A Urinal As War Art

Fountain –R. Mutt and Artist Marcel Duchamp

By David Lubin from the Oxford University Press Blog, 19 May 2017

[Over a century ago] two of the most influential historical events of the twentieth century occurred within a span of three days. The first of these took place on 6 April 1917, when the United States declared war on Germany and, in doing so, thrust the USA into a leading role on the world stage for the first time in its history. . . 

The other earth-rattling event occurred three days later, on April 9, 1917, when an expatriate French artist named Marcel Duchamp affixed a false name (“R. Mutt”) to a white porcelain urinal that he had purchased in a Manhattan plumbing supply outfit and, under the droll title Fountain, submitted to the first annual exhibition of the American Society of Independent Artists.

The liberal members of the Society had proudly announced that this was to be an egalitarian exhibition, with no judges, juries, or rejections; anyone who paid the nominal membership dues and entry fee would be guaranteed a place. Duchamp, under his pseudonym, paid the required fees, but his submission was rejected all the same, and with vehement indignation, because a signed, store-bought plumbing fixture could not be countenanced as “art.”

The organizers of the exhibition did not know that the urbane Frenchman who had gained international notoriety four years earlier at the Armory Show for his cubo-futurist painting Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 was among them that spring morning when the urinal was unpacked from its shipping crate. Thus they did not hold back in their scorn.

They rightly understood that Mutt (even the name was intended as an insult) was “pissing” on their time-honored beliefs about artistic authenticity, originality, and beauty, insolently demanding reconsideration of such beliefs. As one of his few allies of the time contended, “Whether Mr. Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view—created a new thought for that object.”

Surprisingly, no one ever made a direct connection between America’s declaration of war on Germany on 6 April 1917, and Duchamp’s declaration of war on traditional art and its value systems a mere two or three days later. Surely that has something to do with the still-commanding formalism in the art world, especially the elite, theoretically dominated art world, preventing us from grasping how the most acclaimed artwork of the twentieth century, famous for its Dada overturning of conventional aesthetics, could also and at the same time, have been a blistering counter-response to America’s brash entrance into the global war.

Fountain — Orginal Display
Photographed by Alfred Stieglitz

Another reason the highly political nature of Fountain, its “obscene” comment on the obscene nature of the war, has long gone unrecognized is that Duchamp, as an artist, gentleman, and dandy, cultivated a persona of impeccable detachment. The persistence of that persona in the half century since the artist’s death in 1968 has made it difficult to regard him as anything but perfectly suave and preternaturally untroubled by the external political world erupting into flames around him.

Mythology aside, Duchamp was anything but indifferent about the politics of the moment. He despised the war in particular, having fled his homeland two years earlier because, as he explained in an interview, “Everywhere the talk turned upon war. Nothing but war was talked about from morning until night. In such an atmosphere, especially for one who holds war to be an abomination, it may readily be conceived existence was heavy and dull.” A grand understatement!

Now, in 1917, with his adopted homeland plunging hysterically into a conflict he thought barbarous and unnecessary, Duchamp wanted to take the mickey out of two intertwined organizations. One was the state, with its pretentious and hypocritical claim that it was going to war against Germany to “make the world safe for democracy,” when, as a member of the Left, he believed quite the contrary. The other was the so-called progressive art world that self-flatteringly claimed to be democratic and non-hierarchical in its support of artists and new forms of art but was in fact not that way at all.

Fountain was the insolent response of a resident alien to his adopted homeland’s vulgar and disgusting embrace of war. It was a “piss on both your houses” gesture of antagonism.

The gallery owner, photographer, and champion of avant-garde art Alfred Stieglitz understood it as such when he had the rejected Fountain hauled up to his Gallery 291, where he photographed it for posterity (the original readymade disappeared almost immediately after that, probably discarded by Duchamp as no longer serving a need). In choosing a backdrop for the photograph, the art impresario could have used a plain white background, as would become typical later in the century for displaying sculptural objects in pristine isolation from the world around them—the white cube approach. Or he could have photographed it in front of one of the semi-abstract paintings of the newly discovered artist to whom he as giving a solo exhibition at the time, Georgia O’Keeffe.

Warriors, Marsden Hartley, 1913

Instead, the gallery owner photographed it against an unsold canvas by his protégé Marsden Hartley, who, in love with a German cavalry officer, had lived in Berlin on the eve of the war and painted a series of radiant quasi-abstractions of Prussian horsemen in tight white breeches parading on imperial review. Stielgitz “posed” Fountain directly in front of a Hartley oil painting called Warriors, establishing a powerful, if highly ambiguous, link between militarism, as celebrated by the American modernist painter, America’s declaration of war against Germany, and Duchamp’s declaration of war against the art establishment. The urinal is placed in front of Warriors in such a way as to invite the viewer to urinate on militancy, be it German, American, or any other kind.

Several years earlier, the Italian poet F. T. Marinetti, in his first Futurist manifesto, had proclaimed that war is good because it purifies society; he called it the “the hygiene of the state.” Strange as it may seem to us today, many of Marinetti’s fellow artists and intellectuals looked forward to the Great War, naively believing it would overturn stale, outmoded ways of thinking, wash away the sediments of the past, and launch society into a better, purer, more ideal future.

Fountain rejected futurist rhetoric. It condemned Wilsonian progressivism, too, and spat on—or, more specifically, pissed on—idealism of any sort, be it political, military, or aesthetic.

L.H.O.O.Q., Marcel Duchamp, 1919

Thus the two birthdays we [recently commemorated]—that of America’s military-industrial complex, as inaugurated by the nation’s leap into the fray of the First World War, and of the Duchampian strain of modern art, as marked by the submission and rejection of Fountain—are twinned episodes in the lives we collectively lead. To understand how Fountain, in the context of its electrifying historical moment, was not only anti-art but also anti-war is to help artists today better understand the extent to which making art can, or cannot, be an alternative to making war. 

12 "Common Sense" Quotes About War from George Bernard Shaw

G.B. Shaw, September 1914

In November 1914, George Bernard Shaw published a controversial 35,000 word essay  in a supplement for the New Statesman titled “Common Sense About the War” that blamed both sides for the conflict and attacked British propaganda.  The public reception was not friendly, many his countrymen accusing him of a lack of patriotism. Piling on across the pond, The New York Times added: "Like Iago, Mr. Shaw is nothing if not critical, and in this crisis his criticism is for the most part bitter, extreme, and in purpose destructive." 

I recently got around to reading  the essay and—while there's some of the expected socialist, anti-capitalist cant and a few expressions of unclassifiable bollocks—I found that there's also much that lives up to the "Common Sense" promise of the title.  A link to the full article is provided below, but here are a dozen of Shaw's quotes that I think are worth singling out. MH

1.   The time has come,”to pluck up courage and begin to talk and write soberly about the war.”

2.   Our way of getting an army able to fight the German army is to declare war on Germany just as if we had such an army, and then trust to the appalling resultant peril and disaster to drive us into wholesale enlistment. 

3.  It is very difficult for anyone who is not either a Junker  [i.e Young nobleman,  country squire, etc.]  or a successful barrister to get into an English Cabinet. . . The Foreign Office is a Junker Club. Our governing classes are overwhelmingly Junker: all who are not Junkers are riff-raff whose only claim to their position is the possession of ability of some sort: mostly ability to make money.

4.  Will you now at last believe, O stupid British, German, and French patriots, what the Socialists have been telling you for so many years: that your Union Jacks and tricolours and Imperial Eagles ( where the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered ) are only toys to keep you amused, and that there are only two real flags in the world henceforth: the red flag of Democratic Socialism and the black flag of Capitalism, the flag of God and the flag of Mammon?

5.   I see the Junkers and Militarists of England and Germany jumping at the chance they have longed for in vain for many years of smashing one another and establishing their own oligarchy as the dominant military power in the world. 

6.  When Europe and America come to settle the treaty that will end this business (for America is concerned in it as much as we are), they will not deal with us as the lovable and innocent victims of a treacherous tyrant and a savage soldiery. They will have to consider how these two incorrigibly pugnacious and inveterately snobbish peoples, who have snarled at one another for forty years with bristling hair and grinning fangs, and are now rolling over with their teeth in one another's throats, are to be tamed into trusty watch-dogs of the peace of the world.

7.  Some of the best disposed parties will stumble over the old delusion of disarmament. They think it is the gun that matters. They are wrong: the gun matters very much when war breaks out; but what makes both war and the gun is the man behind them. And if that man really means the peace of the world to be kept, he will take care to have a gun to keep it with. 

8. Junker-Militarism promotes only stupid people and snobs, and suppresses genuine realists as if they were snakes, it always turns out when a crisis arrives that  the silly people don't know their own silly business.  The Kaiser and his ministers made an appalling mess of their job. 

9. Even the wise, who loathe war, and regard it as such a dishonour and disgrace in itself that all its laurels cannot hide its brand of Cain, had to admit that police duty is necessary and that war must be made on such war as the Germans had made by attacking France in an avowed attempt to substitute a hegemony of cannon for the comity of nations. There was no  alternative.

10.  We cannot smash or disable Germany, however completely we may defeat her, because we can do that only by killing her women; and it is trifling to pretend that we are capable of any such villainy. [Oh?] Even to embarrass her financially by looting her would recoil on ourselves, as she is one of our commercial customers and one of our most frequently visited neighbors.

11.   Militarism must not be treated as a disease peculiar to Prussia.

12. To sum up, we must remember that if this war does not make an end of war in the west, our allies of to-day may be our enemies of to-morrow, as they are of yesterday, and our enemies of to-day our allies of to-morrow as they are of yesterday; so that if we aim merely at a fresh balance of military power, we are as likely as not to negotiate our own destruction.

Coming Soon:   GBS presented a retrospective view of the war in the preface to the published version of his 1919 play Heartbreak House. I'll be presenting a similar selection of my favorite quotes from that document in the near future. MH

Bernard Shaw's full 35,000 word essay “Common Sense About the War” can be downloaded as a pdf document HERE.

The War Against the Vets: The World War I Bonus Army During the Great Depression

 

By Jerome Tuccille

Potomac Press, 2018

Reviewed by Larry Grant

Bonus Marchers Camping Out in Washington, D.C.

 I have led my ragamuffins where they are

peppered. There’s not three of my hundred and fifty

left alive, and they are for the town’s end, to beg

during life. But who comes here?  

Henry IV, Part I

Originally presented in the Journal of Veterans Studies, Summer 2018

In The War Against the Vets: The World War I Bonus Army during the Great Depression, author Jerome Tuccille tells the story of the “Bonus Expeditionary Force” (BEF), a group of First World War veterans and their families who gathered in Washington, D.C. in 1932 to petition the federal government. Nearly a decade earlier, in 1924, Congress passed the World War Adjusted Compensation Act, which promised the veterans a war bonus for their service to be paid in 1945. But, in 1924, America was in the middle of an economic boom. By 1932, the nation was in the midst of the Great Depression, and the veterans argued that to delay the promised payment until 1945 when their families were suffering, was a shameful way to treat former soldiers who fought for the nation. They wanted the money they had earned, and they wanted it now.

Though Tuccille does not mention the history of the practice, Congress had long provided additional benefits above and beyond a soldier’s daily wage to compensate war veterans for their service. In this case, the compensation afforded to World War I veterans was analogous to benefits given to earlier generations of American fighting men. For example, Revolutionary War soldiers were awarded grants of land for their service, a practice revived in the late 1840s that continued into the mid-1850s. Later soldiers also received post-conflict and post-service rewards from the federal government, a practice that continues today in the form of the many programs administered by the Veterans Administration. Guaranteed home loans might even be considered a direct descendant of the earlier land grants.

The War Against the Vets is arranged in twenty chapters of about ten pages each and divided into three parts. The first section of nine chapters, “The Great March,” establishes the background to the main story, setting the scene in 1918 by describing the cost of the war to those who fought it. Tuccille surveys the good times of the 1920s and the great stock market crash that brought the good times to a sudden halt in October 1929. This unexpected crisis of finance, unemployment, and despair gave birth to the BEF; it also gave birth to another crisis that contributed to Herbert Hoover’s replacement as U.S. president by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

As Tuccille notes, “For many of the vets the IOU [“I owe you”] the government had given them in lieu of cash represented their only real asset” (p. 29). Politicians like Democrat Wright Patman, first elected in 1928, who would eventually serve for 47 years as the representative of Texas’s first district, “seized the opportunity to agitate for the immediate payment of the bonus owed to the World War I veterans” (p. 29). Patman’s legislation to pay veterans was sidetracked by pro-Hoover supporters in Congress, but he and others “believed that political expediency would force Hoover to change his position when he ran for reelection in 1932” (p. 29).

Peaceful Demonstration at the Capitol

However, as Tuccille points out, Hoover did not change his mind. Instead, he “criticized the vets’ demands for a $4.5 billion handout ‘under the guise of giving relief of some kind or another’ as an expenditure the government could not afford” (p. 30). Tuccille adds that bankers and other “business moguls joined ranks with [Andrew] Mellon and maintained that the government should hold the line on further expenditures. Most hypocritical of all was...Pierre S. DuPont, whose chemical company was a major beneficiary of the war.” DuPont called the veterans “the most favored class in the United States...having health, youth, and opportunity” (p. 30). This passage highlights one of the conflicts Tuccille sets up in his narrative.

His use of Mellon and DuPont to personify some of the opponents of the Bonus Marchers underlines the perception of many Americans at the time that a symbiotic relationship existed between capital and war—a connection that continues to attract the attention of some anti-capitalists today. In this view, the veterans were not only victims of the war, the Great Depression, and an unsympathetic government, but they were also pawns of a group of industrialists like DuPont and bankers like Mellon who—allegedly—had dragged America into World War I to insure their profits against an Allied defeat. As Tuccille quotes Missouri Democrat Congressman John J. Cochran, this situation was fundamentally unfair: “‘The war contractors’ all got theirs, and now it was time for the men who did the actual fighting to get the money owed to them” (p. 31).

DuPont’s quote above also highlights a view of returning veterans that has been subject to considerable revision in recent years. Researchers investigating the consequences of exposure to the stress of combat have shown that veterans are not favored uniformly with good health and opportunity, however youthful they may seem after their service. Like veterans today, many of the soldiers who went to France in 1917 did not return with their health intact, nor did they always find opportunity waiting. A more nuanced view of their shared human experience suggests that First World War veterans probably suffered from the same issues that are familiar to those professionals of veterans’ affairs and others who work with modern returning veterans.

Again, Tuccille makes little mention of this problem, which is unfortunate. Arguments about veterans’ relationships with society, and society’s debt to veterans continue, on almost exactly the same terms today as in the 1930s. Accounts like Tuccille’s should offer the opportunity to extract the lessons of these earlier episodes to inform the discussions and decisions of present-day policy makers.

On the other hand, Tuccille’s description of General Douglas MacArthur’s 28 July 1932, attack on the veterans and their families using tear gas, tanks, cavalry, and infantry shows that the government’s response to veterans’ issues is considerably more enlightened today than the Bonus Marchers experienced in mid-1932. The destruction of the veterans’ camps led Democrat presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt, commenting on a New York Times story, to say, “The election’s all but over. Why didn’t Hoover offer the men coffee and sandwiches instead of turning Doug MacArthur loose”? (p. 127) Roosevelt called MacArthur “‘the most dangerous person’ in the country.”

The Marchers and the Police Clash
The Army Would Eventually Be Called In

FDR’s administration, recognizing the public relations and political dangers presented by images of veterans being attacked in the nation’s capital by armed soldiers, successfully defused the situation. The new president provided the veterans with shelter and food and offered to enroll them in his new Civilian Conservation Corps to give them work. He also moved the veterans into Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA—later WPA) camps far removed from Washington, D.C. to help get them out of the public eye. Moreover, in 1935, Congressman Patman reintroduced his bill to settle the veterans’ claims early. This time he succeeded, though President Roosevelt, who brought massive deficits to government to fund his New Deal, tried (and failed) to veto the bill. FDR claimed, “I do not see how, as a practical business sense...a government running behind two billion dollars annually can consider...the bonus payment until it has a balanced budget, not only on paper but with a surplus of cash in the Treasury” (p. 90).

This would seem to end the bonus saga, but most of the last quarter of Tuccille’s book traces the impact of the 1935 Labor Day hurricane on the veterans living in FERA camps in Florida. The camps of tents and flimsy shacks “were situated on land virtually flush with sea level” (p. 164). Tuccille writes that a “near-certain disaster was in the making, and no one in Washington was concerned about taking adequate measures to avert it” (p. 165). This criticism seems partially valid at best. Even in the twenty-first century, with days of warning from satellites and storm hunting aircraft, hurricanes that strike Florida or anywhere else still lead to disasters that humans have little power to avert. When the disaster arrived, unsurprisingly, “the Washington Post blasted the administration” charging that there was “considerable evidence to support [the] conclusion that ‘gross negligence somewhere’ was responsible” (p. 193). Tuccille devotes the remaining pages to a short discussion of veterans’ benefits since the Bonus March in 1932.

It is interesting to note that only about 20,000 veterans, out of a total of about 4 million men who served during WWI, took part in the 1932 Bonus March on Washington. This amounts to only one half of one percent of those who wore the uniform. What were the others doing? Though it was likely beyond the scope of Tuccille’s story, it would have been a useful perspective to know more about them, at least briefly. It would not have made the difficult circumstances of the Bonus Marchers less compelling; it would have reminded readers that many veterans simply returned home to do the best they could in difficult circumstances.

Tuccille, also the author of biographies of Rupert Murdoch, Alan Greenspan, and Donald Trump, writes in an informal conversational voice. His narrative in Vets resembles something of a romance. It is not a dry academic retelling of the Bonus Marchers’ story, and it has few of the trappings of such a work. A professional historian might have supplied (and be disappointed by the lack of) more complete end notes and a more extensive bibliography, but the story is dramatic and likely to be compelling for the average reader. While it provides a bibliography of secondary works, Tuccille does not seem to have taken advantage of any of the primary sources, even though some, like the FBI’s files on the marchers, are available online. The end notes are incomplete and presented usually about one per page in a frustrating format. Footnotes would have been better and easier on the reader, but the notes add little to the text in any case. Despite these shortcomings, The War Against the Vets is an engaging and entertaining work that is worth reading.

Order HERE

There are two important messages in Tuccille’s book for students of veterans’ studies. The first is captured in the cliché that is supposed to have originated with Mark Twain: “History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes.” Almost nothing in Tuccille’s account of the veterans’ story is unique, and that is part of its attraction. As pointed out above, Congress often provided veterans with bonuses of one sort or another. Marches on Washington (with and without) political implications (and consequences) are now almost routine; and unforeseen and unintended consequences, despite the best efforts of government, can lead to disasters. Seeing the shared similarities reinforces the second important message suggested by The War Against the Vets, which follows from the axiom that professionals study their profession, and they study history as part of that project. In no other way can the study of humanity find the depth and breadth of evidence of motivation, behavior, and intellectual challenge. History provides thinking professionals with examples upon which to sharpen their critical thinking skills and to escape narrow utilitarianism. Why study histories like The War Against the Vets? Because that is how we gain access to the record of human experience.

Larry Grant

Photos from the Library of Congress

The Gas at Second Ypres: 22 April 1915 & the Canadian Response

German Pioneers Igniting Chlorine Gas Canisters at Ypres

As the morning [artillery barrage of April 22, 1915] wore on, Germans continued to devastate Ypres with shells from heavy guns and howitzers, blowing up roads and bridges. One five-foot, one-ton (42cm) shell landed in the Grand Place, killing about 40 soldiers and civilians in one blast. People streamed out of Ypres, "old men sweating between the shafts of handcarts piled high with household treasures ... aged women or wagons stacked with bedding or in wheelbarrows trundled by the family in turn."

North of the Ypres Salient, German soldiers hunched in their front-line trenches sweltering in the heat. They couldn't release the gas. There was no wind. They waited. Noon came and went. Still, no wind! But finally, in late afternoon, the wind stirred, and some light breezes began to blow southward. The attack could go on! German artillery immediately began to bombard the French lines. Then they opened the valves of the gas cylinders, and the deadly vapors began to drift southward over No Man's Land and onto the unsuspecting French and Algerian troops.

Those receiving the brunt of the attack (the French Territorials, Moroccans, and Algerians) began to flee backwards, sometimes falling, fainting, and vomiting. Many, frothing at the mouth or blinded, could not rise again and lay where they fell, writhing in agony. Some, terrorized and grasping their throats, jumped into trenches or shell holes, the worst possible places to take shelter because the chlorine, being heavier than air, settled in the lower spots. Those who could, ran southward in terror, trying to outrun the noxious suffocating, yellowish-green gas. Because the cloud was drifting south at five or six miles an hour, however, they could not.

Soldiers of 13th (Royal Highlanders of Montreal) Battalion, some of the same troops who had been repairing trenches the night before, were among the first Canadians to notice the peculiar phenomenon — "a cloud of green vapor several hundred yards in length" — over to their left near the French trenches and drifting slowly southward. They were not sure what to make of it. They weren't long in finding out.

Fortunately for the Canadian troops, two medical officers, Lieutenant Colonel George Nasmith of Toronto and Captain F. A. C. Scrimger, a surgeon from the Royal Victoria Hospital of Montreal, were both near Ypres and quickly assessed the situation. Nasmith immediately began working on a chemical solution to the gas problem. Scrimger had a more immediate solution. He told men to urinate on their handkerchiefs or puttees (a long strip of cloth wound spirally around the leg for protection and support) and tie them over their nose and mouth. The action would save many. . .

One soldier of the Canadian Scottish (16th) Battalion, Private Nathaniel Nicholson, recalled seeing people running wildly every which way. "As a matter of fact, I saw one woman carrying a baby and the baby's head was gone, and it was quite devastating."

Later, on 12 July 1915, Robert Kennedy [Father of the author] wrote to Walter Farmer of Cumberland about the fateful day.

I will never forget the night of the 22nd of April. We, part of the ammunition column, had moved up to a farm near St. Julien on the night of the 21st and spent the next day digging dugouts to sleep in, In the afternoon, when I had almost finished mine, we heard rapid fire and in a few minutes could see a haze of greenish-yellow smoke rising up where we knew the trenches were. This was the gas which you have read so much about, but we didn't know It at the time. Soon the shells started coming over, searching for batteries near us big shells and little ones, filling the air with smoke and making one continual roar Finally the gas reached us, but we were too far back for it to do any harm though it made our eyes sore and caused the horses to cough.

We saw the Algerians coming back, but we didn't understand what was really happening. Just as we finished supper we had orders to harness up and hook on. . .

In the late afternoon hours of 22 April, the devastating effects of 168 tons of chlorine gas on front-line troops resulted in a critical gap in the Allied line, though no one seemed to know at the time exactly how great the gap was. The confusion was understandable. With telephone lines disrupted by heavy shelling (wireless radio was not yet in use), initial reports were conflicting. Some indicated that the French had lost all their guns (they had indeed lost 57) and had been driven backward. Several messages around 7 p.m. indicated that the Canadian line had also broken and been forced back as far as St. Julien, northeast of Ypres. There were reports of a gap of 8,000 yards threatening the loss not only of Ypres itself but all Allied troops still holding the Salient.

There were many questions. How great, in fact, was the gap? Was a major rout in the offing? Had the Germans broken through the Canadian line as well? Was the whole Ypres Salient in jeopardy? The answers would take hours to determine. Whatever the case, however, one answer was obvious. The French had suffered a serious setback.

Dead Algerian Gas Victims at Ypres

To be sure, there was confusion at Mouse Trap Farm, headquarters of Major General Turner and his 3rd Brigade. Although not lacking in personal courage (he had won the Victoria Cross in the South African War and now concealed broken ribs to be in the thick of battle), Turner was unable to grasp the overall situation and sent several erroneous messages to the 2nd Brigade and to Division headquarters. To be fair, however, it should be noted that his headquarters were now almost in the front line, and in the midst of shelling and disruption.

Though few knew it, the Canadian line had not broken. Unknown to many on either side of No Man's Land, troops of the 13th (Royal Highlanders of Canada) Battalion were still holding their part of the front line north of St. Julien, immediately to the right of the gassed Algerian Division. At 5 p.m., at the first hint of trouble, their Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Loomis had ordered his men to stand to arms, and take battle positions. They would hold their ground as long as humanly possible, though, with the Algerians having been routed, their left side was now exposed. . .

As word spread about the gas, troops everywhere sprang into action. Several batteries of the Canadian Field Artillery opened fire on the German trenches. About two miles behind the 13th Battalion, the 10th Battery under Major William B. M. King was holding an orchard just 500 yards above St. Julien with four 18-pounder field guns. At about 7 p.m., King peered over a hedge and spotted the helmets of a large group of advancing German soldiers. They had already broken through the line formerly held by the fleeing Algerians just to the left (west) of the 13th Battalion. Worse yet, they could now easily swing in behind the Montreal Highlanders and cut them off. (Some already had, in fact, in wiping out Norsworthy's men.) King's men opened fire, but the Germans quickly dug in. Realizing that only a few isolated pockets of Canadians and Algerians were holding off the enemy, King called for backup support.

King stubbornly continued to blast away, slowing the German advance. He was detaining them but knew it was only a matter of time until his battery, too, would be overwhelmed. And every time horses hauled up ammunition wagons, they were immediately cut down by enemy fire, stranding the wagons. Work parties then tried to bring up some ammunition by hand.

Finally, some help arrived in the form of 60 more troops, including a 19-year-old machine gunner, Lance Corporal Frederick Fisher of the 13th (Royal Highlanders of Canada) Battalion. Fisher and his four-man volunteer crew hurriedly set up their Colt machine gun, and time and time again drove back the advancing Germans. As Fisher's men were picked off one by one, others rushed in to take their place. Finally, however, he alone was left. Instead of retreating, he stubbornly lugged his gun forward, firing incessantly. His defiance in the face of death brought him the Victoria Cross, the first Canadian in the war to receive the highest of all British military honors. Fisher, however, didn't live to receive it; he was killed the next day. But his heroic actions gave King enough time to pull his guns back to some surviving horses where the men were able to hitch up and retreat into the darkness.

By 9 p.m., less than four hours after the gas had been released, the whole Ypres Salient (including the 50,000 British troops and their 150 guns), was in jeopardy. Then came reports that the Germans had taken St. Julien and Mouse Trap Farm (Headquarters of the 3rd Brigade). By 10:00 p.m., another report indicated that the Germans had moved even closer, taking Wieltje.

Both reports, however, were erroneous. The 3rd Brigade was still holding its front-line trenches, though its situation was becoming increasingly precarious. In fact, the whole Canadian line still held, even though its four and a half battalions were badly outnumbered by two German brigades. But their initial 4,000-yard front now had another 4,000 yards of unprotected front line, which had been left vulnerable when the French and Algerians fled.

Source: An Excerpt from Distant Thunder: Canada's Citizen Soldiers on the Western Front by Joyce M. Kennedy, PhD.; courtesy of Sunflower University Press. Joyce Kennedy's Distant Thunder can be ordered online HERE.

Paris at War — Now at the National World War One Museum

 

An exciting new exhibit opened 6 November 2025 at the National World War One Museum in Kansas City.  It's a presentation on Paris during the Great War. The organizers describe their program:

Follow the lives of Parisians as World War I transforms their city. Experience the city’s dramatic shift from the flourishing days of the French empire to the uncertainty and hardship brought on by hunger, air raids and the constant threat of German artillery. Discover how ordinary people navigated moments of fear and loss, while workers and newcomers from across the globe blazed new paths on the streets of Paris.

Here are some examples of the visual exhibits the curators have assembled:  

For details on scheduling a visit, check the museum's website HERE. The program runs through 2026.

Over the year, we have published quite a number of  articles on Paris during the war. A list of the links to those articles can be found HERE. 

The Dramatic Abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Part III – Wilhelm Isolated

Final Blunder—
In the Midst of His Greatest Crisis the
Kaiser Returns to Military Headquarters  at Spa

Part II of this article was presented yesterday HERE.

By Vanessa LeBlanc

Thus, in pursuit of the armistice and in light of President Wilson's ultimatum, Prince Maximilian no longer supported the Kaiser. As Lamar Cecil argues, “Although Max's cabinet had agreed. . . in early October, that any Allied demands for Wilhelm's abdication would be resisted `to the utmost,'. . . Scheidemann [leader of the Social Democratic Party, and member of Prince Maximilian's government] pointed out that if the question—peace or the Hohenzollern dynasty?—was put to the German people, they would opt for peace”.

This was precisely the question being put to Prince Maximilian. Kaiser Wilhelm II became further isolated and, feeling betrayed by his chancellor, identified him as the leader of the abdication party.

On 29 October, despite Prince Maximilian's protests, Kaiser Wilhelm II returned to the military headquarters at Spa. This decision is considered controversial, as many historians consider this to be the fatal mistake that Kaiser Wilhelm II committed against the Hohenzollern dynasty; it is surmised that had the Kaiser stayed in Berlin the throne might have been saved.

Nonetheless, Kaiser Wilhelm II returned to Spa in hopes that his presence on the front would resuscitate the soldiers' morale and encourage them to maintain the offensive. Kaiser Wilhelm II understood that Germany's impending loss of the war was due not only to attrition, but also to low morale. In turn, support for the Kaiser depended on morale. He hoped high morale at the front might spread inward, perhaps quieting his people's call for his abdication. 

In retrospect, General Hindenburg concluded that there were three courses of action that the Kaiser could have undertaken to deal with the “abdication crisis”: 

[1] to fight his way back to Germany with loyal regiments; 

[2] to die at the head of his troops on the front; 

[3] to go abroad. 

Returning to Spa was indicative that Kaiser Wilhelm II may have been undertaking either [1] or [3], but there is no evidence that he would have deliberately arranged his murder/suicide (option 2). While the Kaiser was at Spa, there was a naval mutiny in Kiel on 30 October that caused the threat of revolution to boil and spread throughout Germany. During the time the Kaiser spent at Spa from 29 October 29 to 9 November, Prince Maximilian and other officials tried to convince him to abdicate, but he would hear nothing of it. By November 8, Berlin “appeared to be on the eve of a serious revolt.” On November 9, a general strike broke out, the scene becoming reminiscent of Russia's March 1917 revolution. In response, the Kaiser attempted to gather a small group of soldiers with which to march into Berlin (option 1 outlined by Hindenburg). 

Similar to the Romanovs' crisis the year before, German General Wilhelm Groener told Kaiser Wilhelm II that the army was “not under the command of Your Majesty, whom it no longer supports.” Therefore, the Kaiser exercised the remaining option available to him (option 3 according to Hindenburg). 

Announcement of the Abdication

At 2 o'clock in the afternoon of 9 November, the Kaiser was prepared to abdicate and subsequently flee to Holland, when he was given word that Prince Maximilian had abdicated on his behalf an hour earlier. The situation in Berlin had become so grave that “the masses might have proclaimed the deposition of the Kaiser and established a provisional government.”

Given this crisis, Prince Maximilian was “determined to give the crisis a constitutional solution.” In this sense, domestic and international pressures combined to bring about the Kaiser's abdication. Though Kaiser Wilhelm II did not abdicate himself, his acceptance of the abdication showed that he had done what was perceived as being best for his country: rather than let a revolution overthrow the monarchy in a potentially violent uprising, he had seemingly provided Germany with a more favorable position in the eyes of the Associated Powers going into the peace negotiations. On 11 November 1918, the Armistice was signed; “after fifteen hundred and sixty-three days, for the first time, all was quiet on the Western Front.”

It was President Wilson's firm insistence that led the Germans to believe that Wilhelm II's abdication was the only way to achieve peace, thereby  encouraging calls for his abdication and weakening support for the Kaiser. However, as Michael Balfour writes, “the number of people who wanted radical recasting of society was infinitesimal.” The Hohenzollern dynasty would have likely survived the Great War had it not been for the influence of the domestic and international pressures active prior to and during the Great War, the attrition factor, and Wilson's dominance of the pre-Armistice negotiations. 

6 a.m., 10 November 1918; Kaiser Wilhelm II
Crossing the Border into the Netherlands

Time to Go

In November 1918, Wilhelm II was at the military headquarters of his troops in Spa, Belgium. He found himself unable to return home because of rebellions and revolution in Germany but unable to stay in Spa either due to the advancing troops of the Entente. He was advised by those closest to him to flee to a neutral country. The nearest neutral country was the  Netherlands. At 6 a.m on 10 November 1918, Wilhelm II arrived at the train station in Eysden on the Dutch border. There he was granted political asylum and was temporarily housed in Amerongen Castle where he would stay for nearly two years. A few weeks after his arrival he abdicated as German emperor.

Gradually, it became clear that the Emperor would not be forced to leave the Netherlands, despite the provisions set out in the Treaty of Versailles. He began to search for a permanent residence and in 1919 bought House Doorn from Baroness Van Heemstra de Beaufort, the great-grandmother of Audrey Hepburn. He renovated the house and furnished it with goods, art, and objects from his former palaces in Germany.

The Dutch government allowed Wilhelm II to remain in Netherlands under strict conditions. He had to stay in House Doorn and was only allowed to move freely within a radius of 15 kilometers around the house. He had to refrain from making political statements and his mail was regularly checked; he was also under permanent police surveillance. . . A return to Germany was impossible and Wilhelm stayed in Doorn 21 years until his death in 1941. In his last will, Wilhelm II stated that he wanted no Nazis present at his funeral. He was buried with full military honors.

Doorn Museum, The Netherlands

Postscript

Contrary to what many Germans believed, the Kaiser's abdication did not result in Germany being treated more favorably during the peace negotiations. Following the abdication, a provisional government led by the Social Democratic Party was formed before the establishment of the Weimar Republic government in early 1919. These governments were necessarily less stable than the established Hohenzollern monarchy and were further weakened because they inherited the responsibility for Germany's defeat. 

Source: Originally presented in the November 2018 issue of Over the Top: The Magazine of the World War I Centennial

The Dramatic Abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Part II – The Generals & Politicians Have Their Say

General von Hindenburg

Part I of this article was presented yesterday HERE.

By Vanessa LeBlanc

The German High Command was adamant about sending the peace proposal to Washington immediately, because although General Hindenburg asserted that the “army could protect German borders until early 1919. . . [this could not be guaranteed] against a fresh enemy offensive.” Prince Maximilian did not want to dispatch such a telegram so soon after the formation of the new government, as he feared that this would discredit the new democratic government and be “interpreted by the enemy as capitulation,” potentially leading to demands for unconditional surrender, which is exactly what happened. Yet, in spite of Prince Maximilian's concerns, military pressure prevailed, and the armistice telegram was drafted and sent to President Wilson on 3 October 1918.

It was with the second American note that the repercussions of the German officials' unfamiliarity with Wilson's Fourteen Points became apparent. The first correspondences between the Germans and the Americans served largely to clarify what each party meant before beginning to negotiate the conditions of the armistice. The American reply on 8 October 1918 to the first German note of 3 October asked, “Does the Imperial German Chancellor mean that. . . the Government accepts the terms laid down by the President in his addresses to the Congress of the United States on the eighth of January last and in subsequent addresses. . .?” It also clarified that Germany would have to withdraw from the territories it had invaded before “a cessation of arms” could be suggested to America's Entente allies.

The German government made sure in its reply to this note, on 12 October 1918, to state that the American's allies must also agree to “accept the position taken by the president in his addresses.” Over the course of 1918, Wilson had made addenda to his Fourteen Points, creating 24 points in total. In his analysis of the Versailles settlement, Ferdinand Czernin characterizes the second American note of 14 October 1918 as being tougher than the first. Robert B. Asprey suggests that the tougher tone of the second American note was due to a German submarine sinking an Irish ship two days prior. The note referenced Wilson's speech at Mt. Vernon of 4 July 1918 — “the destruction of every arbitrary power anywhere that can. . . disturb the peace of the world.” This was a direct reference to the destruction of the Hohenzollern monarchy, which also conveyed that “`justice' might not be the `forgiveness'” that the Germans had envisioned.

President Wilson at Mount Vernon

Though the Americans had alluded to the necessity of  the Kaiser's abdication in their previous note, the “abdication crisis” perhaps only truly began on 23 October, when it was made clear by Wilson in a third note that peace could not be arrived at without the abdication of the Kaiser. Czernin argues that “Short of saying in so many words that `the Kaiser must abdicate before we will sign an armistice,' Wilson's note could not have been more explicit.” As Prince  Maximilian had suspected, having sent the request for peace so soon after the formation of the new government had caused “Wilson and his allies. . . [to believe] that Germany was defeated and should be shorn of all its power,” beginning with the removal of the Kaiser. Furthermore, the failure of the German officials to actually read the Fourteen Points, instead relying on the points' hearsay, and the military's insistence on starting peace negotiations, is indicative of how desperate the German position in the war of attrition had become. Had the German officials taken the time to familiarize themselves with Wilson's points and supplemental principles and ends, they would have known the significance of demanding the Kaiser's abdication and perhaps decided against utilizing the Fourteen Points as the basis for peace. Instead, the Germans appeared desperate to Wilson, giving him the unquestionable authority to dictate that Wilhelm II must abdicate. 

The abdication crisis can be divided into two related parts: that of the Kaiser's officials and that of the German people. At the start of the war in 1914, there was widespread support for the war and the Kaiser, both of which were linked to German nationalism. Four years later, the war was taking a toll on most German people and the Hohenzollern dynasty was falling into disfavor. The soldiers at the front shared this disheartened feeling, information that the generals included in the arguments they made to the Kaiser for an armistice. As Ralph Haswell Lutz argues in his analysis of the German Revolution, “not even. . .military defeats. . . demoralized the nation as much as did the publication of the first note to Wilson.” As opposed to wartime censorship laws that had caused dissent to go underground, censorship was relaxed in mid-October 1918 and many people discussed the Kaiser's abdication freely. Many Germans were now aware that the Kaiser was abhorred “everywhere in Europe [and] America,” and came to see Kaiser Wilhelm II as a symbol of militarism, “an impediment to. . .peace. . . but also the logical scapegoat.” In this manner, foreign sentiments regarding the Kaiser were not only echoed by many Germans but also influenced German discontent. As the month of October wore on, people's cries for the Kaiser's abdication grew louder and the threat of internal revolution increased. 

Furthermore, the German people would not have supported the abandonment of armistice negotiations:  “[a]s in Russia, the one thing which the majority of people wanted was peace. . . A fight to the death, as an alternative to capitulation, had little attraction for anyone.” In this way, as in Russia, the revolutionary movement in Germany garnered support by calling for peace. Contrary to Russia, however, the threat of revolution had yet to materialize as a concrete movement. Thus, the German government, already committed to negotiating an armistice, had to follow through lest the country be devoured militarily by its  enemies, as well as by internal revolution. General Ludendorff's call to keep fighting, while it appeared patriotic, actually represented his loss of support for the approved plan and thus the Kaiser. 

Prince Maximilian von Baden
 German Chancellor

Prince Maximilian's government was formed not only to carry out the armistice negotiations but also to reestablish government by putting an end to a military dictatorship. As previously noted, Generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff's influence only ceased with the end of the double government, marked by Ludendorff's dismissal on 26 October 1918. Despite this change, the Kaiser remained a peripheral figure. The armistice negotiations were entrusted to the government, which was hesitant to relay bad news to the Kaiser, possibly due to fragile morale. Furthermore, Kaiser Wilhelm II isolated himself. During the crucial month, he “made few speeches, failed to attend a number of important meetings, and ratified. . . whatever [Prince] Max told him needed royal assent.” Kaiser Wilhelm II's withdrawal was due to his “nursing both his sciatica and his resentment at the diminution of his authority. . . [which] suited the chancellor, who. . . [hoped] that this would lead to less talk of abdication.” Nevertheless, though Kaiser Wilhelm II was stubbornly opposed to would lead to less talk of abdication.” Nevertheless, though Kaiser Wilhelm II was stubbornly opposed to  relinquishing his throne, Prince Maximilian accepted the necessity of the Kaiser's abdication. 

Part III, the conclusion of this article will be presented tomorrow.

The Dramatic Abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Part I – A Promise of Reform

Statement of Abdication

I herewith renounce for all time claims to the throne of Prussia and to the German Imperial throne connected therewith. At the same time I release all officials of the German Empire and of Prussia, as well as all officers, non-commissioned officers and men of the navy and of the Prussian army, as well as the troops of the federated states of Germany, from the oath of fidelity which they tendered to me as their Emperor, King and Commander-in-Chief. I expect of them that until the re-establishment of order in the German Empire they shall render assistance to those in actual power in Germany, in protecting the German people from the threatening dangers of anarchy, famine, and foreign rule. Proclaimed under our own hand and with the imperial seal attached.

Wilhelm

Amerongen, 28 November 1918

By Vanessa LeBlanc

At the end of the summer of 1918, the Great War had been ongoing for four years; the German Imperial Army “had spent the last of its strength [and] the Imperial High Command had begun to realize that. . . Siegfrieden (the victorious peace that would enable Germany to dictate her own terms) was no longer obtainable.” The Great War has been characterized as a war of attrition. After the United States of America joined the war on the side of the Entente, Germany simply “lacked the ability to place enough men [and military resources] on the western front to provide an adequate challenge,” especially in light of the abandonment of Germany by its allies Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire, all of whom began negotiating their own independent armistices in September 1918. Yet, despite losing the war of attrition and facing total defeat, Germany did not lose the war militarily as it was not defeated by a crushing Entente invasion. In fact, by the end of the Great War, Germany still had “troops in foreign lands [and] there was no fighting in Germany.” As such, some historians have maintained that Germany did not lose the First World War, as an armistice is “a cessation of hostilities by common agreement of the opposing sides; a truce,” to be concluded by a peace treaty, not a surrender by either side.

What the Entente powers did not accomplish militarily, however, they accomplished through the diplomacy of the pre-Armistice negotiations, and ultimately, the Treaty of Versailles. In a telegram from United States president Woodrow Wilson to the German government during the pre-Armistice negotiations, it became clear that a peace to end the war could not be arrived at without the abdication of the Kaiser. (14 October Note, Pt. Six) The monarch's support crumbled among his officials as they came to understand that his abdication was the only way to end the international conflict and quell the increasing threat of revolution in Germany. An examination of the decay of support for Kaiser Wilhelm II during the “abdication crisis” of the pre-Armistice negotiations reveals how his abdication contributed to Germany's “loss” of the Great War. 

Germany lost the Great War “diplomatically” by having to agree to the terms of the Armistice, which demanded that the Kaiser abdicate, as this resulted in a loss of a strong national figurehead who might have defended Germany in the ensuing peace negotiations. 

The German Empire was a parliamentary system with limited male suffrage that was tiered in favor of industrialists and the landed elite. The Kaiser was the head of state and was able to appoint and dismiss the chancellor as well as dissolve the Reichstag. The Kaiser was also the commander in chief of the Germany military. Yet, Kaiser Wilhelm was a poor military strategist and a military commander only in theory. Therefore, at the outbreak of the war in 1914, he transferred “the right to issue operational orders in his name” to the Chief of General Staff, the position to which General Paul von Hindenburg was appointed in August 1916. This, combined with the trend of shielding the Kaiser from bad news, resulted in the Kaiser becoming an increasingly peripheral figure. Moreover, it enabled General Hindenburg and fellow military strategist, Quartiermeister General Erich Ludendorff, to establish a de facto military dictatorship sometimes referred to as “the Duo.”

Approaching the Kaiser just over a month later, on 29 September 1918, Ludendorff was certain that Germany's loss of the war was inevitable and impending.  Along with General Hindenburg, he called for the immediate undertaking of armistice negotiations for a peace treaty based on President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points. Generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff sought an “honourable peace” for the German military and relied on the American president's calls for “a just 'peace' and 'impartial' justice.” Therefore, though Generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff had not read the Fourteen Points, they requested that the ensuing peace treaty be based on them in order to allow Germany and the German Army to escape a “shameful peace.” Beginning armistice negotiations before the military situation became more desperate served two purposes: it would spare the military from the embarrassment of a total defeat, and more important, it was hoped that it would give Germany equal negotiating power as there had been no military victory by the Entente.

The Kaiser and Crown Prince, 1916

The resolution to pursue armistice negotiations also initiated reforms of the governmental system. These democratizing reforms were to be undertaken in order to better Wilson's perception of Germany prior to the negotiation process, as well as to maintain and garner support for the Kaiser, which had been waning for at least 18 months. It is difficult to gauge public opinion and support of the Kaiser due to wartime censorship, however, as Christopher M. Clark notes in his examination of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the “last eighteen months of the war saw the growth in the circulation of anti-monarchical pamphlets and a drastic falling-away of confidence in the dynasty.” The reforms were to democratize government by expanding suffrage, resubverting military authority (i.e. Generals Ludendorff and Hindenburg) to the Chancellor, and “`mak[ing] the Chancellor responsible to the Reichstag.'” These reforms would have seen the creation of a constitutional monarchy, curtailing much of the Kaiser's power and vesting more power in the chancellor. For the purposes of this article, what is important is that the reforms were an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to save the Hohenzollern dynasty from the Associated Powers by paying lip service to Wilson's ideals.

Support of these reforms was not unanimous. On 30 September 1918, Chancellor Georg von Hertling, who opposed the democratization of government, was dismissed. On 3 October, Prince Maximilian von Baden was appointed the new chancellor and began his task of, as he would later phrase it, “carrying out the great liquidation with some dignity.” Though the military commanders were subjugated to Prince Maximilian von Baden by the government restructuring, they still managed to rival and undermine his authority. The best example of this was the decision regarding when to send the request for an armistice. 

The next two parts of this article will be presented tomorrow and the following day.