Whatever you think about U-boat warfare or the Lusitania, etc., Germany was really proud of its submarine fleet. It's not high art, but they seem to have put a major share of their illustrators and graphic artists to work on the project. Here are some samples from Tony Langley's collection. All can be enlarged by clicking on the image. MH
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| Brigadier General Thorpe |
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| General Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, Austrian Chief of Staff |
In all my reading during the centennial commemoration of the war, one major actor, who is featured prominently in the 1914-focused works, seems to have dropped off the radars of historians dealing with the fighting war and the final culmination of the disaster. I thought he deserves a little attention here in Roads, especially focusing on the end of the war and his legacy.
Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf was a unique star in the constellation of personalities involved in the origins and conduct of the First World War. Other countries had their prewar tacticians who advocated the offensive at all costs, prewar strategists who drafted plans for preemptive strikes against neighboring countries, generals who made grave errors in implementing war plans in the summer of 1914, and wartime commanders who persevered–for lack of a better strategy–as the First World War dragged on and casualties mounted. In Austria-Hungary, Conrad filled all of these roles. Among the men responsible for shaping the tactics, strategies, and war plans that led the old order of Europe to destruction in the bloodletting of 1914–1918, he had no equal. Austro-Hungarian soldiers who died during the Great War total 1,495,200, including 480,000 who died as prisoners of war.
The death knell for the empire was sounded with the failure in June 1918 of the last effort on the Piave River to drive Italy out of the war. The effort failed and the ethnic disintegration of the army snowballed, bringing with it the collapse of the army. Emperor Karl used Conrad as a scapegoat and again dismissed him. He spent the last four months of the war in retirement and afterward lived in relative seclusion with his beloved young wife, Gina. He never acknowledged his share of responsibility for the war, but the deaths of his sons haunted him for the rest of his life. He died in 1925 of complications from a gall bladder ailment, before finishing his multi-volume memoirs.
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| Reviewing the Troops in 1916 |
Despite Conrad's dismal wartime record, after his death, most Austrians hailed him as a great hero. The pro-Austrian Christian Social party claimed him as a great Austrian patriot, while the pro-Anschluss German Nationalist party emphasized his conclusion (however reluctant) that Austria's fate should lie in union with Germany. Meanwhile, the opposition Social Democrats condemned him as a war criminal. During and after the war he enjoyed a good reputation in Germany; Germans placed him on a par with their own Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff. Eventually, the Nazis claimed Conrad as a Greater German hero, holding frequent ceremonies at his Vienna tomb during the Second World War. Because the defense of Conrad's reputation after 1918 became bound up with the defense of the honor of the old Habsburg army, he remains a controversial figure within Austria down to the present day.
While some Austrian military writers persist in excusing Conrad von Hötzendorf's faults and errors, for other historians his vocal promotion of preventive warfare before 1914 and costly command decisions during the First World War place him among the leading villains of the era. Yet his greatest transgression was not that he advocated offensive measures and aggressive solutions, but that these measures and solutions did not fit the situation of his country or the capabilities of its army. While all the other great powers of the 20th century survived defeats in battles, campaigns, or wars, Austria-Hungary enjoyed no margin for error, and Conrad's failure proved fatal. The pursuit of aggressive solutions to foreign policy problems only increased the empire's dependence on its German ally; Conrad acknowledged this dilemma as early as 1913, agonized over it early in the war, then in the autumn of 1916 conceded that Austria's future would be either as a satellite or component part of the German Reich. Thus, in helping push Austria-Hungary toward war before 1914, he set a course that would result, win or lose, with the end of Austria-Hungary as an empire.
Source: Over the Top, August 2012
Mauricio Nicolas Vergara, PhD
The Alpine front could be considered one of the emblematic cases of WWI in extreme environments. Indeed, many of the hundreds of thousands of people who were deployed at that front fought and wintered in some of the highest and most inhospitable mountains in Europe. Namely, many men found themselves deployed in altitudes more than 3,000 meters above sea level, where no human being had ever set foot. The Alpine front ran across peaks, glaciers, cliffs, and valleys of the southeastern Alps, in large part along the border between Italy and Austria-Hungary. In particular, from May 1915, when Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary, the front ran from the northwestern part of the southern Rhaetian Alps to the southern Julian Pre-Alps.
From October 1917, after the Italian defeat in the Battle of Caporetto, to November 1918, when the Armistice was signed, the front between these two countries was shortened. Thus, from the Venetian Prealps, it turned southern into the Venetian Plain. The main armies involved at the Alpine front were the Italian and the Austro-Hungarian armies. Troops of the German Empire, allied with AustriaHungary, and of the British Empire, France, the United States, the Czechoslovak Legion, and Romanian Legion, allied with Italy, also participated in certain moments at the front. The experience undergone at the Alps by some of these forces proved unique and invaluable for future wars.
An especially relevant study that considered personal testimonies and memoirs to increase the understanding about the relationship between people and nature at this front is the one of Diego Leoni. In his work, La Guerra Verticale; the author obtained a comprehensive picture of the characteristics of the Alpine front by focusing on the multiple aspects of the relationship of men and armies—not just with the natural environment but also with the machinery and the animals used there. In particular, Leoni compiled a significant number of personal testimonies and memoirs as well as other kinds of sources, such as songs, poems, and official records from archives. These sources included authors with different backgrounds that conducted different activities during the war, such as soldiers, officers, nurses, doctors, workers, etc., for both the Italian and the Austro-Hungarian armies. In this way, Leoni was able to explore the various aspects and moments of the Alpine front that he discussed from many points of view. In turn, this led him to find a more complex and detailed understanding of the front than other authors.
Perhaps one of the biggest merits of Leoni’s book is that it tells, probably for the first time in such a well-documented way, that for people at the Alpine front the struggle to survive natural hazards and poor health and living conditions was often on par with surviving the enemy’s weapons. From this perspective, Leoni’s book represents probably the most advanced knowledge of the role of nature at the Alpine front.
Some of the casualties directly determined by mountain environments that are named in literature are casualties due to avalanches, landslides and lightning, those crushed inside huts under the weight of snow, those fallen along the sides of the mountains and into the precipices, and those who suffered from frostbite and hypothermia. Many also were lost and resulted in missing or dead when moving through forests, fog, storms, nighttime, or whiteouts. Around Mte. Pasubio, hundreds of carriers were lost in the fog and went missing. Poor health and living conditions determined by alpine nature also led to casualties due to natural hazards. For example, frostbite was determined by low temperatures, the natural hazard, but also by poor health and living conditions. These were at least in part due to alpine nature, such as the nutritional and physical state of the individual, inability to move freely, and the humidity of clothes, mainly footwear.
Another direct impact of natural hazards that is important to consider are psychological damages. In all the fronts of war, these were largely related to military causes and to the health and living conditions of the soldiers. however, at the Alpine front, nature also seemingly represented a major factor of their origin. In literature, there is neither any historical medical report nor specific study that considers this impact of mountain nature. Still there are several sources, for example those cited by Leoni, which mentioned the relevance of nature for the determination of actual mental illnesses and of mental states that could lead to mental illnesses. In Alpenkrieg, Fritz Weber mentioned the occurrence of depression and considered that some mental states originated by the environmental context at the front were “very similar to a mental illness.” More recently, Alessandro Massignani also considered the presence of depression among those living at the Alpine front due to environmental conditions and Leoni also mentioned the presence of “melancholic depression.”
Nature contributed in many ways to the poor health and living conditions present at the Alpine front. One can assume that in general this effect was more adverse on the positions along the sides of the mountains and on their peaks, where the environment was more hostile, rather than in the valleys. The impact of nature on the health and living conditions included:
• Temperature, humidity, wind, slope direction, clouds, and vegetation, which contributed to excess cold and heat;
• The limitations of resources, which contributed to many deprivations. In particular, the insufficient amount of water springs represented a serious problem for drinking, hygienic practices, cooking, and performing some works in many parts of the front. In addition to its limited presence, many of the water sources became polluted during the war, due to the putrefaction of dead bodies and the presence of human waste and of toxic chemical substances that resulted from explosions.
Particularly during the summer, when most of the snow had melted, the lack of water was considered a main cause of casualties in some cases. According to Heinz von Lichem, there were deaths from dehydration in Monte Zugna and in the Pasubio Massif;
• Rugged topography, which limited the potential space for building. This contributed to overcrowded camps and barracks;
• Avalanches and other natural phenomena, which produced cold or fear of an eventual imminent accident, contributing to sleep deprivation;
• Taxing physical and mental activities. Moving required significant exertion due to, for example, slopes, snow, wind, and the fact that people had to carry heavy weight because, mainly in high and rugged places, a large part of the transport of materials for living and fighting had to be done by them. Digging trenches, caves, and tunnels in rock and ice, shoveling snow continuously during the cold season, restoring weapons, telephone and telegraph lines, cableways, and other infrastructure frequently destroyed by weather and avalanches were some of the many other ways through which alpine nature required huge exertions;
• Moods, feelings, and mental states were affected negatively due to the alpine climate. Concerning this impact of the environment, Weber referred to restlessness, agitation, desperation, oppression, anxiety, upheaval of the nervous system, and apathy among the persons at the front. In particular, topography and weather contributed to periods of social isolation, precluding contacts with different or larger groups of persons and with civil society and relatives. This happened, for example, when the movement between different positions was impossible or when letters and news did not reach certain sectors of the front. These living conditions highly affected the troops sense of sadness, loneliness, and melancholy. Similar outcomes also created long periods of inactivity and restriction of movements caused by inclement weather. Moreover, the frequent natural hazards represented a continuous threat that “upset the nervous system” and increased the sense of precariousness and uncertainty. These conditions particularly affected those who were not used to mountain weather.
As for the health and living conditions, the efficiency of the logistic system was also affected by both human and natural factors. The human ones regarded the intrinsic malfunction of the armies and states and the factual or potential offenses of the enemy.
Natural elements and processes represented difficulties such as:
• Slope, vegetation, kind of surface of the ground, presence of ice on the ground, hydrography, and weather created difficulties moving. Indeed, it was reported that some positions reached 25 days of total isolation and some others more than a month. The impact of nature on transport occurred at almost every step of the supply chain in the Alps, from the snow that stopped the trains circulating along the valleys to the avalanches that engulfed the carriers and struck cableways supplying the higher positions. Weber reported on streets and paths that were impassable for seven months;
• Rugged topography, landslides, avalanches, and hydrography, which caused difficulties and lack of potential space for construction. This contributed to a shortage of adequate roads, paths, and storehouses. The difficulty constructing roads was represented, for example, by the need of the armies to build bridges over streams or dig tunnels inside mountains but also by the low temperatures and avalanches that workers had to suffer;
• Limited resources and hostile weather, which contributed to a high demand and strong dependency of the armies on the supplies coming from the plains. This led often to an overload of the logistics system.
Despite the still-limited knowledge about the casualties due to natural hazards, the Alpine front represents a historical case of how the consequences of waging war in inhospitable environments go beyond the difficulties concerning fighting and how nature can cause great damage to armies.
Excerpted from: "Nature’s Tragic Role at the Alpine Front during World War I – The Consequences", Journal of Advanced Military Studies vol. 13, no. 1, Spring 2022
By 1918 there were so many wounded men still in the ranks and disabled back in Germany—by the end of the war there were an estimated 4.2 million—that the army decided that a decoration was needed for the troops' uniforms to recognize and honor their sacrifice. Approved by the Kaiser on 3 March 1918, the metal alloy Imperial Wound Badge displayed a German helmet with crossed swords surrounded by a wreath. They were each 1.5 x 1.75 inches and came in three versions: (Note: I cannot find a source for the actual number of awards during WWI.)
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| Ernst Jünger, Wounded 14 Times During WWI, Displaying the Wound Badge (Presumably 1st Class) |
The "progression" could be waived in the event of loss of a limb or eyesight; when such a severe wound occurred, the silver badge was awarded. Badges were made of pressed steel, brass and zinc. All versions of the Wound Badge were worn on the lower left breast of the uniform or tunic.
The badges, of course, made a comeback for the Second World War, with a swastika added to the helmet. An estimated 5 million were awarded. Civilians wounded in Allied bomb raids were also eligible for the badge. There was even a special version awarded to survivors of the 20 July 1944 unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Hitler. The Führer, himself, did not accept one since he had received a Wound Badge for his First World War wounds.
Sources: For Führer and Fatherland: Military Awards of the Third Reich; Wikipedia; the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.
F.W. Harvey
Satan, old friend and enemy of man;
Lord of the shadows and sins whereby
We wretches glimpse the sun in Virtue's sky
Guessing at last the wideness of His plan
Who fashioned kid and tiger, slayer and slain,
The paradox of evil, and the pain
Which threshes joy as with a winnowing fan:
Satan, of your old custom `twas at least
To throw an apple to the soul you caught
Robbing your orchard. You, before you wrought
Damnation due and marked it with the beast,
Before its eyes were e'en disposed to dangle
Fruitage delicious. And you would not mangle
Nor maul the body of the dear deceased.
But you were called familiarly "Old Nick" —
The Devil, yet a gentleman you know!
Relentless — true, yet courteous to a foe.
Man's soul your traffic was. You would not kick
His bloody entrails flying in the air.
Oh, "Krieg ist Krieg," we know, and "C'est la guerre!"
But Satan, don't you feel a trifle sick?
Frederick William Harvey, DCM (26 March 1888–13 February 1957), often known as Will Harvey, was an English poet, broadcaster, and solicitor. His poetry became widely popular during and after World War I. He was decorated for his service as an enlisted man with the Gloucestershire Regiment in 1915. After a return to England for officer training and commissioning, he was redeployed to France. He was soon captured in a German trench while on a reconnaissance mission and became a prisoner of war for the remainder of the war. It was as a prisoner that Harvey wrote a series of poems, of which this is the most famous, and remarkably managed to get them published in his home country before war's end. The work is titled Gloucestershire Friends: Poems from a German Prison Camp and can be read online HERE.
By Jerry White
The Bodley Head, 2014
Reviewed by Peter Grant
This review is an abridgement of the article originally presented on the Western Front Association website.
The title of the book comes from a fantasy novel written during the war by Violet Hunt and Ford Maddox Ford and the fear and reality of air raids features prominently. It seems extraordinary to us that until mid-1917 the government refused to allow any warning of air raids to be given as they thought they would cause unnecessary panic. The government's main advisor on this was Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Edward Henry, one of the least distinguished people to have fulfilled this role and whose ineptitude prompted his own force to strike in 1918 leading to his own resignation. The final death toll in air raids was 668 a figure that paled into insignificance compared with the 30,000 in World War Two but also with the autumn of 1918 when more than 1,000 Londoners a week were succumbing to the 'Spanish Flu'.
White is exemplary in documenting the social, political and economic changes that four years of war brought to London and the book is peppered with fascinating titbits such as the fact that cinema attendances tripled during the war and that its manufacturing economy moved westwards. His conclusions are that the war was something of a watershed if not, in Arthur Marwick's phrase, a 'deluge'. It changed the lives of millions of Londoners: women who no longer saw domestic service as their only choice of work; paupers for whom a more enlightened poor-law authority rejected the workhouse and workers who joined trades unions and the Labour Party.
One of the most obvious changes was the influx of women into jobs previously the sole preserve of men. The South Metropolitan Gas Company employed 2,000 women with housewives reportedly very pleased with the result as the women were 'neater, quieter and quicker than the men.' Though many such jobs were relinquished with the coming of peace in others, office work in the City for example, these were long-term changes to a feminized work force.
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| Order HERE |
White is unstinting in revealing the less savoury aspects of wartime nationalism such as the morally dubious aspects of DORA (the Defence of the Realm Act) and attacks on German families and businesses which sowed the seeds of racially motivated discontent that lasted through the 1930s to the 1970s and beyond.
By James Patton
The first commandant of Canada's new Francophone 22nd battalion was Lieut. Col. Frédèric-Mondelet Gaudet (1867–1947), an ordinance officer known as “the Arsenalist,” who since 1913 had been in Hughes’s doghouse for his criticism of the Ross Rifle.
Gaudet served until 25 January 1916 when, due to ill health, he was replaced by Lieut. Col. Thomas-Louis Tremblay CB CMG DSO ED (1886–1951), an engineer, who held the post for most of the war, although from September 1916 until February 1917 he was invalided out for a spell (more about that later), and in 1918, post-Amiens, he was elevated to brigade command. Both of these officers were rare Francophone graduates of the Royal Military College at Kingston, Ontario.
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| Lieut. Col. Tremblay |
After months of training in Canada and England, the 22nd battalion finally arrived in France on 15 September 1915, a part of the 5th Brigade. In 1962–63, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp (CBC) conducted a series of interviews with veterans who were members of that brigade. They characterized the 22nd as rowdy and fearless. An officer of the 24th Battalion (Victoria Rifles), noted that the 22nd “weren’t as susceptible to discipline as we were.” Further to the point: “They scared the pants off the quartermaster in the Sandling Camp; I remember they chased him. There was some trouble over food. We went out there and here was the quartermaster running away and the whole gang after him.”
The 22nd carried the reputation as “undisciplined” throughout the war. Nevertheless, another 5th brigade veteran, from the 25th (Nova Scotia) Battalion told the CBC interviewers, “. . . these Frenchmen are damn good fighters.” The 25th had been on the flank of the 22nd at both Flers-Courcelette and Regina Trench during the Battle of the Somme.
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| Ready for the Front |
First blood was spilled in April 1916 at the St. Eloi Craters in Flanders. The eager and reckless 22nd attempted to hold on to an indefensible position in the ghastly mess created by the mines. There were significant casualties and no territorial gains. After reinforcement, next stop for the 22nd was on the Somme, where they attacked at Flers-Courcelette in September 1916. Tremblay wrote in his diary (a translation) “This is our first significant attack; it must be a great success for the honor of all French-Canadians we represent in France."
They captured the village of Courcelette and held it for over two days despite repeated German counterattacks. There were hundreds of casualties, Tremblay was emotionally exhausted, and had to step down. His replacement, Maj. Arthur Édouard Dubuc DSO (1880–1944), was a heroic soldier but not a school-trained officer, and he wasn’t up to the job of command; the battalion suffered from serious disciplinary problems, especially absences and desertions. Brig. Gen. H.D.B. Ketchen (1872–1959), commander of the 6th Brigade, reported that “the crime of desertion . . . is very prevalent in the [22nd] Battalion.”
Upon his return, Tremblay cracked down with strict and rigid discipline. He actually opined that his men would not take him seriously until he had someone shot. Over the next ten months, 70 soldiers from the 22nd were court-martialed (48 for illegal absences) and yes, five men were shot at dawn.
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| Early Encampment in France |
The two biggest battles for the 22nd were at Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele, both in 1917. Vimy was a great success for the battalion, with "light" casualties. Passchendaele was horrific, with heavy casualties, but at the end the remnants of the intractable 22nd was holding onto the top of that ridge.
In 1918 their finest hour came at Amiens. Recently backfilled once again, they pushed the Germans back 13 kilometers on the first day and six more on the second. There was hope and optimism, as the war of movement had resumed, and for the next three months, the battalion kept advancing. Along the way, they confronted the Germans at Arras and Cambrai, and took part in liberating several towns, including Valenciennes and finally Mons, in Belgium.
All told, the 22nd Bn. CEF earned 21 Battle Honours: Mount Sorrel, Somme 1916, Flers–Courcelette, Thiepval, Ancre Heights, Arras 1917, Vimy 1917, Arleux, Scarpe 1917, Hill 70, Ypres 1917, Passchendaele, Somme 1918, Amiens, Arras 1918, Scarpe 1918, Hindenburg Line, Canal du Nord, Cambrai 1918, Pursuit to Mons, France, and Flanders 1915–18.
Two members of the 22nd were posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross (VC):
Corporal Joseph Kaeble – Neuville-Vitasse, France—8 June 1918
Lieutenant Jean Brillant – near Amiens, France—8/9 August 1918
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| Royal 22e Régimental Memorial by André Gauthier |
During the war the 22nd battalion had suffered 3,961 casualties, including 1,074 deaths. They sailed back to Canada on 10 May 1919 and were formally disbanded ten days later. However, two of the lessons learned by Canada from the Great War experience were (1) that they needed a bigger and more effective standing army, and (2) that the French-Canadians needed to be made a part of that army.
So an elite Francophone regiment, to be depoted in Québec City, was envisioned, which would subsume the badges and the Battle Honours of the 22nd Battalion CEF. It was seen by some as a sort of "bookend" to the elite (and originally all-British) Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, which in the postwar period was also made regular, with the depot located in Alberta. On 1 April 1920 this new 22nd Regiment was activated, and in the Birthday Honours of 1921, the King bestowed the appellation of Royal, in recognition of the regiment’s CEF heritage.
For its actions in the Second World War the 22nd regiment earned another 24 Battle Honours and then another for Korea in 1953. In 1956 the regiment amalgamated the militia unit Le Régiment de St. Hyacinthe as its 6th (Reserve) Battalion, thereby subsuming the heritage of that unit which included the honours for the Defence of Canada 1812–15 and the 1837 Fenian Raids. More recently, the Afghanistan honour was added to the regimental flag. The Royal 22e Régiment continues today; the French spelling is now official in both languages.
Since inception, the badge of both the CEF battalion and the modern regiment has displayed the motto Je me souviens, which best translates to “I remember.”
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| Modern Insignia |
The man behind this motto was Eugène-Étienne Taché (1836–1912), architect of Québec’s Parliament Building, built between 1877 and 1886. Taché’s father, Sir Étienne-Paschal Taché (1795–1865), had been premier of the Province of Canada, as Québec was known in the early years (Ontario was called Upper Canada then). He had a widely varied record—a regional Patriote leader at the time of the 1837 rebellions but in 1867 called a "Father of the Confederation." Architect son Eugène-Étienne had to adorn the main entrance to the Parliament Building with the provincial coat of arms bestowed by Queen Victoria in 1868, but underneath it he added a motto, often attributed to his father, which is: Je me souviens.
Sources agree that this motto is a pledge to preserve Québec’s distinct heritage and language.
Sources include The Canadian War Museum and the Government of Canada