The Buddies Memorial of Jaffrey, New Hampshire — A Roads Classic

By Mark Levitch, Founder and President
World War I Memorial Inventory Project

The Buddies Memorial Today

Of the hundreds of World War I memorial sculptures across the country, none has a more compelling origin story than Buddies—a deep relief of a soldier carrying a wounded comrade by Danish-born sculptor Viggo Brandt-Erichsen.

While working in Paris in the 1920s, Brandt-Erichsen married Dorothy Caldwell, a wealthy American who had spent summers in Jaffrey.  Both Caldwell and their newborn daughter died soon after the child’s birth, but before she died, Caldwell had asked to be buried in Jaffrey.  The sculptor crossed the ocean with his loved ones’ ashes and spent nearly two years carving an elaborate marker for his wife and daughter in the town’s Old Burial Ground. He quickly became a beloved figure in town.

The Boulder Being Transported to the Jaffrey Town Common, 1928

In 1928, Brandt-Erichsen proposed to create—gratis—a massive World War I memorial relief for the town.  A partly buried but suitable 40-ton boulder was located a mile west of downtown; it took six weeks to transport it on rollers over frozen ground to the town common, where it was placed behind a World War I honor roll that had been erected in 1919.  Volunteers constructed a rough shack around the boulder to protect the sculptor from the elements as he worked.

Sculptor Viggo Brandt-Erichsen at the Dedication, 11 November 1930

Brandt-Erichsen worked with an electric chisel and hand tools for two years to complete the relief. He used two local World War I veterans (both of whom are listed on the honor roll) as models. The eight-foot-tall standing soldier carries his wounded comrade even as he aims a pistol gripped in his right hand.  The memorial’s title is engraved at its base: Buddies. 

The completed memorial was dedicated on Armistice Day, 1930. Featured speakers included the governor and General Clarence Edwards, commander of the 26th (Yankee) Division, in which most of the Jaffrey men had served. Mrs. Carrie Humiston, the mother of the only Jaffrey soldier to be killed in action, unveiled the monument before an estimated crowd of 7,000.

Crowd at the Dedication Ceremony, 11 November 1930

The memorial is not an unqualified success aesthetically. The figures are ponderous and somewhat awkwardly proportioned. But what it lacks in polish is more than made up for in sincerity. 

The Pre-1914 Fear of Aerial Bombardment

Battle of Coloquintos, Albert Robida, 1880

Strategic bombing of cities and civilians by aerial means was not a new concept in 1914. Beginning with the Montgolfièr experiments with manned flight in 1783, the possibility of using balloons and eventually heavier-than-air machines for military use was envisioned. Initially used as observation posts and artillery spotters, the idea of using airships and aircraft offensively soon found enthusiasts. It was not until the advent of the internal combustion engine, however, that the potential of aerial bombardment from a controlled platform became realistic. In an 1893 letter to the chief of staff of the German Army, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, developer of the rigid airship that would bear his name and theorist on strategic bombing, wrote that his machine could perform not only observation and transport roles, but also “bombard enemy fortifications and troop formations with projectiles.”

Original Publication in 1908

In popular literature and science fiction, the inevitability of airships cruising over cities and dominating future warfare was a popular topic by the late 19th century. Jules Verne, no stranger to prescient fiction, wrote in his 1887 story "Clipper in the Clouds" about an aerial battle between two airships loosely resembling the German dirigibles of the First World War. However, it was H.G. Wells who envisioned the strategic bombing of population centers in the future. In his 1908 novel The War in the Air, Wells described a scene in which a fleet of German airships bombed New York City, eerily predicting the fear and terror felt by the public in London and Paris during the Great War. As the historian Lee Kennett argued, so profound and persuasive at capturing public attention was this type of futuristic literature around the turn of the century, that by the time reliable airships and aircraft finally appeared en mass, “extravagant and impossible things would sometimes be expected of them.” During the war, dirigibles and aircraft were seen as an extension of scientific advancement akin to other innovations such as submarines, machine guns, tanks, and poison gas.

Apocalyptic Landscape 3, Ludwig Meidner, 1913

So profound were the concerns over the possibility of airborne bombardment, even before the technology to accomplish such a task was near ready, politicians throughout Europe and the United States attempted to regulate aerial warfare. The 1899 Hague Convention, proposed by Russian Tsar Nicholas II in an attempt to regulate armaments and warfare, passed a resolution “agree[ing] to prohibit, for a term of five years, the launching of projectiles and explosives from balloons, or by other new methods of similar nature.”

Russian Lithograph, 1914, Artist Unidentified

Although tactical aerial bombing in support of combat operations was employed as far back as 1911 when Italian airplanes dropped the first bombs in combat on Turkish forces in Libya, 1914 saw the first strategic use of bomber aircraft to “strike at the very foundation of the enemy’s war effort—the production of war material, the economy as a whole, [and] the morale of a civilian population.” A few days after the beginning of the First World War, German pilots dropped a few small bombs on Paris in August 1914. In October of that year, the British achieved the first substantial strategic success when one airplane destroyed a zeppelin airship in its shed at Dusseldorf, Germany. By December 1914 the Germans were dropping bombs directly on England.

Source: Christopher Warren, Air & Space Power, Issue #3, 2018

A Memorable Episode from a Gold Star Mothers Pilgrimage

A Depression-Era Story of 

Mourning, Motherhood, and Grandiosity

By Lisa M. Budreau

On Memorial Day 1930, Mrs. Mathilda Burling of New York stood before the headstone of her son, Private George B. Burling, Jr, at grave 17, row 29, at the St. Mihiel American Cemetery in Thiaucourt, France. Burling, an imposing matriarch in a cloche hat and glasses, savored the realization that her decade-long struggle to persuade the government to ensure the right of Gold Star mothers to stand before the graves of their sons had indeed succeeded beyond all expectations. She had earned this sweet victory, but just five minutes later, she turned and walked away.

The journey to her son’s grave had been arduous. By the time the Armistice was signed in 1918, thousands of young American men had died in Europe. Shortly after U.S. entry into the Great War the Army announced that the dead would remain temporarily buried in Europe, until after hostilities ended, when bodies would then be repatriated. As the nation searched for a modern way to mourn the sacrifices from this unpopular foreign war, the ongoing plight of the mothers of the dead became a major political saga that dragged out for another decade.

The full story of the pilgrimage of these “Gold Star Mothers” to Europe in 1930 has its quirky, amusing elements, but it reveals an unsettled side to American’s celebration of Memorial Day—born out of long-standing ambivalence about involvement in foreign wars, confusion about how to honor the dead, and a vexed desire to turn grief into glory.

Almost from the Armistice, organized groups of mothers pleaded for subsidized cemetery visits to Europe. By 1928 they had become pros at political maneuvering and social reform, agitation and publicity, initiating bipartisan appeals to legislators through massive letter-writing campaigns, and the manipulation of public opinion. Central to the lobbying effort was a group called the Gold Star Mothers, women named for the gold stars they wore on armbands and service flags in their homes. They were accorded greater recognition from society for having lost loved ones in war.

At last, in 1928, after numerous failed attempts, the legislation to pay for the Gold Star pilgrimages was put before Congress. While several Gold Star Mothers testified, the most aggressive rhetoric came from Mathilda Burling, who was generally known as pushy and presumptuous. While some women despised Burling’s methods, others were quick to praise her as the woman who had worked day and night for this bill. A self-promoter of the highest order, Burling claimed to have conceived the idea of the pilgrimage while simultaneously taking credit for organizing the original Gold Star Association—both untrue.

During the congressional hearing Burling did not hesitate to make jarring assertions like, “Our boys were murdered, they were not given a fair chance to fight in a patriotic way.” Generally, her commentary simply exploited patriotic motherhood ideals with unblushing forthrightness. “As a mother whose only child lies over there, and who is authorized to represent the Gold Star Mothers of America,” she began, “I can not believe that the Senate of my country will deny us the privilege of paying a visit to those holy graves of our heroic sons abroad.”

Burling’s impassioned claims were overzealous at best, but she spoke to something real—the country’s unfinished grief over the war dead. “Eleven long years have passed since my boy, who was only a child in years, gave his life for the defense of this country,” she said. “Each year I have lived in the hope that I would kneel before his grave.” Then, using maternalism to its fullest advantage, she wept while insisting that mothers had sacrificed more than widows. “It was our flesh and blood that enriched the foreign soil. After all, it was the mothers who had won the war.” On 2 March 2 1929, the notoriously frugal President Calvin Coolidge finally signed the pilgrimage legislation.

It was the job of the Army’s Quartermaster Corps, under the auspices of the War Department, to make all arrangements for nearly 7,000 women to travel to Europe in relatively luxurious accommodations between 1930 and 1933. At the height of the Depression, a team of professional officers managed the visits, ensuring the highest quality experience for all. Some mothers had never experienced hot and cold running water before reaching their hotel rooms. However, in keeping with Jim Crow era mores, black mothers traveled on separate ships and experienced less than equal accommodation.

Before setting sail, escorting officers were reminded that they had been selected for their superior judgment, common sense, and tact, but most of all, for their sobriety. Among the chosen was Lieutenant Colonel Stephen W. Winfree, an old-school cavalry officer with a preference for civilian attire, an eye for young women, and a thirst for highballs. Despite all their precautions, neither he nor the War Department was sufficiently prepared for mechanical failures and the late enrollment of one Mathilda Burling.

Mrs. Burling
(Sadly, the Editor was not able to locate a photo of Col. Winfree, in or out of uniform)

Burling’s son George had died of disease in 1918, while serving with the 53rd Coast Artillery Corps, but she decided to join the mothers and veterans’ reunion tour of the more illustrious 27th Division departing on 13 May. Though she was originally scheduled to travel with her own group, this unorthodox change—at the very last minute— would put her in France for the Memorial Day ceremonies. The 27th Division was one of only two American military units to serve with the British during the Great War. Burling could not help but be lured by the full itinerary, which included London, Brussels, and Paris and of course more excitement and media attention.

But just as the reunion voyage prepared to sail out of New York Harbor, an accident aboard another vessel required more Gold Star pilgrims to relocate onto the SS Republic with the women and veterans of the 27th Division. All were asked to share cabin space. It was not long before bickering began aboard the crowded ship with many questioning the presence of the overbearing Burling. The group would be known hereafter by the military organizers as “Party B.”

Colonel Winfree freely admitted that he was in the habit of handling horses and men, not women, but he must have had more serious concerns after being warned that the trip could be troublesome and that Mrs. Burling was a “woman politician” who could be a “nuisance.” There was friction as Party B traveled from France to England and Belgium. Still, he could not have gauged the extent of trouble awaiting him when Burling and a fellow passenger found Winfree enjoying himself with a young lady friend at the hotel bar one night just before the ship’s return to the U.S.

When Burling asked the colonel why he was not wearing his uniform, he replied sarcastically, “What do you want me to do, wear the uniform and look like a porter and carry the mothers’ pocketbooks and handbags?” An argument followed and Winfree, who had clearly had more than a few drinks, insisted that the older women be a “sport” and join the party, according to transcripts of Burling’s later testimony. Then Winfree yelled, “I’d give anything to take you out one night and get you tight, too; come on, have a highball. You are a little virgin, a little white lily; I’d like to get you tight just to see what you would do.” As an afterthought, he added, “And, further, I don’t even know whether you have a boy over here or not!”

Within weeks of the group’s return to the United States, Winfree was forced to defend himself in a military investigation. Burling’s testimony was devastating for the colonel, who was relieved of duty that summer. In his defense, the outspoken cavalry officer had voiced what some in the military had previously only dared to allude to in their private memoranda. Theirs was an organization in crisis, an army in limbo, subjected to relentless fiscal cuts, which meant under-staffing and slow promotions. It was said that military units had to beg outside local sources for office supplies and even the daily ration of toilet paper was limited to three sheets for each soldier. Yet, while the military struggled, the indulgences and approbation shown the Gold Star Mothers were flaunted before the nation.

Winfree denied all charges against him but in doing so, ultimately exposed Burling’s greatest weakness—her “motherhood.” He told investigators that when at last she reached St. Mihiel American Cemetery, the aim of her life’s work, Burling stood less than five minutes before the grave of her son because she was eager to attend a reception at another cemetery. She became indignant at Winfree’s refusal to allow her to leave for what promised to be a more high-profile event. With hostility and impatience, Burling informed Winfree that this grave was, after all, only that of her stepson.

Party B Ready to Depart

Mathilda Burling, whose political abilities had previously helped bring the pilgrimage legislation to fruition, was, by unanimous vote, dropped from Gold Star Mothers membership for “disloyalty” in 1931, still owing two years’ back membership dues.

[Editor's Note:]  Mathilda must have made a comeback of sorts. In searching for photos, I found later images of her laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and shaking President Harry Truman's hand in 1947.  She must have caught up on her dues.]

Source: From the Smithsonian  and Arizona State University Series "What It Means to Be an American."

Who Was General Ivor Maxse?

General Sir Frederick IvorMaxse,
K.C.B., C.V.O., D.S.O. (1862–1958)

General Sir Frederick Ivor Maxse was born 22 December 1862 in London, educated at Rugby, and, after passing through Sandhurst,  was commissioned into the Royal Fusiliers on 9 September 1882.  He joined his regiment in India—despite being a short man—soon made a mark with his energy, intelligence and pugnaciousness.

On 23 May 1891 Maxse exchanged into the Coldstream Guards. After short service in Scotland, Ireland, and Malta he was selected in 1896 by Colonel Kitchener to serve as a Bembashi (Major) in the Egyptian Army. Shortly afterward, he was given command of the 13th Sudanese Battalion and led them through the battles of Atbara and Omdurman and on to Fashoda with Kitchener.

At the outbreak of the Boer War and through the intervention of Kitchener he was assigned to transport duty under Lord Roberts and remained through the occupation of Pretoria. There he was named Commissioner of Police.

In November 1900, he was posted to the War Office in the Department of Mobilization. In 1903, he took command of the 2nd Battalion of the Coldstream Guards. In August 1910, he took command of the 1st Guards Brigade at Aldershot.

Maxse Decorating Men of the 51st Highland Division, 1917

In August 1914, Maxse took the 1st Guards Brigade to France. He was promoted to Major-General in October 1914 and later took command of the 18th Division. The 18th Division took part in the Battle of the Somme and later captured Thiepval and the Schwaben Redoubt.  His innovative training methods, in which the inculcation of of independence and initiative in junior officers and NCOs was paramount, contributed to these successes.

At the beginning of 1917, Maxse took command of the XVIII Army Corps and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general. After performing well throughout the 1917 campaign,  the XVIII Corps fared poorly in the Fifth Army's retreat in March 1918. In April 1918, Maxse was relieved and named Inspector-General of Training in France. He considered this reassignment as a badge of failure even though he was widely considered the best troop trainer of the war.

In May 1919, Maxse was given command of the Northern Command and remained at York until his final promotion to general, in 1923. He retired in 1926 and died at a Midhurst nursing home on 28 January 1958. An open-minded man, full of ideas and appreciative of others, it's somewhat ironic that this outstanding officer was—apparently—the inspiration for "the cheery old card" of Siegfried Sassoon's poem "The General."

Sources: WWI Document Archive; Who's Who in World War One

 

Cambrai: 1918 and a Century Later

Click on Imageto Enlarge

Damaged Areas and Cities of France, 1914–1918

Countless communities of northern France suffered devastating damage during the Great War.  The map above shows the intensity of damage in various sectors.. In the green areas villages escaped most damage, in the red ("devastated") regions in some cases they were simply abandoned.  Towns and cities of the occupied area, however, needed to be rebuilt no matter how serious the wartime destruction. There were strong historic and economic reasons for a large community to exist at a particular location. After the war, efforts to rebuild the cities, make the roads and infrastructure functional, bring back any evacuated citizenry, and resume commerce and normal daily life had to begin immediately. Of course, each city presented challenges particular to it.  In 2019 we looked at the rebuilding of St. Quentin HERE. In this article, we look farther north at the town of Cambrai.

Cambrai 1918

Located in the Nord Department of France, near the Belgian border, the town of Cambrai (population today: 32,000) was partly destroyed during the First World War but was beautifully rebuilt. Occupied by the German Army, it was the site of two major battles fought in and around the town. The First Battle of Cambrai (20 Nov.–3 Dec. 1917)—notable for the first mass use of tanks in battle—caused the first wave of intense damage, mostly due to British Artillery. The Second Battle of Cambrai (8–10 Oct. 1918) caused similar damage in the center of the town and the northern area where German rear guard action against the Canadian troops charged with securing the town was the firmest. With the retreat of the German forces and the continued pursuit by the Canadians, the center of Cambrai was a ghost town and its residential districts suffered scattered, but serious, damage.

Cambrai: 21st Century

Restored Residential Street

Restored City Hall

New Art Deco Building

Chamber of Commerce Building

New Plaza "Octobre 1918"

A new town, however, quickly rose from the embers. A 1919 law required disaster-stricken towns with more than 10,000 inhabitants to adapt a plan for reconstruction within three years. The architect Pierre Leprince-Ringuet was given the job of rebuilding the town. He and his colleagues, Germain Marc Debré and Jacques Debat-Ponsan, gave Cambrai new squares and streets, concentrated the administrative buildings and shops in specific areas, and designed a new town hall. They proposed an architectural mixture of the traditional and local with a modernistic approach characterized by geometric lines and stylized patterns known as Art Deco. His most honored design contribution was the Art Deco Chamber of Commerce in collaboration with Ernest Herscher. Their Cambrai project was completed by 1930, although much construction that ensued around the city followed their guidelines. Today the architecture in Cambrai’s center is a mixture of traditional regional styles and the more modern concept of Art Deco.

The First World War: To Arms.

By Hew Strachan

Oxford University Press, 2001.

Geoffrey Wawro, Naval War College, Reviewer

Professor Hew Strachan
(WFA Photo)

What began as a single-volume replacement of Oxford University Press’s long-running World War I survey (A History of the Great War, by C. R. M. F. Cruttwell [1934]) has, in Hew Strachan’s hands, burgeoned into three mammoth volumes, of which this is the first. The second, we are told, will cover the years 1915 and 1916 and will be called No Quarter. The third and final volume, entitled Fall Out (reader be warned that the first volume has been in the making since 1989), will pick up in the winter of 1916 and push through to the end of the war.

Since this first volume alone runs to 1,127 pages, readers will want to know how this book differs from an already crowded field. The answer is that it looks at topics—origins, war planning, tactics, munitions crises, morale—in a broad comparative context. No blundering great power is unfairly singled out. As is obvious from the subtitle, the book is about the origins of the war, mobilization, and opening campaigns. To rephrase what has already been written many times over by battalions of historians is no easy task, but Strachan rises to the challenge. Better yet, he works through all the latest literature in English, French, and German to provide the most up-to-date interpretation of the war’s outbreak. 

In common with most historians, Strachan points to the shakiness of the German Empire and its nervous quest for status and security as the main causes of the war. A chief abettor was Austria-Hungary, whose own military had become so enfeebled by the continuous Vienna-Budapest budget skirmishes that war in 1914 appeared the only way to rally the monarchy behind a much-needed program of rearmament. Similar calculations prevailed in Russia, where the tsar hoped that mobilization in defense of Serbia would heal political wounds and stop a politico-economic strike wave that had escalated from 222 strikes in 1910 to 3,534 in the first half of 1914. France and Great Britain appear more benign; Strachan concludes from the most recent French scholarship that there was no real war fever in France—révanche was a slogan of certain pressure groups. Britain was hamstrung between its fleet and “continentalists” clustered around General Henry Wilson.

Strachan’s analysis of the competing war plans is excellent. Regarding the Schlieffen Plan, he describes Moltke the Younger’s growing unease with the seven-to-one ratio set by Albert von Schlieffen to overweight the “right hook” through Belgium and Holland that would envelop a French thrust into Lorraine. Although Wilhelm Groener and B. H. Liddell Hart later blasted Moltke for his timidity—he reduced the ratio of troops on the right wing to those on the left to three to one—Strachan points out that “an army would [not] behave as a united mass, gaining impetus on its right specifically from the weakness of its left,” for an army “is a combination of individuals and not a weight obeying the laws of physics.” 

That is precisely the point: the Schlieffen Plan was undone not by its relative weighting but by inadequate transport and insoluble problems of supply. Each German corps required 24 kilometers of road space, and there was just not enough of that on the right wing once the Belgians tore up their railways and Holland was foreclosed as a corridor. Add to this the fact that no fewer than 60 percent of German trucks had broken down by late August 1914, and it is easier to explain the German floundering at the Marne. There was also the small problem of French resistance. Having begun the war with tactics that were notoriously “perplexed by the problems of firepower,” the German army faced French forces, commanded by Field Marshal J. J. C. Joffre, that hacked five entire German corps to pieces in the last week of August and the first week of September 1914.

Strachan’s larger analysis of this Battle of the Marne is interesting. The German high command’s initial response to the defeat— Moltke and 32 other generals were dismissed—was to blame individuals, “to make the debate about operational ideas, not about grand strategy.” In fact, the Marne was a strategic failing that should have discredited the kaiser and his army, which “had failed to succeed in its prime role.” Yet there was no healthy introspection or self-assessment; the imperial army would simply hammer away for another four years.

In contrast to the Western Front, hammering seemed to work in the East, where the Germans shattered the Russians at Tannenberg and the Austro-Hungarians achieved some early successes in Galicia. However, there too the war stagnated for logistical reasons; with Germany committed on the Western Front and Russia’s strength divided by French demands for an attack on East Prussia, it was difficult to mass troops and artillery anywhere on the Eastern Front, and yet more difficult to move them, given the poverty of communications.

Although the production of this three-volume history of World War I will take far longer than the Great War itself took to fight, readers willing to enter the trenches with this first volume will be rewarded with a kaleidoscopic and elegantly written presentation of the great issues and problems raised by the war’s origins, campaigns, and home fronts.

Originally published in the Naval War College Review, Autumn 2002

Remembering a Veteran: Brigadier (Later Field Marshal) Sir Thomas Blamey, Australian Imperial Force

General Blamey During World War II

By James Patton

Thomas Albert Blamey GBE, KCB, CMG, DSO CStJ, ED (1884 –1951) was born into a farming family of modest means near Wagga Wagga in the Riverina country of New South Wales. He was from a chapel family and a grammar school boy; he became a teacher and a lay preacher at age 16. From these humble beginnings, he rose to become the first (and to date the only) Australian army officer to reach the rank of field marshal. 

A school cadet, in 1906 he was commissioned in the militia, in 1908 he transferred to the regulars and in 1910 was promoted to captain.

In 1911 he was the first Australian up to that time to pass the entrance examination for the staff college. He was sent to the Indian Army Staff College at Quetta (present-day Pakistan), rather than to Camberley in the UK. He completed the course with high marks in 1913, and was assigned to the staff of the Kohat Brigade in India, then sent to England in May 1914 to serve with the Wessex Division. He was promoted to major in July, then after the war began he joined the staff of 1st Australian Division in Egypt. 

Blamey landed at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. While in his first stint at Gallipoli he got a Mention in Dispatches for leading a daring but unsuccessful raid against a Turkish artillery position, and he played a key role in the development of the periscope rifle. In July he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and was returned to Egypt to help form the 2nd Australian Division, returning to ANZAC in October. 

He proved to be a consummate staff officer, like the American Gen. George C. Marshall. On the Western Front, he became Chief of Staff of the 1st Australian Division. His battle plan led to the bloody but successful capture of Pozières. In June 1918, he was promoted to brigadier and became Chief of Staff of the Australian Corps, serving as Lt. Gen. Sir John Monash’s right-hand man. Monash later wrote this: 

"He possessed a mind cultured far above the average, widely informed, alert and prehensile. He had [an] infinite capacity for taking pains. A Staff College graduate, but not on that account a pedant, he was thoroughly versed in the technique of staff work, and in the minutiae of all procedure. He served me with an exemplary loyalty, for which I owe a debt of gratitude which cannot be repaid. Our temperaments adapted themselves to each other in a manner which was ideal. He had an extraordinary faculty for self-effacement, posing always and conscientiously as the instrument to give effect [to] my policies and decisions. Really helpful whenever his advice was invited, he never obtruded his own opinions, although I knew that he did not always agree with me."

Blamey at the End of the Great War

After the war Blamey became the Deputy Chief of the Australian General Staff, going to London as Australia's representative on the Imperial General Staff. In 1925 he was passed over for the chief’s job, which went to Gen. Sir Harry Chauvel (1865–1945), the famed light horseman.  

Seeing no future prospects, Blarney transferred to the militia and became Victoria's Commissioner of Police. He modernized the police in several ways but was considered confrontational, violent, and ruthless. His tenure was dogged by controversy; in 1936 was forced to resign after having lied to protect one of his senior officers. During his time in the militia, he was promoted to major general, commanded the 3rd Australian Division, and led a recruitment campaign in 1938 that nearly doubled the ranks of the militia.  

Blamey (third from left) on the USS Missouri,
2 September 1945

At the start of the Second World War he was given command of the new 6th Division. In 1940 he became commander of the Australian Corps which was serving in North Africa. Despite a mixed performance, due in large part to the British determination to dissipate his forces and the misguided attempt to defend Greece, in December 1941 he was promoted to general, at that time the fourth Australian to reach that rank. 

In March 1942, he returned to Australia to be the Commander-in-Chief of the Australian Military Forces and then, serving under the American General Douglas MacArthur, Blarney became commander of all Allied land forces in the southwest Pacific theater. Basing himself on the front at Port Moresby, Blamey planned and executed a series of successful offensives.  Favored by MacArthur, who had the ears of both President Roosevelt and the prime minister, and resented by many senior Australian officers, Blamey encountered challenges, and fired several senior officers on MacArthur’s orders.

Late in the war he was criticized when the Australians incurred significant casualties in mopping-up operations against long-bypassed Japanese units. He was also notorious for drinking and womanizing and his failure to stand up for his subordinates prompted one historian to write that he was "the foremost Australian General of World War II but he will never be remembered as the greatest."

On behalf of Australia, Gen. Blamey signed the Japanese surrender on 2 September 1945. He then retired, receiving only his Buick staff car as a reward for his service (the Labor government didn’t believe in honors). 

After the election of 1949, his promotion to field marshal was put forth and announced on 8 June 1950. Since he was retired, he had to be recalled for one day in order to promote him. He was presented with his baton while in a hospital bed and died within the year. Today the Australian army recruit center is named Blamey Barracks and there is a statue in Melbourne which depicts him standing in a jeep rather than astride a horse. 

Melbourne Monument to Blamey

Source: Australian War Memorial

Lessons from the Boer War: Learned and Not Learned

Boer Irregulars at Ladysmith, 1899

By Major Jesse Burnette, U.S. Army

The Boer War (1899-1902) is yet another example of a war uninformed by much forethought about technology on the battlefield. The tightening grip of British imperialism over the South African Dutch settlers (referred to as Boers), whose ancestors had been in the area since 1652, can be cited as the bannered cause for war. The discovery of gold in greater South Africa served as the impetus for the British to increase their colonial efforts—annexing This print illustrates a battle in January 1871 between Prussian infantry (advancing from the left) and French forces (retreating to the right) in the Lisaine River valley with the Château de Montbéliard in the distance. Transvaal in 1877—much to the dismay of the resident Boers. The first Boer War of 1880-1881 saw the Boers gain their independence under Transvaal’s first president, Paul Kruger; however, the British had successfully isolated the Boers from the Indian Ocean by surrounding them with British colonies. On 11 October 1899, the Boers responded by invading British Natal which the British met with alacrity, thinking the war would be over by Christmas.

Wars seldom go as planned, and the Second Boer War was no exception. Professor Fransjohan Pretorius of the University of Pretoria in South Africa described the ebb-and-flow nature of the war: At first, set-piece battles prevailed throughout the campaign. The Boers besieged Ladysmith in Natal along with Kimberley and Mafeking in the Cape Colony against staunch British relief efforts over five months. The Boers used their advanced knowledge of the terrain to ambush and defeat British forces at Stormberg, Magersfontein, and Colenso by December 1899. However, Boer overt resistance crumbled when the British relieved Ladysmith, Kimberley, and other beleaguered garrisons. The British under General Lord Frederick Roberts had the Boers on the run. Many Boers  surrendered or were otherwise enticed to bandwagon with the British against Boer resistance, which selected the asymmetrical approach of attacking British supply lines. 

Lord Roberts’s infantry crosses the Zand River in South
Africa. Note the observation balloon in the background.

The guerrilla phase of the war pitted the British and the South African collaborators against the Boer “bitter-enders.” When General Herbert Kitchener succeeded Roberts as the British commander, he brought increasingly harsher methods. First, he instituted a deprivation policy to deny food and shelter to the bitter-enders, which entailed burning farms and crops. Second, and most controversial, Kitchener erected concentration camps to separate the guerrillas from their popular support. Both tactics eventually led to the war’s conclusion by 1902.

Britain’s lessons from the Boer War were mixed. On the one hand, the British overhauled their ability to wage a prolonged war with the creation of a chief of the general imperial staff along with enhanced organizational measures to both project and sustain a large force far from the British Isles in concert with increasing the sizes and numbers of the standard field guns  On the other hand, the central lesson from British setbacks during the war—that advances in modern weaponry favored the defender over the attacker—was discounted. Instead and counter-intuitively, the British doubled down on the decisiveness of the frontal attack and officially codified the tactic as the form of maneuver of choice in the 1912 Field Service Regulation. Nevertheless, it was high velocity and capacity, smokeless powdered rifles and machine guns used in concert with trenchworks that worked to the advantage of the defender, a fact that was replaced with the British myth that the Boers were simply better shots and more cunning than their British adversaries. The result was a more capable and empowered shepherd to lead the masses of ignorant sheep to the slaughter. 

Excerpted from: "From Appomattox to the Argonne: Appreciating a Changing World’s Impact on Readiness," Infantry, Summer, 2020

The Emergence of the American Field Service Ambulances

American Field Service Director A. Piatt Andrew and Future Director Stephen Galatti

The work of the American Field Service grew directly and organically out of the American Ambulance Hospital in Neuilly. Differences remained between those on its board who wished to concentrate on core hospital work and others who saw the practical value of a mobile service. (The "Ambulance" in the hospital title had the association in France more akin to that of a military hospital than an emergency vehicle.) But by late autumn 1914, its cars were allowed out into the field to serve regional hospitals.

The AFS became the largest of the volunteer ambulance services, expanding rapidly with the arrival at the turn of 1914/1915 of A. Piatt Andrew (1873-1936), a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury, who was to become the AFS director. Andrew extended the scope of his operation and eventually separated completely from the Ambulance Hospital in 1916. He developed the role of all the different volunteer corps in the field by persuading the French authorities in April 1915 to allow the volunteers of the three American services to function immediately behind frontline trenches in battlefield areas.

As such, units of 25 to 30 men and some twenty ambulances were each assigned to individual French divisions, becoming the divisions’ principal ambulance service. Separate camion truck supply units were added, also manned by volunteers. They were to serve with the French across the Western Front and, in the case of two units of the AFS, with the French Army of the Orient in the Balkans.

A principal source of recruitment for the services came from American colleges, with east coast Ivy League institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, and Cornell well represented plus west coast universities such as the University of California (Berkeley), and Stanford. The colleges alone contributed some 1,855 men to the American Field Service, aided in the U.S. by the recruitment efforts of Henry Sleeper (1878-1934), a friend of Piatt Andrew. AFS medical director Edmund Gros (1869-1942) also helped recruit AFS volunteers and others into the French legionnaire Lafayette Escadrille and Lafayette Flying Corps.

September 2023 World War I Battlefield Reconnaissance from Valor Tours, Ltd.

After being slowed down by the COVID fiasco, my old outfit Valor Tours, Ltd., has put together a terrific nine-day September package led by on-site resident guide Mike Grams.

Download the full brochure HERE.

Mike has developed an itinerary that includes stops at Belleau Wood & Château-Thierry, the St. Mihiel Salient, German & French Forts, Vedun, the Meuse-Argonne, Reims, Chemin des Dames, the Hindenburg Line, the Somme,  Cantigny, and the Armistice Glade.  

The Red Baron with his squadron mates after a
successful mission.

A special feature has been included for aviation buffs. On the final day of touring the group will follow the path of Manfred von Richthofen's last flight along the River Somme from take-off to his final (and fatal) crash site.

Trenches at Bois Brûlé. St. Mihiel Salient, where the 26th Yankee Division saw some of the earliest action by the AEF.

Mike asked that we pass on this message:

Come tour France with me, a resident of Verdun and St.Mihiel, and see the AEF and France from a really different perspective.  We will be staying at the Historic Chateau Hattonchatel, in the very heart of the St.Mihiel Salient! We will bring to life the battlegrounds you have read and heard about: Belleau Wood, the Meuse-Argonne, Verdun, Seichprey, and so much more.  This is the land of Rin Tin Tin, Sgt. Stubby, and Rags, where General Pershing, Patton, and MacArthur all squared off against Crown Prince Willhelm and General Max von Gallwitz, where Alvin York and Billy Mitchell made history.  I promise you a tour to be remembered.                                                       

Mike Grams

 

High Noon at Verdun: The Attack on Fort de Souville

Inside Fort de Souville Before the Big Battle

The Battle of Verdun—the longest struggle of the Great War—came to a head over two days in July 1916 at a site that neither the German or French general staffs might have anticipated.  After all, there were dozens of strongly fortified and critical positions scattered all around the highly fortified city of Verdun. Yet, in hindsight, it's quite understandable how Fort de Souville came to be that location.  

On the morning of 12 July a scattering of surprised German assault troops made it to the top of the fort and first beheld the object of their Kaiser and commanders ambitions, the reason that they had been fighting in one of the grimmest battles in history—Verdun on the River Meuse.  Certainly, they  immediately appreciated that the possession of such a dominating position meant certain victory for their nation's forces.  Alas though, they were soon driven off and France retained the enormously advantageous position.  Their own army would never mount another serious attack at Verdun and would spend the rest of  1916 on the defensive both here and on the Somme.

The Critical Fort

Souville Fort was built between 1875 and 1877 then reinforced in 1888 and 1889. It was part of the first project by General Séré de Rivières to fortify Verdun. More than a simple fort, Souville was a fortified massif overlooking the most important sectors of the potential battlefield.  It was equipped with a garrison of two infantry companies and artillery sections, a cavern shelter for an additional 300 men,  terraced fortress batteries, and armored observation posts.  All the positions were linked by deep protected tunnels.  Nearby was  a retractable turret for two 155mm cannon. 

During the 1916 battle, however, all the fort’s external structures were severely damaged by German artillery shells. The retractable turret was unusable after only 11 days; one of the two tubes exploded after having shot 600 shells from 24 February to 6 March. 

Map Showing Opening Attack Line of 23 June and
Final Line of 12 July

In May and June, the fort suffered devastating bombardments from 380 and 420mm cannons, ruining all its non-reinforced parts. Over 38,000 shells of all calibers, including a high percentage of gas,  fell on the fort during this period.  

Despite the structural damage and elimination of most of the fort's firepower, its position overlooking the entire attack zone of the German's summer assaults meant the French artillery could still use it as an observation post. After the early fall of Fort Douaumont, Souville, at 388 meters, was the highest point on the entire Verdun battlefield. This was the priceless value of Souville. Its loss would give the enemy a commanding view of Verdun, the Meuse Valley and the two remaining smaller forts on the right side of the river. Petain believed the loss of Fort de Souville would mean the loss of Verdun and, possibly, the war.

German intentions

In June, after the paralysis of positions on the left bank, where the Germans found after capturing Mort Homme and Hill 304, that their enemy had created a massive artillery kill zone in the valley just beyond,  the Germans refocused their attention back across the river.  Difficult Fort Vaux was taken on the 7th of the month.  Next came the series of ridges and ravines  where Froideterre and Thiaumont ouverages (small forts), fortified Fleury Village and Fort de Souville, collectively, shaped a powerful barrier.  A breakthrough of this line would place the prize, Verdun proper, just a few miles away.

Postwar Photo from the Slope of the Souville Massif.
The German Take-Off Line Was on the Horizon.
Fighting of 11-12 July Was over the Foreground and on  the Flanks.

Initial Attack: German Successes

On 23 June, 70,000 men attacked on the front Thiaumont-Fleury-Ft. Vaux. Thiaumont redoubt was lost, captured, and recaptured countless time. Finally, Germany secured it. Farther west, waves of attackers were hurled upon the Froideterre redoubt which was briefly held, then lost by the attackers. A counterattack then cleared the plain as far as Thiaumont. In the center of the French line,  the enemy's attack was most successful, flanking the devastated village of Fleury on both sides. A deep penetration had been made. The attempt to capture Fort de Souville, though, despite direct attacks and flanking moves on both sides, failed utterly, but only after one close call for the defenders.

The 407th Infantry Regiment held the line on the wooded slopes of Vaux-Chapitre just to the north of the fort.  During the initial attack, its right held on without giving way, but on the left contact between companies was broken.  Germans flooded through the gap and got to the defenders in rear. It was a critical  moment, saved by the Colonel of the 407th who had posted several machine gun batteries near his headquarters. These machine gunners were able to slow down the attacking wave. At the same time, he deployed an improvised force of reserves made up of telephone operators, stretcher-bearers, pioneers, orderlies and cooks. With this extemporized force he attacked the unsuspecting enemy, who were halted and then driven back. Access to Souville was still barred. The fort, where so many heroic artillery observers had been buried or blown to pieces by the relentless bombardment, continued to remain the ever-alert sentinel of the battlefield dominating the left flank of the enemy's push to Verdun.  Today a monument to the heroism of the 407th R.I. stands nearby on Road D112.

German Soldiers Near the 23 June Jump-Off Line
Fort Douaumont in the Distance

11–12 July 1916

While the Somme offensive had begun 1 July and the Fifth Army of the Kronprinz no longer had any strategic reserves, Falkenhayn decided to launch a final limited offensive to conquer the last stronghold of the French defenses, Fort de Souville. Without it, all the German advances to date were meaningless. At dawn on 11 July, after three days of artillery preparations, 40,000 German soldiers, including the Alpenkorps, launched another  assault on a 4 kilometer front intended to seize Souville.

At 0542, the Bavarian Guards initiated the assault, using flamethrowers and supported by artillery. They penetrated down the ravine behind Fleury village before the French had time to react. The accompanying gas and shells also interrupted all heliograph communications with Fort Souville.

At 0600, Colonel Coquelin de Lisle  sent a homing pigeon with the following message: "The 255th Brigade's situation in front of Fleury is grave, with gas bombardments and the enemy's attacks, which were delayed, and morale is high but the men are exhausted. I need artillery support with 100 red fuses and 100 white fuses. The main attack appears to be between the [train] station and the village of Fleury." 

At Souville proper the 140th East Prussian Infantry Regiment aimed to seize the fort, but failed to break through French lines. Meanwhile, the other arm of the attack progressed from south of Fleury on the flank of Fort Souville. However, heavy French artillery fire inflicted severe casualties, causing that attack to stall. Both branches of the German attack called for artillery support to help them press on to Souville.

At the fort—a gassed, disabled Captain Soucarre was in command, when Lt. Kléber Dupuy, who has orders to report on the situation at Souville, arrived on the scene. He is appalled at the situation and send this report:  

"Here, everything is turned upside down. The commander of the fort is gassed,  the garrison is out of action. Unless otherwise ordered, I remain at the fort and defend it. Signed: Dupuy."

Soucarre turned over leadership to Dupuy. For three hours, the most critical position on the Verdun battlefield was under command of a 2nd Lieutenant. Dupuy decided to spend his time reorganizing the defenses of the work despite the meager means at his disposal. At 0900 Captain Decap arrived having received orders to take command of the fort. With only about forty able-bodied men and three machine-guns served by the territorials, he carried out his mission with Dupuy's energetic assistance.

Some Defenders of Souville, Pre-Battle

In the evening, French reinforcements, the 169th and 100th Infantry Regiments, were moved towards "the ravine of Our Lady" (site of a destroyed chapel) just north of the fort. The site of intense earlier fighting, it had come to be renamed "the ravine of Death" by the men. The 100th Regiment advanced at the head of the line, with its 2nd and 3rd Battalions in the lead, and the 1st Battalion behind in reserve. They drove back the elements of the Bavarian Guards who had advanced uncomfortably close to Souville, taking 80 prisoners. 

During the night, a heavy German bombardment on "the ravine of Death" inflicted severe casualties on the 1st Battalion, which had advanced in support of the 2nd. The majority of its soldiers were killed, as well as their commander.  This left the defensive line immediately in front of the fort quite thin.

The Main Entrance After the Battle

The next day, 12 July, the nearly exhausted German forces renewed the attack, but the overall effort quickly ebbed. Surprisingly, about thirty men of the140th Regiment made their way to the top of Souville without a Poilu in sight. The tired Frenchmen were undercover in the tunnels of the fort, unaware there were any invaders left in the area. Proud of their achievement and hoping for reinforcements,  the young Ensign in charge waved a flag that was visible for miles.  This drew artillery support from his headquarters, but it  also stirred the opposition down below to investigate. Quickly, the redoubtable Lt. Dupuy went into action. Alistair Horne described what ensued:

Hearing that there were Germans on the glacis, Dupuy promptly led out his men to drive them off, in what (not knowing that this was only an isolated group) might well have been a heroically suicidal attack.   After a sharp exchange, Souville was once more undisputedly French; some of  the Germans whose eyes had beheld the sacred city were taken prisoner, the rest killed or dispersed. 

The last German offensive action at Verdun had ended. French losses at the Fort de Souville  were estimated to be almost 300 officers and men killed. The French Army, however, was not inclined allow the front to stabilize at the foot of Souville.  Over the next 159 days, it would expend tens-of-thousands of additional lives pushing its adversary almost back to the starting point of the great battle.  This second half of the Battle of Verdun would have a grave draining effect on the Army's morale.

Memorials to the 407th R.I. and  Lt. Dupuy Near the Fort

After the Battle of Verdun, reconstruction work began on Souville. Shelters under protective rock were set up. A 140m tunnel linking the fort to the 155mm cannon turret was built. In 1917, three Pamart "elephant head" emplacements with 14cm-thick reinforced shells and each with two machine guns were installed to provide close defense.  Late in the war, the action had moved beyond Verdun's fortified zone and the heroic, but no longer relevant, fort was effectively shut down for the remainder of the war. Today, Fort de Souville is a fascinating stop for battlefield visitors. There's much to see. However, the forest-like new growth over the crest prevents an appreciation of the remarkable 360-degree view that was available to men of 1916 and seemed worth fighting a desperate battle over. 

Sources:  Wikiwand; Michelin Verdun, Argonne-Metz: The Price of Glory; various websites