American Tank Operations in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive

No tank is to be surrendered or abandoned to the enemy.  If you are left alone in the midst of the enemy keep shooting.  If your gun is disabled use your pistols and squash the enemy with your tracks…If your motor is stalled and your gun broken still the infantry cannot hurt you.  You hang on [and] help will come.  In any case remember you are the first American tanks. You must establish the fact that AMERICAN TANKS DO NOT SURRENDER

Lt. Col. George S. Patton, Commander 1st U.S. Tank Brigade

American Tankers with Their Renault FT-17 Tanks (IWM)

George Patton and his tankers had a major success under their belts at the St. Mihiel Salient in early September 1918, despite an alarming number of vehicles lost due to mechanical breakdowns and the muddy terrain.  Two weeks later, they would be called upon to support General Pershing's First Army in the even larger Meuse-Argonne Offensive. Here is an account of their effort in the opening of the battle from the U.S. Army Museum—

Aimed at breaking through German lines by advancing through the Meuse-Argonne sector, the campaign began on the night of the 25–26 of September with a massive Allied artillery barrage.  At 0530 on 26 September, the 344th and 345th Tank Battalions rolled out in support of the 28th and 35th Divisions, I Corps.  The bulk of the two battalions supported the 35th Division to the east of the Aire River, while Company B of the 344th and Company A of the 345th supported the 28th Division to the west.  Fierce resistance was soon met on both sides of the river, but the men of the 1st Tank Brigade were resolute.  The 28th Division’s advance was stalled by heavy machine-gun fire outside the town of Varennes, leaving the tanks without infantry support.  Unfazed, Captain Dean M. Gilfillan of the 345th Tank Battalion doggedly continued his attack.  With his tank in flames after receiving two direct hits from artillery fire, and suffering a wound from an enemy machine gun, he managed to destroy two German machine guns and gun down a number of German soldiers before abandoning his vehicle moments before it exploded.  Despite being subsequently wounded by shrapnel, he remained at his post long enough to witness a second, successful assault on Varennes.

Patton's Tanks Training at Mass Maneuvering

To the east of the Aire River, the 35th Division was checked by German forces that were strongly entrenched on a hill south of Cheppy. Here, Patton had advanced on foot to survey the situation.  Finding his tanks unable to advance over German trenches and thus come to the aid of the infantry, he ordered all available personnel to clear a path through, handing out picks and shovels and going so far as to strike one of the soldiers who was slacking.  After this was accomplished and the tanks were able to advance, Patton led a haphazard amalgamation of leaderless soldiers in a charge on the German positions, but he was cut down by German fire and had to be evacuated.  Despite their commander no longer being in the fight, the tankers rolled onward, wiping out the offending machine-gun nests on and around the hill, and in concert with remnants of the 138th Infantry Regiment, secured Cheppy. Historian Carlo D’este stated that the assault on Cheppy “…may well have been the first-ever example of tank-infantry cooperation in an offensive situation.”

Plaque at Camp Roberts, CA, Named
for Cpl. Harold Roberts, First Tank Corps
Medal of Honor Recipient, KIA 4 Oct. 1918

So it went, day after day, the Tank Corps intrepidly pushed forward, often in advance of the Infantry. First Lieutenant Harvey L. Harris wrote that “It’s surprising what they ask us to do.  Doughboys to Generals have sent us against places a battleship couldn’t capture…” and Patton later wrote that the infantry had seemed to have “…forgotten the firepower which they themselves possessed and expected the tanks to completely obliterate all resistance before they would advance.”  This success, however, came at a price.  By 3 October, fifty-three percent of the officers and twenty-five percent of the enlisted men of the 1st Tank Brigade had become casualties.  The vehicle attrition rate was also high:  the 1st Tank Brigade started the offensive with 127 Renault tanks supplemented by fourteen more on the night of 27 September.  By 3 October, the brigade had only eighty-nine operational vehicles.  These numbers were about to drop again as the offensive was resumed on 4 October.  Heavy fighting once again resulted in a staggering loss of personnel and equipment; by the next morning, only thirty tanks operable tanks remained, and by 10 October, six of seven captains in the brigade were casualties.

U.S. Tank Advancing at Recicourt, Mid-October 1918

Although Tank Corps mechanics had been feverishly working night and day to keep the tanks in fighting condition, having forty-eight tanks operable on 11 October, mechanical failures do to extended use necessitated a withdrawal of most of the tanks for servicing.  While most of the 1st Tank Brigade was withdrawn from the front, a provisional force designated the 1st Provisional Tank Company, under the command of Captain Courtney Barnard, consisting of ten officers, 148 enlisted men, and twenty-four tanks, was created on 13 October.  It was supported by the 321st Repair and Salvage Company and Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 344th Tank Battalion.  This unit went on to perform admirably (aside from the usual mechanical issues and getting bogged down in the trenches, shells holes, and other obstacles) in actions on 14 October and 1 November.

Source: Selected from "The Dawn of American Armor: The U.S. Army Tank Corps in World War I,"  Eric Anderson, U.S. Army Historical Foundation

Snapshots of the War in 1915

Last Sunday, we published an article about the battles on the Western Front in 1915.  It reminded me of something I've benefited from by looking at thousands of photos from the war over  the last quarter-century. Usually, without first reading the caption of a photograph, I can guess with a pretty high degree of accuracy the year the photo was taken. That's because everything looked different over the time, the battlefields, the trenches, the uniforms and kits of the soldiers.  Here's a selection from 1915. The war's been on a year, but the battlefields haven't yet taken on the lunar landscape look, most of the troops haven't been issued helmets yet, and, while some of the images show the brutal side of war, things just don't look quite as grim as photos from the following year when Verdun and the Somme took center stage.

Click on the Image to Enlarge

French Artillerymen in the Vosges Mountain Sector

King George V at a Military Review at Stonehenge

German Trench at Notre Dame de Lorette

Austrian Soldiers Torch a Polish Village

Battleship HMS Majestic Sinking at Cape Helles, 27 May 1915

V Beach, Gallipoli, After the Troops Move Inland,
River Clyde in Foreground

Lord Kitchener in the Foreground Visiting the Western Front

Italian Troops Moving a Gun to Higher Ground

British Burials, Hullach, Loos Battlefield

A French Band Wearing Gas Masks While Performing

General Joffre, Accompanied by General Cadorna,
Tours the Alpine Battlefields

A Single German Cavalryman Guards a Column of Russian Prisoners

Sources:  Tony Langley Collection, The Illustrated Album deluxe 

Now the War Is Over: Britain 1919–1920

Simon Fowler and Daniel Weinbren

Pen and Sword Military, 2018
David F. Beer, Reviewer

Many uninvolved people assume that when a war ends and 'peace breaks out'-well, that's that. Nothing could be further from the truth. While there might be a collective sigh of relief from some, the agony continues but on a different note. In this, the United States, France, Germany and Britain followed parallel paths to varying degrees. How Britain reacted in 1919-1920 to the most terrible conflict it had ever known is the subject of Now the War is Over and as the authors reveal in detail, all was far from quiet on the home front after the Armistice was signed. A nation of some 46 million people can't lose over 750,000 young men on the battlefield and have a million and a half return wounded-many severely-and then pick up and carry on as usual.

In nine chapters Now the War is Over details the political, financial and social disruption that Britain experienced at the war's end. The first problems arose with countless soldiers wanting nothing more than to get out of uniform and back to civilian life. This brought about revolts against the military system even while troops were still in France, with localized mutinies, riots and general disrespect for officers. Resentment over who got to go home first was rife, and the soldiers showed it. Officers were at a loss about keeping waiting troops occupied-there were few educational opportunities such as American forces enjoyed-and one commander ordered troops to parade with their helmets burnished (scraped and polished) to give them something to do. There was more swearing over this order than had been heard for some time (4).

Fear was a common response among Britain's governing and upper classes as the war drew to an end. A society based on firm class lines saw a threat to its stability in the return of a few million war-experienced soldiers who might be better trained in violence than police and other law enforcement personnel. What would prevent upheavals as in Russia and Germany? In fact, numerous strikes, riots, protests, and demonstrations (many now forgotten) did take place all over the United Kingdom. But this unrest, violent and even bloody as it sometimes was, never became organized in any nationally united way-most remained locally organized. No soviets arose, no government was overthrown, and a troubled Britain muddled through while finding it impossible to return to the old ways and values. Life had been changed forever.

In addition to other upheavals, Ireland was reasserting its claims for independence and the IRA fought a long and violent campaign against the British State (p.22). Industrially, as factories producing war materials including vehicles and munitions cut back or closed, unionized workers protested and went on strike. Also, returning servicemen had plenty of reason to feel resentful and neglected:

Veterans found that Britain had changed during the war, often, in their eyes, not for the better. And although the fallen were commemorated in memorials and ceremonies, many ex-servicemen felt that their sacrifices were not sufficiently recognized. Protests around the Peace Day celebrations in July 1919 were often about how ex-servicemen had not been invited to the festivities. Rather the money had been spent on feting local elites who had done well out of the war (27).

"Black and Tans," British Auxiliaries Deployed to Ireland,
Blocking a Road 

The fight for recognition, reparations, medical care, and pensions were to be a constant theme in the 1920s in Britain, as it was in the United States, although no Bonus March took place.

Chapters 3 and 4 give considerable depth to both the economic and political reconstruction that Britain underwent during these postwar years, but perhaps Chapter 5, "Adjusting to the Peace," is the most interesting. The situation was to be expected:

During the war tens of thousands of women entered the factories and offices to fill the gaps left by men joining up or to boost the war economy. Between July 1914 and July 1918, the number of women employed in Britain rose by nearly 1.5 million, with virtually all of them engaged in new occupations or hired as substitutes for men. In engineering, where large numbers of women were employed, the figures rose from about 170,000 women in the industry before 1914 to 594,000 in 1918 (69–70).


Now, of course male trade unionists worked mightily to remove women from the workplace so that returning men could get jobs. Women were expected to return to the home or go back into domestic service. This worked to a certain degree, but women had changed too. Many didn't want to go back to service in a big house. Worse still, many women now smoked, painted their lips and fingernails, and wore shorter hair and dresses. They went to dance clubs, enjoyed the newfangled Jazz bands, and even became "flappers" much to the horror of the establishment. Nothing, however, was going to bring back a prewar Britain.

Although Now the War Is Over treats little that is new in the larger outline of postwar social upheaval, the authors do give intriguing examples of what was taking place on the everyday level. The second half of the book holds our attention on a variety of topics, from dealing with the wounded and mutilated to crime, drugs, horse racing, hastily written ephemeral literature, spiritualism, and the nation-wide ardor to commemorate the fallen. This latter ranged from building the Cenotaph to itinerant artists who for a small fee would provide a postcard-size sketch of a military grave with a loved one's name quickly written on it to be pinned to the wall of a grieving family's home.

Four pages of black-and-white photographs are included in the book and the notes for each chapter are excellent. If this segment of history interests you, you'll find Fowler and Weinbren's book an intriguing and useful resource.

David F. Beer

Was the Food Weapon a Myth?

Mark Harrison of the University of Warwick argues yes.

Berlin Butcher Shop, Scene of a 1919 Food Riot

Food was an essential element of two world wars (Collingham 2011). Moreover, food security was a core element of German war preparations (Lee 1975). Despite such preparations, many believed, Germany was strangled by the British (later Allied) blockade. The food weapon appeared to have been decisive—Germany was starved into submission.

This belief has historic significance. After the war it helped to sustain the notion (attributed to Germany’s wartime leaders Hindenburg and Ludendorff) that Germany remained unbeaten militarily; the army was betrayed by the surrender of the home front. The memory of the blockade also ran deep in the National Socialists’ project to restructure Europe in Germany’s interest by force, as when Hitler  remarked in 1939: “I need the Ukraine, so that no one is able to starve us again, like in the last war.”

The idea that Germany was starved into defeat would have astonished prewar observers. The British and German prewar diets were quite comparable. At the outbreak of war Germany imported only 20–25 percent of calories for human consumption; for Britain the equivalent number was 60 percent. It was natural for Angell and Bloch to suppose that in wartime British consumers would starve first. Yet all measures of wartime trends show a contrast that was unfavorable to the German consumer. During the war British food supplies were somewhat constrained and their average composition deteriorated; in 1918, the average household consumed more bread, less fat, and substantially less meat than in 1913. In Germany, in contrast, in 1918 the average household ate less of everything, and supplies of meat and fats had collapsed.

Ration Stamps Issued in Alsace-Lorraine

Germany also compares unfavorably in food distribution. There, it was families on lower incomes that were less protected from average trends. In Britain the access of poorer families to food improved relative to the average (Gazeley and Newall 2013); this is more likely attributable to the high demand for all kinds of labor than to rationing, which was introduced only at the end of 1917 (for sugar) or during 1918 (for some meats and fats). In Germany price ceilings and rationing came in 1916 and covered bread and flour, meat, fats, and oil. But rations supplied little more than half of required calories, so everyone had to find unofficial sources to survive. In this setting the wealthy had the advantage. Nutritional deprivation has been observed in the heights of soldiers and and the heights and weights of schoolchildren born before and during World War I (Blum 2013; Cox 2014). Both show average declines and increases in inequality.

Finally, excess mortality among German civilians wartime is put at around 750,000, most likely because of hunger and hunger-related disease (Davis and Engerman 2006: 204).

The blockade was the adversary’s salient intervention in Germany’s food supplies, and it is easy to leap to the conclusion that the blockade was therefore the cause of German hunger. But this story is confounded by two factors. One is straightforward—Germany chose to go to war with its principal trading partners. Angell and Bloch had argued forcefully that great powers heavily dependent on trade should not attack the sources of their own prosperity. But this is exactly what Germany did (and Shinzo Abe was right to note the fact). The German economy was much more interlinked with its future adversaries than its future allies. In 1913, Britain, France, Italy, and Russia accounted for 36 percent of prewar German trade (Gartzke and Lupu 2012: 131). The same figure for Austria–Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire was only 12 percent. From this perspective, Alan Kramer (2013) has pointed out, much of the “blockade” was no more than an Allied decision not to supply the enemy across the front line.

Hungary Berliners Cutting a Horse Carcass 

Another confounding factor is suggested by the fact that the loss of trade was not the only supply shock disturbing the wartime food market. Prewar plans for wartime autarky assumed that German farmers would farm more intensively to feed the nation (Lee 1975). But the opposite came about, because war mobilization stripped German farms of young men, horses, and nitrates. War mobilization also diverted domestic industries from producing the manufactured goods that farmers needed to supplying weapons for the front line. As food prices soared, farmers retreated into self-sufficiency. When civilian officials stepped in to control prices, the farmers’ aversion to trade only increased.

In his economic history of the war Gerd Hardach  asked how the blockade interacted with Germany’s economic mobilization. He conjectured:

The tremendous economic decline of the Central Powers between 1914 and 1918 was caused less by the blockade than by the excessive demands made on their economies by the war.

Hardach did not suggest how to implement this comparison in the German market; here is a simple way to think about it. Start from the fact that before the war Germany imported at most one quarter of calories for human consumption, producing the other three quarters on its own territory. In that context the war induced two welfare losses. One, arising from wartime obstacles to external trade, raised the costs of the one quarter of calories that was previously imported. The other, arising from wartime mobilization, raised the costs of the three quarters produced at home. Is it reasonable to suppose that the loss associated with the one quarter was larger than the loss associated with the three quarters?

Figure 6 illustrates the point. Pw is the peacetime world price of calories; Qp is peacetime calories produced and Qc is calories consumed, the gap being filled by imports at the world price. Suppose that war cuts off all trade—an overstatement of the case. The welfare loss from the blockade is the triangle ABC. Suppose that at the same time war mobilization raises the costs of domestic production. Then the welfare loss from mobilization is the triangle OCD. While the height of each triangle cannot be ascertained, its base is known. The trade loss is proportional to prewar trade, whereas the mobilization loss is proportional to prewar consumption. Since the share of prewar trade in consumption was at most one quarter (and not all trade was cut off), we can reasonably presume that the welfare loss from mobilization was greater than the loss from the blockade.

Further welfare losses could have arisen from price ceilings and rationing. On the evidence already cited they redistributed welfare adversely but are ignored in the figure. Wartime mobilization ended well before the lifting of the blockade, which was maintained after the Armistice and, extended to the Baltic, became even tighter. Until Germany’s acceptance of the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919, with the fighting over and German soil under German control, trade sanctions were the Allies’ only coercive lever to ensure that Germany came to terms. Among Germans the continuation of the blockade was bitterly unpopular and became a source of lasting resentment. Yet, as Offer (1989: 388–391) reports, prices did not rise and rations did not fall. One explanation is that the end of war mobilization compensated for the intensified blockade.

It was both plausible and convenient for politicians of the war period and later to blame Germany’s wartime economic difficulties on the Allied blockade. This must be largely a myth. The blockade was not the only factor in the disruption of German trade. The disruption of trade was not the only factor that disrupted the German internal market for food. Arguably, the military mobilization of agricultural resources into war, and the economic mobilization of industry, had a larger disruptive effect than the shock from foreign trade.

Source: Selected from the paper "Myths of the Great War," Mark Harrison, University of Warwick.  Presented as the keynote lectures to the Economic History Society annual conference at the University of Warwick, 28 March 2014, and the Ninth Appalachian Spring Conference in World History and Economics, Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina, 12 April 2014.

It Must Have Seemed Like the Nadir of Trench Warfare

1915: Burying the Dead

A little over a year into the war the Allies, whose strategic thinking was firmly guided by Joffre, attempted a d double offensive against the German salient into France, north and east of Paris, in an effort to "rupture" the German position. It couldn't have gone worse and it must have seemed that things were as bad as  they could possibly be.  Looking over history's shoulder, we can see Verdun and the Somme looming just ahead of the peoples of 1915. However, to them, back at the end of 1915, it must have seemed that things could not be looking worse. This is what they were mulling over as the 1916 campaign lay ahead.

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 theaters 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. 

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. 

Harrow School's Tribute to Lt. Alex Fitch

Lt. Alex Fitch

Above a fireplace in a room at Harrow School a light has shone on the portrait of a young man in uniform night and day for the past 89 years.

When 19-year-old 2nd Lieutenant Alex Fitch was killed in northern France in September 1918 his parents were determined their only son would be remembered.

Fitch had been a pupil at Harrow School and was one of 644 Old Harrovians killed in the Great War.

The memorial to him, the Alex Fitch Room, makes up part of Harrow School's War Memorial Building. It was completed in 1926, but the room, a gift from the Fitch family, appears to be much older.

Anne Hall-Williams, a tour guide at Harrow, said, "The walls are actually made up of Elizabethan panels and the floor is made up of teak timbers from a George III warship called the St Vincent.

"The fireplace is interesting because it is a composite. It is also much older than the building itself. The interior is from the reign of King Henry V and the carving around the outside dates from the reign of King Henry VII."

The doors to the room are inscribed with the words "Pass Friend," taken from the lyrics of a Harrow School song.

The song remembers the sacrifices of the Boer War and the words were written by Fitch's housemaster, George Townsend-Warner.

You stand there where your brothers stood,

And pray where your brothers prayed,

Who fought with Death as brave men should

Not boasting and not afraid.

For the blood and the lives that your brothers gave,

For the glory that you share,

The message comes from beyond the grave,

The challenge - 'Who goes there -

You?

Pass, Friend - All's Well

Above the fireplace is a portrait of Fitch in uniform. His head rests on his right hand and he is holding a cigarette in his left. Over the portrait burns a light and it burns permanently.

Mrs Hall-Williams said, "That was put there at the request of Alex Fitch's parents, and it has been burning there since 1926. The only time it had to be turned out was during the blackout in the Second World War. Otherwise, it is on all the time."

The room was built for a specific purpose. Fitch's family, especially his mother Lady Fitch, wanted a place where parents visiting the school could meet their sons.

Subsequent generations of the Fitch family have made use of the room.

Jamie Ingham Clark is Fitch's great-nephew and is himself an Old Harrovian. He said, "My father was also at Harrow, mostly because of the fact that Alex Fitch had been there. We used the room for his mother's original intent."

Alex Fitch Room

He says over the years the room has come to be used for other purposes. "Certainly I remember taking my French O-level oral in that room, and I think I did the odd music lesson when I was learning, unsuccessfully, the bagpipes."

Despite the change of use, the appearance of the room is as it was in 1926. It contains Elizabethan chairs, a Cromwellian refectory table, and Jacobean chests, all given by the Fitch family.

Mr Ingham Clark said, "Lady Fitch's gift stipulated that nothing should be in that room which, to quote the biblical text, moth nor rust could corrupt. The idea being that it would never change from her ideal, as she gave it."

Fitch is also remembered in Harrow School's Roll of Honour and within the six volumes of the Harrow Memorials of the Great War. In each volume, for each Old Harrovian, is a photograph and a short biography.

The entry for 2nd Lieutenant Fitch contains the words written to his father by his commanding officer:

"I loved your boy and I trusted him with very responsible duties which always proved his capability, and, although he was so young, his personality was so great that he held his men in the hollow of his hand, and they all liked and respected him."

Monument to the School's 644 Killed in the Great War

Harrow guide Anne Hall-Williams says the gift of the Fitch family remains as relevant as it ever was—"He was their only son."

"Everybody who loses a child usually wants some kind of memorial, even today. So he's lived on, which is what they wanted—immortality for their son."

Alex Fitch's great-nephew agrees.

"I think it is a fantastic memorial," said Mr Ingham Clark. "Not only to a much-loved son but to recall the sacrifice of so many young men from such a wonderful school."

Source:  BBC, 22 August 2015; Harrow School Enterprises

The Siege of Kut: Some Observations

by Assistant Editor Kimball Worcester 

British Soldiers at Kut During the Siege

Descriptions of British soldiers’ lives under military siege include words such as gallant, heroic, even plucky. This thin optimism fundamentally serves the home front and politicians and does nothing to alleviate the horrors of the actual circumstances. On the other hand, the resourcefulness, stalwartness, and humor of the British and Indians under siege at Kut for 146 days do stand as testimony to the reserves of strength in those soldiers when tried to their utmost.

One example of such humor in Ronald Millar's Death of an Army: the Siege of Kut 1915–1916 is a mock menu proposing a dinner to be held on 28 February 1916 in honor of the 16^th anniversary of the relief of Ladysmith—at the “Optimus Hotel, Kut.”

In the tradition of The Wipers Times and similar wartime soldiers’ publications, the menu and program show through humor, sarcasm, and song the detachment and despair that coexist under siege and in the trenches. Food and drink in both circumstances are a constant topic, at Kut even more so. In reality, of course, food dwindled to horseflesh, here noted as “Cutlets, Jaipur Pony Superb” for the Entrée. The after-dinner program makes witty comments on the conditions and predictable digs at army administration and the ever-delayed Relief Force:

·      Pt I: 8. Two Step  ‘Be Quick and Get Under’ [by] A. Dugout

·      Pt. II: 1. March  ‘Over the Hills and Far Away’ Percy Lake[1]

·      Pt. II: 2. Cornet Solo  ‘I Hear You Calling Me’  Aylmer[2]

The counterpart of this joshing is the need to mend and make do, to revise and invent to be able to keep up the defense and hold out while other supplies besides food dwindle or are non-existent—weapons and ammo. The defenders had artillery, to a degree, but no mortars at all. Given the periodic raids and imminent attack from the Turks, mortars were needed for their short-range, high-trajectory qualities. Both the weapon and its shells were improvised, thanks to several companies of Royal Engineers serving with Townshend’s force:

            …’jam pot’ grenades, or bombs, were made. These were jam tins containing gun-cotton charges which were then topped up with pieces of metal, old rusty nails, broken glass,Turkish shrapnel picked up at the fort… [p 107]

         Future Grenades    

There were some unsatisfactory attempts at creating mortars from wood and baling wire (which Millar describes as “Elizabethan weapons”), but the answer came from the Gnome 80 [not 70, as Millar states] engines from the Martinsyde S1 aeroplanes[3] left at Kut:

The answer to the problem of the wooden mortars was supplied by Captain [R.E.] Stace’s modifications to the Gnome aircraft engines. He had converted the cylinders of the radial engines into mortars and two of these arrived at the fort. At first they threw 3-lb. T.N.T. aeroplane bombs which were fairly accurate up to a range of 300 yards but occasionally snags occurred. Loose collars were attached to the bomb so they would fit snugly in the cylinder. These sometimes failed to drop off when fired and spoiled the projectile’s trajectory. This failure often caused the bomb to land inside the fort. The mortar gunners developed skills similar to those of ornithologists and could spot a ‘collared’ or ‘collarless’ bomb immediately and remove themselves quickly from the vicinity of the explosion. Captain Stace, however, solved the problem by adapting the gun so that it could fire the ‘jam pot’ bombs which fitted snugly in the barrels of the Gnome mortars without collars. [pp 111–112]

Gnome 80 engine, c. 1915

Photo from http://www.wingnutwings.com/ww/productdetail?productid=3103&cat=2

Martinsyde S1 scouts in Mesopotamia

Photo from http://flyingmachines.ru/Site2/Crafts/Craft25642.htm

          

The Relief Force attempts never could break through, and Townshend’s only option was an honorable surrender, which tragically took his soldiers into a grim death- and disease-ridden captivity. By the end of both siege and captivity 5,476 British and Indian troops had died. There can be no accounting of the deaths of the Arab civilians trapped in Kut or dispatched by the Turks upon their capture of the town.

---

[1] Lt.-Gen. commanding the Mesopotamian Force charged with relieving the siege.

[2] Lt.-Gen. led first failed relief attempt.

[3] Millar uses the plural of engines and implies plural aircraft as well, but according to Trevor Henshaw in The Sky Their Battlefield II (2014) only one Martinsyde S1 was “…now [December 1915] abandoned at Kut owing to damage or inability to evacuate” (p 295).

Recommended: The Doughboy Cartoons of Abian Wallgrem

Presented by James Lileks at Lileks.com

So who was he? A Marine, for starters. An American soldier in the AEF during WWI, Abian "Wally" Wallgren drew comics for Stars and Stripes. His style was typical for the era—broad goofy caricatures with oversized feet. But for a young man he had wit and promise—some of the cartoons you'll see here are quite accomplished.

At the risk of getting deluged by information, I must admit I can't find much info on him. (I've found a few websites that use his cartoons, but they all stink.) In the 1930s he briefly drew for Happy Days, a government-issued paper handed out in CCC camps, suggesting he didn't have a booming postwar career. The book from which these cartoons are taken is often auctioned off on eBay or elsewhere and seems to be his sole contribution to the cartoonist's art. It's almost 90 years old and sturdily bound.

These drawings were originally printed on brown paper; I've made most black and white. I'm not presenting them with much commentary, as that would seem superfluous.

To view a selection of Abian Wallgrem's cartoons click HERE

A Doughboy Tells His GI Son What to Expect in Combat

Veteran Dwight Fee (left) wrote this letter when his son enlisted for service in World War II. As a private with the 319th Infantry, 80th "Blue Ridge" Division, Dwight Fee had fought in the costly, but ultimately successful, Meuse-Argonne Offensive. He did not reminisce about events. Instead, he focused on courage and character. To Fee, the war had been both horrifying and full of adventure. He would be up for it again if duty called and told his son: “I wish I could go FOR you, or at least WITH you.” William would survive his combat in Europe, including the Battle of the Bulge, with the 11th Armored Division, although he was seriously wounded by a landmine in March 1945.

Dwight Fee to his son Private William Fee

1 October 1944

Well, I figure you’re off on the Great Adventure. There will be many disagreeable experiences; soul-shaking experiences; tragic experiences; uplifting experiences. You will see examples of selfishness and selflessness that will stir you tremendously . . . I have no doubt that you will develop the same respect that I have for the Infantry , the Gol-Darned Infantry, and the same awesome regard for the Medics.

I have no fears for you; you will do well. You have the finest spirit of any one I know of. I wish I could go FOR you, or at least WITH you, but this is your war. Mother and I will pray that God will give you courage for any danger you will have to face; that you will be given steadfastness, and patience, and resolution. We believe that God lays on nobody more than he is able to bear; that through all trials. God will provide the qualities needed to meet them. I believe David: The Lord upholdeth all that fall; The cast-down raiseth up again.

Just be your own self: and there are not many people to whom I could say that.

You are serving in a great cause. Because of you and those like you millions of fathers and mothers and children again will be able to think and speak freely without fear; to live their lives without oppression. And we here at home will be spared what most certainly would have been the fate of those people if all of you had not gone out to prevent the domination of the world by Japan [inserted in pencil to replace “Italy”] and Germany (and Italy)--and don't think for a minute that they wouldn’t have dominated it . . . And they'll try again in another generation if they can.

Goodnight, son. Have at em! As always, Pop. Keep busy. keep bucking.

Sources: Smithsonian National Postal Museum and the American War Letters Archives, Leatherby Libraries, Chapman University, CA

Over There with Private Graham: The Compelling World War 1 Journal of an American Doughboy

Bruce Jarvis and Stephen Badgley

Badgley Pub Company, 2018
James M. Gallen, Reviewer

The Centenary of the Great War has spawned a swarm of histories and reprints of memoirs. Over There with Private Graham is a minimally edited account of the journal of Private William J. Graham, an overage volunteer with a Pennsylvania National Guard Military Police Company that was incorporated into the 28th U.S. Infantry Division. A 38-year-old Philadelphia policeman upon enlistment in 1917, Graham served in Europe from May 1917 and continued his service until September 1919 in the Army of Occupation.

The chain of custody of this 660-page hand written journal is a mystery tale in itself. Author Bruce Jarvis purchased a set of unsigned, unbound handwritten double-sided pages. He later recognized quotations from the journal in The Iron Division, National Guard of Pennsylvania in the World War. Some detective work enabled Jarvis to connect the dots between references to the author, Bill, and criticisms of Captain Henry Crofut, leading to Bugler William J. Graham. Eventual contact with Graham's grand-daughter unearthed additional journal entries.

This work commences with a brief biography of Graham who, but for his writings, would have been an undistinguished enlisted man. This is followed by a preface explaining the origins and discovery of the journal. Then comes a stream of consciousness of observations and commentary by an American serving on the Western Front. What makes this tome rare, if not unique, is its unvarnished report of the author's experiences. Having been written contemporaneously with the events it describes, it is free from the bias and reflective changes prevalent in postwar memoirs. Apparently having not been mailed, it was neither subject to nor intimidated by the censor's knife. I find its entries to be rather upbeat with little of the morose tone evident in many first-person war memories. Graham served as an MP, which placed him out of the front lines but close enough to them to have seen the results of action at the front.

Entries generally range from a couple of paragraphs to a page or two. They are generously supplemented by many black-and-white period photographs and leavened by humor or an occasional poem, often written by Graham himself. Throughout, the theme that the Americans were pushing while the Germans were retreating is evident. The entries provide insight into the life of the Doughboys, the phrases they used, their values, the practicalities of the war, and the characters with whom Graham interacted.

Reports of actions describe the sights and sounds and display the enthusiasm of the Americans freshly committed to battle:

October 10, 1918: At 2:30 a.m., the American artillery and the Hun batteries started a bombardment. It was wicked! The roaring of the guns were [sic] deafening. I will make a bet the Hun is coming out second best in this duel. Our boys have the Boche's number when it comes to artillery fighting. The wounded and gassed victims are coming in very fast to the hospital in Fleury. There have been five hospital trains each day this week…At 10 a.m. word came in that the three Marne division are in the lines hammering away at "Fritz" being backed up with our boys, using the French 75s like a machine gun battalion would handle their machine guns (p. 253).

October 11, 1918: I cannot figure out how the Germans can stand this method of warfare which the Americans are serving them. Thousands upon thousands of shells fired from as many guns…day and night (p. 254).

References to the baseball throw of hand grenades, support from service organizations such as the Red Cross, the YMCA, and the Knights of Columbus, tell a bit about the life of the common Doughboy. The anxiety that the war might start again if the Germans did not sign the treaty reminds readers that the Armistice was not necessarily the end of the war and that the soldiers knew it. The creeping fraternization between occupiers and civilians evidenced a gradual easing of tensions as the war receded into memory.

William Graham (Arrow) and His Fellow MPs of Company B

Over There with Private Graham is an oversized book with a cover photo of a Doughboy with helmet, revolver, and gas mask in front of no-man's-land. The entries make for easy reading either straight through or in bits and pieces as they are capable of being appreciated alone or in small groups. The many historic black-and-white photographs supplement the text and convey valuable information on their own. This is not a book for the big story of the Great War. It brings the reader in touch with a real Doughboy. Try to find notebooks of your grandfather or uncle, the neighbor when you were growing up, or the family friends of whom you have heard others speak. Maybe they can speak again to you through words echoing those of Private Graham.

James M. Gallen

Check Out the April St. Mihiel Trip-Wire

Our April 2019 issue of the St. Mihiel Trip-Wire is now available at:

http://www.worldwar1.com/tripwire/smtw.htm

(Click Refresh/Reload if the April issue does not appear.)

German U-boat Surrendering to a British Warship

This month's issue contains material on:

• The Turkish Interpretation of Gallipoli
• Your Editor's Views on the Gallipoli Venture
• WWI Film Classic: Life and Nothing But
• The Kaiser's Daily Telegraph Affair
• Surrender of Germany's U-boat Fleet
• Remembering April 1917: America Enters the War
• Robert Graves's Mother Receives News of His Death
• America's Siberian Intervention: Part 1, Why?
• Coming Events at the National WWI Museum and National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center
• Seats Still Available for the 28 June Versailles Palace Dinner and Commemoration
• Von Lettow-Vorbeck Welcomed Home in Berlin
• Plus all our regular features

This Month's Recommended WWI Film

Also, please note that our Musical CD and Over the Top Magazine Complete Collection DVD can be ordered through the website.  This is your opportunity to support our efforts in providing this otherwise free body of World War One material in the Trip-Wire and our daily blog Roads to the Great War.

Have a great springtime,

Mike and the Editorial Team

Falkenhayn Out—Hindenburg In

Early Signs of a Cult in the Making
A 1915 Magazine Cover

By the summer of 1916 it was apparent that Chief of the Imperial Staff Falkenhayn had to go. Behind the scenes all sorts of objections to his policies were being raised, by the field commanders stuck at Verdun and on the Somme, the Olympic-caliber backstabbing bureaucrats of the General Staff, industrialists unhappy about the management of the war economy, and an across-the-spectrum coalition of politicians utterly infatuated with the successful commander in the east, Paul von Hindenburg. Also, recent research has suggested that Hindenburg himself was applying considerable pressure for the appointment. 

1917: Still Going Strong

The near disaster of the Brusilov Offensive and Romania's imminent entry into the Allied camp also helped push him out the door. Hindenburg, already the object of a growing personality cult, was the only realistic successor. Naturally he brought along his subordinate, Erich von Ludendorff. They had become "joined at the hip" during the campaigns in Russia and Poland. 

After Defeat

They quickly liquidated the dual-problem battles at Verdun and on the Somme and boosted morale throughout the forces. The Kaiser and the politicians were pushed to the background as Hindenburg and Ludendorff assumed almost dictatorial power over both the economy and the nation's war aims. Their isolation from the nation's people and true interests led to their greatest blunder—going on the offensive in the spring of 1918 in an effort to win an advantageous settlement before the Americans arrived in decisive numbers. Its failure led to a peace in which the Allies dictated all the terms.

The Royal Flying Corps Arrives in France

The B.E.2, the Most Plentiful of the RFC's Aircraft

In early August 1914 a rather eclectic collection of British aircraft left Dover, England, in four squadrons to aid the defense of France and Belgium along the front lines near Amiens, France. No. 2 and No. 4 Squadrons flew Blériot Experimental 2s (B.E.2s).

No. 3 Squadron flew a mixture of Blériots and Henri Farmans, while No. 5 Squadron had Henri Farmans, Avro, and B.E.8s, the latter nicknamed “Bloater” for its resemblance to the fish.

B.E.8

Two of the types, the B.E.2 and B.E.8 were products of the Royal Aircraft Factory at Farnborough, present-day site of the biennial international air show. Originally established as His Majesty’s Balloon Factory, it became the Royal Aircraft Factory in 1911 and attracted some of the best aviation pioneers in England, including Geoffrey de Havilland and Henry Folland.

The Royal Aircraft Factory created some useful aircraft early in the war and was responsible for what many consider to be the best RFC/RAF fighter of the period, the S.E.5a.

An Avro 504

Most of the aircraft sent to France in August 1914 were B.E.2s, a fragile looking biplane powered by a 70-hp Renault engine. Its sole original design requirement was to create “a stable aircraft,” and no one envisioned that it would enter combat. With a maximum speed of 70 mph, it could carry a load of 224 pounds of bombs. Its stall speed was just over 40 mph, providing a 30-mph envelope in which to maneuver. Despite this limited performance, the aircraft was continually improved and served until 1918. The B.E.8 was essentially a B.E.2 powered by an 80-hp Gnome rotary engine. It was built in much smaller numbers than the B.E.2 and, as a result, killed fewer British pilots than the B.E.2 did.

The Blériots of the Royal Flying Corps were essentially similar to the Channel-crossing type and had a top speed of 59 to 61 mph.

Only a few Avro 504s were available for the initial operation, despite their superior 82-mph top speed. An Avro 504 of No. 5 Squadron was shot down on 22 August 1914, the first British aircraft lost to enemy fire.

Farmans on Display

The Henri Farmans were a hopeless-appearing collection of wings and struts, powered by an 80-hp Gnome pusher engine providing a blistering 65-mph top speed.

This collection of RFC aircraft was impressive to the French, and the aircraft were soon dispersed to fields around Maubeuge, the French garrison town designated as the forward operating base of the British Expeditionary Force.

Source:  Air Force Magazine, July 2011