Kut: The Death of an Army

By Ronald Millar

Pen & Sword Military, 2017

Reviewed by Timothy Heck

 

British Prisoners Evacuating Kut

Originally Presented by the Western Front Association

Kut’s tragedy rings out as “the most abject capitulation in Britain's military history." Given British defeat at Yorktown in 1781 and the 1942 surrender of Singapore, this is quite a claim for a battle on the periphery of the Great War. Led into defeat by General Charles Townshend, British forces, including a large Indian Army contingent, spent five months entrapped by an ever-growing Turkish force before surrendering in April 1916. With dwindling supplies and an increasing toll from disease and malnutrition, thousands of Imperial soldiers died waiting for rescue as Townshend frittered away what combat power he had through indecision and ineptitude. Ronald Millar’s Kut: The Death of an Army recounts the siege from the British perspective of the officers and men trapped inside Kut, revealing shortfalls in logistics and planning that sealed their fates.

Millar starts by recounting British failure at Ctesiphon in late November 1915 and the operational-level implications that defeat portended. Envisioned as the next victory over an inept Turkish military, taking Ctesiphon was supposed to be the next victory en route to seizing Baghdad and breaking the Ottoman Empire. Townshend, opposed to the advance, was overruled by his superior, General Sir John Nixon. Following orders, Townshend’s 6th (Poona) Division of around 11,000 men, advanced north to Ctesiphon where they were stopped after several days of hard fighting by Turkish soldiers. Efforts to push towards Baghdad ended as British casualties approached 40% and Townshend was forced to retreat south in order to rebuild. By 6 December 1915, Townshend’s forces retreated into Kut.

Once the British were fixed in Kut, Turkish units slowly surrounded the city and began constricting the British forces through a series of encircling trenches and probing saps. Attempting to capture the city through force, the Turks commenced a series of unsuccessful assaults on British defensive lines. After being repelled multiple times, at great losses, Turkish commanders switched to siege warfare and began shelling and sniping at the trapped British. Of note, Millar attributes this change in tactics to the Germans. Referencing Oberleutnant von Kiesling’s Mit Feldmarschall von der Goltz Pasha im Mesopotamia und Persien, Millar states the arrival of the German field marshal led to a change in Turkish tactics. “The new supreme commander forbade any further attempt to take Kut by storm...to him it appeared to be a better plan to starve the garrison into submission” (97-8). The implication that Turkish commanders were ineffective is one worth addressing, though Millar does not do so, rather relying on German source material.

As the siege continued, British commanders launched a series of relief attempts in order to lift the siege. Pushing north from Basra, the closest came to within hearing distance of the defenders of Kut before being beaten back by stiff Turkish defenses. Ultimately, all were unsuccessful and cost the British over 23,000 officers and men killed and wounded (284-5). British commanders failed to effectively mass their forces in order to break through Turkish defenses, instead bringing units in piecemeal in an effort to lift the siege. Furthermore, the defenders were not used to launch spoiling attacks or to tie down Turkish units being sent to defeat the relief columns.

After failed ceasefire negotiations with the Turkish commander, Townshend surrendered his depleted garrison on 29 April 1916, with approximately 13,000 British troops marching into captivity. Almost 4,000 died as prisoners of war due to a variety of causes, including malnutrition and abuse between capture and release in 1918. The Mesopotamia Commission, established in August 1916, “found the weightiest share of responsibility lay with Nixon whose ‘confident optimism’ was a main cause of the decision to advance on Baghdad” (286). The commission also noted the breakdown of logistics support, including failure to provide adequate medical coverage or supplies.

A Turkish Trench Cutting Off Kut

The aphorism that amateurs study tactics while professionals study logistics echoes loudly throughout the book. From the outset, logistics problems and shortfalls should have urged caution from the outset but were overlooked after relatively easy victories and advances earlier in the campaign:

“There were no heavy guns; although a plan to form an air corps had been approved shortly before the outbreak of war nothing had yet been done about it. Other deficiencies included such items as wire-cutters, telephones, transport for drinking water, Very lights, signal rockets, tents, mosquito nets, sun-helmets, periscopes, telescopic sights, loophole plates, flares, hand-grenades and even blankets and clothing.” (4)

Food was also in short supply. Dietary restrictions among the the Indian troops precluded many of them from eating horse meat, a main staple as the siege progressed. The lack of food, or the refusal to eat what was at hand, led to a variety of debilitating diseases caused by malnutrition, further reducing the defender’s combat power.

British logistics problems did not end with sustainment shortfalls. Throughout the Mesopotamian campaign, British forces suffered from inadequate medical care in a climatically challenging environment where a multitude of deadly diseases were endemic. The loss of eight doctors at Ctesiphon reduced the number available for service during the retreat and siege. Furthermore, medical orderlies previously evacuated could have been useful in treating the growing number of wounded and ill. During one relief attempt, “there were scenes [of uncared-for wounded] which witnesses described as being reminiscent of the Crimea” (143). After over a year of campaigning in Mesopotamia, “there was still not one hospital ship” (143) available. So devastating was this lack of medical planning or preparation that Millar describe it as the “most acute” shortfall (4).

Supply shortages of all kinds were compounded by the anemic lines of communication which were already overstretched. All British supplies in theatre had to flow through Basra. Analysis by Sir George Buchanan, who arrived in Basra to assist Nixon in improving the port, revealed just how poor the main port of entry was. He later remarked, “I had never before in my life seen such a hopeless mess and muddle...It seemed incredible that we should have been in occupation of Basra for over a year, so little had been done in the time” (129). Basra’s port facility, Millar writes, was “nothing more than an anchorage and a swamp” (130). Buchanan, who had spent years as the chief engineer of the port in Rangoon, was roundly ignored or marginalized by Nixon and his staff at the cost of the opportunity to improve lines of communication.

Order HERE

Millar’s strongest writing is in his portrayal of the individual soldier, be he the commander or a common private. Townshend is the book’s central character, which makes sense as he was the commander and left a memoir from which Millar draws heavily. Ultimately, Townshend cannot be held responsible for the failure in planning in India or logistics at Basra, though these each helped doom his men. Nevertheless, his inability to effectively lead once inside the siege are well-explored by Millar. Millar’s inclusion of common soldiers and junior officers is admirable, helping reveal the battle from the bottom-up. Unfortunately, many are unnamed or anonymous, giving the reader few to latch onto.

Millar’s book, originally published in 1970 as Death of an Army: The Siege of Kut, 1915-1916, remains a concise and engaging telling of the siege from the British perspective. As such, it is limited in its ability to tell a balanced picture of the battle. Furthermore, given that it was originally published almost 50 years ago, Millar lacked access to many of the archives that have since opened. Recent scholarship, including Nikolas Gardner’s The Siege of Kut-al-Amara: At War in Mesopotamia, 1915-1916, should be read before Millar’s work. Readers looking for a better understanding of the Turkish army should read works by Edward J. Erickson in order to flesh out the largely faceless victors of Kut.

Timothy Heck

The Unlikely Miracle Medical Dressing of World War One: Peat Moss

A Humble Moss Healed the Wounds of Thousands in World War I.  Its Remarkable Properties Also Helped Sequester Carbon and Preserve the Bodies of the Fallen!

Peat Moss aka Sphagnum

By Lorraine Boissoneault

A Smithsonian Special Report,  28 April 2017 

The First World War had just begun, and already the wounds were rotting on the battlefield. In the last months of 1914, doctors like Sir. W. Watson Cheyne of the Royal College of Surgeons of England noted with horror the “great prevalence of sepsis,” the potentially life-threatening response triggered by a bad infection. And by December 1915, a British report warned that the thousands of wounded men were threatening to exhaust the material for bandages.

A Corpsman Applies a Dressing to a Wounded Mate

Desperate to get their hands on something sterile that would keep wounds clear of infection, doctors started getting creative. They tried everything from irrigating the wounds with chlorine solutions to creating bandages infused with carbolic acid, formaldehyde or mercury chloride, with varying degrees of success. But in the end, there simply wasn’t enough cotton—a substance that was already in high demand for uniforms and its recently discovered use as an explosive—to go around.

What were the Allied Powers to do? A Scottish surgeon-and-botanist duo had an idea: stuff the wounds full of moss.

Dried Moss Ready for Medical Use

Yes, moss, the plant. Also known as sphagnum, peat moss thrives in cold, damp climates like those of the British Isles and northern Germany. Today, this tiny, star-shaped plant is known for its use in horticulture and biofuel, not to mention its starring role in preserving thousands-year-old "bog bodies" like the Tollund Man, which Smithsonian Magazine revisited in March 1917. But humans have also used it for at least 1,000 years to help heal their injuries.

In ancient times, Gaelic-Irish sources wrote that warriors in the battle of Clontarf used moss to pack their wounds. Moss was also used by Native Americans, who lined their children’s cradles and carriers with it as a type of natural diaper. It continued to be used sporadically when battles erupted, including during the Napoleonic and Franco-Prussian wars, but it wasn’t until World War I that medical experts realized the plant's full potential.

In the war's early days, eminent botanist Isaac Bayley Balfour and military surgeon Charles Walker Cathcart identified two species in particular that worked best for stanching bleeding and helping wounds heal: S. papillosum and S. palustre, both of which grew in abundance across Scotland, Ireland and England. When the men wrote an article in the “Science and Nature” section of The Scotsman extolling the moss’s medicinal virtues, they noted that it was already widely used in Germany.

But desperate times called for desperate measures. Or, as they wrote: “Fas est et ab hoste doceri”—it is right to be taught even by the enemy.

Field surgeons seemed to agree. Lieutenant-Colonel E.P. Sewell of the General Hospital in Alexandria, Egypt wrote approvingly that, “It is very absorbent, far more than cotton wool, and has remarkable deodorizing power.” Lab experiments around the same time vindicated his observations: sphagnum moss can hold up to 22 times its own weight in liquid, making it twice as absorptive as cotton.

Red Cross Volunteers in Seattle Picking Sphagnum
for Dressings

This remarkable spongelike quality comes from sphagnum’s cellular structure, says Robin Kimmerer, professor of ecology at SUNY-Environmental Science and Forestry and the author of Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. “Ninety percent of the cells in a Sphagnum plant are dead,” Kimmerer says. “And they’re supposed to be dead. They’re made to be empty so they can be filled with water.” In this case, humans took advantage of that liquid-absorbing capacity to soak up blood, pus, and other bodily fluids.

Sphagnum moss also has antiseptic properties. The plant’s cell walls are composed of special sugar molecules that “create an electrochemical halo around all of the cells, and the cell walls end up being negatively charged,” Kimmerer says. “Those negative charges mean that positively charged nutrient ions [like potassium, sodium and calcium] are going to be attracted to the sphagnum.” As the moss soaks up all the negatively charged nutrients in the soil, it releases positively charged ions that make the environment around it acidic.

For bogs, the acidity has remarkable preservative effects—think bog bodies—and keeps the environment limited to highly specialized species that can tolerate such harsh environments. For wounded humans, the result is that sphagnum bandages produce sterile environments by keeping the pH level around the wound low and inhibiting the growth of bacteria.

As the war raged on, the number of bandages needed skyrocketed, and sphagnum moss provided the raw material for more and more of them. In 1916, the Canadian Red Cross Society in Ontario provided over one million dressings, nearly  two million compresses, and one million pads for wounded soldiers in Europe, using moss collected from British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and other swampy, coastal regions. By 1918, a million dressings per month were being sent out of Britain to hospitals in continental Europe, in Egypt, and even Mesopotamia.

A WWI Dressing Filled with Sphagnum

Communities around the United Kingdom and North America organized outings to collect moss so the demand for bandages could be met. “Moss drives” were announced in local papers, and volunteers included women of all ages and children. One organizer in the United Kingdom instructed volunteers to “fill the sacks only about three-quarter full, drag them to the nearest hard ground, and then dance on them to extract the larger percentage of water.”

At Longshaw Lodge in Derbyshire, England, the nurses who tended convalescing soldiers trooped out to the damp grounds to collect moss for their wounds. And as botanist P.G. Ayres writes, sphagnum was just as popular on the other side of the battle lines. “Germany was more active than any of the Allies in utilizing Sphagnum … the bogs of north-eastern Germany and Bavaria provided seemingly inexhaustible supplies. Civilians and even Allied prisoners of war were conscripted to gather the moss.”

Each country had its own method for making the bandages, with the British stations filling bags loosely while the American Red Cross provided precise instructions for how to layer the moss with nonabsorbent cotton and gauze. “[The British style] seems to have been looked down upon by the American Red Cross,” says Rachel Anderson, a project assistant in the division of medicine and science at the National Museum of American History who studied the museum’s collection of sphagnum bandages. “The criticism was that you were getting redistribution of the moss during shipment and use.”

But everyone agreed on one thing: moss bandages worked. Their absorbency was remarkable. They didn’t mildew. And from the Allies’ perspective, they were a renewable resource that would grow back without much difficulty. “So long as the peat underneath [the living moss] was not disturbed, the peat is going to keep acting like a sponge, so it enables regrowth of Sphagnum,” says Kimmerer. However, “I can imagine if there were bogs that people used very regularly for harvesting there could be a trampling effect.”

So why aren’t we still using moss bandages today? In part, because the immense amount of labor required to collect it, Anderson says (although manufacturers in the U.S. experimented with using the moss for sanitary napkins called Sfag-Na-Kins).

That’s a good thing, because the real value of this plant goes far beyond bandages. Peatlands full of sphagnum and other mosses spend thousands of years accumulating carbon in their underground layers. If they defrost or dry out, we risk that carbon leaking out into the atmosphere. And while humans are no longer picking them for bandages, scientists fear that bogs and swamplands could be drained or negatively impacted by agriculture and industry, or the peat will be used for biofuel. 

Peatlands are rich ecosystems in their own right, boasting rare species like carnivorous plants. “The same things that make Sphagnum amazing for bandages are what enable it to be an ecosystem engineer, because it can create bogs,” Kimmerer says. “Sphagnum and peatlands are really important pockets of biodiversity.” Even if we no longer require moss’s assistance with our scrapes and lacerations, we should still respect and preserve the rare habitats it creates.

Hold That Position At All Costs? Przemyśl (WWI) vs Bastogne (WWII)

Some of the 130,000 Austro-Hungarian Prisoners
Taken at Przemyśl 

By Franz-Stefan Gady

Originally published in War On the Rocks, 2 December 2025

The southeastern Polish city of Przemyśl, with its elegant 19th-century Habsburg-era train station, remains one of the principal gateways to war-torn Ukraine. I pass through it regularly on my way to Ukraine, never missing a chance to visit the statue of the good soldier Švejk on one of the town’s squares. Over a hundred years ago, in the first months of World War I, this at-the-time multinational city in the northeastern corner of the Austro-Hungarian Empire became the center of military operations on the Eastern Front, site of the largest and bloodiest siege of the war, and an illustration of the upsides and downsides of dogged static, positional defense — the usual approach of the underdog—and that contingency is the ultimate arbiter of its effectiveness. It holds a valuable lesson for the ongoing fighting in Ukraine [in 2025].

Przemyśl was the most important bulwark in the Empire’s East, with a single mission. In the event of war with Russia, it was meant to protect the passes into the Carpathian Mountains from which a Russian invader could march into the Hungarian plains, on to Budapest, and knock the Dual Monarchy out of the war. The idea was simple: Russia would have more men and materiel available and likely attempt to steamroll Austrian forces with its sheer mass and push back the front line. In such an event, with the front line being pushed back and Austrian forces retreating under pressure, Przemyśl was supposed to serve as a bulwark tying down significant Russian forces and buying Austria-Hungary time.

By and large, this plan worked during a short siege of the great fortress city, which took place from 16 Sept. to 11 Oct. 1914, during these crucial fall weeks. The tenacious defense of a ragtag garrison composed of middle-aged reservists from every corner of the empire—Austrian Germans, Hungarians, Romanians, Croats, Serbs, Slovaks, Czechs, Italians, Poles, and Ukrainians—prevented the collapse of Austro-Hungarian military power on the Eastern Front, as Alexander Watson argues in his magnificent book on the subject. It also destroyed any Russian hopes of a quick victory over Austria-Hungary, thereby guaranteeing that the war in the East, just like on the Western Front, would become an attritional contest.

A Russian Officer Inspects One of the Destroyed Forts

However, a second siege lasting 133 days from November 1914 to March 1915 destroyed Austro-Hungarian military power in the East. Austro-Hungarian forces launched several ill‑fated counteroffensives through the wintry Carpathian Mountains to relieve the city, which cost them and their Russian opponents at least 1.8 million casualties in the course of a few months. Meanwhile, Austria-Hungary’s commander-in-chief, Field Marshal Conrad von Hötzendorf, refused to authorize breakout attempts, judging the situation from his distant vantage as far more favorable than it actually was—contrary to the dire assessments of local commanders who understood the true severity of the garrison’s predicament. When Przemyśl capitulated in March 1915, preceded by one last-ditch breakout effort, over 130,000 Austro-Hungarian soldiers fell into Russian captivity and dealt a blow to Habsburg prestige in the region from which it would never recover. At that stage, the professional officer corps and non-commissioned officers had ceased to exist. From that point on, the Austro-Hungarian military was a reservist force incapable of conducting complex offensive or defensive operations at scale for the remainder of the war, save in close cooperation with its German ally.

The two sieges of Przemyśl illustrate a fundamental principle about static defense doctrine: it can serve a legitimate strategic purpose when it creates time for operational maneuver or enables relief of the defending force, but it can become catastrophic for an overstretched military when political imperatives combined with an inflexible and centralized command structure override sound military judgement, preventing commanders from executing the tactical withdrawals necessary to preserve troops and operational effectiveness. This distinction holds vital lessons for the ongoing war in Ukraine, where a “no step back” defense posture by Ukrainian forces risks worsening the relative attrition rate between Ukrainian and Russian forces.

Road Network Around Bastogne

Historically, a static positional defense of urban terrain—or a fortress‑type defense posture—has been justified based on five main points: favorable casualty ratios, tying down enemy forces and preventing their deployment elsewhere on the front, buying time, allowing defensive preparations and mobilization in depth, as well as overall morale and political symbolism. Indeed, there have been many examples in history where such a defense made sense. Just think of World War II and Bastogne in December 1944. The defense of this Belgian town during the Battle of the Bulge was strategically rational because Bastogne controlled a critical road junction essential to German offensive operations. The Allied defensive effort bought time for Patton’s Third Army to relieve the garrison; the defenders were ultimately relieved, not destroyed; and the German offensive was defeated. Critically, Allied commanders recognized Bastogne’s operational importance—losing it would have enabled German armor to move freely through the Ardennes—not merely its symbolic value. The defense succeeded because it served a purpose beyond holding terrain for its own sake.

A Sherman Tank and Crew of the Relieving Force

Excerpted from: "When Defense Becomes Destruction: Austria-Hungary’s Mistake and Ukraine’s Risk", War On the Rocks, 2 December 2025

Lonesome Memorials #22: An Unusual and Evocative War Memorial in Vácrátót, Hungary

 

By James Patton

In a manner of speaking, Hungary was the junior partner of the junior partner to Germany and Austria in the Central Powers alliance. However, she played an outsized role in the fighting. Estimates of ethnic Hungarians killed or died run as high as 1.2 million, out of a total population of 9 to 10 million, one of the highest such ratios among all of the combatant countries.

At the village of Vácrátót, about 25 miles NNE of Budapest, there is a war memorial, shown above, created in the genre of Emil Krieger’s 1956 Four Mourners (at the Langemark German Cemetery in Belgium) as well as the 1932 Käthe Kollwitz sculpture The Grieving Parents (now at Vladslo Gerrman Cemetery, also in Belgium), each of which emphasizes the tragedy of loss rather than sacrifice for victory. The Vácrátót memorial is located on the outskirts the 200-year-old National Botanical Gardens.

The Vácrátót statue depicts a family, all in traditional Hungarian folk dress except for the father, who one can tell is wearing a Honved (Reservist) uniform, even though he is actually a cutout silhouette—forever gone but never forgotten. The wife is trying to wrap her arm around the husband’s missing shoulder, the infant boy is trying to sit on daddy’s knee and the young daughter is attempting to cuddle up to the void. These little actions emphasize the horrific impact of two catastrophic wars on many thousands of Hungarian families. The emphasis is that loss is forever.

The Vácrátót memorial is by the Hungarian sculptor István Horváth Böjte (b. 1972) who specializes in public statuary, in both classical and modern styles. Below the sculpture is a stone plaque inscribed with the names of the 31 local soldiers who died in WWI and the 22 who died in WWII. On the reverse side is another plaque listing the names of seven residents who died while performing forced labor during WWII.  

The National Botanical Garden of Hungary

Directions Driving from Budapest

• Get on MO Expressway in Budapest, north direction, which becomes M2
• Take Vácrátót Exit 
• Follow Signage to National Botanical Garden ( (Nemzeti Botanikus Kert)
• Before the main entrance to the Garden, turn right on  Petőfi tér 
• The monument will be 150 yards farther on the left side.

Address: Vácrátót, Petőfi tér 7, 2163 Hungary

Driving distance: 46 km

Est. driving time: 43 min

Needless to say, there are other war memorials all around in Hungary.

In Budapest’s Heroes Square (Hősök tere) there is a magnificent monument, the Millennium Memorial (Millenáriumi Emlékmű). Built between 1896 and 1900, it commemorates the foundation of the Duchy of Hungary by the Magyars in 896 CE. In 1929 the cenotaph called the Memorial Stone of Heroes (Hősök emlékköve), was added to the site, dedicated "To the memory of the heroes who gave their lives for the freedom of our people and our national independence." 

A major one stands to the left of St. Mary’s Cathedral (one of only four cathedrals in the country) in Kalocsa, which styles itself as “The Paprika City.” Located 85 miles downriver from Budapest, the Kalocsa monument is a grandiose bronze statuary surmounted by a defiant, flag-waving warrior, while at his feet sits a grieving widow. The emphasis is making a heroic stand in defense of the mother country.

Moving over to Tiszadob, about 125 miles NE of Budapest, we see a simpler statue, a soldier standing guard above the honor roll, which is disturbingly long. The design is virtually identical to the most common northern Civil War memorial in America. I used to live in Dexter, Michigan (pop. 6,696), which still has one of these standing in the center of town. The emphasis of this memorial is on faithful service.

Recommended Article:

War For The Unconscious – The Memory of World War I In Hungarian Villages

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

Michael Hunzeker and Alexander Lanoszka 

Originally Published in the Washington Post, 11 November 2018

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

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

Honor vs. rationality

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

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

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

How did honor preclude peace in 1916?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Major League's Opening Day in Cincinnati, 2017

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chicago's World War One Extravaganza

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

Aerial View of the Venue

The Pagaent of the Allied Nations

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

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

Click on Image to Enlarge

Exhibition Underway
(Mock Battlefield in the Center)

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

Sources:  Michigan Tech, 2018 Symposium; Library of Congress

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

By John DellaGiustina  

Hellgate Press, 2015

Reviewed by Michael P. Kihntopf

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

   

Order HERE

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

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

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

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

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

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

Origins

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

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

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

Tsar Alexander II  and Peter Tuchin

The Argument

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

Alexander II and the Origins of Calamity

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

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

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

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

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

The First World War as a Systemic Trigger

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

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

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

Summary of Turchin's Russian Cycle

Phase / Key Events & Dynamics

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

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

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

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

Comments welcome.

George Grosz's Gott mit Uns

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

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

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