Thou Shalt Not Kill: Conscientious Objectors in World War One Series Introduction by Jane Mattisson Ekstam

Corrected Text, 20 May 2014

[Editor's Note:  Regular reviewer Jane Mattisson Ekstam will be examining works on the topics of pacifisim and conscientious objectors in her next several pieces. To start the series, she will provide some background on these general topics here on the eve of her first review.]

Conscientious objectors, or "conchies" as they were sometimes called, took the Lord's commandments at face value. At a time when so many answered Lord Kitchener’s exhortation "Your Country Needs You," many asked themselves, "Who were the pacifists, and why were they held in prison and threatened with execution?" In total, there were approximately 16,300 British conscientious objectors in World War One, of whom 6000 served varying sentences in prison. Thirteen hundred of the 6000, labeled "absolutists", refused to compromise with the state in any shape or form.

A Tribunal for British Conscientious Objectors 

As war fever hit the streets in 1914, conscientious objection was regarded as both unpatriotic and cowardly. While many conscientious objectors served as non-combatants in the trenches and were prepared to die, they were unarmed and refused to handle munitions; as a result, they risked being shackled to the wheels of a gun carriage or hung on barbed wire. According to author Adam Hothschild, almost 50 conscientious objectors were shipped to France for possible execution for refusing to fight. Hothschild does not claim, however, that they were executed.  [The original version of this article suggested that the 50 men were executed.  We apologize for publishing this error. MH] And in 1916, just before the Battle of the Somme, a group of war opponents at a British camp nearby refused to bear arms. Threatened with the death sentence, they stood their ground. It was only thanks to last-minute lobbying in London that their lives were spared. Few at the time understood what it meant to be a conscientious objector.

Conscientious objection existed not only in Great Britain but also in Germany and America. At the beginning of the war, for example, a handful of German parliamentarians opposed war credits. Radicals like Rosa Luxembourg and Karl Liebknecht later went to prison, as did the American socialist leader Eugene V. Debs. Conscientious objection was international and was here to stay. Indeed, as Will Ellsworth-Jones has noted, "the battle over conscience fought between 1914 and 1918 laid the groundwork for the treatment of the conscientious objector both in the Second World War and in the wars that have followed in Vietnam and Iraq." (We Will Not Fight. The Untold Story of the First World War’s Conscientious Objectors. Aurum, 2008).

COs Sentence to Work in a Quarry near Dartmoor Prison

While historians have tended to focus on combatants, histories of the conscientious objectors are relatively rare. A few historians, like Felicity Goodall, are trying to correct the balance, arguing:

To stand against the tide of public opinion armed only with your beliefs; to be divided from friends, family and even spouses by those beliefs; to be isolated from the defining experience of your generation. Few people have the courage not to follow the common herd. (We Will Not Go to War. Conscientious Objection During the World Wars.  The History Press, 2010)

The story of the conscientious objector is a noble one. It involves people, events, and moral testing grounds that are, as Adam Hochschild argues, "more revealing than any but the greatest of novelists could invent." (To End All Wars. A Story of Protest and Patriots in the First World War.  Macmillan, 2011)

I will review all three books cited here for Roads in the coming months, along with one novel, Edward Marston’s Instrument of Slaughter (2012), a riveting tale about a group of conscientious objectors in London in 1916. My series of reviews begins tomorrow with Will Ellsworth-Jones’s We Will Not Fight: The Untold Story of the First World War’s Conscientious Objectors. 

The Imperial Japanese Navy and the Allies in the Great War

From Timothy D. Saxton

Japan rendered vital, worldwide naval support to Great Britain during the First World War, culminating in the service of Japan's first and only Mediterranean squadron. This long-forgotten Japanese flotilla fought alongside Allied warships throughout the most critical period of the struggle against German and Austro-Hungarian U-boats in 1917 and 1918. 

Admiral Sato Kozo (seated, center) Commanded a Flotilla of
14 Destroyers Based in Malta

Japanese cooperation is all the more surprising given that both British and American historians have characterized Japan's role in the First World War as that of a "jackal state," one that took a lion's share of the kill after only minimally assisting the cause.[ 2] The record tells a different story. Japan in fact stretched its naval resources to the limit during the First World War. Japanese naval assistance in the Mediterranean Sea in 1917 boosted the strength of Allied naval escorts during the darkest days of the war. Beyond the Mediterranean, an argument can be made that without Japanese assistance Great Britain would have lost control of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. That would have isolated the British Empire's two dominions in the Far East, Australia and New Zealand, from the campaigns in Europe and the Middle East. Other British colonies, from Aden and India to Singapore and Hong Kong, would have been exposed. Despite this help, Japan, at best a mistrusted and suspect ally of Great Britain in 1914, emerged from the conflict feared and despised by its "friends."

How did the Imperial Japanese Navy cooperate with the Royal Navy during the First World War? Although the Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902 did not require it, Japan declared it would support Britain in the war against Germany and sent an ultimatum to Berlin demanding withdrawal of German warships from Japanese and Chinese waters. Japan helped establish control of the Pacific and Indian Oceans early in the war by seizing the German fortress and naval base of Tsingtao and Germany's colonies in the Pacific (the Carolines, Marshalls, and most of the Mariana Islands); Japanese naval forces also aided Great Britain in driving German warships from the Pacific. At the outbreak of the war, Vice Admiral Maximilian Graf von Spee commanded six cruisers of the German Far Eastern Squadron at Ponape in the Carolines; the Japanese declaration of war compelled him to lead most of his force east to South America and the battles of Coronel and the Falklands.

Destroyer Momo Served with the Mediterranean Deployment

The Japanese Navy maintained Allied control of Far Eastern and Indian waters throughout the war, assuming responsibility for patrolling them when demands on British naval forces exceeded resources, and in 1917 freeing American naval forces for service in Europe. Japanese forces provided escorts for convoying troops and war materials to the European theater of operations from the British dominions in the Far East. Japan built warships for Allied nations and sold merchant shipping to the Allies during the war when their shipyards, already working at maximum effort, could not meet such needs. Finally, Japan rendered direct naval assistance in the Mediterranean Sea in 1917 and 1918 when the Allied navies faced the prospect of abandoning that sea in the face of the Central Powers' increasingly successful submarine operations.

Despite the cooperative manner in which the Japanese extended their wartime responsibilities, American resentment of dependence upon the Japanese throughout the war and of Japanese gains in Micronesia closely paralleled that seen in British quarters.[ 69] The Japanese returned this antagonism after 1917, when the view took root among naval officers that differences between the two powers were irreconcilable short of war. Japanese expansion into Siberia in 1918, seen by some Japanese as preempting American containment on all sides, was to add to the antipathy between the two nations. By 1917, even while acting as an ally, the Japanese Navy had officially designated the United States its "most likely enemy" in any future conflict.

The apparent hostility toward Japan after the war, despite its service, led an increasing number of Japanese military officers to believe in an American and British conspiracy against Japan, founded on racial animosity.

Destroyer Sakaki Rescued 1,800 British Soldiers When the Troopship Transylvania Was Sunk. Later She Had 68 Crewmen Killed When It Barely Survived a Torpedo from U-27 

The severing of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, in fact, steered Japan toward cooperation with Germany. The arrival of the seized German submarines began a new, long-term relationship between the Japanese and German navies. German influence and technology quickly supplanted those of the British. The two services began to exchange personnel. Numerous Japanese officers received training in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, facilitating the Imperial Japanese Navy's ultimate break with its British mentors.

The British had their empire, and the Americans felt no shame in professing their "Manifest Destiny," but both attacked Japanese imperial ambitions as excessive. After 1918, neither nation proved willing to maintain the close naval cooperation with Japan that had benefited all parties during the First World War. So it was that despite the strong record of Japanese assistance to Great Britain during that conflict, the true legacy of that cooperation proved to be alienation. Thus began the breach between East and West that led to the Japanese attack upon British (and American) possessions in the Far East as part of a true two-ocean conflict, just 23 years after Japan, Great Britain, and the United States had been allies in the "war to end all 

wars." 

Source:  Saxon, Timothy D., "Anglo-Japanese Naval Cooperation, 1914-1918"

Read the full article at:  http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=hist_fac_pubs

Western Front Virtual Tour — Stop 19: Cantigny

I want to thank our regular readers for the suggestions we have received on our Virtual Tour.  In the future we will be having fewer slides, but with more information on the featured site. Today we are moving into the Somme sector, where we will be stopping at various sites from both 1916 and 1918.

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Quick Facts

Where:    The Somme Sector, North of Paris

When:     May 28 - 30, 1918

AEF Units Participating:    1st Division

US Commander:     Major General Robert L. Bullard

Opposing Forces:    German 82nd Reserve Division      

Memorable For:      First US Offensive and Victory.

How It Looked To A Doughboy

Into the village of Cantigny we go. There remained nothing but ruins. We passed on through to the other side of the village. Here we encountered barbed wire entanglements but it was our good fortune to get through these without any mishap. But once across I notice that the boys are falling down fast. A shell burst about ten yards in front of me and the dirt from the explosion knocked me flat on my back. I got up again but could not see further than one hundred feet.

I heard someone yell "lay down." I knelt on one knee and wondered what would come next...We laid down and started to shoot and it was our good fortune that the second wave reached the place at this time. About twenty Dutchmen came out of the holes, threw down their rifles and stood with their hands up. The doughboys didn't pay any attention to this but started in to butcher and shoot them. One of the doughboys on the run stabbed a Dutchman and his bayonet went clear through him...

The German artillery was in action all the time...I stopped at a strong point and asked the boy in the trench if there was room for me to get in. "Don't ask for room, but get in before you get your [!#%&] shot off," a doughboy said...

We stayed there all that night and the next day, being relieved at two o'clock the following morning, taking position in the first line of reserve trenches. We ate a cooked dinner at eleven o'clock, that being the first meal we've had in three days.

Sgt. Boleslaw Suchocki, 28th Infantry, 1st Division

Unpublished Manuscript

Source:  The Doughboy Center

Combat as Imagined in U.S. Recruiting Posters (First Anniversary Posting)

Our First Anniversary Posting

Celebrating 365 Consecutive Days of Presenting at Least One New Article to Our Loyal Readers

Last Sunday, I spent a couple of hours looking over the Library of Congress collection of American posters from World War I. I was struck by the standardized motif in recruiting posters for showing the type of combat the new soldier could expect when he got to France. Naturally such posters wouldn't want to be too realistic, but the uniformity of the depictions is what struck me:  mass, densely packed charges behind waving flags with no incoming fire from the enemy — an irresistible, and, apparently, unopposed force. One poor German soldier showed up (2nd image from bottom), but he appears to be totally defenseless, a lamb awaiting his slaughter. Note also that the top and bottom are the same composition, but in two-tone and full-color versions.

Only one poster in the collection really captured the essential bottom line of combat. It was produced for fund raising rather than for recruiting men to the ranks. Here it is without comment.

14 May 1917: Secretary of War Baker Announces General John J. Pershing Will Command the American Expeditionary Forces

On the Last Day of Marshal Joffre's visit to Washington, Secretary of War Baker introduced him to Major General John J. Pershing, the recent commander of the Punitive Expedition in Mexico. Baker and Wilson, having agreed to send a small force to France immediately, had selected Pershing to head it. As the Secretary sketched a rundown of Pershing's distinguished career, Joffre caught the names New Mexico, Dakota, Cuba, and the Mexican frontier.  Commenting that Pershing was a "fine-looking soldier," the elderly Frenchman predicted that Pershing would soon be commanding millions of men. ''Please tell him," Joffre said, "that he can always count on me for anything in my power." 

In making this introduction, Baker did not convey the amount of soul-searching that had gone into the selection. It was one of the most important decisions that Baker and President Wilson would ever make, as the officer selected would have to be capable of carrying tremendous responsibility on his own. Secretary Baker could not look over the shoulder of the man sent to command in Europe.

Pershing had not always been Baker's first choice. In early 1917 the most prestigious field officer in the United States Army was Major General Frederick Funston, commanding the Southern Department at San Antonio, Texas. A Medal of Honor recipient and seventeen years a general officer, Funston was expected to lead any force the United States would put into the field. 

It was not to be. The command picture changed drastically during the evening of February 19, 1917. Army duty officers Brigadier General Peyton March and Major Douglas MacArthur received a message disclosing that General Funston had died of a massive heart attack that evening while dining out at a local hotel in San Antonio. MacArthur, the junior of the pair, was detailed to deliver the message to Secretary of War Baker who was with the President at a dinner party.

Wilson and Baker, though somewhat shaken, took the news in stride. As MacArthur waited for instructions, they beckoned for him to follow as they went into an adjacent room. First the President dictated a message of sympathy to Mrs. Funston. Then turning to Baker, he asked, ''What now, Newton, who will take the Army over?'' Baker, perhaps stalling for time, turned to MacArthur, "Whom do you think the Army would choose, Major?" 

''I cannot, of course, speak for the Army, but for myself the choice would unquestionably be General Pershing."

From John Eisenhower's Yanks

Wounded: A New History of the Western Front in World War I — Reviewed by James Thomas

Wounded: A New History of the Western Front in World War I

By Emily Mayhew

Oxford University Press, 2014

In Wounded, Emily Mayhew crafts a remarkable glimpse into one of the most important but less examined aspects of the Great War. All who study the war know of the horrors, the numbers, the wastefulness and the mud. The massive slaughter in No Man's Land and the hell-scape that was once beautiful French countryside are images that instantly come to mind when the war is considered. Descriptions of battles like the Somme, Verdun or Ypres include the hundreds of thousands of casualties, men killed or wounded. Generally, after describing the battles and giving those statistics to show once again the enormity of the war, the story moves on to the next battle and its horrific statistics. But what happened to the men who were those wounded casualties? How did they leave the battlefields? Where did they go and what sort of treatment did they receive? Who were the men who carried them, doctored them and fought their own war against the enemy of all soldiers, death? These are the questions Mayhew answers in her outstanding new book.

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Dr. Mayhew uses primary source material to weave together the story of treatment of the wounded in World War I. Finding letters, diaries and reports from stretcher bearers, orderlies, nurses, doctors and even the wounded themselves she traces the movement and care of casualties. From the moment of their injuries soldiers suffered the trauma and pain of their wounds, the loss of comrades and the fear of what would happen to them next. As battles raged, countless wounded men, often crowded in shell-holes, cried out for help. Their numbers were staggering and their wounds ghastly. Then, trudging through the mud and detritus of the fight, the first stage of their rescue arrived in the form of bearers to give first aid and then struggle to carry them back to aid stations where orderlies would take over. Stretcher bearers faced the same shell-fire and snipers as the combat infantry and died in great numbers as well. Hospitals were shelled and there was never anywhere really safe. In fact, as Mayhew shows, no one was immune to the violence of the battlefield. Peace, it seems, was only found by the men in the Moribund Wards whose lives slipped away without further attempts to do anything but let them go as quietly and gently as possible.

One of the book's greatest assets is the author's ability to make the reader feel individual loss. She uses so many memoirs and firsthand accounts that windows are constantly opened into the lives of her characters, and moving through the book the reader never knows if the person whose story is being told survived the war or not. Too often one feels affection and admiration for bearers, orderlies, doctors, and chaplains only to have them die the sudden tragic death that so exemplifies the Great War.

Mayhew's turn of phrase, whether her own or the words of her sources and nicely melded into her prose, add to the feeling of "being there." Wounded men with faces "white from too much fear and too little blood," fill a field hospital. Hopelessness and despair sometimes softened by chaplain's words (few of whom actually had the time for actual services) or a nurse's gentle kindness meld the story together to bring reality to a war now drifting a hundred years into the past. 

In 1980 there was a television special on BBC1 which included an elderly Great War veteran describing the lifelong lingering effects of the injuries he sustained in 1917. Requiring regular medical treatments the rest of his entire life showed clearly the war had not ended for him on 11 November 1918. Mayhew's last character, a nurse, recognized this would be the case for her and so many others even as the war was ending around her; the war would never really be over.

As all of the commemoration events unfold this year around the world, if there is any need to be reminded of the pain and loss the war's statistics represent, turn to Emily Mayhew's Wounded, and indeed the war will never be forgotten.

James Thomas

World War I Laffs

Compiled from his students' writings over the years by University of California at Santa Barbara history professor Alfred Lindemann. His supplementary comments are in parentheses.

World War I turned many into passivists. [They just stayed in their trenches and played cards.]

When war reached the Italian boarders, the Italian socialists revealed their true position. [The sanctity of the pensione was being violated!]

Lenin won over the populus with the call for Peace, land, and fruit! [To be more precise, Peace, land, and cantaloupes.]

By reading the diaries of the soldiers at the front, it made me more able to emphasize with them. [One, two, three, column left!]

President Wilson arrived in Paris with fourteen pointers. [There was such a scene when they met up with the Alsatians and Dalmatians.]

After Lenin's death, Stalin spread his testacles over Russia. [And I thought Rasputin had kinky tastes!]

Action at Gallipoli: V Beach and the River Clyde

Sources:  Tony Langley Collection; Imperial War Museum Archives

Those "Other" U.S. Marines in the First World War

Almost all sources that discuss the contribution of the U.S. Marine Corps to the victory in World War I focus on the service of the Marine Brigade attached to the Army's 2nd Division. This is not without good reason — the 2nd Division might have seen more action that any other unit in France — but it is not the whole story.

Marine Honor Guard – AEF General Headquarters, Chaumont

The 5th Marine Brigade, organized at Quantico in September of 1918 and consisting of the 11th and 13th Regiments and the 5th Machine Gun Battalion, also served in France but did not engage in combat. The 13th Regiment arrived at Brest, France, on 25 September 1918; all units of the 11th Regiment were in France by 25 October, and the 5th Machine Gun Battalion arrived at Brest on 9 November.

Upon arrival in France, the 5th Marine Brigade was assigned to the Service of Supply, which was in need of dependable troops for guard duty. The 13th Regiment soon found itself scattered, and doing guard duty along with the western coast of France, while the 11th Regiment was stationed in the general area of Tours. There it performed similar duties, such as guarding the aviation training center at Issoudun, and furnishing some companies for military police duty. The brigade machine gun battalion was stationed at Camp Pontanezan, Brest. That base was commanded by double Medal of Honor recipient, General Smedley Butler. The units of the 5th Marine Brigade continued to perform these general duties until July 1919, when they assembled at Brest and returned to the United States early in August.

Although the battle record of the 4th Marine Brigade, as part of the 2nd Division, overshadowed all other activities of Marine Corps personnel in Europe during World War I, officers and men of the Marine Corps participated in the conflict in other ways. Marine detachments served on all battleships and cruisers operating in the European theater. In addition, from early August 1918 to the date of demobilization, the commanding general of the 2nd Division and several officers on his staff were Marines. At various times Marine officers were attached to the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 26th, 32nd, 35th, 90th, and 92nd Divisions and in some cases engaged in operations with them.

Marine Aviators of the Northern Bombing Group

Marine aviation personnel also served in France as the Day Wing of the Northern Bombing Group of the Navy. The Day Wing carried out 14 independent raids far behind the enemy lines, and brought back valuable information. A few Marine officers and enlisted men engaged in Army aviation operations, and about 20 Marine officers were sent to France as observers and participated in operations with American, French, and British forces. While in Europe, the Marine fliers served with Squadrons 213 (pursuit squadron), 217, and 218 (bombing squadrons), the Royal Air Force, and with pursuit, observation, and bombing squadrons of the French Flying Corps. In World War I a total of 282 officers and 2,180 enlisted men served in Marine aviation. Of these, about one-half got overseas.

In addition, more than 40,000 Marines served during 1917—1919 without going to France. After their 1914 landing at Veracruz, Marines remained on duty protecting the U.S. border with Mexico and aboard 62 warships. The peak strength of the Corps worldwide was 75,000. By 1920 the total Marines on duty had been reduced to 17,000.

Source:  Marine Corps History Division,  Marine Corps University; U.S. Marine Museum, Quantico

Western Front Virtual Tour — Stop 18: Artois

French Flanders and Artois first saw action during the 1914 "Race to the Sea".  In 1915 both British and French forces fought intense battles here, although the sector is best remembered for the 1917 capture of Vimy Ridge by the Canadian Corps.

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Next Week: Arras and Vicinity

Monte Pasubio and the Road of Heroes

Massive Monte Pasubio, Italy's Southern Anchor of the Trentino Sector

Monte Pasubio, a stupendous series of peaks and high plateaus southeast of Rovereto and north of Vicenza was a strategic position from 1916 through the end of the war on the Italian Front. Hemingway, Dos Passos, and Pope John XXIII (Angelo Roncalli) saw service there. It played a role on the Italian Front similar to Mte. Grappa farther North. Capturing it would have given the Austrian high command access to the Venetian Plain and the ability to capture much of the Italian Army from the rear. At the start of the war Pasubio had been in Austrian territory but was quickly occupied by the Italians, who built a new trench line further north just south of Rovereto and the Asiago high plains.

In May 1916, Austro-Hungarian forces launched their Strafexpedtion [a.k.a The Battle of Asiago] and quickly captured the Vallarsa and Val Posina valleys, Mt. Col Santo, Val d'Astico, and part of the Asiago Plateau. At Mte. Pasubio, the Liguria Brigade, under the command of General Achille Papa, was able to stop the Austrian army after being quickly transferred from the Isonzo Front. They were able to secure one of two peaks in the Cima Palon section of the massif. Papa's troops occupied the more southerly peak, Dente Italian [the Italian tooth], the Austrians the other [Dente Austrico] — the two positions separated by a saddle. This allowed the Italian defenders to stabilize the front on the line from Mte. Pasubio to Mt. Ortigara on the Asiago Plateau by 3 June.

Italian Officers Outside One of the Galleries

The front held along the saddle between the two peaks for another two years. The plateau became a land of bloody and hard battles involving the best alpine troops of the two sides, an epic battle for the Kaiserjager as well as the Italian Alpini. Italy would award 30 Gold Medals for valor for the fighting on Mte. Pasubio.

Today Monte Pasubio seems to have been torn by giant plows. Trails dynamited into the rocks along deep vertical walls and dozens of tunnels with small cross sections make hiking this trail an exceptional experience. The mountain massif is crisscrossed by strategic trails and roads built around 1917 by Italy during the sad war with Austria. The Road of Heroes leads from Passo Fuggaze at 1162 meters altitude past Refugio Papa (named in honor of the Liguria Brigade's commander) to the eastern edge of the trail backing the Italian position at 1925 meters. Thousands of miners assigned to the 5th Engineering Regiment built the next core section of the trail, called "Strada delle Gallerie" (road of tunnels) under enormous time pressure in only 11 months. This section includes 52 tunnels providing cover or leading to the north face of the Italian position. The Strada drops downward in this zone of galleries to about 1200 meters. The 52 galleries in the aggregate total 2280 meters in length.

The Road of Heroes, Two of the 52 Galleries Shown

Austria-Hungary desperately needed to break through at Monte Pasubio. The British official history of the Italian campaign notes that "...at 3 a.m. 13 March 1918, using 110,000 lbs of ecrasite, the Austrians blew a salient of the Italian front position into the air." Pasubio never fell, however. Its 52 galleries made it an unbreakable citadel.

The Centennial at the Grass Roots Series: Announcing the New Doughboy Center Website

Worldwar1.com will be supporting the Centennial with our own projects each year.  Our 2014 project is a recasting of our award-winning 14-year-old Doughboy Center Website.  I like to refer to it as a "rejuvenation." While keeping all of our popular features, we will also become more of a portal to other sites that focus on the American experience during the war.  I asked our talented young designer Shannon Niel to come up with a fresh design that both captures the spirit of the times and will also be appealing to younger persons in whom we are trying to stir interest and appreciation for their nation's history and heritage. I have just approved Shannon's final design, and we will be implementing it over the summer without any break in our operations. Here is the new look, but please check in regularly to see our progress at:

The Doughboy Center Website

Our New Home Page

The Battles and Operations of the AEF.   The Air Service, Navy and all Activities of the U.S. Marines Included.

Stories, Photos and Biographies of Notable Members, Heroes and Many of the 2 Million Doughboys, Who Went "Over There"; and Genealogical Help for Families Researching Their Members that Served.

The Lost Battalion, Belleau Wood, Armistice Day and Veterans Day, Why Were They Called "Doughboys"?   Art, Music, and Literature of the AEF. Learn About It Here.

Information for the Hard Core Enthusiast; World War I Reenactor Community; the Logistical Arm of the AEF, including the Important Medical Services.

The Doughboy Center Website

The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War — Reviewed by David F. Beer

The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War

by Peter Hart

Oxford University Press, 2013

There comes a time when war ceases to be an adventure and the young regard it cynically, disillusioned and disenchanted. I do not suppose any generation ever marched to war with the stars in their eyes as my generation did, but after the Somme and the even worse slaughter at Third Ypres there were no more stars.

Lt. Richard Dixon, RFA, quoted by the author, p.410

As the Centennial gets under way specialized books about World War One seem to be proliferating. Yet there's still a need for general introductions to the war, especially since the Centennial may well attract the attention of curious people who have little or no real knowledge of the conflict. Thus Peter Hart's The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War is a new and most welcome book for beginners, taking its place among other notable surveys such as those by John Keegan, Hew Strachan, G. J. Meyer, Jeremy Black, and others.

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The author's conviction that "no one human can master the Great War in its totality," stated in his Acknowledgements section, is a sentiment most of us will readily accept. Nevertheless, this 500-page history goes a long way toward giving the reader the feeling that, at least from a British angle, a pretty thorough description of the war has been presented. As Hart admits, he doesn't look at some of the more obscure campaigns of the war but focuses primarily on the Western Front, where, he feels, the most crucial action took place. Fighting on the Eastern Front and at Gallipoli, Salonika, Mesopotamia, and Palestine all have chapters devoted to them, however, as do important naval actions. Not having a very clear idea of the importance of Salonika and the Sinai and Palestinian campaigns, I was grateful for the lucid and insightful views of them that the author provided.

The book is organized into 19 chapters providing a clear chronological journey through the war. Both the Western and Eastern Fronts are given their own chapters for each year, as is the sea war. According to when they took place, the other campaigns mentioned above are also discussed. Hart's approach to the war is by no means that of the old "lions led by donkeys" or "butchers and bunglers" perspective. He does not demonize Douglas Haig or other leaders, but rather sees them as men who found themselves in new and demanding situations that forced them to make massive and costly decisions. They were also willing to learn — indeed forced to learn — from their mistakes or from altered circumstances. Hart frequently analyzes how the learning curve produced new combat methods and tactics on the Western Front and how each innovation inevitably produced a corresponding improvement in the actions of the enemy.

Although it's a lengthy read, The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War never becomes dull or stodgy. This is to a large extent because of the author's fluid narrative style and lively tone; at times I almost felt I was reading a rather fast-moving novel, whether on trench tactics, tanks, convoys, gas, or American "rawness." However, the book comes alive primarily due to the numerous quotes the author cites from the people who were involved. Nearly every page provides a relevant direct quote from a general, admiral, or even more frequently and movingly from diaries and letters of the men — British, French, Australian, American, German — who did the fighting. Some of the horrified descriptions of death in the mud at Passchendaele, for example, still vividly remain in my mind.

The Forgotten, but Important, Salonika Front

Peter Hart is Oral Historian at the Imperial War Museum in London and so has access to large archives of original testimonies from those who fought in the Great War. He puts the material to good use not only in this book but also in his other publications such as The Somme and Gallipoli. A couple of slight caveats: while reading The Great War I found myself wishing the eight maps provided at the beginning of the book had been placed in their appropriate chapters, and I did trip over a number of typos which should have been caught by proofreaders. A significant plus is the number of telling photographs, many of which I had never seen, included in two different sections and which are, like the quotes, extremely effective in making the war come alive.

All in all, Hart has produced a clear, vital and sweeping history of World War One. His book will serve solidly as an introduction and reference for those wishing to become more familiar with this cataclysm. David F. Beer

Victors of the Marne Poster

This French poster commemorates both Battles of the Marne ~

It reminds me of this stained glass window at the 26th Division Church, Belleau Village

The British Army Children Archive

The Army Children Archive (TACA) collects, preserves, and shares online information about the history of British Army children and the challenges and peculiarities of growing up as the child of a regular soldier in the British Army, from the 17th century to today. Because the wartime experiences of the children of volunteer and conscript soldiers essentially mirrored those of the children of regular soldiers from 1914 to 1918, TACA is in a unique position to provide a deeper understanding of what they went through. 

The Great War was a time when many British youngsters became "temporary" Army children upon their normally civilian fathers becoming soldiers, some having joined the British Army because they volunteered, and others (from 1916) because they were conscripted into it.

Here a few postcards from the Archive's WWI Nostalgia collection.

Click Here to Visit the Archive's WWI Section

Who First Conceived the Tank?

Covered war carts were used by the Scots against the English in the mid-15th century, and Leonardo da Vinci sketched his famous "tank" design in the 1480s. Later centuries saw attempts to create wind-powered "land ships" and various steam-powered contraptions. — BBC Website

Model of Leonardo's Original Concept

Sirs, the victory in this war will belong to which of the two belligerents which will be the first to place a gun of 75[mm] on a vehicle able to be driven on all terrain. 
— Lt. Col. Jean-Baptiste Eugène Estienne, 23 August 1914

Col. Estienne

It was Mr. Churchill who, as First Lord of the Admiralty, gave the first order for eighteen tanks, or "land ships" as they were then called, on 26 March 1915. He did not inform either the War Office or the Treasury — an almost unprecedented and certainly unconstitutional reticence, dictated by fear that conventional minds might stifle a great idea. 
— Sir Winston S. Churchill, quoted in Colin Coote, ed., Maxims and Reflections, 1949

"Little Willie," First Completed Tank Prototype

Report from the Western Front

For the past week, I have been leading a group of American World War I enthusiasts around the battlefields of the opening of the Great War on the Western Front. Here are a few photos of our group. I've tried to include some of their favorite sites so far.  I'll post another group when we return home.

MH

Memorial to the Entombed Soldiers of Fort Loncin

First VCs of the War, Awarded for this Action at Nimy Railroad Bridge

Maubeuge, Site of the Great War's Longest Siege

Dinant on the River Meuse

View from Dinant Citadel, Looking South Down the Meuse

Memorial to First USAS Medal of Honor Recipient, Frank Luke

Description of Action in Which Luke Lost His Life

Denis Hebrard, Our Guide to the Tunnels of Butte de Vauquois

Remembering a Veteran: Alpini Ettore Paganoni