval aviation, the sparring between advocates of airplanes and airships, as well as the prescience and shortsightedness of particular generals and admirals. All of this gives an exceptionally well rounded appraisal of aviation in these three empires and clarifies why their subsequent military aviation efforts succeeded or struggled. These three volumes will be an important resource for understanding World War I aviation for years to come.

Aerial Ascendancy: Volume III
Genesis of German Aviation

All volumes available from Amazon HERE

Full Disclosure: The WWI aviation community is small and tightly knit. Carl Bobrow has been a friend and colleague of this reviewer for years.

Steve Suddaby

Lenin Tells the Bolsheviks to Accept Brest-Litovsk

From Lenin's Statement on the Treaty

Published in Pravda, 14 March 1918

Comrades. . . some are giving way too much to the feeling of legitimate and just indignation at the defeat of the Soviet Republic by imperialism. They are sometimes too prone to give way to despair, and, instead of taking into account the historical conditions for the development of the Revolution as they emerged before the conclusion of the peace and as they appear after the peace. . . The most onerous of peace treaties—the Tilsit Peace—is nowregarded by history as a turning-point of that time, as the start of the turning-point in the history of the German nation. Germany, though forced to retreat to Tilsit. . . was actually gaining time, waiting until the international situation, which at one time had permitted the triumph of Napoleon—a robber similar to the present-day Hohenzollern-Hindenburg—should change in her favour, and until the consciousness of the German  people, exhausted by the decades of the Napoleonic wars and defeats, should heal and the people be resurrected to new life.. . . it is our revolutionary duty to sign even an onerous, a super-onerous and forced treaty, for thereby we shall attain a better position both for ourselves and for our allies. Have we lost anything by signing the peace treaty on March 3?. . . Our cause is gaining in strength, whilst the forces of the imperialists are becoming weaker, and whatever trials and defeats we may suffer from our “ Tilsit ” peace, we are starting the tactics of retreat, and I repeat once again: there is no doubt whatever that both the conscious proletariat and the conscious peasants are on our side, and we shall prove ourselves capable not only of heroic attack, but also of heroic retreat. We shall know how to wait till the international Socialist proletariat comes to our aid and we shall then start a second Socialist revolution on a world scale.

Shaded Area Shows Area to Be Occupied by Central Powers After the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
(Map Is Somewhat Inexact)

 

Haller’s Blue Army

Centennial Commemortive Stamp for the Blue Army

By James Patton

During the Middle Ages the kingdom of Poland was a vibrant state, a bastion of power and Catholic enlightenment. The dynasty reached its zenith in 1683 when the Polish King Jan III Sobieski led the army that defeated the Ottomans in the Battle for Vienna, which proved to be the high water mark of the Ottoman incursion into Central Europe. The subsequent decline of the Polish state paralleled the rise of the Prussian state to the north, and beginning in 1764, Polish territory was nibbled away by Prussia, Russia and Austria, until in 1795 the entire nation had disappeared into the "partitions," the largest of which was the Russian and included the city of Warsaw. 

In the 19th century, disaffected Poles left the area in considerable numbers. It has been estimated that 5 million Poles migrated to North America and considerable numbers went to Western Europe as well. There was even substantial emigration from the Russian partition to the Austrian partition, where the regime was more lenient. Influential Poles in the west, such as the musician Ignacy Paderewski and the scientist Maria Sklodowska Curie, spoke up passionately and persuasively about the unjust treatment of their people, most particularly those under the tsar. 

In 1918 the Polish cause became a war aim. Woodrow Wilson devoted Point XIII of his Fourteen Points to Polish independence. When stating His Majesty’s war aims David Lloyd George said "An independent Poland is an urgent necessity…"

But even before these actions, in August 1916 the Germans and Austro-Hungarians had agreed to create an autonomous (but not quite independent) Kingdom of Poland (no king was ever crowned), and in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in early 1918 the Bolsheviks were required to renounce any claim to the Russian partition.

General Haller Honoring His Troops

Before the war, there were "Polish Legions" formed in the Austrian partition, ostensibly as sportsmen’s clubs. Among the leaders of this movement were the socialist Jósef Pilsudski (1867–1935), a long-time agitator against tsarist rule, and Jósef Haller von Hallenburg (1873–1960), a former cavalry captain in the Austrian army. These paramilitary units also included Polish refugees from the Russian partition as well as veterans of Austrian compulsory military service and, later on, Polish prisoners of war who had served in the Russian army. The real objective of these Legions was to permanently oust the Russians from a large swath of the ancestral Polish domain. In 1915, these units were accepted by the Austro-Hungarians as co-belligerents.

On the other side of the Atlantic, a group of Polish immigrants sought to start a different Polish Legion. American law made this problematic, so they set up shop in Canada. Neither the Canadians nor the British had much use for an all-Polish unit, but the French were much more welcoming.  In fact, they bankrolled the whole operation, and over 20,000 volunteers responded to the call. After the U.S. declared war in 1917, 24,000 more Polish-Americans signed up, and 35,000 Polish POWs held by Italy were recruited as well. Altogether nearly 90,000 men were assembled in France, and the overall command was given to Haller, who had escaped to the West after the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, when his Austro-Hungarian Polish Legion was ordered to stand down. The organization in France became known as Haller’s Army and under his command these soldiers fought on the Western Front from July to November 1918 and who, along with French colonials and the borrowed Americans of the 92nd and 93rd divisions, were among the few units the French Army had that were willing to mount frontal assaults.

After the Armistice, Lt. Gen. Haller and his army were shifted to the east, where they merged with units formerly in Russian service to form the first Polish Army in 124 years, under the overall command of Pilsudski. The French provided massive logistical assistance and an advisory mission led by Gen. Maxime Weygand (1867–1965). Since Haller’s Army still wore their "horizon blue" French uniforms, they became known as  the "Blue Army" but were still under the overall command of Haller. 

The Miracle on the Vistula

The feats of the Blue Army became legendary in the postwar wars, in the Polish-Ukrainian War of 1919, and at the Battle of Warsaw (12–25 August1920). There is a famous painting called The Miracle on the Vistula by Jerzy Kossack (1885–1955) that depicts the Polish soldiers spurred forward by an Apparition of the Virgin Mary leading a host of angelic knights, just as some believe she did at Vienna in 1683. Acting against the advice of Weygand, and significantly outnumbered, Haller’s Corps, including the Blue Army,  successfully turned the northern flank of the Soviet armies attacking Warsaw, forcing them into a chaotic withdrawal.

Pilsudski was a seasoned political infighter and emerged from the Soviet War as the most influential person in Poland. After staging the May 1925 coup d'état he ran the country until his death in 1935.   

Haller, on the other hand, was a great soldier but a poor politician. After he declined to participate in Pilsudki’s coup he was forced out of the army.  He moved to London, where he resided for rest of his life, with frequent visits to America. During WWII he was active in the Polish government in exile in London.

Click on Image to Enlarge

Cemetery for Soldiers of Haller's Corps Who Fell in the 1920 Battle of Warsaw (Photo by James Patton)

Many of those who served under Haller emigrated or returned to the U.S. after their service ended. They were the antecedents of the Polish Legion of American Veterans, which received a federal charter in 1984. Membership has always been restricted to veterans, but the requirement that they be of Polish ancestry was dropped in 1992.  There are currently about 75 posts in 12 states plus DC, mostly located in historically Polish neighborhoods.

Source: Article originally appeared in KansasWW1.org on 5/19/2018

Oscar and the Great War: WWI Veteran Academy Award Winning Actors

Eyewitness: Returning to Wipers After the War

The Ruins of Ypres

By Correspondent Philip Gibbs

The city of Ypres was the capital of our battlefields in Flanders from the beginning to the end of the war, and the ground on which it stands, whether a new city rises there or its remnants of ruin stay as a memorial of dreadful things, will be forever haunted by the spirit of those men of ours who passed through its gates to fight in the fields beyond or to fall within its ramparts.

I went through Ypres so many times in early days and late days of the war that I think I could find my way about it blindfold, even now. I saw it first in March of 1915, before the battle when the Germans first used poison-gas and bombarded its choking people, and French and British soldiers, until the city fell into a chaos of masonry. On that first visit I found it scarred by shellfire, and its great Cloth Hall was roofless and licked out by the flame of burning timbers, but most of the buildings were still standing and the shops were busy with customers in khaki, and in the Grande Place were many small booths served by the women and girls who sold picture post-cards and Flemish lace and fancy cakes and soap to British soldiers sauntering about without a thought of what might happen here in this city, so close to the enemy's lines, so close to his guns. I had tea in a bun-shop, crowded with young officers, who were served by two Flemish girls, buxom, smiling, glad of all the English money they were making.

St. Martin's Cathedral

A few weeks later the devil came to Ypres. The first sign of his work was when a mass of French soldiers and colored troops, and English, Irish, Scottish, and Canadian soldiers came staggering through the Lille and Menin gates with panic in their look, and some foul spell upon them. They were gasping for breath, vomiting, falling into unconsciousness, and, as they lay, their lungs were struggling desperately against some stifling thing. A whitish cloud crept up to the gates of Ypres, with a sweet smell of violets, and women and girls smelled it and then gasped and lurched as they ran and fell. It was after that when shells came in hurricane flights over Ypres, smashing the houses and setting them on fire, until they toppled and fell inside themselves. Hundreds of civilians hid in their cellars, and many were buried there. Others crawled into a big drain-pipe--there were wounded women and children among them, and a young French interpreter, the Baron de Rosen, who tried to help them--and they stayed there three days and nights, in their vomit and excrement and blood, until the bombardment ceased. Ypres was a city of ruin, with a red fire in its heart where the Cloth Hall and cathedral smoldered below their broken arches and high ribs of masonry that had been their buttresses and towers.

Site of Menin Gate

When I went there two months later I saw Ypres as it stood through the years of the war that followed, changing only in the disintegration of its ruin as broken walls became more broken and fallen houses were raked into smaller fragments by new bombardments, for there was never a day for years in which Ypres was not shelled.

Source: Now It Can Be Told, 1920

Global Inflation during the First World War

Last Banknote Issued by the German Empire, 50 Marks

By Nicholas Mulder, Columbia University

The Great War required war-making states to mobilize and sustain the financial resources for a global war on an unprecedented scale. What made war finance during the conflict so special is that this challenge had never been confronted in a world economy as large, deeply interconnected, and sophisticated as that which existed in 1914. [With the belligerents, for example, taxation]  served to control inflation and to uphold the creditworthiness of governments in the eyes of their creditors. By removing excess money supply from the civilian economy, taxation would reduce the strong upward pressure on prices caused by increased spending and money issuance. [Note: This article does not cover the great German inflation of 1918–1923 or the origins of the Great Depression].

The First World War created a global rise in prices. Taking the price level of the last prewar year, 1913, as a benchmark level of 100, the increases were significant everywhere. In all economies that were at officially war, prices had risen at least twofold by 1918: from 196 in Japan and 203 in the USA to 235 in Great Britain, 217 in Germany (soon to cascade into dangerous hyperinflation), 340 in France, and 409 in Italy. Shortages of raw materials, excess liquidity spillovers, and foreign import binges also affected the neutrals, most of which saw the 1913 price levels more than triple.  

Click on Image to Enlarge

Selected Commodity Prices Before and After
the First World War

Since European central banks also controlled currency and securities circulating in their colonial economies, deficit financing in the metropole caused inflation in the periphery. Because colonial subjects lacked rights and democratic institutions, this inflation fueled social unrest and anti-colonial uprisings. In Central Europe, town-country exchange was breaking down by the end of the war, causing famine in urban centers; Asian peasants from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific confronted a rice crisis that would persist for three years after the end of the war.  

The way that these high price levels were brought down was through a sustained, purposeful deflation of the global money supply, initiated by the Federal Reserve’s hiking of interest rates in March 1920 and (due to America’s leading role in the return to the gold standard) thereafter forcibly followed by most central banks around the world. The economic result was a sharp worldwide recession in 1920–1921. This monetary consolidation was accompanied by a wave of violent political repression and counterrevolution—a “world-wide Thermidor” that ended the revolutionary aftermath of the Great War. 

Source: Encyclopedia 1914-1918; Research Gate by Niall Ferguson

Somewhere East of Verdun: Some Forgotten Battlefields of 1914

 Nomeny War Memorial

By Christina Holstein

In France, the Grand Est,  the area between the eastern side of the St. Mihiel Salient and the Vosges Mountains is largely overlooked by battlefield visitors, and its rolling hills and quiet villages do not feature in many guidebooks. However, it is an area that saw fierce action in the early weeks of 1914, and although superseded in popular imagination by the later "great names" of the Western Front, the battles fought there set the stage for later events and were the scene of great casualties and destruction.

Nomeny Civilian Memorial

In Nomeny, for example, a little town on the salty River Seille, where four French infantry regiments barred the road to Nancy, losing 1,000 men as they did so, the town was plundered and burned by the Bavarians. A poignant memorial by the river commemorates the 73 civilian victims of the dreadful event, the youngest being a little boy of three. Just across the bridge, the town war memorial—which features a dramatic statue of a soldier clasping the French flag as he falls—lists another 58 men. It is hard to imagine today the effect of such losses on such a small place. Did it ever revive? [Its population today is 1,139.]

 Grand Couronné

That was 20 August 1914. Similar events occurred in a number of other nearby villages, and the fighting continued into September as the Germans pushed on toward the city of Nancy. The range of rocky hills to the north of Nancy is known as the Grand Couronné, and on them the French stopped the advancing Germans. The main monument to the fighting is to be found at Ste. Genevieve, a tiny hilltop place, obviously entirely rebuilt, with views that stretch for miles in all directions. It had to be held by the French, and it was. In those days, Ste. Genevieve was in France, but the border with German-occupied Lorraine was only a few miles away. 

Manhoué

At Manhoué, a traditional village that cannot have changed much over the years, stands a memorial to the first two Great War Frenchmen to fall on the soil of German-occupied Lorraine. On 7 August 1914, the 26th Infantry, a local French regiment, pushed across the border into Manhoué and in an exchange of fire, Soldiers Chretien and Ganayre were killed. The high-spirited inscription on the monument commemorating the event refers to them as "the first two lads" of the 26th Infantry to fall on the soil of Lorraine. It is an unusual word to use on a monument. Were they the wild boys of the regiment, always ready for a scrap, determined to be first on occupied soil? The regimental history does not mention the event, but their monument stands just a few feet inside the old border, and it is easy to imagine them racing toward it, yelling and cheering, their bright red trousers making them a perfect target for any German guns in the area.

The Silent Service’s First Hero: The First Submariner to Receive the Medal of Honor

Newspaper Account of the Episode

By Ryan C. Walker 

Pen and Sword Maritime, 2024

Reviewed by Professor Jeffrey LaMonica 

Ryan C. Walker’s The Silent Service’s First Hero: The First Submariner to Receive the Medal of Honor  is a 224-page “microhistory” covering the life and service of World War I veteran Henry Breault from 1900 to 1941. The author is an historian with a graduate degree in naval affairs and was a US Navy submariner from 2014 to 2019. He defines this “microhistory” as a collage that is equal parts biography, military history, cultural history, and local history. His research draws upon military personnel files and reports to tell the story of Breault’s military career and his heroic action that resulted in his Medal of Honor. Walker utilizes newspaper articles, census data, and Hollywood films to set Breault’s life in the larger scope of American society and culture in the 1920s and 1930s.

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Walker’s “microhistory” unfolds over eleven chapters. It begins with an overview of the navy’s commemoration of Petty Officer Breault’s heroism and addresses the overall neglect of enlisted personnel in naval history. The book chronicles the history of the Medal of Honor and U.S. Navy during the interwar years. The author tells of Breault’s early life as a French-Canadian in New England and service in the Royal Navy’s Canadian Volunteer Corps during the Great War. He likely witnessed the horrible aftermath of the 1917 munitions explosion in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Breault enlisted in the U.S. Navy after the war and “saw the world” as a submariner in the Caribbean and South Atlantic in the 1920s. Walker dedicates a chapter to sorting through numerous accounts of Breault’s rescue of a shipmate during a submarine accident in 1923 for which Congress awarded him the Medal of Honor. Breault’s naval career continued through the 1930s in the Far East. Subsequent chapters cover Breault’s failed attempts at promotion, court martial for missing muster, and health problems causing his death two days before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

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Medal of Honor Citation

Torpedoman Second Class Henry Breault

For heroism and devotion to duty while serving on board the U.S. submarine 0-5 at the time of the sinking of that vessel. On the morning of 28 October 1923, the 0-5 collided with the steamship Abangarez and sank in less than a minute. When the collision occurred, Breault was in the torpedo room. Upon reaching the hatch, he saw that the boat was rapidly sinking. Instead of jumping overboard to save his own life, he returned to the torpedo room to the rescue of a shipmate who he knew was trapped in the boat, closing the torpedo room hatch on himself. Breault and Brown remained trapped in this compartment until rescued by the salvage party 31 hours later.

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Walker pieces together Breault’s personal relationships with family and friends despite scant sources and makes honest assessments concerning his shortcomings as a husband and father. He uses Breault and his shipmates to provide a glimpse into the everyday experiences of enlisted personnel in the navy in the 1920s and 1930s, including global travel, material/consumer culture, hygiene, tattoos, and sex. The author admits to drawing his own conclusions about many unknown aspects of Breault’s life and personality for the sake of constructing this mosaic narrative. This confession captures the essence of “microhistory,” where the individual, their deeds, and the overall world around them share equal significance. Walker’s book is an absorbing tale of the navy’s only enlisted submariner to receive the Medal of Honor and demonstrates the value of exploring military figures beyond their military careers.

Jeffrey LaMonica

Who Was Rufus Isaacs? And What Did He Do During the Great War?

Rufus Isaacs (1860–1935)

On my shelf is a book titled Who's Who in World War One that claims to contain 1,000 entries on notables persons from the war. It's been very handy for me over the years but has no information about the gentleman shown above.  The Imperial War Museum identifies him as Lord Reading, Rufus Isaacs, First Marquess of Reading, Lord Chief Justice and Viceroy of India. His photo is included in the museum's collection which suggests he did, indeed, play a significant role in the Great War. One, however, has to do some additional digging to discover just what that might have involved. The first interesting fact this researcher discovered, though, is that the good lord was one of the principals in the prewar Marconi Scandal of 1912. More on that below.  Further research, made it clear to me that, in any case, he deserved an entry in the above mentioned work.

Born into a talented Jewish family engaged in the London fruit trade, Isaacs went on to become a brilliant Queen's Council, Member of Parliament, Knight, and Attorney General. For starters! A stalwart of the Liberal Party, he was trusted by Prime Minister Asquith and became  very close to  future P.M. David Lloyd George and his allies, like Winston Churchill.  

His succeeding—even more brilliant career—was almost sidetracked by his familial connection (through his brother, Godfrey) and his own financial ambitions to the infamous Marconi scandal. Despite being cleared in a parliamentary investigation dominated by Isaac's fellow Liberals, it was eventually shown that he had purchased shares in the American Marconi Company that had been made available through Isaacs's brother at a favourable price. As one Labor MP put it, there had been "scandalous gambling in Marconi shares." Nevertheless, his career rolled on as he was appointed as Lord Chief Justice of England in October 1913 and was raised to the peerage as Baron Reading of Erleigh. War came the following year and there was lots to keep him busy as public attention was drawn away from last year's scandal.

Second from the Right, Chief Justice Isaacs Joins
Lloyd George on a Visit to the Front

By August 1914, Lord Reading, Rufus Isaacs, the Lord Chief of Justice of England was a Reading resident, living at Foxhill House in Whiteknights. Following the outbreak of the war, he became increasingly involved in government finances by helping Lloyd George, then Chancellor of Exchequer, during the financial crisis that was brought about by the outbreak of the war.  In 1915 he went to the United States as president of the Anglo-French mission and secured a loan of $500 million. As Lord Chief Justice (1913–21), Isaacs presided over the trial for treason of the Irish patriot Sir Roger Casement (1916) and sentenced him to death.

He was to return to the U.S. in August 1917, this time as a special envoy with the object of persuading America to join the Allies. In the following spring he went for a third time and was central to convincing the American government to to integrate America's war effort (recall, the U.S. was an "Associated Power" not an "Ally" per se) more closely with that of the Allies, to prioritize the deployment of military supplies and shipping, and to grant regular credits for the duration of the war. Isaacs is credited with securing financing for the Allies to win the war.

Wearing the Ceremonial Robes of Viceroy of India

After the Armistice, Issacs became Viceroy of India, and, despite pursuing a conciliatory policy with forces for Independence there, he goes down in history as the man who imprisoned Mahatma Gandhi in 1922.  He did, however, reach the conclusion that self-rule for India was inevitable and made his views known at the highest circles.

On his return to England in April 1926, Isaac was granted the new title, the Marquess of Reading. He was the first commoner to rise to the rank of marquess since the Duke of Wellington. He refused to retire and held many diplomatic, business, and governmental posts, culminating with his appointment as Foreign Secretary. Rufus Isaacs died of heart disease on 30 December 1935. Despite his intense, relentless ambition, business dealings, and his involvement at the center of the Marconi affair, he remained popular throughout his career and, apparently, made few enemies.

Sources:  The Reading Museum; Spartacus Educational; Wikipedia; Imperial War Museum; TwelveYearHistory.com

War Inside a Little Village Church

Village Church, Marbotte France
St. Mihiel Sector

The village of Marbotte was situated just behind the southern boundary of the St. Mihiel Salient for almost four years. The French Corps command in the area converted the community's small church into a field hospital and, eventually a morgue. Nearby is a cemetery with 2,464 burials of Poilus who passed through the church. The cemetery contains a monument in honor of the 30,000 men who died in the surrounding area.

They were laid out in rows in the middle of the church, on the pavement between the pews. There are eight of them, nine, ten, eleven.  I shall not pass them by.  Their feet frighten me.  They are dead from head to foot.   

Paul Cazin "L'Humaniste a la guerre."

Deceased in the Church During the War

After the war, the church became a focal point of remembrance and funds were collected to replace the stained glass windows of the church with memorial panels honoring the events of 1914–1918. The windows and the great variety of unit and personal memorials make the church one of the most moving locations on the Western Front to visit. Left to right on top these examples depict: the episode of the "Trench of Thirst" in the nearby Bois d'Ailly where a French unit cut off without water was forced to surrender, and the "Arise-Ye Dead!" legend which occurred in the nearby Bois Brulé, when Adjutant Jacques Pericard stirred his wounded men to a stalwart defense against a German assault. Below is the window honoring the service of the church as a morgue. 

Marbotte Church Today