Jutland: The Unfinished Battle by Nicholas Jellicoe

British Destroyer HMS Onslow on the Attack during the Jutland Night Actions (Click on Image to Enlarge)

By Nicholas Jellicoe

Naval Institute Press, 2018 Reprint

Reviewed by Holger Herwig

Excerpted from "Jutland: Acrimony to Resolution," Naval War College Review, Autumn 2016.

It now has been [over] one hundred years since the battle of Jutland. Beatty and Jellicoe both rest in the crypt of Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London. Armies of naval historians have dissected every aspect of the battle, and have come up with intriguing names such as “Flawed Victory,” “Distant Victory,” “Jutland Scandal,” “The Riddle of Jutland,” “The Truth about Jutland,” “The Jutland Epic,” “The Blindfold Game,” “The Rules of the Game,” “The Smoke Screen of Jutland,” “Sins of Omission and Commission,” and “Our Bloody Ships or Our Bloody System,” among countless others.

Thankfully, we now have a superb analysis, Jutland: The Unfinished Battle (2016), from Nicholas Jellicoe—the admiral’s grandson. This source at first  light might seem to be prejudiced, but that is not the case. Obviously aware of the possible suspicion of bias because of his last name, Nicholas Jellicoe has gone out of his way to offer both the general reader and the naval expert a balanced,measured, and yet nuanced account of the greatest sea battle of World War I. He weighs and measures. He offers conflicting accounts and interpretations.

He evaluates sources. He compares British and German eyewitness and official accounts and statistics. He judiciously examines the accounts by John Harper, Reginald Bacon, and the Admiralty discussed above. And then he offers his own best opinion. Along the way, he provides the layman with text boxes and sidebars to explain the complex naval systems in place at Jutland, and he further includes countless diagrams to explain ship locations and movements.

Nicholas Jellicoe apportions praise and criticism in equal amounts. Tactically, Jutland was a German victory and a “bad blow” for both the Royal Navy and  the nation. Hipper’s leadership of the German battle cruisers had been “brilliant,” Scheer’s two “battle turns away” and his ultimate escape “remarkable.” German signals and communications had been “exemplary,” those of the British “lamentable.” Jellicoe’s system of command had been rigid, a “vestige of the Victorian past.” Beatty’s reconnaissance and reporting had been a “failure.” Beatty’s obsession with rapid firing and the resulting storage of cordite next to the gun turrets, rather than improper flash protection, had caused the loss of the battle cruisers.

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The role of the new weapons of the day—mines, torpedoes, and aircraft—had been overrated before the battle, and negligible in its outcome. Both navies had fought the battle unexpectedly and discovered it to be highly complex, and had fought under difficult conditions of wind, rain, smoke, heavy seas, and fading light. Both sides regarded it as an “unfinished battle.”

Strategically, Nicholas Jellicoe joins the bevy of historians who have argued that Jutland was a British victory. “The issue at stake,” he writes, “had been sea power.” One side exercised it; the other sought to gain it. Afterward, the arteries of seaborne commerce, Alfred Thayer Mahan’s maritime highways, remained open to Britain and closed to Germany. Reinhard Scheer, the putative “victor of the Skagerrak,” accepted this reality when, in his after-action report of 4 July 1916 to Wilhelm II, he forsook future “Jutlands” in favor of “the defeat of  British economic life” by way of unrestricted submarine warfare “against  British trade.”

The High Sea Fleet, in Churchill’s stinging remark of February 1912, indeed had been but a “luxury” fleet.

Holger Herwig

The Mighty Royal Arsenal Woolwich in the Great War

Click to Enlarge Image

In the Gun Factory at Woolwich Arsenal, 1918,
George Clausen

By Greig Watson, BBC News

From the 17th century, the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, was an establishment on the south bank of the River Thames in Woolwich in southeast London, England, that was used for the manufacture of armaments and ammunition, proofing, and explosives research for the British Army and Royal Navy. 

It was a factory like no other in World War One. The Royal Arsenal was spread across a swathe of southeast London, and it was devoted to the delivery of death. The Woolwich-based factory was at its peak during WWI, covering 1,285 acres, filled with dozens of buildings and employing about 80,000 people. It was the focus for some of the seismic shifts the war prompted, from how war was fought to how Britain was run.

"The Arsenal was fundamental to the war," says Paul Evans, from the Royal Artillery Museum. 

"Artillery dominated the battlefield and the Arsenal was at the head of everything to do with artillery.

"It was everything. It was research, it was manufacturing, it was testing, it was inspection. You lose the Arsenal, you lose the war."

Click to Enlarge Image

Partial View of the Arsenal, Post WWI

From a patch of open ground used to test 17th-century guns, the Arsenal was already a sprawling complex at the start of the 20th century, with more than 10,000 workers. Buildings like the Royal Brass Foundry, Great Pile, Laboratory, and Grand Store hint at its history and scale. It even had its own steel foundry and railway.

By the early 1900s though, it was a hotchpotch of semi-independent departments that had defied attempts at modernisation. But change was coming. As an English Heritage study of the site put it: "When war did break out in 1914, the Arsenal was congested, inefficient and no longer innovative. . . Yet, at huge cost, it was mobilized, and feminized, into exceptional productivity."

The unexpected appearance of trench warfare meant Britain's carefully prepared stock of shrapnel artillery shells—designed to be used against armies in the open—was next to useless. As battles became immense slugging matches between ever larger guns—366,000 fired in four days by the British at Loos in September 1915, for example—the army ran low on its main weapon, high-explosive shells. And of those arriving at the front, up to 30 percent proved to be duds.

Entrance Gate: Then & Now

The Wartime Workforce

At its peak, the Arsenal covered 1,300 acres and employed around 80,000 people, Mr Evans says: "It was nobody's fault, it was just the way the war worked. . . If you take all of your skilled labour out of the factories and turn them into soldiers, you quadruple the demand for what they are making anyway, and with the people you have brought in you are trying to cut corners anyway to keep up with the pace, it's not going to work."

David Lloyd George, the Minister of Munitions from May 1915, made two big changes. He increased government control over weapons production—then largely in private hands—and sought to bring women into the workplace. Nowhere was this felt more than in Woolwich, where eventually almost 30,000 women were employed.

Female Staff of the Arsenal

Caroline Rennles was already a "canary"—turned temporarily yellow by working with TNT explosive—when she went to make bullets at the Arsenal. Interviewed in 1975, she described the unforgiving conditions.

"We would work 13 days out of 14," she said.

"You would work 13 days 7 a.m. until 7 p.m., have a day off that's all, then do 7 p.m.  until 7a.m.

"On the night shift, the place would be lit with little lamps and you had just enough light to see what you were doing."

First used in the Arsenal's small arms factory, women soon moved into heavy work, such as heavy arms, trucking, crane-driving and "danger work"—handling high explosives.

Changes were not confined to women—in 1914, the site's research department's Explosives Section had only 11 chemists. By 1918, it had 107. So great was the shift in number and nature of the workforce that nearly 3,000 new homes had to be built on the Well Hall Road and a 700-place creche—believed to be the country's first in the workplace—was set up.

King George V & Queen Mary on a Visit to the Arsenal

Despite inexperienced workers dealing with munitions, there were no large accidents at the Arsenal—but the explosion at the nearby Silvertown munitions works, which killed 73 in January 1917, underlined the dangers.

The shells began to flow. And how.

Mr Evans gives some examples of the numbers: 

"Expenditure of ammunition in France; 6in howitzer shells, 22,387,363; 18 pounder ammunition, 99,897,670 rounds fired at the Germans. Altogether, 170 million rounds were dropped on the Germans. And that is just on the Western Front and that doesn't include bullets. There were lots of big guns, firing lots of shells. It explains those photographs of blasted landscapes."

But victory, when it came, was bittersweet.

Female workers began to be laid off even before the war ended, but all staff suffered. The Royal Arsenal was regarded as crowded, out of date, and dangerous in such a built up area. By 1922, the workforce had fallen to just 6,000. Bit by bit areas and buildings were sold off, converted, or demolished.  In the Second World War the arsenal grew again, of course, but only to half the staffing of the Great War. 

Still Standing:  the Main Administrative Building

The focus of the site grew less military over the next decades. The Royal Regiment of Artillery was last to leave, in 1998. Large areas have now been redeveloped as housing, but a link is maintained as Firepower, the Royal Artillery Museum, also occupies part of the site.

Bonus Feature:

Join Joolz, London's Greatest Guide, on A Whimsical & Wonderful Wander in Woolwich Arsenal, London

Sources:  BBC, Wikicommons, Woolwich Arsenal History, Imperial War Museum, and Joolz Guides–London History Walks

Kaiser Wilhelm II's 1917 Easter Message

Editor's Introduction:  Until March 1917 when he was overruled by the military, Imperial German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg’s efforts on the home front were focused on holding together the so-called “civil truce” and ensuring maximum domestic support for the war effort. Conditions at home became critical in late 1916 and Bethmann prevailed upon the Kaiser to issue his “Easter Message” of 7 April 1917, which turned out to be the day after  the United States declared war on Imperial Germany.  The Kaiser seemed to  promise a reform of the Prussian suffrage and the Prussian upper house of parliament after the war, but this was too vague for the left and even Bethmann was now convinced that the three-class suffrage had to be abolished. At the same time the mere promise of reform created powerful enemies for the chancellor on the right. Bethmann was effectively forced by the military leadership to resign on 13 July 1917.  MH

The German Empire's Leaders Who Decided on Unrestricted Submarine Warfare

(left to right) Hindenburg, the Kaiser, Chancellor Bethmann, the King of Bavaria, Ludendorff, and Admiral Holtzendorff

Presented to the Prussian Parliament

Never before has the German people proved so unshakable as in this war. The realization that the Fatherland faced a grave emergency exerted a wonderfully conciliatory force, and despite all the sacrifices of blood that we made on foreign fields, and despite all the difficult privations that we bore at home, the will has remained unshakable to risk the utmost for the last, victorious struggle. The national and social spirits were unified in mutual understanding and gave us lasting strength. Everyone felt: what had been built up during long years of peace, amid many internal difficulties, was worth defending.

The achievements of the whole nation in war and need shine before my soul. The experiences of this struggle for our national existence are inaugurating a new epoch in magnificent solemnity. As the responsible Chancellor of the German Reich and First Minister of my Prussian Government, you face the obligation to help fulfill the demands of this time with the proper means and at the proper time. On various occasions you have spoken of the spirit in which the forms of our state’s life are to be rebuilt in order to foster the free, enthusiastic cooperation of all members of our nation. The principles that you worked out on these occasions have, as you know, my approval. I am aware that in giving it, I am following the course of my grandfather, the founder of the Reich, who fulfilled his monarchical responsibilities in exemplary fashion, both when, as king of Prussia, he presided over the organization of the military, and when, as German Kaiser, he oversaw social reform. In so doing, he created the foundations on which the German people will survive this bloody time in unanimous and wrathful perseverance.

To preserve the armed forces as a true army of the people, to promote the social improvement of all classes of the people, has been my aim from the beginning of my reign. Determined as I am to serve the commonwealth, in hard-tested unity between the people and the monarchy, I have decided to begin the reconstruction of our domestic political, economic, and social life to the extent that the conditions of war permit.

Millions of our fellow countrymen are still on the battlefield. Behind the front, the settlement of differences of opinion, which are unavoidable in connection with a far-reaching alteration of the Constitution, must be postponed in the  highest patriotic interest, until our warriors have returned home and can themselves by word and deed aid in the progress of the new age. However, in order to allow the necessary and practical steps in this connection to take place immediately upon the successful end of the war, which I confidently hope is not far off, I wish that the preparations be concluded without delay. 

I am especially anxious to see the reorganization of the Prussian parliament and the liberation of all our domestic politics from this problem. On my orders, preparations for altering the suffrage for the House of Delegates were made at the beginning of the war. I now charge you to submit to me concrete proposals from the State Ministry, so this work, which is basic to the structure of domestic politics in Prussia, will quickly be carried out by legislation, once our warriors have returned. Given the colossal achievements of the whole people in this terrible war, I am convinced that there is no room any longer for the three-class franchise system in Prussia. Furthermore, the proposed bill is to provide for the direct and secret election of deputies.

No King of Prussia will fail to appreciate the merits and enduring significance of the House of Lords for the state. But the House of Lords will better be able to meet the colossal demands of the coming age if, to a broader and more equitable extent than before, it unifies in its midst leading men from the diverse sectors and vocations of the people, men who are distinguished by the respect of their fellow citizens. 

In renewing important dimensions of our firmly established and hard-tested state apparatus, I am acting in the traditions of my great forebears as I demonstrate my confidence in a loyal, brave, disciplined, and highly developed people.

I charge you to publish this decree at once.

Supreme Headquarters, April 7, 1917

Wilhelm I. R.

Source:  German History in Documents and Images; 1914-1918 Online

Trevor Wilson on the Essence of Trench Warfare

Trevor Wilson (1928–2022)

By December 1914 the trench warfare system was fully established on the Western Front. Over time the men in the trenches—as can be seen in the examples on the right—dug deeper and improved their firing positions. Although the sites are quite comparable you can see from the hunched-over postures of the men in the 1914 trench that they are definitely in a hot zone. Compare that to the men and their officer in the improved trench, in what might be a posed photo. What did the apparent permanence of all this mean for the those men stuck in the trenches?

1914 French Trench

There is an important thing to understand about trench warfare and what it was like to be in the trenches. It was not the same people in the same trench all through the war. The army realized that even in quiet periods, being in the front line was a terribly wearing experience.

At any moment, if you put your head above the parapet, a sniper might get you; at any moment, a trench mortar or shell might land among you, killing and maiming. Consequently, people there are living in a state of great anxiety, which if continued for long, would wear them down; and they would wear down pretty rapidly to the point where they can't be used again.

Similar Trench, Probably 1915

To avoid this, the army was constantly recycling people, having them in the front line a week at a time, then moving them to reserve trenches, then moving them out of the lines altogether (giving them time to recuperate), and then bringing them back again. A soldier would usually occupy a front line trench for only a week at a time.

Historian Trevor Wilson, PBS Interview

The Anthem of the Anti-Preparedness Movement: I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier

Preparedness Themed Lusitania Poster

After the Lusitania sinking of May 1915, Americans began debating the need for military and economic preparations for war. Strong opposition to “preparedness” came from isolationists, socialists, pacifists, many Protestant ministers, German Americans, and Irish Americans (who were hostile to Britain). Just earlier, one of the hit songs of 1915, “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier,” by lyricist Alfred Bryan and composer Al Piantadosi, had captured widespread American skepticism about joining in the European war. 

With the Lusitania tragedy, interventionists and sympathizers for the Allied cause like former president Theodore Roosevelt increasingly beat the drums for preparedness. Anti-interventionists made sure the song stayed popular. Roosevelt’s retort to the popularity of the antiwar song was that it should be accompanied by the tune “I Didn’t Raise My Girl to Be a Mother.” He suggested that the place for women who opposed war was “in China—or by preference in a harem—and not in the United States.”

Listen to the Song Here

Lyrics

Ten million soldiers to the war have gone,

Who may never return again.

Ten million mothers' hearts must break,

For the ones who died in vain.

Head bowed down in sorrow in her lonely years,

I heard a mother murmur thro' her tears:

Chorus:

I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier,

I brought him up to be my pride and joy,

Who dares to put a musket on his shoulder,

To shoot some other mother’s darling boy?

Let nations arbitrate their future troubles,

It’s time to lay the sword and gun away,

There’d be no war today,

If mothers all would say,

I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier.

Source:  History Matters

An Emerging Technology Just in Time for the Great War: Aerial Photography

Earliest Surviving Aerial Photograph
Boston, MA, USA
Taken from a Balloon, 13 October 1860

I've come across a fascinating 1995 article by an Italian historian/journalist (?) named Tiziana Carrozza that explores the pre-WWI development of aerial photography. I can't find anything about her career (I'm assuming she's a lady based on the female form of her given name), but she has done some impressive research on the subject. 

Aftermath of the 1918 Zeebrugge Raid

Below are some key excerpts from the 13-page article: "The Eye Over the Hill. Aerial Photography up to the First World War." The full article can be found HERE:

Fairly soon after the invention of photography, some extravagant people started experiments with a camera taking photographs hanging from a flying pigeon. The attempts with cameras attached to birds went on at least until 1907. . . Unfortunately, pigeons are not very keen on scientific experiments. A big problem with them was getting them to fly smoothly. Things went better with captive balloons and kites. At least, they didn't change their course voluntarily. 

In a letter of 25 August 1895, Graf von Zeppelin wrote to the War Ministry:

Through their quick and long flight [ ... ] the lighter-than-air craft become a means of strategic information as they have never been before. At a greater distance, the  assembly and the movement of an enemy army. can be discovered and observed, while carrier pigeons can inform the Headquarters.

 

An RFC/RAF Observer/Photographer with His Camera

Some ten years before, Aime Laussedat, an officer in the Engineer Corps of the  French Army pioneered the application of the invention of photography to simple observation from the air. He put into practice the suggestion made by the geodesist Dominique Francois Jean Arage in 1839 of using the daguerreotype for topographical maps. A real handicap to early aerial photographers was the poor quality of the sensitive material for the plates used in the cameras. An exposure of four hundred seconds was too long, and the photographs were rarely sharp enough to be of any use. By then, the exposure time of a plate had been reduced to eighty seconds by the use of bromine in the emulsion. 

Later on, in the 1850s, the exposure time was further reduced to one-tenth of that of the bromine daguerreotype. This improvement showed that the application of photography for aerial reconnaissance was only a matter of time. In 1856 Felix Nadar, a French civilian, photographed Paris from a captive balloon using the daguerreotype process. The first aerial photographs were just experiments in using the camera in every possible situation; once more appreciable results were obtained, they were considered as pictorial works to be shown in exhibitions for the amazement of a paying public. At the Paris exhibition in 1867 the public could, in fact, admire a map of Paris based on photographic surveys.

Union Army Balloon Corps "Intrepid"
Launched for the Battle of Seven Pines

 

The Balloon Corps of the United States was the first to apply aerial photographs to military operations. Since 1861 some civilian balloonists had been working unofficially with the U.S. Army. Their activity was considered of little significance by most of the officers. This attitude persisted even after 1910, when the Wright brothers invented the aeroplane. [sic: the Wright brothers first flew in 1903]

In Germany, people like Graf von Zeppelin had to push very hard to make the higher ranks realize the importance of observation and reconnaissance from the air. . . in 1898 Oskar Messter flew in a balloon called  Condor with the Flying Officer Bartsch von Siegfeld and took some successful photographs, which did not seem of great interest or use. Until July 1914 the crew roster for a lighter-than-air craft did not include a photographer, but only an observing officer. At the very least, the authorities' position regarding aerial photography was contradictory. While on the one hand, they seemed to be unaware of the tactical implications of the new technology, on the other they were alarmed by the danger of espionage connected with aerial photography. 

British Mine Craters at St. Eloi, Flanders

 

To War

The aerial camera was of great help for the Italians in the Italo-Turkish war of 1911–1912. Taking advantage of French experience in the matter, and using single-seater biplanes, the Italians were easily able to overwhelm the Turks, who used a classic war strategy. Another rehearsal for aerial photography, before the Great War, was the conflict between the Turks and the Bulgarians in 1912.

Though both conflicts showed the great importance of aerial reconnaissance, its widespread application dates from the early days of the First World War. The delay is difficult to explain, particularly if one takes into account a British patent for "A New or Improved Apparatus for Obtaining Bird's-eye Photographie Views", applied for as early as 1891, which says: "The present invention is applicable more especially to military operations, by taking photographic bird' seye views of fortifications or other positions occupied by an enemy, from a dist;mt position where they are not visible."  In fact, while most European countries used aeroplanes regularly before 1914 for surveying, no air unit had been trained or equipped to take pictures. 

Aerial photography was a genuinely new departure, far more so than the tank or the steel helmet. lt was the logical reaction to a completely changed way of making war, the off-spring of the first technological war in history. That is probably why it was not until the beginning of 1915 that the importance of photography was apparent, resulting from improvements in the type and general stability of aeroplanes. After die deadlock arising from the inauguration of trench warfare and new and more sophisticated camouflage, it was obvious that the old methods of obtaining intelligence information were out of date. The aeroplane replaced the cavalry and the ground scout of former days, and greater and greater demands were made on photography. 

Not a British Camera Maintenance Shop, But American
(Thanks Terry)

 

Unstable aeroplanes and inadequate photographic equipment made the first experiments very unsatisfactory for the requirements of reconnaissance. A very large proportion of the photographic work had to be done in unfavourable weather conditions, and this posed problems, in particular, atmospheric haze and thick clouds. While nothing could be done about cloudy weather except to hope for gaps in the clouds, the refraction of light rays caused by the minute particles composing haze could be overcome by using orange-coloured filters.

In fact, it was found that these filters greatly improved the quality of photographs taken in hazy weather, even if they stopped a large amount of light and reduced the "photographic day" to the period from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

It was only from the beginning of 1916 onward that aerial photography was conceived as a means of spying on the enemy's manoeuvres. Probably up to that date, photograph interpretation had not been sufficiently developed for its possibilities to be fully realized. 

Devastated Village of Vaux, Marne Sector

 

Carrozza's article continues with technological discussions of wartime  developments regarding flying operations, cameras, film and plates, stereoscopic photography and other matters. It concludes with this paragraph on the combatants' response to the new technology.

The form that the battlefield took in the Great War, the daily thickening network of trenches, the rapid discovery of the enemy gun emplacements required a precision in reconnaissance that only photography could give. The response to aerial photography was to develop highly sophisticated and effective forms of camouflage. Every attention was paid to keeping weapon positions secret, even to the extent of having troops wear biscuit tin lids on the soles of their shoes, which left prints that were less striking than foot-prints and, even if seen, did not show the direction in which they were marching. This in its turn forced the aerial photographers to elaborate methods of constructing stereoscopic views of the ground in order to enable the interpreters of the photographs to detect even the most carefully disguised units. 

Also: See our earlier article "Sources of Frontline Intelligence: Aerial Observation from Airplanes" by Terrence J. Finnegan"  HERE

Other Sources:  Over the Top, February 2009; Above and Beyond, 13 October 2014

Remembering the Eddystone Munitions Disaster

SPRINGFIELD (MA) REPUBLICAN, 11 April 1917

By Jerry Jonas

Originally published on the 100th anniversay of the disaster in Phillyburbs. Some additional details and these photos have been added by the editor. MH

Last Wednesday [10 April 2025] marked the [108]th anniversary of one of the greatest wartime disasters in American history, and it occurred during World War I here in the Delaware Valley, just a couple of miles south of today’s Philadelphia. 

For weeks, the plant management had been running ads in the Philadelphia newspapers recruiting young girls to fill hundreds of jobs. Britain contracted with the Remington Company to produce rifles, and Remington subcontracted part of the work to Baldwin. When their need for munitions outstripped their industrial capacity, Britain and France (and later Russia) also contracted with Baldwin to produce artillery shells. The munitions manufactured at Eddystone were shrapnel shells, an anti-personnel device. One Eddystone plant built the entire shell—from building the shell to shaping the brass cartridge—and filling the cartridge with black powder. Most of this work was being done by women and girls.

About 400 women and girls worked in the plant’s F building. That building housed about 40,000 loaded shells and was divided into three sections: the pellet room, the loading room, and the inspection room. In the pellet room, about 100 girls made the black-powder fuses that would eventually be used to detonate the shells. In the loading room, dozens of additional girls inserted the fuses into the shells, which were then filled with loose black gunpowder. The finished shells were then taken to the inspection room, where they were given a final quality checkup.

Somewhere between 9:55 a.m. and 10:10 a.m. on 10 April, the F building was rocked by a violent explosion. As described in the next day’s New York Times, 18 tons of black gunpowder had ignited, setting off thousands of shrapnel shells and causing "a series of detonations that shook a half dozen boroughs within a radius of ten miles of the plant."

This was followed by a series of smaller, intermittent explosions and then a large one in a building filled with black powder. The shrapnel blasts injured not only workers but also many first responders, including a fireman who lost a leg to a bullet. The explosions killed at least 133 employees and severely injured, maimed and badly burned an additional 500. The majority of those killed were the women and young girls who worked in the loading room. “We had but a minute to reach the door,” a survivor told the Chester Times (now the Delaware County Daily Times) newspaper, “but many of us never got that far. Some were killed and others were injured by flying bullets.”

After an appeal for help was flashed, local residents rushed to the plant in cars and trucks to help transport the wounded to hospitals. Students from the Pennsylvania College arrived and proved helpful with crowd control. Numerous fire companies from Chester and Philadelphia raced to the scene. 

Post-Explosion Crowd

All of the regional hospitals—Crozer, Chester, Taylor, and Media—were packed as doctors and nurses rushed to aid as many as they could. By 11 a.m., the hospitals were so full that the Chester Armory was converted into a temporary hospital, with Boy Scouts, National Guardsmen, and members of the Red Cross arranging cots in the drill hall. The Times described Chester Hospital as “corridors and side rooms lined with swathed forms, nothing visible of the person except for the tips of their noses. Intermittent screams of the suffering could be heard from the halls.”

Faces and bodies of the victims were blackened, as the powder had been blown into their flesh. Several bodies were discovered floating in the nearby Delaware River, where they either jumped to escape the fire and drowned or were blown into the river by the explosions. Many victims were identified only by their clothing, and at least 55 were never identified. Body parts were gathered and interred in a mass grave in the Chester Rural Cemetery.

Preparing the Victims for Burial

Some investigators suspected German saboteurs were behind the tragedy, since the plant had been supplying arms and ammunition to Germany’s enemy, Great Britain, and especially since the U.S. had only days earlier entered the war against Germany. Many (including plant employees) assumed that lack of appropriate safety standards at the plant was the actual cause of the disaster, but no real conclusions were ever reached. 

While it today seems unbelievable, less than two weeks after the tragedy, the Eddystone munitions plant was reopened, and over 900 girls had reportedly applied to work there. Girls with German backgrounds were not hired. Today, the victims of the 1917 explosion are considered by many historians to be among the very first American casualties of World War I.

Sources:  Phillyburbs.com; ABC Channel 27; WWI Centennial Commission; Wikipedia; Delco.Today; Timothy Hughes: Rare and Early Newspapers 

Carl Bobrow's Aerial Ascendancy Series

Sample Illustrations from the Series

By Carl J. Bobrow

Aeronaut Books, 2025

Reviewed by Steve Suddaby

As a lover of WWI aviation, I was initially concerned that I wouldn’t find prewar aviation histories very interesting. I had no reason to worry! Carl Bobrow, Alfred Verville Fellow and retired Smithsonian Institution National Air & Space Museum staffer, presents fascinating descriptions of the earliest years of aviation in the Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and German Empires. Each volume helps the reader understand the genesis of these empires’ successes and failures in aviation during the war itself. The Russian and Austro-Hungarian histories are particularly enlightening because those two empires have always been underrepresented in English-language research on the Great War.

Aerial Ascendancy: Volume I
Russia’s Path to the Skies

Carl Bobrow’s writing style greatly enhances the reader’s understanding of these technical and complex topics. He writes short chapters. His photo captions are long and detailed. The end notes are given chapter-by-chapter, where they’re easy to find and often provide insightful background in addition to just citing sources. His electronic enhancement of the photos and their large size make them unusually clear and sharp, as if they were black-and-white photos taken in 2012 rather than 1912.  

Aerial Ascendancy: Volume II
The Rise of Flight in Austria-Hungary

Bobrow’s approach to “military” history is more wide-ranging than that of most authors. He discusses civilian pilots (including women), mechanics, aviation manufacturing companies, international air meets, promotion of aviation by aristocrats and industrialists, government policies that affected aviation companies, academic research into flight, aerial photography, naval aviation, the sparring between advocates of airplanes and airships, as well as the prescience and shortsightedness of particular generals and admirals. All of this gives an exceptionally well rounded appraisal of aviation in these three empires and clarifies why their subsequent military aviation efforts succeeded or struggled. These three volumes will be an important resource for understanding World War I aviation for years to come.

Aerial Ascendancy: Volume III
Genesis of German Aviation

All volumes available from Amazon HERE

Full Disclosure: The WWI aviation community is small and tightly knit. Carl Bobrow has been a friend and colleague of this reviewer for years.

Steve Suddaby

Lenin Tells the Bolsheviks to Accept Brest-Litovsk

From Lenin's Statement on the Treaty

Published in Pravda, 14 March 1918

Comrades. . . some are giving way too much to the feeling of legitimate and just indignation at the defeat of the Soviet Republic by imperialism. They are sometimes too prone to give way to despair, and, instead of taking into account the historical conditions for the development of the Revolution as they emerged before the conclusion of the peace and as they appear after the peace. . . The most onerous of peace treaties—the Tilsit Peace—is nowregarded by history as a turning-point of that time, as the start of the turning-point in the history of the German nation. Germany, though forced to retreat to Tilsit. . . was actually gaining time, waiting until the international situation, which at one time had permitted the triumph of Napoleon—a robber similar to the present-day Hohenzollern-Hindenburg—should change in her favour, and until the consciousness of the German  people, exhausted by the decades of the Napoleonic wars and defeats, should heal and the people be resurrected to new life.. . . it is our revolutionary duty to sign even an onerous, a super-onerous and forced treaty, for thereby we shall attain a better position both for ourselves and for our allies. Have we lost anything by signing the peace treaty on March 3?. . . Our cause is gaining in strength, whilst the forces of the imperialists are becoming weaker, and whatever trials and defeats we may suffer from our “ Tilsit ” peace, we are starting the tactics of retreat, and I repeat once again: there is no doubt whatever that both the conscious proletariat and the conscious peasants are on our side, and we shall prove ourselves capable not only of heroic attack, but also of heroic retreat. We shall know how to wait till the international Socialist proletariat comes to our aid and we shall then start a second Socialist revolution on a world scale.

Shaded Area Shows Area to Be Occupied by Central Powers After the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
(Map Is Somewhat Inexact)

 

Haller’s Blue Army

Centennial Commemortive Stamp for the Blue Army

By James Patton

During the Middle Ages the kingdom of Poland was a vibrant state, a bastion of power and Catholic enlightenment. The dynasty reached its zenith in 1683 when the Polish King Jan III Sobieski led the army that defeated the Ottomans in the Battle for Vienna, which proved to be the high water mark of the Ottoman incursion into Central Europe. The subsequent decline of the Polish state paralleled the rise of the Prussian state to the north, and beginning in 1764, Polish territory was nibbled away by Prussia, Russia and Austria, until in 1795 the entire nation had disappeared into the "partitions," the largest of which was the Russian and included the city of Warsaw. 

In the 19th century, disaffected Poles left the area in considerable numbers. It has been estimated that 5 million Poles migrated to North America and considerable numbers went to Western Europe as well. There was even substantial emigration from the Russian partition to the Austrian partition, where the regime was more lenient. Influential Poles in the west, such as the musician Ignacy Paderewski and the scientist Maria Sklodowska Curie, spoke up passionately and persuasively about the unjust treatment of their people, most particularly those under the tsar. 

In 1918 the Polish cause became a war aim. Woodrow Wilson devoted Point XIII of his Fourteen Points to Polish independence. When stating His Majesty’s war aims David Lloyd George said "An independent Poland is an urgent necessity…"

But even before these actions, in August 1916 the Germans and Austro-Hungarians had agreed to create an autonomous (but not quite independent) Kingdom of Poland (no king was ever crowned), and in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in early 1918 the Bolsheviks were required to renounce any claim to the Russian partition.

General Haller Honoring His Troops

Before the war, there were "Polish Legions" formed in the Austrian partition, ostensibly as sportsmen’s clubs. Among the leaders of this movement were the socialist Jósef Pilsudski (1867–1935), a long-time agitator against tsarist rule, and Jósef Haller von Hallenburg (1873–1960), a former cavalry captain in the Austrian army. These paramilitary units also included Polish refugees from the Russian partition as well as veterans of Austrian compulsory military service and, later on, Polish prisoners of war who had served in the Russian army. The real objective of these Legions was to permanently oust the Russians from a large swath of the ancestral Polish domain. In 1915, these units were accepted by the Austro-Hungarians as co-belligerents.

On the other side of the Atlantic, a group of Polish immigrants sought to start a different Polish Legion. American law made this problematic, so they set up shop in Canada. Neither the Canadians nor the British had much use for an all-Polish unit, but the French were much more welcoming.  In fact, they bankrolled the whole operation, and over 20,000 volunteers responded to the call. After the U.S. declared war in 1917, 24,000 more Polish-Americans signed up, and 35,000 Polish POWs held by Italy were recruited as well. Altogether nearly 90,000 men were assembled in France, and the overall command was given to Haller, who had escaped to the West after the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, when his Austro-Hungarian Polish Legion was ordered to stand down. The organization in France became known as Haller’s Army and under his command these soldiers fought on the Western Front from July to November 1918 and who, along with French colonials and the borrowed Americans of the 92nd and 93rd divisions, were among the few units the French Army had that were willing to mount frontal assaults.

After the Armistice, Lt. Gen. Haller and his army were shifted to the east, where they merged with units formerly in Russian service to form the first Polish Army in 124 years, under the overall command of Pilsudski. The French provided massive logistical assistance and an advisory mission led by Gen. Maxime Weygand (1867–1965). Since Haller’s Army still wore their "horizon blue" French uniforms, they became known as  the "Blue Army" but were still under the overall command of Haller. 

The Miracle on the Vistula

The feats of the Blue Army became legendary in the postwar wars, in the Polish-Ukrainian War of 1919, and at the Battle of Warsaw (12–25 August1920). There is a famous painting called The Miracle on the Vistula by Jerzy Kossack (1885–1955) that depicts the Polish soldiers spurred forward by an Apparition of the Virgin Mary leading a host of angelic knights, just as some believe she did at Vienna in 1683. Acting against the advice of Weygand, and significantly outnumbered, Haller’s Corps, including the Blue Army,  successfully turned the northern flank of the Soviet armies attacking Warsaw, forcing them into a chaotic withdrawal.

Pilsudski was a seasoned political infighter and emerged from the Soviet War as the most influential person in Poland. After staging the May 1925 coup d'état he ran the country until his death in 1935.   

Haller, on the other hand, was a great soldier but a poor politician. After he declined to participate in Pilsudki’s coup he was forced out of the army.  He moved to London, where he resided for rest of his life, with frequent visits to America. During WWII he was active in the Polish government in exile in London.

Click on Image to Enlarge

Cemetery for Soldiers of Haller's Corps Who Fell in the 1920 Battle of Warsaw (Photo by James Patton)

Many of those who served under Haller emigrated or returned to the U.S. after their service ended. They were the antecedents of the Polish Legion of American Veterans, which received a federal charter in 1984. Membership has always been restricted to veterans, but the requirement that they be of Polish ancestry was dropped in 1992.  There are currently about 75 posts in 12 states plus DC, mostly located in historically Polish neighborhoods.

Source: Article originally appeared in KansasWW1.org on 5/19/2018

Oscar and the Great War: WWI Veteran Academy Award Winning Actors

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The Ruins of Ypres

By Correspondent Philip Gibbs

The city of Ypres was the capital of our battlefields in Flanders from the beginning to the end of the war, and the ground on which it stands, whether a new city rises there or its remnants of ruin stay as a memorial of dreadful things, will be forever haunted by the spirit of those men of ours who passed through its gates to fight in the fields beyond or to fall within its ramparts.

I went through Ypres so many times in early days and late days of the war that I think I could find my way about it blindfold, even now. I saw it first in March of 1915, before the battle when the Germans first used poison-gas and bombarded its choking people, and French and British soldiers, until the city fell into a chaos of masonry. On that first visit I found it scarred by shellfire, and its great Cloth Hall was roofless and licked out by the flame of burning timbers, but most of the buildings were still standing and the shops were busy with customers in khaki, and in the Grande Place were many small booths served by the women and girls who sold picture post-cards and Flemish lace and fancy cakes and soap to British soldiers sauntering about without a thought of what might happen here in this city, so close to the enemy's lines, so close to his guns. I had tea in a bun-shop, crowded with young officers, who were served by two Flemish girls, buxom, smiling, glad of all the English money they were making.

St. Martin's Cathedral

A few weeks later the devil came to Ypres. The first sign of his work was when a mass of French soldiers and colored troops, and English, Irish, Scottish, and Canadian soldiers came staggering through the Lille and Menin gates with panic in their look, and some foul spell upon them. They were gasping for breath, vomiting, falling into unconsciousness, and, as they lay, their lungs were struggling desperately against some stifling thing. A whitish cloud crept up to the gates of Ypres, with a sweet smell of violets, and women and girls smelled it and then gasped and lurched as they ran and fell. It was after that when shells came in hurricane flights over Ypres, smashing the houses and setting them on fire, until they toppled and fell inside themselves. Hundreds of civilians hid in their cellars, and many were buried there. Others crawled into a big drain-pipe--there were wounded women and children among them, and a young French interpreter, the Baron de Rosen, who tried to help them--and they stayed there three days and nights, in their vomit and excrement and blood, until the bombardment ceased. Ypres was a city of ruin, with a red fire in its heart where the Cloth Hall and cathedral smoldered below their broken arches and high ribs of masonry that had been their buttresses and towers.

Site of Menin Gate

When I went there two months later I saw Ypres as it stood through the years of the war that followed, changing only in the disintegration of its ruin as broken walls became more broken and fallen houses were raked into smaller fragments by new bombardments, for there was never a day for years in which Ypres was not shelled.

Source: Now It Can Be Told, 1920