The Great War's Last Successful Cavalry Charge: The Jodhpur Lancers at Haifa, 23 September 1918

 

The Jodhpur Lancers

By James Patton

During the First World War cavalry became largely irrelevant. Quick-firing artillery, machine guns and  even repeating rifles, plus the battlefield obstacles of trench systems, could make traditional mounted attacks disastrous failures. Notwithstanding, in September 1918 the Jodhpur Lancers, an elite cavalry regiment from an Indian "Princely State," captured Haifa in a classic cavalry charge.

Pratap Singh (1845–1922) was born in October 1845, the third son of Maharaja Takhat Singh (1819–73), the ruler of  Marwar, which is located in the area of northwestern India called Rajahstan. In his youth,  Pratap learned to ride and shoot, and was commissioned in the Jodhpur Rissala (armed force). Subsequently, he was seconded to the British Indian Army to fight in the Second Afghan War (1878–80), where he was Mentioned in Dispatches for his service. 

Pratap Singh, 1914

Returning home, Pratap served as Chief Minister of Jodhpur, first under his father, then under his older brother Jaswant Singh (1838–95). Pratap was the Regent for his young nephew Sardar Singh (1880-1911) from 1895 to 1898, then again for his grandnephew  Sumar Singh (1911–1918) and then for another grandnephew Umaid Singh (1918–1922). Once a soldier, always a soldier, so he formed an elite cavalry unit that would rival those professional Indian Army units that he had served with in Afghanistan. Of course, the state already had the Rissala, but it was poorly led, ill-disciplined and barely trained, so Pratap decided to build a new regiment of lancers in the city of Jodhpur. 

With royal consent, he provided horses, weapons, and uniforms for sixty men, and was appointed  Lieutenant-Colonel of Cavalry. Soon thereafter, in 1889 the British Viceregal government requested that each Princely State contribute military units for Imperial Service in actions outside of India.

So Pratap’s small force became a regiment of 300 mounted men, which he named the Sardar Rissala after his nephew, then the heir to the throne. In the Imperial Order of Battle the regiment was called  "The Jodhpur Lancers."

During the late 19th century, the Jodhpur Lancers became one of the most glamorous of the state formations. Their motto was Jo Hokum (“As you command”) and the support of the Maharaja ensured that the unit was smartly disciplined and always superbly uniformed, equipped and mounted.

The Lancers Dismounting in the Field

In particular, the regiment’s polo team was very successful, and even traveled to the United Kingdom to participate in competitions. These occasions gave Pratap the chance to mingle with some of the highest ranking officers in the British Indian Army.  He also hosted members of the British Royal Family, including the future George V, upon their visits to Jodhpur, as it is one of the most scenic cities in the country.

Although the Lancers were involved in occasional skirmishes with rebellious tribes on the Northwest Frontier (bordering on today’s Afghanistan), what Pratap really wanted was to lead his men into action on behalf of the Queen and Empress. In 1900 he got his chance—his Jodhpur Lancers were sent to China to serve as part of the multi-national force that gathered to quell the Boxer Rebellion.

This was a war of sieges, not cavalry charges, and although the Lancers saw relatively little combat, they performed well. As a result, in 1901 Pratap was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB), later upgraded to the GCB, and in 1902 he was appointed an (honorary) Major-General in the  Indian Army. 

Officers of the Jodhpur Lancers

When the First World War began in 1914, Sir Pratap immediately offered to take his Jodhpur Lancers to France, where he hoped to be able to fight the Germans. Although the circumstances there didn’t favor cavalry charges, he reportedly vowed, “I will make an opportunity!”

Thus the Jodhpur Lancers arrived in Flanders in October 1914 and remained on the Western Front for over three years, as Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig stubbornly maintained a cavalry corps that he believed he would need when he achieved the ultimate breakthrough. During this interlude, Sir Pratap was promoted to (honorary) Lieutenant-General in the Indian Army in 1916. The Lancers were finally deployed at the Battle of Cambrai, where they were to follow the tanks, but the tanks were too slow and hard to avoid. Most of the time the Lancers were held in reserve, and Sir Pratap spent a lot of time in London, even working with the Imperial War Cabinet in 1917–18. 

In May of 1918 the Lancers were posted to the 15th Imperial Service Cavalry Brigade in Egypt, which consisted solely of Princely State regiments. This brigade was then forwarded on to Palestine, where British and ANZAC forces were fighting the Ottomans. Here the mounted troops were playing a very large role.

By this time, Sir Pratap was 73 years old and he was urged to slow down. During September 1918, the Lancers were constantly in action, covering more than 500 miles in 30 days. At one point, he spent over 30 hours in the saddle. Before they got to Haifa, Sir Pratap was feverish, so he reluctantly turned  the command over to Major Dalpat Singh Shekhawat, MC (1892–1918).

Major Singh Would Command the Lancers in the Battle
and Be Killed in the Action

On 23 September 1918, the Brigade was ordered to take the strategically important and heavily defended port city of Haifa. Ottoman troops had taken up positions in front of the town and were supported by German advisors and Austro-Hungarian artillery on the hills above.

The battle plan was as follows: a detachment from the Mysore Lancers were to seize the artillery positions, and the Jodhpur Lancers were to storm the city itself. Accordingly, four hundred Lancers drew themselves up in their battle lines east of the city, 4,000 yards from the enemy. They faced almost a thousand dug-in Ottomans, behind barbed wire and covered by at least four machine guns.

Detail of the Jodhpur's Area of Operation

The Lancers advanced at the trot towards the Ottomans, crossing the Acre railway line, where they came into machine gun and artillery range. The B squadron of the Lancers, which solely consisted of Rathores (a Rajput warrior caste) were tasked with taking out the Ottoman machine guns. Obstructed by quicksand on the bank of the Kishon River, the Lancers were forced to wheel to the left towards the lower slope of Mount Carmel. Orders given to the 13th Brigade (one Yeomanry and two Indian Army battalions) and the rest of the 15th  Brigade were to deliver suppressive gunfire while the Jodhpur Lancers were charging. Ignoring constant but poorly aimed artillery fire, the Lancers accelerated to a canter until, as they passed through a narrow valley close to the entrenchments, they reached the ‘break-in point’, where they  accelerated to the gallop. Almost at once, Major Singh Shekhawat fell, mortally wounded by random gun fire, and Captain Aman Singh Jodha (1870–1950) took over.

The Lancers didn’t stop at reducing the defenses. To the Ottoman’s surprise, the Lancers swarmed into the city itself. Historian Charles C. Trench has written: ‘the jo hukums (sic) had to be restrained as they galloped through the streets of Haifa, even after all the machine gun posts had fallen… spearing and butchering unfortunate Turks who crossed their path, civilians even, for the Rathores were crazed with rage’. A German officer reportedly said: ‘We tried to cover the Turks' retreat, but we expected them to do something, if only keep their heads. At last we decided they were not worth fighting for.’

The Jodhpur Lancers Entering Haifa

The Mysore Lancers, who had been dismounted in order to scramble up the slope of Mount Carmel to engage the Austrian gunners, were remounted and followed the Jodhpurs into the town. Together the two regiments captured 1,350 German, Austrian  and Ottoman prisoners, including two German officers and 35 Ottoman officers. They captured  four 4.2-inch guns, eight 77mm guns , four camel guns and a 6-inch naval gun, plus 11 machine guns. Total  15th Brigade casualties amounted to eight dead and 34 wounded. Sixty horses were killed and 83 were injured. 

After more than 400 years of Ottoman rule, Haifa was now under British control. In the 1919 official history of the British campaign in Palestine, it was said of the charge of the Jodhpur Lancers that “No more remarkable cavalry action of its scale was fought in the whole course of the campaign.” Strong praise, for the campaign especially so, alongside the incredible ANZAC light horse attack at Beersheba. The charge at Haifa proved to be the last large-scale cavalry action ever undertaken by British arms  in wartime. 

The Jodhpur Lancers were once again called upon to fight for the British in the Second World War, but  they had to swap their horses for Bren gun carriers. Following the 1947 reorganization of the military and the takeover of all of the Princely States by the government of  Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964), in 1953 all of the State Forces were disbanded and the heritage of the Jodhpur Lancers became a part of the Indian Army’s 61st Cavalry  Regiment, which today includes the world’s only operational horse-mounted cavalry unit. The all-Rathore tradition of the Lancer’s B Squadron has been maintained as well.

Regimental Badge of the Jodhpur Lancers

In 1919 Sir Pratap returned to Jodhpur, where he resumed doing royal duties. At his death in 1922, his full title had become Lieutenant-General His Highness Maharajadhiraja Maharaja Shri Sir Pratap Singh Sahib Bahadur, GCB, GCSI, GCVO. Perhaps his memory is best served by the eulogy delivered by Indian Army Brig. Gen. C.R. Harbord CB CMG DSO (1873–1958), a personal friend and the Commander of the Imperial Service Cavalry Brigade in Palestine:

“I have always looked upon him as the finest Indian I have ever had the honor to know–loyal to the core, a sportsman to his finger-tips, a gallant soldier and a real gentleman.” Sounds classically British.

Sources: 

Steve McGregor at War History On Line, "The Last Great Cavalry Charge of WW1: The Jodhpur Lancers"  

Brigadier M.S. Jodha at Fair Observer, "The Story of the Jodhpur Lancers: 1885–1952"    

Richard Head and Tony McClenaghan, The Maharajas Paltans : A History of the Indian State Forces 1888-1948 (2 Vols-Set), Manohar 2013: New Delhi. (Anthony Norman “Tony” McClenaghan was a colleague and friend of mine for many years, during his long service as the General Secretary of The Indian Military Historical Society. JP)

Surprising Things I Found When I Finally Read Wells' The War That Will End War

I just got around to reading this famous work and I found myself surprised by a number of the passages.  MH, Editor/Publisher

H.G. Wells Was Among the 53 British Authors Who Supported
the War in a September 1914 Letter

You keep using that [title]. I do not think it means what 

you think it means.

Paraphrasing Inigo Montoya

1.  Despite His Well-Known Early Support for the War, the 1914 Version of Wells Is Startlingly Blood Thirsty

This Prussian Imperialism has been for forty years an intolerable nuisance in the earth. Ever since the crushing of the French in 1871 the evil thing has grown and cast its spreading shadow over Europe.

So that the harvest of this darkness comes now almost as a relief, and it is a grim satisfaction in our discomforts that we can at last look across the roar and torment of battlefields to the possibility of an organized peace. For this is now a war for peace.

To those who love peace there can be no other hope in the present conflict than the defeat, the utter discrediting of the German legend, the ending for good and all of the blood and iron superstition, of Krupp, flag-wagging Teutonic Kiplingism, and all that criminal, sham efficiency that centers in Berlin.  Never was war so righteous as war against Germany now. Never has any State in the world so clamored for punishment.

I find myself enthusiastic for this war against Prussian militarism. [33]

2.  "Taking the Profit Out of War":  A Strategy for Bringing Socialism?

Do Liberals realize that the individualist capitalist system is helpless now? It may be picked up unresistingly. It is stunned. A new economic order may be improvised and probably will in some manner be improvised in the next two or three years. 

There is no going back now to peace; our men must die, in heaps, in thousands; we cannot delude ourselves with dreams of easy victories; we must all suffer endless miseries and  anxieties; scarcely a human affair is there that will not be marred and darkened by this war. Out of it all must come one universal resolve: that this iniquity must be plucked out by the roots. Whatever follies still lie ahead for mankind this folly at least must end. There must be no more buying and selling of guns and warships and war-machines. There must be no more gain in arms. Kings and Kaisers must cease to be the commercial travelers of monstrous armament concerns.

Let me set out the suggestion very plainly. All the plant for the making of war material throughout the world must be taken over by the Government of the State in which it exists; every gun factory, every rifle factory, every dockyard for the building of warships. [45]

Wells Later in the War

3.  Let's Reshape Europe!

Do Liberals realize that now is the time to plan the confederation and collective disarmament of Europe, now is the time to re-draw the map of Europe so that there may be no more rankling sores or unsatisfied national ambitions? [67]

When the Prussians invaded Luxemburg they tore up the map of Europe. To the redrawing of that map a thousand complex forces will come. . .That means that we have to re-draw the map so that there shall be, for just as far as we can see ahead, as little cause for warfare among us Western nations as possible. That means that we have to redraw it justly. And very extensively. [For example] I suggest that France must recover Lorraine, and that Luxemburg must be linked in closer union with Belgium. Alsace, it seems to me, should be given a choice between France and an entry into the Swiss Confederation. It would possibly choose France. Denmark should have again the distinctly Danish part of her lost provinces restored to her. Trieste and Trent, and perhaps also Pola, should be restored to Italy. . . The break-up of the Austrian Empire has hung over Europe like a curse for forty years. Let us break it up now and have done with it. What is to become of the non-German regions of Austria-Hungary? And what is to happen upon the Polish frontier of Russia? [56]

4.  A Silver Lining—An Opportunity for the Intelligensia?

The character of the new age that must come out of the catastrophes of this epoch will be no mechanical consequence of inanimate forces. Will and ideas will take a larger part in this swirl-ahead than they have even taken in any previous collapse. . . The common man and base men are scared to docility. Rulers, pomposities, obstructives are suddenly apologetic, helpful, asking for help. This is a time of incalculable plasticity. For the men who know what they want, the moment has come. It is the supreme opportunity, the test or condemnation of constructive liberal thought in the world. [66]

5.  An Odd Appeal to the American People

This appeal comes to you from England at war, and it is addressed to you because upon your nation rests the issue of this conflict. The influence of your States upon its nature and duration must needs be enormous, and at its ending you may play a part such as no nation has ever played since the world began.

For it rests with you to establish and secure or to refuse to establish and secure the permanent peace of the world, the final ending of war.

We do not ask you for military help. Keep the peace which it is your unparalleled good fortune to enjoy so securely. But keep it fairly. Remember that we fight now for national existence, and that in the night, even as this is written, within a hundred miles or so of this place, the dark ships [?] feel their way among the floating mines with which the Germans have strewn the North Sea, [81]

6.  Where Are Those Christians?

We look to the Church that takes for its purposes the name of the Prince of Peace. In England, except for the smallest, meekest protest against war, any sort of war, on the part of a handful of Quakers, Christianity is silent. Its universally present organization speaks no coherent counsels. Its workers for the most part are buried in the loyal manufacture of flannel garments and an inordinate quantity of bed-socks for the wounded. [104]

Over the years, we have presented several other articles examining Wells' prophesies, commentary and reflections on the World War.  See our articles examining those ideas HERE

Source: Except for some minor merging of different sections covering similar ideas, the material above is all from the original version of The War That Will End War, which can be found for free on Project Gutenberg.

Tribute to a Batman

 

Capt. Blackadder and His Loyal, but Inept, Batman Baldrick
(Sorry, It Was the Only Photo I Could Find Definitively Identifying a Batman)

Before World War II, when officers were indeed gentlemen, in the British sense of the word, having a soldier-servant was the accepted order of the day. The word batman comes not from cricket bats, as some have suggested, but from the French word bât, which means pack saddle. A batman was, therefore, the man who took care of the luggage carried on the pack-horse or pack-mule. In time, the word also came to mean an officer’s valet, who, among other things, also took care of his officer’s baggage. 

A batman's duties could include:

• acting as a "runner" to convey orders from the officer to subordinates
• maintaining the officer's uniform and personal equipment as a valet
• driving the officer's vehicle, sometimes under combat conditions
• acting as the officer's bodyguard in combat
• digging the officer's foxhole in combat, giving the officer time to direct his unit
• other miscellaneous tasks the officer does not have time or inclination to do

 

The literature of World War I recounts a number of examples of the loyalty and devotion of batmen to the officers they cared for. Lieutenant Colonel Graham Seton Hutchison (1890–1946)—the author of numerous books on World War I—wrote a tribute to his batman, Peter McLintock, who was a piper from the 2nd Battalion of the  Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.

He was a faithful servant, a friend and counselor, an ever-present companion to give me confidence in the darkness of a dangerous night, and good cheer, when fortune favored a visit to battalion headquarters. . .

[Peter’s] friendliness took complete possession of the necessary, though often inconvenient, affairs of life. In such things Peter’s service was priceless. No matter at what hour I would return to the cubby hole for sleep, it was as dry and as warm as human ingenuity could devise. Eggs and small comforts he conjured from behind the lines without any promptings from me. . . . He would . . . prepare a varied menu from interminable bread, plum-and-apple jam, and the sickly meat and vegetable ration. He would clean my limited wardrobe, wash and mend the socks and shirts, keep me supplied with tobacco, dry my boots and stockings. The batman was Multum in parvo to his charge, omnipresent, yet ubiquitous. . . . And he would run when his officer went over the top, and fight by his side. When the officer dropped, the batman was beside him. . 

Peter’s friendship expressed itself in little acts of vigilant kindness. Opportunities for the rendering of trifling services and for the doing of kindness were for ever present, every hour and every day. The batman’s attitude was one of self-subordination, and he tarried neither to consider the worthiness of his charge nor the nature of the service asked. He gave freely, the man of humble origin and pursuit, to one at least temporarily exalted with authority. By his ready service, words and gestures he won affection, by his forethought and unknown sacrifices he penetrated quietly and unobtrusively into the heart of the master of his goings and of his comings.

Peter McLintock died at Hutchison’s side in 1917 and is buried in Ration Farm Military Cemetery, la Chapelle-d’Armentières, France. Postwar, Col. Hutchison first was active in championing the British veterans,  supporting the formation of the Royal British Legion and the Old Contemptibles Association and becoming a successful author. As WWII approached his outspoken sympathy for the Nazis made him highly controversial.

Sources:  Biography of a Batman; "Frodo's Batman" by Mark T. Hooker, Tolkien Studies, Vol. 1, 2004: Wikipedia: "Batman"

Railroads: Strategic Necessity and Vulnerability for First World War Armies

Restored WWI French Train

The First World War began and ended on rails. The mobilizations of the powers were accomplished with thousands of trains moving troops to their jump-off points. The fighting ended with the Armistice signed in Marshal Foch's private rail coach in a clearing in Compiegne Forest. 

In between, the rail networks were essential for sustaining the fronts during the long period of trench warfare, and for assembling the shells, food and stores for launching the great battles like the Somme. The Miracle of the Marne turned on Joffre's superior use of rail to re-array his forces. Verdun was sustained during the great 1916 assault by a light-rail line paralleling the Voie Sacrée. And when the great rollback of the Western Front occurred in 1918, the Allies staged their battles either to protect their own lines such as at Amiens and St. Mihiel or to attack the German network as in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, which successfully closed the strategic Metz-Sedan-Mézières line. 

For all that is written about the tactical excellence of the German Army, it is not an exaggeration to say that the Allied leaders consistently showed a higher appreciation of the importance of railroads for their armies throughout the war.

A Comparable Union Army Train from the Civil War

19th Century Roots

The military use of railways was one of the most influential technological changes in warfare in the second half of the 19th century. Railways made possible rapid movement of large masses of troops and equipment; the correspondingly shortened transit times reduced feeding and billeting requirements; troops and horses arrived in relatively fresh condition; and improved logistical support made possible  the sustainment of mass conscript armies in the field. One of the earliest operational uses of military railways occurred in 1849, when a Russian corps moved from Warsaw to Vienna to protect the city from Hungarian rebels. During the American Civil War, two Union corps—more than 20,000 troops, their equipment, and horses—moved 1,230 miles by rail in just eleven days in September 1864. 

Moltke made a careful study of the lessons of the American Civil War, and in 1870 the Germans made far more effective use of their rail system than the French did of theirs. All the European countries quickly developed dense rail networks, and the general staffs of all nations tirelessly studied how to put this strategic resource to best use, when war came again.

German Troop Depot, Western Front

20th-Century War

From the outbreak of World War I, railroads were the key means of logistical support and it also played a role in what operational mobility was achieved on the Western Front. As the fronts developed both sides developed dense rail network behind their lines. Generally, it is difficult to close down, or even temporarily neutralize a rail network.

While it is relatively easy to destroy signaling and switching equipment, that only slows down but does not stop rail movement. The roadbeds and track are much harder to destroy. The key vulnerabilities in a rail network are its choke points; tunnels, bridges, switching yards, and rail junctions. If a rail network is dense, single choke points generally have little military significance, because the system has ample bypasses and workarounds. For much of the war, planners focused on protecting their lines or, in some cases, driving the opposition away from key lines to prevent interdicting fire.

British Tanks Moving to the Front, 1918

Targeting Railroad Networks

It was not until the Western Front became fluid again in the Spring of  1918 that breaking the enemy's rail network became offensive objectives. The U.S. Meuse-Argonne Offensive, as mentioned above, successfully cut the main German line supplying all its forces along the southern Western Front. However, on the Flanders to Paris stretch of the Western Front the German system had far greater depth, very few if any significant choke points, and it ran straight back to the national base without having to link into seaports. Facing them, the British position in Flanders and the old Somme sector was not robust and had two significant choke points— its two major forward marshaling and switching yards at Amiens and Hazebrouck. Ludendorff's spring offensives failed to secure either of these locations. The British Army survived and was able to resume the offensive in August 1918. We will have more on this particular situation and why it might have constituted one of the great missed opportunities for the German Army in future postings on Roads to the Great War.

Source: Relevance, Fall 2011

A Second Blank Check? When Poincaré Went to St. Petersburg

President Poincaré and Tsar Nicholas II in St. Peterburg

On 20 July 1914 French Presided Raymond Poincaré and Prime Minister/ Foreign Minister  René Viviani  arrived in St. Petersburg on the French Battleship France for a state visit and three days of consultation with Tsar Nicholas II and his government.  The visit was aimed at reinforcing the Franco-Russian Alliance amid rising tensions in Europe following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. For over a century historians have disputed what degree of support the French delegation promised Russia in the evolving crisis before the departure. It had to have been made was the principals were together in Russia.  The Austro-Hungarian government  deliberately timed the delivery of the ultimatum to occur at 6:00 p.m. on 23 July 1914, specifically to ensure it happened after Poincaré and Viviani had departed St. Petersburg, limiting their immediate ability to coordinate a response with Russia. The battleship France would not arrive in its homeport, Dunkirk, until the 29th and given the state of communications in those days, there was little communications between the two governments as war broke out, when Austria-Hungary opened fire on Belgrade on 28 July.

The direction and degree to which the discussions conducted in St. Petersburg might have influenced Russian conduct during this period was addressed in a 2010 article published by the  Jervis International Security Forum, “French Foreign Policy in the July Crisis, 1914: A Review Article.” Here are some of the major insights raised by its author, Professor Marc Trachtenberg of UCLA.

Stefan Schmidt’s new book on French foreign policy in the July Crisis is a good case in point.[1] He begins by arguing that the French government—and above all, Raymond Poincare, President of the Republic, and the key French policy maker at the time—took a hard line during the crisis, and in particular in the important meetings held with the Russian leadership in St. Petersburg from July 20 to July 23. In itself this argument is by no means new. Luigi Albertini, in his great work on origins of the war, took much the same line. But given the limited evidence on that episode that was available when he wrote that book, Albertini’s interpretation was necessarily somewhat speculative. “The St. Petersburg conversations,” he wrote, “must have dealt above all with the Austro-Serbian tension and the eventualities that might result from it.”

But that interpretation was by no means universally accepted, and for years there was a certain tendency in the historical literature to play down the role that France had played during the crisis, and especially to minimize the importance of the St. Petersburg talks. France was often portrayed as caught up in events she was scarcely able to control. . . “There is no evidence,” John Keiger [another respected student of the War's origins] said flatly, “that during his visit to Russia Poincare did anything other than reaffirm the Franco-Russian alliance. He did not offer carte blanche in the event of a Balkan war. . . French policy in the crisis, according to Keiger, was “predicated on the notion of restraining Russia to avoid giving Germany a pretext for war.” 

Stefan Schmidt’s 2009 book France's Foreign Policy in the July Crisis of 1914: A Contribution to the History of the Outbreak of the First World War [takes a contrary position]. He begins by arguing that the French government—and above all, Raymond Poincaré, President of the Republic, and the key French policy maker at the time—took a hard line during the crisis, and in particular in the important meetings held with the Russian leadership in St. Petersburg from July 20 to July 23. 

Schmidt argues, Russia was in fact given the equivalent of a blank check at the St. Petersburg talks and after. France was not “dragged into” the war. As Maurice Paleologue, the French ambassador to Russia at the time, wrote in a 1936 letter to the historian Pierre Renouvin (published in a relatively obscure journal in 1997), what the French were afraid of at the time was not that they would be “dragged in” by Russia, but rather that France would be “poorly supported by Russia, in the event of a German attack.”

Schmidt shows, first of all, that Poincare had come to understand, shortly his arrival in Russia, how serious the Austro-Serbian dispute was, and how in fact Austria was about to present the Serbs with a sort of ultimatum—a “demarche comminatoire,” to use Poincaré’s own term at the time. This implied that in the St. Petersburg talks, Poincaré and the Russian leaders would have had to talk seriously about what Russia would do in such a case and the degree to which France would support those actions. 

And indeed it seems quite clear that this was exactly what happened. As Paleologue pointed out in his 1936 letter to Renouvin:  “‘war’ was certainly discussed in these talks, but only defensive war." M. Poincare, at the time, by no means concealed the fact that in these conversations he was thinking about the possibility of a conflict. Later on, in the context of the campaign about ‘Poincaré-la-guerre,’ he thought it would be better to give a different version.”  Louis de Robien, in 1914 the attaché in the French embassy in St. Petersburg, made the same point:  by 22 July, he wrote, the French and Russian leaders were “talking openly of a war, which no one had even dreamt of a few days earlier. . ."

What to make of the assurances that Paleologue gave the Russians right after the French leaders left St. Petersburg and news of the Austrian ultimatum was received in that city?  The French ambassador gave the Russians a “formal assurance that France placed herself unreservedly on Russia’s side.” But was Paleologue simply acting on his own? That was Keiger’s view:  “it is clear that Paleologue was acting independently of Paris.”

. . . In fact it seems quite likely, given everything that Schmidt was able to show about Poincaré and especially about the line he took in St. Petersburg, that Paleologue was carrying out what he knew to be the French president’s policy—a policy, to be sure, which he was personally in sympathy with. If Paleologue kept Paris in the dark—and he certainly did not give an adequate account of what he had told the Russians and of what he was learning from them—that was not because he was temperamentally inclined to play the lone cowboy. Schmidt thinks that his aim in doing so was to keep Viviani from pursuing a more moderate policy, not to act independently of Poincaré—and that interpretation seems quite plausible.

So the basic argument Schmidt develops in the first part of the book strikes me as very solid. The French government—and that meant essentially Poincare personally—did take a hard line in the crisis:  Russia, in fact, had effectively been given a blank check. . .

It’s in that context that it makes sense to ask some basic questions about French policy in 1914—about whether the hardline policy pursued by Poincaré was rational in power political terms, about whether it was in some sense natural, given the kind of great power political system that existed at the time, for France to pursue the sort of policy she did. . . 

Albertini, after spending years of his life trying to understand the coming of the First World War, concluded that the “utter lack of political horse-sense” was the “main cause of European disorders and upheavals.” The Schmidt book leaves you with much the same impression. These people in 1914 were not the victims of forces they were unable to control. The tragedy did not come because they were reacting in the only way they reasonably could to the situation in which they found themselves. It came because of decisions they made, decisions that could easily have been different—decisions, in fact, that remain deeply puzzling. 

Fall of 1915 — The Season of Failed Allied Western Front Offensives

In September 1915, French commander-in-chief Joseph Joffre initiated a double offensive on both faces of the German salient into France, north and east of Paris, in an effort to "rupture" the German position. In Artois a joint British-French effort, known in some sources as the Battle of "Artois-Loos" (map, locations 1 [British] & 2 [French]), resulted in limited gains and high losses. British losses of 60,000 killed and wounded around Loos alone stunned observers. The French attack to the south captured the key town of Souchez but failed again at Vimy Ridge.

The accompanying failure—solely a French effort—in Champagne (map, location 3) to sever the main east-west rail line supporting the German front, however, sent greater shock waves through France. The massive national effort made there to provide logistical support, including millions of rounds of heavy artillery shells for a decisive breakthrough, had proved utterly inadequate to the challenge. The advance had moved the front merely four kilometers.

Politicians' faith in Joffre began to wane and they looked to other theatres of war, like the Balkans, for deploying the nation's forces. For the citizenry, victory now seemed barely perceptible, beyond some distant horizon, and would be most assuredly astronomically costly to attain. For the French Army, the Western Front—France—had to be the decisive front, but what new rabbit could they pull out of the hat? The attritional warfare they had inadvertently fallen into was unsustainable. Official figures (probably on the low side) showed 191,000 French casualties in the double fall offensives, including 31,000 killed.

After the Fall of 1915, French Troops Were Stuck in the Champagne Until 1918

The sole remaining option was to look to the British. In the winter of 1915-16 General Joffre would abandon French-only offensive operations and focus exclusively on encouraging and collaborating with his ally. Attacking side-by-side would enable the massing of troops and, more important, the artillery of both armies. Naturally, this had to be in a location adjacent to the British sector. Perhaps, somewhere around the River Somme? Yes, that should work nicely. Thus did the failures of 1915 lead to the "Big Show" of 1916.

Three Sons for the Kaiser: A German Family’s Sacrifice in the First World War

By Hazel Strouts

Pen and Sword Military, 2025

Reviewed by David F. Beer

Some Typical German Families During the War

Initially I expected this book to be a rather prosaic family history. I soon found how wrong I was. After a page or two of reading it was hard to put Three Sons for the Kaiser down. Hazel Strouts has written a fact-filled and historical account that is both emotionally gripping and presented in a natural and very readable style.It is also crammed with documented information about the WW1 German submarine service, especially in the Baltic, plus intimate insights into the German soldier’s experience at the Marne, on the Somme, and at Verdun.

The author, who now lives in England, is the great-granddaughter of a remarkable German naval figure, Philipp Gereke. Philipp served in the Imperial Navy, was a friend of Prince Heinrich and of the Kaiser, and might well have become an admiral had he not enjoyed alcohol so much. He and his wife raised three fine boys and later a capable daughter. Philipp’s career plus his family life makes for a fascinating story in themselves; however, the book’s focus is the lives and combat deaths of his three sons, Hermann, Georg, and Waldemar.

Like well-raised and privileged German boys, the three brothers become patriotically involved in Germany’s initial war efforts, although Georg, the artistic one, is the last to volunteer. All become officers: Herman, like his father, in the navy and the others in the army. They never forget their parents, and family ties remain strong through visits and mail. This family closeness makes the eventual fates of each son all the more moving. Only Herman manages to get married and have children before his U-boat is blown up by a British submarine on 11 May 1918. He is the grandfather of our author, through his daughter Ursula.

The youngest son, Waldemar, is the first to die. He was based near Gommecourt and on New Year’s Eve1 914, went to a country church with many others “to mark the end of the first year of the war which was supposed to have been over long before Christmas” (p. 146). After the service they were all leaving when a shell exploded, “and a shower of iron shrapnel sprayed those exiting the church. Carnage. Suddenly there were eighty men dead or dying on the church steps, on the pavement and in the street” (p. 146). One of them was Waldemar. He was buried nearby until the late 1970s, when his remains were moved to a vast military cemetery in Neuville-St- Vaast where he now lies with 44,829 of his comrades (p 147).

The middle brother, Georg, was killed in late May 1916, while leading his men in an advance at Verdun. His father wrote in the chronicle he kept that

Georg wrote his last letter on the 18th May, and on the 20th he fell. He fell while leading his company in an assault to take Toter Mann. Machine gun bullets had so ripped his body apart that it was difficult to recognize our brave son. Now he rests near Verdun, unburied and in an unknown place. Do not cry or mourn, all of you who knew and loved our Sunday child. He found himself alongside the best of comrades. Ah, you dear, dear boy (p. 184).

 

Order HERE

Three generations later, our author of this excellent book read and studied testimonies, logbooks, letters, archive material, and more—and traveled to places where these brothers fought and where their lives ended. The book she has written is a tribute to them and to the parents who raised them. It is also a reminder to us of the humanity and decency of those we might have once considered enemies.

David F. Beer

Remembering a Veteran: Capt. Fred Zinn, French Foreign Legion & U.S. Army Air Service

Fred Zinn in His French and American Uniforms

By James Patton

Recently The Military Times ran a feature article by Jon Guttman about how, on 7  October 1918, Cpl. Ralyn Hill, an Illinois National Guardsman in the 33rd Division, heroically rescued an injured pilot from a crash-landed plane on the German side of the Meuse River. The identity of the pilot (who died from his injuries) was not recorded at the time; it was later determined that he was 2nd Lieut. Wellford MacFadden, Jr. of the 103rd Pursuit Squadron, U.S. Army Air Service. Guttman’s story was picked up by several feeds, including NewsBreak and even Google News. If you‘re not familiar with the story, it’s well worth the read. HERE. 

However, there’s another story worth telling, that of the person responsible for making the identification of MacFadden’s burial site. Friedrich Wilhelm “Fred" Zinn (1892–1960)—his name is very German, but he was born in Galesburg, Michigan. After he graduated from the University of Michigan, his family sent him on the “Grand Tour” of Europe.  So it was that he was in Paris when war was declared, and on that day he was one of 43 Americans who impulsively joined the Légion étrangère. Serving as an infantry soldier, it is claimed that he was the first American to capture a prisoner of war. He was wounded twice, the second time on 1 February 1916

On 14 February he (and several other prominent Americans) were transferred into the Aéronautique Militaire. After a brief visit to Michigan, he went through training and was first assigned to Escadrille F-14 as an Observer/Gunner, riding in a Nieuport 12. Later he was transferred to Escadrille SOP-24, where he flew in the back seat of a Sopwith 1A.2 Strutter. Since he was an American, he is listed as a member of the Lafayette Flying Corps (not an official French unit). Although he was never assigned to the Lafayette Escadrille N-124, as they were a fighter squadron, he is known to have performed reconnaissance missions for them. Zinn was promoted several times while in French service, so had booked extensive combat zone patrol experience before the U.S. even entered the war. 

He was a pioneer in the development of aerial photography techniques, especially for low level spotting of German troop locations and alerting the French forces opposing them. In October 1917, he was one of the first batch of Americans serving with the Aéronautique Militaire to be transferred to U.S. service. Reportedly,  he was personally selected by Lieut. Col. "Billy" Mitchell (1879–1936), then CO of the new US Army Air Service. Zinn was commissioned as a Captain and assigned to Mitchell’s staff at GHQ Chaumont, where he established the first aviation reconnaissance and photographic interpretation programs. As the G2, he also headed up the personnel section, which included the assignment of replacement air crew. 

In November 1918, although he was one of a handful of Americans who had actually served for the entire war, he didn’t see his work as done. There were nearly 200 air crew lost in combat who had no known grave, and he proposed to lead a team of Army volunteers to go out and find them. The Army said "yes," so while most soldiers went home to triumphal parades, he went to Berlin to talk with former enemies like Ernst Udet, and comb through the German records, seeking the fate of the missing Americans.

With a staff of four, by the end of 1919, Zinn had tracked down the remains or personal effects of 194 missing men. Only then did he close up and return home to work for the family business, which was milling grain for Kellogg’s cereals. 

Zinn Manning the Observer/Gunner Post

As said above, Zinn’s story intersects with Ralyn HiIl's story because it was Zinn’s team that found 2nd Lieut. MacFadden, buried two miles west of Brieulles in a French concentration cemetery. He had likely been first buried elsewhere, probably in a village or church cemetery. If MacFadden was the pilot that Hill rescued, it seems unlikely that he was shot down near Brieulles, which was not in the 33rd Division’s sector at the time.

The German records showed that there were no allied planes claimed by German pilots in that sector on that day. Since Hill’s story says that the SPAD crashed behind the German position on the east bank of the Meuse River, it seems likely that MacFadden had decided to strafe the German positions and was hit by well-aimed return fire.

Zinn joined the Officer’s Reserve Corps after it was formed in 1920. When WWII broke out, he went to Washington to meet with the new Chief of the Air Corps, then-Maj. Gen. Henry “Hap” Arnold (1886–1950), whose staff was preparing the first comprehensive Air Corps Field Manual. Zinn wanted to designate a bureau to gather and preserve information about missing air crew. In spite of push-back and disinterest, with some effort he was able to establish the Missing Air Crew Reporting System (MACRS)—which was subsequently approved by the Chief of Staff, General George Marshall (1880–1959).

In 1942, Zinn was offered an active duty rank of Colonel, as were many senior business executives, but he only wanted to be in charge of the MACRS. The Army Air Force would not guarantee him that role, nor had they yet even implemented the plan, so Zinn went to a fellow Foreign Legionnaire who knew the right people, and Zinn got into the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). 

At the age of 50, he went through OSS training. Using an employment cover story provided by his friends at the W.K Kellogg Foundation, Zinn became a "spook." His clandestine job was coordinating searches for missing air crew in enemy-held territory. He often worked in the field, personally overseeing the recovery of hundreds of missing men (dead or alive). On occasion he also performed counterintelligence duties for the OSS.

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Honored Upon His Return

He came home just before the end of the war. Later, he was elected to represent Calhoun County in the Michigan House of Representatives. His biographer, the history and science fiction writer Blaine Pardoe  says: ”Fred never drew attention to himself, yet he stands out as one of Michigan’s most decorated and illustrious WWI aviators and veterans.” 

Source: Pardoe, Blaine. Lost Eagles: One Man's Mission to Find Missing Airmen in Two World Wars, Univ. of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor, 2010.

When the German Army Helped Preserve a Renaissance Masterpiece

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This triptych, commonly known as  both the Passion of the Christ and the Calvary of Hattonchâtel, by Ligier Richier (1500?–1567) is located in the village's Église collégiale de Saint-Maur (St Martin). Generally thought to have been carved in 1523, it is an early work of Ligier Richier, considered one of the most significant French sculptors of the Renaissance. Because of the emotional intensity and anatomical precision of his work, Richier is sometimes compared to Michelangelo. 

The 2.6 meter by 1.6 meter sculpture shows three episodes from the Passion: Christ carrying the cross, His crucifixion, and Christ's dead body in the arms of his mother. The base of the altar piece reads: XPS: Passus est nobis relinquens exemplum Vt sequamini vestigia: For he (Christ) suffered for us. Leaving us an example, that we may follow in his footsteps.

Present-Day Église at Hattonchâtel

Hattonchâtel is a hilltop village in the canton of Vigneulles, which was located in the heart of what came to be known as the St. Mihiel Salient during the Great War. It was occupied by the German Army from the war's start until September 1918. Early in the war, the Église was struck by either a bomb or artillery shell. This triggered great anxiety over Richier's masterpiece. The details of what happened subsequently are unclear, but at some point the German authorities allowed the removal of the piece and its temporary relocation to the city of Metz, which was safely in the rear. It was placed in the local chapel of the Knights Templar for the duration and later returned to its original location, where it can be viewed today.

After creating the Passion, Richier spent the next 30 years creating marvelous works of art—primarily religious—for sites throughout the Lorraine. Late in his life, however, he was persecuted for his Protestant beliefs and had to flee to Switzerland, where he passed away in 1567.

Lonesome Memorials #23 — Parsons, West Virginia

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Parsons  is a small town (population 1,327) in Tucker County, West Virginia. It takes the service of its veterans seriously.  The Tucker County Veterans Memorial Park is located near the strategic intersection of First and Main Streets in Parsons. It's hard to track down when the park was completed or the WWI plaque dedicated. I suspect, but can't certify, that the WWI plaque is America's most recent specifically dedicated to America's First World War veterans before the National Memorial in Washington.

A similar panel is mounted alongside the WWI marker (located on the far left of the complex) for the WWII veterans.  Continuing to the right are matching panels for women who have served, and Korean War, Vietnam War, Persian Gulf, and Iraqi Freedom veterans. A centerpiece with an embossed American flag honors all the nation's veterans.

The good people of Parsons are not yet done. An additional veteran's memorial is planned for the lawn of the Municipal Building.

Photos by Devery Becker Jones and Craig Doda

Historians Paul Kennedy and Fritz Fischer on the Lasting Significance of WWI War Planning

1909

The strategic planning of the Great Powers prior to 1914 has been a topic of continual fascination to historians for both military and non-military reasons. On the one hand, there has been the natural interest of the military writer in the operational, tactical and logistical contents of these plans and in the extent to which they anticipated the testing strategical conditions of the First World War itself. On the other hand, an equally intense concern has been shown by the student of politics in the broader, non-technical aspects of military planning: how far, for example, did the plans of the various General Staffs preempt their government's freedom of action and, to that extent, encroach upon the decision-making domain of the civilians? How far did they reflect the prevailing "unspoken assumptions" upon a country's foreign policy, the protection of national interests, and the nature of international relations and political morality? How far, indeed, were they actually responsible for the outbreak of that catastrophic conflict in the summer of 1914? It is precisely because this topic has always possessed both a military and a political aspect (frequently hard to disentangle) that it has attracted so large an amount of historical attention.

 

Paul M. Kennedy

Norwich, CT, 1978

From the Editor's Introduction to The War Plans of the Great Powers

1914

Despite the experiences of the Second World War and all its global consequences, the First World War has never lost its place in the historical consciousness of the combatant nations, who still regard it as forming the deepest caesura in their recent history. When, therefore, the defeat of Germany in 1945 caused most of that government's past records to fall into the hands of the Allies, who soon made them free for scholarship, it was natural that historians should turn again to the question of Germany's aims and role in the origins of the First World War. . . 

The First World War represents the high point of the age of imperialism, during which technical and economic developments led to increased rivalries between the European great powers, and also the United States and Japan. In particular, those nations conscious of having come 'too late' on to the world scene inevitably found themselves challenging the established countries and their overseas empires, and this in turn led to repeated fissures and reformations in the existing alliance systems and to a "destabilization" of the precarious European and global equilibrium, eventually culminating in a general war. 

The populations of all those countries, influenced to a greater or lesser extent by social-Darwinistic assumptions, came to expect that in such a turbulent world a conflict was unavoidable and should, moreover, be prepared for. Such preparations, especially in the military and strategic domain, are [still important to study]. They show the impact of the Industrial Revolution upon the technical aspects of warfare, but even more they reveal how the majority of states were obliged to refashion the organization of their military leadership by creating a permanent General Staff. The model which was cited on so many occasions, for example, in the British Army reforms and creation of an Imperial General Staff following the Boer War, was that of the immensely successful Prussian General Staff in the 1866-70 period—although, ironically enough, that "model" had lost a considerable amount of its effectiveness by 1911–12, that is, even before the First World War broke out. . .

The operations plans, which the respective general staffs had to prepare, could be more or less binding, more or less flexible (as certainly was true of the much-debated Schlieffen Plan), and could therefore restrict the freedom of action of the political decision makers or leave them relatively untouched. In most of the states concerned—Russia and Austria-Hungary were the exceptions—the political and military leaders also had to grapple with the question of how far the navy or the army was to be considered as the more decisive and thus more important arm: in the German case, for example, the fleet appeared to be the more prominent for some years, but after 1912–13 the army recovered its traditional primacy since it could be seen that the chief theatre in any future conflict was likely to be on land; whereas in England the army (British Expeditionary Force) and the new General Staff began to gain ground after 1905 and by August 1911 had achieved a position in the national strategy which displaced the navy, the more especially since the Admiralty's ideas about the deployment of the fleet were neither coherent nor convincing. This was, in the history of British strategy, a quite epoch-making change of course, even if not fully realized at the time.

Closely connected with these controversies was the problem of waging war in coalition with one's allies, for it was hardly likely that a nation would find itself fighting alone against two or more enemies in view of the formal (or sometimes only moral) bonds and obligations of the various alliance partners in pre-1914 Europe. The difficulties which arose here, it is clear, could not be satisfactorily solved by either of the alliance blocs before the war or at the outbreak of the conflict itself.

[There is a continuing debate over] the problem of "militarism," whether in the more general question of the militarization of a society, or in the specific area of the relationship between the political and military leadership in a state. If this ambiguity about the relations between statesmen and the military existed [with all the combatants], it nevertheless becomes clear that the different cultural, social and constitutional circumstances of the various states led to quite diverse consequences. 

Whereas in France and Britain the political leadership retained its preponderance, despite the rising importance of the armed forces and their staffs, in Germany (and similarly in the fellow-empires of Russia and Austria-Hungary) the authority of the civilians was circumscribed both by the sheer weight of the military in social life and by the constitutional structure: for example, because the monarch was the de facto, and not merely the de jure, commander-in-chief; because the government was dependent upon him, and not upon Parliament; and because he possessed the power to decide over peace and war. What still remains questionable, however, is the notion. . . that there was so great a distinction between the political and military leaders of the Wilhelmine Reich: for there appears to me to have existed a co-operation between both elements in preparing for a conflict, and also in the decision for war, which was justified by their commonly expressed reference to the necessity of strengthening Germany's position in Europe and in the world. This was the unified aim of both and is not simply to be attributed to the military argument that "victory is still possible at present, in a few years' time it will have gone."

Fritz Fischer

Hamburg, December 1978

From the Forward of The War Plans of the Great Powers