The Leipzig War Crimes Trial: Precedent for Nuremberg

British Investigators and Witnesses Arrive for the Trials

In 1921 and 1922, a total of 12 “war crimes” trials were held before the highest German court, the Reichsgericht in Leipzig. The accused were former members of the imperial German armed forces suspected of having perpetrated war crimes. At first, in keeping with Articles 228 and 229 of the Treaty of Versailles, the Allied powers had planned that as many as 888 Germans accused of war crimes would be extradited and face trial in Allied courts. However, the German government succeeded in averting their extradition. Instead, it emphasized that it was willing to prosecute all Germans accused of committing crimes against nationals of enemy states or against enemy property, underscoring this promise with changes in German laws. 

The Allies acquiesced, and on 7 May 1920 they presented a much shorter list with the names of 45 suspects and the details of their alleged crimes. This roster had been winnowed down from the longer list that had included such notables as General Hindenburg, father of gas warfare Fritz Haber, and former chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg. They were to be tried by the German Reichsgericht in accordance with the Treaty of Versailles that stipulated the arrest and trial of German combatants and officials defined as war criminals by the Allied governments. with both the trials and the verdicts coming under criticism from Germany and the Allies alike. The accused were treated like heroes by the German public, and all but seven were acquitted; these seven mostly received light sentences, four years incarceration in the most extreme case. Since no Allied personnel were charged or prosecuted, the complaint that the proceedings were one-sided "victor's justice" was irrefutable.

Reichsgericht Building, Leipzig, Site of the Trials

Nonetheless, some of the violations were quite serious, and the individuals involved should have been held accountable. Two of the trials involved the sinking of hospital ships, one of which was followed up by the machine-gunning of survivors in the water. Four cases involved large-scale abuse of POWs and two involved mistreatment of civilians.

Although largely regarded as a failure at the time, the Leipzig trials were the first attempt to devise a comprehensive system for prosecution of violations of international law. This trend was renewed during the Second World War, as Allied governments decided to try, after the war, defeated Axis leaders for war crimes committed during the war, notably with the Nuremberg Trials and International Military Tribunal for the Far East.

Sources: Western Front Association; Encyclopedia.com; Encyclopedia 1914-1918 Online

John A. Lejeune, USMC, Part II: Division Commander on the Western Front

At His 2nd Division Command Post

Part I was presented yesterday's Roads to the Great War

Lt. Gen. John Archer Lejeune, 75, ex-commandant of the Marine Corps (1920–29); [died] in Baltimore. Chunky, lion-headed, seam-faced, barrel-chested, he joined the Marines in 1890 later commanding the Second Division (a regular Army brigade and the 4th Brigade of Marines) from late July 1918 to August 1919. Under him the division captured 3,300 prisoners in the St. Mihiel offensive of Sept. 12-15, broke the Hindenburg Line in the stubborn Blanc Mont sector, and was in the forefront of the battle in the last days of the Meuse-Argonne offensive. 

Time magazine Obituary, 30 November 1942

Off to France

Until America's entry into the war in 1917, Lejeune remained uncomplainingly in Washington. But now, as one regiment after another shipped out, he fought his own campaign to get sent overseas. 

Finally, in June 1918, he reached France. The 4th Marine Brigade was fighting now in Belleau Wood, had stopped the Germans, Paris was saved, and the globe-and-anchor was suddenly familiar to the world. Although General Pershing would have preferred to assign Lejeune to rear-area duty, the superb action of the 4th Marine Brigade, combined with Lejeune's own professional reputation among senior Army officers, forced the c-in-c to change his mind. After a short tour as observer in a frontline division, Lejeune took command of the 64th Brigade. Three weeks later Pershing gave him the Marine Brigade. He had no more than taken over when General Harbord, commanding 2nd Division, was [appointed to command the critical Services of Supply]. With that, Brig. General Lejeune was given the division and another star. 

The artillery bombardment continued for four hours on that 12 September night in 1918. Then at 0500 the barrage rolled forward, a tight computation of 110 yards every four minutes, the signal for attached tanks to roll out and hit the barbed wire that over years had been groomed into hideously effective defenses, but the tiny tanks failed to cross the trenches. As their sprockets clanked aimlessly beneath their stranded bodies it was up to the infantry, as it generally is, and the infantry moved on in front of the armor. 

Success in Battle

Soldiers and Marines of the 2nd Division smashed against the wire, flung themselves on it while others clawed their way through. They surprised the German, captured and killed him, and sent him running until by early afternoon they had reached the second day's objective. They were out in front but not yet finished. For two days, battle surged fiercely around them. Then in a final effort they pushed through to their last objectives, altogether a superb fight accomplished with remarkably light casualties. 

2nd Division Battle Marker, Blanc Mont, Champagne

The St. Mihiel success dictated the 2nd Division's role for the rest of the war. After refitting, it spearheaded the French offensive that ended in the battle of Blanc Mont and the German withdrawal to the Aisne. For the final offensive of the war it spearheaded the American First Army's drive through Meuse-Argonne. On 11 November 1918, its forward units were fighting on the other side of the Meuse. In all, it suffered over 24,000 casualties, about 10 percent of the AEF total, and earned one of the most enviable combat records in military annals.

Lejeune's part in the division's accomplishments was enormous. In less than two months he had kept 28,000 men capable of spearheading three complicated  offensives, each decisive and two very costly in casualties. This was one of the greatest leadership feats in WWI and surprised American and Allied officers nearly as much as it did the Germans. Lejeune himself explained it as a triumph of unity and spirit, and it certainly was that. Achieving the unity and spirit was something else again. 

Tactically, Lejeune recognized at once that a coordinated offensive on a narrow front was the only way to beat the Germans. When he took command of the 2nd Division he immediately concentrated on developing a solid punch of infantry, artillery, and engineers. He rehearsed his units from platoon to division level and was not satisfied until every man in every unit realized what he was supposed to do and then did it. He demanded such perfection from his gunners that his infantry would not hesitate to follow a barrage at almost suicidal distance. This was called "leaning on the artillery" and meant that before an enemy recovered from a bombardment he was looking down the wrong end of the infantryman's rifle. 

Major General Lejeune and His 2nd Division Staff

Not wanting, not permitting, foolish mistakes, he took great pains to lead his officers away from them. He wrote about leadership later, and it would not hurt anyone today to read the advice given on pp. 307-309 of his book, The Reminiscences of a Marine (Dorrance and Co., 1930). Above all he demanded and gained esprit because "there is no substitute for the spiritual in war…If each man knows that all the officers and men in his division are animated with the same fiery zeal as he himself feels, unquenchable courage and unconquerable determination crush out fear, and death becomes preferable to defeat or dishonor." 

The basis of esprit was tactical ability sufficient for the individual infantryman to believe himself the best fighting man in the world. To give him identity, Lejeune authorized a division patch—a star surmounted by an Indian head—the first time in France that this was used. Henceforth, the 2nd Division became known as the Indian Head Division, its commander, Old Indian.

Old Indian was a soldier's general, and as such he stood at odds with the habitual aloofness practiced by senior officers of that day. Although the jet-black hair was said to stand on end and the soft brown eyes to shoot fire upon seeing a needless error, the same eyes could manage humor and understanding that in war can sometimes replace hot food and reduce pain and discomfort and fear. Once during an inspection he noticed a young replacement's unbuttoned uniform. Casually repairing the damage, he remarked, "You ought to keep these things buttoned, young fellow. General Pershing would give me the devil if I went around that way." 

The Victorious General Wearing the Indian Head
Patch of His 2nd Division

Some Basic Qualities

During the Meuse-Argonne drive he approached a group of his men who started to snap to. "Sit down," he ordered. "It is more important for tired men to rest than for the Division Commander to be saluted." On another occasion he was talking to an Army chief of staff who, because of the late hour refused to awaken the Army commander for a vital decision. Lejeune bluntly told him, "It is better to wake up one general than to have 25,000 sick and exhausted men march 35 miles, and I will do so myself." 

The same basic qualities appeared in his relationship with seniors. When General Gouraud, commanding the Fourth French Army, suggested breaking up the 2nd Division for the attack on Blanc Mont, Lejeune looked hard at the one-armed veteran and said, "General, if you do not divide the 2nd Division, but put it in line as a unit on a narrow front, I am confident that it will be able to take Blanc Mont Ridge, advance beyond it, and hold its position there." He won this round only to have General Naulin, his corps commander, order him to a frontal attack. Lejeune refused, instead persuaded Gouraud to let him attempt an enveloping action. Not only did the [double] flanking move work, it caused Marshal Pétain, never over generous with praise, to call Lejeune "a military genius who could and did do what  the other commander said couldn't be done." 

Postscript: In 1920, Lejeune began the first of two tours as  commandant of the Marine Corps. During this  period he won public support for the continued  existence of the Corps, developed the Fleet Marine Force concept, and paved the way for successful amphibious operations conducted in the Second World War.

Sources: Relevance, Spring 2011, by permission,  the Marine Corps Gazette. Originally published  April 1962. 

John A. Lejeune, USMC, Part I: Preparing for Command

John A. Lejeune

Leadership is the sum of those qualities of intellect, human understanding, and moral character that enables a person to inspire and control a group of people successfully.

 Lt. Gen. John A. Lejeune 

By Robert B. Asprey

The bombardment began at 0100, 12 September 1918. For nine days soldiers and Marines of the 2nd Division of American regulars had hidden in French woods to shiver in icy rain and curse the mud and slime and stench of war on the Western Front. 

Now their hour was at hand. As thousands of cannon threw lethal surprise at the entrenched enemy, the American units formed into long columns and with 12 other divisions—some 300,000 men—began the march forward into the black night.  On a hill above, a bulky figure watched the exploding shells, heard the muted  movements of the troops, and now and again listened to a hovering staff officer. This man  was Major General John A. Lejeune, USMC. He  commanded the 2nd Division. 

To Lejeune and to his staff the strain of the moment was immense. This would be the first time he led his division into battle, the first time an American Marine commanded a division in combat, and the first time an American army fought in Europe under an American commander-in-chief. To history the battle would be known as the St. Mihiel Offensive. On this night, though, Lejeune and his officers knew only that the 2nd Division was spearheading an attack against a massif  the Germans had been fortifying for four years. 

Whatever his thoughts, Lejeune looked calm. A man of medium height, he stood with wide shoulders braced against the wind. Now and again he slapped massive hands together  against the cold. Occasionally the shaded  light of a messenger's lamp emphasized the  long prominent ears that flanked a large head, or gleamed on a spot of jet-black hair  that fell in wide bangs over his forehead. Soft but alert brown eyes relieved some of  the fatigue suggested by a seamed face. When he spoke, a soft deliberate voice that  left little doubt of its southern origin fell easily on the listening group. 

Despite the moment, General Lejeune had some  reasons to be confident—or as confident as a man can be when so much is at stake on the poker table of war. The 2nd Division was a hot outfit. By the time he took command, it  had fought at Belleau Wood and Soissons; its ranks had been twice decimated and twice refilled; its deeds were famous throughout France; and its fighting qualities were recorded in stunned words in more than one German diary. 

All well and good, but when Lejeune took over in late July he had to fit 8,000 replacements into the business of war and had to reshape and train and inspire the division for the rugged fighting ahead. In 28 years of soldiering halfway around the globe, the 51-year-old commander had faced some difficult tasks. That this was the most difficult, he knew only too well. Using the lessons of the past, he had accomplished a great deal in six weeks. Six weeks was a short time to impose one man's will on the minds and souls of 28,000 men. Well, in a few hours he would know if he had succeeded. Until then, there was little to do but stand quietly by. 

John A. Lejeune came from a good Louisiana family whose fortunes were shattered by the Civil War, in which his father had fought on the Confederate side. Although he grew up amid the fires of reconstruction, his mother's teachings of tolerance and humanity and his father's prideful conduct in the worst years prevented the fires from burning scars on the young mind. Instead, from family and home and land he gained a pride of heritage he was never to lose. And later, when he used words like honor and duty and courage and love of country, people suddenly found themselves listening and believing in them, perhaps for the first time in their lives. 

Prewar Marine Recruiting Poster

The Army almost got him, but in 1884 when his senator ran out of West Point  appointments, young Lejeune went to the Naval Academy. By 1890 the newly commissioned ensign had served as captain's clerk, had been cited for bravery during a disastrous hurricane at Samoa, had participated in a Hawaiian revolution, and, from working with Marine detachments aboard ship, had fallen completely and hopelessly in love with the Marine Corps. At this point, the Navy summarily placed him in the Engineer Corps. Not wanting any part of the Engineer Corps, the 23-year-old officer shyly but persistently approached various seniors until he had exhausted without success the Annapolis chain of command. He now displayed a polite tenacity, a personal flag that was to fly over his entire career. In this case, he went to Washington, called on Senator Chandler, and asked for his aid. In short order, Ensign Lejeune was talking to the Secretary of the Navy, who, favorably impressed, rang a ranking officer and concluded the proceedings with, "Commodore, I want this young man assigned to the Marine Corps." 

The Lean Years

Lejeune found himself in a 2,000-man Marine Corps, "all field officers and a large proportion of the captains being over fifty years of age." At Norfolk the Marine Barracks consisted of "a wretched wooden building containing, in addition to the mess hall, kitchen, etc., one big squad room in which all the men slept in two-storied iron bunks. Sacks stuffed with straw constituted all that the government furnished in the way of bedding, and barracks chairs were about the only articles of furniture. The ration cost only 14 cents a day." The one sergeant-major in the Corps drew $25 a month, privates $13, and the ranks were filled with foreigners, some of whom could scarcely speak English. 

Still, the old service was not a bad place to learn. Early in his career the shy lieutenant fell under the influence of Sgt Major John Quick, who "perhaps of all the Marines I ever knew approached most nearly the perfect type of non-commissioned officer. . . I never knew him to raise his voice, lose his temper, or use profane language, and yet he exacted and obtained prompt and explicit obedience from all persons subject to his orders." 

Later he found his model of a commander in noted Admiral John C. Watson, who deeply impressed him "by his courtesy, his kindness and his simplicity—qualities which I have learned to be the attributes of true greatness." 

On the surface, the early years of Lejeune's career differed but slightly from those of his contemporaries. Serving in a variety of posts and stations at home and abroad, he fought in the Spanish-American War, was promoted to captain, then to major and to lieutenant colonel. Underneath the surface, however, a marked difference appeared. Lacking the eccentricities of such fabulous old-timers as Cols Pope and Meade, the flamboyance of "Tony" Waller, or the showmanship of young Smedley Butler, the quiet Louisianan nonetheless made his mark on those with whom he came into contact. Invariably he made this mark because somehow his actions centered not on himself nor on his career, but on the good of the service. 

Typical was his behavior as a very young officer aboard USS Cincinnati. At the time, a small Navy group hoped to abolish Marine detachments from service with the fleet—thus eliminating the Marine Corps. After the ship's executive officer refused to assign his detachment to a battery, Lejeune wrote the commanding officer, presented his case and asked for "an increase in duties rather than a decrease." His request granted, he then and there decided that only by constant, outstanding service could the Corps continue to claim its place in the sun. Outstanding service meant "united, industrious, intelligent and conscientious performance of duty" until the efficiency of the Corps and thus its usefulness could not be questioned. 

Lejeune on His Way Up the Career Ladder

Leadership in Panama

Although this became his credo, he never lost sight of the human factor. When he took a battalion to Panama in 1903 the place was a hell-hole of yellow fever, malaria, dysentery, and smallpox—a jungle nightmare of mud giving way to occasional liberties in wretched towns built on booze, prostitutes, and gambling. Working closely with the  brilliant Colonel George Gorgas, Lejeune held disease to a minimum (although he himself caught malaria). He established a vigorous, highly competitive athletics program, arranged hunting parties, and otherwise kept his troops busy providing an increase in their own comforts. Yet, when men did return intoxicated from liberty, he turned a blind eye so  long as they went quietly to their tents. Lejeune's professional performance, enhanced by genuine humility and a brain like a faultless machine, brought him more and more to the notice of his seniors, a fact shown by his frequent trips to Washington for duty on special boards. His contacts there culminated in 1909 with an appointment to the Army War College, a rare honor and an experience he later judged to be the turning point in his career. His success was noted in a letter from the president of the College to the commandant, Marine Corps:

Lt. Colonel Lejeune has not only shown painstaking industry and steady application but has displayed marked ability and a high order of military intelligence in the work of the College course.... I consider him fit for high command or for duty as Chief of Staff of a department or division in the field and commend him to your consideration.

The Marine Corps owned no division. In fact, its highest field commands consisted of hodge-podge regiments and under-strength brigades scratched up from depots and barracks and mounted out from Philadelphia and New York. While commanding the Marine Barracks, Brooklyn Navy Yard, Lejeune led several of these forces in various Caribbean expeditions. Such was his continued performance of duty that in 1913 he very nearly became commandant. Although Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels finally selected Colonel Barnett, the incident began a lifelong friendship between Lejeune and Daniels that would have a lasting effect on the future of the Marine Corps. 

Lejeune and Key Staff at Vera Cruz, 1914
Sgt. Major John Quick (MoH), Future Generals Wendell Neville, John Lejeune, and Smedley Butler (MoH [2])

Lejeune's importance was now established. There remained a matter of exploiting his potential. After another year of field service, including command of the Marine regiment at Veracruz and promotion to colonel, he was called to Washington as assistant to the commandant. There he played a vital role in the preparation and execution of war plans in the years that saw the Marine Corps begin expansion to 75,000 men in 1918.

Part II will be presented in tomorrow's Roads to the Great War.

Source: Relevance, Spring 2011, by permission, the Marine Corps Gazette. Originally published April 1962. 

Montfaucon Revisited

Editor's Note:  I recently stumbled across an academic paper from the US Army Command and Staff College, highly critical of the 79th Division and its commander, Maj. Gen. Joseph Kuhn, for failing to take Montfaucon on the first day of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. I decided it was time to resurrect my 2016 article on that that subject. Forgive me for pointing this out, but I have actually visited Montfaucon many times and traveled the path of the 79th Division on that day. Therefore, I have a pretty good feel for the terrain.  MH

In the opening of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive the most important objective for the AEF's First Army was the German strongpoint and commanding observation point of Montfaucon. It lay over four miles north of the Doughboys' jump-off line of 26 September 1918. The job to capture Montfaucon was assigned to the 79th Division, a unit that had never seen combat before and was commanded by a general, MG Joseph Kuhn, who had not been in battle himself. The men of the division were not quite "just off the troopships" but had received much less training in France than most of Pershing's other divisions. One member of the division, novelist James M. Cain, assigned to the divisional headquarters, later summarized what happened that day.

1945 View of Montfaucon with the U.S. WWI Memorial
Atop a Little Hill in the Middle of French Farm Country

On the 26th of September, 1918, when the old 79th Division hopped off with the rest of the AEF on the big drive that started that morning, the big job ahead of us was to take a town named Montfaucon, and it was the same town where the Crown Prince of Germany has his PC [Post of Command] in 1916, when them Dutch was hammering on Verdun and he was watching his boys fight by looking up at them through a periscope. And our doughboys was in two brigades, the 157th and 158th, with two regiments in each, and the 157th Brigade was in front. But they ain’t took the town because it was up on a high hill, and on the side of the hill was a whole lot of pillboxes and barbed wire what made it a tough job. 

From "The Taking of Montfaucon"

Your Editor Takes in the View from
Atop the Montfaucon Memorial

Some historians downplay the delay in the American advance caused by the failure to capture Montfaucon that day, but its effect was immediate and long term. Pershing's First Army had caught the defenders by surprise and in most parts of the sector were advancing fairly promptly. The failure to take Montfaucon that first day held up the advance somewhat but—much more important—allowed the trained observers atop the hill to get a more detailed and comprehensive estimate of just what the Yanks were up to. High-explosive and gas shells were directed onto the advance columns. Reserves were promptly forwarded to the best possible locations—the heights running across the sector  north of Montfaucon—by the German commanders based on the accurate reports they were receiving.

Over the years, I've read many explanations as to why Montfaucon was not captured that first day. Lack of training, exhaustion of the troops, mismanagement by the division commander MG Kuhn, and the AEF-wide inexperience at coordinating artillery with infantry advances all make the list of problems and are serious considerations. However, over the years that I have visited the battlefield, two other matters have come to seem more important to me than any of these factors.

1.  What Were the Planners Thinking?

Why was a completely inexperienced division given the most important objective of the opening of the battle? Asking this question, of course, suggests that an experienced division probably would have taken Montfaucon that day. However:

2.  It's Long, Long Way to Tipperary.

The map below from Google shows the distance to be covered that first day (about 4.1 miles) and helps give an idea of what had to be accomplished that day by the 79th Division. First, the village of Malancourt needed to be captured, and that was no small task. It had been a German strongpoint since 1916. The intervening terrain up to Montfaucon was originally open across rolling hills, but years of artillery fire had broken up the ground, and scattered all around were old trenches and  wire entanglements. Rainy weather ensured the troops would be marching across muddy fields as well. In the present day, the 87-minute hike indicated on the map would be conducted along a paved road, with no mud, and no one shooting at you. In actuality, with the grimmest of wartime conditions, it was many hours later that the division reached the base of Montfaucon, and adequate artillery support was no longer available.

Approximate Route of 314th Infantry, 79th Division, on 26 Sep 1918
from Jump-Off Line to Montfaucon

This next photo is from about a mile from the American monument, which is adjacent to the site of the former main German observation post, the ultimate target. Compared to the photo at the top, up close from this angle, Montfaucon looks pretty formidable, commanding the approaches—a little like Little Round Top at Gettysburg. Keep in mind also that it was guarded in 1918 by the "whole lot of pillboxes and barbed wire" Cain described. Try to project those details on the hill in this image. This is what the boys faced after slogging about three of those four miles from the start line. A hornet's nest was waiting for them. To the right (east) of the 79th division, the 4th Division had advanced farther than the 79th and were in a position to launch a flank attack on the hill, but—for whatever reason (this has been controversial for a century)—it never came to pass.

View of Montfaucon from Intersection of D15 and D19

I usually try to avoid "what if" or revisionist history, but in this case I've actually visited the battlefield, and over the years it has made a strong impression on me. My thinking today is that I question—given the level of challenge and capabilities of the AEF at that time—any of General Pershing's units could have taken Montfaucon that first day of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. The men and officers of the 79th Division did as much as could be expected in a single day, and they took the Montfaucon the day after. A more experienced division might have succeeded on that first day, but they were in short supply in September 1918.

Looking Back: Churchill on the Roots of the Nivelle Offensive and Passchendaele

Editor's Note:  This discussion of the 1917 campaign was written 22 years afterward by Churchill.

Lloyd George with Haig and Joffre, Western Front, 1916

By the Rt. Hon. Winston S. Churchill, P.C., M.P 

At the beginning of 1917 two tremendous events dominated and transformed all the conditions of the Great War, Russia fell out, and the United States came in. In these days I had constant access to the Prime Minister [Lloyd George] and never ceased, by personal intercourse and by speech in secret session, to dissuade him and the Government from a renewal on a great scale of the kind of offensive which had been so constant in 1916. The means for a successful offensive in 1917 did not exist, The preponderant Allied forces were not sufficient for a decisive success on the Western Front. The artillery was not numerous enough to enable several great attacks to be mounted at once, thus enabling the element of surprise to play its part. The tanks, which were to play a decisive part in 1918, had only appeared in small numbers, and their use was not comprehended either by the British or French High Command. On the other hand enormous additions to the Allied artillery were in operation and a great construction of tanks was on the way. Finally the arrival of the American armies—numbered by the million—was confidently expected for the campaign of 1918.

It seemed therefore wise to mark time on the Western Front during 1917 and, while keeping the enemy in a constant slate of apprehension, not to run the risks and incur the losses of gigantic offensives. It is not easy to adopt such a policy but it was certainly the right one,

Mr. Lloyd George and several of his colleagues held this general view of preventing vain slaughters on the Western Front before the arrival of the American armies, and he looked for an operation in the Italian theatre which might be fruitful, which would fill in the time, and which would definitely be minor. When these proposals were pulled to pieces by the military experts, intent upon their own plans, he found himself much cast down. At this moment when he was returning from Italy, he was joined by General Nivelle, who with his extraordinary, overpowering confidence, and personal address argued that an offensive on the Western Front was easy and should be successful.

Nivelle particularly insisted that it should be made with French troops, the British being only supplementary. Undoubtedly he captivated the Prime Minister and as this was to be in the main a French enterprise, it was not easy to see how British Ministers could take sides against him. In all the circumstances, and as the new French Commander-in-Chief was resolved, it seemed right to give him all possible support. To that extent the British War Cabinet undoubtedly became the advocates of General Nivelle’s plan. They certainly would never have approved such a plan if it had not been presented to them so vigorously by an ally. It would have been better if they had resisted more strongly beforehand, but once a decision has been taken in war, it becomes a duty, especially among those who like it least, to give it every possible chance.

Generals are not always right, and politicians are not always timid and weak. On many occasions during the War the military men were proved to be wrong, and the strategy of statesmen proved to be right.

Source: Introduction to Prelude to Victory by Brigadier General E.L. Spears, 1939

First In Situ Photos of A Soldier's Journey

A Soldier's Journey, the Concept

In preparation for the 13 September opening presentation (First Illumination) of his remarkable centerpiece for America's National World War I Memorial, sculptor Sabin Howard is busy mounting and putting some finishing touches on his 58 x 10-foot sculpted relief ("A movie in bronze," says the artist) at its final destination. If you haven't heard much about A Soldier's Journey, the work is already getting rave reviews, and I would suggest checking out such articles as these HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Mr. Howard has generously sent me a set of photos he took himself at the site last week. Below, I am going to present detailed images from these photos. My intention is to give you the impression you are standing immediately in front of some of the figures of the larger piece.  Of course, if you want to appreciate A Soldier's Journey as complete artistic statement (the "movie in bronze"), it's best to someday visit the National Memorial on Pennsylvania, Ave, in Washington, DC.

In lieu of that journey, I hope you will take the opportunity to watch the First Illumination event on 13 September, which will be made available via online streaming. This will give the opportunity to experience Sabin Howard's magnificent creation as a unified artistic and patriotic work.

Sign-up HERE for the service.

All These Photos Can Be Enlarged by Clicking on the Image. I Strongly Recommend Doing So.  MH

Artist Sabin Howard Applying Some Finishing Touches:
Note the authentic details on the rifles, puttees, and
ammunition belt on the upper Doughboy.

An Installer Working on Top; One Figure Looks
Back on the Journey He's Made and Survived

The Base at Left Front: 
Note Artist's Signature and Battle Damage

In Extremis

Aftermath of a Gas Attack; Nurses Providing Care

The Journey Begins

Our Artist, Sabin Howard, Examines the Product
 of Nine Years of His Creative Effort

Thanks to Edwin Fountain, Chris Christopher, and Sabin Howard for their assistance on this article.

Siegfried Sassoon: The Inescapable War Poet

Click HERE to Order This Work

Siegfried Sassoon—The War Poems

Portable Poetry, 2020 

As Sassoon's wartime diaries reveal, he was an extremely complex character, troubled by his homosexuality and anxious to prove his manliness in combat and so to earn the respect, perhaps even love, of his men. Also, as a poet first and foremost, he was never at ease with the majority of his fellow officers whom he found boorish, dull and snobbish, hence his delight in meeting other poets and literary men such as Graves, Owen and de Sola Pinto. Both on his own account, and for the reputation of poets, he wanted to prove himself a hero and did so in several gallant actions. But in seeking to protest against what he thought of as the excessive suffering of his men in an unduly prolonged war he allowed himself to be influenced by pacifists who had little respect for men in uniform and were disappointed that he did not provide publicity for their cause by going to prison.

Brian Bond, Survivors of a Kind: Memoirs of the Western Front (2008)

"The Hero" by Siegfried Sassoon, 1886–1967

"Jack fell as he'd have wished," the Mother said,

And folded up the letter that she'd read.

"The Colonel writes so nicely." Something broke

In the tired voice that quavered to a choke.

She half looked up. "We mothers are so proud

Of our dead soldiers." Then her face was bowed.

Quietly the Brother Officer went out.

He'd told the poor old dear some gallant lies

That she would nourish all her days, no doubt.

For while he coughed and mumbled, her weak eyes

Had shone with gentle triumph, brimmed with joy,

Because he'd been so brave, her glorious boy.

He thought how "Jack," cold-footed, useless swine,

Had panicked down the trench that night the mine

Went up at Wicked Corner; how he'd tried

To get sent home; and how, at last, he died,

Blown to small bits. And no one seemed to care

Except that lonely woman with white hair.

Death at Dawn — The Sinking of Battleship SMS Szent István (Docudrama Video)

Still on Duty: American Legion Paris Post #1

At the Arc de Triomphe, Tomb of France's Unknown Soldier

The American Legion Paris Post #1, received its charter from the American Legion on 13 December 1919, as WWI weary veterans joined together to create the Legion. The American Legion Paris Post #1 is now in its 102nd year of existence in Paris, France, where they continue to support veterans around the world & help keep the legacy of America's contribution to Europe alive by serving veterans and their families in France. The post actively pays respect to all American fighting men and women of the world wars and those of the Allies.

Paris Post #1 continues to support U.S. memorials and monuments whether or not they are related to the organization. They provide American representation at the many ceremonies and commemorative events involving our two nations throughout France. These include both events around greater Paris, like the daily relighting of the eternal flame at the tomb of France's Unknown Soldier, U.S. friendship events at the monuments at the Place des États-Unis, and Memorial and Armistice Day at the American Suresnes Cemetery, as well as at the ABMC cemeteries along the old Western Front and the advances of 1944 and '45.

Ceremony at the Post Mausoleum in Paris

After World War I, the city of Paris also granted the American Legion a small plot of land in the Cimetière de Neuilly. In the 1930s, the Paris post built a mausoleum on the site. Since then, more than 300 Paris Post #1 members have been interred there. Post members, who consider themselves guardians of the mausoleum, maintain it on behalf of their American Legion comrades who reside there in Post Everlasting. The post conducts ceremonies at the mausoleum throughout the year.

Paris Post #1 maintains an original seat on the Comité de la Flamme, an association in charge of ceremonially reviving the Eternal Flame of the French Tomb of the Unknown Soldier located under the Arc de Triomphe. Throughout the year—and specifically on the Fourth of July—the post participates in the ravivage de la flamme, or rekindling of the flame.

March 1919 Organizing Conference for
the American Legion, Paris

Source: Doughboy Foundation

Woman in the Ranks: Viktor/Viktoria Savs, 2nd Innsbruck Landsturm Infantry Battalion

While putting together our recent article on the Tre Cime di Lavaredo (Drei Zinnen in German) I discovered the story of an interesting soldier who served in the sector. Viktoria Savs (1899–1979) fought in the Drei Zinnen area disguised as a man, although probably with the knowledge of her superiors. Known as the “Heroine of the Drei Zinnen,” she followed her father, Peter, into the war and fought alongside him under the name Viktor Savs in 1915 and would play a role on the front line under constant danger.

She first served for more than a year as an unarmed trainee. Anxious to serve in combat, Viktoria wrote to the Archduke Eugen of Austria to request a transfer to the Italian front to serve alongside her father, which was granted in December 1916.  On the front lines, she showed talent in guiding pack animals and as a messenger on skis. She was assigned as an orderly to a captain and soon after took part in combat operations at Drei Zinnen. During an attack against Italian positions in the Dolomites on 11 April 1917, she led a group of 20 captured Italians to safety behind the Austrian lines under enemy artillery fire. For her service, Victor/Viktoria would be awarded the Silver Medal for Bravery, First Class, the Bronze Medal for Bravery, and the Karl Troop Cross.

On 27 May 1917, her right leg was crushed in a rockfall and had to be amputated below the knee. It was only in the field hospital at Sillian that it became widely known the 16-year-old Viktor Savs was in fact Viktoria. Her combat service came to an end with the loss of her leg, but her war service was not over. She then served in the Austrian Red Cross during the rest of the war, where she was decorated with the Military Merit Cross (Austria-Hungary). She attracted attention and was hailed as a patriotic war heroine in the aftermath of the Armistice.

Savs at a Nazi Party Event in the 1930s

Her postwar life was eventful, although much written about Viktoria appears highly speculative.** During the 1920s, her war service was forgotten, and she found herself a disabled and homeless veteran in Salzburg sometimes working as a housekeeper. She fell into the Nazi orbit,  eventually joining the party hoping for a better veterans pension. In 1936, Savs moved to Berlin and won a grant for a new prosthetic leg. In 1938, she returned to Salzburg,  where she took up a position with the Wehrmacht's Intelligence Department 70 in Salzburg. From the beginning of 1942 she worked in a microbiology lab in Belgrade. Viktoria Savs died in Salzburg in 1979 at the age of 80.

**Editor's note: Such speculation seems to involve two matters, Savs's degree of dedication to the Nazi cause (e.g. Did she know about the Holocaust while working at that lab in Belgrade?) and her sexuality.

Sources: Habsburger.net; Michael Wachtler's "The First World War in the Alps"; Wikipedia

Prewar Prophesy Literature, Part II — Sci Fi Goes to War

Science fiction, for its serious aficionados, has literary roots back to ancient doomsday works and the later  utopian essays of Thomas More and Francis  Bacon, but the genre—as we recognize it—emerged in the latter  19th century out of the industrial age.  The new technology spawned excited thinking about new  devices and their applications in the future. This era's  science fiction founding figures were Jules Verne and  H.G. Wells. Each had much to say about the future of  warfare in their writings, particularly about weaponry. Both, however, also dabbled in Invasion Lit and wrote  important novels that mixed the genres.  

Verne's 1879 The Begum's Fortune portends a war  instigated by a militaristic German (who is also a  prototype "mad scientist"). It features gigantic cannon (think "Big Bertha") and, possibly, the earliest prediction of chemical warfare—carbon dioxide unleashed to  freeze the opposition in place. The most improbable  element of  Begum is that the fighting takes place in a  French town (colony?) on the coast of Oregon, USA. 

Published two decades later, Wells's 1898 Martian invasion classic, War of the Worlds, was a thinly disguised war premonition. It, too, incorporates fearsome weaponry and gas warfare elements, with a decisive invasion-ending demonstration of biological  warfare. Earth (if you haven't seen either of the movie  versions) is saved because the Martians have no  resistance to earth-borne disease.

The French Contribution

The bigger contribution of science fiction to the body  of premonitions of the First World War involves weaponry, however.  This is not to say all the prognosticators predictions came about  or that many of  their predictions were entirely new thinking. Countless  fulfilled predictions, for example, have been incorrectly attributed to Jules Verne's vivid imagination. Submarines first appeared in the American Revolution, and  the Montgolfier brothers were demonstrating their balloons, antecedents of airships, about that same time, that is, long before Verne was born.  

Nevertheless, he wrote thrilling adventure novels  featuring them and he stirred  imaginations. In a broad  way, as Invasion Lit writers helped generate the war fever of 1914, science fiction writers  got inventors, entrepreneurs, and military staffs thinking about novel ways to fight wars. Jules Verne gets much of the credit for initiating and stimulating this process.  

Of the many imitators of Jules Verne, two, both French, most prominently built on his work by "futurizing" weapons while imaginatively intensifying the combat elements of their writings. Also, they supplemented  their writings with dramatic illustrations.

Albert Robida's View of 20th-Century War

Albert Robida's work appeared in two waves. From 1883 to 1890 he published a remarkable series of  magazine pieces and books that addressed future  wars, the most famous being La Guerre au vingtième siècle (War in the Twentieth Century). His war scenarios are sometimes fantastical—Mozambique takes on Australia in 1975—but his caricature-style drawings capture many aspects of the Great War of the future struggle. Many of his predictions would be validated  during  the  war:

 • Railroads would play a dominant role, used for mobilizing and moving troops, and as mobile artillery platforms. 

• Airships and balloons would be used for bombing, firing specialized artillery, and observation. 

• Chemists would be called on to create asphyxiant gases. 

• Artillery and barbed wire would command the battlefield. 

• Tunneling would be required to attack and advance.  

•  Specific weapons would  include: armored vehicles, bomb-dropping airships, fire and gas projectors, and anti-aircraft artillery. 

Robida examined every dimension of future life, but after the turn of the century he returned to future war as a favorite topic and income producer. In a brilliant series for the magazine La Guerre Infernale he covered the same territory, but this time drawing in a more realistic style, updating the look of his soldiers and their weaponry.  Once again (see above), his work captures the grimness of World War I battlefields, and the use of airships as a terror weapon. 

For some reason, Robida did not seem too interested in other types of aircraft beyond airships. There does not seem to be many fighter or pursuit airplanes in his work. Another Frenchman, who wrote extensively about the future, took up some of the slack for him, preferring the airplane to the airship.  

"Capitaine Danrit" was the pen-name of Émile Driant infantry officer, parliamentary deputy, and novelist. Before the war, he was among the most prolific of all Invasion Lit authors, almost all of his writings pretty bad. His overheated style was probably driven by his hyper-patriotism and by his valid foresight of an era of  terrible wars enabled by the new technologies. Driant's most remembered invasion work was the worst kind of "Yellow Peril" rabble rousing about a Japanese-led invasion of Europe, titled L' invasion  Jaune.   

Émile Driant at Verdun

There are, though, redeeming aspects to Driant's work. He was one of the few science fiction writers of the period, who was also a professional military officer.  From the 1880s up to the war he wrote a series of  novels under the heading The War of Tomorrow and stories for magazines such as the Journal des Voyages. His best predictions came from exploring the operational potential of what we call weapons systems: combat air squadrons, airlift, and (surprisingly) submarines. For an infantryman, he had his eye on the sea, also speculating about naval air operations and transoceanic troop deployments. His most impressive observations may have been about the need for specialized equipment to rescue crews of disabled submarines.   

Driant was unique in World War I futurism in one respect. He saw the future war he had long predicted come to pass, fought in it, and died fighting.  Lt. Col. Émile Driant was in command of two battalions of Chasseur Alpins on the front line at Verdun in February 1916. He and his men, without support, held their  position until the second day of the battle when most of them perished, including Driant. Today, Lt. Col. Émile Driant is better remembered as the first hero of Verdun than as an author. 

H.G. Wells

As an imaginative futurist H.G. Wells stands alone. He has some claim (with a number of others) to predicting the battlefield power of the machine gun, modern artillery, and chemical agents. Two imaginative works, though, are his unique predictors of war to come. In 1903 he wrote a short story for The Strand magazine titled "The Land Ironclads," that described in  their  function  and  general design. Though his version was unrealistically large (100-foot long), they were armored, had specialized treads (modeled on elephant's feet) and carried lots of guns and soldiers. These "Land Ironclads" had the ability to crash through trench defenses and barricades. Many parties are given credit for advocating the British tanks that first appeared on the Somme in September 1916, but Wells had inspired them all, long before.

In 1908, he subsequently published the novel The War in the Air, which prefigured the role of bombers in both tactical and strategic settings. When Germany and the U.S. find themselves at war, the Germans gain the upper hand by building an air fleet with zeppelins and flying machines called Drachenflieger.  They first destroy the American dreadnoughts in the North Atlantic and then level New York, leaving it a “furnace of crimson flames, from which there was no escape.” Of course, we see now that these predictions worked out in greater detail during the Second World War, with Germany and her allies on the receiving end, but it was not for lack of trying that the results were not as severe in the Great War.  

Wells had many misses in his numerous forecasts, of course. He missed the troop transport function, for example. He believed that after bombing an opponent to smithereens there would be no way to transfer occupying forces, hence, civilization there would simply collapse. He missed submarines, and, as air historian John Morrow points out,  like almost all of his contemporaries, Wells missed "the aspect of the airplane's use for which it became most famous—aerial combat and as the vehicle for the great heroes of the war in general." Nevertheless, even today in the 21st century, H.G. Wells is still regarded as the greatest  predictor of war weaponry.  

Source: Over the Top, November 2013