The Eastern Front Experience in the First World War by Vejas Liulevicius (Video with a Unique Point of View))

Wyoming, USA, in the First World War

 

Wyomingites on the Front Served Principally in the 91st
"Wild West" Division and the 148th Field Artillery Regiment

On 26 March 1917, the Wyoming National Guard was ordered up to federal service. After war was declared, the Wyoming troops trained on the East Coast and were sent to France beginning in December 1917. A total of 11,393 Wyoming men served in the war, about 6-7 percent of the estimated population—a rate well above the national average. Not all fought overseas, but those who did were stationed in France. Many were part of the 148th Field Artillery; others served in the 91st Division. The capitol rotunda in Cheyenne holds a bronze tablet listing the state's fallen in the war. There are 468 names on the tablet, which is slightly inaccurate since Navy personnel were not included, and a number of non-Wyomingites were, An additional 881 Wyoming men were wounded in the war. After the Armistice, thousands of Americans, including many from Wyoming, were demobilized near Cheyenne through Fort D. A. Russell, which had also served as a major mobilization point at the start of the war.

Before America's Entry

From 3 August 1914, when German forces invaded Belgium and declared war on France, until 6 April 1917, when President Woodrow Wilson declared war on Germany, the prevailing attitude in Wyoming and the United States was neutral and isolationist. The majority of citizens apparently felt that since the United States was not seriously threatened, the nation should stay out of the conflict.

Still, war news flooded the country. Wyoming citizens participated in relief efforts, especially for Belgium. In the "flour relief program," from November 1914 to January 1915, residents of the state donated money to purchase flour from local mills to be shipped to starving Belgian women and children. Cheyenne and Laramie together provided 32 tons of flour.

 Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard of the Univ. of Wyoming
Worked Tirelessly to Build Support for the War

The Red Cross also was active. The Wyoming Tribune in Cheyenne reported on 25 November 1914 that "ragged little waifs contributed their pennies” at a fundraiser and “wore a Red Cross bedecked pin with as great a pride as the plutocrat who gave his greenbacks." By noon, “eager girls and their chaperones, stationed all over the city," had collected $400.

Many citizens followed war news with interest. On 29 August 1914, the Wyoming Tribune mentioned a "long and ardent discussion of the European war" at the recent meeting of the Young Men's Literary Club in Cheyenne. About a year later, two men were arrested after a fist-and-knife fight in Sheridan over which side would win the war.

America Joins the War

Men of the 148th Field Artillery in France

The Wyoming Legislature, though, eagerly supported the declaration of war. Even before Congress had acted on military conscription, Wyoming’s legislature passed a resolution supporting a draft and commending Wilson for severing diplomatic relations with Germany. On 26 March 1917, the Wyoming National Guard was ordered up to federal service. After war was declared, the Wyoming troops trained on the East Coast and were sent to France beginning in December 1917. All told, about 12,000 Wyoming men served—about 6-7 percent of the estimated population—a rate well above the national average.

Wyoming, along with the rest of the country, exploded into super-patriotism. Newspapers throughout the state exhorted citizens to buy Liberty Loan Bonds. The 24 May  1917 Pine Bluffs Post reported that bonds, maturing in 30 years, paid 3.5 percent interest and were available in denominations from $50 to $100,000. 

French Soldiers Join Wyoming Red Cross
Workers and Doughboys at a Liberty Loan Event

Reports of mass meetings, flag displays, and resolutions in support of President Wilson filled the newspapers. Waves of propaganda washed over the nation and the state. Along with the rest of the nation, most Wyomingites responded to the call to support the war effort.

Social pressure to join in patriotic displays and to buy war bonds intensified. War bonds were a way for people to lend money to the government to fight the war. People with German names came under the suspicion of their neighbors. In an extreme display, war supporters burned all of the German texts at Lander High School at an intersection in the center of town.

Helen Svenson in Her Victory Garden in Laramie

At the same time, people ate less and grew more of their own food. Women were central to the efforts on the home front in Wyoming. They worked in jobs that were once dominated by men, pledged to conserve food, devoted time to knitting wool hats and socks for soldiers, prepared bandages for the Red Cross and collected tens of thousands of books for the servicemen serving in France.

Wyoming Life on the Home Front

Life at home was nonstop work, especially for farmers and ranchers who had lost much of their labor force when young men were drafted or volunteered. At the same time, prices for agricultural goods had skyrocketed. Demand was high because war-ravaged Europe could not provide food for itself.

Wheat prices tripled, from 76 cents a bushel in 1912 to $2.49 in June 1917. In August of that year, the government set prices at $2.20 per bushel for the following year's crop. The price of beef also rose dramatically, and the U.S. Food Administration granted ranchers a partial exemption from the prohibition on grain hoarding so they could store feed for the winter.

Wool, 27.5 cents per pound in 1915—already a high price compared with the previous 30 years—jumped to approximately 50 cents in 1917 and was fixed by the War Industries Board at 55 cents per pound for 1918. Producers of these agricultural goods prospered but also had to pay higher prices for the items they purchased: clothing, groceries, machinery and equipment.

Wyoming Women Stepped Up to Keep the Railroads Running

Coal and oil extraction also boomed. Between 1916 and 1918, oil production in Wyoming doubled, from 6 million barrels to more than 12 million. The state’s coal production mounted from 8.8 million tons in 1917 to more than 9 million in 1918.

Democratic Gov. John B. Kendrick, elected in 1914, ran for the U.S. Senate in 1916 and won. He did not resign the governorship, however, until after the end of the 1917 session of the state legislature. He took his Senate seat 4 March 1917, just five weeks before the nation entered the war. Secretary of State Frank L. Houx became acting governor, serving through January 1919, the entire duration of U.S. involvement in the war. Following the dictates of the federal government, as did all the other governors, Houx oversaw the activities of the state's Council of National Defense. Houx also supervised county draft boards and recruitment for the National Guard.

Patriotic Fever

[As in every other state in the Union,] patriotic organizations proliferated. The One Hundred Percent American Society had a chapter in almost every Wyoming town. The Cheyenne chapter's constitution, article three, stated, "The object of the Society shall be to promote patriotism and to aid and assist the United States Government in the prosecution of the war against Germany and its allies to the fullest extent, and to discountenance and suppress all disloyalty, and to aid and encourage the vigorous prosecution and punishment of all persons seeking to interfere with or hamper the successful prosecution of the war."

Prior to the declaration of war, on 14 February 1917, Congress had passed the Espionage Act to allow for prosecution of spies. On 16 May 1918, 13 months after America entered the war, President Wilson signed the Sedition Act, aimed at suppressing German sympathizers and unpatriotic talk in general. U.S. Attorneys' offices in each state received reports of suspected spies or seditious activity and had to investigate each complaint and decide whether it was valid. During World War I, there were concerns that immigrants from enemy countries would sabotage the national war effort or assist their home countries in attacking the United States from within its borders. For this reason, German nationals (German citizens) were required to register with federal officials and carry identification cards. 

Enemy Alien Registration of Henry Schroeder of
Prarie Dog Ranch, Sheridan County

In late November 1917, seven months after the United States entered World War I, a high school teacher in Powell was asked to resign because she was a pacifist. The 22 November 1917 Powell Leader reported that members of the community had been complaining to the school board that Miss Georgiana Youngs had been making "unpatriotic expressions" in the classroom. The article did not identify those who complained. The message was clear: In the patriotic fervor sweeping Wyoming and the nation in wartime, dissenting views were not tolerated.

Many Wyoming citizens reported the suspicious behavior of their neighbors and community members to their county attorneys, who in turn reported to C.L. Rigdon, U.S. Attorney for Wyoming. Despite hundreds of reports, few cases were prosecuted.

Sometimes people took advantage of the espionage and sedition laws to take revenge on a neighbor in an ongoing dispute, or to even up a score. In one case, a woman caught her husband cheating on her, had him arrested for adultery, and reported him as a spy.

Wyoming's Bucking Bronco Heritage

Doughboy Artist Sgt. George Ostrom

A Wyoming soldier who served in France, George Ostrom, was the bugler of CompanyA of the 148th Field Artillery.  During his World War I service, a contest was held  to design a distinctive unit emblem. George created what may be the earliest rendition of Wyoming’s famed “bucking broncho,” that is shown above. When George showed up with his drawing, the contest was immediately terminated, and he was declared the unanimous winner. Ostrom’s iconic emblem, used on 148th Field Artillery guns and vehicles during WWI, eventually would be redrawn in 1935 by artist Allen True at the direction of Wyoming secretary of state Lester Hunt for use on Wyoming’s license plates. The first plates were issued in 1936, and the state has used the image ever since.

Throughout his military service on the Mexican border and in France, Ostrom prepared nearly 20 drawings of military life—in combat and behind the lines. He originally made these sketches in pencil in the field, on whatever paper he could scrounge. His son, George Ostrom Jr., recalls that after he returned home, his father would spend his evenings inking in the pencil sketches on the family’s kitchen table.  We will feature George's drawings in a future issue of Roads to the Great War.

World War I Memorial, Laramie

Sources: The Wyoming Historical Society's Online Encyclopedia WYOHISTORY.ORG; Wyoming National Guard; Wyoming State Library; Wyoming Veterans Memorial Museum

President Wilson's 1918 Thanksgiving Proclamation

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

It has long been our custom to turn in the autumn of the year in praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God for His many blessings and mercies to us as a nation. This year we have special and moving cause to be grateful and to rejoice. God has in His good pleasure given us peace. It has not come as a mere cessation of arms, a mere relief from the strain and tragedy of war. It has come as a great triumph of right. Complete victory has brought us, not peace alone, but the confident promise of a new day as well in which justice shall replace force and jealous intrigue among the nations. Our gallant armies have participated in a triumph which is not marred or stained by any purpose of selfish aggression. In a righteous cause they have won immortal glory and have nobly served their nation in serving mankind. God has indeed been gracious. We have cause for such rejoicing as revives and strengthens in us all the best traditions of our national history. A new day shines about us, in which our hearts take new courage and look forward with new hope to new and greater duties.

While we render thanks for these things, let us not forget to seek the Divine guidance in the performance of those duties, and divine mercy and forgiveness for all errors of act or purpose, and pray that in all that we do we shall strengthen the ties of friendship and mutual respect upon which we must assist to build the new structure of peace and good will among the nations.

Wherefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate Thursday, the twenty-eighth day of November next as a day of thanksgiving and prayer, and invite the people throughout the land to cease upon that day from their ordinary occupations and in their several homes and places of worship to render thanks to God, the ruler of nations.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done in the district of Columbia this sixteenth day of November in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and eighteen and of the independence of the United States the one hundred and forty-third.

Remembering a Veteran: Major Frederic McLaughlin, 86th Division AEF—Pioneer Promoter of American Ice Hockey

Major Frederic McLaughlin

By James Patton 

Frederic McLaughlin (1877–1944) was a graduate of Harvard and the heir to a family fortune. He inherited the successful "McLaughlin's Manor House" coffee business from his father, who died in 1905. From 1923 until his death, McLaughlin was married to the famous dancer, model, and silent movie actress Irene Castle, the widow of Vernon Castle, another WWI veteran. (Click HERE for more on Vernon Castle.)  

A champion polo player, McLaughlin went to the Mexican border in 1916 as a cavalryman in the Illinois National Guard. Upon his return he did the Plattsburgh course and was commissioned as a Major, receiving orders to the 86th "Blackhawk" Division’s 333rd Machine Gun Battalion. This division was created at Camp Grant in Rockford, Illinois, in August, 1917 with draftees from Illinois and Wisconsin. 

Shoulder Patch of the
86th "Black Hawk" Division

After arriving in France in October 1918,  the 86th Division's infantry and machine gun units were "greatly depleted to form replacements for combat units." Senior officers like Major McLaughlin were not reassigned but remained in Le Mans as permanent cadre in anticipation of re-population with new soldiers from the 2 million men still training stateside. However, with the Armistice of 11 November, the additional men were never needed and he returned home.

In 1926, McLaughlin acquired the rights to the new Chicago franchise in the National Hockey League (NHL), which he named the “Blackhawks” in honor of his fellow soldiers. His wife is said to have designed the iconic and now-controversial Indian head logo. During his ownership, the team won two of its six Stanley Cups for the league championship.  

McLaughlin with His Team and the Stanley Cup

He is remembered for his dogged determination to use American players, once saying “I think an all-American team would be a tremendous drawing card all over the league.” Others predicted that, while in America the crowds might come to cheer, in Canada they would come to laugh. Nevertheless, Chicago’s championship team in 1938 was 44 percent Americans (mostly from Minnesota); no NHL championship team has had more Americans on its roster until 2016. However, the overall record of McLaughlin’s Blackhawk teams was 332 wins, 430 losses, and 136 ties.

In his time, he was roundly criticized by his Canadian colleagues, who ridiculed the level of his talent. The Boston Bruins' Art Ross summed it up: “I have been in hockey 30 years and never in its entire history has such a farce been perpetrated on a National Hockey League crowd.”

The longtime owner and occasional coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Constantine “Conn” Smythe MC (1895–1980), was a CEF battery commander, RFC aerial observer and a POW for 14 months during the World War. He is an NHL legend, winner of ten Stanley Cups and the namesake of the NHL’s Most Valuable Player award. Smythe famously said of fellow team owner McLaughlin: "Where hockey was concerned, Major McLaughlin was the strangest bird and, yes, perhaps the biggest nut I met in my entire life."

Irene and Frederic, Apparently Sane and Unconcerned
About Any Criticism

Zero Hour

German Machine Gun Squad

Zero Hour  

By Georg Grabenhorst 

Univ. of South Carolina, 2006

Zero Hour is an autobiographical novel by German World War I combat veteran Georg Grabenhorst (1899–1997). Grabenhorst survived the war and later earned a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Kiel. He was a prolific author of both fiction and history and became active in the National Socialist movement. In 1945 he was dismissed from the regional service, deNazified in 1948, and retired in 1949.  His later works, including a two-volume autobiography, reflect strong rejections of modernism, contemporary literature, and culture.

Zero Hour has an entirely different pace and language as compared to that employed by Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front trilogy. The German title of the novel is Fahnenjunker Volkenborn after its protagonist Hans Volkenborn, an upper middle-class soldier—an officer trainee or cadet—in his late teens. As an officer trainee, he has comforts and privileges not offered to his enlisted mates, but this does not prevent his gradual descent into a depression brought on by the rigors of combat and expanding command responsibilities for his platoon.

Of particular historical importance are accounts of combat in the Ypres campaign in 1917 and the futile clashes in the woods of Aveluy in northern France the following summer as German hopes for victory faded.The battle scenes are powerfully drawn, based as they were on the author's own frontline experiences, which included being briefly buried alive by a mortar round.

Click HERE to Order

So too are the sketches of life behind the lines and on leave in a Germany quickly falling victim to food shortages and social revolution. Indeed, the novel appears to have been written as part of an attempt by the author to emerge from a serous bout of post-traumatic stress disorder, the shell shock experienced by Hans Volkenborn, whose name translates into English as "born of the people."

Georg Grabenhorst's Zero Hour equates duty with camaraderie and thereby finds a greater balance between bitterness and hawkishness than much of war fiction. 

Source: Expanded version of a review in the Sept/Oct 2009 issue of the St. Mihiel Tripwire

The Great War Created an Explosion of Mass Burial Sites

French National Cemetery and Douaumont Ossuary at Verdun

The American and British approaches to war burials were predicated on a tradition that demanded each fallen soldier was entitled to an individual resting place. Other nations, however, were inclined differently, especially regarding the unidentified individuals. In this article we look at the matter of mass burials.

Ossuaries, catacombs and charnel houses—crypts, chapels and caverns where human bones have been placed—are spread throughout Europe. Some are many hundreds of years old, others much more recent. As macabre as the idea may sound they are also a popular tourist attraction; the catacombs in Paris are perhaps the most well known and receive hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.

An ossuary is anything from a small box to a large building that contains human bones. A body is placed in a temporary grave, and then sometime later the bones are removed, cleaned, and placed in the ossuary—the final resting place. In many instances ossuaries were created as a solution to the lack of space in local cemeteries. Others, however, came about when human remains were recovered during the excavation of cemeteries—whether known or forgotten.

Ossuaries have a long history. The megalithic chambered tombs of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages are in all likelihood prehistoric antecedents of the more recent traditions we see in Europe. Three thousand years ago the ancient Persians, more specifically the Zoroastrians, placed the remains of their dead in a well or astudan—a literal translation being "the place for the bones."

Turkish Mass Grave, Gallipoli Peninsula

Ossuaries are found throughout Europe, having been a common practice for both Catholic and Eastern Orthodox communities. There are chapels and crypts in churches and monasteries that house the bones of thousands of individuals. Caves, catacombs, and underground tunnels also make for ideal ossuaries. People were interred as and when they died, whereas some ossuaries are a kind of "mass grave," holding the bones of thousands of individuals who died as a result of anything from plagues to wars.

Perhaps one of the most poignant ossuaries in Europe is the Douaumont Ossuary in northeastern France. Situated on what was the battlefield of the World War One Battle of Verdun and next to the largest French military cemetery of the First World War, the ossuary holds the remains of both French and German soldiers who fought in that horrific battle.

From 21 February to 19 December in 1916 over 230,000 French and German men died in what has been called L’Enfer de Verdun (Hell of Verdun). The bones from at least 130,000 unidentified soldiers have been placed in specially designed alcoves at the Verdun ossuary, an odd mixture of fortress and cathedral architecture. Their names have been inscribed on the walls and vaulted ceiling of the ossuary. The large adjacent cemetery has the identified remains of 16,142 Frenchmen. L’ossuaire de Douaumont was inaugurated by French president Albert Lebrun on 7 August in 1932.

Sacrario dei Caduti di Caporetto (Charnel House)
 Kobarid, Slovenia

The most prolific use of ossuaries for the burial of World War I soldiers was by the Italian Fascist government of Benito Mussolini. Once he came to power, his party looked upon itself as a sort of heir of the Great War's heritage and established a monopoly on commemorative monuments and burial sites for Italy's nearly 600,000 fallen. The theme for these new sites was not to be a sense of tragic sacrifice but one of the exaltations of a victorious nation. In 1920 the construction of the nation's first ossuary was started on Monte Pasubio, one of many dramatic mountain top battlefields of the war. However, the 19th-century look of the building did not meet the expectations of the Fascists when they took power. A new approach was needed. A spectacular series of ossuaries were built, right up to the eve of the Second World War.

Source: Archeology-Travel Website of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Falkenhayn's 1914 Proposal for Peace with Russia

Late in 1914, General Falkenhayn (1861–1922), then the head of the Supreme Command, told the chancellor that he believed that Germany could not win the war militarily. He was convinced that a military decision on the Eastern Front was impossible. England, he believed, was Germany’s most dangerous foe, and to persuade it of German invincibility, Falkenhayn envisaged a massive German offensive in the west, coupled with submarine warfare against British commerce. The success of these ventures depended, in turn, on a separate peace in the east. With the aid of diplomacy, Falkenhayn hoped that a limited offensive would achieve a “moderate defeat” of the Russian Army. The full force of the German military could then turn toward the west. The conclusions that Falkenhayn drew from these military calculations, however, were tortuous and politically ill conceived; they offered no resolution to the strategic dilemma. Bethmann-Hollweg was skeptical of his plan as were Falkenhayn’s two main military rivals, Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1936) and Erich Ludendorff (1865–1937).

On 18 November 1914 Falkenhayn held a long meeting with the chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, during which he outlined his new strategic assumptions. Bethmann later communicated the content of this conversation to the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Arthur Zimmermann:

This is how General von Falkenhayn judges the situation:

General von Falkenhayn judged the situation in this way: As long as Russia, France, and England held together, it would be impossible for us to defeat our enemies in a way that would bring about a proper peace. In fact, we would be in danger of slowly exhausting ourselves. Either Russia or France must be separated from the coalition. Should we succeed in concluding a peace with Russia, as we should attempt to do first of all, we would be in a position to bring France to its knees to the point where we could dictate peace, even if the Japanese were to cross the sea in France’s support and even if England were to keep sending reserves into the field. It is certainly to be expected that if Russia were to make peace, France, too, would give in. Then, were England unwilling completely to accede to our will, we would, supported by Belgium, force the country to give in by starving it out with a blockade, even if the effort were to take months. [ . . . ]

After the effort failed to defeat France in the first stage of the war, and in view of the course of our military operations in the west during the present, second stage of the war, I, too, have to doubt whether it is still possible to defeat our opponents militarily, as long as the Triple Entente holds together.

Should Hindenburg remain victorious, we will in any case be able to keep Prussia, Posen, and Silesia free from Russian invasion this winter. – It is absolutely impossible to anticipate how things will play out in the Galician theater. – As long as strong army divisions must remain in the east, we will succeed in holding on to the area that we presently occupy in the west, perhaps even in expanding it to a small degree, eventually taking Verdun and thus forcing the French to retreat from the Aisne to positions on the Marne. The complete defeat and destruction of our enemy in a decisive battle appears, however, to be out of the question to judge from the always reserved reports of the General Staff. This situation will obtain throughout the winter; in fact, we can tolerate it as politically entirely advantageous, but it does not offer any chances for a decisive military victory as a consequence. As far as I can judge the situation, we can only hope for such a victory if we can commit our army that is in the east to France. In this event we could, if we believed it to be proper, even reject a future peace offer from France and defeat France militarily, with a little luck, to the extent that France would have to accept any kind of peace that we desire – and at the same time, if the navy holds out, which it has promised to do, to impose our will on England. Thus by accepting the price that the situation with respect to Russia will remain basically as it was before the war, we can create appropriate conditions toward the west. And this outcome would represent the elimination of the Triple Entente. [ . . . ]

All in all, one must consider the situation serious despite all confidence in success. Developments near Ypres are typical. Despite the great bravery of our troops, we have not achieved a decisive blow, but only a gradual advance, accompanied by partial failures and, in general, enormous losses.

I thus cannot ignore General von Falkenhayn’s repeated pressure for a separate arrangement with Russia. The possibilities have at least to be thought through to the end. I have until now seen no signs that Russia is ready for an accommodation. Even another victory by Hindenburg would not, in my view, suffice to make Russia willing. To this end, either we or Austria would probably have to occupy most of Poland. We would probably need this collateral in order to force Russia to pay an indemnity, most of which would then fall to Austria. For its part, the Dual Monarchy would also doubtless claim, in addition to such an indemnity, a part of Serbia and would want to give another part of Serbia to Bulgaria. What will happen to Turkey is not clear to me yet. It will probably end up being an agreement with Russia on the basis of the status quo.

If it were to remain unsuccessful, an initiative from us would be interpreted by the entire Triple Entente as a sign of weakness, and it would destroy any inclinations toward peace in France. General von Falkenhayn is inclined to minimize all these difficulties, although his desire to settle the war-guilt question in our favor probably plays a role.

Falkenhyn's proposal was neglected until the following spring, when the Central Powers attack at Gorlice-Tarnow on 1 May 1915 proved a tremendous success. The Russian troops were forced to retreat under huge losses and subsequently surrender all of Russian Poland. It was not only arguably a decisive blow against the Russians, but it also stabilized the Habsburg Monarchy so that it could continue the war.  Falkenhayn, nevertheless, urgently advocated for a separate tentative peace agreement with Russia that would waive reparations and annexations. The tsarist government, however, rejected the idea. By the end of 1915, Falkenhayn moved on and was pushing for another strategic initiative—an attack on Verdun. The multi-front war would continue for Germany. Despite its ultimate success in knocking Russia from the conflict, it would end in defeat.

Sources: "A Separate Peace with Russia? (November 19, 1914)" Volume 5. Wilhelmine Germany and the First World War, 1890-1918; "Erich von Falkenhayn," 1914-1918 Online; Leadership in Conflict

"Casualties" at the World War I National Museum Superbly Captures the Reality of War

A new display at the National Museum gives visitors an authentic look into the workings of a field hospital and the realities and innovations of battlefield medicine during WWI. The feature includes accounts from the war's doctors, medics and nurses, and some interactive experiences. It's the visual presentation, however, that grabbed my attention. Below, I've paired some official photos from the war with photos of the new displays. I think you'll see what I mean.

Churches Became Field Hospitals

Triage Station

Gas Victims

Note:  The final photo above, of British soldiers wounded in Flanders in 1918, is believed to have inspired John Singer Sargent’s famous painting Gassed.  The museum's description states their display was inspired by the painting.

The Duckboards of Camp Pontanezen

Life at Pre-Duckboard Camp Pontanezen

Camp Pontanezen was an immense American debarkation center built around six stone barracks buildings erected by Napoleon I. It was  located two miles north of Brest, which is on France's Peninsula of Finisterre. The depth and excellence of the Brest harbor caused it to be utilized far more extensively than any other French port for the arriving and departing troops of the AEF. In all, 791,000 men landed here in 1917 and 1918. The Doughboys passing through were treated to an array of discomforts, wallowing in the mud and sleeping in tents or poorly heated barracks. It rains most of the year at Brest, and the roads, firm underneath, were coated with slippery, semi-fluid mud which caused countless trucks to spin out of control and thousands of Doughboys to suffer wet feet.

The 1000-Acre Base at Its Peak

Meal Time at the Camp

Much sickness resulted.  Eventually, however, the camp was drained and otherwise made more comfortable and the vast numbers of troops who embarked there for return to the United States after the Armistice did not suffer as they had on landing in France. The individual most credited with cleaning up the 1,000 acre camp was a notable Marine and twice-Medal of Honor recipient named Smedley Butler. Promoted to brigadier general, he was assigned as the camp's commander in the fall of 1918. Upon arriving, Butler was appalled at the condition of the camp and determined to correct matters.He submitted numerous requests for duckboards, panels of  wooden slats joined together, so they could be used as sidewalks. However, even though a surplus supply of duckboards was sitting in a nearby port warehouse, he heard no response. He decided to take matters into his own hands.

The Benefits of Duckboarding

General Butler (rt) Being Decorated by General Pershing
(Note Butler's Shoulder Patch)

He marched a large formation of men to the warehouse to commandeer the duckboards and other supplies needed to improve the camp. As the story goes, Butler himself led the way back, carrying a duckboard back up the hill to Camp Pontanezen. His daring raid of the warehouse earned him the nickname "General Duckboard" and confirmed his reputation as a "soldier's general." Life at the camp improved immediately. The symbol of the duckboard was embraced by the troops and spread around camp, painted on various surfaces including the main gate. General Pershing even approved a duckboard shoulder patch for the camp's personnel and decorated Butler for his leadership. The improvements were so appreciated that permanent cadre named their camp newspaper The Pontanezen Duckboard.

Main Gate

Camp Pontanezen remained open until December 1919.

Sources:  Wiki Commons; Univ. of Michigan Library; Library of Congress: N.Dakota Inst. of Regional Studies

The Allies Face Defeat at Gallipoli

Temporary Cemetery Anzac Sector

During the land campaign, the invading troops and generals at Gallipoli found themselves bogged down in the same sort of 1915-style trench warfare as their counterparts on the Western Front. There, the 1915 campaign saw failure after failure: Aubers Ridge, Artois (twice), Loos, and Champagne (twice). In August 1915, the last Allied offensive at Gallipoli failed in similar fashion. 

Following the failure of the August offensive at Suvla Bay and Anzac, the commander of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force (MEF), General Sir Ian Hamilton, knew the best he could hope to achieve in the short term was to establish a defensive line strong enough to deter any future Turkish attack. While Hamilton believed a decisive victory was still possible, he also knew that this would require additional divisions. Any extra divisions were unlikely, as the British cabinet was losing confidence in the concept of an indirect approach against the Central Powers through Constantinople.

Key Positions of the Allied Forces
Note That Turkish Forces Control Almost All the Peninsula (and All the High Ground and the Straits)

The Western Front was seen as the decisive theatre and one that had priority on resources. The result was a declining flow of reinforcements to the peninsula, leaving many units well below their authorized establishments. Despite this, Hamilton would not contemplate an evacuation, fearing significant casualties from such a difficult operation. 

In early September Hamilton requested 95,000 additional troops. Secretary of State for War Lord Kitchener denied the request. By October, there was growing sentiment in the British press and Parliament for evacuating Gallipoli.

Facing an impasse, the British cabinet acted and on 14 October 1915 replaced Hamilton with General Sir Charles Monro, an experienced commander from the Western Front. Prior to his departure, Monro was warned by Winston Churchill that a withdrawal from Gallipoli would be disastrous. By 31 October Monro had undertaken an inspection of his new command and provided an assessment of the Gallipoli situation to Lord Kitchener. With the exception of the Anzacs, Monro felt his troops were not capable of further sustained effort. Any successful offensive would require frontal attacks into entrenched enemy positions and, even if contemplated, there was no room within the existing beachheads to accommodate the men or artillery required to support future offensives.

Lord Kitchener at Cape Helles

Furthermore, the approaching winter gales would make any logistical buildup across the beaches increasingly difficult. Intelligence reports also indicated  the impending arrival of significant German artillery reinforcements, including heavy caliber howitzers. Once the Ottomans had these weapons in place they could systematically demolish the Allied trenches. Monro concluded that an evacuation was the only course of action open. Upon learning this, Churchill said of Monro, ''He came, he saw, he capitulated."

On 1 November, Monro and naval commander Admiral de Robeck agreed to establish a joint naval-military committee to develop an evacuation plan. Monro formally advised Kitchener to evacuate the peninsula "in consequence of the grave daily wastage of officers and men. . . and owing to the lack of prospect of being able to drive the Turks from their entrenched lines." He estimated a loss of roughly 40 percent—40,000 men—in an evacuation. Kitchener initially refused to accept defeat and the pessimistic casualty prediction of an evacuation so quickly.

V Beach Under Fire

After considering some alternate schemes for salvaging the Gallipoli operation, Lord Kitchener concluded the Allies were left with only two options, staying put or evacuating. He decided to assess the situation himself and sailed from Marseilles on 7 November for the headquarters at Mudros.

His first stop was on the 12th at Cape Helles, where he visited the beaches, but not the front line. Kitchener mostly met with senior staff and officials, including Lt. General William Birdwood, who would ultimately command the evacuation. His most informative stops were over the next two days at Anzac and the Suvla sector. 

The subsequent days were spent in meetings and conferences at Mudros. Then Kitchener left temporarily for a flying visit to Salonika and to interview the Greek king in Athens. Returning on 22 November, and after further consultation with senior commanders, he recommended to the British War Cabinet that Anzac and Suvla be evacuated and Helles retained for a time.

Wounded Diggers and Medics

General Monro was then elevated to the position of commander-in-chief Mediterranean and the commander of the Anzacs, Lieutenant General William Birdwood, was confirmed as commander of the Dardanelles Army. He would oversee the withdrawal. Birdwood's chief of staff, Brigadier C.B.B. White, started work on the evacuation plan. On 7 December the British Cabinet approved the scheme to evacuate Suvla and Anzac.

Sources: Commonwealth Department of Veterans' Affairs, Canberra; The Australian Defense News Bureau; Over the Top, January 2016

I Just Discovered a "New" Outdoor Museum on the Italian Front at Mte Brestovec

Click on Images to Enlarge

Gun Postion with Informational Kiosks

Well "new" to me, it was apparently dedicated in 2012. While wandering lonely as a cloud o'er the vales and hills of the Italian Front on Google maps, I came upon a fluttering host of artillery bunkers and rather well preserved trenches of the stony type particular to that sector of the war. Somehow, in my three visits to the Italian Front, sadly, I missed the World War I Outdoor Museum at Monte Brestovec, Italy. It appears to be an outstanding exhibit of military archeology.

Trenches

Further investigation on my part led to a flood of high quality photos on the Internet, like those shown here. At first, I was puzzled at how the restorers of the site had created such a neat and clean look to its tunnels and barricades.  In my experience, such restored positions still have a battered, weathered feeling, 100+ years after the fighting. Additional research, though, revealed the interesting fact that these improvements at Mount Brestovec—completed by the Italian Army after its successful advance to this point after the Fifth and Sixth Battles of the Isonzo—had rarely, if ever, drawn enemy fire. Here's the background.

Tunnel in the Artillery Section

This 200-meter peak that dominates the surrounding region of the Carso Plateau was used by the Austro-Hungarian army for observation of Italian movements between Gorizia and the Gulf of Trieste from the start of hostilities in the Spring of 1915. For over a year, General Cadorna's forces took heavy casualties in an almost futile efforts to advance across the plateau towards Trieste. In 1916, however, he managed to organize two attacks that proved somewhat successful. In the Fifth Isonzo, the Italian Army captured the nearby village San Michele del Carso  and, in the Sixth, the city of Gorizia farther north. (Details on those battles HERE.) These successes allowed the Italian Army to secure Mte Brestovec but additional sections of the Carso leaving it 2.5 miles closer to Trieste.

Observer Outpost

Following the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo, the Italian Military Command concluded it needed to build new defensive lines to prevent new attacks by the Austrian Army, especially if they moved in force into the valley just east of Brestovec. Following an order by the Duke of Aosta Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy, Commander of the Third Army, the whole section west of the valley  around Mte Brestovec was fortified and entrenched with enclosed artillery galleries around its crest and strong trenches protecting the position. Eight gun emplacements were excavated under the summit, which housed eight 49mm cannons. Two tunnels allowed access to the guns and cover for infantry passing to the trenches.  

Infantry Transit Tunnel

The new construction of the field works took from January 1917 to late summer. For a time afterward, the action moved to the north and things were relatively quiet around Mte. Brestovec. Then, in October 1917, catastrophe struck the Italian Army. The Second Army was nearly destroyed at Caporetto and the Third Army was forced to abandon the Carso including the new fortifications.

Summit of Mte Brestovec

Today visitors can tour the entire site which has been enhanced with informational kiosks, cut-outs of the contending soldiers and the artillery pieces. Visitors can follow two routes, describing the experiences of two soldiers, an Austro-Hungarian and an Italian who served in the area. The entrance of the Italian soldier's route bears the inscription La pace (Peace) and the entrance of the Austro-Hungarian soldier bears the inscription Vo(g)liamo la pace (We want peace). These words were etched into rock by soldiers serving on Brestovec.

The Trail from San Michele to the Site

For Visitors

1.  Approach the village of San Michele del Carso via SS55. Eventually, you will see signage for Mte. Brestovec. Follow those through the winding village roads.

2.  You will be guided to the campo sportivo (sports playground). Park the car by the playground and continue on foot.

3. Follow the signposts for the Brestovec trail.

4.  Details about the hike.

• Duration: 2 hrs total, 30min from San Michele to the first trenches

• GPS coordinates: 45.877547, 13.574102

• Altitude: 208 m

• Recommended Equipment: Trekking clothing and footwear, drinks and food in your backpack, and a flashlight

Sources:  Paths of Peace; TripAdvisor.com; Isonzobattlefields.com