The Battle of Rawa (also known as Rawa Ruska), 3--11 September 1914

James Patton

On 23 August1914, the Austrian k.u.k. (kaiserlich und königlich) army boldly launched a pre-emptive strike in Galicia against the still-arriving Russians. Rawa was one of several individual battles fought in this action, which are collectively known as the Battle of Galicia, a large scale army-level engagement involving millions of soldiers. 

At the beginning of the campaign, driving northward from Galicia, the k.u.k. First Army under General der Kavallerie Viktor Dankl (1854-1941) defeated the Russian Fourth Army of General Alexei Evert (1857-1918?) in the three-day Battle of Kraśnik that started on 23 August.

Click on Map to Enlarge

 Positions of Austrian Fourth Army, Rawa Ruska,
and Lemberg Indicated by Star

To the right of Dankl's army, the k.u.k. Fourth Army under General Moritz von Auffenberg (1852-1928), drove to the northeast,where they met and defeated the Russian Fifth Army of General Pavel von Plehwe (1850-1916), a professional officer of Baltic German descent, in the Battle of Komarów  during 26-31 August. As a result, Auffenberg’s army was positioned between the towns of Niemirów and Rawa Ruska. So far so good.

On Auffenberg's right, the k.u.k. Third Army under General Rudolf von Brudermann (1851-1941) was falling back under the combined pressure of the Russian Third Army of General Nicolei Ruzsky (1854-1918), later known as “The Conqueror of Galicia”, and the Russian Eighth Army of General Alexsei Brusilov (1853-1926), later to be famous as the architect of the 1916 Russian Offensive.

Auffenberg moved his  four corps to the south and turned to the east to boldly confront Ruzsky’s  five corps on 3 September. By 6 September, two corps of Brudermann’s army were were also engaged by three corps from Ruzsky’s army which had succeeded in turning Auffenberg’s left flank. As the battle progressed, the k.u.k. forces also faced increasing pressure from Plehwe’s reorganized Fifth Army, which threatened to complete an encirclement.

Depiction of the Fighting by Austrian Artist Anton Marussig

In turning east, Auffenberg had opened a wide gap between his left wing and  Dankl’s army. By 8 September, the situation for the k.u.k. forces had become precarious, as they were now outnumbered two to one. Nevertheless, they dug in at Rawa and continued to resist the Russian advances, particularly on Auffenberg's northern flank. It was here that the  ‘Child Hero’ Rosa Zenoch bravely carried water to Auffenberg’s men.  (Article HERE.)

Austrian Archduke Joseph Ferdinand (1872-1942), commanding a corps of Brudermann’s army, had only one division available to counter two Russian  corps that were advancing from Komarów. To Auffenberg's north, the Russian Ninth Army of General Platon Lechitsky (1856-1921) had joined Evert’s army in its battle against Dankl’s army, and by 9 September, they were also driving the k.u.k. forces back. To the east, Plehwe's army had taken advantage of the enormous gap between the armies of Dankl and Auffenberg and, by 8 September, they were behind Dankl's army.

Depiction of the Death in the Battle of  Lt. Herbert
Conrad von Hötzendorf of the 15th Dragoons,
Son of the Austro-Hungarian Chief of Staff

On 9 September Auffenberg’s position had become untenable and he ordered his army to fall back westward to the river San, abandoning their defensive positions in the face of overwhelming Russian pressure.

At this point, the k.u.k. Chief of Staff in Vienna, Feldmarschall Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf (1852-1925), finally realized the dangerous situation that his forces were in, and on 11 September he ordered a general retreat. This turned into a rout that did not stop at the river San, but continued for another 100 miles westward to the Dunajec and Biala rivers, not ending  until 26 September. The k.u.k. casualties were estimated at 130,000 (including prisoners), while the Russian casualties were about 34,000. Never again was the k.u.k. army strong enough to launch an offensive against the Russians without substantial German assistance. 

Victorious Russian Troops Ready to Advance

Things soon got even worse. The Russian victory led to the fall of Lemberg (Lviv), while the  Przemyśl Fortress was left surrounded and would later capitulate after a grueling 133iday siege. Over 120,000 k.u.k, Landwehr and Honved personnel were taken prisoner at Przemyśl. Rawa Ruska was re-occupied by the Central Powers on 21 June 1915, during the German-led Gorlice–Tarnów offensive. 

Sources include: World War One Today, History Maps and The Vienna Review

The Rise of Billy Mitchell

Billy Mitchell (1879-1936)

By James J. Cooke, University of Mississippi

Forever associated with the rise of American airpower, Billy Mitchell captured the imagination of the American public with his dramatic courts martial in 1925. Known as a prophet, a man who predicted the power of air warfare and fought for an independent Air Service, Mitchell was born in Milwaukee in December 1879. His father was Senator John Landum Mitchell, who was often cold and aloof toward his son William. Billy Mitchell was a good student at the many boarding schools he attended, and when the war with Spain broke out in 1898 he defied his senator-father, who had opposed the conflict, and joined the military.

After the war Mitchell served in Cuba and then in the Philippines, making a very  good impression on his superiors. His service as a Signal officer in the Alaskan wilderness, where he had led the laying of the first telegraph line across the Alaska wilderness, and in San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake  and fire, where he was in charge of all relief work for a large section of the stricken city, marked him as an officer on the rise. After these assignments, he became the first Signal Corps student at the Army's School of the Line (now the Command and General Staff College).  Next, ordered to Washington to serve on the General Staff, he slowly became interested in the new section of the Signal Corps - the aviation section - and he took private flying lessons in 1916. 

As an officer serving on the General Staff, Billy Mitchell could see the conflict in Europe from a special vantage point, and he felt that eventually the United States would be drawn into the war despite President Wilson's promise that the country would not be involved. He was correct in his assumptions, and a month before the U.S. declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917 Mitchell was dispatched to Paris as an observer with special emphasis on the development of the air arms of the British and the French.

Mitchell (L) in 1898

There was no better choice than Billy Mitchell because he was a flyer, fluent in French, as well as a bon vivant who enjoyed Paris life. But all was not dinners at Maxim's or strolls along the Champs Elysees. Mitchell threw himself into his work and went to the front, actually flying with the French over the front. 

On 20 April 1917 Mitchell left Paris for French headquarters at Chalons and began his work. Billy Mitchell had always been a very literate officer, and he began to keep a detailed diary of his learning experiences. It is from this diary that one can see the evolution of Mitchell's thoughts, which would eventually have a great impact on the development of the U.S. Air Service in France and American Airpower in the 20th Century. 

When Pershing began his 1916-1917 punitive expedition in Mexico he had one Aero Squadron and was impressed with the observation potential of the air arm, if it could be called that. When the U.S. went to war there was not one serviceable Aero Squadron which could be deployed to France. Mitchell realized that everything would have to be built from the ground up. It was a daunting task, and in the first days Mitchell spent a great deal of time dealing with air observation by aircraft and by balloons. He understood that his role there was not just to learn about tactics, and he studied the logistics and the maintenance of the Air Service. On 23 April he observed that the pilot, the aircraft, and the ground crew functioned as one team. Each French pilot kept his own mechanics, and they in turn made the aircraft their personal machine, boasting that their pilot, their aircraft, and their crew was the best. This was morale and unit cohesion at its best, and it was never loston Mitchell. The pilots and the crews had a certain élan, a romantic view of themselves, and this certainly appealed to Billy Mitchell 

In Alaska c.1903

Another area that came as a revelation to Billy Mitchell was the use of battlefield air photography. Mitchell's evaluation was very orthodox, seeing the value of immediate intelligence for the ground combat commanders. After visiting a French bombardment squadron, he commented in his diary that the squadron officers believed that they could hit deep targets, and that, "… there would be nothing left of Germany in a short time." Not yet ready to accept the concept of strategic bombing, Mitchell remained skeptical and restricted his view of bombardment as a part of the immediate battlefield. Of course, his views would change dramatically after the Great War. He grasped very quickly the value of the balloon in observation of the enemy and in directing indirect artillery fire. With real time communications, artillery could rapidly shift fires from one target to the next. His service as a signal officer, and his hands-on experiences in the Alaskan wilderness laying telegraph cable and during the post-1906 San Francisco earthquake recovery served him well.

Mitchell also isited General Hugh Trenchard, at Royal Flying Corps headquarters and had a lengthy discussion with the general. Two areas which Mitchel later commented on were bombardment, a subject which he had fully explored with the  French, and the principle of mass. Long recognized as one of the principles of war, mass was applied to ground combat operations - to bring as much force as possible at a single point. Mitchell came away from the meeting convinced that airpower was best used in mass to firstdominate the air and then deliver a massive blow against the enemy both in close combat and against enemy supply lines, ammunition and supply dumps, and rail links. This would stay with Billy Mitchell, and in September 1918 he massed 1485 aircraft in support of the St. Mihiel campaign. 

Within two months Mitchell was well aware of all aspects of the air war and was ready to be General Pershing's right hand air advisor. The British and French experience on the Western Front showed that the air arm was vital to ground success. Mitchell observed this and adopted what his European hosts showed him, passing it on to General Pershing when he arrived with his small staff in June 1917. 

In 1915

Mitchell met with General Pershing and briefed him on what he had learned from his meetings with the French and the British, and what he had to say was staggering indeed. The U.S. had an infant Air Service, but now was faced with a massive, really unexpected, expansion - the creation of command and control structure for bombardment, pursuit, observation, and balloon units. These newly created squadrons and companies called for trained pilots, ground crews, a logistical system to support every aspect of air operations. Of paramount importance for Mitchell was Pershing's support for this expansion, and Mitchell got it when Black Jack Pershing agreed that there should be an Air Service that was separate from the Signal Corps. This was a high point for Mitchell, who was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and served as Pershing's Air Service chief.

Coming out of this was an aviation board with Mitchell as the major experienced officer, and its recommendations were accepted by Pershing. General Pershing began to contract for aircraft, coordinate training needs, and establish the main AEF Air Service training area at Issoudun, France. 

On 3 September 1917 Pershing appointed William L. Kenly, an old line army officer as chief of the AEF's Air Service, which proved to be an unwise move. To sooth Mitchell's feelings he promoted him to the rank of full colonel before the age of 40.  But there could be no question as to who was the real aviation expert and who was not. Mitchell was given command of the air in the Zone of Advance as Pershing's real warfighter. He never stopped preaching a gospel of mass and aggressive action in the air. To Mitchell the air arm should never be passive but should be in the air to attack and destroy enemy observation aircraft and then command the air over the front by defeating the German pursuit aircraft. Mitchell breathed aggressiveness and offensive operations into the Air Service.

Britain's Jews in the First World War

By Paula Kitchens  

Amberley Publishing, 2019

Reviewed by Michael P. Kihntopf

 

Members of the 38th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers
All-Jewish Unit from London's East End

In my reviews over the years I have often talked about the complexity of the Great War.  Paula Kitchings, who describes herself as a historian and writer, has added a new level to the myriads of tiers that I would not have seen if it wasn’t for this work. Britain’s Jews in the First World War comes out of the author’s work as project manager of the Heritage Lottery Fund-supported project We Were There Too (Website). The project brings together the many threads of British Jews’ contributions (those from the many dominions and colonies are included) in the Great War through existing documentation and interviews with relatives of some of the war’s participants.  

Kitchings makes it very clear that those solders who died in the war are well documented, but those who survived have nearly disappeared, as have those who contributed on the home front in various action committees and foundations. Moreover, women’s participation is even more obscure because of the tradition of changing their names at marriage. I can only imagine how complicated the incident board in her research lab must appear.

Sappers at Work
by Jewish Royal Engineer David Bomberg

Kitchings estimated that the Jewish population in August 1914 was nearly 250,000 to 300,000 in a total British population of 41 million. Of those 250,000 plus subjects, nearly 13 to 14 percent served in the military. She does not include newly arrived emigrés from Eastern Europe in her text. (I recommend War and Revolution: Russian Jews and Conscription in Britain, 1917 by Harold Shukman for that subject, which I reviewed for the Journal of Military History in 2008.) From her research into the British Jewry Book of Honour, published in 1922, she noted that there were five recipients of the Victoria Cross, 15 received the Order of St. Michael and St. George, and 49 were awarded Distinguished Service Orders.

The author deftly relates their stories in an abbreviated form. To complement those depictions, she also delves into the many organizations which existed on the home front which encouraged the Jewish young men to contribute to the war effort. These stories are laced with notations about the discrimination and prejudice that existed toward the Jewish community. I was appalled to read about recruiters (enlistment was still voluntary during the first years) turning away Jews from enlistment because of their religion, including professionals who could have made a difference in caring for the wounded. Overshadowing the rejection was the never-ending unfounded criticism of the Jewish community for not wholeheartedly supporting the war effort even in light of the many articles about Jewish soldiers sacrificing their lives for the good of the regiment, plus fund raisers who assisted families left destitute by the death of a father.  

Order HERE

Kitchens has given the Great War’s aficionados a brilliant work to add to their libraries, as if they weren’t big enough. Her prose is easily read and thought-provoking as well as very revealing regarding Victorian attitudes and how they changed as the war grew bloodier by the month. Expect something more than a dull read.

Michael P. Kihntopf

Three Surprising Numbers from the Great War: 158 & 771,844 & 1,294

158 

is the number of countries involved in some way in the First World War. It includes countries that did not declare war on anyone but may have been encouraged to send troops or found themselves occupied. The full list and some details about the various countries can be found HERE.

Map from ThoughtCo:

Click on Map to Enlarge

771,844

is total war deaths of the Ottoman Empire in World War I. 

(Source: Center European Robert Schuman)

1,294

is the number of enemy aircraft downed by pilots flying the Sopwith Camel. This is more than any other Allied fighter of the war. 

(Source: U.S. Naval Institute)

Rosa Zenoch: Austrian Child War Hero of the Battle of Rawa

Rosa the Wounded Heroine

James Patton

Children’s heroes from 1914 to 1918 reflected the historicization of the war. German child war heroes, particularly Rosa Zenoch, who was severely wounded in 1914, were seen as successors of the maiden heroines of the Napoleonic Wars, such as Johanna Stegen (1793-1842), who carried ammunition to soldiers at the Battle of Lüneburg in 1813.  In France, the tradition of child war heroes reached back to the French Revolution, for example child martyrs Bara (1779-1793) and Viala (1780-1793), who fought in the French Revolutionary Army. Propaganda organs declared thirteen-year-old Emile Desprès (1901-1914), who was sentenced to death, a victim of the “hereditary enemy” Germany.

Berenice Zunino in the 
International Encyclopedia of the First World War

The aforementioned Rosa Zenoch, sometimes spelled Zennoch or Hennoch, was a young Austro-Hungarian, known as the "heroic girl of Rawaruska" ("das Heldenmädchen von Rawaruska"). At the time, she was well known in her native land for her actions during the Battle of Rawa (3–11 September 1914). Contemporary accounts say that Rosa was 12 years old, making her birth year likely 1902, although some have said that she was older, probably 14. She was said to be from a family who were farming at a place called Byala near Rawa Ruska, north of Lemberg (today’s Lviv, Ukraine). 

In Wigbert Reith’s poetic tribute, Rosa is called a “Polish Peasant Girl” although it is more likely that she was ethnically German and not a peasant. Apparently her given name was Rebekka, and if that is correct, it’s not clear how she came to be called Rosa. This may have been  a local diminutive, a family nickname or just considered to be more “Austrian” by the Viennese press. She had at least three siblings, one of whom was one of the about 138,000 soldiers stationed at the Przemyśl Fortress. 

Rosa Paired with Germany's Child Hero Fritz Lehman

In the heat of the fighting at Rawa, Rosa voluntarily carried water to the wounded Austro-Hungarian soldiers who were hunkering down in rudimentary trenches against a Russian onslaught. While so engaged in this mission of mercy, she was herself hit in the foot by a piece of shrapnel. Medics plucked her from the battlefield, and, along with her mother, she was evacuated by rail to the Vienna General Hospital. 

Unfortunately, her foot became infected and her left leg had to be amputated. Contemporary sources said that Emperor Franz Joseph and other members of the Habsburg family visited Rosa in the hospital and the Emperor is said to have given her a gem-studded gold pendant bearing his royal cipher. Later it was reported that he personally paid for her prosthesis, and her mother was paid an honorarium of 1000 kronen (the annual per capita income in the empire at the time was about 1700 kronen). 

In the iconic newspaper photograph at the top, Rosa can be seen wearing her Decoration for Services to the Red Cross (First Class), with the war service laurel wreath affixed. This honor had been instituted in four classes by the Dual Monarchy only about three weeks prior to the Battle of Rawa, making Rosa among the first recipients. The Austrian Red Cross also issued the stamp-like “Charity  Label” shown. These were a popular source of public support for the society. In the U.S. they were often called “Christmas Seals.” 

Click on Image to Enlarge

Rosa Immortalized

The Battle of Rawa Ruska occurred in the daring Austro-Hungarian offensive called the Battle of Galicia. This turned out to be the high-water mark of the Austro-Hungarian army on the Eastern Front. An article next Thursday will explain what happened there. 

What happened to Rosa after the war is unknown. Although Reith’s poem was widely published, I’ve not been able to find an English translation. Rosa’s death was reported in 1964 in Oleśnica, Poland, a  Silesian city that was called Oels until 1945. 

Sources include: the International Encyclopedia of the First World War, World War One Today, History Maps and The Vienna Review

The Nye Committee's Pursuit of the Merchants of Death

1935 Portrayal of the Merchants of Death

On a hot Tuesday morning following Labor Day in 1934, several hundred people crowded into the Caucus Room of the Senate Office Building to witness the opening of an investigation that journalists were already calling “historic.” Although World War I had been over for 16 years, the inquiry promised to reopen an intense debate about whether the nation should ever have gotten involved in that costly conflict.

The so-called Senate Munitions Committee came into being because of widespread reports that manufacturers of armaments had unduly influenced the American decision to enter the war in 1917. These weapons suppliers had reaped enormous profits at the cost of more than 53,000 American battle deaths and 116,000 total military deaths. As local conflicts reignited in Europe through the early 1930s, suggesting the possibility of a second world war, concern spread that these arms manufacturers would again drag the United States into a struggle that was none of its business. The time had come for a full congressional inquiry. In early 1934 an expose  was published, Merchants of Death: A Study of the International Armament Industry by H.C. Engelbrecht and F.C. Hanighen. Publications about the same time identified British arms dealer Sir Basil Zaharoff (1849–1936) as a premier example of the species. The term Merchants of Death vividly captured long held views of pacifist and socialist antiwar proponents, so they immediately began using it promiscuously. The further popular embrace of its delightfully slanderous and lurid tone led to a wave of  calls for a governmental investigation.

Senator Gerald Nye of North Dakota

To lead the seven-member special committee, the Senate’s Democratic majority chose a Republican—42-year-old North Dakota senator Gerald P. Nye (1892–1971). Typical of western agrarian progressives, Nye energetically opposed U.S. involvement in foreign wars. He promised, “When the Senate investigation is over, we shall see that war and preparation for war is not a matter of national honor and national defense, but a matter of profit for the few.”  Nye and his committee would become forever linked to the Merchants of Death despite the fact the expression does not appear in the committee's official records or final report.

Over the next 18 months, the Nye Committee held 93 hearings, questioning more than 200 witnesses, including J. P. Morgan, Jr., and Pierre du Pont. Committee members found little hard evidence of an active conspiracy among arms makers, yet the panel’s reports did little to weaken the popular prejudice against “greedy munitions interests.”

The investigation came to an abrupt end early in 1936. The Senate cut off committee funding after Chairman Nye blundered into an attack on the late Democratic president Woodrow Wilson. Nye suggested that Wilson had withheld essential information from Congress as it considered a declaration of war. Democratic leaders, including Appropriations Committee chairman Carter Glass of Virginia, unleashed a furious response against Nye for “dirt-daubing the sepulcher of Woodrow Wilson.” Standing before cheering colleagues in a packed Senate Chamber, Glass slammed his fist onto his desk until blood dripped from his knuckles.

Sir Basil Zaharoff—First Identified Merchant of Death
(Portrayed by Leo McKern in Reilly, Ace of Spies)

Although the Nye Committee failed to achieve its goal of nationalizing the arms industry, it inspired three congressional neutrality acts in the mid-1930s that signaled profound American opposition to overseas involvement.

Sources:  The U.S. Senate and State Department Websites

Gièvres—Hub of the AEF's Supply Chain

The Refrigeration Plant at Gièvres

General Pershing's AEF constructed its largest intermediate supply depot at Gièvres, Loire-et-Cher, France, located  185 miles  east  of   the port  of St. Nazaire  and 300 miles southeast of Brest. The small village was chosen for the critical base because it was positioned near the Sauldre River and  on two major rail lines that allowed it to dispatch food, ammunition, and equipment to eastern France where the bulk of American forces were deployed. This depot was officially named the G.I.S.D (General Intermediate Supply Depot) and received the personal attention of General Pershing. Its construction began in December 1917 and was still expanding when the Armistice came earlier than anyone had anticipated.  

Click on Image to Enlarge

This Air Service Composite Captures the Massiveness
of the Depot (Total area, approx. 12 sq.-miles)

The site included a remarkable variety of specialized units, such as forestry, tractor repair, airplane assembly, refrigerated warehouses, and the Army's largest remount depot—a center for horse, mule, and dog procurement and care. (This is a short version of  a long list.) Also, a number of AEF base hospitals were located in the Loire region and received supplies and support from Gièvres,

Note That Gièvres Has Rail Lines to All the Ports of
Western France and to the AEF Training Camps and Battlefields in the East

Some of the statistics from  Gièvres are astonishing and give a sense of the size and scope of the operation.

• 4.5 million sq.-ft. of warehousing in 165 buildings
• The world's third-largest refrigeration plant (shown above)
• 4 million gallons of fuel storage
• Stables for 4,000 mules and horses
• 140 miles of internal trackage

Rail Lines Ran Through the Heart of the Depot

Gièvres was built to support the full  four-million-man American Expeditionary Force that was planned to be in theater by mid-1919. To build and operated it involved nearly 30,000 Doughboys and officers. In writing this article, I tried to find photos of those men who made the deport work but could only find  mostly postwar images of the buildings and tracks.  However, I did find one, and I'd like for it to represent all the troops who made Gièvres the big achievement and success it turned out to be.

The Vets of the 11th Veterinary Hospital, Gièvres

Remembering a Veteran: John Francis Lucy, Royal Irish Rifles — Soldier, Memoirist, Public Servant, Artist

Lucy: Young Sergeant

John Francis Lucy, (1894–1962), British army officer and author, was born on 6 January 1894 at 4 Rock Terrace, Cork, the elder son of Denis Lucy and his wife Kate (née Coleman). His father was an unenthusiastic agent for the family beef farming business, which was then struggling in the face of Argentine imports. John was educated at the North Monastery in Cork and left home with his younger brother, Denis, in the winter of 1911 after an argument with his father. He worked in a local newspaper office before enlisting with his brother in the Royal Irish Rifles in January 1912. After basic training in Belfast, he was posted to the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles, stationed in Dover. He was promoted to lance-corporal early in 1914.

At the outbreak of the Great War he was a full corporal in A Company and sailed to France on 13 August 1914. He took part in the first action between the British Expeditionary Force and the German army at Mons, Belgium, where his battalion inflicted severe casualties on advancing German infantry. On 15 September 1914 his younger brother, Denis, was killed during the Aisne Crossing. By the end of 1914 John had been promoted to sergeant and was offered a commission but declined because of exhaustion. He subsequently fought at La Bassée (10 October–2 November 1914), Aubers Ridge and Festubert (May 1915) and Loos (September 1915). During the course of these battles he witnessed not only the decimation of his own battalion, but also the end of the old regular army. At the end of 1915 he returned home sick and, while on leave, decided to apply for a commission. He was in Dublin during Easter week 1916 and took part in the defense of Trinity College but was horrified at the execution of the rebellion's leaders.

Lucy Fought in the Earliest Battles of the BEF

Commissioned second lieutenant in June 1917, he rejoined his battalion in July and fought at the third battle of Ypres (31 July–10 November 1917), his battalion capturing Westhoek Ridge. In early December 1917, during the German counter-attack after the Battle of Cambrai, he was badly wounded by a grenade blast, suffering 16 splinter wounds, and was evacuated to England. During his convalescence, he studied at University College Cork and befriended authors Sean O'Faolain and Frank O'Connor. He was especially close to O'Faolain, later buying him his first typewriter and hiding him in his rooms during a search by Black and Tans.

He remained in the British army and, promoted to major, was seconded to the King's African Rifles (1921–26). He next served abroad in India as a staff officer in Bombay (1928–31) and rejoined the 2nd battalion, Royal Ulster Rifles, in 1933. Retiring from the army in April 1935, he began writing an account of his wartime experiences which was published as There's a Devil in the Drum (1938). A vivid and poignant memoir of the Great War as seen by a young NCO and officer, it was greeted with acclaim and is generally regarded as one of the best autobiographical accounts of the war. During the interwar years he also worked for Radio Éireann, presenting a quiz show called "Question time" and acting as a military commentator on the Spanish Civil War for news programs.

Lucy: Young Officer

As a reserve officer, he rejoined the British army in 1939 and served in France on the staff of the British Expeditionary Force. Evacuated from St Nazaire in a destroyer in June 1940, he returned to England and served as a training officer. In January 1942 he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and given command of the 70th battalion, Royal Ulster Rifles, stationed as part of the anti-invasion force in Essex. He then commanded the 28th infantry leader training battalion at Holywood Barracks in Co. Down. The first member of his regiment to rise from the rank of rifleman to command a battalion, he was awarded an OBE for his wartime service in 1945.

Returning to his native Cork, he was a founding member of the Cork Civic Party and served as a city councilor, working particularly hard on behalf of the poor. He was also a member of the Cork Health Authority, a trustee of Skiddy's home for the elderly, and secretary of the Cork Branch of the British Legion. A promoter of Irish tourism, he strongly supported the Cork airport project. An accomplished amateur artist, he also wrote occasionally for the Evening Echo. He died 1 March 1962 at the home of his son Sean, 10 Mount Pleasant, College Road, Cork. After a large funeral, he was buried at St Finbarr's cemetery.

In 1928 he married a divorcée, (Dorothea) Mary Carver, whom he had met in Nyasaland, Africa. She was the daughter of Professor James George Jennings, vice-chancellor of Patna University and author of a book on Vedantic Buddhism. Mary or Molly (as she was called) was a composer and poet in her own right and assisted Lucy in the writing of his wartime memoir; she died in 1950. They had a daughter, Kate Davis (b. 1932), who worked as a teacher, musician, composer and actress, and two sons, Sean Lucy (1931–2001), professor of English at UCC, and Major Denis Lucy (b. 1928) of Royal Ulster Rifles. The family's Cork residence was at Ronayn's Court, Rochestown, Cork. John Lucy's papers and several of his watercolors are held by his family. During the Second World War, a German POW, Heinz Schröder, painted a portrait of him (held by his son Denis).

Source:  Dictionary of Irish Biography

Woodrow Wilson's Early Responses to the European War

By Richard Striner, Washington College

Originally presented on History News Network, 1 June 2014 

The case can be made that Woodrow Wilson made some profound mistakes when World War I broke out in the summer of 1914. He made four particularly bad mistakes, and he admitted to one of them later: he refused to listen to people like Theodore Roosevelt who argued at the time that the United States should build up its military power to be ready for future contingencies.

The second mistake was understandable and pardonable in its early phases: he envisioned himself as a peace-maker who could end the war through mediation. He offered his services to the belligerents during the first month of the war. This was of course a noble gesture, but the casualties in the first few months of the war—hundreds of thousands dead by the end of 1914—would make the prospect for peace in the years that followed an empty hope. As the fortunes of war veered back and forth, the leaders of the side that was losing would naturally be receptive to the idea of a cease-fire through which they could contain their losses. But the leaders of the side that was winning would of course be motivated to press their advantage, redeeming all the sacrifice and death through total victory. More than one observer in the war years regarded the leaders of the allied and central powers as akin to so many Macbeths, “in blood stept in so far that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er.” Even the most gifted of political strategists would probably have found it impossible during these years to bring the leaders of both sides to the peace table.

But Wilson clung stubbornly to the illusion that he could end the war through a single magnificent gesture. And that illusion was abetted by the man who during most of the war years served as Wilson’s closest confidante—and, appallingly, who served at times his sole adviser on issues of war and foreign policy—Col. Edward M. House. House was a flatterer who reveled in the thrill of making history behind the scenes. At times he was capable of giving shrewd advice, but he also worsened some of Wilson’s worst delusions. On 18 September 1914, he told Wilson that “the world expects you to play the big part in this tragedy, and so indeed you will, for God has given you the power to see things as they are.”

The third mistake that Wilson made in the first year of the war was his failure to engage in bipartisan consultations on issues of war and peace. Wilson’s own party was profoundly anti-interventionist during these years. As a consequence, contingency planning for the possible use of force would have been enhanced by quiet behind-the-scenes consultations with Republicans like Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge. But instead of cultivating such men, Wilson antagonized them.

All through 1915—the year of the Lusitania sinking when the Germans commenced their submarine campaign against Allied shipping—Wilson was motivated first and last by his hope of acting as a mediator. In a speech in Indianapolis, Wilson asked the following rhetorical question: “Do you not think it likely that the world will some time turn to America and say: ‘You were right, and we were wrong. You kept your heads when we lost ours; you tried to keep the scale from tipping, but we threw the whole weight of arms in one side of the scale. Now, in your self-possession, in your coolness, in your strength, may we not turn to you for counsel and assistance?’”

But even as Wilson strove to maintain impeccable neutrality, he was complicit in American policies that “tipped the scale” of the wartime power balance. For American firms began selling weapons and munitions, and only one of the two sides could purchase the arms. The German high seas fleet was bottled up in the North Sea, unable to escort German freighters across the Atlantic. But the British Royal Navy was supreme in the Atlantic sea lanes except for the fact that the Germans were able to send their submarines hunting for British freighters. To reduce the risk of interruptions to the wartime shipping, the British started to ship arms and weapons in the holds of passenger liners like the Lusitania. And the Germans knew it. American civilians were traveling on these liners.

Wilson had a number of options for confronting this oceanic peril. One was the option of banning the sale of arms and munitions to nations at war—the sort of thing that the isolationist Neutrality Act of 1935 was crafted to achieve a generation later. A bill introduced by Rep. Richard Bartholdt proposed to ban the sale of arms and munitions, but Wilson opposed it. Another option was proposed by Wilson’s first secretary of state, William Jennings Bryan: warning Americans not to travel on British passenger vessels or advising them that they did so at their own risk. Wilson opposed this policy as well. And this, it could be argued, was his fourth major mistake.

He was committed to upholding every single neutral right that the United States and its citizens possessed. If international law permitted the sale of arms, then Americans had to make vigorous use of that right. If international law permitted American civilians to travel the seas unmolested, that right must be exercised as well to the fullest extent possible. Wilson’s attitude was so rigid that Bryan resigned as secretary of state. Wilson replaced him with Robert Lansing, a state department official whom Wilson promoted. But Wilson had no respect for Lansing, and he continued to use House as his paramount adviser.

Why was Wilson’s attitude in these matters so legalistic? Because—far-fetched though the proposition might appear—he had convinced himself that to have any hope of ending the war through mediation, the United States had to prove itself impeccably neutral, and the only way to prove this was to insist upon every single jot and tittle of neutral rights under international law. He wrote to Walter Hines Page, the American ambassador to Great Britain, as follows: “If we are to remain neutral and to afford Europe the legitimate assistance possible in such circumstances, the course we have been pursuing is the absolutely necessary course.” And the course he had been pursuing, he explained, was to do “everything that it is possible to do to define and defend neutral rights.”

And so instead of pulling the United States out of harm’s way—instead of preventing American policy from being held hostage by heedless citizens who chose to put themselves in peril—Wilson warned the Germans he would hold them to “strict accountability.” But how did he mean to enforce this threat? Realizing by summer 1915 that his previous opposition to preparedness had stripped him of leverage, he instructed his secretary of the navy and his secretary of war to draft preparedness legislation.

This was a wise thing to do under the circumstances, and Wilson—in one of his better moments admitted in a speaking tour that he made on behalf of his preparedness program in January 1916 that his previous opposition to preparedness had been a mistake. But the task of pushing this legislation through Congress proved arduous because of opposition from Wilson’s own party. The politics of election year 1916, when Democratic speakers touted the claim that their party and its leader had “kept us out of war” made the task even harder. By the time the legislation went into effect in the autumn of 1916, only half a year of peace remained for the United States. Wilson’s delay in preparedness planning would rob him of critical leverage with the allies on the issue of war aims in 1917 and 1918. The lead time necessary for mobilization was considerable. And he would not be able to deliver the troops when the British and French needed them.

In the meantime, Wilson continued to promote himself as a mediator. In the winter of 1915-1916, he and House had pursued a strategy of demanding that both sides declare themselves ready for peace talks at the risk that America would help the enemies of whichever side refused first. House enthused in a message to Wilson that “a great opportunity is yours, my friend, the greatest perhaps that has ever come to any man.”

This initiative led to an early but meaningless agreement with the British foreign minister—meaningless because events overtook it right away and the process led nowhere. Various details of these negotiations were botched to an extent that prompted Wilson scholar Arthur S. Link to describe the results as demonstrating “the immaturity and inherent confusion of the President’s policies.”

Repeatedly in 1916 he spoke about the providential role that he and the American people were destined to play in world history. “What Europe is beginning to realize,” he claimed in one speech, “is that we are saving ourselves for something greater that is to come. We are saving ourselves in order that we may unite in that final league of nations . . . which must, in the providence of God, come into the world.”

Wilson’s intense Christian piety—he was the son of a Presbyterian minister—was not unusual in his own time or (for that matter) in our own. But Wilson’s piety was perhaps quite unusual in its millennial expectations. More and more, as America was drawn into the maelstrom of war, Wilson expressed his belief that the providence of God was about to usher in the great peace foretold in Isaiah, and with divine providence guiding events in this way, there was little need for presidential strategy. God would make it all happen in the end.

And so it was that Wilson proceeded to ignore—or throw away—a long series of opportunities when strategic thinking and contingency planning might have given him a real opportunity to shape the flow of events, and especially so when it came to the war aims of the Allies. It was beautiful ideals expressed in beautiful words that would turn the tide of war, Wilson thought.

He was positioning the American people for a colossal and catastrophic let-down.

Professor Striner's book on Wilson as a wartime president, Woodrow Wilson and World War One: A Burden Too Great to Bear, can be ordered HERE.

The Politics of the First World War

 

By Scott Wolford 

Cambridge University Press, 2019

The Great War is an immense, confusing, and overwhelming historical conflict—the ideal case study for teaching game theory and international security.

Each chapter shows. . .how game-theoretical models can explain otherwise challenging strategic puzzles, shedding light on the role of individual leaders in world politics, cooperation between coalition partners, the effectiveness of international law, the termination of conflict, and the challenges of making peace. Its analytical history of the First World War also surveys cutting-edge political science research on international relations and the causes of war.

In his preface, the author describes his approach:

The book’s historical scope begins with prewar tensions and conflicts between the great powers, including the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, the Anglo-German naval race of 1906–1912, and several prewar crises from Morocco to the Balkans that saw the great powers step back from the brink of general war. It then continues through the outbreak and expansion of the war, the politics of military strategy and wartime diplomacy, and the network of peace treaties that legally, if not de facto, brought the war to an end by the early 1920s. Along the way, I use examples from the Chinese Civil War, the Korean War, the American-led wars against Iraq of the 1990s and 2000s, 1999’s Kosovo War, the outbreak of the Second World War in the Pacific, and the contemporary balance of power supported by the United Nations and the American alliance network. Given the setting, the cast of characters is far from diverse. The critical decisions are made by men, often wealthy, generally European or Asian, in the name and at the expense of women and minorities in their own countries and subject peoples in their imperial domains, many of whom are drawn eventually into the war effort. 

Contents

Purchase HERE

Scott Wolford is Associate Professor at The University of Texas at Austin. He published his first book, The Politics of Military Coalitions, in 2015.

Summary Provided by the Publisher

Was the Titanic a Premonition of the Great War?

Titanic, name and thing, will stand as a monument and  warning to human presumption.

The Bishop of Winchester, at Southampton, 1912

Since its fateful maiden voyage and sinking in April 1912, RMS Titanic has become a monumental icon of the 20th century and, perhaps more generally of the aspirations and anxieties of modernity. The name of the ship itself has entered the vernacular language to become a byword of both human hubris and heroism, and of misguided trust in the securities of modern technology. The Titanic's sinking has been interpreted as signaling the end of the imperial 19th-century world order and as a premonition of World War One. . . In this respect the Titanic tragedy and its reception have found an eerie echo at the beginning of the 21st century in the way the attack on the World Center in 2001 has been seen to mark a historical turning point, seemingly collapsing in a single catastrophic event previously held certainties, boundaries and values, and raising doubts and anxieties over what may eventually distinguish the world after the catastrophe from what has come before. 

From: The Titanic in Myth and Memory: Representations in Visual and Literary Culture, Tim Bergfelder and Sarah Street. 

The were some other ominous connections between the 1912 sinking and the war of 1914-1918:

The Titanic's rescue ship, RMS Carpathia, was in a convoy in July 1918 when attacked and sunk by U-55. All of the 57 passengers were saved, and of the crew of 223 five died in the explosion caused by the second torpedo. America's Last Doughboy, Frank Buckles, had sailed for England on an earlier voyage of the Carpathia. 

SS Californian, which missed the Titanic's rescue signal when only ten miles away from the stricken liner, was sunk 9 November 1915, while en route from Salonika to Marseilles by German submarine U-35, with the loss of one life.  

A long list of surviving passengers and crew members saw notable service in the war to come, both in civilian and military roles. One example: pre-disaster passenger (and photographer) Father Frank Browne had traveled first class to Cobh (then Queenstown), where he left the ship. In 1915 he was sent to join the Irish Guards as chaplain. After surviving five wounds, he became the most-decorated chaplain of the Great War, receiving King Albert's personal medal, the French Croix de Guerre, and the British Military Cross (twice).  

In one way, the sinking of Titanic had a silver lining. The Titanic tragedy was a major influence on improving the worldwide system of sending and monitoring distress calls, procedure that would be immensely important during the coming Great War, especially at sea. Coincidentally, at the third International Radiotelegraph Conference, held in London in June and July of 1912, it was agreed that ships would listen for distress signals on a wavelength of 600 meters. (This is a frequency of about 500 kHz.) Every ship was to cease transmitting for three minutes at 15 and 45 minutes past the hour. During this interval they were required to listen for distress calls. 

One famous writer to be—still a boy—found the sinking haunting:

I was eleven when the war started. If I honestly sort out my memories and disregard what I have learned since, I must admit that nothing in the whole war moved me so deeply as the loss of the Titanic had done a few years earlier. This comparatively petty disaster shocked the whole world, and the shock has not quite died away even yet. I remember the terrible, detailed accounts read out at the breakfast table (in those days it was a common habit to read the newspaper aloud), and I remember that in all the long list of horrors the one that most impressed me was that at the last the Titanic suddenly up-ended and sank bow foremost, so that the people clinging to the stern were lifted no less than three hundred feet into the air before they plunged into the abyss. It gave me a sinking sensation in the belly which I can still all but feel. Nothing in the war ever gave me quite that sensation.

George Orwell, "My Country Right or Left"

Maréchal Foch Does America

First Major Event: General Jacques, General Diaz, Marshal Foch, General Pershing, and Admiral Beatty,
1 November 1921, at the Dedication of the Liberty Memorial

In 1921, Maréchal Ferdinand Foch, generalissimo the of Allied Armies in WWI, toured the United States as a guest of the American Legion, visiting major cities like New York, Kansas City, and San Francisco on a seven-week grand tour featuring parades, speeches praising America's war role, and dedication ceremonies for memorials, including the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, the Indiana World War Memorial, and the Unknown Soldier. He experienced American culture like the Yale-Princeton football game, a car race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, an Indian pow-wow in North Dakota, and a banquet featuring the finest New Orleans cuisine.

 

In New Orleans, Oysters à la Foch Were Served for
the First Time (Recipe)

At San Francisoc's Palace of the Legion of Honor, Foch
Signs the Roster of California's Fallen of the War

On a personal, human scale, the tour gave Americans the opportunity to thank the maréchal for his leadership in the decisive moments of the war and gave the distinguished representative of France an opportunity to join with Americans in honoring the fallen of the war.

 Sioux Chief Red Tomahawk  Honors 
Maréchal "Charging Thunder" 

The highly covered newsworthy trip was diplomatic in substance as well. Everywhere he spoke, Foch hit three key points:

France's appreciation for America's sacrifices:  

"By your heroism you have secured victory and enabled our governments to achieve the peace which they desired."

A call for continued collaboration between France and the United States: 

"Let us remain united as we were on the battlefield, in order that this peace may be consolidated and extended."

Subtle pleas for America to avoid becoming isolationist: 

"It  is  now  for  us  to  maintain  the peace,  and  if  we  desire  the  formula  for  that,  it  is the  same  as  for  winning  the  war."

Reviewing the Cadets at West Point

A Special Coin Struck for the Maréchal's Visit to Yale

During his extensive, coast-to-coast  tour, Foch received more than 30 honorary degrees and awards, reinforcing the strong alliance and gratitude between France and the United States after WWI. He returned to Europe on 14 December 1921.

Visiting Mount Vernon to Lay a Wreath at
George Washington's Grave