Drawn to Strife: Masters of American Literature and the Great War

 

By the Editors

Many of the outstanding literary figures of the United States were drawn to the war. Some found inspiration on the battlefield, some were repelled by the slaughter, a few experienced the worst of it, yet emerged—apparently—without any affect on their future work. Here are a few details about the most notable of them with some of their war-related titles:

 

 

                                                                  In Uniform: Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Hall

 

Hervey Allen, poet and novelist of historical fiction, was a lieutenant with the 28th Pennsylvania Division of the AEF and was gassed and wounded, subsequently suffering shell shock.
Toward the Flame, It Was Like This: Two Stories of the Great War.

James M. Cain, with other WWI vets Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Hemingway, a founding member of the "hard-boiled" school of fiction, served with the headquarters company of the 79th Division, AEF, and fought in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. His WWI story "The Taking of Montfaucon" appeared in the September 2007 issue of Over the Top.

Willa Cather, novelist, was inspired by reading her cousin G.P. Cather's wartime letters home to his mother. He was the first officer from Nebraska killed in World War I. Those letters are now held in the George Cather Ray Collection at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries.
Awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1923 for the war novel One of Ours, published in 1922.

e.e. cummings, novelist and poet, was a volunteer ambulance driver in France, and was later drafted into the U.S. Army. The Enormous Room, a modernist account of his internment on suspicion of espionage in France, is an enduring classic of war literature.

 John Dos Passos, novelist, was a volunteer & U.S. Army ambulance driver on the Western and Italian Fronts. One Man's Initiation, Three Soldiers, U.S.A. Trilogy, Mr. Wilson's War.

 William Faulkner, novelist, trained in Canada as an aviation cadet for the Royal Air Force.
His brief service in the RAF inspired his first published novel, Soldiers' Pay.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, novelist, commissioned in the 67th Infantry, but war ended before he shipped over. The exemplary author of the Lost Generation,  Fitzgerald continually returns to the war in his work. This Side of Paradise, Tender is the Night, The Great Gatsby.

James Norman Hall, prolific author in many genres who is best known for The Bounty Trilogy written with Charles Nordhoff, was a veteran of the British Army, in which he served as a machine gunner, the Lafayette Escadrille, and the U.S. Air Service. He finished the war as a POW.
Wrote three semi-autobiographical works covering his war experiences, Kitchener's Mob, High Adventure, and Flying with Chaucer. His history The Lafayette Flying Corps is one of twelve books he co-authored with Nordhoff.

Ernest Hemingway, novelist, Red Cross Volunteer on Italian Front. A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises, many short stories. 

Archibald MacLeish, poet, served with the Yale Mobile Hospital Unit, shifted to U.S. Field Artillery and commanded a battery in the Second Battle of the Marne and then became an instructor ordered stateside. Tower of Ivory, MacLeish's first collection, assembled while the poet was serving in the army, registers the disillusioning impact of World War I. "Memorial Rain" is a tribute to his brother Kenneth, who was killed in the war.

Carl Sandburg, poet and biographer, covered the war in neutral Sweden for the Newspaper Enterprise Association in 1918. Notable war poems—anti-war: "Iron" (1916), "Grass" (1918), "Planked Whitefish" (1919); pro-war: "The Four Brothers."

Gertrude Stein, poet, essayist and playwright, drove supply truck "Auntie" to supply French hospitals with partner Alice B. Toklas. Later said to Hemingway: "You are all a lost generation."
 

 

Gertrude Stein at the wheel of "Auntie," Alice standing alongside. The Ford Model T had been adapted into a supply van with an ambulance body. 

 

Edmund Wilson, critic and journalist, served in U.S. Army Intelligence. To the Finland Station, a study of revolutions from the French to the Russian.

 

Edith Wharton, novelist and correspondent, recipient of the French Legion of Honor for her philanthropic work during WWI. Wrote memoir, Fighting France (1916), and a novella, The Marne (1918), critical of U.S. slowness to enter the war.  

 

 

Thomas Wolfe, novelist, student at the University of North Carolina during the war. 

The low, grey clouds are drifting ‘cross the sky,
While here and there the little smoke puffs break,
And now and then the shrapnel bursts on high,
And growling guns their mighty thunder make.
A war-ripped field, with what a tale to tell
A tale to cause the souls of kings to quake,
For here, within a smoking, bloody Hell,
Ten million risk their lives for Freedom’s sake.
And to the right a ruined village burns,
And to the left a wood its secrets hold,
But in the gutted field the plowshare turns
A grinning skull which sneers its message bold. 
                                                                         November 1917

  

College student Thomas Wolfe, too young to take part in the war. 

An Extraordinary Historic Russian Coat from the Great War Era

This coat, in laudable condition, has survived since c. 1918/19 and now is preserved in the National WWI Museum and Memorial, Kansas City, MO. A few years ago, I was lucky enough to view and photograph it behind the scenes thanks to the graciousness of Doran Cart, former Senior Curator at the museum. 

It is purported to be a female machine gunner's coat, in service, given the insignia, of the Reds during the Russian Civil War.  It is smallish, which makes sense, and clearly made at least partly by hand. The gathered full lower skirt provides ample necessary room for movement. 

 

I have yet to understand the two yellow horizontal stripes' significance. Rank, correct? I welcome any insights or information. 

                                                                                Asst. Editor Kimball Worcester

 

 

Please visit and support the museum and memorial. It is an exceptional experience and a valuable historical resource. https://www.theworldwar.org/

The Battle of Charleroi, 1914

The Battle of the Frontiers in August and early September 1914 that witnessed the lightning advance of the German Army into Belgium and France culminated in the First Battle of the Marne (5–12 September), which ultimately prevented a German occupation of Paris. Under this wide strategic umbrella, the Battle of Charleroi—actually a series of separate engagements just east of Charleroi (22–23 August)—was foreordained by the fall of the Liège forts (5–16 August). Just to the east of Mons, where the BEF made a heroic if doomed stand, the French Fifth at Charleroi made a similar effort. However, these attempts to some degree held up the German juggernaut, buying time for what was to become the First Battle of the Marne. 

General Charles Lanrezac's Fifth Army retreat from the Charleroi zone on 23 August, after great losses on 22 August, can be seen as saving the French Fifth Army from encirclement. Joffre, however, saw it differently as a too cautious retreat and after the Battle of St. Quentin (29–30 August) chose to sack Lanrezac on 3 September. Joffre replaced him in command with General Franchet d'Espèrey for what was to become the First Battle of the Marne, wherein d'Espèrey's boldness exploited a gap between von Bülow's and von Kluck's armies and forced their retreat, for a second time saving the French Fifth Army, as well as Paris.  

                                                                                                                                            KW 

 

The Battles at Charleroi are known in Belgium as the Battles Entre-Sambre-et-Meuse

 

        Note here that the BEF is facing Mons and the Lanrezac's Fifth Army is at Charleroi.

 

 

            A confident and elegant General Louis Félix Marie François Franchet d'Espèrey

 

Sources: International Encyclopedia of the First World War; Wikipedia; Roads to the Great War

An Esoteric Collection of Great War Memorabilia: Pt. II—In and About the Trenches and Beyond

Welcome back to the Esoteric Collection. 

*An update from the front: Hanlon is pinned down at an undisclosed CCS by heavy artillery fire. Accordingly, we expect a delay in his return to editorial duty. His spirits are high, to be expected from the Good Soldier. When the barrage lifts, we will post further information. Thank you for bearing up under these wartime conditions at Roads to the Great War.*

 

 

Set of identification discs for U.S. soldier Robert Nichols. The term "dog tags" didn't enter common parlance until WWII, with the re-designed rectangular style. 

 

The classic French 75mm shell, re-fashioned as trench art commemorating battles at Rosières on the Somme ~ 

Note the aeroplane on the left. The outline appears to indicate a Taube design. 

 

The Very Special Princess Mary Box, Christmas 1914 ~

 

Paid for by public donations, these gifts from the Princess Royal, George V's only daughter, to the empire's servicemen and women contained a photo of the princess (as above), tobacco (for soldiers), chocolate (for nurses), and sweets and spices for colonial subjects who did not smoke. There was also a Christmas card, which has gone astray from my PM Box. The perimeter of the box reads, from top left clockwise: Belgium, Imperium Britannicum, Japan, Russia, Montenegro, Christmas 1914, Servia, France. 

 

 Blue Star family cards for prominent display in a  front window ~

 

 

 

    Two war medals from Spink & Son, Piccadilly.

    L: the Victory Medal, awarded to U.S. forces. Nike Athena on one side and "The Great War for Civilisation 1914–1919" on the other. 

 

    R: British War Medal, Silver or bronze medal awarded for 28 days of service between 1914 and 1920; features St. George on horseback trampling the Central Powers,  and on the other side King George V in profile.

 

The discharge document of my grandfather, Capt. Benjamin L. Agler, 4th Division ~

 

 

 

An Esoteric Collection of Great War Memorabilia: Pt. I—Souvenirs

Over the decades one tends to collect, or be given (even inherit), a variety of curiosities from the Great War. This Roads post visits some oddments I've come to enjoy, especially as I revisit them for this post. I look forward to your comments and hope you have your own oddments to share. 

                                                                                                        Asst. Editor Kimball Worcester 

 

 

 

 

 Liberty & Civilisation—Opposed to—Aggression & Barbarism

                                                                  In Freedom's Cause

 

                                                                         And Italy

 

                                Field Marshal The Right Honourable The Earl Kitchener, 

                                     KG, KP, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, PC

 

French Nursing Sister

5 mm high 

 

 

                                  Noteworthy carved commemorative frame with poppies and                                                            two photos of the Leaning Virgin of Albert that I inserted.                                                  Perhaps in France there would have been a photo of a son, brother, or husband                                             in 1914 and one from 1919 when he mercifully returned. 

 

 Two Tommies, Battle-Worn, Who Now Stand-to on My Staircase

8 mm high 

Memories from Ypres

 

Mechanical Pencil, 10.5 mm extended, 6.5 mm retracted 

This brooch comprises the coats of arms of the French Royal family (three fleur-de-lis topped by a crown) and that of Ypres (Cross of Lorraine above the Cross of Bailleul), separated by the British Royal Coat of Arms. (Interesting given that France was no longer a monarchy.) 

                                                                        3.5 x 3.5 mm 

 

Two examples of exquisite needlework on linen bags, made by Frenchwomen to raise money in America for the war effort. See https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object-groups/women-in-wwi/french-stitchery

 

 

Tomorrow, look for Pt. II—In and About the Trenches and Beyond

A Russian Women's Death Battalion at the Winter Palace, 24 October 1917

 

 

These two chapters from In a Women's Death Battalion: A Russian Nurse in Revolution and Civil War, 1917-1918 (Maria Bocharnikova; translation from the Russian by Kimball Worcester, 2021) are a participant's account, along with her battalion, of the "defense" of the Winter Palace during the October 1917 Bolshevik coup that solidified their lock on power and ushered in the Soviet 20th century. Women volunteers came from all over the country and various societal and professional positions, hoping to serve their homeland in wartime, and were caught up in the throes of the Eastern Front and the Russian Revolution and Civil War.  

 

    

Chapter 7: Parade in Palace Square

 

We were supposed to parade in front of the Winter Palace on 24 October. Lieutenant Somov decided we should excel and secretly drilled the company with bayonets upright.

 

We tidied up, washed, and wrote farewell letters home. Over the few days left before deployment, the battalion commander verified our knowledge. The battalion was drawn up in a field, and Company 1 performed all the maneuvers, fanned out in formation, made field runs covering each other, and went on the attack. Our commander was satisfied with the results of his preparations.

 

The 24th of October arrived. We loaded up in a train, with the scouts going on horseback, and moved out to Petrograd singing.

 

One of the wagons sang “Hey, You Lads!” with the spirited refrain “A, ha ha, a ha ha!” Another chose “Dust Rolls Along the Road,” a sad story of a Cossack orphan coming back from raiding. And from the third came the lively “O, the River Flows Along the Sand!” We shouted like roosters at dawn. At every stop passengers and personnel came out onto the platform to hear our singing. The lead singer Yatsullo had the voice of a nightingale. Once we got to Petrograd, we moved through the streets singing. “Oh, they sing well,” commented a soldier as we passed. 

 

And now Palace Square. Some regimental orchestra turned up, and the top brass were soon welcomed: a general (whose surname I don’t remember) with his staff and the war minister, Kerensky. We formed up in our platoon columns. The orchestra thundered out. Our 3rd platoon marched.

 

I stepped out from the middle of the platoon, and it lined up a little way with a point soldier up front, the brigade’s colors on her bayonet. “Eyes front!” I commanded. Bodies taut like wire. I stared straight ahead, afraid of losing our formation. I stomped in marching with such force that I was afraid that after the parade my feet would be like two pork chops. With a glance I measured the distance to the brass: five paces… A sharp turn with eyes right. According to regulations, I “devoured” them in my line of sight, although in my agitation I couldn’t see either their faces or even make out the figures. How not to be worked up! Till now the platoon was just drilling in a familiar place under the gaze of cats passing by on the roof! Here, though—we’re in front of our commanders and a thousand spectators.

 

On the eve of the parade, we received a message that the “comrades” (the Bolsheviks) wanted to come mess us up. We went to the parade fully loaded and safeties off, just in case. We had our pockets and pouches full of cartridges. The lieutenants ordered: “In the event of an attack first shoot into the air, then—at the attackers.”

 

We made our second pass. The lieutenant commanded: “Present arms!” The company marched, bayonets bristling upward. What can I say? It was an awesome sight! How could our enemies not take to their heels in fear to save their lives!

 

And then? The 1st Company was sent right to the train station, and ours was led right shoulders forward back to the square. We saw that the whole battalion, walking in ceremonial march, had also followed the 1st Company to the station. The square had emptied. They ordered us to stack our rifles. A rumor was about that at a factory, (Nobel, it seems) the workers were rioting, and we were being sent there to requisition gasoline. Dissatisfied voices could be heard: “Our job is at the front, not messing around with civil disorder.” A command rang out: “Shoulder arms!” We took up our rifles and were led to the palace gates.

 

 

Chapter 8: Fighting in the Winter Palace

 

 

The Cossacks refused to defend the Winter Palace and they left on 25 October, passing on their machine guns to the Junkers [officer candidates] . Passing through a courtyard, I saw a Junker walking with his sabre drawn, near the arsenal, the Mikhailovsky Artillery School.

 

The company was sent to some luxurious apartments with windows overlooking Palace Square. They said these were Catherine the Great’s rooms. Cartridges were distributed; the new casings shone like gold. Almost everyone tucked away one or two—for a memento.

 

We sat ourselves on the floor, clutching our rifles. No one wanted to sit on the furniture, fearing we would stain them with our greatcoats. Later we were indignant when we found out that soldiers who had sliced up the silk and velvet upholstery blamed it on us.

 

On my way to supper, I saw Junkers standing around and sitting on the floor. For now, it was quiet, but we knew we were stationed there to defend the Winter Palace.

 

Night brought no changes at all. The Volunteers sat up, rifles at hand ready for the first order into battle. Several times I went and crouched by the glass, straining to see anything. Not one movement was visible. The lieutenant warned us: “After the order to open fire, put something soft on the glass and push it out!”

 

The Mikhailovsky Artillery School had been taken over in deception by a commissar who had gone over to the Bolsheviks. On the 25th, Commissar Abram Gundovsky had snuck into the palace, having persuaded the Junkers to leave. He was arrested but then released.

 

On the night of the 24th–25th, the armored cars abandoned the Winter Palace. Only one was left behind, whose magneto the soldiers had thrown away. Some shock workers stole into the palace from the train station. We heard that amongst them was a female warrant officer.

 

On the evening of the 24th, headquarters summoned units from the front, but the Smolny (Bolshevik headquarters) summoned the Kronstadt sailors. The entire fleet entered the Neva (several thousand sailors). The sailors landed near the Nikolaevsky Bridge and from there led the attack on the Winter Palace. Headquarters ordered the bridges (Liteyny, Troitsky, Nikolaevsky) disengaged in order to cut off the workers’ regions from the city center. This was done, but at three o’clock the workers and Red army soldiers took them back. At night the cruiser Aurora was ordered to the Nikolaevsky Bridge (still in the Junkers’ hands) to seize it, which it accomplished.

 

                                     Nikolaevsky Bridge During Wartime Petrograd

I heard all these accounts three years later from Mr. Zurov, who wrote A History of the Russian Revolution, to which I contributed some accounts of the Women’s Battalion. Now I return to my personal memories.

 

At nine in the evening of 25 October 1917, we received the order to go out to the barricades the Junkers had erected in front of the Winter Palace. At the gates a streetlight burned high above the ground. “Junkers, put out that light!” Stones flew, and the glass shattered with a crash. Another stone extinguished the light. Total darkness. It was difficult even to see one’s neighbor. We spread out to the right behind the barricade, mixing in with the Junkers. As we later found out, Kerensky had secretly left looking for the bicycle brigades, leaving behind the minister Konovalov and Dr Kishkin, but the bicycle brigades had already “turned red” and participated in the attack on the palace. Between eight and nine o’clock, the Bolsheviks presented an ultimatum for surrender, which was refused.

 

At nine o’clock, a huge shout of “Urraah!” broke out in front, and the Bolsheviks attacked. In one minute, there was tumult everywhere. Rifle and machine gun fire traded off. The Aurora’s guns thundered. We and the Junkers, standing behind the barricade, answered with rapid fire. I glanced right and left. Continuous bursts of light broke out, just like the flickering of hundreds of fireflies. Sometimes the silhouette of a head could be made out. The attack stalled. The enemy hit the ground. The firing quieted, then flashed up with a new strength.

 

Taking advantage of the quiet, I raised my voice a bit and asked:

“4th Platoon, any cartridges left?”

“Yes, enough!” came the voices from the dark.

“There’s life in the old dog yet! Cossacks remain strong!” rang out the merry voice of some Junker.

 

They were shooting at us from the General Staff Building, the Pavlovsky Barracks, and the palace gardens. The district headquarters surrendered. A group of sailors made their way through Hermitage into the Winter Palace, where there was more shooting. At eleven o’clock, artillery started up. The Junkers had some wounded, and we had one killed.

 

Having served subsequently for two-and-a-half years as company sergeant in the 1st Kuban Rifle Regiment, I’ve seen a lot of fighting that left indelible impressions on my entire life, but this first battle, which we fought in complete darkness, not knowing the layout and our enemies invisible, didn’t leave me with the appropriate impression. There was no retreat—we were surrounded. It didn’t enter our heads that the leaders could order us to lay down our weapons. Was there any fear? I would say, as before, in our maneuvers for hours in the forest, our awareness of our duty killed it off. From time to time, a sharp apprehension seized us. It was easier during the shooting. In moments of quiet, when I imagined the final hand-to-hand fighting and someone’s bayonet stuck in my stomach splicing it like a watermelon—that, I confess, makes my spine run cold. I hoped that the cup would pass me by and that I deserved an easy death—from a bullet. Death didn’t frighten us. We all considered it happy to give our lives for our Motherland.

 

“Women’s Battalion—get back to the building!” came down the line. We went into the courtyard, and the huge gates were shut with a chain. I was sure that the entire company was inside. But from Mr Zurov’s letters I found out from [other] participants in the fighting that the 2nd Company was defending the door. Even when the Junkers had lain down their weapons at the barricade, the women Volunteers were holding fast. How the Reds broke through and what happened, I don’t know. 

 

                         Bolshevik Forces Taking the Winter Palace, 24 October 1917
 

 

We were brought to an empty room on the second floor. “I’m going to find out our next orders,” said the company commander, heading for the door. He didn’t come back for a long time. The shooting quieted down. A lieutenant appeared in the doorway, his face gloomy. “The palace has fallen. Our orders are to lay down arms.” The funereal ring of his words intoned in our souls…

 

See https://roadstothegreatwar-ww1.blogspot.com/search?q=Bocharnikova for Michael Kihntopf's review of the book.