100 Years Ago: 1925 Was a Big Year for Peacemakers

As the new year of 1926 approached, there were a lot of congratulations being passed between the various diplomatic ministries of the participants in the recent World War.  Various actions seemed to have secured a long lasting peace. We know in hindsight that none of those statesmen saw the worldwide Great Depression  a few years in the future or the next big war.  Nevertheless, the accomplishments of the various statesmen and politicians of those days are worth remembering and admiring.

As representatives for all the many individuals determined to see the catastrophe of 1914–1918 not be repeated, I've chosen here to present the Nobel Peace Prize recipients for c. 1925.  There were so many worthy recipients during this period that the Nobel Peace Prizes for achievements in 1925 were spread over three years.

I think it's fitting to remember the peacemakers of a century past, all honored in their time with the Nobel Peace Prize.

• Charles Gates Dawes, United States

Nobel Peace Prize 1925

Charles Dawes received the Peace Prize for 1925 for having contributed to reducing the tension between Germany and France after the First World War.

Dawes's background was as a lawyer and businessman. He came into politics when he headed the presidential election campaign of the Republican candidate William McKinley in 1896. McKinley won but was shot in 1901, and Dawes returned to business life. Dawes did not return to public life until the USA entered World War I in 1917. He was sent to Europe as an officer, and was put in charge of all supplies to the Allies at the front. He was elected vice president of the United States in 1924.

After the war, the Germans resented France's occupation of parts of the country, intended to force them to pay reparations. Tension between the two countries rose. Dawes headed an international committee set up to assess Germany's situation. In 1924, the committee presented the Dawes Plan. Germany was granted American loans enabling it to pay indemnity. In return, France ceased its occupation.

• Sir Austen Chamberlain, United Kingdom

Nobel Peace Prize 1925

Austen Chamberlain shared the Peace Prize for 1925 with the American Charles Dawes. Austen Chamberlain grew up in a family of well-known British politicians. His father, Joseph, was a member of several governments and an eager “empire builder.” His half-brother, Neville, was prime minister when Hitler started World War II in 1939.

Austen Chamberlain studied in France and Germany before entering politics in the Conservative Party. He joined the government in World War I and took part in the peace negotiations at Versailles in 1919. Chamberlain became foreign secretary in 1924 and gave Britain's support when the German foreign minister Gustav Stresemann initiated negotiations in the Swiss town of Locarno aimed at Franco-German reconciliation.

• Aristide Briand, France

Nobel Peace Prize 1926

The French foreign minister Aristide Briand shared the Peace Prize for 1926 with the German foreign minister Gustav Stresemann. They were awarded the prize for reconciliation between Germany and France after World War I.

Aristide Briand pursued a career in the French Socialist Party after having read law at the Sorbonne. He entered the government in 1906 and spearheaded the devolution of France's state church. From 1909 on, he was prime minister for various periods, including during the war.

The war convinced Briand that a peace treaty must not lay the foundations for a revanchist war. He accordingly opposed the harsh treatment meted out to Germany after the war. Briand was also critical of the French occupation of parts of Germany as a means of obtaining war indemnity. In 1925 he signed a reconciliation agreement with Germany in the Swiss town of Locarno. Briand later made unsuccessful attempts to persuade the USA to guarantee France's security.

• Gustav Stresemann, Germany

Nobel Peace Prize 1926

The German foreign minister Gustav Stresemann shared the Peace Prize for 1926 with the French foreign minister Aristide Briand. They were honored for having signed an agreement of reconciliation between their two countries in the Swiss town of Locarno in 1925.

Before entering politics and becoming foreign minister, Stresemann had studied literature, history and economics and worked in business. In 1907 he was elected to the German Reichstag. In the field of foreign policy, he stood out as an eager imperialist who demanded “a place in the sun” for Germany.

During World War I, he supported Germany's annexation of territories from neighboring countries. But with the war going badly, he believed that Germany should sue for peace. He was shocked at the harsh terms accorded Germany at the peace negotiations in 1919 but opposed the idea that Germany should sabotage the peace treaty. Stresemann was prime minister for a short time in 1923, before as foreign minister initiating reconciliation with France.

• Ferdinand Buisson, France

Nobel Peace Prize 1927

Ferdinand Buisson grew up under the nineteenth-century dictatorship of Emperor Napoleon III. He studied philosophy and pedagogy, and moved to Switzerland so as to be able to work, think, and write freely. All his life he was committed to the advancement of democracy and human rights.

After the Franco-German war (1870–71) and the Emperor's fall, Buisson returned to France, where he became professor of pedagogy at the Sorbonne. He took a stand against the anti-Semitism in French society, and in 1902 he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the Radical Socialists. There he also became a spokesman for women's suffrage.

In World War I, Buisson denounced Germany as the aggressor but was strongly opposed to the harsh treatment to which it was subjected after the war. He feared it would lay the foundations for a revanchist war on Germany's part and arranged meetings aimed at Franco-German reconciliation. This work gained him the Peace Prize together with the German Ludwig Quidde.

• Ludwig Quidde, Germany

Nobel Peace Prize 1927

Ludwig Quidde was awarded the Peace Prize in 1927 for his lifelong work in the cause of peace. He shared the prize with the Frenchman Ferdinand Buisson.

Quidde had a doctorate in history but received no official appointments because of his opposition to the German Kaiser. He became a member of the International Peace Bureau and endeavored to reduce the hostility between Germany and France after the Franco-German war.

In 1907 he was elected to the German Reichstag, and later became president of the German Peace Society. During World War I, he spoke against Germany's annexation of territory from neighboring countries, and as a result he was placed under political surveillance. Quidde was disappointed at the harsh treatment of Germany after the war, but continued to work against rearmament and German revanchism. When Hitler came to power, he fled to Switzerland, where he lived for the rest of his life.

Interestingly, no Nobel Peace Prizes were awarded in 1928. Possibly,  it was sensed or detected that movement had started toward another world war.  Although, on the other hand, an award was made in 1930 to U.S. secretary of state Frank Kellogg for having been one of the initiators of the Briand-Kellogg Pact of 1928, prohibiting wars of aggression. While it failed to prevent another world war, it did establish a legal rationale for prosecution of war instigators.

Sources: All the material above was found at the various websites of the Nobel Prize Committee

Eyewitness: The Trenches as Dante's Inferno

Poilus Heading for the Trenches

Letter from Chasseur á Pied Robet Pellissier

February 7, 1915

. . . My battalion had a devil of a time the second half of January. We went up the range and down the other side to take up the trenches about Steinbach and Uffholz.

Hardly had we reached our positions than the Dutch began to give signs of unusual activity. They began to bombard, and they kept it up day after day. The first forty-eight hours my company was held on reserve and all we could do was to sit in covered trenches and listen to the shells burst in our neighborhood. It was quite a stunt to get out at all as fragments came buzzing along at any time. Although the explosions took place near the regular trenches quite a distance from us we could not have any fires because of the danger of being spotted, and it was freezing pretty hard. Another thing, we could not lie down. The covered ditches being too narrow, we slept with our knees to our chin. 

The third and fourth days we relieved the company in the first line trenches. The one we occupied made me think of Dante‘s Inferno, the part assigned to Brunetto Latini, who runs madly on a sandy plain under a rain of fire. The trench was in yellow mud. In the front of it in the mud there were poor fellows stretched out in their last sleep, fifteen or twenty of them. In addition many humps over the field, all being hastily made graves. The trench was German originally. It had been stormed by the 252nd regiment and turned around to face the German front. The slaughter had been terrible. To our back and to the right was the village of Steinbach, or rather the ghost of the village. My company took it December 13th. It was retaken by the Dutch. Soon after that, taken away from them by line infantry, every house riddled with shot. Few roofs and many black walls, the steeple showing the light right through in a dozen places. To our left was the road of access, and perhaps the most striking element in the picture, every square yard ploughed up by exploded shells. There the earth was red, just as it is near Holyoke. Well, the trees, fruit trees and the vineyards were all red from the amount of dirt kicked up by shells. . .

Sgt. Robert Pellisier

The fifth day and the sixth we were to be in the second line, they made us build an artillery shelter in the back woods. All went serenely until about 4 P.M. There was just the regular number of shells, two or three every five minutes, but at four, by gum, things began to hum, and we received orders to move to the front P.D.Q. My section started up, I pulled out my watch and started to count. It took us eleven minutes to get to our second line position and in that time we received in front and in back to the right and left eighty-two shells.

The noise and the stuff kicked up and the branches cut made an "ensemble" impossible to describe, yet no one was hurt. Our adjutant turned once to shout a command and got his mouth full of dirt. That was all. To me our escaping scot free was a real miracle. Well, the bombardment stopped and before we had time to get to the first line the Dutch had grabbed hold of a bit of trench. All we could do was to dig one right back and so we did. It was pitch dark by that time and as I am not much good at digging, I asked to be put on sentry duty to see that no Boche sneaked up to those who were working. Four of us went about twenty yards forward, sat down and listened. Our artillery had set fire to three houses in the plain. The red smoke was all we could see, but we could hear our men digging and the Germans digging. We were about eighty yards from them, suddenly things started up again. I don’t know who did the starting or why, but we were caught between two perfectly fiendish fusillades. Our light artillery fired over our heads, dangerously close to our pates. The Dutch fired bombs with their trench bombs and their hand grenades. Some kind of fragment finally hit me on the shoulder so I stopped firing and took to cover behind a big log. The other sentinels crept up also and we waited for the storm to slacken.

________________

Robet Pellissier was born in France in 1882. He grew up in the United States and was teaching at Stanford University when the Great War broke out in his homeland. Returning as a voluteer, he initially saw uninterrupted service in the Vosges Mountains. He was killed in action in the Battle of the Somme on 28 August 1916.

This letter excerpt is from:

A Good Idea of Hell: 

Letters from a Chasseur á Pied

Reprinted by permission of the Editor and Publisher. Available at Amazon.com HERE

Remembering a Veteran: Private Frank (Mayo) Lind, Royal Newfoundland Regiment

Francis T. Lind (1879–1 July 1916) Lind, who at age 35,  gave up his successful career as an accountant and became a member of the “First Five-Hundred” Newfoundlanders who signed up for the war effort. Through his highly personal letters home, published in the St. John’s Daily Mail, he quickly emerged as the “Unofficial War Correspondent” of the regiment. 

Mayo as a New Soldier, Second from Left

Thirty-two letters were published during the war and eventually published in book form after the war and reprinted in 2001. His initial combat  experience  was at Gallipoli. He was wounded there and evacuated to Malta. After his recovery, he returned to the Newfoundland Regiment when it was deployed to France in 1916. While in service, he earned the nickname "Mayo" from his frequent appeals for Mayo Tobacco.

Here is his last letter home, written and sent just before moving up to the Somme front.

Sources: The Letters of Mayo Lind: Newfoundland's Unofficial War Correspondent, 1914-1916; NewfoundlandandtheSomme.com

The Military History of the Dreyfus Case

 

What It Was Really All About

By Gerard Demaison

Based on his research carried out   over a period of forty years within the French State archive system, French historian Jean Doise (1917-2006) tied  together the great French scandal, l' Affaire Dreyfus with the development of one of the decisive weapons of the First World War. His findings—the principal source for this article—was published in 1994. It's French title: Un secret bien garde: Histoire militaire de 1'Affaire Dreyfus translates in English to the title for this article A Well Kept Secret: The Military History of the Dreyfus Case.

Jean Doise, held a doctorate in History from the Sorbonne, a second degree from the prestigious Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris and was also a graduate from the French Army's General Staff College. He pursued a career as a professional French Army military historian and had retired just before publishing this volume. His interest in the military ramifications of the Dreyfus Case date back to an interview he carried out in 1952 with Colonel Emile Rimailho who was then, at the age of 88, the last survivor of the three man team that engineered the development of the famous quick -firing "Modele 1897 "French 75 mm field gun

It has long been demonstrated, in fact since 1898, that Captain Dreyfus was innocent of the charges of espionage pressed against him. Dreyfus had no links whatsoever with an intercepted "list" or "bordereau," of French military documents which was later to be addressed to the German military attaché in Paris, Colonel Maximilian von Schwartzkoppen, in the fall of 1894. This list had been retrieved in a waste paper basket at the German Embassy by a cleaning lady who was in the employ of French military counter-intelligence. This document had been torn up but was easily pieced together. It announced, among other items, a forthcoming report on a new French 120mm howitzer and the comportment of its hydraulic recoil mechanism, as well as detailed manuals describing the current organization of French field artillery.

Captain Alfred Dreyfus (1859–1935) in 1894

The old official story goes that this "bordereau" intercepted by French counter intelligence was immediately forwarded to the Defense Minister, General Mercier. The Defense Ministry concluded that the "bordereau" was so diverse and so technical in nature that it had to originate from an artillery officer on the General Staff. Then, the Defense Ministry prepared a short list of potential suspects and the name of Alfred Dreyfus rose to its top. Captain Dreyfus was 35 years old in 1894 and a well-noted artillery officer from prestigious Ecole Polytechnique as well as a graduate from Ecole Superieure de Guerre (the French War College). At the time of his arrest, in 1894, he was completing a training assignment with the Army's General Staff, a clear sign that he was on a career "fast track". Captain Alfred Dreyfus traveled about once a year to Alsace in order to visit his ailing father and the long established family textile business located in Mulhouse. The Dreyfus family had chosen to retain its French nationality at the time of the German annexation of Alsace in 1871, after the Franco-Prussian war. Captain Dreyfus' Alsatian connection, artillery training and the lame charge that the handwriting on the "bordereau"—although interpreted at the time as probably disguised—was likely to be his, led to his arrest.

Captain Dreyfus was court-martialed and sentenced in December 1894 to solitary confinement for life on Devil's Island, in French Guyana. By 1898, however, the real culprit, an obscure French infantry Major by the name of Walsin-Esterhazy was proven to be the real author of the "bordereau". This revelation made by the new chief of military counter-intelligence, Colonel Picquart, was rejected by the French High Command and led to Picquart's dismissal, a world-famous miscarriage of justice.

Eventually, in response to public outcry and intense political pressure from the Left which had recently won the national elections, Alfred Dreyfus was brought back to France, retried in 1899 and amnestied in 1900. He was also reintegrated in the French Army in 1906, with the Legion of Honor.

The real unsolved mystery of the Dreyfus Case has always been the true reason why, in the first place, was there such a high-level cover-up concerning the famous "bordereau" planted at the German embassy. Also, why was Major Esterhazy, the proven but never convicted culprit, let go freely to retire in England. Troubling questions were also posed by Alfred Dreyfus himself and by his son Pierre in their joint memoir published after the Great War of 1914-18: "There is still the need to explain how a low level infantry officer such as Major Esterhazy could have had access to so much detailed and diverse technical information"

Major Charles Esterhazy, 1847–1923

Mr. Doise addresses these questions and makes a convincing case that the Affair was closely tied to the secret development of the quick-firing French 75mm field gun, based on a novel, long recoil hydro-pneumatic system. The new French 75 was technically way ahead of its time: the German and British military did not produce a field gun of comparable performance until nearly the eve of WW 1. Furthermore, the US Army adopted the French 75mm field gun in 1918 and had it built under license in America. Mr. Doise makes a strong case that the "bordereau" used to frame Dreyfus was part of a disinformation exercise organized in 1894 by a Colonel Sandherr, who was then the head of French military counter-intelligence. 

Quite significantly, Mr. Doise documents that the short recoil mechanism of the 120mm Baquet howitzer prototype, prominently quoted in the famous "borderau" destined to the German Military Attaché, had already been rejected as unsuitable. As to the current organization of French field artillery listed in the " bordereau", it would be made obsolete by the secret adoption of the revolutionary 75mm field gun. Furthermore, Mr. Doise demonstrates that the rest of the information on the "bordereau" was "fluff' of little value. He also lists other French deceptions played at that time. In other words, Doise proves that the "bordereau" was a plant containing technically obsolete artillery information that was part of a larger program to throw the Germans off the scent of the 75mm field gun.

Colonel Jean Sandherr (1846–1897)

The main architect of this disinformation was Colonel Sandherr, the head of French military counter-intelligence, assisted by his subordinate, a Major Henry. The higher level originator of this deception is suspected, without formal proof, to have been a General Deloye who supervised all French artillery research and development at the time. Furthermore, Mr. Doise explains how Major Esterhazy, the man who leaked the "bordereau" to the German Embassy, was a double agent masquerading as a French traitor. As a matter of fact, Major Esterhazy had previously worked for French military counter-intelligence, in the early part of his career, and had known both Major Henry and Colonel Sandherr for many years.

To clarify the issues, Mr. Doise analyzes three distinct layers of deception and conspiracy inside the Dreyfus Case:

  An "Alsatian layer "which underlies the beginnings of the Affaire Dreyfus. Captain Alfred Dreyfus came to the attention of a French spy in Alsace, during his yearly visits to his ailing father in Mulhouse, a town which had become German since 1871. This French spy, whose name is divulged in the book, alerted Colonel Sandherr to the fact that Captain Dreyfus had been seen in Mulhouse several times. However these visits to his family in Mulhouse were already known to Captain Dreyfus' own superiors and they had never raised any objections. It is also interesting to note that, besides Alfred Dreyfus himself, the principal protagonists of the Dreyfus Case were also born in Alsace and spoke German fluently as a second language: Madame Bastian the French cleaning lady and spy who was sifting the waste paper baskets at the German Embassy, Colonel Sandherr the chief of French military counterintelligence who organized the framing of Alfred Dreyfus and Colonel Picquart who was first to demonstrate that the author of the "borderau" was Major Esterhazy, thus proving Captain Dreyfus' innocence as early as 1898. It was within this layer that information was gathered to paint Alfred Dreyfus as a credible "traitor."

 The "French 75mm layer" began not by random coincidence, in late 1894, only four months after the novel 75mm field gun prototype had been successfully tested in complete secrecy. A disinformation campaign against the German Military Attaché, Col. Von Schwartzkoppen, by the false spy Esterhazy was then initiated. As part of this effort, Colonel Sandherr, assisted by Major Henry, orchestrated the framing of Captain Dreyfus as a traitor and leaker of military secrets probably in order to make his own counter-espionage agent, Major Esterhazy, credible as a purveyor of French artillery information. The name of Alfred Dreyfus had come to Sandherr's mind as the ideal "patsy" because of Dreyfus' Alsatian connection, coupled to Dreyfus's early professional training as an artillery officer (although Dreyfus had never been involved, even remotely, into the highly secret 75mm field gun research and development).

Eventually, the participants at this level of the conspiracy were all discredited. Major Henry committed suicide in prison in 1898, after being arrested for forging documents designed to further incriminate Alfred Dreyfus. As to Colonel Sandherr, Henry's superior, he left behind the devastation he had brought to Alfred Dreyfus and to the French military establishment by conveniently dying of disease in 1895. Major Esterhazy admitted much later, while in self-imposed exile in England that he was the one who had written the "bordereau" used to incriminate Dreyfus. However, Esterhazy was never condemned by the French for espionage or for the part he had played in the framing of Captain Dreyfus. Instead, he continued to receive a monthly pension from an unknown source, until his death in 1923.

 

The "Cover-up by the French General Staff layer. " This cover-up was pursued by the highest authorities in the French General Staff and took place between late 1894 and 1898. Alfred Dreyfus was rushed to judgment and unjustly condemned because War Minister General Mercier had believed the falsehoods concocted by Sandherr and Henry, and because some of the graphology experts had inaccurately concluded that the author of the "bordereau" was Captain Dreyfus. However the situation became indefensible after 1896 when proof supplied by the new chief of French military counter-intelligence, Colonel Picquart, showed that the "bordereau" had been handwritten by Major Esterhazy himself. Rather than accepting responsibility for this miscarriage of justice, the French military leadership persisted in the cover-up for another two years. A newspaper article by Emile Zola finally blew the case wide open for the public, in 1898.

Because of intense political pressure, Captain Dreyfus was recalled to France and amnestied in 1900. His recall also coincided with the first international exposure of the French 75's performance during the Boxer Rebellion in Peking (China). A French 75 field artillery group [3 batteries of 4 guns] had been sent to China with the international expeditionary force, also in 1900.

The Germans adopted a modern field gun with recoil brakes only in 1901: the well known German 77mm field gun. However, the shells and the time fuses of the French 75, particularly the shrapnel shell with a rear explosive charge that makes the shell behave like a huge shotgun at any distance up to 8kms, were not matched by the Germans until 1915. All the deceptions, however, came close to a Pyrrhic victory since the Dreyfus controversy nearly destroyed France politically and lowered military preparation in 1914 because the politicians had acquired a deep distrust of the General Staff.

Mr. Doise's work is a captivating research volume, with a wealth of new and highly detailed material, thanks to the military and artillery research background of the author and to his unrestricted access to French military archives. Thus it ideally complements the better known literary resources which are already available on the judiciary and political aspects of the Case. Mr. Doise's book only exists in the French language for the time being, but we hope that this review will spur the interest of a translator and publisher for the benefit of the English-speaking readership.

Alfred Dreyfus Grave, Montparnasse Cemetery, Paris

Postscript: In a supreme irony of history only one of the French principals of "Affaire Dreyfus" did actually fight in the defense of his country during the Great War. 

• As noted above, Colonel Sandherr died of natural causes (a stroke) in 1897.

• Major Henry committed suicide with his razor in his prison cell on 31 August 311898.

• Major Esterhazy died of natural causes near London in 1923. He did not participate in World War I.

• Colonel Picquart became Minister of War in Clemenceau's cabinet, in 1908. It is during his tenure that the number of 75 batteries in the French Army was voted by the Chamber of Deputies to be doubled! The Army entered the war in 1914 with 1,000 (a thousand) 75mm batteries of four guns each. Picquart died from a fall while practicing horsemanship on 19 January 1914.

• General Deloye reached the age limit in 1901 and permanently retired.

Source:  France at War @ WorldWar1.com

Who Was Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky?

 

Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky (1878–1938) was the murderer of Nicholas II and his family. Born into a working-class family in Tomsk, Siberia, Yurovsky experienced hardships that fueled his resentment toward the existing social order. After an early career as a watchmaker, he became involved in revolutionary politics, joining the Bolshevik Party following the 1905 Russian Revolution. By the time of the Russian Civil War, Yurovsky had risen to a position of authority in Yekaterinburg, becoming a member of the Cheka (secret police). Yurovsky's actions contributed to the disunity of White forces and solidified the Bolshevik hold on power during a tumultuous period in Russian history.

Tsar Nicholas II and Family, in Happier Times

Faced with the threat of the White Russian forces attempting to rescue the deposed Tsar Nicholas II and his family, Yurovsky was tasked with organizing and leading the execution squad in July 1918. This brutal act not only eliminated a potential rallying point for the counterrevolutionaries but also left a lasting impact on Russian royalist movements. 

For the next 20 years he served, apparently quite effectively, in various roles for the party in Moscow. Nevertheless, despite the rewards and recognition he received for the assassination and his subsequent activities, Yurovsky became a pariah in Soviet society, grappling with regret in his later years. He died in 1938 and was buried in Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. Rumors circulated after his death that he had been poisoned, either because he was an embarrassment to the regime or as part of one of Stalin's purges.

Yurovsky's official account of the murders can be read HERE.

Sources: EBSCO Information Services; Mediadrum; AlexanderPalace.org

The Ruhleben Internment Camp

1917 Painting of the Camp and Race Track by Detainee Nico Jungman

The Ruhleben internment camp, situated on the outskirts of Berlin, held mostly  British civilian internees from its opening in November 1914 to its closure in November 1918. While the camp suffered from overcrowding, conditions were relatively good, and inmates developed the social life of the camp into a community.

Camp Population

With the outbreak of hostilities, German authorities interned British citizens in Germany, just as other belligerent powers interned “enemy” civilians. In the opening stages of the war British civilians were left at liberty, with only a handful of suspected spies and saboteurs arrested and detained. However, on 6 November 1914, the vast majority of British civilian males in Germany were gathered for internment at the Ruhleben Trabrennbahn, a racecourse situated in the west of Berlin. Between November 1914 and November 1918, some 5,500 British civilians were held there; the population reached a peak of 4,273 in February 1915, and Ruhleben housed around 2,300 internees at the time of the armistice. Its proximity to the center of Berlin meant it became the most visited and widely publicized prison camp in the whole of the German Empire.

Camp Breadline, Nico Jungman

Overcrowding

The Ruhleben camp was around ten acres in size, with 11 barracks to house the internees. Conditions were initially overcrowded, as the German authorities had planned for a prisoner population of around 1,500. Nine more barracks were completed in 1915, but it was only toward the end of the war, when the population was reduced to 2,500, that the problem of overcrowding was solved. The death rate in the camp was around 60 out of the total of 5,500 who passed through the camp during the war. This figure is well below the rate experienced in other civilian camps during the war and is helped by the fact that there were periodic repatriations of invalids and those deemed permanently unfit for military service. Admittedly, Ruhleben did not experience serious health scares such as the typhus epidemics that occurred in some prisoner of war camps. However, the years in internment, while not fatal, did take their toll on the inmates’ health.

Camp Culture

Ruhleben was by no means a typical camp. The relatively good conditions can be attributed to the camp’s location, a stable inmate population, support from humanitarian organizations, and the lack of reprisal punishments. Reciprocity also played a role; Britain and its empire held around 36,000 German civilians in internment by 1917, and any form of punishment against the inmates of Ruhleben would have had consequences for German internees within the British Empire. This good treatment allowed the British inmates to create a rich cultural community in the camp. Ruhleben’s inmates were an extremely diverse group and included people from all social classes within the British Empire. The focus in accounts of the camp was on cultural activities. Inmates engaged in art, theatrer, sport and even mock elections to ensure that the “borough” of Ruhleben was properly represented at Westminster. The camp offers an interesting case study of a community during the war.

Release Day, 22 November 1918

The Residents

Wikipedia lists about 40 "notable" residents of Ruhleben.  The list is surprisingly heavy in musicians and footballers. The first group mainly seems to have been performing when war broke out, the second was apparently involved in coaching German soccer clubs. 

Three well-known physicists were studying or attending conferences when the war broke out:  Henry Brose,  Sir James Chadwick—Nobel Prize recipient for the Discovery of the Neutron— and Sir Charles Drummond Ellis

Probably the most famous tenant—at least during the war—was civilian sea captain Charles Fryatt, who was briefly held at Ruhleben, but was  eventually executed in 1916 for ramming a German U-boat. Article HERE.

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Sources: Encyclopedia, 1914-1918; Lambeth Palace Library Blog 

A Great War Christmas Album

 

How Alfred C. Gilbert Saved Christmas

America's Savior of Christmas

 By James Patton

The Council of National Defense was formed on 24 August 1916 by President Woodrow Wilson under powers granted to the president in the National Defense Act of 1916 (PL 64-85 39 Stat. 166). Among the Council’s regulatory powers was the authority to tell American industry what they could and couldn’t make. 

During the summer of 1918, the Council’s staff proposed a rule that would limit the production of Christmas gifts, especially toys. The objective was twofold: first, to redirect the materials and the industrial capacity toward military requirements, and second, to reinforce in the civilian population a spirit of sacrifice ("doing their bit"). 

The Council staff had not reckoned with push-back. Enter Alfred C. Gilbert (1884–1961), an Oregon-born  Yale medical graduate and athlete who shared a gold medal in the pole vault at the 1908 Olympics in London. He was also an amateur magician, and in 1907 he started a company that sold the “Mysto Magic Exhibition” sets. Building on  this success, in 1913 he added the “Erector Set” to his line, which was a bestseller for nearly 50 years. My brother and I each had one. 

Going back to 1918, Gilbert decided to make the Council of National Defense change its mind about banning toys. Representing the Toy Manufacturers of America, the trade association he had formed in 1915, he traveled to Washington, and after waiting for hours, he was  given 15 minutes to convince them not to effectively cancel Christmas for the nation’s children.

America's Council of National Defense

Facing him across the table were six very powerful men: Secretary of War Newton D. Baker (1871–1937), Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels (1862–1948), Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane (1864–1921), Secretary of Agriculture David F. Houston (1866–1940), Secretary of Commerce William C. Redfield (1858–1932), and Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson (1862–1934).Also present was the non-voting director, Walter C. Gifford (1885–1966), who was on loan from Western Electric.

“The greatest influences in the life of a boy are his toys,” Gilbert began. “Yet through the toys American manufacturers are turning out, he gets both fun and an education. The American boy is a genuine boy and wants genuine toys."

He had brought along a BB gun, made by Daisy Manufacturing of Plymouth, Michigan, (Gilbert never manufactured these) to show the Council how a child wielding a non-lethal weapon could become a skilled marksman, a valuable asset to a nation that relied on citizen-soldiers. He insisted that his construction toys—like the Erector Set—fostered creative thinking. (Consider what one can make today with LEGOs) 

He told these men that toys provided a valuable interlude from the ever-present sacrifices of the war. Given appropriate play objects, a boy’s life could be directed toward “construction, not destruction,” Gilbert said.

Then Gilbert proceeded to lay out some more toys that he had brought along for the Council to examine. Navy Secretary Daniels was enamored with a toy submarine, marveling at the details. He asked Gilbert where he could get one; Gilbert said that it could be bought anywhere in the country. Some of them examined children’s books; yet another guided a wind-up toy locomotive as it putt-putted around the table. Gilbert spotted the fleeting moment where these hard-hitting middle-aged men became little boys again. The decision didn’t come immediately, but Gilbert left Washington knowing that the toys had won. And there was no toy embargo in 1918.

A prolific innovator, Gilbert eventually held over 150 patents. The “Fun with Chemistry” sets, the “Microscope and Lab Set,” and many other "educational" products were also runaway bestsellers. By far his most controversial product was the "U-238 Atomic Energy Laboratory, ” which included radioactive ore samples. My father, who had worked with radioactive materials during WWII, refused to let me get one. I did get the ”Electrical Engineering Set,” which was the basis for the first of my unlicensed radio transmitters. 

From 1938 until 1966, the Gilbert company produced the classic American Flyer series of two-rail toy trains, using both AC and DC and mostly in S-Gauge (1:64). These were made with exquisite detail—the replica steam locomotives even produced "glowing smoke," "chugged," and could even whistle. 

Sadly, in 1961, all of the magic died with Gilbert. His son succeeded him but survived only a year. Gilbert’s daughters then sold the business, and without inspired management, it had to be liquidated in 1967. American Flyer trains were bought by Gilbert’s erstwhile competitor, the legendary Lionel Corp., and the British firm Meccano bought the trademark “Erector,” which they hold to this day. 

Gilbert has been remembered in several ways. The most significant are an internet-based group called the A.C. Gilbert Heritage Society;  a museum in Salem, Oregon, called Gilbert’s Discovery Village; and a made-for-TV movie called The Man Who Saved Christmas, which was a forgettable production that was filmed in Toronto (to get the Canadian tax credits) and was quite slippery on the facts. It was aired here on CBS at Christmas time in 2002.

A Christmas Eve Tradition Born of the Great War: The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols

Since 1918, A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols has offered listeners an opportunity to share in a live, worldwide Christmas Eve broadcast of a service of biblical readings, carols, and related seasonal classical music. This special event is presented by the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, one of the world’s foremost choirs of men and boys, and performed in an acoustically and architecturally renowned venue, the college’s 500-year-old chapel.

Modeled on a program of biblical lessons for a Christmas Eve service at the Truro Cathedral,  the scheme was borrowed, rewritten, and integrated with seasonal music and carols for Christmas 1918, in the immediate aftermath of the First World War by the new dean of King's College, Cambridge, Eric Milner-White. During the First World War, he had volunteered for service as an army chaplain and served on both the Western and Italian Fronts. He was initially appointed senior chaplain to 7th Infantry Division on 15 February 1917 (with temporary promotion to Chaplain to the Forces, 3rd Class). For his service during this period he was Mentioned in Despatches on 24 December 1917 and awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in the 1918 New Year Honours List. 

Eric Milner-White (1884–1963)
As a Student at Harrow

Milner-White believed the Church of England needed a more inspiring form of worship to reach a generation disillusioned by the atrocities of the Western Front. The BBC first broadcast the King’s service on the radio in 1928. It has aired every year since, to a worldwide audience, with the sole exception of 1930. It is accessible from local radio stations and online. (More on this below.)

In almost every year some carols have been changed and some new ones introduced by successive organists. The strongly Christian narrative of the service, the lessons, and the prayers has remained virtually unchanged.

Chapel of King's College, Cambridge

To Listen or View the 24 December 2025 Event:

For live reception, remember the time difference between Great Britain and North America.  The program in Cambridge begins at 3 p.m. which converts to 8 a.m. California time.

The audio broadcast of the 2025 Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College, Cambridge, will be widely available on many local PBS-affiliated public radio stations in the United States. BBC World Service will make the broadcast available online shortly after its conclusion at this webpage: 

  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002ntmz

To Learn More About the Festival:

1.  Read the entire program from 2024 HERE.

2.  Or  for your bookshelf:

 

A History of the Festival with a CD of the
Music and Service Can Be Ordered HERE

3. Or, there is also this excellent YouTube video of the 2023 Festival: