On Becoming a World War I Historian by E.M. "Mac" Coffman

Edward M. Coffman, Historian of the Great War

Editor's Introduction:  My friend and early mentor Mac Coffman (1929–2020) served as an army infantry officer in Japan and Korea 1951–1953 and subsequently completed his doctorate at the University of Kentucky in 1959. He later joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he taught for 31 years, developing an outstanding military history program. He was a member of the Society for Military History, serving as president in 1983–85. In 1990, he received the organization's top award, the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize for outstanding contributions to the field of military history. His influential writings on the American military include The War to End All Wars: The American Military Experience in World War I, still the most essential single work on the subject. His books can be ordered HERE. 

By Edward M. Coffman

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

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

I was a journalism major as an undergraduate, but my first job after graduation was the army as an infantry officer. While in the army, I decided that I would go to graduate school and major in history. Fortunately, the GI bill paid my way for four years at the University of Kentucky. At that time, in the mid-1950s, I wanted to work on a Civil War topic, but a professor warned me that the field was flooded with books, so I turned to a World War I topic—Peyton C. March as chief of staff of the army—as my dissertation topic. It is a clear indication of the lack of interest in World War I that I then knew of only one other academic who was working on a U.S. Army topic. 

In September 1955 I went with a friend, Carl Begley, with whom I had spent my first year in the Army, to visit Tom Arnold, who had been with us during that year and was then living in Alcoa, Tennessee. On our trip back to Kentucky, I realized that the Yorks lived on the road so Carl and I decided to visit him. We stopped in Jamestown, which we knew was close to where he lived and asked a postal clerk where his home was. He gave us directions and then told us that York had a stroke the year before and was bedridden. He advised us to ask his son, who ran a country store across the highway from the York home, to find out if his father would see us. We stopped at the store and the son said to ask his mother, who told us that he would.

American Hero Alvin York About the Time of Mac's Visit

She took us through the living room to a smaller room where he was sitting up in a bed. He was a large, ruddy-faced man with sandy hair and mustache. He shook hands with us and I told him that I had talked with the widow of the commanding general of the 82nd Division a week or so earlier. He responded in his tenor voice that he remembered "old General Duncan" and his battalion commander, George Buxton. He made us feel at ease and talked about watching TV and the unusual cold weather.

Later, in the advanced stage of my research, I spent two-plus months in the National Archives and became acquainted with other World War I researchers. They were working on different topics, involved with the use of gas by the AEF. They published a limited edition of several excellent monographs for the Chemical Corps. In addition to my research in personal papers, newspapers, and memoirs, I worked on a lot of oral history and corresponded with other significant figures from World War I. This was a great opportunity to be able to ask participants questions.

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

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

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

When the French awarded Legions of Honor to surviving American veterans in 1998,  I visited George Fugate, the last veteran surviving in Lexington, KY, and helped him apply for the medal. An in 1999 at age 105. He died in January 1999 at age 105. Unfortunately, his medal did not arrive until a few weeks later.

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

Excerpted from the Journal of the World War One Historical Association, Spring 2012

In 2021, I published a tribute to Mac with more details on my friendship with him, as well as more details on his academic career and achievements. HERE

Map Series #29—Von Spee's Blunder at the Falkland Islands

SMS Leipzig Under Fire at the Falklands

On the morning of 8 December 1914, in preparation for a dash home to Germany, Vice Admiral Maximilian Graf von Spee was advancing his East Asian Squadron to Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands, with the objective of silencing the British communications center there.

His advance ships Gneisenau and Nürnberg, however, reported a substantial British squadron re-coaling in the harbor, although their reports were unclear or misinterpreted about the presence of capital ships.

Admiral von Spee

Von Spee therefore neither appreciated his opportunity to bottle up and possibly disable major ships of his enemy nor factored into his calculations that the two modern battle cruisers on the scene could run down any of his ships in open waters and fire upon him from beyond his own ships' range. He chose to decline battle under the most promising and advantageous conditions and ordered his vessels to break off contact and sail southeast at full speed. 

In a pursuit at sea, the British battle cruisers had multiple advantages over von Spee's ships. Their main batteries had greater range and, though coal-burning, they carried a limited amount of oil allowing maintenance of their great speed for a longer time. Coal-fired ships could only maintain their designated top operational speeds for about eight hours due to the need to clean fires, which required a temporary reduction in speed. 

For von Spee it was both a missed opportunity and doomed escape. He lost his squadron, both his sons, and his own life.  Here is a map showing the battle as it unfolded.  Click on the image to enlarge it.

Sources:  Over the Top, March 2011; World War I Document Archive (Map)

America's Postwar Transcontinental Truck Convoy

In the summer of 1919, a young Lieutenant Colonel—only four years out of West Point—named Dwight D. Eisenhower participated in the first Army transcontinental motor convoy. The expedition consisted of 81 motorized Army vehicles that crossed the United States from Washington, DC, to San Francisco. The convoy was to test the mobility of the military during wartime conditions. As an observer for the Tank Corps, Lt. Col. Eisenhower learned first-hand of the difficulties faced in traveling great distances on roads that were impassable and resulted in frequent breakdowns of the military vehicles. These early experiences influenced his later decisions concerning the building of the interstate highway system during his presidential administration. Since the trip was so meaningful to President Eisenhower's career, his Presidential Library has a wonderful collection of material pertaining to the trip.  This article is primarily a collection of material from that archive.

Departure
Trip Log: 7 July 1919

Departed Camp Meigs, 8:30 A.M. Dedicated Zero Milestone at the Ellipse, Potomac Park, 10 A.M. Departed Washington 11:15 A.M. Stopped for lunch at Rockville, Md., 12:30 P.M.  Trail mobile Kitchen broke coupling,  2:50 P.M. Fan Belt broke on White Observation Car. Militor towed Class B, with broken magneto coupling, one mile in to camp at Frederick Fair Grounds.  Fair and warm.  Road excellent. made 46 miles in  7¼ hours. Arrived Frederick, Md., 6:30 P.:M.  [At this time Tank Corps observer Lt. Col. Dwight D. Eisenhower joined the convoy.]

The Mission

The principal objectives of the expedition were to service test the special-purpose vehicles developed for use in the first World War, not all gf which were available in time for such use and to determine by actual experience the possibility and the problems involved in moving an army across the continent, assuming that railroad facilities, bridges, tunnels, etc. had been damaged or destroyed by agents of an Asiatic enemy. The expedition was assumed to be marching through enemy country and therefore had to be self-sustaining throughout, in addition to surmounting all of the obstacles interposed by mechanical difficulties, unfavorable road, bridge, topographical, and weather conditions.

  

The Route

The expedition crossed eleven states in addition to the District of Columbia, and passed through about 350 communities. The total distance traveled, Washington, DC, to San Francisco, CA  was 3,251 miles in 62 days.  The chosen route closely followed the only partially paved "Lincoln Highway".  Conceived in 1912 and formally dedicated October 31, 1913, it was the first road to cross the United States. It ran from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco. In 1925, the US Bureau of Public Roads eliminated named trails and highways, and Lincoln Highway became a drab series of numbers: US 1, US 30, US 40, US 50.

Lt. Col. Eisenhower During the Trip

The personnel consisted of 24 expeditionary officers, 15 War Department staff observation officers, and 258 enlisted men. Twenty-one men were lost through various injuries en route. In his report, Eisenhower was critical of the overall discipline of the men.

Initially hoping to travel 18 mph, there were problems with equipment, inexperienced mechanics and drivers, as well as poor roads and bridges.  The average road speed for the trip turned out to be 5.66 mph.

The route was filled with wooden bridges whose reliability could be tested only by driving a vehicle over them.

There were 230 road accidents (almost 4 per day), that is, instances of road failure and vehicles sinking in the soil, running off the road or over embankments, overturning, or other mishaps due entirely to the unfavorable and at times appalling traffic conditions that were encountered.

There were three instances involving an aggregate period of forty-two hours, which were spent in the most arduous and heroic effort in rescuing the entire convoy from impending disaster on the quicksands of the Salt Lake Desert in Utah and the Fallow Sink Region in Nevada. In these emergencies, the entire personnel, regardless of rank, engaged in rescue and salvage operations

The Rear Section of Convoy Near Salt Lake City
Usually the full moving convoy was about 2 miles long.

Crossing the Sierra Nevadas
Tractors were needed to move larger trucks up the grade.

 

Parading Through San Francisco's Civic Center
Trip Log: 6 September 1919

Departed Oakland, 8:30 a.m. Convoy crossed San Francisco Bay on two ferry boats, and. immediately paraded through the city to Lincoln Park. "The end of the Trail", where medals were presented to entire personnel by the Lincoln Highway Assn.  Convoy was formally received by Col. R.N. Noble, representing Lt. General Hunter Liggett, Commanding General, Western Department and Mayor James Rolph, Jr.  Milestone marking western terminus of Lincoln Highway dedicated [with French Maréchal  Ferdinand Foch among the welcoming committee]. Red Cross Canteen Service served lunch. Convoy parked at the Presidio. Fair and Warm. Made 8 miles in 3 hrs. 

Lt. Col. Eisenhower's full trip report can be downloaded HERE.

Sources: The Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, NoeHill California Travels, Celebrating the 1919 Army Convoy on the Lincoln Highway. 

A special thanks to our friend Robin Clayton of WLRC radio in Walnut, MS, for inspiring this article.

Who Won at Jutland?—John Keegan's View

The Battle of Jutland, 31 May to 1 June, 1916
By Robert Henry Smith

An Excerpt from The Price of Admiralty

At 9:45 [the evening of 2 June 1916] Jellicoe reported to the Admiralty that his warships were ready to steam out again on four hours’ notice. That signal writes the strategic verdict on Jutland. Britain’s navy re­mained fit for renewed action, however soon it should come. Germany’s did not. [Nonetheless] the kaiser preferred to ignore this fact. He exulted that “the magic Trafalgar has been broken,” distributed Iron Crosses wholesale to the crews of the High Seas Fleet when he visited it on June 5, and kissed many of the captains. He promoted Scheer to full admiral and invested him with the Pour le Merite, Germany’s highest military honor. . . “The High Seas Fleet,” Scheer said in his report to the kaiser, “will be ready by the middle of August for further strikes against the enemy.”

True to Scheer’s word, the High Seas Fleet did put to sea, on August 19, and steamed north to bring the English east coast town of Sunderland under bombardment. Scheer’s approach was covered, however, by 10 of the zeppe­lins he had not been able to take to Jutland, and when one reported that the Grand Fleet was bearing down on him from the Scottish anchorages, he reversed course and raced for home. The Admiralty cryptographers had de­tected his sortie, and were to do so again when he next put to sea, in October, with the same humiliating outcome. That was to be the High Seas Fleet’s last open challenge to the Royal Navy.

[In June 1916] Germany could publicly celebrate Jutland because the raw “exchange ratio” was in its favor. The High Seas Fleet had inflicted far greater damage than it had suffered. Three British battlecruisers, the Indefatigable, Invincible, and Queen Mary, were sunk, as were three armored cruisers, the Black Prince, Defence, and Warrior, and eight destroyers. And five British capital ships had suffered hits by 11-inch shells or heavier, notably the Lion, Tiger, and Warspite. The High Seas Fleet, by contrast, had lost only one battlecruiser, the Lützow; the other ship casualties were either pre-dreadnoughts like the Pommern or secondary units like the four light cruisers and five torpedo boats. . .

Three to one, in rude terms, did make Jutland look more like a German than a British victory. But calculated in refined rather than crude terms, the “exchange ratio” was very much more in  Britain’s  than  Germany’s  favor. Three of her fast battleships–Warspite, Barham, and Malaya–had suffered damage requiring dockyard attention. But the battleship fleet itself was al­most unscathed; and despite losses, the Battle Cruiser Fleet on June 1 still outnumbered the German 1st Scouting Group, which moreover was crippled by damage. The German dreadnought battleships had also suffered  griev­ously. König, Markgraff, and Grosser Kurfurst all needed major refits when they returned to port, and the German battle line could  not have met the British at four weeks’ notice, let alone four hours’, except at risk of outright defeat. The balance of forces had not been significantly altered by relative losses. The Grand Fleet still outnumbered Scheer’s, 28 dreadnoughts to 16.

This Selection Is from Keegan's 56-page
Chapter on Jutland
Order the Book HERE.

The human cost, however, had fallen far more heavily on the  British. True, her long tradition of “following the sea” and her large seafaring popula­tion made her losses easier to replace than the German. But the truth was that over 6,600 British officers and sailors had gone down with their ships or been killed on their decks while the  Germans had lost only a few more than 2,000.

John Keegan

A New Zealand Soldier Writes Home About a Catastrophic Operation

Private Leonard Hart, 2nd Battalion, Otago Regiment

This transcript is from a letter by Private Leonard Hart to his parents on 19 October 1917. Hart describes in detail the terrible events of 12 October 1917, when New Zealand troops were asked to take the Bellevue Spur, near Passchendaele. A veteran of Gallipoli, Hart was lucky to survive and later smuggled his letters past army censors, giving a bitter and honest account of what happened to him and his unit.

France, Oct 19, 1917

Dear Mother, Father and Connie,

In a postcard which I sent you about a fortnight ago, I mentioned that we were on the eve of a great event, and that I had no time to write you a long letter. Well that great event is over now, and by some strange act of fortune I have once again come through without a scratch.

The great event mentioned consisted of a desperate attack by our Division against a ridge, strongly fortified and strongly held by the Germans, but the name of which I had better not mention. For the first time in our brief history as an army the New Zealanders failed in their objective with the most appalling slaughter I have ever seen. My Company went into action 180 strong and we came out thirty-two strong. Still, we have nothing to be ashamed of as our commander afterwards told us that no troops in the world could possibly have taken the position, but this is small comfort when one remembers the hundreds of lives that have been lost and nothing gained. I will give you an account of the battle as near as I can without meaning any names or exasperating the censor (should he happen to open this) too much.

 

Click on Map to Enlarge

Location of Bellevue Spur - Attacked 12 October 1917

 

On a certain Wednesday evening our Brigade received orders to proceed to the firing line and relieve a Brigade of Tommies who had two nights previously advanced their positions a distance of two thousand yards and had held the captured ground against several counter attacks by the Huns. These Tommies had, however, failed to take their last objective and we knew before we left that we were going to be put over the top to try and take it. At dusk we started off from the town where we had been billeted for a few days, in full fighting order, to proceed to the front line. Our track led over five miles of newly conquered ground without lines of communication, roads, or anything but shell holes half full of water. The weather had for some days been wet and cold and the mud was in places up to the knees. We struggled on through this sea of mud for some hours, and everyone was feeling pretty well done. It was quite common for a man to get stuck in the mud and have to get three or four to drag him out. You can have no idea of the utter desolation caused by modern shell fire. The ground we were traversing had all been deluged with our shells before being taken from the Germans, and for those five miles leading to our front line trench there was nothing but utter desolation, not a blade of grass, or tree, here and there a heap of bricks marking where a village or farmhouse had once stood, numerous ‘tanks’ stuck in the mud, and for the rest, just one shell hole touching another.

The torn up condition of the ground made the mud ten times worse than it would otherwise have been. The only structures which had stood the bombardment in any way at all were the German machine gun emplacements. These emplacements are marvellous structures made of concrete with walls often ten feet thick and the concrete reinforced throughout with railway irons and steel bands and bars. There is room inside them for a large number of men but of course they vary in size. Many of these emplacements had been shattered to pieces in spite of their strength but others had withstood the bombardment. The ground was strewn with the corpses of numerous Huns and Tommies. Dead horse and mules lay everywhere, yet no attempt had been made to bury any of them. Well, we at length arrived at our destination – the front line and relieved the worn out Tommies. They had not attempted to dig trenches but had simply held the line by occupying a long line of shell holes, two or three men to each hole. Many of them seemed too worn out to walk properly and I don’t know how some of them must have got on during their long tramp through the mud back to billets.

Each of us had a shovel with him, so we set to work to make some kind of trenches. We were at this point about half way up one slope of the ridge which in the course of forty-eight hours we were to try and take. The mud was not so bad here owing to the water being able to run away into a swamp at the foot of the ridge. Anyway by daybreak we had dug ourselves in sufficiently and, although wet and covered in mud from head to foot, we felt fit for a feed of bread and bully beef, for breakfast. We stayed in our new trenches all that day and the day following during which it rained off and on, and Fritz kept things lively with his artillery. At 3 o’clock on the third morning we received orders to attack the ridge at half past five, which was just before daylight. We were accordingly arranged in three successive waves or lines; each wave about fifty yards ahead of the other. There was a certain amount of difficulty in this operation as it was pitch dark and raining heavily. When all was ready we were told to lay down and wait the order to charge. My Company was in the first wave of the attack which partly accounted for our heavy casualties. Our artillery barrage (curtain of fire) was to open out at twenty past five and play on the German positions on top of the ridge 150 yards ahead of us. It was to move forward fifty yards in every four minutes – that is to say we were to advance as our barrage advanced and keep 100 to 150 yards behind it.

 

New Zealand Artillery Supporting the Attack

At twenty past five to the second, and with a roar that shook the ground, some three thousand of our guns opened out on the five mile sector of the advance. (The whole advance was on a five mile front and our Brigade occupied about a thousand yards of this front forming the centre of the advance. Our Rifle Brigade was on our left and a Tommy Division on the left of them again. An Australian Division was on our right and another Tommy Division on the right of them again.) Through some blunder our artillery barrage opened up about two hundred yards short of the specified range and thus opened right in the midst of us. It was a truly awful time – our own men getting cut to pieces in dozens by our own guns. Immediate disorganisation followed. I heard an officer shout an order to the men to retire a short distance and wait for our barrage to lift. Some, who heard the order, did so. Others, not knowing what to do under the circumstances, stayed where they were, while others advanced towards the German positions, only to be mown down by his deadly rifle and machine gun fire.

At length our barrage lifted and we all once more formed up and made a rush for the ridge. What was our dismay upon reaching almost to the top of the ridge to find a long line of practically undamaged German concrete machine gun emplacements with barbed wire entanglements in front of them fully fifty yards deep. The wire had been cut in a few places by our artillery but only sufficient to allow a few men through it at a time. Even then what was left of us made an attempt to get through the wire and a few actually penetrated as far as his emplacements only to be shot down as fast as they appeared. Dozens got hung up in the wire and shot down before their surviving comrades’ eyes. It was now broad daylight and what was left of us realised that the day was lost.

 

We accordingly lay down in shell holes or any cover we could get and waited. Any man who showed his head was immediately shot. They were maravellous shots those Huns. We had lost nearly eighty per cent of our strength and gained about 300 yards of ground in the attempt. This 300 yards was useless to us for the Germans still held and dominated the ridge. We hung on all that day and night. There was no one to give us orders, all our officers of the Battalion having been killed or wounded with the exception of three, and these were all Second Lieutenants who could not give a definite order about the position without authority. All my Company officers were killed outright one of them the son of the Reverend Ryburn of Invercargill, was shot dead beside me.

The second day after this tragic business, we were surprised to see about half a dozen Huns suddenly appear waving a white flag. They proved to be red cross men and the flag was a sign that they were asking for a truce to take in their wounded and bury their dead. It was granted and not a shot was fired on either side during the whole of that afternoon. It was a humane and gallant act and one worthy of such gallant defenders as those particular Huns certainly were. Our stretcher bearers were able to go and take all our wounded from the barbed wire, a thing that would have been impossible otherwise. Numbers of us who at ordinary times had nothing to do with stretcher bearing were put on and we had all the wounded carried out before nightfall. We had no time to bury many of our dead but the wounded should be the only consideration at times like that. I went out and buried poor Ryburn. He came with the Main Body, but had not been in France long. The proportion of killed to wounded was exceptionally high compared to other battles, owing to the perfect marksmanship of the German machine gunners and snipers. My Company has come out with no officers, only one Sergeant out of seven, one Corporal and thirty men. Even then we are not the worst off.

The third night after the advance we were relieved and taken back about three miles behind the line. Here we acted as a reserve to the Battalion which had taken over our sector for two days, and we were finally taken right out to billets well behind the line where we are now recuperating. The night we came out here I received a parcel from you. The note inside was dated 10/7/17, and I can tell you that I felt hungry enough to eat note and all. I received another parcel from you about three days before we shifted to this front which would be about three weeks ago. They were appreciated about as well as it is possible to appreciate anything, I can assure you. Your letters of Mamma’s 25/7/17, Connie’s of same date and Dad’s of 7/7/17 arrived about a week before the affair of the ridge. A number of our chaps who came through have since been sent to hospital chiefly with trench feet due to standing in cold mud for long hours. I have a touch of them myself but they are not bad enough to be sent away with. I have just decided to have this letter posted by someone going on leave to England, so I will tell you a few more facts which it would not have been advisable to mention otherwise.......

Fighting of a very successful nature had been going on around Ypres for some months previous to our late set back at the ridge where the British are now held up. I hear that another attempt is to be made to take it, but it will not be with our Division. The name of this famous ridge is Passchendaele Ridge, and it has defied two attempts to take it already – viz the one attempted by the Tommies whom we relieved and our own......

 

Leonard Hart (Arrow) with His Tent Mates

The results of our stunt you now know so no more need be said about it except that we did as well or even better that some of the Divisions on our right and left. None of them took their objectives and I know for a fact that our Third Brigade’s losses and those of the Australians were every bit as heavy as ours. The Second Brigade has at least the satisfaction of knowing that they held a few hundred yards of ground they took, and our commander has since told us that no troops in the world could possibly have taken the ridge under similar circumstances. Some ‘terrible blunder’ has been made. Someone is responsible for that barbed wire not having been broken up by our artillery. Someone is responsible for the opening of our barrage in the midst of us instead of 150 yards ahead of us. Someone else is responsible for those machine gun emplacements being left practically intact, but the papers will all report another glorious success, and no oneexcept those who actually took part in it will know any different.

In conclusion I will relate to you another little incident or two which never reaches the press, or if it does it is ‘censored’ in order to deceive the public. This almost unbelievable but perfectly true incident is as follows. During the night after we had relieved the Tommies prior to our attack on the ridge we were surprised to hear agonised cries of ’stretcher bearer’, ‘help’, ‘For God’s sake come here’ etc, coming from all sides of us. When daylight came some of us, myself included, crawled out to some adjacent shell holes from where the cries were coming and were astonished to find about half a dozen Tommies, badly wounded, some insane, others almost dead with starvation and exposure, lying stuck in the mud and too weak to move. We asked one man who seemed a little better than the rest what was the meaning of it and he said that if we cared to crawl about the shell holes all round about him we would find dozens more in similar plight.

We were dumbfounded, but the awful truth remained. These chaps, wounded in the defence of their country, had been callously left to die the most awful of deaths in the half frozen mud while tens of thousands of able bodied men were camped within five miles of them behind the lines. All these Tommies (they were mostly men of the York and Lancaster Regiment) had been wounded during their unsuccessful attack on the ridge which we afterwards tried to take and at the time when we came upon them they must have been lying where they fell in the mud and rain for four days and nights. Those that were still alive had subsisted on the rations and water that they had carried with them or else had taken it from dead comrades beside them.

 

I have seen some pretty rotten sights during the two and half years of active service, but I must say that this fairly sickened me. We crawled back to our trenches and inside of an hour all our stretcher bearers were working like the heroes that they were, and in full view of the enemy who, to his credit, did not fire on them. They worked all day carrying out those Tommies of whom I am afraid some will be mad men for the rest of their lives even if they do recover from their wounds and exposure.

Carrying wounded over such country often knee deep in mud is the most trying work imaginable, and I do not say for a moment that the exhausted Tommies (the survivors of the first attack on Passchendale Ridge) whom we relieved should have tried to carry them out for I do not believe that any of them were physically capable of doing it, but I do say that it was part of their officers’ duty to send back to the rear of the lines and have fresh men brought up to carry out the wounded that they themselves could not carry. Perhaps they did send back for help, but still the fact remains that nothing was done until our chaps came up, and whoever is responsible for the unnecessary sacrifice of those lives deserves to be shot more than any Hun ever did.

 

1918 View of Bellevue Ridge by George Edmund Butler

If they had asked for an armistice to carry out their wounded I do not doubt that it would have been granted for the Huns had plenty of wounded to attend to as well as the Tommies. I suppose our armchair leaders call this British stubbornness. If this represents British stubbornness then it is time we called it by a new name. I would suggest callous brutality as a substitute. Apparently this is not an isolated instance of its kind. While we were in reserve for two days to the Brigade which finally took over from us I was having a look around some old German dugouts and in one of them I came upon about fifty dead Tommies all lying spread out over the floor as though they had been thrown in there hastily. They had evidently been dead some months. I asked an artillery Sergeant Major standing near by how they all came to be in there and he told me that they had been put in there (while wounded) during the advance last July, and had been forgotten. If this were true then it is even worse than the case just mentioned, for these dugouts must have been within a mile of our main dressing stations at the time when the advance took place, and the distance to carry them was thus five times less than in the other case.

After reading this do not believe our lying press, who tell you that all the brutality of this war is on the Huns’ side. The Hun is no angel, we all know, and the granting of an armistice such as that which we had is a rare occurrence. The particular Regiments who were holding the ridge at the time our attack are known as ‘Jaegers’. Probably the Prussians or most of the other Hun Regiments do not ask for armistices, but for all the terrific casualties those Jaegers inflicted on us, we survivors of Passchendaele Ridge must all admit that they played the game on that occasion at any rate......

I remain

Your affectionate son

Len 

Source: NZHistory.net.nz

The Occurrences at Regina Trench—Fall 1916

View Today from the German Regina Trench Position,
Canadian Forces Would Be Attacking Up This Slope

1 October–18 November 1916

The Regina Trench system dominated the area held by the Canadians after the initial attack at Thiepval on 26 September. Regina Trench had been part of the original Thiepval objectives, which called for the capture of the system by the end of the day on the 26th, but like most of the battles fought on the Somme, the attack had devolved to a multi-week slog, as the British army tried in vain to take increasingly smaller chunks of territory.  As October broke incessant cold rain arrived and began soaking the troops.

Aerial View of Regina Trench

The 3000m system (reputedly the longest trench on the Western Front) was perfectly placed for defense, being slightly over the top of Thiepval ridge, and surrounded by miles of thick barbed wire. To take Regina Trench, the Canadians would have to advance in full view of the defenders up the slope, with no options for outflanking and massed in a tight area of attack. Pre-attack bombardments were largely unsuccessful in removing the wire and many shells fell short as the Canadian gunners struggled to hit their target. Byng would again be calling on the beleaguered 2nd Division, fresh from the attempt to take Thiepval Ridge in September, to take Regina Trench. Despite protestations from the divisional commanders Turner and Lipsett, and an additional protest from Byng himself, Gough refused to call off the attack, and the 2nd  and 3rd Divisions would go forward into Regina Trench on 1 October at 3:15 p.m.

Click on Map to Enlarge

The German Marine Brigade, an elite group originally stationed in Belgium, had been moved to the Somme as the German regiments slowly weakened from loss of men, and were stationed at Regina Trench. The attack on 1 October briefly took control of Kenora Trench and part of the eastern end of Regina Trench proper, but both penetrations were pushed out by the Marines by 2 October. Bad weather and low visibility delayed the next attack until 8 October, though the Canadian barrage continued during this time, always trying to remove chunks of the barbed wire that had proved so formidable to the 2nd and 3rd Divisions on 1 October.

The attack on 8 October would be carried out much as the failed attack on 1 October, this time with the 1st and 3rd Divisions. Both went over the top before dawn behind a creeping barrage towards the maze of trenches making up the Regina system. Most of the battalions would run again into uncut barbed wire, which funneled them into concentrated zones of German machine gun fire. Both attacks, on the Quadrilateral and Regina Trench proper, were ultimately repelled as the Canadians were pushed back to their jumping off points.

Piper James Richardson Was Killed Leading
His Unit During the Attack of 8 October
and Later Received the Victoria Cross

In some locations along the line Canadian troops were killed by the enemy as soon as they went over the top. The Canadians suffered 770 casualties out of the 1100 men who took part in the attack (70% casualty rate), yet somehow, they managed to return with 240 POWs. They were also able to dig a trench forward from their own original front line; that new trench was linked with the 23rd British Division on their right, so the attack was not entirely a loss.  The Commanding Officer of the 4th Bn, however,  considered the attack a failure and his unit’s war diary provides the reasons for it: (i) the inability to secure the entire objective, (ii) the exhaustion of the supply of Mills bombs—they are crucial to trench clearing, (iii) the lack of capacity to successfully reinforce and resupply, and (iv) the uncut German wire. 

German Prisoners Captured at Regina Trench

A combined British and Canadian attack on 21 October would finally see a large part of Regina Trench captured by the Canadian 4th Division, and many German prisoners taken. It would not be until 10–11 November that the final western section of the trench would be captured during a lightning night attack by battalions of the 4th Division. The same division would be called upon to take Desire Trench, the final support trench in the Regina system on 18 November, which they would accomplish in four successive waves, following their creeping barrage closely. Unlike the early attacks on Regina, Desire was taken relatively easily, though fighting was still fierce in some areas.  This attack marked the official end of the Battle of the Somme.

Artillery Played a Critical Role in the Final Capture of
Regina Trench

Lessons

After Thiepval and the first attempt to take Regina Trench, General Gough had released a “Memorandum on Attacks” addressing many of the problems that had arisen, and calling for a more platoon based organizational structure empowering leaders at the company and platoon level to make decisions on how to reach their objectives as the need arose, instead of waiting on high command. Gough also called for better organization of reserves and using those groups who had already taken their objectives to better maintain the force of battle; almost all the battles fought by the British on the Somme had suffered particularly in this regard, with reserves held back behind the front lines and who could not move quickly enough to support those objectives already taken. In 1917, the re-ogranized Canadian Corps would use this “leapfrog” technique in every battle, greatly increasing their ability to take and hold objectives.

Aftermath

In the end, Regina Trench would cost thousands of Canadian lives; in total, the Canadian Corps counted over 24,000 casualties during the time it was on the Somme, almost all in the area surrounding Courcelette, Thiepval Ridge and Regina Trench. Over 2,200 Canadian soldiers are buried at the Regina Trench Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery, about half of whom are unidentified.

Regina Trench, CWGC Cemetery

One soldier, Charles Douie, who had fought at these battles on the Ancre Heights, wrote in The Weary Road in 1929:

Here above the Ancre lie many of the most gallant of my regiment, men who were my friends, men whose memory I shall revere to the end of time. Some of them were soldiers by profession; others had turned aside from their chosen avocations in obediences to a call which might not be denied… they have passed into silence. We hear their voices no more. Yet it must be that somewhere the music of those voices lingers. . . 

Sources:  The Vimy Foundation and Valour Canada

If You Long to Hear The Last Post, This Rendition Is Perfect

Stifled! America's Greatest Naval Theorist Was Forbidden to Comment Publicly about the First World War

Mahan

By Kevin D. McCranie, Naval War College

As  July 1914 slipped into August, Europe convulsed into war. The actions of statesmen, the mobilization plans of militaries, and the fervor of peoples merged onto a path that yielded years of destruction later known as the First World War. However, across the Atlantic the mood was quite different; there, interest kindled in a way that occurs only when watching a catastrophe develop from afar.  

Few in the first tumultuous weeks of the war became more captivated than Alfred Thayer Mahan. For over a quarter of a century, he had commented on the international environment, with a particular emphasis on the naval and economic elements of what he termed sea power. In the very year the war began, one article described Mahan as “America’s foremost naval strategist” and “the world’s greatest authority on sea power.” Needless to say, demand for his opinions about the war outpaced his capacity to supply them. Newspapers wanted his thoughts and magazines asked for articles. Overnight, he became inundated.

Then it all stopped. On 6 August, just two days after Britain declared war on Germany, President Woodrow Wilson issued the following instructions to both the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy: “I write to suggest that you request and advise all officers of the service, whether active or retired, to refrain from public comment of any kind upon the military or political situation on the other side of the water.” Worried about how the states of Europe would perceive America’s professed neutrality, Wilson asserted, “It seems to me highly unwise and improper that officers of the Navy and Army of the United States should make any public utterances to which any color of political or military criticism can be given where other nations are involved.”

When Mahan, a retired USN officer, learned of Wilson’s order, he begged for governmental leaders to reconsider: “I would represent that the status of a retired naval officer is by law so detached from employment by the government, that his relation to the course of the government, and the consequent responsibility of the Government for his published opinions, differs scarcely at all from the case of a private citizen.” Mahan asked whether Wilson even had the authority to restrict a retired officer such as himself from writing.

Although he appealed for reconsideration, Mahan would not disobey the order. A life in the naval service had created too strong a loyalty for him to trespass against a presidential directive. Mahan’s son later explained that his father stopped his current writing project almost mid-sentence: “He obeyed the order so far that he would not even set pen to paper to write.” Wilson’s directive stifled Mahan’s airing of his views on the war; however, articles he had written before the presidential order, plus a smattering of comments in private letters over the next few months, supply important evidence of his opinions. Since Mahan died on 1 December 1914, his reflections on the war constituted his last words on the international environment and naval strategy.

These final thoughts challenge several stereotypes often ascribed to Mahan’s broader theory relating to sea power while providing a more thorough explanation of Mahan’s most mature theoretical arguments.  President Wilson’s order forced Mahan to restrict his musings about the war to private letters to friends. In these, he kept coming back to a similar overall argument. Germany’s greatest chance for victory entailed gaining a quick triumph on land by employing its well-trained army. A failure by the kaiser to obtain a rapid victory there would allow the Entente to succeed through endurance, largely because sea power would allow Britain to harness the globe’s resources while Germany found itself contained to a small geographic region of continental Europe.

Professor McCranie fully examines Mahan's expansive and rather surprising final thoughts such as above in his 2023 article "Mahan’s Theory and  the Realities of the First World War—His Final Considerations on Sea Power, " which can be downloaded.

HERE 

Brigadier General Dennis Nolan—Father of American Military Intelligence

Brigadier General Dennis E. Nolan

By Dr. James J. Cooke, PhD

Dennis E. Nolan (1872–1956) can very well be called the father of U.S. Army intelligence. He looked like a professor, but he could fight with daring and courage, winning the Distinguished Service Cross in the Argonne Forest. Born in Akron, New York, to Irish immigrant parents, Nolan graduated from West Point in 1896, after an excellent academic and a stellar football career. At West Point, Nolan was one the initiators of the tradition of football-experienced army generals (Dwight Eisenhower and James Van Fleet, for example) with his teammate, future Army chief of staff Malin Craig. Nolan was an outstanding end during his playing days and coached the academy team to a winning record in 1902 when he had returned to serve as an instructor.

Twice cited for gallantry during the Spanish-American War, Nolan saw service in the Philippines. From 1902 to 1903 he was a professor of history at West Point, and he was selected to serve on the first General Staff in Washington, in the intelligence section. Despite having served as Pershing's adjutant general while in the Philippines, Nolan had been hesitant to press Pershing for a position on the AEF staff. But trusted Pershing associate James Harbord also knew Nolan from the Philippines, as Nolan had served under him on the island of Luzon. It was Harbord who got Nolan a spot on the original staff and convinced Pershing to make him the intelligence chief. On board the Baltic en route to Europe in 1917, Pershing selected Nolan as his intelligence chief. Nolan went about the business of establishing the intelligence service of the AEF, and he built it from nothing. 

G-2 of the American Expeditionary Force

The intelligence section of the AEF had at the outset the greatest distance to travel if it was to be of any use to Pershing. John J. Pershing understood the need for correct and current intelligence. He had learned that in the Philippines and then again in Mexico, but France was not the Philippines, nor was the German military machine anything like Pancho Villa. Most of the men who staffed the operations (G-3) section of the GHQ had at least been to the General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The writing of operational plans and orders, the use of proper and consistent formats, and the need to issue coherent and realistic orders in a timely manner were a part of their training. At the AEF General Staff those men became known as the "Leavenworth Clique," and, as one historian has stated, "they spoke the same language; they understood each other." There were only about 200 Leavenworth-trained staff officers in 1917, and Pershing had the lion's share of them. 

But there was no Leavenworth for intelligence officers. When the United States went to war there were only four men in the War Department who were really trained as intelligence officers. The department tried to institute a short course for designated intelligence officers at the Army War College, but that did little to help, because the AEF was moving much faster than Washington ever could. By August 1918, as the AEF was preparing for the St. Mihiel operation, the army in the United States still did not have a school in place. The training of intelligence  officers in the divisions getting ready to embark for France was chaotic; there was hope that Brigadier General Nolan might send instructors from France to the United States to develop a school in Washington. The G-3 had men like Fox Conner, Hugh Drum, and George C. Marshall that they could use at Chaumont or send to the subordinate commands; they were trained to act together, with a common body of knowledge. The intelligence officers were not, and that would be a task that Dennis Nolan would have to address.

New York State Historical Marker

Even before arriving in France, Nolan knew that three things had to be done to make intelligence work for the AEF. The intelligence officers of the AEF down to division level had to be trained; there had to be a flow of accurate information upon which to base tactical and operational decisions; and the AEF would have to take advantage of every opportunity to learn from the British and French and adopt what methods and procedures worked for them. 

Nolan knew that Washington could not be relied upon for information, that in fact the AEF would have to be the source of information for the War Department. "Nothing gets old so quickly as intelligence," Nolan later wrote. "You have no interest in what occurred before or during the last battle as you are getting ready for the new always."

Nolan's personality was that of a studious academic, a personality that did not invite informality. He never became part of the AEF's so-called inner circle, but he did have the unlimited respect of Fox Conner and "Corky" Davis. Certainly Nolan was loyal to Pershing and would remain so throughout his life. Nolan also knew how to use subordinate officers who exhibited intelligence and would work hard long hours.

Where would Nolan get those all-important subordinate officers? The chief of military intelligence of the General Staff in Washington cooperated fully with Nolan and instituted a short course for junior officers at the War College. Most of the first officers who graduated from it were from the reserves, and all of them came from the engineer branch of the army. The first set of  seven lieutenants had originally been assigned to the adjutant general's statistical section and were then selected, because of their knowledge of either French or German and their aptitude for intelligence work. Nolan was happy to get them and put them to work when they arrived in France in November 1917.

Pershing, on the other hand, constantly pushed Nolan to get as much operational information as possible from the British and the French. In March, and again in May, Pershing asked Nolan to step up his efforts as to the exact situation at the front. Nolan had great difficulty in finding out what the status of combat was, due to the chaotic nature of the fighting at the time. This was a valuable lesson, for in the fall of 1918 he would have difficulty in getting the exact same information from the American divisions engaged in battle. In August 1918 Nolan received his first star as a Brigadier General.

Normally Nolan spent the day in the offices of the G-2 section, not leaving until about 9 p.m. He was concerned that his own section might lose sight of their relationship with other general staff sections. Reflecting on the AEF G-2 section, Nolan later wrote, "It is a tendency of each division of the general staff to get into a watertight compartment and stay in it without knowing the activities that are going on in the other divisions of the staff. This is especially true of the intelligence service, the members of which frequently prided themselves on not knowing anything about their own army and everything about the enemy." Nolan made certain that the G-2 section had a representative at every important meeting at Chaumont. While he usually did not attend himself, he sent his deputy, Colonel Arthur Conger.

One of the main G-2 functions of each day was the preparation of the summaries of information and of intelligence, two separate documents. The summary of information was more general in nature and gave updates as to what was happening in the diplomatic and economic world. The intelligence summary was very much akin to the modern summary known as the INTSUM. This document contained the situation of the day, both Allied and enemy, special items of interest (such as new weapons, etc.), and other items of information, such as techniques for handling prisoners of war. The main thrust was to identify enemy units in the line and describe their activities and locations. This document was sent to subordinate commands, such as corps and divisions. A copy was usually mailed to the War Department in Washington. At first a weekly summary was prepared for the War Department, but when the AEF went into combat the weekly summary was simply dropped.

When Newton Baker visited the AEF in March 1918, he was amazed at the professionalism of the G-2 section, exclaiming to Nolan, "Why, the War Department intelligence is doing nothing like this." The Secretary of War had every reason to be pleased with what he saw, but then the AEF had access to finely tuned British and French organizations, which had been at the business since 1914. By the summer of 1918 there was only one U.S. Army intelligence school in operation, and that was at Langres. 

When Colonel R. H. van Damen [from the War Department] visited Langres he  was impressed with what he saw; he informed Colonel Marlborough Churchill, chief of the military intelligence branch at the War Department, that Nolan hoped to develop a "duplicate set" of instructors to send back to the United States, if needed. Van Damen also passed on to Churchill that the National Guard and reserve officers were doing well but had arrived at Langres woefully lacking in such basic skills as map reading. Van Damen suggested, in the strongest terms, that officers slated for intelligence work in the AEF's divisions be given serious training at least in map reading.

During the heavy fighting in the St. Mihiel Salient and in the Meuse-Argonne, Nolan constantly visited his former staff officers to see their progress and to learn firsthand what their problems in intelligence were. On a visit to Colonel Wiley Howell, Nolan learned that Brigadier General Billy Mitchell was difficult to deal with on questions of air reconnaissance missions for the G-2 section of the First Army. Nolan, who had never cared a great deal for Mitchell, went to see Chief of Staff  Hugh Drum, who certainly never liked Mitchell; Drum ordered Mitchell to cooperate with the G-2. Several times during the heavy fighting in the Meuse-Argonne, Nolan had reason to complain about Mitchell's unwillingness to work with Howell, who wanted as much air reconnaissance as possible. In the long run, Mitchell had made two very powerful enemies in Drum and Nolan.

Nolan was well known as a team player with an even personality. He did not have a reputation as a man who made enemies or carried a grudge. Nor was Nolan hidebound in his selection of officers to fill intelligence positions. As far as he was concerned, there were certain qualifications which had to be met, and it really did not matter whether the qualified officer was a regular, a Guardsman, or a reservist. When the G-2 position at I Corps came open in the fall of 1918, Nolan selected Lieutenant Colonel Noble Brandon Judah, the G-2 of the 42nd Division. Judah, a lawyer from Chicago, came to France as a National Guardsman, serving in a Guard division. What appealed to Nolan was Judah's record of solid  accomplishment with the Rainbow Division, regardless of the source of his commission.

Off to the Front (Temporarily)

Nolan realized a surprising reward for his work when, on 28 September 1918, he was assigned to command the 55th Infantry Brigade of the 28th Infantry Division. The  28th, a National Guard formation from Pennsylvania, was under the command of Major General Charles H. Muir and was involved in the heavy fighting in the Argonne Forest. [Concerned about the lack of progress, Pershing placed his trusted subordinate in charge of the battle around the critical villages of Apremont and Chatel-Chéhéry.]

Nolan's notable, but brief, service as a brigade commander is a bit of a mystery. Why would General Pershing send his valued chief of intelligence to the front in the middle of the AEF's biggest battle? The divisional histories are quiet on the specifics of why his predecessor Brig. General Thomas Darrah was relieved only two days into the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. In any case, the mission of the 55th Brigade at the time was so important that Pershing felt it necessary to send the capable, hard-charging Nolan to the front. In 12 days at the front Nolan fought brilliantly, staving off the German attacks, using tanks creatively on the advance, and capturing the village of Chatel-Chéhéry as part of the effort to relieve the Lost Battalion.  During a particularly violent artillery barrage, Nolan went into the ruins to personally direct the tanks in support of the brigade.  He would later receive the Distinguished Service Cross for his brief service as Commander of the 55th Brigade.

Nevertheless, on 10 September he was called back to GHQ to Chaumont to preside again over the AEF's intelligence apparatus. Pershing would be thoroughly pleased with Nolan's performance as the AEF's G-2. He had built a solid organization based on experience and a very well-run intelligence school at Langres. He received the Distinguished Service Medal for his work as an intelligence chief to accompany the Distinguished Service Cross he received as a Brigade Commander.  The DSC citation read:

For exceptionally meritorious and distinguished services. He organized and administered with marked ability the intelligence section of the General Staff of the American Expeditionary Forces. His estimates of the complex and ever-changing military and political situation, his sound judgment, and accurate discrimination were invaluable to the government, and influenced greatly the success that attended the operations of the American armies in Europe.

Major General Nolan Riding in a Postwar Parade

 

Postwar Service

One of the youngest, but most distinguished members of General Pershing's senior staff, Nolan remained on active service for nearly two decades after the Armistice.  He held many key positions in the peacetime army, retiring as Commanding General of the Second Corps Area and Commanding General of First Army in 1936. President  Roosevelt acknowledged the nation's debt: "For his long and brilliant service as an army officer in peace and in war, General Nolan merits the gratitude of the people of the country. . . His splendid public service and high character have won for him the love and esteem of all who know him."

Source: Relevance, Spring 2011