The Answer Was Honor: When Two Political Scientists Asked: Why the First World War Lasted So Long?

Michael Hunzeker and Alexander Lanoszka 

Originally Published in the Washington Post, 11 November 2018

. . . Scholars have long debated its causes and effects. Yet surprisingly few have explored why the First World War lasted four long and bloody years. Could it have ended sooner?

In fact, largely forgotten is how Germany and the United States issued peace overtures in December 1916. Had these overtures been successful, they could have spared countless lives and have helped Europe escape the financial ruin and deep-seated animosity that produced World War II. Unfortunately, the Entente—Britain, France and Russia—dismissed both offers, and the fighting continued. In our Security Studies article, we show that honor influenced their decision to forgo peace.

Honor vs. rationality

Sociologists argue that honor is crucial to group self-esteem, involving an emotional investment in how groups define themselves and their place in social hierarchies. Honor leads actors to believe that others must respect these identities. It can enhance cooperation when mutual respect exists, but encourage severe escalation and undercut conflict resolution when it does not.

Accordingly, when identity faces an external threat, actors feel an intense psychological need to salvage their honor. To restore besmirched honor, either the transgressor apologizes or the victim punishes. The longer the transgressor refuses to apologize and resists punishment, the more the victim will dig in and perhaps even risk dying for honor’s sake.

Threats to honor can thus undermine rational behavior and make wars longer. Rationality means that an actor objectively assesses available information, selects which goals it will pursue and picks the most efficient and risk averse way to do so. However, when honor is at stake, leaders might begin to ignore disconfirming evidence, prioritize honor over survival and adopt strategies based on hope, not efficiency.

How did honor preclude peace in 1916?

In 1916, both sides suffered catastrophic losses and devastating setbacks. Victory remained elusive. The Western Front was deadlocked. Though Russia achieved modest progress on the Eastern Front, a German counteroffensive quickly erased its gains. The Entente was losing soldiers faster than it could replace them.

Financially, the Entente was almost insolvent. Britain’s leadership role in global finance was in jeopardy, and its expenditures exceeded revenue by a factor of three. For France, the ratio was about five to one.

Against this backdrop, Germany dispatched peace notes to the Entente on 12 Dec 1916. Several days later, President Wilson issued a separate offer to mediate an end to the conflict. Considering the hurting stalemate that then defined the war, rejecting the offers out of hand had no rational basis. Arranging secret talks with Germany would have been simple, bearing little risk. The Entente could have easily resumed combat operations if talks collapsed.

Honor pushed the Entente to prefer war over peace despite the overwhelming costs and risks. In his Aug. 3, 1914, address to the British Parliament, Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey invoked “honour” seven times. He stated: “If, in a crisis like this, we run away … from those obligations of honour and interest as regards the Belgian treaty, I doubt whether, whatever material force we might have at the end, it would be of very much value in face of the respect that we should have lost.”

Honor was worth the material price, no matter how high. Germany was unapologetic about its transgressions. Atrocities in Belgium and repeated frustrations on the battlefield to win and exact punishment made national honor take priority over national survival. War aims expanded; by December 1916, the Entente came to believe the only way to overcome dishonor was to destroy the German regime itself.

The historical record shows Entente leaders were clouded in their judgments of objective facts and rational alternatives. The diplomatic cables and British cabinet minutes that we discovered reveal their logical contradictions, emotionality and irrational decision-making.

British leaders cherry-picked pieces of good news from the overwhelmingly negative battlefield reports they received. The chief of the Imperial General Staff wrote that Britain should not “flinch” and warned how “we need the same courage in London as our leaders in the North Sea and France.”

British leaders were outraged by the German offer’s “haughty rhetoric.” They failed to consider that Germany likely used boastful wording to offset the weakness that offering peace signaled. They denounced the overture as a “duplicitous war ruse,” and decried it for lacking specificity. Yet, they breathlessly added that the terms were unacceptable.

Entente leaders did not reject the offers because they expected Washington to enter the war, as Anglo-American relations were worsening. Wilson won reelection on an isolationist platform; Congress was decidedly anti-British. The Federal Reserve Board discouraged U.S. banks from loaning money to the Entente. Far from anticipating American intervention, the Entente feared the United States would use its financial power to force both sides to negotiate.

Honor closed the door on peace in 1916 and set the stage for a brute force fight to the finish. As work by Scott Wolford suggests, German leaders soon became convinced anything short of total victory meant total defeat. Instead of seeking peace after knocking Russia out of the war in 1917, Germany “gambled for resurrection” by launching a massive offensive on the Western Front in early 1918.

Our explanation makes sense of Germany’s seemingly self-defeating decisions. Germany was sincere when it offered peace in 1916. Why otherwise risk looking weak by offering to negotiate? The speed and finality with which the Entente rejected the overture convinced German leaders that the Entente was now fully committed to regime change. The episode convinced German leaders that they were in an existential fight for survival.

The autumn of 1916 offers a sober lesson for today. Leaders may have trouble acting rationally when they believe their nation’s honor is at stake. Far from a relic of a bygone era in international relations, honor can still intensify violence and undermine peaceful resolution—a frightening prospect in a world with nuclear weapons. From saber rattling in the Baltic States to brinkmanship in the South China Sea, we have good reasons not to let honor subvert global peace and stability 100 years on.

Alexander Lanoszka is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Waterloo and an honorary fellow at City, University of London.

Michael A. Hunzeker  is an assistant professor at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government. He is a veteran of the Iraq War.

World War I and Chicago (Again!): Baseball and the Star Spangled Banner

The United States formally entered World War I on  6 April 1917 and the first global conflict in human history affected virtually everyone in some manner. One aspect of American life not anticipated to be uprooted by this catastrophe: Major League Baseball. Hundreds of current and future MLB players served in WWI, including Hall of Famers such as Ty Cobb and Christy Mathewson as well as Grover Cleveland Alexander whose brutal war service was depicted in film by future President Ronald Reagan.

Major League's Opening Day in Cincinnati, 2017

Due to shorthanded rosters, the 1918 season ended early and it marked the only time the “October Classic” was played entirely in September. On 5 September 1918, the Boston Red Sox traveled to the Windy City to face the Chicago Cubs in Game 1 of the World Series. That day, newspapers were dominated by news of World War I, including the latest American dead. In Chicago, one of the headlines read, "Chicagoans on the List," and it was a particularly harrowing moment in the city for another reason: Someone, possibly self-proclaimed anarchists and labor activists, had the day before tossed a bomb into a downtown federal building and post office, killing four people and injuring dozens more.

The Chicago games were played at Comiskey Park, the home of the White Sox, instead of the Cubs new Wrigley Field—what was called Weegham Park at the time—because it held more fans. Game 1 that day, however, attracted fewer than 20,000 fans, the smallest World Series crowd in years. This may have been due to the ongoing World War One exhibition at the city's Grant Park, which was drawing over 100,000 attendees a day.  When they got to the ballpark, they didn't make much noise, in any case. That could have had something to do with the 1-0 masterpiece visiting Red Sox star Babe Ruth was pitching.  "There was no cheering during the contest, nor was there anything like the usual umpire baiting," reported one Boston newspaper.

Action at Third Base from Game 1 of the 1918 World Series

Perhaps the most enduring legacy of that 1918 World Series is unrelated to actually playing baseball. During the seventh inning stretch of Game 1, the military band struck up an impromptu rendition of the “Star-Spangled Banner.” Red Sox third baseman Fred Thomas, playing while on leave from the Navy, snapped to attention and saluted the flag. The rest of the players turned to face the flag with their hands on their hearts. Fans followed suit. As the band played the final notes, the entire stadium joined in the melody. The performance was so popular it was repeated for the rest of the series

Even though the Star-Spangled Banner did not become the official national anthem until 1931, this patriotic moment in 1918 began a lasting tradition, reinforced during the Second World War, that continues to this day of playing the anthem before major league baseball games. Further, as John Thorn, Major League Baseball's official historian, put it,  "Certainly the outpouring of sentiment, enthusiasm, and patriotism at the 1918 World Series went a long way to making (the song) the national anthem."

Note:  Another World War I-related event was taking place in Chicago as this game was being played.  Check out yesterday's entry in Roads to the Great War.

Sources: The National World War One Museum, Kansas City; the World War One Centennial Commission

Chicago's World War One Extravaganza

The 1918 U.S. Government War Exposition in Chicago’s Grant Park (Sept 2–15) was a massive, two-week, propaganda-driven event designed to boost  public support for the war effort. It featured a, mock battleground, reconstructed trenches, military exhibits, technology demonstrations, and war trophies from France. One of 21 such events organized by America's historically unique propaganda ministry, the Committee for Public Information, that were intended to reinforce patriotism and sell war bonds. Chicago's effort, however, dwarfed almost all the similar programs held around the nation. Nearly 2 million citizens attended over the two weeks of the event. It was claimed that the exhibition turned a $305,000 profit, although it's hard to find any record of where that money ended up.

Aerial View of the Venue

The Pagaent of the Allied Nations

Private donors raised funds to put on the exhibition, which converted Grant Park along Chicago’s lakefront into a midway where visitors could stroll past stalls where organizations like the Commission on Training Camp Activities (CTCA), YMCA, YWCA, Salvation Army, and the new Food Administration had displays. The food presentation, for example, featured a “demonstration kitchen” that showcased methods of canning and conservation to get through wartime rationing.  The Red Cross put in a strong appearance, including a marching troop of nurses. For the military exercises, trainees from nearby Camp Grant portrayed the soldiers from both sides, the "Sammies" gaining cheers and the "Huns" getting booed.

Sailors Guarding a Desecrated Crucifix from a Church
in the American Training Sector in France to Be
Returned After Hostilities

Click on Image to Enlarge

Exhibition Underway
(Mock Battlefield in the Center)

Fascinatingly,  another memorable World War I-linked  event took place in Chicago during the exhibition.  Check out tomorrow's Roads to the Great War entry.

Sources:  Michigan Tech, 2018 Symposium; Library of Congress

An American Soldier in the Great War: The World War I Diary and Letters of Elmer O. Smith.

By John DellaGiustina  

Hellgate Press, 2015

Reviewed by Michael P. Kihntopf

     

Elmer Smith's Unit, the 119th Field Artillery, Marching
Through Detroit on Their Way to the Western Front, 1917

West Point graduate John DellaGiustina has brought his considerable expertise as a military intelligence officer to bear on editing his grandfather’s correspondence and diary of 1916 –1919. The author has generously interceded in many instances by giving the reader a broad historical picture of the events that were occurring around his grandfather.  These asides are needed to put a perspective on letters and diary entries since, as the author says in the preface, Private Elmer O. Smith, at the bottom of the command structure, was not aware of the things that were forcing the war to a conclusion. Nevertheless, the daily conversations about the routine he had with himself in his diary and in censored letters home provide a valuable insight into how the private soldier saw things.    

Elmer O. Smith, a Michigan resident, was working and attending school in Lansing, Michigan, when war was declared in April 1917. The author provides a platform for knowing Smith by quoting letters he wrote home during the year before the war. The letters are well constructed and display his classical education so prevalent during the beginning of the 20th century. One can clearly see that he is a young man launching his life without a clear, distinct goal. That changed in April 1917 when he decided to enlist in Battery B, Michigan National Guard, rather than wait to be conscripted. When the National Guards were federalized, Battery B became part of the 119th Field Artillery Regiment, 57th Field Artillery Brigade of the 32nd Division.   

A Camouflaged 75 of the 119th F.A. Firing in France

The reader will have a very lucid picture of Smith’s training in Texas and New Jersey before departing for France from the letters that he wrote to various relatives. His letters are always calm and very businesslike rather than filled with the adjectives and adverbs that inexperienced youths so often display when viewing new environs. This purposeful communication allows the reader to see a realistic world rather than one of exaggeration.  Smith’s diary, begun on 1 July 1918, becomes the sole star of the book in its second part. It is the musing and reporting of a highly observant individual who simply states the facts.  However, he does not lament the destruction and conditions of frontline service.  

References to gory deaths do not abound. In his letter to his sister (page 193) on 30 August 1918 he states:  “I have been laying a telephone line this afternoon one field we ran it thru was still full of dead Dutchman (a term for Germans and not Hollanders). Well, sis I will have to quit. Write soon.” It is, perhaps, Smith’s a way of acceptance for being in a war. To his chagrin, when he finally arrives at the front line, he is wounded in an artillery blast within hours and evacuated. Naivety does show here in his diary. He feels that he had cheated his comrades by being wounded and unable to participate with them in the offensive campaign. Luckily for him, or unluckily depending on one’s view point, Smith returns to the battery in time for fighting around Chateau Thierry and continues with the 32nd Division through the Armistice.

   

Order HERE

DellaGiustina’s editing of the many letters, diary entries, and historical background is superb.  Nowhere in the book do we see a relative’s propensity to overstate the actions of a family member. Clearly, the author, trained by the U.S. Army, has kept to the facts and allowed his grandfather to shine. Sometimes the brevity is tedious, but a soldier’s life was never one of continuous actions. One can readily see how mundane existence at the lowest level was.  

This is an excellent primary source document for those digging into the Great War’s soldier’s life.  It is a different aspect that should not be ignored.      

AI Says Tsar Alexander II (1818–1881) Caused World War One

AI-Generated WWI Image
(See Something Not Quit Right?)

Editor's Introduction: In my ongoing effort to find fresh material for our readers, I've following a two-prong strategy or exploring scholarly and out-of-the-mainstream sources about any previously unrecognized or unexplored aspects of the war.  

The AI program that's attached to Google Chrome, named GEMINI, quickly and surprisingly for me, popped out an idea, generated by scientist Peter Turchin (born in Russia in 1957), that I had never heard of in my 30 years of WWI study. I'm not a fan of AI, but it sounded like something fresh and interesting.  MH

Origins

Turchin (this bio also via AI)  is a complexity scientist and the founder of cliodynamics, an interdisciplinary field that uses mathematical modeling and big data to analyze historical processes. While originally trained as an ecologist (majored in biology), he is currently a prominent figure in the study of social and cultural evolution.

His most famous work—he's stupendously prolific—seems to be the grim sounding End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration.  (In a nutshell, he thinks we're doomed due to economic and social immisseration of we normies, plus elite overproduction, i.e., too many gazillionaires and over-educated ambitious types competing for a limited number of power positions—all of this happening at the same time.) Anyway, GEMINI AI seems to love him and has cranked out the following about his analysis of  the deep origins of the Great War and what ensued. 

It's the fault of a 19th century tsar.

Tsar Alexander II  and Peter Tuchin

The Argument

Peter Turchin’s analysis of the Russian Empire, particularly the era from Alexander II through the First World War, centers on his Structural-Demographic Theory (SDT). This theory posits that long-term historical cycles are driven by the shifting relationship between the state, the elites, and the general population. 

Alexander II and the Origins of Calamity

Turchin views the reign of Alexander II (r. 1855–1881) as a critical turning point where state-driven reforms and elite strategies began to destabilize the empire: 

Elite Over-Expansion: One strategy elites use to escape internal calamities is expansion abroad. Under Alexander II, Russia expanded aggressively into Central Asia and the Pacific. While intended to export surplus elites and "excess young men" to foreign colonies, this policy ultimately increased the likelihood of disaster through over-expansion.

Systemic Shocks: This territorial growth brought Russia into direct competition with other great powers. According to Turchin’s framework, "mission creep" grew national interests beyond the state's capacity to manage, leading to major system shocks like the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05) and, eventually, the First World War.

Failed Social Cohesion: Although Alexander II’s Great Reforms (such as the 1861 emancipation of serfs) were intended to modernize Russia, they also fragmented political and social society. The tsar attempted to act as a mediator between social groups, which ultimately prevented widespread social cohesiveness from evolving under the tsarist state. 

Geopolitical Instability: Turchin’s work  examines the complex network of alliances and enmities prior to the war (e.g., the Franco-Russian military alliance vs. British-Russian enmity), noting how these international contradictions further strained the Russian state. 

The First World War as a Systemic Trigger

In Turchin’s cliodynamics (the mathematical study of history), the First World War served as a "trigger"—a sudden event that releases decades of slowly built-up structural pressure: 

Structural-Demographic Pressures: By the early 20th century, Russia was experiencing a "disintegrative phase" of its secular cycle. This phase is characterized by elite overproduction (too many elites competing for limited positions) and declining well-being for the general population.

The Breakdown of Cooperation: Turchin argues that as empires grow, "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer," causing conflict to replace cooperation. The massive stresses of World War I exacerbated these internal fissures, leading to the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917.

Summary of Turchin's Russian Cycle

Phase / Key Events & Dynamics

• Pre Growth Integrative/ Formation of the empire on frontiers; high internal solidarity (asabiya).

• Alexander II Era/ Great Reforms; over-expansion into Central Asia; seeds of elite overproduction.

• Disintegrative/ Increased inequality; elite competition; declining state capacity. [War as a "solution" to these problems.]

• State Breakdown/ First World War acting as a further trigger for revolution and civil war (1917).

Comments welcome.

George Grosz's Gott mit Uns

Click on Images to Enlarge
Display = 580px, Large = 800px

In June 1920, German veteran and artist George Grosz produced a lithographic collection in three editions entitled Gott mit uns. A satire on German society and the counter-revolution, the collection was swiftly banned. Grosz was charged with insulting the Reichswehr, which resulted in a 300 Papiermark fine and the destruction of the collection. Presented here is a selection of images from the volume I've discovered on line. Not all are perfect specimens and some lack the multi-language captions provided by the artist. On their website, the Metropolitan Museum of Art provides the following information about the collection.

George Grosz takes aim at the stupidity and brutality of the German military in his portfolio Gott mit Uns (God with us). In nine unremittingly caustic, clearly rendered illustrations, Grosz focuses on the corrupt nature of the pompous, overfed, and self-satisfied officers and officials who had dragged Germany into the cataclysm of World War I and who still governed the Weimar Republic. Grosz depicts the violent suppression of the working class by the ruling class. In Die Kommunisten fallen—und die Devisen steigen (Blood Is the Best Sauce), uniformed soldiers beat unarmed protestors as an officer and a profiteer enjoy a decadent meal. Elsewhere, a dead body washing ashore does not disturb a soldier's cigarette break. Grosz sharpens his visual attacks with captions printed in three languages—English, French, and German. These statements are not always direct translations, but sometimes different phrases that together heighten Grosz's satirical attacks. "Gott mit Uns" (God with us), taken from the inscription on German soldiers' belt buckles, originally meant to invoke God's support, becomes in the English caption "God for Us," a nationalist cry to smite the enemy.

"Stabbed in the Back"—A Wonderful Example of War Hysteria

 

Published in the Medina, Ohio, Sentinel,
11 October 1918

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

 

Archduke Franz Ferdinand and a Smiling Kaiser Wilhelm II

By Jack S. Levy and William Mulligan

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

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

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

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

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

The Fateful Day

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

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

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

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

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

Funeral Procession in Vienna

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

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

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

Siegfried Sassoon in Palestine

On the rock-strewn hills I heard

The anger of guns that shook

Echoes along the glen.

In my heart was the song of a bird,

And the sorrowless tale of the brook,

And scorn for the deeds of men.

Sassoon the Young Officer

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

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

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

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

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

An  Older Sassoon

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

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

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

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

By Mark Levitch, National Gallery of Art

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

A Poorly Timed Epic

Robert Goldstein (1883), a son of German Jewish immigrants, opened a branch of his family’s costume firm in Los Angeles in 1912 to supply wardrobes to the burgeoning film industry. Following the success of David Wark Griffith’s (18751948) Birth of a Nation (1915), for which he was both the costumer and an investor, Goldstein sought to produce a similarly big-budget melodrama about the American Revolution.

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

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

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

Arrest and Trial

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

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

Aftermath and Legacy

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

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

No print of the film has survived.

Source:  Encyclopedia 1914-1918 Online

Muleskinner with the Marine Brigade, 1917-1919

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

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

(Volume 1: April 1917–May 1918)

by BJ Omanson, 2024

Reviewed by Carolyn Cole Kingston

Marine Machine Gun Platoon Training in France

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

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

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

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

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

Order HERE

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

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

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

New German Defenses at Cambrai

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

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

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

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

Bunker Construction

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

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

A Trench Under Construction

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

Withdrawal to the Siegfried-Stellung

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

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

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

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

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

The Complete Siegfried/Hindenburg "Project"

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

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