Stalin the Bureaucrat: Gaining Power Through the Mundane

 

A Misleading Propaganda Piece
Lenin and Stalin Shown as Friendly Colleagues

After the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War, the Office of General Secretary was created by Lenin in 1922 with the intention that it would serve a purely administrative and disciplinary position. Its primary focus would be to determine party membership composition and assign positions within the party. The General Secretary also oversaw recording party events and keeping the party leaders and members informed in party activities as well as such apparently mundane tasks as housekeeping, security, and assigning office space.

When assembling his cabinet, Lenin appointed Joseph Stalin as the General Secretary. A masterful bureaucratic empire builder, in his first several years, Stalin would transform his new office into that of party leader and later leader of the Soviet Union.

Prior to Lenin's death, however, Stalin's tenure as General Secretary was already being criticized. In Lenin's final months, he authored a pamphlet—known as his "Testament"—that called for Stalin's removal on the justification that Stalin was becoming authoritarian and abusing his power. After Lenin died, this pamphlet resulted in a political crisis for Stalin, and a vote was held to remove him. Stalin with the help of Grigory Zinoviev, and Lev Kamenev survived the scandal and remained in his post. 

He cynically capitalized on Lenin's 1924 death by creating a cult over the dead former leader with himself symbolically in the role of its high priest. He also waged a relentless ideological war against his main rival, Trotsky.  By the decade's end, Stalin was the unquestioned leader of the USSR and the General Secretary became the nation's highest office.

Trotsky had been banished from Russia in 1929. He was forced to move country of residence frequently until finally finding refuge in Mexico. It was here that after several failed assassination attempts, one of Stalin’s agents murdered Trotsky in his study.

Source: Wikipedia; Encyclopedia 1914-1918; Encyclopedia Britannica Article, "Lenin's Testament"

The Great War's Costs to Private Lives and Private Property

Skull by Otto Dix
"The war provided a windfall for scavengers such
as worms and maggots."

T. Hunt Tooley, Austin College 

European Civilization and Individuals

One of the enormous costs of the war was the percentage of wealth or productive capacity transferred from private hands into state coffers. Even the original theorist of state power, Niccolò Machiavelli, advised aspiring absolutists to keep their hands off the property (and the women) of their peasants and other productive citizens. . . By the last quarter of the 19th century, the Europe of empires, nationalism, and growing collectivism turned its back on the achievements of individuals and the autonomy of individuals and families. Just before World War I, Europeans increasingly came to define themselves by group—whether by nationality, sex, or class. Each group developed habits of calling on the government to confirm it or support it or to give it special privileges—often with the implicit threat of violence. 

All this was in direct opposition to both the conservative and liberal values of the 19th century, but liberals in Europe and the United States underwent a transformation: starting as champions of individual autonomy, they became slaves to group security. In this scenario, the war became, as Murray Rothbard and others have pointed out, fulfillment.  The policies are too familiar to enumerate: economic intervention on all sides, heavy-handed cheerleading to join the war "system," continual denunciation of internal enemies, disregard of the rule of law, massive transfer of wealth from the hands of individuals, families, and other private sources to the state. Not least of these trends was the overpowering of private lives and even privacy. From the vacuous propaganda extolling groupthink in all the societies of the belligerents to the very real breakup of family units by the Bolsheviks, the war was the cover for multifarious inroads of the interference of the state in private life.

Let us turn to some cases that give us insights into the process of decivilization —the "trek from progress" in Wilfred Owen's words. During the war, government expenditures among the belligerents increased by an average factor of about eighteen, their stated revenues by a factor of about eight.  Cost-of-living indices doubled in the best cases and quadrupled in the worst. Governments in all belligerent countries intervened in their economies through price controls and rationing, and they scrambled to pay for the horrendous costs of the carnage. In so doing, they had to develop new attitudes about private property, and hence about private life itself.

Walther Rathenau provides us with an important case study. Rathenau, the head of German General Electric (AEG), served as the head of the German Office of War Materials from the first days of World War I. His office used state authority to bully companies into consolidation (electric companies included), to confiscate needed resources, to intervene quite directly in the operation of businesses large and small. His task, he revealed in a report only one year into the war, had been daunting, mainly because Germany was so attached to outdated concepts like the rule of law, or rather the rule of laws based on private ownership and disposition, such as those "defective and incomplete" laws of property holding sway since the time of Frederick the Great and earlier.  The "coercive measures" Rathenau had overseen were just part of the array of changes that would "in all probability be destined to affect future times." Indeed, Rathenau showed precisely how the process of change was achieved: by redefinition.

The term "sequestration" was given a new interpretation, somewhat arbitrarily I admit, but supported by certain passages in our martial law…. "Sequestration" [now] does not mean that merchandise or material is seized by the state, but only that it is restricted, i.e., that it no longer can be disposed of by the owner at will but must be reserved for a more important purpose…. At first many people found it difficult to adjust themselves to the new doctrine.

This kind of redefinition went on in all the belligerent countries during and long after the war, and not only in the totalitarian regimes—men like Rathenau were always ready to step forward. Redefinitions of words like confiscation and sequestration led to the redistributional, paternalistic welfare regimes of Britain, France, and FDR's America, as well as the fascist and communist governments in Germany, Italy, and Russia.

Such redefinitions were already underway before the war, but wartime represented fulfillment. This was especially the case for the agents of the state, and for those whose fortunes depended on the expansion of the modern state.

Another wartime case that might give us insight is the related aspect of transferring private wealth to the use of the state. Let us look at wartime inflation. The inflation policies of most of the belligerent powers represent, after all, an extension of the newly redefined erosions of private property. Historically, inflation is a classic game of legal plunder, more effective than taxes since the legalized theft is concealed. Hence, as World War I governments grew by leaps and bounds, as they employed more and more henchmen—both military and regulatory—to do the state's bidding, they transferred correspondingly more of the wealth of their people to the state.

All First World War belligerents "created" currency or money by printing it or imagining it in the form of credit. World War I planners also paved the way for what we might call the modern "ethics" of inflation (extolled by Keynes and later by the Phillips-curve cheering section) by ignoring the involuntary nature of this transfer of wealth and encouraging the victims of these transfers to regard them as acts of patriotism. The head of the German central bank told the bank's board as early as September 25, 1914, that the best way to cover the massive war costs to come would be "an appeal to an entire people," an appeal to "ethical values and not merely personal gain."

After 1918, governments tended to back off somewhat from the more extreme taxation of wartime, but transfers of private property to the states continued in the form of inflation. Even in the United States of the postwar period, when there was technically not much growth of the currency supply itself, there was very substantial credit expansion fueled by the federal government and fostered by the Federal Reserve, as Murray Rothbard demonstrated many years ago in his book America's Great Depression. In general, the Austrian economists, from Mises and Bresciani-Turroni onward, showed quite clearly that the 1920s represented a highly inflationary bubble whose bursting triggered the Great Depression.

If we add to this hidden "inflation tax" that wartime tax hikes raised taxes from a factor of three upward, it is clear that the state crossed a threshold during World War I, a threshold to a much, much higher transfer of private wealth to the state. During the postwar period, the levels abated somewhat, but by and large, the ground was prepared for a continual rise of such transfers up to the end of the 20th century and beyond.

I am suggesting here that a far-reaching cost of the war was the degradation of the autonomy of individuals and families in relation to their property. I might add that the huge, flashy fortunes of the 20th century are not the private property I primarily have in mind, since many of those fortunes are based on monopolistic partnerships between great centers of wealth and governments—the soul of rent-seeking activity, of soaking the producers. What I have in mind is the justice of keeping what one has worked for, the justice inherent in that wonderful capability of the human condition to work hard, plan, and save in order to survive, give, and consume in ways chosen by the individual and family—countered by the state's aggressive tendency to take larger and larger chunks.

The Nationalization of the Private

Part of the problem for henchmen of the state was the question of how to nationalize and systematize a broad swath of essentially private aspects of life. Of thousands of cases we might study in this regard, the multifarious issues of public schooling are perhaps the most closely associated with the loss of privacy. And these issues are revealing when we think of them in connection with the Great War. Here I will concentrate on the United States, where the sainted John Dewey comes importantly into consideration. Dewey's complex collectivist vision of the role of education in society was based on destroying the old mediating habits of individual and family custom, tradition, and negotiation. Like his fellow progressives Frederick Taylor and Edward Mandell House, he believed the new community would be controlled by sophisticated administrators of the "system" who understood the problems of individualism. As Dewey wrote a decade before the war,

We are apt to look at the school from an individualistic standpoint, as something between teacher and pupil, or between teacher and parent…. And rightly so. Yet the range of the outlook needs to be enlarged. What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy.

In the fight to regiment children democratically, Dewey was supported by rafts of progressive foot soldiers. To look at just one, we might think of sociologist and journalist Frances Kellor. Leading the Americanization movement in the period before the war, Kellor linked her predilections for American nationalism, industrial efficiency, and the need for indoctrinating immigrants with American attitudes, creating a movement that took off as World War I started. By 1916, the increasingly influential Kellor was calling for universal military service, carefully crafted indoctrination in the school curricula, and the revitalization of America. She welcomed the coming war because it would create that "heroic spirit by which a nation is finally welded together…." By the end of the war, Kellor and others like her took credit for the real work of lobbying state legislatures successfully to implement a new regime of education, outlawing foreign-language schools, public and private, promoting Americanization classes, and otherwise using the schools to promote the progressive agenda of the destruction of privacy and the immersion of the individual in the murky waters of democracy. 

Another case study has to do with the ways in which states nationalize villages, families, and regions in the name of disaster. Our example is the village of Vauquois, a typical village of the Argonne Forest region of Lorraine, a hilltop home for several hundred peaceful French citizens before 1914. When the war broke out, units of the French army retreated from the frontier to Vauquois in the first weeks of the war and made a stand there. The Germans attacked, but as so often happened, the armies deadlocked, in this case across the very top of the oblong hill or ridge. The sides dug in, both trench lines running through the village, indeed, within easy stone's—or grenade's—throw of each other. This segment of the Western Front line remained in place for four years, except for the blowing to pieces of the narrow no man's land in between by underground mines. Hence, the hill was literally hollowed out by explosives and honeycombed with tunnels. Occasionally, the soldiers fought it out underground. Occasionally, they swapped tobacco and chocolate instead. The American First Army moved into the French positions in September 1918, and "took" the German Vauquois position by incinerating it with thermite shells and then simply going around Vauquois. 

But what had happened to the close-knit French villagers? They were evacuated and relocated many miles behind the lines, where they languished during the war. Once the war was over, the military bureaucracy of French reconstruction—famously haughty and inept—continued to restrict the area so that official reclamation workers could "reclaim" the village, in spite of the pleas of the villagers to let them return to reclaim their own property. Since there was, in fact, no village left beyond huge craters and some bits of masonry, the French government finally—years after the evacuation and even the war itself—decided to declare the area a "red zone." That is to say, no one was allowed to move back in. The plight of the Vauquois villagers finally became privatized, and several charity collections enabled the villagers to return, buy some land a few hundred yards down the hill, and establish new Vauquois. 

Hence, the state had brought on the war that engulfed the private lives of those in Vauquois. The state had removed them for their own safety, and the state prevented them from coming back to salvage what could be salvaged. This is a pattern so engrained ninety years later that it might take some effort to imagine it otherwise: the sooner those individuals could return after the war moved beyond the region in September 1918, the more chance there was for reclaiming something, for recycling the remains, for salvaging what could be salvaged. The sooner they were released from nationalization and returned to private existence rather than living as a part of the war system in another city, the more the natural order of individual, family, and village might reassert itself, even if hard work was necessary. Instead, they faced bureaucratic delays while their government collected millions of francs' worth of reparations from Germany and built new government buildings and various other "infrastructural" additions to France (highways, etc.) far from Vauquois.

With disasters like that of Vauquois and a hundred other French towns and villages, we gain insight into the genesis of the state management of disasters in the 21st century. Individuals who try to protect their own property during a storm are regarded as opponents of the state—problems for the police to deal with. The recent FEMA debacles are only the latest and most extreme version.

Inquiry into many other case studies would fill out the outlines of this story: conscientious objection to the war, the enlistment of women into ultratoxic munitions factories, the propaganda of state obligation that led young women to give out white feathers to able-bodied men who had not enlisted in the army, the program of forced labor in Germany, the internment of ethnic Germans in Australia, the policy of opening the US mail in the search for saboteurs and traitors, and many, many more. But to cut a long story short, as with Rathenau's "sequestration" of private property, and with the "systematization" of state-managed disasters, the upshot of the Great War crisis, as Robert Higgs might point out, was a sea change in all relations of the individual to the state, and therefore a sea change in all relations between and among individuals, families, churches, and nonstate groups.

As I suggested in my opening line, we shall never be able to count the costs of the Great War. We can, however, come to appreciate the world that was lost when the lights went out all over Europe in 1914 and elsewhere thereafter. One of the most important costs was the beginning of the nationalization of private life that continues its course to the present day.

$40 $35

Let me add that this accounting of costs and the whole view of the war in its negative aspects are hardly conceivable in modern democratic and statist modes of thinking. After all is said and done, perhaps the war did make the world safe for democracy. Indeed, Randolph Bourne, famous for observing that war is the health of the state, might have gone further: war is not only the health of the state, but the health of democracy too. There is hardly any aspect of war that is unwelcome to the modern collectivist-democratic state. War justifies every desired measure for the expansion of state power; it necessitates the removal of all intermediaries among or between the state and individuals, families, or other natural human units. War exalts the collective and tends to kill, maim, humiliate, or corrupt the individual. War lends an air of sacralization to the modern positivist, humanist civic religion. Our war-related national holidays represent high holy days, except that the sacrifice extolled is the sacrifice of individuals in the service of the state (or of "freedom" or whatever buzzword the state happens to be using as a synonym for its powers). Hence, from this perspective, the costs of war to individuals are transformed into clear profits for the state.

Source: Excerpted from "Some Costs of the Great War: Nationalizing Private Life", Website of  the Ludwig von Mises Institute, 23 January 2009

Recommended Download: His Knightly Honor Proved—The Fascinating Career of German 461st Infantry Commander at Belleau Wood, Lt. Col. Josef Bischoff, by Colonel William Anderson, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve (Ret)

 

Destined for Belleau Wood
Lt. Col. Josef Bischoff and His Staff in Russia, 1917

The Summer 2025 Issue of Marine Corps History features this major article from Roads contributor William Anderson, USMC. The editor's abstract states: "One of the U.S. Marine Corps’ most resourceful opponents in World War I has received curiously little attention in historical accounts: [Then] Major Josef Bischoff, commander of the 461st Infantry Regiment, who led German forces against Marines at Belleau Wood. This article offers a much-needed biography of the only German tactical leader at Belleau Wood mentioned by name in various accounts of the battle."

Download the full article in PDF format HERE

Remarkable: The University of Washington's Online Tribute to Its Fallen Students and Alumni of the First World War

All Images in This Article Can Be Enlarged by Clicking on Them

As part of the Centennial commemoration of the war, the University of Washington produced a tremendous website remembering the university's participation in the Great War titled Washington on the Western Front at Home and Over There that is still available online. It covers the special wartime activities of the college, the troops experiences overseas, women's service, and many aspects of the wartime experience on the home front. The full site can be accessed HERE.

Most notably, Washington has gone to extraordinary steps in honoring their 58 students and alumni who died in service during the war. They are prominently feature on the home page.  Each of the fallen (57 men and one woman) are shown, usually in uniform, with a link to a well-research biographical sketch for ever one of them.  It is a tremendously moving site to read through. Below are all the 58 subjects and one example to show how thorough the effort has been to honor them fully.

Example:  Lt. Cherrill Betterton, 91st Division

Lt. Betterton and His Mother Maude at His Grave at the Meuse-Argonne Cemetery on Her Gold Star Mothers' Visit

"Run for your life; I'm done for!" were the last words of Lieutenant Cherrill Roach Betterton during the American offensive of 29 September 1918, when the Wild West Division advanced to the village of Gesnes. (Seattle Star, 31 May 1919, pg. 10) During that attack—while traveling with Corporal John Cudd – Cherrill was in an advanced and exposed position when a blast came from a German machine gun. A member of the Intelligence Section responsible for scouting, patrolling, observing and sniping, Cherrill was cited for his bravery by General John J. Pershing for his efforts to get enemy information back to his commanding officers. Last seen when struck by the machine gun's bullets, Cherrill was declared missing, and it would be over eight months before his fate was confirmed. A member of the 361st Infantry with the 91st Division, Cherrill's remains were eventually recovered and he is buried at Meuse-Argonne Cemetery. (bit.ly/uw_betterton)

The oldest of Charles Leland Betterton and his wife Ellen Maude Cahill's five children, Cherrill was born in Oak Cliff, Texas. The family moved from Texas to Colorado to British Columbia before making their way to Seattle. A graduate of Victoria High School in British Columbia, Cherrill attended the University of Washington for two years (1912–14) before transferring to Stanford University. He was a junior when he enlisted and a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. Cherrill was married to Ida May MacDonald on 18 December 1916, in Vancouver. Their romance began as a result of a train accident near Merritt, BC, they were both involved in. (Seattle Times, 24 Dec 1916, pg. 2)

Fall 1916: When the Morale of the Italian Army Began Ebbing

Fighting on the Carso Plateau

In August 1916, the Italian Army won it's first major strategic success of the Great War.  In capturing Gorizia, the strategic city on the lower Isonzo River with a 3-mile advance on a 15-mile front, the gateway to the Carso Plateau with prized Trieste at its end seemed open. Italian morale soared.  Planning began immediately for expanding the bridgehead.  Three battles were fought over the next three months:

Seventh Battle of the Isonzo: September 14–17, 1916
Eighth Battle of the Isonzo: October 10–12, 1916
Ninth Battle of the Isonzo: November 1–4, 1916

Click on Chart to Expand

Arrow Shows Starting Point for Fall 1916 Campaign

The next three battles on the Isonzo, all designed to expand the Gorizia bridgehead, were brief and bloody. Tactically, they featured sharp, uncoordinated local attacks on Austro-Hungarian positions which achieved some progress, but which, as usual, inflicted worse casualties on the attackers (75,000) than the defenders (63,000). These three grim battles probably started the downward spiral of morale in the Italian Army that would culminate a year later in the disaster of Caporetto.

Italian Infantry Advancing to the Front

The Second Army was given the objective of the Selva di Terranova, a wooded area lying back from the river in the gap between the Bainsizza Plateau in the north and the Carso to the south. During the Seventh Battle they captured Mte Rombon, but were forced to withdraw. Heavy losses by both armies then caused Cadorna to suspend offensive operations until October. Second Army's biggest success would take place in November when they captured Hill 171 near Mte St Marco behind Gorizia.

Austro-Hungarian Base on the Carso

Third Army was ordered to advance once again through the Carso pushing the front six miles east. They faced tremendously determined opposition and after advancing nearly a mile in September, their high casualty rate necessitated a halt. The next month their advance was minimal. In early November they drove another mile close to the village of Castagnevizza where the front stabilized as winter approached. By the end of 1916 all the combatants along the Isonzo knew they were trapped in an inescapable war of attrition. The Austrians could not continue to absorb the level of casualties they were suffering and Italy's Fanti were experiencing a loss in confidence in their leaders. Few on either side , though, probably foresaw the surprises coming in 1917.

Interim Cemetery for Italy's Fallen in the Sector

Ahoy Philatelists! Do You Know About the Royal Mail's Blackadder Goes Forth Set?

Captain Edmund Blackadder (1871–1917)

As our regular readers are aware,  your editor is an enthusiast for the Blackadder TV series, especially its concluding season four, titled Blackadder Goes Forth, which covers the Great War.  Consequently, he is a tad embarrassed to announce that he discovered only last week that, since 2023, the Royal Mail has been offering a series of stamps, postcards, and collectibles honoring what is considered one of the greatest television series in British history.

Here are some examples from the set followed by ordering information.

The stamps, postcards, collectibles for Blackadder Goes Forth can be ordered at the Royal Mail website HERE.

For any readers not familiar with the WWI part of the Blackadder series, please read Jim Patton's review HERE and for information on your editor's favorite character from the series, Captain Flashheart, click HERE.

Prologue to Nuremberg: The Politics and Diplomacy of Punishing War Criminals of the First World War

Dinant, Belgium, Memorial to Its 674 Civilians
Killed by the German Army

 By James F. Willis

Greenwood Publishing Group, 1982

Reviewed by Michel J. Landon, JD

Originally published by the New York Law School Journal of International and Comparative Law, Vol. 3, Num. 2, 1982

It was the year Joyce Kilmer wrote "Trees." Elmer Rice first used the flashback technique in "On Trial." Tennessee Williams was born, and Pope Pius X died, succeeded by Cardinal della Chiesa (Pope Benedict XV). The Panama Canal opened, and E.C. Kendell prepared pure thyroxin for the treatment of thyroid deficiencies. Ten-and-one-half million people had emigrated from Europe to the United States during the previous decade. And on June 23, 1914, the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, served as the precipitant to the Great War, the "war to end all wars."

That war saw new and terrifying methods of warfare. Some methods were used for the first time ever, some used for the first time on such a scale: chemical and gas warfare, barrage balloons, aerial dogfights, tanks, and, most importantly, U-boat warfare. The world was, to a considerable extent, astonished and appalled by a war in which territorial gains of but a few miles were paid for by hundreds of thousands of lives and many more casualties. It was felt by many that such carnage must cease and never occur again. Pacifists, especially in the United States, urged isolationism, withdrawal or peace at any cost. Militarists and chauvinists, however, urged victory at all costs. These two and other conflicting philosophies battled each other in the fora of public thought, diplomacy and policy. The advent of speedy mass-communications kept those conflicts in the public eye.

The subtitle of this work, "The Politics and Diplomacy of Punishing  War Criminals of the First World War," clearly enunciates the book's focus. The author has undertaken an examination of the historical, political, diplomatic, and legal antecedents of the post-World War II Nuremberg trials. In so doing, he has obviously devoted considerable energy to the research and compilation of the data and information which permeate every page of this work.

Prologue to Nuremberg is the precursor of what must certainly evolve as a body of literature that will provide a much needed analysis of the predicates and precedents of war crime trials. As the author so succinctly and eloquently illustrates in his first chapter, the Hague conferences of 1899 and 1907 took dramatic, if somewhat petite, steps to bring the conduct of war, as much as possible, within the realm of the concepts of human, moral and natural law. That these well-intentioned principles were repeatedly violated by both sides during the Great War is the unfortunate, but logical, result of the introduction of the human factor.

The author accurately illustrates the conduct of the diplomatic and political protagonists with particular focus on the individual actor's expressions of just and unjust warfare. He further indicates the reluctance of many in authority to recommend that their own particular country initiate, undertake or participate in war crimes trials precisely because they believed the veracity, if not the provability, of the allegations of war crimes on both sides. Of particular interest was the author's excellent treatment of the Turkish-Bulgarian war atrocities, the genocide of Armenians and the subsequent reactions of the allied powers. This aspect of the Great War was cogently presented and is illustrative of the work's merit. 

Unfortunately, the author's scholarly treatment of the work, combined with the volume of raw materials extant and the very fact that this is, admittedly and admirably, a pioneering effort in this field, has some negative side-effects. To this reviewer the book fell somewhat short of expectations in several respects. Fact after arid fact is often foisted upon the reader. Comments and asides are paraded sequentially, frequently without any insight into the interactions of and between sovereigns, diplomats, nations, and peoples that play a quintessential role in international outcome-determinations. The overall comprehension and appreciation of the average reader, even one schooled in the legal or political science disciplines, may certainly be taxed by this plodding recitation of what sometimes amounts to a shopping list of events, characters, and anecdotes. The quality of the author's presentation did not match his obvious excellence in research.

The absence of legal precedent for the trials of World War I "criminals" was indeed (despite, e.g., the post-Civil War Wirz trial to which the author properly refers) an obvious stumbling block to the determination of a proper and adequate forum; to the procedural and substantive law to be followed; to the establishment of an accusatory process; to the actual conduct of proceedings; and to the punishment invoked. All these were duly, although somewhat erratically, illustrated for the reader.

But were these the sole or even the primary obstacles that reduced the post-World War I trials to a shallow exercise in political and military retribution, or were there other factors? In relating the shift in focus of the proposed trials from an attribution of national culpability to an attribution of individual wrongs, the author fails to grasp or portray the national conscience or persona of the various combatants in the conflict. He fails to consider that the British sense of honor, gentility, and fair play was outraged by U-boat warfare, which resulted in the loss of hundreds of innocent lives and nearly six-and-one-half million tons of merchant shipping from 1915 to 1917 alone. On the other hand, Great Britain teetered on the very brink of bankruptcy during the latter stages of the war, particularly before the entry of the United States to which it owed massive war debts. It needed prompt economic stability and recovery. The militarily emasculated Central Powers offered not only a source of reparations but also a trade partner and a counterweight to prevent the emergence of an overly powerful France in postwar Europe. Indeed, Lloyd George snapped at Clemenceau at a peace conference that it was Britain's traditional policy to be France's enemy. The fact that Great Britain and Germany were traditionally and genealogically related further influenced their decisions regarding their post-war relations.

President Wilson, worried about the nagging turmoil in Mexico, about a real or imagined "Yellow Peril," about his New Freedom program, and about his place in history, plodded on with blinders throughout this entire period. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the British Room 40 was exceedingly cautious in transmitting the intercepted Zimmerman telegram, which served as the catalyst for America's entry into the war, to the United States. Wilson was also inclined to focus upon what he perceived to be greater priorities than the trials of war criminals: his Fourteen Points, the League of Nations, and the continued vitality of the Monroe Doctrine.

France needed reparations to rebuild itself and repay its war debt to the United States. It needed further guarantees of safety from subsequent invasion in the form of a buffer between itself and Germany. Although Clemenceau did pressure for extensive trials, as did Lloyd George, France was forced to settle for those few prosecutions that did occur and allow the spotlight to dim and fade away on additional trials. That the author failed to illustrate clearly the above factors unfortunately detracts from the total effectiveness of this otherwise important work.

Additionally, the author's analysis of the legal precedents is inadequate. At that point in history, most of these "precedents" were merely traditions, albeit in many instances centuries-old, without the force or effect of "law." Even those principles of international law that were "codified" under a treaty, international agreement or convention were not universally ratified or even recognized by all the belligerents. Nor was there any international body to enforce violations thereof in bilateral, let alone multilateral, conflicts. This is not surprising  considering the high chauvinistic feelings and the inherent belief in the Act of State doctrine that existed in Europe at that time. Given these "precedents," it was hardly compulsory that war criminals be brought to trial. As the author properly points out in the beginning of his book, any punishment or retribution visited upon the vanquished by the victor was, at that time, primarily an executive act, without, and usually in disregard of, legal or judicial consideration. At an early stage in the book, the author lost sight of this fact.

The author often implies, whether intentionally or not, that the substantive charges of war crimes were readily capable of multinational definition and delimitation. He does, however, explain the difficulties in defining the concept of "aggression" quite well. The author never clearly points out the essential differences between the various legal systems of the belligerents, e.g., French civil law, Prusso-Germanic military code, British and American common law, and general military justice principles. Absent some basic comprehension of these differences, the reader cannot obtain a truly accurate picture of the genesis of the Nuremberg trials or of the extent of the post-World War I difficulties.  Essentially, the author assumes too much knowledge on the part of the average reader.

To Order, Click HERE

Despite the above shortcomings, the work is intellectually digestible in both form and content. The author's command of the subject is apparent. His communication of the subject matter, on the whole, is highly commendable. The book is an important initial step toward filling the void in this area. This reader looks forward to a sequel or second edition through which the author can channel his considerable expertise into an even more comprehensive work.

Michel J. Landon

The Battleships of the Great White Fleet Go to War

America's Battleships on Their World Cruise, 1907–1909

Less than a decade before America joined the hostilities in Europe, President Theodore Roosevelt had sent a fleet of 16 pre-dreadnought battleships on a world cruise. Their journey was a public relations extravaganza, a remarkable feat of seamanship, a risky exercise in "battleship diplomacy," and a message to other great powers that not only was the United States on the rise, she now had the capability to project her power anywhere in the world. It was a success in all these dimensions.

Yet, even before the ships had departed from Hampton Roads, Virginia, with the president looking on, they were obsolete. The nation's first dreadnought-class, all big-gun battleships were already under construction. When the out-of-date vessels returned, their gaudy white paint schemes were replaced by the conventional navy grey and they were gradually phased out of the nation's main line of battle. Most, during the prewar period, were upgraded to resemble the battleships that served America up to the 21st century. Nonetheless, despite looking the role, they were no longer capable of fighting more modern battle wagons head-to-head.

Refitted USS Ohio, 1918
(Your editor's grandfather Tom Stack worked at the Union Iron Works in San Francisco when the Ohio was built.)

However, once in the Great War, the United States needed all the warships it could assemble, and the veterans of the Great White Fleet were called to action. In comparison to their spectacular world cruise, though, the old battleships had a mostly humdrum war, performing a number of necessary, but routine, missions for the rapidly expanding U.S. Navy.

Immediately after war was declared, a few helped seize German ships that had been interned. Several, like the USS Nebraska (shown below) were assigned to escort convoys to Halifax or the mid-Atlantic. On anti-submarine patrols the battleships helped rescue survivors of sinkings, and the Minnesota suffered damage when it struck a mine laid by U-117. They also joined in the operations and deployments conducted around the Caribbean while the major fighting was going on in Europe.

USS Nebraska Adorned in Dazzle Camouflage in Port
Between Convoys

The predominant role the old battleships played in the war effort, though, was in training the tens of thousands of new sailors and reserve officers needed to support the growing fleet. Then with the Armistice, the veterans of America's greatest round-the-world expedition were called on to visit Europe one last time. The last significant mission of the battleships was to help transport the troops of the AEF home from Europe.

Shortly after the war, almost all old battleships were scrapped and their war service quickly forgotten. Their days of glory as the Great War Fleet would, however, will always remain a symbol of the brash, confident nation that was America at the beginning of the 20th century.

Sources: U.S. Navy Websites and Wikipedia

See our article on the Voyage of the Great White Fleet HERE.

Lonesome Memorial #17: The NINE BRAVE MEN on the Somme Battlefield

 

By James Patton

On Tuesday 22 July 2025, at a crossroads in the former Somme battlefield, a private memorial was rededicated, after a major restoration paid for by the Cheshire Roll of Honour, The Western Front Association (UK), and several private donors.

Most private memorials on the Western Front commemorate wealthy and/or high-born officers, who died in circumstances often described as heroic. But this one is for nine  Royal Engineer Other Ranks, just a bunch of ordinary blokes who were steadfast in doing their duty, fortifying a position that was soon rendered surplus to needs.

This minor incident was mentioned in a footnote to The Official History of the Great War (Vol 2 1916) page 162:

No 3 Section of the 82nd Field Company RE, working under the 57th Brigade (19th Division) was engaged under fire in building strong points in front of Bazentin-le-Petit village during the night of the 29th/30th July. The infantry assisting the section was withdrawn to prepare for an attack next day, but the sappers volunteered to go on with the work and did so, until nine were killed and nearly all the others wounded. In the village there now stands a brick memorial "To NINE BRAVE MEN".

The memorial inscription reads:

TO THE MEMORY 

OF NINE BRAVE MEN 

JULY 29, 1916 

82ND FIELD COY R.E.

No 43639 SPR. R.F. CHOAT  — No 59287 SPR. W.HAVILAND 

No 58897 SPR. J.JOINER  — No 95180 SPR. A.ROBOTHAM 

No 21182 SPR. C.W.VERNON  — No 43609 SPR. C.D.ELLISON

No 47753 SPR. J.HIGGINS  — No 61876 SPR. F.BLAKELEY 

No 86972 PNR. F.TREDIGO

More detail about the background to this company's work is found in an account written by the unit's commanding officer, Capt. (later Lieut. Col.) Reginald Francis Amhurst Butterworth  CMG DSO  (1876–1960) who wrote:

Nos 3 and 4 Sections. . . has to go up at dusk through the little village of Bazentin to wire in some tactical points gained during the day's fighting. They had two or three men hit on the way up and then for three or four hours they carried on their work under a hellish storm of H.E. and machine gun fire. The work was considered vitally necessary, accordingly Lt Howlett carried on steadfastly with No 4 Section and C.S.M. Deyermond with No 3 Section till the work was through. . . 6 killed and 19 wounded out of 40. I added the names of three others, who died with great heroism 'sticking it' in the same way on the previous night, thus making up the tale of the NINE BRAVE MEN. Choate was a first rate carpenter and a most loveable man. Ellison just a boy from a North Country workshop, Vernon a fitter and a fine stalwart fellow. . .

Lt. Col. Butterworth in 1929

Three days later 82 FC RE left the area. Capt. Butterworth wrote: "However I had written to each of the next of kin of the nine men. . . adding that I marked the spot. . . and would go back some day and put up a little stone to their memory. I had a block of granite engraved in the [16^th (Irish)] Divisional workshop. . . in November 1917. . . we collected bricks from the ruins near by and so constructed our small tribute of affection and respecting to the memory of our nine brave comrades."

Since, as engineers they had been recruited nation-wide, these nine repesented a Hollywood-like cross-section of Englishmen. Seven of them, including Choat, from Essex, Joiner from posh Maidstone in Kent, the Londoner Robotham, Vernon from gritty Wakefield in Yorkshire, Haviland from Birmingham in Warwickshire, Blakeley from the gloomy mills of Preston in Lancashire and Tredigo, a Cornishman but from Nottinghamshire, have no known graves and are remembered on the Thiepval Memorial, Pier and Face 8a and d.

The other two are Ellison, from Staffordshire, who is buried in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) Caterpillar Valley Cemetery (Special grave 21) and Higgins, from Tyneside, Northumberland, who lies in the CWGC Becourt Military Cemetery, Plot I Row P Grave 9.

Vernon's and Robothams's dates of death are given as 30 July, Higgins's as 31 July, and the others as 29 July in both the CWGC Register and His Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO) publication Soldiers Died in the Great War1914-19. In both sources, Ellison is spelled “Ellisson,” and in the CWGC Register Tredigo is spelled “Tregidgo.”

Bazentin Sector, July 1915

In the 1980s, the NINE BRAVE MEN memorial was refurbished and enclosed in a low wall by teenage boys from 82 Squadron,  Junior Leaders Regiment Royal Engineers, but after that program was discontinued, the memorial was once again neglected. Now, cleaned and touched up, the entire structure has also been moved a short distance to reduce the risk of damage from road traffic. The Bazentin Commune has accepted responsibility for its maintenance. 

Finding the Memorial: 

It now sits on a bend of the D73 highway, just down  the road from High Wood. The entrance to the CWGC  Bazentin- le- Petit Cemetery is just 500 ft. to the south.

Sources: The Western Front Association (UK); National Portrait Gallery

Best and Most Concise Summary I've Found of the Operational Challenges of the World War I Battlefields

This is an excerpt from the article "Dumb Donkeys or Cunning Foxes? Learning in the British and German Armies during the Great War" by Dr Robert T. Foley  of the Defence Studies Department, King’s College London.

Across the Western Front from early September, a rather strange thing began occurring. As the French and German armies shifted units from their southern wings to their northern in an attempt to outflank each other, improvised field positions began appearing wherever the two armies remained. While these were by no means the extensive trench systems of later in the war, they allowed positions to be held with fewer troops, freeing up others for use elsewhere. Although often seen as an innovation of the First World War, field positions had a long history, including in wars in the years immediately before 1914. Both the Balkan Wars of 1912/13 and the  Russo-Japanese War of 1904/05 had seen extensive use of entrenchments, and European armies were well versed in their use. By November 1914, the belligerents in Belgium and France faced each other from two increasingly sophisticated defensive  systems. These trenches proved successful at resisting most attempts to break through for the next four years. Several interrelated factors created this deadlock. 

First, the combination of cover and firepower created a tactical problem for attackers. Field fortifications provided cover for defending troops as they waited out enemy preparatory artillery bombardments and small-arms fire. Once this fire had lifted to allow attacking troops to close with the enemy, defenders would emerge and fire into the now-exposed attacking troops. Even if some defenders were killed or incapacitated by the preparatory fire, modern rifles could easily fire 20 rounds per minute, and the increasingly available machine guns could fire up to 600 rounds per minute. Added to the firepower of the infantry was that of the artillery. Again, as the war progressed, artillery firepower increased with ever-larger numbers and sizes of artillery pieces being added to the tables of organization of European armies. All of this firepower struck the attacker when he was at his most vulnerable. In order to attack the enemy, the attacker had to leave the protection of his own trenches, exposing him to the fire of the enemy. Thus, on the Western Front, relatively few defenders to stop cold almost any attack in its tracks. 

Added to this tactical problem was an operational problem. The defensive effectiveness of frontline trenches meant that they could be held by relatively few troops. Given the size of armies during the war, this left large numbers of units free to act as a reserve in case the enemy did succeed in breaking into a defensive position. (Although the calculations are by no means exact, the British official history noted that the two sides could each field 15,000 men per mile, or 10 men per yard, on the Western Front in 1914.) Moreover, it was clear to all that any attempt to break through the trenches would have to be carefully managed—attacking troops would have to be brought forward and artillery preparation carried out. Throughout most of the war, this buildup of men and material telegraphed an attacker’s intentions and allowed a defender to ready his reserves. Even if surprise could be achieved, the tactical break-in took so long that invariably defenders had time to bring up fresh reserves. 

As the war progressed, the two problems became more closely intertwined. From late 1915, the simple field fortifications gave way to complex defensive systems of considerable depth. Instead of a simple trench line, by late 1917, the Germans had developed sequential defensive systems, each of which comprised a number of trench lines and centres of resistance with a depth of up to 15 kilometres. The object of defensive ceased to be holding the forward line and became absorbing an enemy attack and inflicting high casualties before counter-attacking to regain lost ground. With systems being so deep, the problem of tactical mobility combined with that of operational mobility to prevent movement on the Western Front.

Source: International Affairs 90/2 (March 2014)

Also see Dr. Foley's article "Machine Gun Lessons from the Somme" HERE

The Attack on the Anthill from Paths of Glory — Video

 

Spain's Fake Neutrality

King Alfonso XIII, Who Survived Five Assassination
Attempts During His Reign, Supported Neutrality

Carolina Garcia Sanz, University of Seville

In southern and Mediterranean Europe during the First World War, Italy, Portugal, and Greece did not cling to neutral status, which made Spain an exception. Spain not only kept its neutrality but also strengthened its diplomatic connections with the Allies.  Starting in 1902, the Liberal Spanish government submitted its national ambitions in Morocco to a trilateral agreement with France and Great Britain. Moreover, the Spanish economy was heavily dependent on Great Britain and France.  Thus, on these grounds, despite the Royal Decree of Neutrality from 4 August 1914, the Conservative Eduardo Dato (1856–1921) cabinet unofficially informed the British that Spain would exhibit “benevolent neutrality” towards the Allied side.

All in all,  a non-belligerent fake-neutrality was the best option for Spain. In spite of the Spanish politicians’ ineffectuality, the country stayed out of the savage butchery. Furthermore, as the Italian case would  show, entering war—even on the winning side—was not always a guarantee of achieving any national aspirations.

Spain was the most self-sufficient European neutral in terms of minerals and foodstuffs. Moreover, its geographically strategic position between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean increased Spain’s importance for belligerent communications and transit trade. Spanish dynamism in commercial terms, and trade connections with the main ports of France, Italy, and North Africa, drew in combatants' involvement in Spanish affairs. Additionally, although Spain had not played a major part in Germany’s foreign policy prior to the First World War, the war intensified German activity against Anglo-French influence on Spain.

Don Quixote in the War
1915 Fantasy Novel

Despite ongoing pressures from the Allies, Spain could offer them little by entering the war, especially given the incalculable services it was already providing for their cause as a “neutral ally.” For instance, On 8 August 1914, the Spanish government had provided a guarantee to supply charcoal and foodstuffs to the population of Gibraltar, a British colony. When the Allies launched an offensive in the Dardanelles, they urgently needed to maintain their sea-based military and naval population in transit to or from the straits. The same was true while the Allied  convoy system was based at Gibraltar in the spring of 1917. Spain became one of the Entente’s biggest suppliers of foodstuffs and raw materials, while Spanish-German commercial relations were cut off. The Spanish government signed several bilateral trade agreements but only with the Allied countries.

U-boats, appearing in Spanish ports or anchoring in Spanish waters unannounced, proved to create serious practical and diplomatic problems. To complicate matters, during unrestricted submarine warfare, German u-boats sank over 80 Spanish-flagged vessels. German and Austrian submarine manoeuvres also put the convoy system at risk in the Mediterranean. On 10 May 1917, the first convoy had sailed from Gibraltar. The French and British foreign offices put harsh pressure on the Spanish government to prosecute German espionage on the Spanish coasts.

German U-35 on a 1917 Stopover in Cartagena

Spain, however,  without being at war, managed to have the war at Home.  The conflict provided Spain with an economic boom. Imports were decreasing dramatically while the volume and prices of raw materials and foodstuffs exports were rising. But the great prosperity was not evenly distributed across all  groups. Frequently, supplies of bread and other basic foodstuffs were limited, which particularly affected the rural and urban working class.  A civil “war of words” between Germanófilos (German supporters) and Aliadófilos (Allied supporters) flared up in Spain, showing the ideological gap between the ruling elite and the outsiders in the political system. Leftwing workers (the so-called “real Spain”) were ideologically closer to the Allies, whereas church and monarchist parties (identified with the “official Spain”) actively supported the German cause. With public opinion divided over World War I, King Alfonso XIII—who otherwise had a controversial reign—used his relations with other European royal families to help preserve a stance of neutrality, as espoused by his government.

Source:  Compiled from several articles by Dr. Sanz at 1914-1918 Online; Wikipedia

1914 and Innocence

The British Expeditionary Force Arriving,  August 1914

Shaun O'Connell

For Henry James, writing in August 1914, The Great War represented “the plunge of civilization into the abyss of blood and darkness . . . that so gives away the whole long age during which we have supposed the world to be, with whatever abatement, gradually bettering, . . . making it too tragic for words.”  But not, as it turned out, beyond the reach of language, for James’s eloquent epiphany anticipates the floodtide of words poured out to describe and account for modern warfare. For war, whatever else it may be, is a painful process of initiation and enlightenment, a motivation for reflection and an inspiration for journalism, memoirs, fiction, and poetry. Indeed, the tragic may only be contained, fully imagined, in language.

“Never such innocence,” wrote Philip Larkin of the British who went off to war in “MCMXIV”:

Never before or since,

As changed itself to past

Without a word—the men

Leaving the gardens tidy,

The thousands of marriages

Lasting a little while longer:

Never such innocence again.

But innocence among the young men who fight wars and the citizenry who applaud them as they march “over there,” while qualified by the record of previous wars, is, it seems, infinitely renewable, so the terrible facts and lessons of warfare require constant retelling. War, as H. G. Wells wrote, “is just the killing of things and the smashing of things,” but “when it is all over, then literature and civilization will have to begin again.”

The literature of warfare of the last century, particularly war memoirs, then, stands as an eloquent claim to civilization under siege and threatened by destruction; such literature is testimony to the transformation, for soldiers and civilians, affected by unimaginable experience, from innocence to awareness.

From: "Wars Remembered (2003)", New England Journal of Public Policy, 18 November 2015