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

Statement of Abdication

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

Wilhelm

Amerongen, 28 November 1918

By Vanessa LeBlanc

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

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

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

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

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

The Kaiser and Crown Prince, 1916

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

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

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

Sir Hew Strachan on Clausewitz and the Nature of War — Video

London on the First Armistice Day

Londoners at the Queen Victoria Memorial, 11 November1918

As reported by American War Correspondent Edgar Bramwell Piper:

The armistice was signed at 5 o’clock in the morning [on 11 November]. London and England should have been notified of the result early in the day, immediately after the signing of the document. But the London papers are poor contraptions, and they have a way here of awaiting official announcements. It isn’t news until the King, or the Premier, or some other great man has said it or done it. In any event, the method of communicating to the public the great fact that Germany had  officially acknowledged that it had lost was through Lloyd George. 

In the House of Commons that afternoon, immediately after prayers, I rose and announced the signing of the Armistice, the terms of which I proceeded to read.

I concluded by saying: “Those are the conditions of the Armistice. Thus at 11 o’clock this morning came to an end the cruellest and most terrible war that has ever scourged mankind. I hope we may say that thus, this fateful morning, came to an end all wars. This is no time for words. Our hearts are too full of a gratitude to which no tongue can give adequate expression. I will, therefore, move: That this House do immediately adjourn, until this time to-morrow, and that we proceed, as a House of Commons, to St. Margaret’s, to give humble and reverent thanks for the deliverance of the world from its great peril, the cruellest and most terrible war that has ever scourged mankind. 

David Lloyd George, Prime Minister 

The day was threatening and misty; a very poor time for a public celebration of any kind. Then a lorry came lumbering up the Strand firing anti-aircraft guns. The significance of the exploit was not at first clearly understood. Some thought it was a final German air raid. But at last it dawned on the London mind that the war was over; and the impossible happened. London cast all reserve to the winds and let itself loose in a spontaneous and mighty demonstration. It was mainly a thing of moving and joyous crowds, going somewhere, anywhere, and making a noise—not a din after the American fashion, but yet a fairly noisy noise, all quite seemly, disciplined and respectable.

The crowds were enormous, and they were everywhere. It is said that London has 7,000,000 people. It must be an underestimate. Far more than that number apparently assembled at Trafalgar Square and before Buckingham Palace, and marched in platoons or companies or irregular regimental formations up and down the Strand. The crowd before the palace wanted to see and hear the King and Queen. “We want King George!” cried the people. Here, where they have King George, and evidently intend to keep him, there was no emotional outburst, no passionate outcry, no mob frenzy, merely the more or less formal call of a disciplined people to see their King, doubtless because they reasoned among themselves, in good English style, that it was the correct procedure in the circumstances. There is no denying the popularity of the King, however.

If they were to hold an election for King in England tomorrow, the incumbent would distance all others at the polls. At a quarter to 11 there were no signs of special commotion before the palace. A few idlers had gathered to watch the ceremony of changing the guard. The only flag in sight was the royal standard. At 11 o’clock, precisely, a typewritten copy of the Premier’s announcement that hostilities had ceased was hung outside the railings and then the maroons exploded. The crowds began to gather, coming from all directions like bees in a swarm. Many had All Saints Alive flags. Men on horseback came from somewhere and reined up before the palace. Taxicabs and motor cars came along and people who wanted to see better began to climb on the roofs. Within a few minutes many thousands had assembled and they began to call for the King.

King George V Salutes the Crowd

At 11:15 King George, in uniform, appeared on the balcony. The Queen, bareheaded and wearing a fur coat, was with him. The Duke of Connaught came too, and the Princess Mary. The soldiers presented arms and the Irish Guards’ band played the national anthem and the crowd solemnly took up the slow refrain. Then the band played “Rule Britannia.” The people sang again and flags began to wave. The King removed his cap and his loyal subjects cheered, and someone proposed a groan for the Kaiser, which was given sonorously, and the ruler of Great Britain and all the Indies donned his cap and the royal group went back into the palace.

From a Londoner's Diary: 

Peace! London to-day is a pandemonium of noise and revelry, soldiers, and flappers being most in evidence. Multitudes are making all the row they can, and in spite of depressing fog and steady rain, discords of sound and struggling, rushing beings and vehicles fill the streets. Paris, I imagine, will be more spontaneous and magnificent in its rejoicing. Berlin, also, is reported to be elated, having got rid not only of the war but also of its oppressors.

The peoples are everywhere rejoicing. Thrones are everywhere crashing and the men of property are everywhere secretly trembling. ‘A biting wind is blowing for the cause of property’, writes an Austrian journalist. How soon will the tide of revolution catch up the tide of victory? That is a question which is exercising Whitehall and Buckingham Palace and which is causing anxiety even among the more thoughtful democrats. Will it be six months or a year?

Beatrice Webb, Diary Entry 11 November 1918

Celebrating at Waterloo Place

Later, the King decided to drive through the city. He was accompanied by the Queen and the Princess Mary. Rain was falling, but nobody in England minds rain. It was a triumphal procession. Everywhere at central points had gathered many thousands to welcome their majesties. Here and there was a police officer, but the police had no  difficulty with the crowds. There was no special or unusual guard for the King and Queen, only a few outriders. They have no fear, evidently, in England that anything untoward will happen to the Crown, through the act of a madman, or the deliberate deed of a regicide. A policeman’s baton is enough. The English respect authority and obey it. The celebration did not end on Monday night. But it started up again on Tuesday and continued through the week. When London celebrates it celebrates. There is no question about it. 

It was announced that the King and Queen would attend a thanksgiving service at St. Paul’s Cathedral on the succeeding day [12 November]. The street scenes of the previous day were repeated during the progress of the royal couple to the magnificent centre of worship. It is a noble and wonderful shrine, with a fit setting for occasions of vast importance. Great bells rang and a mighty concourse gathered, and a solemn and beautiful ceremony was conducted in commemoration of the triumph of the allied cause.

The King and Queen Mary Arriving for
the Thanksgiving Service

The Strand, ending in Trafalgar Square, the heart of London, is the most popular thoroughfare in the city. When the joymaking began, the crowds took possession not only of the Strand, but of all available vehicles. A favourite adventure of men and women was to commandeer a taxicab and to pile in and on anywhere, preferably on top. One car, with a prescribed capacity for four, had exactly twenty-seven persons sardined in its not-too-ample proportions.

Then there were lorries–automobile trucks–crowded with soldiers, civilians and girls, all waving flags and singing or shouting. Soldiers formed in procession and marched along. After a while they turned about and went the other way. Girls in uniform– munitions workers–appeared in large numbers, and walked along, arm-in-arm with the men in khaki. Flags were plentiful. The day went on with no diminution of the crowds or moderation of the excitement. Apparently it increased rather than diminished. Business was wholly suspended, except in the restaurants and hotels, and the metropolis gave itself up to merrymaking. 

An American Army Car Full of Revelers

Yet it was mainly an unorganized, though orderly, spectacle of movement, without any great variety of stunts or picturesque Incidents. There was little drinking or drunkenness, apparently, in the streets, though there was plenty, and to spare, later in the great hotels. Possibly the crowd was sober because intoxication costs money nowadays in England; or perhaps it was not in the humor to drink. But the gay assemblies within the walls of the restaurants had no such scruples. There was much drinking, much noise, much laxity, a complete departure from the innocent gaiety of the streets.

Sources: From Somewhere Near the War by Edgar Bramwell Piper; War Memoirs of David Lloyd George 1918;  Beatrice Webb, Diaries of, 11 November 1918. 

The highly regarded memoir, Somewhere Near The War: Being An Authentic And More Or Less Diverting Chronicle Of The Pilgrimage Of Twelve American Journalists To The War Zone, can be ordered HERE.

The Origins of the War? — There's Too Damn Much Documentation and You Can't Trust the Memoirs!

Christopher Clark,

The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914

The historian who seeks to understand the genesis of the First World War confronts several problems. The first and most obvious is an oversupply of sources. Each of the belligerent states produced official multi-volume editions of diplomatic papers, vast works of collective archival labour. There are treacherous currents in this ocean of sources. Most of the official document editions produced in the interwar period have an apologetic spin. The 57-volume German publication Die Grosse Politik, comprising 15,889 documents organized in 300 subject areas, was not prepared with purely scholarly objectives in mind; it was hoped that the disclosure of the pre-war record would suffice to refute the 'war guilt' thesis enshrined in the terms of the Versailles treaty. For the French government too, the post-war publication of documents was an enterprise of 'essentially political character', as Foreign Minister Jean Louis Barthou put it in May 1934. Its purpose was to 'counter-balance the campaign launched by Germany following the Treaty of Versailles'. In Vienna, as Ludwig Bittner, co-editor of the eight-volume collection Osterreich-Ungarns Aussenpolitik, pointed out in 1926, the aim was to produce an authoritative source edition before some international body — the League of Nations perhaps? — forced the Austrian government into publication under less auspicious circumstances. The early Soviet documentary publications were motivated in part by the desire to prove that the war had been initiated by the autocratic Tsar and his alliance partner, the bourgeois Raymond Poincare, in the hope of de-legitimizing French demands for the repayment of prewar loans. Even in Britain, where British Documents on the Origins of the War was launched amid high-minded appeals to disinterested scholarship, the resulting documentary record was not without tendentious omissions that produced a somewhat unbalanced picture of Britain's place in the events preceding the outbreak of war in 1914. In short, the great European documentary editions were, for all their undeniable value to scholars, munitions in a 'world war of documents', as the German military historian Bernhard Schwertfeger remarked in a critical study of 1929.

The memoirs of statesmen, commanders and other key decision makers, though indispensable to anyone trying to understand what happened on the road to war, are no less problematic. Some are frustratingly reticent on questions of burning interest. To name just a few examples: the Reflections on the World War published in 1919 by German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg has virtually nothing to say on the subject of his actions or those of his colleagues during the July Crisis of 1914; Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov's political memoirs are breezy, pompous, intermittently mendacious and totally uninformative about his own role in key events; French President Raymond Poincare's ten-volume memoir of his years in power is propagandistic rather than revelatory – there are striking discrepancies between his 'recollections' of events during the crisis and the contemporary jottings in his unpublished diary. The amiable memoirs of British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey are sketchy on the delicate question of the commitments he had made to the Entente powers before August 1914 and the role these played in his handling of the crisis.

---

King Mark:  Who will make known to the world the inscrutably deep secret cause?

Tristan: That, King, I cannot tell you; and what you ask, that you will never learn.

Tristan and Isolde, Act II

How the Germans Underestimated the Tommies (At Least Early On)

 

By George Kerevan

As a consequence of the long intermarriage of the British and German royal families, upper-class Germans knew upper-class Britain quite intimately during the decades before the First World War. Families and businesses were intermingled and it was common for young Germans to attend school or university in Britain. In turn, the British were in awe of German high culture, its literature, music and science. British universities were even persuaded to import that strange German innovation, the research degree or PhD. As a result, many German army officers spoke perfect English and had a deep working knowledge of British society — or thought they had. They were not impressed by what they saw. Upper-class Germans thought the English had become debased by Celtic and Jewish influences, and by a selfish concentration on commerce as opposed to heroic Wagnerian values and a love of science and the arts for their own sake.

So the Germans entered the First World War with contempt for the decadence of British culture. When the first British troops taken prisoner in 1914 sportingly tried to shake hands with their captors, they were beaten up for their pains. The Germans disdainfully characterized this British national characteristic as “sportsidiotsmus”—meaning they were un-serious and ignorant.

The Prussian military believed the French and Russians were brave and worthy enemies, while the Brits were only in it for the money. Ordinary rank-and-file Germans were taught to believe the British started the war out of jealousy and were paying the French and Russians to encircle the Fatherland.

[The Germans assumed that the disillusioned British deserters they interrogated were typical Tommies:]

One German report on 35 British soldiers captured at Ypres on 12 February 1916 sums up the received Prussian wisdom: “crooked legs, rickety, alcoholic, degenerate, ill-bred, and poor to the last degree.” Another intelligence report referred to the “poor little men of a diseased civilisation.”

[Thus, the Huns were shocked by the tenacity of the British Army—and by the high technology they brought to the war.]

Source: From a 2006 review of Through German Eyes: the British and the Somme 1916, by Christopher Duffy published in The Scotsman

The Attack of the Dead Men: The Russian Defense of Osowiec Fortress – Video

From your Editor:  The narration of this video is overly dramatic and some the details presented sound shaky, but it's a whale of a story anyway.  You won't be bored. MH

The Wartime Paintings of German Soldier Hans Baluschek

Introduction: Hans Baluschek (1870–1935) was a German painter, graphic artist and writer. Despite his age, he volunteered for army when war broke out and served on both the Eastern and Western Fronts.  He recorded his experiences in paintings. Baluschek was a prominent representative of German Critical Realism, and as such he sought to portray the life of the common people with vivid frankness. His postwar paintings centered on the life of working class Berlin. Baluschek belonged to the Berlin secession movement; a group of artists interested in modern developments in art. These selections are from his 1916 collection, Der Krieg 1914–1916 (The War). My friend Walt Kudlick discovered Der Kreig and scanned the images for a slideshow and my former website of those days.

Click on Images to Enlarge 

(Display=580px; Enlarged=960px)

Remembering a Veteran: Lt. Orlando Henderson Petty, MD, United States Navy (Assigned 5th Marines) MoH

Lieutenant Orlando Petty
(Apparently Prior to Presentation of the Medal of Honor)

By John F. Andrews

Orlando H. Petty was born on 20 February 1874 in Cadiz, Ohio. Some accounts list is place of birth as Harrison, Ohio. The forms he filled out by hand list Cadiz. He was the son of Asbury F. Petty and Sarah Kyle. His twin brother was Orville Anderson Petty. He graduated from Muskingum College, and then went to medical school at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, graduating in 1904. He married Marcia Mellersh in 1908. They had two children, Clara and Orville. He died on 2 June 1932, at the age of 58, in Philadelphia, PA. 

After Petty completed his training, he continued on the faculty at Jefferson and specialized in metabolic disorders (what we would refer to as endocrinology today). At the age of 42, he joined the U.S. Naval Reserve Force and was commissioned as a lieutenant, junior grade, on 5 December of 1916. 

In a letter received by the USN on 3/29/1917 he wrote:

To Surgeon General, USN

Subject: Request for assignment to active duty in the event of hostilities or if services are now needed will gladly serve in the interhostile period. In the event of hostilities or if my services are now needed I respectfully request assignment to active duty. As I am actively connected with two hospitals I would perhaps be more efficient with a hospital assignment. If such is not available I will well and faithfully perform whatever service you may assign me.” 

He shipped over to France in July of 1917 on the USS Henderson. He was stationed in St. Nazaire, France from August to November 1917. 

He was transferred to the medical staff serving the USMC 5th Regiment, AEF, on 8 May 1918 (USN Reserve Force class 4). His commanding officer was Lt. Commander Paul Dessez. He worked in the battalion aid station in Lucy-le-Bocage where he performed under arduous conditions. The aid station was subjected to heavy artillery barrages and gas attacks on multiple occasions during his work there. The events depicted in Our Desperate Hour: A Novel of the Battle of Belleau Wood are this author’s recreation of events described in available historical records. Petty was severely gassed while struggling to treat and rescue USMC Captain Lloyd Williams [of "Retreat? Hell, we just got here!" renown] on 11 June 1918.

 

Enemy Artillery Damage at Lucy-le-Bocage

Petty was evacuated and after degassing was admitted to Field Hospital Number 16. This was the hospital for gas cases located in Luzancy, France. It is a bit unclear how long he was there. His service records indicate admission on 11 June 1918 and discharge in “Jun 1918.” He was an inpatient at Officers Hospital #4 from 11 August 1918 to 1 September 1918. This was probably American Red Cross Military Hospital Number 4 in Paris. The exact location of that hospital in Paris is unclear. Another record showed him receiving care at Base Hospital #101 for bronchitis (probably due to the gas exposure) on 27 August1918. Yet another record showed him at Red Cross Hospital #3. From 1 September 1918 to 13 December 1918, one record has him assigned to US Navy Base Hospital 5 in Brest, France. He was transferred to the US Naval Air Station, Pauillac, Bordeaux, France on 16 October 1918. It appears that his time in the hospitals from September through his debarkation back to the U.S. in December was partially for treatment and that he probably continued to serve in a reduced duty fashion on the medical staff. According to Veterans Bureau records, his diagnoses included:

1.  Gassed

2.  Fibroid phthisis

3.  Chronic enteritis and colitis

4.  Gall bladder infection  

Fibroid phthisis is an antiquated term that included cases of tuberculosis complicated by chronic lung scarring along with other non-tubercular lung scarring. The thought at the time was that the non-tubercular cases (such as the condition we now call black lung disease) eventually became infected with tuberculosis. This disease, however, could be confused with other forms of fibrotic or scarring diseases of the lungs, including scarring in the aftermath of mustard or other warfare gas exposure. The “Chronic Enteritis and Colitis” was probably a form of persistent or chronic gastroenteritis, which in another report was listed as dysentery. 

Petty’s gas mask was torn while he carried Captain Lloyd Williams away from the destroyed battalion aid station in Lucy. During the evacuation and for an undocumented time afterward, he treated Williams and others without the gas mask in the midst of a gas attack. This exposed his facial skin, eyes, nose, mouth, and lower respiratory tract to mustard gas (the main gas apparently used in that attack). This would have left him with skin and eye inflammation. Swallowed mustard gas could cause gastroenteritis. When inhaled, mustard gas commonly caused chemical bronchitis that was often complicated by pneumonia. Heavy exposure could cause a non-infectious inflammatory reaction in the lungs that could lead to the formation of scar tissue that today would be called pulmonary fibrosis. At that time might be difficult to distinguish this from the after-effects of tuberculosis. The diagnosis of “Fibroid Phthisis” could be entirely due to the late effects of the gas exposure. However, tuberculosis was common in that era, and many physicians were exposed to it and became infected. Some of those would be left with chronic lung scarring. Radiology was a new science in that era, and chest x-rays were not a routine procedure. Thus, it was unlikely that he had baseline chest X-rays unless he had prior tuberculosis.

 

Aid Station at Belleau Wood

He left France on the USS De Kalb and arrived in the U.S. on 19 December1918. He was honorably discharged from active service on either 19 or 21 December 1918 and returned home. He continued to serve in the U.S. Navy Reserve Force after that. In 1921 the Congress reduced the appropriation for the U.S. Navy Reserve Force from a requested $12 million to $7 million. This led the Navy to drastically reduce its reserve force. In this process, Petty was honorably discharged from his “class 2” reserve commission on 30 September 1921. He applied for reinstatement in what was termed a “class 6” commission in October of 1921, but the Navy denied his application. The record of this stated that he was denied due to the fact that they had not received his application before the deadline of 1 January 1922. While he filed an application in October of 1921, the application must have not been complete. 

Petty applied for Veterans Bureau War Risk insurance compensation for his service-related disability in February of 1922. This was approved. Later records indicated that the disability was rated as “not less than 30%,” though the exact physical deficits were not clear.

 

Postwar Photo

At some time between 1922 and 1927, he applied for a commission in the U.S. Army Reserve Medical Forces. There was a statue that stated that service members receiving compensation for service-related disability were ineligible to serve in the reserve forces. The Army surgeon general waived this exclusion for Petty, who held the rank of major until at least 1927. 

In 1927, Petty discussed the possibility of a transfer from the Army back to the Navy. The 4th Naval District was planning to establish a group of six specialists to serve as the nucleus of a special medical unit attached to the USMC. They wanted Petty to be one of their members. He passed a physical exam and was ruled fit for that duty and offered a commission as a lieutenant commander in the Volunteer Naval Reserve, for Special Service [USN MC-V(S)]. However, the surgeon general of the Navy could not waive the statutory exclusion of those receiving Veterans Bureau compensation. On that basis, Petty withdrew his application to the Navy. 

After the war, Petty returned to Philadelphia. He took a position at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a professor of metabolic diseases. He also served as the personal physician of Philadelphia mayor Harry Mackey. He was appointed to head the Philadelphia Public Health Department in 1931. During that time, he was active in the field of metabolic diseases and authored a number of articles and a book: Diabetes: Its Treatment by Insulin and Diet. 1924, Philadelphia, PA. F.A. Davis. This book went through a number of printings and was apparently quite well received.

 

Lt. Petty's Grave, Roxborough, PA

The details of Petty’s health after the war are unclear. He was found dead in his bedroom, shot through the heart with his military service pistol, on 2 June 1932. The death was ruled a suicide. His family stated that he had been in ill health. He is buried in St. Timothy Churchyard, Roxborough, PA. 

Lieutenant Orlando H. Petty’s awards include: 

U.S. Navy Medal of Honor citation of Lieutenant Orlando H. Petty, (M.C.), USNRF 

"For extraordinary heroism while serving with the Fifth Regiment, United States Marines, in France during the attack in Bois de Belleau, 11 June 1918. While under heavy fire of high explosive and gas shells in the town of Lucy, where his dressing station was located, Lieutenant Petty attended to and evacuated the wounded under the most trying conditions. Having been knocked to the ground by an exploding gas shell which tore his mask, Lieutenant Petty discarded the mask and courageously continued his work. His dressing station being hit and demolished, he personally helped carry Captain Williams, wounded, through the shellfire to a place of safety." 

U.S. Army Distinguished Service Cross

The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Lieutenant (MC) Orlando Henderson Petty, United States Navy (Reserve Force), for extraordinary heroism in action while serving as Medical Officer attached to the Fifth Regiment (Marines), 2d Division, American Expeditionary Forces, in France during the attack in the Boise de Belleau, 11 June 1918. While he was treating wounded under bombardment of gas and high-explosive shells, Lieutenant Petty was knocked down and his gas mask torn by a bursting gash shell, but he discarded his gas mask and continued his work. Later, when his dressing station was demolished by another shell, he helped carry a wounded officer through the shellfire to a place of safety. 

U.S. Army Silver Star Citation

By direction of the President, under the provisions of the act of Congress approved July 9, 1918 (Bul. No. 43, W.D., 1918), Lieutenant (MC) Orlando Henderson Petty, United States Naval Reserve, is cited by the Commanding General, SECOND DIVISION A.E.F., for gallantry in action and a silver star may be placed upon the ribbon of the Victory Medals awarded him. Lieutenant Petty distinguished himself by gallantry in action while serving as a Medical Officer with the Fifth Regiment (Marines), 2d Division, American Expeditionary Forces, in action at the Bois de Belleau, France, 11 June 1918. Under heavy shell fire of both high explosive and gas shells, Surgeon Petty attended to the evacuation of all wounded with extraordinary valor. Being knocked to the ground by an exploding gas shell and, tearing his mask, he discarded the mask and continued his work in a most courageous manner. When his dressing station was hit and demolished, he personally helped carry a wounded officer through the shell fire to a place of safety.

Croix de Guerre, with Palm awarded, 1919, by the French government.

Sources: Thanks to André Sobocinski at the Office of Medical History, Communications Directorate, US Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery for his help finding Lt. Petty’s service records; “Military Times” Hall of Valor; Naval History and Heritage Command; U.S. Bureau of the Census.

Financial Finagling in the Great War: The Pittman Act of 1918

The Owners of Nevada's Crown Point Mine
Benefited from the WWI Legislation

By James Patton

Back in the 1950s I was interested in coin collecting. In those oh-so-bygone days before President Lyndon Johnson’s administration, all U.S. coins of value higher than the nickel were made of .90 fine silver. As a kid, the only coins that I could afford to collect were dimes, but I remember other collectors lamenting about the shortage of silver dollar coins. At the time I didn’t know that this shortage was caused by World War One.

When passed by Congress, the Pittman Act (23 April 1918) was a seemingly innocuous piece of “Pork Barrel” sponsored by Sen. Key D. Pittman (1872–1940) (D-Nev.) to support the price of silver and thus benefit the mining economies of eight western states, especially his own. 

Senator Pittman

Silver dollar coins had become unpopular due to their weight and clunky size (1 ½ inches in diameter), so the U.S. Treasury was stuffed with the coins returned by the banks, even though the mints had stopped producing them in 1904. The Pittman Act directed the conversion of up to 350 million of these "surplus" silver dollars into bullion, which would either be sold "to assist foreign governments at war with the enemies of the United States" or used to mint additional silver dimes, quarters, and half-dollars, known as subsidiary coinage. As Pittman intended, most of the bullion was sold to the British at the above-market price of $1 per ounce.

Westerners were concerned that the withdrawal of so many silver dollars would be a prelude to retiring the coins altogether. (Their fears were well founded, as paper "silver certificates" in $1 denomination were issued starting in 1929, and later themselves replaced by Federal Reserve Notes in 1964.) Pittman also included a provision in his act directing that the number of dollars so converted would be replaced by bullion purchases for new dollar coins which would be minted over the period from 1920 through 1934, using silver purchased  from U.S. mines at the fixed price of $1 per ounce (reduced to 71 cents in 1939, then raised to 90 ½ cents in 1946), which was a financial windfall for the American silver miners. This marked the first time in history that the U.S. government agreed to support the price of a commodity. This was an idea that caught on quickly, leading to the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, which is still an important part of American farming today. 

The number of coins that were melted down came to 270,232,722 including 11,111,168 used for subsidiary coinage. This amount was about half of the existing silver dollar coins.

American Silver Dollar

So what exactly did this have to do with World War One? That part of the story begins in India, of all places.

Although a British colony, India had a large, autonomous economy and it was supplying huge quantities of materials and manpower to the British war effort. The colonial government was paying for these costs with rupee notes, supposedly backed by silver, but in fact there was insufficient silver in the treasury reserve. In popular parlance, the government had been "running the printing presses," creating money that had no residual value. 

This dirty little secret got out in early 1918, possibly leaked by Germany, and India was plunged into crisis. To stave off an economic meltdown, many bank failures, ruinous inflation, and civil unrest that would require many thousands of Indian and even British soldiers to quell, the British needed to get their hands on a lot of silver bullion quickly, and the only place that they could get it was out of the U.S. Treasury. Of course, in 1918 the British didn’t have the cash to buy those melted-down dollar coins, but, no worries, the U.S. government let them offset the amount owed against U.S. debt for such items as the British ships that were carrying American troops and supplies to France, 400,000 Brodie helmets, gas masks, horses, and other gear. Voilà, problem solved.

There was one more little twist to this deal. When the old dollars were melted down, the $250 million reduction in the money supply was covered by the issue of the brand-new higher denomination (not $1 or $2) Federal Reserve Notes, which were not backed by silver, only guaranteed by the Fed. A new silver dollar coin which was called the Peace dollar because it was supposed to memorialize the U.S.-Germany Peace Treaty of 1921, was introduced in that year. As these coins were struck, they were released to the banks through the Federal Reserve System as repayment of the Pittman notes, which was an off-budget transfer. 

Pittman was a senator from 1913 to 1940 and chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee during the early years of the Second World War. Through his career he authored several more important pieces of legislation, including the Pittman–Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937, which set up a formula for sharing of federal excise tax revenue with the states for their wildlife management efforts (which is still in effect) and the second Pittman Act in 1938 which, along with the Neutrality Act of 1939,  established the concept of “cash-and-carry” neutrality.

Site of the Senator's Demise

Details of Pittman’s death are controversial. Although his date of death was officially reported as 10 November 1940, he had suffered a serious heart attack on 4 November, the day before the general election. It was alleged by some that he did not survive, but the party leaders decided to suppress that news so that Pittman could be re-elected. If he then were to die after re-election, the law provided that the Democratic Governor Edward Carville would appoint a successor. If he was already dead when elected, there would have to be a special election. An embellishment to this story is the detail that Pittman’s body was kept for five days in a bathtub full of ice in Tonopah’s Mizpah Hotel (which is still there) before  taken to the hospital in Reno, where he was pronounced dead. 

Dos Passos's Three Soldiers Reviewed by F. Scott Fitzgerald

 By John Dos Passos

George H. Doran Company, 1921

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Reviewer

With the exception of a couple of tracts by Upton Sinclair,  carefully disguised as novels but none the less ignored by the righteous booksellers of America, Three Soldiers by a young Harvard man named John Dos Passos  is the first war book by an American which is worthy of serious notice. Even The Red Badge of Courage  is pale beside it. Laying Three Soldiers down I am filled with that nameless emotion that only a piece of work created in supreme detachment can arouse. This book will not be read in the West. Main Street was too much of a strain. I doubt if the “cultured” public of the Middle Border will ever again risk a serious American novel, unless it is heavily baited with romantic love.

No, Three Soldiers will never compete with [the Valentino film] The Sheik  or with those salacious sermons whereby Dr. Crafts  gives biological thrills to the wives of prominent butchers and undertakers, nor will it ever do aught but frighten the caravanserie of one-hundred-and-twenty-proof Americans, dollar-a-year men, and slaughter-crazy old maids who waited in line at the book stores to buy and read the war masterpiece of the Spanish Zane Grey, the one that is now being played in the movies by a pretty young man with machine oil on his hair. [Valentino also starred in Valentino had the lead role in the movie version of Blasco Ibanez’s The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.]

To a dozen or so hereabouts who require more seemly recreation I heartily recommend Three Soldiers. The whole gorgeous farce of 1917-1918 will be laid before him. He will hear the Y.M.C.A. men  with their high-pitched voices and their set condescending smiles, saying, “That’s great, boys. I would like to be with you only my eyes are weak. * * * Remember that your women folk are praying for you this minute. * * * I’ve heard the great heart of America beat. * * * O boys! Never forget that you are in a great Christian cause.” [Dos Passos apparently didn't cotton to the YMCA volunteers during his tour of duty.]

He will hear such stuff as that, and he will see these same obnoxious prigs charging twenty cents for a cup of chocolate and making shrill, preposterous speeches full of pompous ministers’ slang. He will see the Military Police (the M.P.’s) ferociously “beating up” privates for failure to salute an officer.

He will see filth and pain, cruelty and hysteria and panic, in one long three-year nightmare, and he will know that the war brought the use of these dungs not to some other man or to some other man’s son, but to himself and to his OWN son, that same healthy young animal who came home two years ago bragging robustly of the things he did in France.

Dan Fuselli, from California, petty, stupid and ambitious, is the first soldier. His miserable disappointments, his intrigues, his amiable and esurient humanities are traced from the camp where he gets his “training” to postwar Paris where, considerably weakened in his original cheap but sufficing fibre, he has become a mess-cook.

The second soldier, Chrisfield, a half-savage, southern-moraled boy from Indiana, murders his fancied oppressor—not because of any considerable wrong, but simply as the reaction of his temperament to military discipline— and is A.W.O.L. in Paris at the end.

These two inarticulate persons are woven in the pattern with a third, a musician, who is in love with the mellifluous rhythms of Flaubert. It is with this John Andrews, the principal protagonist of the story, that John Dos Passos allows himself to break his almost Flaubertian detachment and begin to Briding-ize  the war. This is immediately perceptible in his style, which becomes falsely significant and strewn with tell-tale dots. But the author recovers his balance in a page or two and flies on to the end in full control of the machine.

This is all very careful work. There is none of that uncorrelated detail, that clumsy juggling with huge masses of material which shows in all but one or two pieces of American realism. The author is not oppressed by the panic-stricken necessity of using all his data at once lest some other prophet of the new revelation uses it before him. He is an artist—John Dos Passos. His book could wait five years or ten or twenty. I am inclined to think that he is the best of all the younger men on this side.

The deficiency in his conception of John Andrews is this: John Andrews is a little too much the ultimate ineffectual, the Henry-Adams-in-his-youth  sort of character. This sort of young man has been previously sketched many times—usually when an author finds need of a mouthpiece and yet does not wish to write about an author.

With almost painstaking precaution the character is inevitably made a painter or a musician, as though intelligence did not exist outside the arts. Not that Andrews’ puppet-ness is frequent. Nor is it ever clothed in aught but sophistication and vitality and grace; nevertheless the gray ghosts of Wells’s heroes and those of Wells’s imitators seem to file by along the margin, reminding one that such a profound and gifted man as John Dos Passos should never enlist in Wells’s faithful but aenemic platoon along with Walpole,  Floyd Dell and Mencken’s late victim, Ernest Poole.  The only successful Wellsian is Wells. Let us slay Wells, James Joyce, and Anatole France  that the creation of literature may continue.

Order HERE

In closing I will make an invidious comparison: Several weeks ago a publisher sent me a book by a well-known popular writer, who has evidently decided that there is better pay of late in becoming a deep thinker or, to quote the incomparable Mencken, “a spouter of great causes.” The publishers informed me that the book was to be issued in October, that in their opinion it was the best manuscript novel that had ever come to them, and ended by asking me to let them know what I thought of it. I read it. It was a desperate attempt to do what John Dos Passos has done. It abounded with Fergus Falls mysticism and undigested Haeckel,  and its typical scene was the heroic dying Poilu  crying “Jesu!” to the self-sacrificing Red Cross worker! It reached some sort of decision—that Life was an Earnest Matter or something! When it was not absurd it was so obvious as to be painful. On every page the sawdust leaked out of the characters. If anyone wishes to cultivate the rudiments of literary taste let him read The Wasted Generation by Owen Johnson and Three Soldiers by John Dos Passos side by side. If he can realize the difference he is among the saved. He will walk with the angels in Paradise.

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

Source: St. Paul Daily News, 25 September 1921

(Thanks to the cousins Cynthia and Donna for suggesting a review of Three Soldiers!)

July 1920: Denmark Regains Some Lost Territory

Historically Contested Schleswig-Holstein

The Schleswig-Holstein question, was a 19th century controversy among Denmark, Prussia, and Austria over the status of Schleswig and Holstein. At this time the population of Schleswig was Danish in its northern portion, German in the south, and mixed in the northern towns and center. The population of Holstein was almost entirely German. After much contentious diplomacy, a rebellion—inspired by the Paris revolution of February 1848—led to an intervention in support of the rebels by Prussia. International opposition, however, forced the Prussians to withdraw and the Danes viewed the outcome as a victory. Matters festered, however. A succession crisis of 1863 gave the new German chancellor Otto von Bismarck a fresh opportunity to intervene and annex the duchies.

In the ensuing German-Danish War (1864), Danish military resistance was crushed by Prussia and Austria in two brief campaigns. By the Peace of Vienna (October 1864), Christian IX ceded Schleswig and Holstein to Austria and Prussia. In 1866, after Prussia had beaten Austria in the Seven Weeks War, both Schleswig and Holstein became part of Prussia.

Pro-German 1920 German Plebiscite Poster

Following Germany’s defeat in World War I, separate plebiscites were held in 1920 in the northern and southern portions of North Schleswig so that their respective inhabitants could choose between Denmark and Germany. The northern part of North Schleswig voted 70 percent to join Denmark, while the southern part voted 80 percent to remain within Germany. The northern part of North Schleswig thus became part of Denmark as the Danish province of Slesvig, effective with King Christian X's ratification of the treaty with Germany on 6 July 1920. The resulting Danish-German boundary in Schleswig has lasted to the present day with a minor adjustment following the Second World War and is no longer a matter of contention.

Present-day Border (Compare to Historic Map Above)

Sources: Encyclopedia Britannica Article; Wikipedia