Now all roads lead to France and heavy is the tread
Of the living; but the dead returning lightly dance.
Edward Thomas, Roads

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

The Final Battle: Soldiers of the Western Front and the German Revolution of 1918


German Veterans Participating in Berlin Demonstration,
Late 1918

The Final Battle: Soldiers of the Western Front and the German Revolution of 1918

By Scott Stephenson

Cambridge 2010


In many ways the German soldiers who marched back from the Western Front at the end of World War I held the key to the future of the newly created republic that replaced the Kaiser's collapsed monarchy. To the radical Left, the orderly columns of front line troops appeared to be the forces of the counterrevolution while to the conservative elements of society they seemed to be the Fatherland's salvation. However in their efforts to get home as soon as possible, most soldiers were indifferent to the political struggles within the Reich, while the remnant that remained under arms proved powerless to defend the republic from its enemies. 

Author Scott Stephenson is associate professor of military history at the U.S. Army Command & General Staff College. This work won the 2010 Western Front Association Tomlinson Book for the best work of history in English on World War One. This well-crafted and thoroughly researched monograph is the first in many years to explore the return home of the defeated Imperial Army. It concerns chiefly the  choices made by frontline veterans impacting the German revolution from October to December 1918. While the upheavals of October and November 1918 had little effect—thanks to superior leadership from experienced  junior officers—on the discipline of approximately 1.5 million German frontline  troops in the West, support troops behind the lines, garrisons at home, and  battleship sailors were in full revolt providing the revolution with most of its energy. 


Order This Book HERE

As they marched home under command and fully armed, arriving frontline soldiers  played an important but now forgotten role in determining the course of the revolution and in the survival of the badly splintered Ebert government. In the  early stages of revolution beginning in November 1918, frontline veterans ensured the fall of the Kaiser, preserved the political influence of the officer caste, and created the basis for the "stab in the back" myth. By demobilizing themselves soon after arrival across the Rhine, they deprived the Ebert government of any support from the old army and paved the way for creation of the Freikorps made up of both veterans and underage youth, which fought in the ensuing civil upheaval and ultimately helped undermine the fledgling Weimar Republic.

Source: Adapted from a review by Leonard Shurtleff in Relevance, Fall 2011

Monday, February 10, 2025

The Philippines: Training Ground for the American Officer Corps


A roster of the high command in the American Army during World War I is a roster of the lieutenants who served in the Philippines at the turn of the century.

William T. Sexton, Soldiers in the Sun


General Pershing with Moro Tribesmen and Staff Officers
in the Philippines

The decade following the Spanish-American War gave the generation of American officers destined to serve in command positions during the Great War a remarkable number and variety of missions to perform. Of course, none of these challenges were comparable in scope to the fighting that would come on the Western Front, but they did allow these men to develop their capacity to grasp large, complicated, and  unusual military operations. Serving in deployments remote from the American heartland and with duties far beyond what individuals of their age and rank would normally face, they gained an awareness of the greater world and learned to bear the weight of great responsibility. Several of these missions stand out as particularly valuable seasoning experiences and by far the most important of these were the long-lasting actions known as the Philippine War and Insurrection, 1902–1913.

At the time of that armistice, veterans of the Philippines deployment were in command of almost all elements of the American Expeditionary Force. General Pershing, every field army and corps commander, the chiefs of the Intelligence, Supply, and Air Services, and both the AEF Headquarters and First Army chiefs of operations, were veterans of the Philippine war. 


Casualties from the First Battle of Bud Dajo, March 1906

There were two phases to the American military effort in the Philippines, the second much longer than the first. After defeating the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay, Commodore Dewey encouraged and supported rebel leader Emilio Aguinaldo and his force of 15,000 supporters to rise up against the Spanish colonial forces. Their efforts against the shaky Spaniards, who except in Manila were mostly widely dispersed and easy to pick off, succeeded, with the victors quickly declaring independence and establishing a constitution. The U.S., however, had meanwhile negotiated a purchase of the archipelago as part of the Treaty of Paris that ended the war. After prayerful reflection, President McKinley decided the Philippines were not to be granted independence. Aguinaldo and his supporters understandably rejected this decision and fighting ensued.

Soon American forces, some Army regulars and a larger contingent of volunteers, were fighting a brutal war for possession of the islands. The ensuing combat was vicious for the combatants and also took a cruel toll on Filipino civilians. After gaining victories in several conventional battles and securing Manila, the U.S. troops found they were now facing a guerilla war. It would eventually take a 74,000-man contingent and an intense campaign to gain control of the scattered battlefields. The war ended with the surrender of guerilla commander General Vincente Lukban in April 1902. In the three-year insurrection, 4,000 American and 20,000 Filipino soldiers and many thousands of Filipino civilians had perished. 


American Soldiers with Native Prisoners, Date Unknown

The need for a large deployment ended and most of the volunteers were sent home. The regular army then assumed almost full responsibility for security of the islands, with an occupying force that would average about 15,000 men for the next decade. The new American governors, though, had a lingering problem to deal with. In the southern islands, the Muslim Moro population was not interested in surrendering and continued to resist American rule in the Sulu region and on the Island of Mindanao until the eve of the Great War. It was in this second phase in the Philippines that almost all the future leadership of the AEF gained their most important command experience, and not unimportant, had the opportunity to prove themselves to the most influential American officer in the Philippines, the future commander of the American forces in the Great War—John J. Pershing. Pershing was the last military governor of the islands and established his credentials for high command by disarming the Moros and ending the guerilla campaign. 

But, of what possible relevance for fighting on the battlefields of Europe was this experience in the Philippines? One clue comes from Philippine veteran General George Marshall, writing about his experience in France in World War I: "[The Frenchman] feels the French method is the only method. We are adaptable, and it was this trait alone that made it possible for us to survive the difficulties of this period." An officer in the Philippines either adapted or failed. The need to adapt to local conditions, of course, was not unique to the Philippines. Since the Civil War, the regular U.S. Army had been involved primarily in unconventional warfare on the American prairie and in the Pacific and Caribbean deployments discussed above. But the Philippines offered such extremes of climate, geography, culture, religion, and local traditions that American soldiers must have thought they had left not their country but their planet. It was so shockingly different, the fighting so intense, and the adjustments required so demanding, that the Philippines served as a finishing school in adaptability for Army officers. To borrow the cliché, if you could succeed there you could succeed anywhere.


Moving a Gatling Gun Across a Destroyed Bridge

The regular army was in full charge during this second phase, which lasted 12 years. Since its professional cadre was still small, a very higher percentage of officers in the age group likely to be in command positions by 1917 and 1918—the mid- and junior-level officers—were rotated through the Philippine pressure cooker. Service in the Philippines gave these officers challenges and responsibilities beyond their years, providing outstanding preparation for command of larger formations. As U.S. Army counterinsurgency expert Frank Andrews recently wrote: 

American success [in the Philippines] ultimately depended on the men who implemented the counterinsurgency policies developed by the generals — the junior officers, or in some cases sergeants, who served as some of the 600 garrison commanders. These men were responsible not only for leading their soldiers in forays against the insurgents, but they were also charged with the establishment and supervision of the town government, schools, and local police force. In addition to preventing the townspeople from giving supplies or information to the guerrillas, the garrison commanders were responsible for protecting the town and his command against insurgent attacks. They also acted as the provost judge and performed all military staff duties, as well as the multitude of administrative tasks required by the army. 

Subtly, by the eve of America's entry into the Great War, the Army's officer corps had been divided. Those who had been found wanting in the Philippines saw their advancement in grade slowed. The successful were marked for higher posts if the Army ever needed to expand. These would form the command cadre of the AEF and in 1917 and 1918 would find themselves thrown into a modern and conventional land war with which they had absolutely no experience. On the Western Front they would apply the main lesson they had learned in the Philippines—the practice of learning and adjusting as the fighting went on. The differences in operational planning and combat efficiency between the AEF that fought at Cantigny, Château-Thierry, and Soissons in the summer and spring of 1918  and the AEF that launched the dramatic and decisive breakthrough, only five months later, on 1 November 1918 are staggering.

Source: Over the Top: Magazine of the World War I Centennial, May 2014

Saturday, February 8, 2025

The Saints Go Marching to War



Angel of Victory (based on St. Michael the Archangel)
U.S. St. Mihiel Cemetery

by Francis Barry Faulkner

St. Michael was considered the leader of the heavenly army, often depicted with a sword, symbolizing the fight against evil. Use of Christian saint and Virgin Mary imagery to inspire action and foster hope in war dates back centuries, though mass production and public consumption of such images began during the First World War. They  expressed patriotic and religious confidence in a righteous cause—as well as being useful tools for inspiring others to give in support of the effort. Most of the examples I've found, naturally, are from Catholic and Orthodox countries. This mosaic was created postwar at the American cemetery in France.



Our Lady of Antwerp

by Louis Raemaekers

An altar piece design with wounded virgin, and Antwerp being destroyed in background. "Here I and sorrows sit. This is my throne, bid Kings come worship it." Such seems to be an appropriate legend for Raemaekers's beautiful triptych which he has entitled "Our Lady of Antwerp." Full of compassion and sympathy for all the sufferings of her people, she sits with the cathedral outlined behind her, her heart pierced with many agonies. On the left is one of the many widows who have lost their all in this war. On the right is a soldier stricken to death, who has done his utmost service for his country and brings the record of his gallantry to the feet of Our Lady of Antwerp.



Virgin Mary with Polish Soldiers

by Wladyslaw "W. T." Benda

This was placed on a Certificate of Donation issued by the Polish National Department, Polish Central Relief Committee  It is depicting Polish soldiers marching into a fiery and smoke-filled battlefield near a church, with the Virgin Mary and Child Jesus appearing in the sky above. This work is bordered by a motif featuring hearts, flowers, and the Christian cross.  

Saints, particularly those with a militant penchant such as Joan of Arc, were also widely called upon by the nations at war for support and inspiration



Saint Joan of Arc Saved France

by Haskell Coffin

In this wartime poster supporting the U.S. savings stamp program, Joan of Arc is ready to fight, with her sword unsheathed and her face lifted upward in optimistic bravery. 



Go Away

Unknown Artist 

Black-and-white postcard in French of a scared German soldier dropping his weapon as he looks at Joan of Arc, in her armor with sword drawn and a saint's halo surrounding her head.



St. Therese of Lisieux (The Little Flower)

Visiting a Wounded Poilu

Unknown Artist 

There were, apparently, a number of illustrations produced with this theme. St. Thérèse was a French nun who died of tuberculosis at age 24 in 1897.  She left a beloved manuscript, The Story of a Soul, which which gained great popularity in France. Pope Pius X signed the decree for the opening of her process of canonization on 10 June 1914. She was the best-known religious figure to the generation of French soldiers who would fight in the trenches.

After  the First World War broke out, St. Thérèse over 40 French soldiers claimed she had appeared to them and comforted them on various battlefields in France. The soldiers said she spoke to them matter-of-factly, resolved their doubts, helped them overcome their temptations, and calmed their fears. Thousands of French soldiers carried her photo and invoked her as “my little sister of the trenches,” “the shield of soldiers,” “the angel of battles,” and “my dear little Captain.” A soldier wrote, “In fact, that gentle Saint will be the great heroine of this war.” Another commented, “I think of her whenever the cannons thunder.” Countless were the artillery pieces and planes named after her; whole regiments were consecrated to her. Medals of the saint given to the soldiers miraculously stopped rifle bullets like real shields, saving the lives of the soldiers who carried them (some of these medals, as well as letters from the men) are now preserved in the cloister in Lisieux). Thérèse was beatified in 1923 and canonized in 1925.


Sources:  "Religious Icons in Art and War"; The National World War I Museum; The Life of St. Therese of Lisieux Website



Friday, February 7, 2025

The Indian Army: Manpower Reserve of the British Empire, Part III—Aftermath of the Great War


King George V Inspecting Indian Troops
on the Western Front

During the First World War the strength of the Indian Army rose sixfold to over 1,400,000 men. By the end of the war 1,100,000 men had served overseas at a cost of 70,000 dead. India had contributed more men to the fighting than Canada and Australia combined. Eleven individuals of Indian ancestry earned the Victoria Cross during the struggle.

Besides the colossal manpower contribution, the British also raised money from India, as well as large supplies of food and ammunition, collected both by British taxation of Indians and from the nominally autonomous Princely States. In return, the British had insincerely promised to deliver progressive self-rule to India at the end of the war. Perhaps, had they kept that pledge, the sacrifices of India's First World War soldiers might have been seen in their homeland as a contribution to India's freedom.


Postwar: Guarding the Khyber Pass, 1919


But the British broke their word. Mahatma Gandhi, who returned to his homeland for good from South Africa in January 1915, supported the war, as he had supported the British in the Boer War. The great Nobel Prize-winning poet, Rabindranath Tagore, was somewhat more sardonic about nationalism. "We, the famished, ragged ragamuffins of the East are to win freedom for all humanity!" he wrote during the war. [Yet} We have no word for 'nation' in our language." During hostilities India was wracked by high taxation to support the war and the high inflation accompanying it, while the disruption of trade caused by the conflict led to widespread economic losses—all this while the country was also reeling from a raging influenza epidemic that took many lives. But nationalists widely understood from British statements that at the end of the war India would receive the Dominion Status hitherto reserved for the "White Commonwealth."

With British policy providing such a sour ending to the narrative of a war in which India had given its all and been spurned in return, Indian nationalists felt that the country had nothing to thank its soldiers for. They had merely gone abroad to serve their foreign masters. Losing your life or limb in a foreign war fought at the behest of your colonial rulers was an occupational hazard—it did not qualify to be hailed as a form of national service.


Indian Troops Responding to a Nationalist Protest, Bombay

An Indian independence movement came to a head after the war when the first series of non-violent campaigns of civil disobedience was launched by the Indian National Congress under the leadership of Mohandas Gandhi—whose methods were inspired to a large extent by the philosophy and methods of Baba Ram Singh, a Sikh who led the Kuka Movement in Punjab in the 1870s. Gandhi's movement came to encompass people from across India and across all walks of life. These initial civil disobedience movements soon came to be the driving force that ultimately shaped the cultural, religious, and political unity of a then still dis-united nation. The sacrifices of the Great War and the intense disappointments that followed fueled this movement. Another World War would intervene, but eventually, India would become independent.

Sources: BBC; Wikipedia; CWGC

Read Part I, The Coming of War, HERE

Read Part II, Deployment,  HERE


Thursday, February 6, 2025

The Indian Army: Manpower Reserve of the British Empire, Part II—Deployment


The Indian Memorial at Neuve Chapelle,
Western Front

By Corey W. Reigel, PhD, West Liberty University

Deployment

By 1914 the Indian Army consisted of 129 battalions of infantry or pioneers, 39 cavalry regiments, and 12 mountain artillery batteries (155,423 combatants), plus extensive support units. By World War I these were organized into nine divisions and several independent brigades. Each division had three infantry brigades made of one British and three Indian battalions, and one cavalry brigade composed of one British and two Indian regiments. A separate source of soldiers was the Princely States, whose units formed the Imperial Service Brigades. In theory the 29 Princely States were independent, or at least autonomous, and thus could maintain their own units, under British supervision. In 1914 they contributed 14 battalions and 20 cavalry regiments (22,515 men). Also, in an emergency the European population of India formed the Auxiliary Force, 42 battalions, 11 regiments, (33,677 men) mostly with the intention that they would serve in South Asia.

When the Great War began, the Indian Army still was not ready. The quality of training varied greatly from one unit to the next, while the organization of the army into nine divisions was still new and poorly executed. The chain of command was poor since the Indian Office stood in between the Indian Army in the field and the War Office. The infantry had been armed with obsolete rifles, sufficient for India, but were only issued new Lee-Enfield rifles when they shipped out in the expeditions. Some units had no machine guns until they were deployed. The artillery, again adequate for India, was old ten-pounders, whose virtue was disassembly for easy mobility over difficult terrain. There was no heavy artillery or howitzers. Communications were obsolete and there was no mechanical transportation, only animals. In many respects, the Indian Army still was fit only as an Imperial Constabulary.

In the 19th century, the Indian Army was frequently used as the muscle behind imperial ambitions, as an emergency reaction force, providing reliable soldiers for service in difficult environments, with service in Africa, China, and elsewhere; thus World War I was largely a continuation of this policy. Indian soldiers fought in the Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion in China. In Africa, they campaigned in Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia, while small numbers served in East Africa and supplemented the West African Field Force. One contingency had included possible deployment into Central Asia to counter the Russian threat, and when Germany's empire was created, the Indian Army added new plans.


On Multiple Fronts

Indian Troops on the Western Front

Four divisions (3rd Lahore, 7th Meerut, 1st and 2nd Cavalry, none from the Princely States) of Task Force A arrived at Marseilles, France, on 30 September 1914. During the volatile early battles and into 1915 these skilled and experienced soldiers helped stymie German flanking efforts in the famous "Race to the Sea." By October 1914 they were in combat at La Bassée and Ypres, but the cold, wet environment was more troublesome than German gunfire. In addition to frostbite, influenza, and pneumonia, an unexpected problem was mumps and measles, since they had no prior exposure. When British civilians learned of their suffering, vast quantities of clothing were sent and Indian hospitals in England received generous donations due to the popularity of a publicity campaign. Such admiration was earned in battles like Neuve Chapelle in March 1915 when the Indian Corps led the well-planned attack that ultimately failed strategically, after a successful opening attack.

Later, in September 1915, the Battle of Loos began when a large British mine was exploded under the German trenches followed by an artillery barrage and an infantry assault that included the Meerut (7th) Division attack. The assault, again at first was promising but then could not be exploited and failed.

Despite many acts of heroism, logistics compromised their fighting ability. The dietary and religious restrictions were so severe that even in base camps Force A required six different kitchens. Seemingly, even the slightest, unintentional action could contaminate a meal, in which case even severe hunger was preferable to death in an impure state but a full belly. In the front lines, food was even more difficult, since basic army rations of bully beef and biscuits were unacceptable. The prewar officers understood and observed these religious practices, but as they became casualties, their replacements were ignorant or insensitive and the system of race/caste segregated units broke down. The Western Front infantry units were transferred to Egypt in October 1915 and the cavalry units (renamed Force E) followed in March 1918.

Force B (8,000 men) contained both Imperial Service units from the Princely States and the 27th Brigade of the 9th Division, British Indian Army. While the latter again performed admirably, the former units behaved very badly at the 2-3 November 1914 attempted amphibious invasion at the port of Tanga. Similarly, when Force C (4,000 men) was hastily assembled to protect Kenya's border, they too had a few good units, but most of the Imperial Service units tarnished the reputation of all Indian soldiers. The humiliations of 1914 continued as the two task forces were merged and became the heart of the British military in East Africa during 1915. German raiding parties took advantage of Indian incompetence until early 1916, when reinforcements from many colonies in Africa and a general advance altered the situation. In late 1916, most Indian combat units were withdrawn from Africa due to illness and exhaustion. However, support units, virtually the only ones in the theater, remained until after the end of the war.


Indian Laborers Building a Rail Line in the Sinai


Force D began with a modest assignment that became one of the largest and most difficult theaters of the war and one of the worst events in India's military history, Mesopotamia, today's Iraq. The British prewar competition with German interests in the Persian Gulf grew sharper with the discovery of oil, and the relationship with the leaders of Kuwait led to the decision to protect British interests by occupying the oil refinery at Basra. What began with one brigade group arriving on 24 November 1914 was soon reinforced with two infantry divisions (the 6th Poona and the 12th Indian). In April 1915, a general offensive began up the Tigris and Euphrates rivers with the intention of capturing the fabled city of Baghdad. Despite extreme heat and humidity and clouds of aggressive flies, the advance was initially successful. In late November 1915, however, the advance stalled after the Battle of Ctesiphon, and rather than abandon all the captured land, the decision was made to hold the Tigris River town of Kut-el-Amara with an Indian garrison (mostly the 6th Poona Division) which was soon besieged. Kut was one of Britain's worst moments in the war. Despite attempts to break in, or out, the command was surrendered on 29 April 1916 after the soldiers had suffered horrible deprivations. It got much worse. The soldiers were forced on a death march of 500 miles from Samarrah to Aleppo in the worst summer heat. The prisoner-of-war camps were awful in the treatment of these soldiers, British as well as Indian. Of the 14,000 men who surrendered 4,000 died. Yet General Townshend and his officers were kept separate, in comfortable conditions, seemingly unaware of their men's misery. 

After the fall of Kut there was a pause as both sides rested and received reinforcements. Major General Maude renewed the offensive in December 1916 with six Indian divisions and one British—166,000 soldiers, two-thirds of them Indian. The force entered Baghdad on 11 March 1917. Later, many Indian units were transferred to Palestine.

Expedition Force F was composed of two recently created divisions (10th and 11th Indian) with some units from the Princely States, intended for France but suddenly redirected to the defense of the Suez Canal and all of Egypt after two Turkish Army attacks across the Sinai. These units later blended into the Sinai-Palestine campaign. Expedition Force E (the cavalry units in France) was redeployed to Palestine in March 1918, where regiments from the Princely States joined them. Other British and Indian divisions were reassigned to Palestine so that by the end of the war the Indians again were a large portion of the British Army forces. This included 30 Gurkhas on camels who assisted T.E. Lawrence of Arabia and Major F. G. Peake of the Egyptian Army.


Gurkhas in a Trench at Gallipoli

Force G was by contrast only a small percentage of the British units sent to Gallipoli. The 29th Brigade (one Sikh and three Gurkha battalions) was detached from the 10th Division in Egypt and saw extensive combat, especially around Gully Ravine in the Helles sector. They suffered horrible summer heat and winter blizzards without proper clothing. The Gallipoli Peninsula was completely evacuated by January 1916.

Beyond the expedition forces, one Indian division garrisoned Burma and a brigade was stationed in Aden, continuing colonial security. Other units remained in India for the essential role of colonial security against rebellion, but these forces were sometimes committed to other foreign deployments such as southern Persia in 1915 and Afghanistan. Also, one battalion of the 36th Sikhs (and the 2nd Battalion South Wales Borderers) joined in the Japanese attack on the German treaty port of Tsingtao, China, October–November 1914.

Much like before the war, Indian soldiers were often the majority of British units used in difficult theaters such as East Africa, Mesopotamia, and Palestine. Better the heat of deserts or jungles than the mud and cold of France and Flanders. This meant that the Indian Army was the primary weapon against the Ottoman Empire. Regarding the broad British war effort, the empire's Indian troops constituted a strategic manpower reserve. However, with the necessary continuation of prewar practices, there was an upper limit in the number of suitable recruits that could be provided based on the martial race theory of the British and the religious and racial beliefs of the people of South Asia.

Source: "The British Indian Army in World War I: A Strategic Manpower Reserve," by Corey W. Reigel, West Liberty University; originally presented in the Journal of the World War One Historical Association, 2012, Vol. 3.

Read Part I, The Coming of War, HERE

Read Part III, Aftermath,  Pending

Wednesday, February 5, 2025

The Indian Army: Manpower Reserve of the British Empire, Part I — Background and the Coming of the War


British India c.1914


Editor's Note: During the Great War, the Indian Army would grow by a factor of six and—as the main contributor of this article Professor Corel Reigel argues—would prove a strategic manpower reserve for the British Empire throughout the conflict. Professor Reigel provides the first two parts of this three part series. The final artice, which covers the late war experience and aftermath for the Indian Army draws on other sources.   MH


Redcoated Sepoys of the East India Company, 1804


By Corey W. Reigel, PhD, West Liberty University

Background

The Indian Army that would one day play a valuable role for the Allies in the First World War was started by the Honourable East India Company. It was raised as a small contingent under Robert Clive to oppose the Bengali rulers and the French in the struggle that ended with victory at Plassey in 1757. The East India Company had three “presidencies,” or branches, and each developed its own military force with detachments stationed in many locations around the country. As the Crown also had interests in India, there were also regular British units stationed in various spots from time to time. Following the suppression of the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny, the Company's charter was revoked and the Crown assumed authority in India, including control of the Company's forces. The future Indian Army would be built around those soldiers who had stayed loyal during the mutiny. Also, more British soldiers were sent to India, and all operational formations thereafter included both Indian and British troops. By 1914 the total force based in India totaled 240,000 men, almost the size of the home-based British Army. During the Great War, the Indian Army would grow by a factor of six.


Regimental Colors, 52nd Sikhs at Kohat, 1905


The Coming of the Great War

For the Indian soldiers who saw service from Flanders to China, in Africa and the Middle East, it truly was a world war. In a war of attrition, they provided the Allied effort with a strategic reserve of manpower. One justification for empire was the additional strength it would contribute. With a population of 320 million, India (see map above) sent one million men in uniform to most theaters of operations with 74,187 military deaths. Race and recent experiences were the primary criteria for the recruitment of the Indian Army. Although the Indian Army made a significant contribution to the Allied war effort in World War I, it was still a small number of soldiers relative to the population base of the Indian sub-continent. Most Europeans believed in the martial race theory, that some men were genetically superior soldiers, most often recently conquered opponents, and thus one upper limit was created by the British. Indian culture also imposed restrictions based on caste and religion. Thus, despite the substantial population, the colony of India had only a finite manpower base from which to serve the British Empire.

Most educated Europeans believed in a pseudo-scientific martial race theory, which is dismissed today. Modern conflict, the Great War itself a perfect example, took millions of ordinary men and quickly turned them into soldiers and sailors, with a wide variety of skills and tasks as required by industrialized warfare. Yet in 1914, the Indian Army was still more like a traditional colonial military of the Victorian era and was poorly prepared for a modern enemy like the German Army in Europe. Bullets and artillery shrapnel did not show a preference for certain ethnicities, but colonial government did, and thus the martial race theory was at the center of British recruitment, and most other Europeans practiced essentially the same thing. A mix of ad hominem and recent events, the Martial Race theory held that of all the Indian people only a few were of martial quality based on breeding, caste, and environment. In 1914 this favored the Dogras, the Garhwalis, the Gurkhas, the Kumaonis, the Pathans, and the Sikhs. Each company, but preferably entire battalions or regiments, was composed exclusively of men from the same caste or ethnicity. These soldiers were then deployed in a different region of India, among a different religion or ethnicity, as an alien battalion, with few connections to the local people but loyal to the British, who also encouraged a separate identity. So an example of divide and conquer, divide and rule might be a battalion each of Gurkha and Sikh infantry located in a Hindu or Muslim region.


117th Mahrattas, NW Frontier, 1910


Beyond prejudice there was also a practical reason to limit military recruitment to only certain people—it was conducive to South Asian sensibilities. The Hindu divided into many castes that determined social behavior in an unchangeable status based on birth and occupation and ideas of purity and pollution. Some were of the military castes, and like their ancestors they were literally born soldiers. This determined social behavior such as marriage and inheritance, diet and meal sharing, death rituals, and occupations, and it was both fate and a duty to fulfill these roles. Such exclusivity influenced recruitment since the purity of food, or funerals, could only be achieved if preparation were by men of the same caste, hence the logic of segregated units. This also placed an upper limit on the number of those who could serve in uniform to only certain Hindu castes and a select few non-Hindu. As World War I dragged on, there was a clear need to expand recruitment, so in 1917 75 new castes or ethnicities were eligible for enlistment. The urgency of the war changed the "science"' of recruitment as expediency altered logical conclusions. In the African colonies, the Europeans mostly practiced the martial race theory but also opened recruitment as the war continued. 

By 1914 the Indian Army consisted of 129 battalions of infantry or pioneers, 39 cavalry regiments, and 12 mountain artillery batteries (155,423 combatants), plus extensive support units. By World War I these were organized into nine divisions and several independent brigades. Each division had three infantry brigades made of one British and three Indian battalions, and one cavalry brigade composed of one British and two Indian regiments. A separate source of soldiers was the Princely States, whose units formed the Imperial Service Brigades. In theory the 29 Princely States were independent, or at least autonomous, and thus could maintain their own units, under British supervision. In 1914 they contributed 14 battalions and 20 cavalry regiments (22,515 men). Also, in an emergency the European population of India formed the Auxiliary Force, 42 battalions, 11 regiments, (33,677 men) mostly with the intention that they would serve in South Asia.


Read Part II, The Coming of War, HERE

Read Part III, Aftermath,  HERE


Tuesday, February 4, 2025

Historian Edward "Mac" Coffman Reflects on America's World War I


Friend and Great Historian, E.M. "Mac" Coffman
(1929–2020)

In 2012, when I was editor for one of the World War I military journals, I asked the (now) late American historian Mac Coffman for an article summarizing his thoughts and feelings about our country's participation in the Great War. I did not give any other guidelines or suggestions.  This is what Mac came up with. I think it's worth recirculating.  Incidentally,  when he  passed away, I published a tribute to him on Roads that can be read HEREMH




As the centennial of World War I approaches, those of us who are interested in that war must hope that the American participation will be better remembered in the United States than it was during the 50th anniversary. More than a third of those who were in military service during the war were then still alive. They remembered, but the American public generally did not give much, if any, thought to their elders' contribution because the nation's war in Vietnam reached its nadir with the Tet Offensive in 1968.

The American effort clearly shifted the balance of power on the Western Front when two million men in the American Expeditionary Force threw their weight against the Germans in the last five-plus months of the war. After the war, both Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Max von Gallwitz, the commander of the German force that faced the AEF in the greatest battle (in number of men involved and casualties suffered) in American history, agreed that this massive reinforcement won the war. 

Within a few months after the Armistice, Wilson's and most of the American public's high hopes of victory waned greatly as the aspirations and infighting of the Allies resulted in the Treaty of Versailles, which certainly did not live up to the hopes of Wilson and caused many Americans to understand that this was not going to be the war to end all wars.

Americans also did not appreciate either the recalcitrance of the Allies in paying off war debts or their belittling of the American combat effort. There was an incident at a meeting of political scientists in the 1920s that illustrates the point. An American general who had served in the recent war listened to the academics give papers on the war and was impressed that little if any credit was given to the American effort. During the question and answer period after the papers were read, the general asked what they considered was the American effect on the war. After a period of hemming and hawing, one professor said, “It was the straw that broke the camel's back.” The general responded, “Straw, hell. It was the sledgehammer that broke that damn camel's back.”

In the early 1930s there was a Senate investigation of the significance of American bankers and munitions manufacturers who, it was argued, brought about the American entrance into the war. This led to several neutrality acts and a peace movement that in 1937 had the support of 95 percent of the American public. As late as 1940 a peace group put out a poster depicting a veteran in a wheelchair with the caption “Hello, Sucker.”

As a schoolboy in the 1930s in Hopkinsville, KY, I was not aware of this attitude toward World War I. My father and most of his friends were veterans whom I respected. There were parades on Armistice Day that impressed me because of the local National Guard troop of cavalry. In grade school, we memorized "In Flanders Field" and stood every year for one minute of silence at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. I knew who General Pershing, Alvin York, and Eddie Rickenbacker were. By 1940, I was in the habit of dropping in to talk with Erskine B. Bassett, a retired National Guard colonel who commanded an infantry regiment in the 92nd Division in the last days of the war. He owned a ladies' store that had to be unique—each counter had World War I posters on its front, and the colors of the 150 Infantry Regiment, the National Guard unit he had commanded earlier in the war, were on top of a shelf. His helmet and sword were by its side. We talked not just about World War I but also about his experiences in National Guard units from the 1880s into the 1920s. With the advent of the American entrance into World War II we discussed that also. 




I was a journalism major as an undergraduate, but my first job after graduation was the army as an infantry officer. While in the army, I decided that I would go to graduate school and major in history. Fortunately, the GI bill paid my way for four years at the University of Kentucky. At that time, in the mid-1950s, I wanted to work on a Civil War topic, but a professor warned me that the field was flooded with books, so I turned to a World War I topic—Peyton C. March as chief of staff of the army—as my dissertation topic. It is a clear indication of the lack of interest in World War I that I then knew of only one other academic who was working on a U.S. Army topic. Later, in the advanced stage of my research, I spent two-plus months in the National Archives and became acquainted with other World War I researchers. They were working on different topics involved with the use of gas by the AEF. They published a limited edition of several excellent monographs for the Chemical Corps. In addition to my research in personal papers, newspapers, and memoirs, I worked on a lot of oral history and corresponded with other significant figures from World War I. This was a great opportunity to be able to ask participants questions.

When I tried to get my March biography published in the early 1960s I became increasingly aware that there was little interest in World War I subjects. Fortunately, the University of Wisconsin Press published The Hilt of the Sword in 1964, but sales were low. By that time I already had a contract from Oxford University Press to write a book on the American participation in the war. A World War I veteran and former governor of Wisconsin, Philip LaFollette, made that possible by recommending me to an Oxford University Press editor, Sheldon Meyer. Oxford was planning a series on American wars. As it happened, my The War to End All Wars and Charles MacDonald's The Mighty Endeavor, about the American war in Europe in World War II, were the only volumes in the planned series that were published.

The press hoped that my book would sell well because of the significance of the date of publication—1968. In addition, a book about the AEFThe Doughboyshad sold well in 1963. However, the author was the well-known writer Laurence Stallings, a Marine veteran who had lost a leg at Belleau Wood. As publication time neared, I heard that another author, Harvey DeWeerd, was bringing out President Wilson Fights His War as one of the distinguished series that Louis Morton developed for Macmillan Press. When I read DeWeerd's book I was impressed by the difference in our approaches. A third of his book was devoted to the war before the American entry. His coverage of the American part of the war is primarily concerned with diplomacy, strategy, and logistics at the high command level. I was relieved that I had dealt with the American military experience from the time of mobilization to the end of the war and gave the soldiers as well as the leaders due coverage. I should add that when I finally visited the Western Front in 1990 I was very pleased to see that my dependence on the maps in the American Battle Monuments Commission's American Armies and Battle Monuments in Europe (1938) was justified. Having learned a lot in map reading at the Fort Benning Infantry School helped me in recognizing terrain features. 


Still Recommended for Students of the Great War
It Can Be Ordered HERE

I was very glad that I could give my father a copy of my book. By then he was referring to himself and other Great War veterans as the “forgotten men.” Over the years, I stayed in touch with some of the veterans I had interviewed. Every time I went to Washington I would visit General Charles L. Bolte, who as a lieutenant had been wounded early in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. I often visited Sidney C. Graves, who led the first American raid against German lines and later wound up in Siberia. On several occasions I also visited Doug Campbell, who was the first U.S. Air Service pilot to achieve ace status after our entry into the war. General Bolte and Campbell lived into their nineties. 

When the French awarded Legions of Honor to veterans in 1998, a friend and I visited George Fugate, the last veteran surviving in Lexington, KY, and helped him to apply for the medal.  An infantry lieutenant, he had been in France about a month before the Armistice.  He died in 1999 at age 105. Unfortunately, his medal did not arrive until a few weeks later. 

They are all gone now, but I know that readers of this periodical and I will never forget them.

This article originally appeared in the Journal of the World War One Historical Association, Vol. 1, Num. 2, 2012


Monday, February 3, 2025

Eyewitness: Loos Battlefield—"The Aftermath" by Sapper (H.C. McNeile)


Loos Battlefield from the Original British Line


LOOS, OCTOBER,  I915 

Away  in  front,  gleaming  white  through  the gathering  dusk  on  the  side  of  a  hill,  lies  the front  line.  Just  beyond  it,  there  is  another: the  Germans.  Down  in  the  valley  behind  that  white  line  a  town,  from  which  with  monotonous  regularity  rise  great  columns  of  black  smoke — German  heavies  bursting  again  and  again  on  the  crumbling  red  houses.  And from  the  village  there  rises  a  great  iron  construction with  two  girdered  towers,  a  landmark for  miles.  Periodically  German  crumps sail  overhead  with  a  droning  noise,  woolly bears  burst  on  one's  flank,  and  then  a  salvo coming  unpleasantly  near  makes  one  remember that  the  skyline  is  not  recommended by  the  best  people  as  a  place  to  stand  on,  and, getting  into  the  trench,  you  retire  again  to the  dug-out,  to  wait  for  the  night  to  cloak your  doings. 

In  the  line  of  trench  are  men — men  not there  to  fight,  not  even  in  support.  They are  there  to  clear  up  the  battlefield;  for  only a  few  days  ago  the  trench  in  which  you  are sitting  was  the  German  front  line.  The  bed on  which  you  lie  has  supported  a  stout  Teuton for  probably  ten  long  months  or  more; and  now  where  is  he  ?  My  predecessor  was addicted  to  the  use  of  a  powerful  scent  of doubtful  quality,  which  still  hangs  faintly  in the  air.  He  also  believed  in  comfort.  There are  easy  chairs,  and  cupboards,  and  tables, and,  as  I  say,  a  bed.  Also  there  are  mice, scores  of  them,  who  have  a  great  affection for  using  one's  face  as  a  racecourse  during one's  periods  of  rest. 

But  my  predecessor  was  absolutely  out  of it  with  another  fellow  along  the  trench.  His dug-out  was  a  veritable  palace,  boasting  of wall-papers  and  a  carpet,  with  a  decorated dado  round  the  part  where  dados  live,  and  a pretty  design  in  fruits  and  birds  painted  on the  ceiling.  Bookshelves  filled  with  the  latest thing  in  German  wit,  and  a  very  nice  stove with  flue  attached.  I  was  beaten  by  a  short head  trying  to  get  there,  which  was,  perhaps, as  well.     Mine  confined  itself  to  mice.  .  .  



Gradually  the  night  falls,  and  with  it  starts the  grim  task.  It  was,  as  I  have  said,  the German  line — now  it  is  ours;  the  change  is not  brought  about  without  a  price.  Turn around,  away  from  that  line  now  almost  invisible in  front,  and  look  behind.  There, over  a  mass  of  broken  pickets  and  twisted wire,  gleams  another  white  line — our  original front  trenches.  Between  you  and  it  lies  the no  man's  land  of  ten  months — and  there  on that  strip  of  land  is  part  of  the  price.  It  lies elsewhere  as  well,  but  a  patch  of  fifty  yards will  serve.  There  was  one,  I  remember,  where the  German  line  had  swung  out  at  right angles — a  switch — going  nearer  to  ours.  In this  bit  of  the  line  the  wire  had  run  perpendicular to  the  rest  of  their  trench  for  a  few score  yards.  And  in  the  re-entrant  a  machine gun  had  been  placed,  so  that  it  fired  along  the wire.  The  steel  casing  we  found  still  standing, though  the  ground  around  was  torn  to pieces.  That  machine  gun  paid  for  its  construction. .  .  

There  was  one  group  of  four  outside,  a subaltern  and  three  men.  They  were  lying on  the  ground,  in  one  close-packed  jumble, and  the  subaltern  had  his  arm  around  a  man's neck.     Just  in  the  torn  up  wire  they  lay — the  price  at  the  moment  of  victory.  Another five  seconds  and  they  would  have  been  in that  line;  but  it  was  left  to  some  one  else  to stop  that  machine  gun  firing.  And  so,  beside that  motionless,  distorted  group  a  hole  is dug,  and  soon  no  trace  remains.  One  phase of  clearing  the  battlefield;  there  are  many such  holes  to  be  made.  A  few  yards  away — this  time  on  the  parapet  of  the  trench — a Scotchman  and  a  German  are  lying  together. 

The  Scotchman's  bayonet  is  through  the German — his  hands  still  hold  the  rifle — and as  he  stabbed  him  he  himself  had  been  shot from  behind.  A  strange  tableau:  natural enough,  yet  weirdly  grim  to  the  imagination when  seen  by  the  dim  light  two  or  three  days after  it  took  place. 

One  could  elaborate  indefinitely.  Each  of those  quiet,  twisted  figures  means  some  one's tragedy:  each  of  them  goes  to  form  the price  which  must  be  paid.  And  at  no  time, I  think,  does  the  brutal  realism  of  war strike  home  more  vividly  than  when  in  cold blood  one  sees  before  one's  eyes  the  results of  what  took  place  in  hot  blood  a  few  days before.  Just  a  line  in  the  paper — a  name — no  more.     That  is  the  public  result  of  the price,  and  at  one  time  it  seemed  to  me  hard on  those  behind.  Unavoidable  of  course,  but hard.  No  details — nothing — just  a  statement. I  have  changed  my  mind:  there  are worse  things  than  ignorance.  .  . 

Then  from  the  trenches  themselves,  from the  dug-outs,  from  behind  are  pulled  out  the Huns.  Caught  in  their  deep  dug-outs,  with the  small,  slanting  shaft  going  down  to  great chambers  hewed  out  of  the  chalk  underneath — and  some  of  the  shafts  are  ten  to  twelve yards  long — unable  to  get  out  during  the bombardment,  they  were  killed  by  the  score. 

A  few  bombs  flung  down  the  shaft  and — voild  tout.  And  so  they  are  hauled  out  one at  a  time.  More  holes  to  be  dug — more  shell holes  to  be  utilised.  Apropos  of  those  Hun dug-outs,  a  little  incident  in  one  of  them  revealed yet  another  side  of  Tommy's  character. 

Truly  is  he  a  man  of  many  parts.  A  few cheery  sportsmen  having  worked  manfully and  well,  and  having  earned  their  rest,  found the  dug-out  they  had  marked  as  their  own was  occupied.  It  had  for  the  time  been missed  in  the  search  for  Germans;  that  was why  it  was  occupied.  Nothing  daunted, however,   they  piled  the  occupants  on  one side,  while  they  peacefully  went  to  sleep  on the  other.  There's  no  doubt  getting  a  dead German  up  those  shafts  is  weary  work,  and they  were  tired.  But  I'd  sooner  have  slept in  the  trench  myself.  However,  that  is  by the  way. 


Source

And  so  we  go  on,  wandering  in  perfect safety  over  the  ground  that  a  few  days  before meant  certain  death.  A  mass  of  rifles,  kit, bandoliers,  accoutrements  litters  the  ground, save  where  it  has  already  been  collected  and sorted  into  heaps.  Unexploded  bombs  lie everywhere,  clips  of  ammunition,  bayonets. All  has  to  be  collected  and  sent  back — another phase  of  clearing  the  battlefield. 

Then  there  is  the  road  where  some  transport was  caught  topping  the  rise.  There  the holes  have  to  be  bigger,  for  the  horses  have to  be  buried  even  as  the  men.  It  is  only rarely  the  process  is  already  done.  One horse  there  was,  in  a  trench  on  his  back, fifty  yards  from  the  road,  stone  dead.  How he  got  there,  Heaven  knows.  He  wasn't much  trouble. 

Then  there  was  another  mound  from  which protruded  an  arm,  in  German  uniform,  with its  ringers  pointing.     And  the  hand  was  black. A  morbid  sight,  a  sight  one  will  neyer forget.  Vividest  of  all  in  my  mind  remains the  impression  of  a  German  skeleton, near  the  edge  of  our  own  trench.  Dead  for nearly  a  year  perhaps,  shot  in  some  night attack,  trying  to  cut  the  wire.  A  skeleton hand  from  which  the  wire-cutters  had  long since  fallen,  crumbled  on  a  strand,  a  skull grinned  at  the  sky,  a  uniform  mouldered, 

That,  and  the  blackness  of  Death.  No peaceful  drifting  across  the  Divide,  but  blackness and  distortion. 

Thus  the  aftermath  :   the  price.  .  .

From The Lieutenant and Other Stories by Sapper (H.C. McNeile), who saw duty at Loos with the Royal Engineers in the aftermath of the September 1915 battle there.