A Short History of the First World War by Gary Sheffield

 

American Troops with German Prisoners
George Harding

By Gary Sheffield

One World Publications, 2014

Squadron Leader Paul Withers, RAF, Reviewer

Originally Presented in Air Power Review, 2023

In addition to [2024] being a year of commemoration, the centenary of the outbreak of the  Great War has provided an opportunity to revisit the origins of the conflict, the way it was fought and its broader impact on the 20th century. Undoubtedly, many new books will be released between now and 2018, but A Short History of the First World War provides an excellent broad overview that, despite its relative brevity, includes a great deal of insightful analysis.

Gary Sheffield is Professor of War Studies at the University of Wolverhampton and has previously worked at the University of Birmingham and the Joint Services Command and Staff College. He is an acknowledged expert on the First World War, having written widely on the subject, and is one of a small number of revisionist historians who have helped debunk the popular myths about the conflict. His short history tackles an enormous subject, and his stated aim is to give the reader an "understanding of not only what happened in 1914-18 but how and why" (p.xiii).

Sheffield’s analysis is set out in broadly chronological order with significant consideration given to the wider global conflict, expanding the aperture beyond the war fought in the trenches of Flanders and France. He starts with a balanced argument on the causation of the war, analyzing the international system and the roles of "nationalism," "imperialism," and "militarism" in bringing the world to the brink of conflict. He unpicks a range of arguments but ultimately concludes that the blame lay at the door of "the leaders of two aggressor states" Austria-Hungary and Germany (p.27).

The bulk of the volume focuses on the conduct of the war itself. He examines how the initial large-scale, rapid mobile battle on the Western Front aimed at achieving a quick and decisive German victory soon bogged down into the stalemate of trench warfare that was to last for almost the entire war. On the Eastern Front, France’s key ally Russia suffered a massive defeat at the hands of the Germans during the Battle of Tannenberg, while during the same period, in the late summer of 1914, the Russians inflicted 300,000 casualties on Austria (pp. 40-41). This breadth of outlook gives the reader the true context of the war. The losses on the Western Front were horrifically large during the various set-piece battles, but study of the broader conflict highlights its scale beyond northwest Europe. As Sheffield develops his study into 1915, in addition to the Western and Eastern Fronts, he examines the Turkish Front,  particularly the Dardenelles campaign, and looks at some of the lesser-known parts of the war in Italy, Serbia, and Salonika. He provides an interesting analysis of the general strategy of attrition. While the received wisdom is that it was ineffective and profligate, Sheffield reviews the evidence and suggests that in fact "controlled attrition" is a viable strategy and that "such attrition was costly in human life but ultimately effective" (p. 54).

The year 1916 saw some of the battles that typify the general understanding of the conflict, Verdun and the Somme, but also the most significant naval battle of the war, Jutland. With more than 250 ships involved, this battle ensured that the German Grand Fleet returned to port for the remainder of the war. However, victory came at the cost of the Royal Navy absorbing significantly greater losses in terms of tonnage than did the Germans. Sheffield goes on to examine the "Year of Strain: 1917," including Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele, as well as the first large-scale tank battle at Cambrai. He also considers the cumulative effect of trench warfare and the impact of widespread mutinies within the French Army. The examination of the actual conflict concludes with the decisive year of 1918, leading up to the Armistice.

Throughout the book, the author intersperses the main argument with more detailed examination of topics such as the international system, biographical information on the key commanders, the revolution in military affairs, morale and discipline, and the U-boat war. Of specific interest to the air power audience, he includes sections on "The Beginnings of War in the Air," "The Air War Intensifies," and "The Air War Away from the Western Front."

The third part of A Short History of the First World War deals with total war and the broader impact on the societies of the belligerents. Sheffield considers total war to be one where all the resources of a state—human, economic, and technological—are devoted to waging war (p. 128). Beyond mass mobiliaation, he considers the impact of the industrialization of warfare and the establishment of "total war economies." In considering the wider impacts, he examines the implications for Irish independence and the triggers for the Russian Revolution.

Order This Work HERE

The book ends with an epilogue that firmly establishes the implications of the First World War for the remainder of the century. He challenges the common assumption that the punitive nature of the Versailles Treaty inevitably led to the Second World War, arguing that the world "economic crisis fatally undermined the Weimar Republic" (p. 175). He also considers two of the legacies of the Great War that still shape modern conflict—the Sykes-Picot agreement and the Balfour Declaration.

At a mere 239 pages, Sheffield tackles a massive subject in an extremely readable and engaging style. The fact that it is so wide-ranging inevitably means that it lacks depth in some areas, and some aspects of the war necessarily did not make it into the book. However, the "big-and-small map" approach is more than compensated for by Sheffield’s insightful analysis. This book should whet the reader’s appetite to study the Great War in more depth. Sheffield offers a section on further reading tht reviews some of the best literature on the subject. Of these, I would particularly recommend Sheffield’s Forgotten Victory: The First World War: Myths and Realities (Headline, 2001). For an excellent study on one of the Great War’s iconic of battles, the Somme, read William Philpott’s Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme and the Making of the Twentieth Century (Little, Brown, 2009).

In this short introduction, Sheffield provides the reader with insight into to the global nature of the conflict and examines its prosecution across the land, sea, and air domains. For the air power audience, it establishes the context that led to air power emerging as both an independent and an integrated form of warfare. It is highly recommended as a primer for those  looking for a broad scholarly overview of the conflict but also acts as a very useful general reference. A Short History of the First World War sets a basis for any study of modern warfare in giving the reader an understanding of the transformative effect that the Great War had on the 20th century and beyond.

Paul Withers

War Story: Dundee, Scotland

The Dundee Law War Memorial Overlooking the City

Dundee—one of the eight major cities of Scotland—was declining economically at the time of the Great War. Once the  world capital of the jute industry, Dundee had become uncompetive against India. Nontheless, many of its 175,000 citizens were still employed in the textile and ship-building industries. In the midst of the July Crisis of 1914 the city was thrilled to receive a morale-boosting royal visit from King George V and his family. Soon afterward the city responded to the call to arms enthusiastically.  Over 30,000 of its sons enlisted in the various forces and  more than 4,213 would die in service.

4th Battalion in the Trenches

At the beginning of the First World War, many Dundonian men  joined the 4th (City of Dundee) Battalion, the Black Watch. This local territorial infantry unit almost entirely consisted of men from the city and its immediate surrounding areas. The battalion came to be known as Dundee’s Own. They played a major role in the early battle of Neuve Chapelle and Loos. Losses were so great that the 4th Battalion was merged with the 5th Battalion of the Black Watch for the remainder of the war.  During the Second World War Dundee again provided manpower for the Black Watch and a memorial to soldiers of the 4/5 Black Watch was dedicated to the fallen in 1959 atop the peak of Powrie Brae.

Dundee’s contribution to the First World War effort was widely recognised but it was also a leading center for the anti-war movement. At the time an anti-war newspaper, Forward, noted that Dundee "was fair hotchin’ wi conchies."

The Dundee Law Today

At the end of the Great War, Dundee decided to honour the sacrifice of over 4,000 citizens by building the memorial on the Dundee Law, the hill that is the highest point in the city. The unveiling ceremony took place on 16 May 1925. Its simple inscription states: TO THE MEMORY OF DUNDEE MEN WHO FELL IN THE GREAT WAR 1914-1918. 

There is a beacon at the top of the Law memorial which is lit on important dates to remember, such as 25 September, to commemorate the 1915 Battle of Loos, and 11 November, Armistice Day. 

 The 4th Battalion, the Black Watch, in the Attack, 1915
 by Joseph Gray

Joseph Lee, a 40-year-old journalist joined the 4th Black Watch, fought and survived the war, including a year as a prisoner of war, and became a respected war poet.  From his "The Green Grass".

The dead spake together last night,

And one to the other said:

‘Why are we dead?’

They turned them face to face about

In the place where they were laid:

‘Why are we dead?’

‘This is the sweet, sweet month o’ May,

And the grass is green o’erhead –

Why are we dead?

‘The grass grows green on the long, long tracks

That I shall never tread –

Why are we dead?

‘The lamp shines like the glow-worm spark,

From the bield where I was bred –

Why am I dead?

The other spake: ‘I’ve wife and weans,

Yet I lie in this waesome bed –

Why am I dead?

Quoth the first: ‘I have a sweet, sweetheart,

And this night we should hae wed –

Why am I dead?

Sources: Dundee's Hidden Histories; Public Art Dundee, Great War Dundee; Discover War Poets

The Scope of Suffering and Traumatization During World War I

Mealtime in the Trenches by Otto Dix

Maarten Van Son et al.

The years of World War I, 1914–1918, were a time of immense suffering, not only among warring soldiers, but also among civilians in the various countries at war and in surrounding countries to which displaced people fled. In addition to the suffering of the countless refugees from the war zones, there was increasing hunger and shortage of all kinds of essential commodities throughout many countries (Van Bergen, 1999; Whalen, 1984), along with extensive environmental damage and the total destruction of civil infrastructures. In all involved countries there was immeasurable mourning and grief for the myriad dead. 

For combat soldiers themselves, especially those in the trenches, suffering did not consist only of physical or mental wounding. There was also constant misery produced by the intrinsically horrific conditions in the trenches, as illustrated in a 1918 issue of the French trench journal Le Filon (quoted by Van Bergen, 1999, p. 10): 

Fighting a modern war means to entrench yourself in a hole filled with water and to sit in it for ten days without moving, it means looking and listening and keeping a grenade in your hand, it means eating cold food and sinking in the mud and carrying your food through the dark night and wandering hour after hour around the same point without ever finding it, it means being hit by grenades which come from God knows where–in short: it means privation. 

This picture easily extended to include torment due to the constant presence of vermin, and the need to function despite chronic lack of sleep, exhaustion, cold, thirst, hunger, poor rations, complete lack of sanitation facilities, inadequate medical care, and high rates of disease (e.g., dysentery, trench foot and other severe skin disorders, malaria, tuberculosis, pneumonia, and the deadly Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918). There was the constant stress of seeing fellow soldiers being killed or wounded, of the stench and sight of unburied decomposing bodies, of hearing unheeded screams for help from the wounded trapped in no-man’s land, and of helplessly watching the wounded drown in mud without the possibility of being rescued. Soldiers lived in trenches for weeks or months at a time, and more often than not, furloughs were extraordinarily brief or entirely absent; thus, there was no relief from the dreadful existence in the trenches. Finally, fear was an ever-present experience. In this war especially, with its unprecedented reliance on massive bombardments and static trench warfare, confrontation with death was inescapable. 

Gilbert (1995) reports that the defeated Central Powers lost 3,500,000 soldiers on the battlefield. The victorious Allied Powers lost 5,100,000 men. Gilbert also reported that, on average, this was more than 5,600 soldiers killed each day of the war. The fact that 20,000 British soldiers were killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme is often recalled with horror. On average, a similar number of soldiers were killed in every four-day period of the First World War (p. 541). 

American Soldier Suffering Shell Shock

How about the mental casualties, also referred to as soldiers with shell shock, neurasthenia, war neurosis, or the German term, Kriegsneurosen? After the war, a witness stated, ‘‘under conditions such as existed in France it is inevitable for the man to break down at one time or another’’ (War Office Committee, 1922, p. 5). During the initial stages of the war this insight did not exist among the upper army echelons. In fact, many military authorities were so prejudiced or ignorant about mental casualties that, for example, the official British military position was that shell shock and malingering were impossible to separate, therefore, both should be dealt with in army prisons (Stone, 1985, p. 250). Some ‘‘shell shocked’’ soldiers even received court-martialed death sentences for ‘‘desertion’’ (Babington, 1983, 1997). 

However, it became increasingly difficult to ignore the scope of mental breakdown following the mass devastation of the Battle of the Somme, in particular among the British forces (Bogacz, 1989; Feudtner, 1993; War Office Committee, 1922). Such breakdowns could be caused not only by acute trauma but also by accumulating stresses and strains of life in the war zone. Rivers (War Office Committee, 1922) remarked on these latter cases: 

‘‘These were the men who, especially in the early stages of the war, after some shell explosion or something else had knocked them down badly, went on struggling to do their duty until they finally collapsed entirely’’ (p. 55).  

It was believed, even by Freud (1919), that with the end of the war ‘‘most of the neurotic diseases that had been brought about by the war disappeared’’ (p. 1). Reality was quite different, with long-term psychiatric disability for  thousands of soldiers on all sides of the Great War. In 1917, the German  psychiatrist Robert Gaupp concluded that Kriegsneurosen (war neuroses)  constituted the largest category of wounded soldiers in the German army: more than 613,000 men. Entire German companies suffered from constant vomiting or unceasing fits of crying (Van Bergen, 1999, p. 211). The numbers within the British ranks are less clear, but one thing is certain: the official number of 80,000 is a vast underestimation (Van Bergen, 1999). 

Although, at least in Britain, many shell shocked soldiers were gradually able to work, they still experienced significant emotional difficulties: ‘‘The position in 1925 was that 60% were still affected with varying degrees of nervous anxiety, but the number who were unemployable had fallen to 20%’’ (Babington, 1997, p. 122). In 1929, British mental hospitals still housed 65,000 cases of  ‘‘shell shock’’ (Winter, 1979). In 1932, 36% of veterans receiving disability pensions from the British government were listed as psychiatric casualties of the war (Leed, 1979, p. 185). In 1939, 120,000 British veterans were receiving pensions or had been paid a final award for war-related ‘‘primary psychiatric disability’’ (Babington, 1997). Finally, in 1942, Thom reported that 58% (68,000 men) of all the patients being cared for in veterans’ hospitals in the United States were neuropsychiatric casualties of WWI (Thom, 1943; quoted by Leed, 1979). 

In contrast to the enormous attention military psychiatrists gave to acutely traumatized combat soldiers—with the explicit mission to get them back to the front as soon as possible—there are virtually no post-WWI psychiatric studies on chronically traumatized war veterans. As far as we know there was only one follow-up study. This 1920 American study consisted of 760 men out of a larger group of pensioners suffering from war neuroses, and revealed that more than 60% were troubled with symptoms of psychotic illness and nearly 40% were unfit for any form of employment (Salmon, 1921; quoted by  Babington, 1997). 

Night (Post WWI Berlin) by Max Beckmann

Nevertheless, psychiatry did learn one extremely important lesson: the development of mental disorders could be related directly to traumatic experiences. Whereas initial medical reports emphasized premorbid characteristics, including heredity, as the main factors in the development of these disorders, it was subsequently understood that every man had his breaking point. Hart (1929), ‘‘a veteran of five years working in ‘shell-shock’ hospitals  in England’’ (Shephard, 1999, p. 494), wrote: 

During the recent war a great mass of illness occurred which, christened at first by the misleading name of ‘‘shell shock,’’ came ultimately to be known as the psychoneuroses of war. This change of nomenclature was due to the rapidly won recognition of the psychological origin of these conditions. Indeed it may be said that, whatever else the war has done, it has at least conclusively demonstrated the existence and  importance of psychogenic disorder. (p. 64) 

The mental disorder most commonly associated with the Great War, was,  of course, shell shock. Myers was not the only WWI psychiatrist to explain  shell shock, or the war neuroses, in terms of a dissociation of the personality  (e.g., Brown, 1919a & b; Ferenczi, 1919b; McDougall, 1926; Simmel, 1919). 

For example, Brown (1919a) stated that ‘‘viewed from the psychological point of view, hysterical disorders all fall under one heading, as examples of dissociation of psycho-physical functions (walking, speaking, hearing, remembering certain experiences, etc.) following upon a diminution or loss of higher mental control’’ (p. 834). Likewise, Myers (1940) formulated the concept that the ‘‘ ‘functional’ nervous disorders are assignable . . . to a dissociated personality and its results’’ (p. 71). 

We believe that Myers’ (1940) distinction between what he referred to as the ‘‘emotional’’ or traumatized personality (EP) and ‘‘apparently normal’’ personality (ANP) provides a clear theoretical notion that greatly enhances our understanding of trauma-related dissociation. We would, however, emphasize that in no way is our intention to reify separate entities when using the term ‘‘personality.’’ Hart (1929) correctly stated that these pheonomena are ‘‘in reality absolutely devoid of any actual spatial aspect, and the introduction of a spatial metaphor . . . can only lead to erroneous deductions unless its purely descriptive and illustrative function is rigidly controlled’’  (p. 162). Structural dissociation is both a metaphoric and a theoretical construct, neither of which reflects complete reality, since all language—scientific or metaphoric—only approximates reality. 

Nonetheless, we are persuaded by clinical experience and growing empirical data that the clearest understanding of trauma-induced dissociation and its treatment to date is the view of ANP and EP as metaphoric descriptive labels of mental systems that have failed to integrate. The essence of this failure to integrate, i.e., dissociation, is represented in Janet’s definition of hysteria that was the 19th-century category of dissociative disorders in a generic sense: ‘‘A form of mental depression characterized by the retraction of the field of consciousness [involuntary and intense narrowing of attention] and a tendency to the dissociation and emancipation of the systems of ideas and functions that constitute  personality’’ (Janet, 1907, p. 332). The EP and ANP that Myers (1940) observed in traumatized soldiers constitute major examples of these dissociated ‘‘systems of ideas and functions.’’ They had their own sense of self, however rudimentary (McDougall, 1926; Mitchell, 1922), and exhibited a concurrent retraction of their field of consciousness that further reduced mental integrative capacity already impaired by dissociation. 

"Somatoform Dissociation in Traumatized World War I Combat Soldiers: A Neglected Clinical Heritagem" by Maarten Van Son et al., JOURNAL OF TRAUMA & DISSOCIATION; Vol. 1(4) 2000

6 April 1918: Woodrow Wilson's Most War-Like Speech

After President Wilson brought America into the war in April 1917, much of what he shared publicly about his war aims seemed to be a continuance of his January 1917 call for the belligerents to conclude a "peace without victory." With America's mobilization, including its economic strength and international political influence, the Allies clearly could never lose nor could the Central Powers ever prevail on the battlefield.  Things would ultimately be settled in diplomatic conference of some sort. 

Come New Year's Day of 1918, however, prospects did not seem hopeless for Germany. The 1917 campaigns had been filled with disappointments for the Allies. Italy was almost knocked out of the war at Caporetto, and the Russian Bolsheviks finally simply left the battlefield.  Germany, rather than seeking an advantageous settlement before millions of fresh Americans started arriving in Europe, decided to seek a military decision on the Western Front before the numeric tide turned irreversibly on the decisive battlefield in the west. The Great War now seemed fated to last far beyond 1918.

Two events in the spring further jolted President Wilson's estimation of the strategic situation.  On 3 March, the Central Powers concluded a draconian peace with Russia at Brest-Litovsk.  Later in the month, the German Army launched the first of five victory offensives, which initially proved alarmingly successful. Up to this point, with his public utterances—such as his January "14 Points" address—Wilson had been projecting his hopes of bringing the German leadership and/or the Dual Monarchy to sue for peace through political pressure. The recent events showed him the futility of this approach.

With the current battlefield posture, the German enemy was likely of a mind to consider new signals of moderation a sign of weakness.  Further, the Allies, who—with the end of the trench stalemate—were being driven toward the English Channel and needed a signal of America's firm "willingness to fight" resolution. The president decided to send a fresh set of signals to all the combatants in his next major speech, which is included below in its entirety. It was delivered on the first anniversary of America's declaration of war. Readers (I think) will find some of the themes and terminology positively un-Wilsonian. I've highlighted some passages that surprised me. MH

Address of President Wilson Delivered at Baltimore, 6 April 6 1918, for the Launching of the 3rd Liberty Loan

Fifth Regiment Armory, Baltimore, MD, 6 April 6 1918

Fellow Citizens: This is the anniversary of our acceptance of Germany’s challenge to fight for our right to live and be free, and for the sacred rights of free men everywhere. The Nation is awake. There is no need to call to it. We know what the war must cost, our utmost sacrifice, the lives of our fittest men and, if need be, all that we possess. The loan we are met to discuss is one of the least parts of what we are called upon to give and to do, though in itself imperative. The people of the whole country are alive to the necessity of it, and are ready to lend to the utmost, even where it involves a sharp skimping and daily sacrifice to lend out of meagre earnings. They will look with reprobation and contempt upon those who can and will not, upon those who demand a higher rate of interest, upon those who think of it as a mere commercial transaction. I have not come, therefore, to urge the loan. I have come only to give you, if I can, a more vivid conception of what it is for.

The reasons for this great war, the reason why it had to come, the need to fight it through, and the issues that hang upon its outcome, are more clearly disclosed now than ever before. It is easy to see just what this particular loan means because the cause we are fighting for stands more sharply revealed than at any previous crisis of the momentous struggle. The man who knows least can now see plainly how the cause of justice stands and what the imperishable thing is he is asked to invest in. Men in America may be more sure than they ever were before that the cause is their own, and that, if it should be lost, their own great Nation’s place and mission in the world would be lost with it.

I call you to witness, my fellow countrymen, that at no stage of this terrible business have I judged the purposes of Germany in-temperately. I should be ashamed in the presence of affairs so grave, so fraught with the destinies of mankind throughout all the world, to speak with truculence, to use the weak language of hatred or vindictive purpose. We must judge as we would be judged. I have sought to learn the objects Germany has in this war from the mouths of her own spokesmen, and to deal as frankly with them as I wished them to deal with me. I have laid bare our own ideals, our own purposes, without reserve or doubtful phrase, and have asked them to say as plainly what it is that they seek.

We have ourselves proposed no injustice, no aggression. We are ready, whenever the final reckoning is made, to be just to the German people, deal fairly with the German power, as with all others.  There can be no difference between peoples in the final judgment, if it is indeed to be a righteous judgment. To propose anything but justice, even-handed and dispassionate justice, to Germany at any time, whatever the outcome of the war, would be to renounce and dishonour our own cause. For we ask nothing that we are not willing to accord.

It has been with this thought that I have sought to learn from those who spoke for Germany whether it was justice or dominion and the execution of their own will upon the other nations of the world that the German leaders were seeking. They have answered, answered in unmistakable terms. They have avowed that it was not justice but dominion and the unhindered execution of their own will.

The avowal has not come from Germany’s statesmen. It has come from her military leaders, who are her real rulers. Her statesmen have said that they wished peace, and were ready to discuss its terms whenever their opponents were willing to sit down at the conference table with them. Her present Chancellor has said,—in indefinite and uncertain terms, indeed, and in phrases that often seem to deny their own meaning, but with as much plainness as he thought prudent,—that he believed that peace should be based upon the principles which we have declared would be our own in the final settlement. At Brest-Litovsk her civilian delegates spoke in similar terms; professed their desire to conclude a fair peace and accord to the peoples with whose fortunes they were dealing the right to choose their own allegiances. But action accompanied and followed the profession. Their military masters, the men who act for Germany and exhibit her purpose in execution, proclaimed a very different conclusion. We can not mistake what they have done,—in Russia, in Finland, in the Ukraine, in Rumania. The real test of their justice and fair play has come. From this we may judge the rest. They are enjoying in Russia a cheap triumph in which no brave or gallant nation can long take pride. A great people, helpless by their own act, lies for the time at their mercy. Their fair professions are forgotten. They nowhere set up justice, but everywhere impose their power and exploit everything for their own use and aggrandizement; and the peoples of conquered provinces are invited to be free under their dominion!

Are we not justified in believing that they would do the same things at their western front if they were not there face to face with armies whom even their countless divisions can not overcome? If, when they have felt their check to be final, they should propose favourable and equitable terms with regard to Belgium and France and Italy, could they blame us if we concluded that they did so only to assure themselves of a free hand in Russia and the East?

Their purpose is undoubtedly to make all the Slavic peoples, all the free and ambitious nations of the Baltic peninsula, all the lands that Turkey has dominated and misruled, subject to their will and ambition and build upon that dominion an empire of force upon which they fancy that they can then erect an empire of gain and commercial supremacy,—an empire as hostile to the Americas as to the Europe which it will overawe,—an empire which will ultimately master Persia, India, and the peoples of the Far East. In such a programme our ideals, the ideals of justice and humanity and liberty, the principle of the free self-determination of nations upon which all the modern world insists, can play no part. They are rejected for the ideals of power, for the principle that the strong must rule the weak, that trade must follow the flag, whether those to whom it is taken welcome it or not, that the peoples of the world are to be made subject to the patronage and overlordship of those who have the power to enforce it.

That programme once carried out, America and all who care or dare to stand with her must arm and prepare themselves to contest the mastery of the world, a mastery in which the rights of common men, the rights of women and of all who are weak, must for the time being be trodden under foot and disregarded, and the old, age-long struggle for freedom and right begin again at its beginning. Everything that America has lived for and loved and grown great to vindicate and bring to a glorious realization will have fallen in utter ruin and the gates of mercy once more pitilessly shut upon mankind!

The thing is preposterous and impossible; and yet is not that what the whole course and action of the German armies has meant wherever they have moved? I do not wish, even in this moment of utter disillusionment, to judge harshly or unrighteously. I judge only what the German arms have accomplished with unpitying thoroughness throughout every fair region they have touched.

What, then, are we to do? For myself, I am ready, ready still, ready even now, to discuss a fair and just and honest peace at any time that it is sincerely purposed,—a peace in which the strong and the weak shall fare alike. But the answer, when I proposed such a peace, came from the German commanders in Russia, and I cannot mistake the meaning of the answer.

I accept the challenge. I know that you accept it. All the world shall know that you accept it. It shall appear in the utter sacrifice and self-forgetfulness with which we shall give all that we love and all that we have to redeem the world and make it fit for free men like ourselves to live in. This now is the meaning of all that we do. Let everything that we say, my fellow countrymen, everything that we henceforth plan and accomplish, ring true to this response till the majesty and might of our concerted power shall fill the thought and utterly defeat the force of those who flout and misprize what we honour and hold dear. Germany has once more said that force, and force alone, shall decide whether Justice and Peace shall reign in the affairs of men, whether Right as America conceives it or Dominion as she conceives it shall determine the destinies of mankind. There is, therefore, but one response possible from us: Force, Force to the utmost, Force without stint or limit, the righteous and triumphant Force which shall make Right the law of the world, and cast every selfish dominion down in the dust.

Sources:  "President Wilson and the War Aims of the United States" by Klaus Schwabe;  U.S. Department of State

July Fourth 1917: America Marches Over There and Over Here

Westminster Bridge, London

By Stuart Irwin

The Fourth of July holiday is an occasion for the United States of America to celebrate and commemorate the birth of the nation. It is interesting to recall how this holiday was celebrated during the years America participated in World War One. The entry of the United States into the war provided a massive boost to the Allied powers and marked a significant moment in the conflict.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, the July 4 holiday excited much interest among the Allied powers. In 1917, the Times of London claimed that "[t]here have been many memorable Fourths of July in the past one hundred and forty-one years, but never one so pregnant with the drama of great events as this." For example, by the order of the king, the stars and stripes flew from Victoria tower.

16th Infantry, Paris, France

The celebrations in France were even more extravagant. The New York Times reported on July 4, 1918 that "Paris Avenue du Président Wilson street sign Paris turned out today as almost never in its history to celebrate the Fourth of July. The French capital not only extended a royal welcome to the Americans here, but made a thorough holiday of the day on its own account." The events included American troops marching through the city, where they were welcomed by "[c]rowds of people that jammed every available inch of space and every window in the buildings along the line of march, on roofs, and even in trees, cheered themselves hoarse." Most notably, a ceremony was held to mark the renaming of Avenue du President Wilson.

US Navy, Duluth, Minnesota

Such displays of American patriotism highlight the sense of gratitude and unity in purpose that was felt by the Allied powers. Indeed, the Times offered an eloquent narrative of the significance of having America enter the war:

They will have their reward not only in helping to save civilization from its present agony, but in an America ennobled by sacrifice, strengthened by a new consciousness of unity, made more efficient for all the purposes both of war and peace, and broadened by contact with world-wide interests and problems. The political balance of the universe shifted when General Pershing’s troops landed in France, and America, in entering the war, has also entered the world – to play in it, we are very sure, side by side with the Allied democracies, a vigorous and inspiring part. 

Liberty Loan Float, Nyack, New York

Source: U.S. National World War One Centennial Commission

Field Marshal Edmund Allenby on the Death of Lawrence of Arabia

Only Known Photo of Both Lawrence and Allenby

BBC Radio Interview, 22 May 1935 

I have lost a good friend and a valued comrade. Lawrence was under my command, but, after acquainting him with my strategical plan, I gave him a free hand. His co-operation was marked by the utmost loyalty, and I never had anything but praise for his work which, indeed, was invaluable throughout the campaign.

He was the mainspring of the Arab movement. He knew their language, their manners, their mentality; he understood and shared their merry, sly humor; in daring, he led them; in endurance, he equaled, if not surpassed, their strongest.

Though in complete sympathy with his companions, and sharing to the full with them their hardship and danger, he was careful to maintain the dignity of his position as Confidential Advisor to the Emir Feisal. Himself an Emir, he wore the robes of that rank and kept up a suitable degree of state.

His own bodyguard–men of wild and adventurous spirit–were all picked by Lawrence personally. Mounted on thoroughbred camels, they followed him in all his daring rides; and among those reckless desert rangers, there was none who would not willingly have died for their chief. In fact, not a few lost their lives through devotion to him and in defence of his person.

The shy and retiring scholar, archaeologist, philosopher, was swept by the tide of war into a position undreamt of. His well-balanced brain and disciplined imagination facilitated adaptation to the new environment; and there shone forth a brilliant tactician, with a genius for leadership.

Such men win friends–such also find critics and detractors. But the highest reward for success is the inward knowledge that it has been rightly won. Praise or blame was regarded with indifference by Lawrence. He did his duty as he saw it before him.

He has left, to us who knew and admired him, a beloved memory; and to all his countrymen, the example of a life well-spent in service.

Lawrence thought highly of Allenby and said of him, "(He was) physically large and confident, and morally so great that the comprehension of our littleness came slow to him". Allenby would die in May 1936.

The photo was found on Biosphere and the Lawrence quote on Wikipedia.

Eyewitness: A Yank Reporter with the Turks at the Dardanelles

Turkish Warships at the Golden Horn, Constantinople

Arthur Ruhl Reporting, May 1915

Constantinople was but a string of lights across Galata Bridge, and a lamp here and there on the hills. Then, toward midnight, with lights doused and life-belts strung along the rail – for English submarines were in the Marmora – we churned quietly round the comer of Stamboul and into the cool sea.

The side-wheeler was bound for the Dardanelles with provisions for the army – bread in bags, big ham- pers of green beans, and cigarettes – and among them we were admitted by grace of the minister of war, and papers covered with seals and Turkish characters, which neither of us could read. We tried to curl up on top of the beans (for the Marmora is cold at night, and the beans still held some of the warmth of the fields), but in the end took to blankets and the bare decks.

Turkish Ships Heading for the Straits

All night we went chunking southward – it is well over a hundred miles from Constantinople to the upper entrance to the straits - and shook ourselves out of our blankets and the cinders into another of those blue-and-gold mornings which belong to this part of the world. You must imagine it behind all this strange fighting at the Dardanelles – sunshine and blue water, a glare which makes the Westerner squint; moons that shine like those in the tropics. One cannot send a photograph of it home any more than I could photograph the view from my hotel window here on Pera Hill of Stamboul and the Golden Horn. You would have the silhouette, but you could not see the sunshine blazing on white mosques and minarets, the white mosques blazing against terra-cotta roofs and dusty green cedars and cypresses, the cypresses lifting dark and pensive shafts against the blue – all that splendid, exquisite radiance which bursts through one's window shutters every morning and makes it seem enough to look and a waste of time to try to think.

It is the air the gods and heroes used to breathe; they fought and played, indeed, over these very waters and wind-swept hills. Leander swam the Dardanelles close to where the Irresistible and Bouvet were sunk; the wind that blew in our faces that morning was the same that rippled the drapery of the Winged Victory. As we went chunking southward with our beans and cigarettes, we could see the snows of Olympus – the Mysian Olympus, at any rate, if not the one where Jove, the cloud-compelling, used to live, and white-armed Juno, and Pallas, Blue-Eyed Maid. If only our passports had taken us to Troy we could have looked down the plains of Ilium to the English and French ships, and Australian and French colonials fighting up the hillside across the bay. We got tea from the galley, and – with bread and helva (an insinuating combination of sugar and oil of sesame, which tastes of peanuts and is at once a candy and a sort of substitute for butter or meat) made out a breakfast. . .

Viewed from the Plains of Troy – The Dardanelles &
the Gallipoli Peninsula Near the Entrance

The Marmora narrowed, we passed Gallipoli on the European side . . . and on into the Dardanelles proper and the zone of war. It was some forty miles down this salt-water river (four miles wide at its widest, and between the forts of Chanak Kale and Kilid Bahr, near its lower end, a fraction over a mile) from the Marmora gateway to the Aegean. On the left were Lapsaki and the green hills of Asia, cultivated to their very tops; on the right Europe and the brown hills of the peninsula, now filled with guns and horses and men.

Over there, up that narrow strip of Europe, running down between the Dardanelles and the Aegean, the Allies had been trying for weeks to force their way to Constantinople. They had begun in February, you will recall, when they bombarded the forts at the outer entrance to the Dardanelles  – Sedd el Bahr the European side, at the tip of the peninsula, and Kum Kale, across the bay on the Asiatic shore. These forts occupy somewhat the relation to Constantinople that Sandy Hook does to New York, although much farther away – they face, that is to say, the open sea, and the guns of the fleet, heavier than those of the old forts, could stand off at a safe distance and demolish them.

Sedd el Bahr

When the ships pushed on up the strait toward Kilid Bahr and Chanak Kale – somewhat like trying to run the Narrows at New York – there was a different story. They were now within range of shore batteries and there were anchored mines and mines sent down on the tide. On March 18 the Irresistible, Ocean, and Bouvet were sunk, and it began to be apparent that the Dardanelles could not be forced without the help of a powerful land force. So in April landing parties were sent ashore: at Kum Kale and Sedd el Bahr, at Kaba Tepe and Art Burnu, some twelve or fourteen miles farther north on the Aegean side of the peninsula, and at another point a few miles farther up. At Sedd el Bahr and along the beach between Kaba Tepe and Art Bumu the Allies made their landing good, dug themselves in, and, reinforced by the fire of the ships, began a trench warfare not unlike that which has dragged on in the west.

A Turkish soldier, the only other occupant of the deck, surveyed these preparations impassively; then, taking off his boots, climbed on a settee and stood there in his big bare feet, with folded hands, facing, as he thought, toward Mecca. The boat was headed southwest, and he looked to starboard, so that he faced, as a matter of fact, nearly due west. He had knelt and touched his forehead twice to the bench, and was going on with the Mussulman prayer when the captain, a rather elegant young man who had served in the navy, murmured something as he passed. The soldier looked round thoughtfully; without embarrassment, surprise, or hurry stepped from the settee, pointed it toward the Asiatic shore, and, stepping up again, resumed his devotions. . .

Turkish Artillery Position on Gallipoli

The peninsula is but ten or twelve miles wide at its widest, and the Dardanelles side is within range of the fleet's great guns, firing clear overland from the Aegean. It was by this indirect fire that Maidos was destroyed and Gallipoli partly smashed and emptied of its people. There were places toward the end of the peninsula where Turkish infantrymen had to huddle in their trenches under fire of this sort coming from three directions. Whenever the invaders had it behind they were naturally at an advantage; whenever it ceased they were likely to be driven back. The Turks, on the other hand, had the advantage of numbers, of fighting on an "inside line," and of a country, one hill rising behind another, on the defense of which depended their existence as a nation in Europe.

Under these conditions the fighting had been going on for weeks, the English and French holding their ground at Sedd el Bahr and Ari Burnu, but getting no nearer Constantinople. . .

Arthur Brown Ruhl (1876–1935) was born in Rockford, Illinois, and graduated from Harvard University in 1899.  After he graduated, the New York Evening Sun employed him as a reporter, and he was soon published in Century magazine, Harper’s magazine, and Collier’s Weekly. During the Great War, he managed to work his way to Constantinople and report on the Gallipoli campaign from behind the German and Turkish lines.

Source: Tony Langley Collection

Precipice by Robert Harris

Improbable Sweethearts Venetia Stanley and H.H. Asquith

By Robert Harris

Harper, 2024

Reviewed by Editor/Publisher Mike Hanlon

Except for his recent work on the topic of papal-politics, Conclave, I'm a big fan of historian-novelist Robert Harris's writings. His Pompeii and Act of Oblivion are among my all-time favorite historical fiction novels. I rate his 2024 Precipice about the preposterous, but well-documented, romantic affair between 26-year old bright, aristocratic, Beatrice Venetia Stanley and 61-year old British prime minister Herbert Asquith, in his top rung.  What turns this soap operatic plot into an exciting historical tale is that it all takes place in 1914–1915 against a detailed background of such notable events as the July Crisis, the Retreat from Mons, the Battle of the Marne, the munitions shortage, and the Gallipoli fiasco.  

One would think that a Prime Minister would be fully engaged in managing such earthshaking affairs.  But, no, Asquith was busier writing hundreds of missives to the young lady he was obsessively wooing.  The heart of this book is a fascinating selection of these letters and notes between Asquith and Stanley.  The Prime Minister's letters presented in the novel are true specimens which became available upon the death of Venetia in 1948. Her responses are wholly invented by Harris. These fictional letters, however, are quite credible stand-ins for Venetia's— elegant in style and voice, and both tactful and guarded in responding  to the latest ploys of her  pursuer. 

Asquith's relentless correspondence in contrast becomes annoying and tiresome for the reader and must have been likewise for Venetia.  Here's an early example from Precipice of Asquith trying to gain some psychological ascendency over her while luring his "darling counsellor" with some insider gossip. 

This willingness to share closely-held cabinet information evolves over time to his frequently revealing highest-level secrets and documents to Venetia about the conduct of the war—serial violations of the Official Secrets Act.

Two other story lines accompany the matters romantic.  The author provides an excellent ringside seat to some of the major events of the early war.  I particularly enjoyed the insights on the character of some of the major personalities of the British cabinet during these trying times. Who knew that Horatio Kitchener worked so diligently at avoiding accountability for unfortunate decisions, or that Admiral Jackie Fisher was a fabulous dancer, or that Winston Churchill was incredibly pushy? (Wait. I guess I did know that last detail, but Harris really hits it hard.)

Order HERE

What ties all of this into a surprisingly exciting and tension-filled account is a third element of the story that I knew nothing about until delving into Precipice. According to Harris, an office of British Secret Service got on to the prime minister's practice of tossing secret information to Venetia quite early and started reading all the lovers' mail. This persisted until the termination of the correspondence in 1915 when Miss Stanley escaped Herbert's clutches by marrying an uninspiring, but safer, chap named Montagu. As to what the spooks did with all that intelligence—well, my lips are sealed. I'm afraid you will have to read the book if such matters interest you.

Mike Hanlon

Death on the Somme: A Reflection on the Eve of the Battle's Anniversary—A Roads Classic

Whether a man be killed by a rifle bullet through the brain, or blown into fragments by a high-explosive shell, may seem a matter of indifference to the conscientious objector, or to any other equally well-placed observer, who in point of fact is probably right; but to the poor fool who is a candidate for posthumous honours, and necessarily takes a more directly interested view, it is a question of importance.  He is, perhaps, the victim of an illusion, like all who, in the words of Paul, are fools for Christ's sake; but he has seen one man shot cleanly in his tracks and left face downwards, dead, and he has seen another torn into bloody tatters as by some invisible beast, and these experiences had nothing illusory about them: they were actual facts.  Death, of course, like chastity, admits of no degree; a man is dead or not dead, and a man is just as dead by one means as by another; but it is infinitely more horrible and revolting to see a man shattered and eviscerated, than to see him shot.  And one sees such things; and one suffers vicariously, with the inalienable sympathy of man for man.  One forgets quickly.  The mind is averted as well as the eyes.  It reassures itself after that first despairing cry: "It is I!"

"No, it is not I.  I shall not be like that."

And one moves on, leaving the mauled and bloody thing behind: gambling, in fact, on that implicit assurance each one of us has of his own immortality.  One forgets, but he will remember again later, if only in his sleep.

Dead German Soldiers, Mametz Wood,
Somme Battlefield

After all, the dead are quiet.  Nothing in the world is more still than a dead man.  One sees men living, living, as it were, desperately, and then suddenly emptied of life.  A man dies and stiffens into something like a wooden dummy, at which one glances for a second with a furtive curiosity.  Suddenly he remembered the dead in Trones Wood, the unburied dead with whom one lived, he might say, cheek by jowl, Briton and Hun impartially confounded, festering, fly-blown corruption, the pasture of rats, blackening in the heat, swollen with distended bellies, or shrivelling away within their mouldering rags; and even when night covered them, one vented in the wind the stench of death.  Out of one bloody misery into another, until we break.  One must not break.  He took in his breath suddenly in a shaken sob, and the mind relinquished its hopeless business. The warm smelly darkness of the tent seemed almost luxurious ease. He drowsed heavily; dreaming of womanly softness, sweetness; but their faces slipped away from him like the reflections in water when the wind shakes it, and his soul sank deeply and more deeply into the healing of oblivion.

From: The Middle Parts of Fortune: Somme and Ancre, 1916 by Frederic Manning (1882–1935)

Remembering a Veteran: Capt. A. H. “Harry” Cobby CBE GM DSO DFC+2 , Leading Australian Flying Corps Ace

World War One Air Ace and Hero

By James Patton

Arthur Henry “Harry” Cobby (1894–1955) was born in Prahran, Melbourne, one of four sons of Arthur E. S., a tram conductor, and Alice Cobby (née Nash). Harry was educated at University College, Armadale, Perth.  At age 18 he received a militia commission in the 46th  Infantry (Brighton Rifles), based at Elsternwick, Melbourne and was later transferred to the 47th  Infantry, which was disbanded in early 1914. 

After the First World War began he was eager to join the new Australian Imperial Force (AIF), but his employer, the Commonwealth Bank, refused to release him. Two years later circumstances had changed, and in October 1916 he was allowed to join the Australian Flying Corps (AFC), despite having little prior experience with aircraft. He was posted to the AFC Central Flying School at Point Cook, Victoria, where he completed his training in December 1916 with just 30 minutes of solo flying in his log. Still a 2nd  lieutenant, he was then assigned as a founding member of No. 4 Squadron, AFC, which would go on to claim 199 victories in the skies over the Western Front, the most of any AFC squadron.

No. 4 arrived in England in March 1917. More training ensued, as well as type familiarization.  By December, having learned to fly the Sopwith Camel, they were in France. Although their training had ended, Cobby—who at this point had just 12  solo hours himself—said that the squadron was made up of novices. He later admitted to being so nervous about the prospect of going into combat that "if anything could have been done by me to delay that hour, I would have left nothing undone to bring it about."

In February 1918, he got the first of his claimed 29 kills (plus 13 balloons, which were not counted as kills by the AFC), which proved to be the highest score achieved by a member of the AFC. Two Australians flying Sopwith Triplanes with with the Royal Naval Air Service had higher scores, Capt. Robert Little (1895–1918) with 47 and Maj. Roderic “Stan” Dallas (1891–1918) with 39. Both were killed within six days of each other in 1918. 

By May 1918, Cobby was an experienced combat airman, having flown extensively against various enemy aircraft, including von Richthofen’s Flying Circus (he shot down two JG.I  Albatros V’s),  and participated in low-level attacks during the March offensive. 

On 25 May 1918, Cobby, already a flight leader, was promoted to captain. Described as "an imp of mischief," he personalized his Sopwith Camel by decorating it with caricatures of comic actor Charlie Chaplin and adopting various flashy paint schemes, although he claimed that these were "not for conceit, but for safety," as he wanted to avoid being shot down by his own side. He again scored two kills in one day on 30 May near Estaires, an Albatros and an observation balloon, and repeated this feat the next day. Earlier he had been responsible for No. 4's first balloon kill—at Merville earlier in May. These large observation balloons, nicknamed Drachen (dragons), were a valuable target and thus well protected by fighter cover and anti-aircraft guns.

He was recommended for the Military Cross (MC) on 3 June 1918 in recognition of his combat success and for being a "bold and skilful Patrol Leader, who is setting a fine example to his Squadron." The award was upgraded to a Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) on 2 July. He never actually got an MC.

Cobby shot down three German aircraft on 28 June and was recommended for a bar to his DFC, highlighting his triple-ace tally of 15 victories. On 15 July 1918, he and another pilot engaged five Pfalz scouts near Armentières, Cobby accounting for two of the enemy aircraft and his companion for one. The Australians were then pursued by four Fokker Triplanes but managed to evade them. This action earned him a second bar to his DFC, the citation noting that he had scored 21 kills to date and had "succeeded in destroying so many machines by hard work and by using his brains, as well as by courage and brilliant flying." The two bars to his DFC were both gazetted on 21 September. 

Meanwhile, on 16 August, Cobby led a bombing raid against the German airfield at Haubourdin, near Lille, the largest aerial assault by Allied forces up until then, resulting in 37 enemy aircraft being destroyed. The following day he led a similar attack on Lomme airfield and was recommended for the Distinguished Service Order (DSO).  Gazetted on 2 November, the citation read "The success of these two raids was largely due to the determined and skilful leadership of this officer."

In September, Cobby returned to England to be an instructor. His exploits had been widely reported in Australia. At the Commonwealth Bank, reports of his courage and flying prowess were met with pride. Cobby, in writing to the bank’s house organ Bank Notes, was more modest about his successes. He said that he was, "more to be congratulated on being alive than doing anything special, as the whole AFC strive after good results, and of course some go west, and those that live reap the benefits of the whole."

Portrait at the Australian War Museum

Cobby led the AFC fly-past over London on ANZAC Day 1919 before his return to Australia in May 1919. Still widely  known at home, he became the face of the AFC, and a William McInnes portrait of him was commissioned for display at the new Australian War Museum. The Commonwealth Bank, in recognition of his distinguished war service, had letters of welcome sent to him from each of its state branches. The bank claimed that his great successes were not unexpected "for we were all well aware that his temperament and courage eminently fitted him for distinction as a daring and successful aviator."

In 1921, he became a founding member of the Royal Australian Air Force  (RAAF). He was a full-time flying officer, commanding No. 1 Squadron, and eventually rose to the rank of wing commander in 1933 before reverting to reserve status in 1936. 

He joined the Australian Civil Aviation Board as it’s Controller of Operations. As such, he had responsibility for aircraft inspections, licenses and airworthiness certificates, maintenance of radio and meteorological services, and RAAF liaison. The board was reorganized as the Department of Civil Aviation in November 1938, and he was eventually made redundant. Throughout this period he had been a regular contributor to aviation magazines such as Australian Airmen and Popular Flying. Later, in 1942, he published High Adventure an account of his WWI service. 

In  September 1939, the RAAF called back him back to active duty as a group captain. He was first assigned to head up recruiting, then given an area command. He was promoted to air commodore in July 1943. On 7 September of the same year, he was traveling as a passenger on a PBY Catalina when it crash-landed near Townsville, Queensland. Although injured, he helped rescue two other survivors and was recommended for the George Medal for his "outstanding bravery," which was gazetted on 10 March 1944. Also, in the 1944 Birthday Honours, the king made Cobby a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

In August 1944 he was appointed air officer commanding, 1st Tactical Air Force, the only RAAF combat command of its size (25,000 men) in the war. This role he found to be increasingly untenable due to his getting orders from the RAAF High Command, the U.S. 13th Air Force, and even U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific Area Command. Cobby likened his position to that of the farcical Gilbert & Sullivan character The Duke of Plaza Toro.

In April 1945, based out of Morotai Island (today a part of Indonesia), Cobby faced the resignations of eight of his best pilots, including the RAAF’s leading ace, Group Capt. Clive Caldwell DSO DFC+1 (1911–1994), who was also the leading WWII ace in the P-40. He was the commander of the RAAF No. 1 Fighter Wing, which was made up of three squadrons of the highly prized Spitfire XVCs.  Caldwell and his pilots were annoyed at flying dangerous operations against what they considered to be "senseless unimportant ground targets." Known as the "Morotai Mutiny," the episode resulted in Cobby being relieved due to "low morale." After additional complaints and a drawn-out investigation, he was cashiered in August 1946. 

World War Two Air Commander

Australian historian (and former RAAF pilot) Alan Stephens PhD OAM has written: “No Australian airman's experience better illustrates the tensions between 'command', 'leadership' and ‘heroism’ … the qualities that make a hero do not easily translate into those needed by a commander, although they are likely to engender leadership." Stephens also described Cobby’s cashiering as "a personal and institutional tragedy that a genuinely great figure in RAAF history had to end his career in such circumstances.” 

That notwithstanding, in 1948, as recognition for his wartime service to the U.S., Cobby received the U.S. Medal of Freedom (a non-military award, superseded in 1962 by the Presidential Medal of Freedom). The citation states that  from September 1944 to January 1945, he displayed "exceptionally sound judgement and far sighted planning...and materially assisted in support of the operations in the Philippine Liberation Campaign."

Meanwhile, he had rejoined the Department of Civil Aviation, where he was a regional director (1947–54) and  director of flight operations until he was stricken at work and died in Melbourne on Armistice Day 1955. He was still a national hero and was accorded full military honors at his burial.