Why Is There a Replica of the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco?

Big Alma's Triumph

Alma at the Turn of the Century

Alma de Bretteville Spreckels is the female Horatio Alger of San Francisco history. After Commodore Dewey's triumph at Manila Bay in 1898, San Francisco decided the city needed a commemoration of the victory.  Dewey's flagship, the USS Olympia, had been built at the city's Union Iron Works. The location was to be in Union Square, and the design would feature a tall column with a 9-foot tall statue of the "Goddess of Victory" atop. Artist Robert Ingersoll Aitken hired Alma, then working as a laundry girl, as his model for the goddess.  

Detail from the Dewey Monument, Union Square, San Francisco

After the monument's 1903 dedication by President Theodore Roosevelt every man about town wanted to meet the artist's shapely model.  Alma, now having the choice of the pack, selected sugar baron Adolph Spreckels to be her husband.  This gave the former laundry girl a position in high society, in which Alma immediately became an "operator" of the highest order.

French Pavilion, 1915 San Francisco Fair

Now jump forward in time to 1915.  Alma, now known as "Big Alma", is now occupying the top rung of San Francisco social ladder, an acquaintance of presidents and kings, and already a renowned art collector. She has been contemplating combining her ambitions to show off her collection and to see the city add a world-class art gallery.  San Francisco, this year, is also the site of the exposition celebrating the opening of the Panama Canal.  Much of the rest of the world is at war at this time, unfortunately, so few of the combatants are represented. But France decides, nevertheless, to build a major pavilion exhibiting  the works of their A-list Impressionists and new school artists, and — incidentally — to keep them safe, away from any Zeppelin raids.  The design they selected is a 3/4-scale model of Paris's Palace of the Legion of Honor.

Big Alma, Wiser and More Formidable

When she saw it, the Francophile Alma was besotted. All her dreams together in concrete form, she wants one of her very own. Alma soon persuades Mr. Spreckels to support her project financially and, apparently, all of San Francisco's upper crust and political operatives as well. When America enters the war, Alma did everything she could do to support the nation's and the Allies' efforts. This allows her to use her connections and formidable political skills both to win the support of the French government and to gain designation of the museum as the State of California's memorial to its fallen in the Great War, to “honor the dead while serving the living.” World War I, of course, delayed the groundbreaking for the project, until 1921. 

Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco

Constructed on a remote site known as Land’s End, the California Palace of the Legion of Honor was opened on Armistice Day 1924. Alma was grieving at the time; Adolph had died a few months earlier. The memory of the 3,600 Californians who had lost their lives on the battlefields of France during World War I is preserved in the museum's "Book of Gold", a vellum-paged register signed by General John J. Pershing and French marshals Joffre, Pétain, and Foch. In it, each name of California's fallen is inscribed. Today the complex is still one of the city's two premier art venues. References to the war are only visible on a plaque in the courtyard and on little plates on the big trees just south of the complex (visible on the left above) that were planted by Marshals Foch and Joffre on visits to the site.

Marshal Foch Signs the Book of Gold Under Alma's Guiding Hand

Argonnenwald: A Sapper's Song from the World War, 1915

Translation by Jeff Curtis

The Argonne Forest
A Sapper's Song from the World War

Argonne Forest, at midnight
A sapper's song from the World War, 1915

Argonne Forest, at midnight,
A sapper stands on guard.
A star shines high up in the sky,
bringing greetings from a distant homeland.

And with a spade in his hand,
He waits forward in the sap-trench.
He thinks with longing on his love,
Wondering if he will ever see her again.

The artillery roars like thunder,
While we wait in front of the infantry,
With shells crashing all around.
The Frenchies want to take our position.

Should the enemy threaten us even more,
We Germans fear him no more.
And should he be so strong,
He will not take our position.

The storm breaks!  The mortar crashes!
The sapper begins his advance.
Forward to the enemy trenches,
There he pulls the pin on a grenade.

The infantry stand in wait,
Until the hand grenade explodes.
Then forward with the assault against the enemy,
And with a shout, break into their position.

Argonne Forest, Argonne Forest,
Soon thou willt be a quiet cemetery.
In thy cool earth rests
much gallant soldiers' blood.

Source:  Trenches on the Web at Worldwar1.com

Western Front Virtual Tour — Stop 27: South African Memorial at Delville Wood

Delville Wood was a tract of woodland, nearly one kilometer square, the western edge of which touched the village of Longueval, 11 km east of Albert in the Somme sector. On 14 July 1916 the greater part of Longueval village was taken by the 9th (Scottish) Division and on the 15th, the South African Brigade of that division captured most of Delville Wood. The wood now formed a salient in the line, with Waterlot Farm and Mons Wood on the south flank still in German hands, and, owing to the height of the trees, no close artillery support was possible for defense. 

The three South African battalions fought continuously for six days and suffered heavy casualties. On 18 July they were forced back, and on the evening of the 20th the survivors, a mere handful of men, were relieved. On 27 July, the 2nd Division retook the wood and held it until 4 August when the 17th Division took it over. On 18 and 25 August it was finally cleared of all German resistance by the 14th (Light) Division. The wood was then held until the end of April 1918 when it was lost during the German advance, but  it was retaken by the 38th (Welsh) Division on the following 28 August.

Commemorating the efforts of the South African Brigade is a multi-part memorial, which is a candidate for the most beautiful such complex in the world. Most important is the wood itself, where many of the fallen from the war still lie. After the battle a single tree was left standing in the wood, and that tree is marked and part of a visit to the site. At the entrance is an archway (not shown) that has a statue of mythological figures Castor and Pollux and a war horse that was completed in 1926. A magnificent five-pointed museum was dedicated in the 1980s and honors the South African sacrifice in both World Wars and the Korean conflict. Field Marshal Jan Smuts, a significant figure in South Africa's history, has a significant display in the museum.

Source:  Commonwealth War Graves

See our full story of the battle for Delville Wood by Clicking Here.

17 July 1917: The British Royal Family Changes Its Name!

"I MAY BE UNINSPIRING, BUT I'LL BE DAMNED IF I'M ALIEN."

~ King George V, in response to H. G. Wells's criticism of his "alien” 

[i.e. German-descended] and uninspiring court

Contributed by Assistant Editor Kimball Worcester

Today in 1917 the British royal family changed its surname to Windsor from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. 

The intertwining of the European royal families at the outbreak of war linked just about every one of them to Queen Victoria through her numerous progeny. Her grandchildren were consorts or rulers in five of the combatant countries — Russia, Germany, Rumania, Greece, and Great Britain — and numerous other princes and aristocrats throughout Europe were closely related. This proved especially difficult for the Empress of Russia (née a princess of Hesse-Darmstadt), who, in spite of her neuroses, was always a devout Russian patriot and had a true loathing for the Kaiser, her cousin. She became a natural target for discontent with the regime for this reason of her national origin alone.

Anti-German virulence in Great Britain had its own sad story, with long-naturalized German (or perceived as German) shopkeepers and tradesmen hounded from business and even dachshunds being attacked and vilified. Not a shining moment for a country defending liberty on the Continent. The British royal family itself bore a German name — Saxe [Sachsen]-Coburg-Gotha — the legacy of the marriage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in 1840. Of course, the royal family was “German” well before the surname became a triple threat; the Hanoverians became British sovereigns in the early 18th century when the last Protestant descendant of the Stuart dynasty died childless (Queen Anne) and the succession jumped sideways to the Protestant Hanoverian descendants of Elizabeth of Bohemia, daughter of King James I of Great Britain. 

George V and his queen, Mary of Teck, ruled Great Britain during the Great War and were faced personally with the increasing anti-German atmosphere. By 1917 it was clear that a strong message had to be proclaimed as to the patriotism of his court and family, and after some internal debate, the king’s private secretary Lord Stamfordham came up with “Windsor”, after the ancient English royal residence used since the 12th century — a stroke of marketing brilliance. In addition, Queen Mary’s family name was changed to Cambridge (and Athlone) and the Battenbergs (who joined the family through Queen Victoria’s daughter Princess Beatrice’s marriage) became the illustrious Mountbattens.
[Note that upon the birth in June 1894 of the future Edward VIII/Duke of Windsor, Queen Victoria wrote to the baby's father, the future George V, that "this will be the Coburg line, like formerly the Plantegenet, the Tudor,...Stewart (sic), & the Brunswicks," always promoting the legacy of Prince Albert. Not to be.]*

Prince Louis of Battenberg, Soon to Become Mountbatten

One Battenberg suffered this xenophobia particularly strongly. Prince Louis of Battenberg was a German-born prince but also a naturalized British subject and career British naval officer who rose to the rank of First Sea Lord in 1912. His wife was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. But anti-German pressure early in the war pushed him to resign his post — a blow to the dedicated officer — and in 1917 he became the 1st Marquess of Milford Haven, relinquishing all German titles as well. His son, Lord Louis Mountbatten, became Viscount Mountbatten of Burma, and, among other things, the last viceroy of India as well as the granduncle and mentor of the present Prince of Wales. He vindicated his father's resignation as First Sea Lord by acquiring the post himself from 1954 to 1959.   

In spite of all this maneuvering to substantiate public Englishness for the royals, George V himself could not have lived or acted more English, as he himself alludes to in his response to Mr. Wells’s assessment. He was the epitome of the stolid English family man; he loved his career in the Royal Navy and would have been content to remain there in relative obscurity had his older brother Prince Arthur not died and catapulted George into the direct succession. He had no problem with being uninspiring. Alien, however, was deeply unjust.


*James Pope-Hennessey, Queen Mary, 1867–1953, George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1959. p. 301

War Horses: Idealized and for Real

We received a press release that we thought we would share with you.  It's a program that focuses on war horses:

The Lightbox gallery and museum in Woking, Surrey, will commemorate the centenary of World War One with the exhibition "The Horse at War: 1914 – 1918" (25 November 2014 – 1 March 2015). Exploring the role of the horse in World War One, the exhibition will compare the glorified image of officers and their chargers at war with the piteous desolation of these animals as beasts of burden when faced with gunfire and trench warfare.

Below is a set of images from the Lightbox gallery and my own files that shows the contrast of the gloried equestrian images and the real experience of the animals in combat.

Wounded

Prepared for Gas Warfare

On Work Detail

Stuck in the Mud

Killed in Action, Haelen, 1914

The First World War Remembered: In Association with Imperial War Museums — Reviewed by Jane Mattisson Ekstam

The First World War Remembered: 
In Association with Imperial War Museums

by Gary Sheffield

Andre Deutsch, 2014

The First World War Remembered brings to life the events of the war from its outbreak to its aftermath and legacy. The book is comprehensive; it covers the Western Front, the war in Africa, the war at sea, Eastern Front battles, the Italian Front, campaigns in Palestine, the role of women in war, literary influences, diplomacy in war, the Russian Revolution, trench life, war in the air, the USA's entry into the war, and the final battles.

By way of a background, Sheffield identifies different national perspectives on the events of 1914–1918. In Britain, the war is seen as either a monstrous tragedy that should never have happened or a disaster that was not of Britain's making but in which involvement was unavoidable. From a French or German perspective it can be seen as the second round of the Franco-German war that began in 1870 and did not end until 1945. From an American perspective, World War One marked America's entry onto the world stage. Australia, New Zealand, and Canada were inclined to see the war as the time when they emerged from under the protective wing of the mother country. For Poland, the Czech Republic, and the Baltic states, World War One marked the beginning of a movement toward national self-determination. German Nazism, Italian Fascism and Soviet Communism were, argues Sheffield, all direct results of the war.

Order Now

Sheffield emphasizes the importance of both the home and the battle front. Each of the 55 sections of The First World War Remembered is complemented by over 200 photographs and color battle maps and more than 30 researched rare facsimile documents, including personal and unit war diaries, letters, secret plans, telegrams, orders, maps, and posters. The facsimile documents include Kitchener's order to the British Expeditionary Force sent to France in 1914, a letter describing the Christmas truce of 1914, and Sir Douglas Haig's handwritten draft of his famous "Backs to the Wall" order.

Sheffield's study is accompanied by a DVD which contains firsthand accounts of soldiers on the Western front. It also includes an edited silent film that is part of a series of films produced in 1918, toward the end of the war. The archival footage was shot by official cameramen working for the British War Office and features many sequences showing tanks on theWwestern Front.

In addition to reproducing more well-known details of battles, Sheffield also introduces lesser known features of the war. The section called "Specialists" is a case in point. Here fascinating information is provided on signalers, police, tunnelers, and medics. Sheffield notes, for example, that many decorations were won by signalers who crawled out into No Man's Land to repair broken telephone wires. He also describes the work of Ernest Gold, a British meteorologist, who was a pioneer in providing information on atmospheric conditions.

What is missing from the study, however, is the contributions of the pacifists to the war effort. While Sheffield mentions the growing influence of pacifism after the war, he makes only brief references to it during the war itself. These occur primarily in the section on "Literary Influences." As the books reviewed in our series on pacifism have revealed, the situation and role of the conscientious objector is a much neglected area in World War One studies.

Sample Pages

Sheffield concludes his study with reflections on "The Short Twentieth Century." He argues that "…the years 1914–1991 can be seen as one period bounded by the beginning of the First World War and the end of the Cold War." In between came the collapse of old monarchical regimes, the rise of dictators, World War Two, and the fall of the USSR. World War One was, concludes Sheffield, the trigger to a series of events that changed our world forever.

The First World War Remembered is the work of one of the world's leading experts on the military history of the war. The inclusion of rare material, meticulously researched and reproduced, the broad span of the study, and the above-mentioned DVD make The First World War Remembered a treasure trove for any reader interested in gaining a broad view of World War One, of its "strategies, tactics and battles, and the lives of the people who were there." The comprehensive index facilitates the navigation of this large and impressive volume. Packaged in an elegant presentation box, The First World War Remembered is an excellent gift for World War One enthusiasts and scholars alike. At just under $50, it is also excellent value!

Jane Mattisson Ekstam

Bastille Day 2014: Remembering the Lost French-American Monument at Pointe de Grave, France

Completed 1938, Destroyed by the German Army in 1942

Located at Pointe de Grave, France, at the mouth of the Gironde River. This stupendous monument marked the site from which Lafayette departed for America in 1777 and near where first American Doughboys landed in 1917. It was destroyed by the Nazi's in the Second World War and later replaced by the smaller marker.

Worldwar1.com: Your One Stop Center for World War I Centennial Information

Worldwar1.com

Just click on this link to see all the publications and websites we offer for the serious student of the Great War of 1914–18. We are constantly upgrading our many features. As you can see above, we have a new header and logo for our home page. Our 1914-1918 Super Search feature has just been upgraded, and over the next few months we will be revamping our award-winning Doughboy Center website, which will remain in full operation during this time.

Mike Hanlon, Editor/Publisher

Jünger's Response to Remarque

Ernst Jünger Wearing the Pour le Mérite

By Henry G. Gole

Remarque's powerful naturalistic prose in All Quiet has shaped our picture of life in the trenches as no other single book has. The impasse on the Western Front finally proved mass frontal assaults to be a purposeless waste of life. Attacks by hundreds of thousands of men, supported by preparatory fires of millions of artillery rounds, produced tens of thousands of casualties — but not only among the defending force. . .

Ernst Jünger's Storm of Steel (1929) provides us a striking contrast to Remarque's pacifism, but he too is convinced that the front experience permanently separated the front soldier from the others. Jünger was one of the most highly decorated German soldiers of the Great War and one of the most often wounded [14 times]. His combat record was so impressive that he was handpicked to organize and lead elite troops whose mission was to infiltrate enemy front lines using techniques requiring extraordinarily brave and tough men. The infiltration teams, called Sturm (storm) — or Kampfgruppen (assault groups), relied on stealth to penetrate enemy lines, followed by shock action with individual weapons. The idea was to cause confusion and disorganization among defenders that would create openings for exploitation. Jünger led such assault teams and claimed to love it!

After the war Jünger observed the same chaos described by Remarque but came to different conclusions. Passive acceptance of the alienation of the veteran was not in Jünger's nature. He was convinced that a new man was born in the trenches, a man who would lead. Breast-beating and lamentations about unhappy circumstances simply would not do. The decisiveness of the assault team leader, his courage, and leadership, had a new objective — veterans led by such men would reshape the political world.

It is this mode of thought that is captured so well in Robert G. Waite's The Vanguard of Nazism (1952), a book about the adventurous souls whose answer to profound problems was movement and action. The collection of bold men who comprised the Freikorps (free corps) and veterans' associations organized along military lines consisted of veterans, boys who hadn't had their war, nationalists shamed by the Treaty of Versailles, royalists longing for the good old days of Wilhelmine Germany, those who had nowhere else to go, and those disenchanted with Germany's experiment with democracy. These men craved leadership, clear objectives, and a way out of Germany's many problems. Germany had not been prepared for the republic thrust upon it. Paramilitary action in the streets passed for political activity. 

Source:  "The Great War a Literary Perspective," Parameters, Summer 1987

Western Front Virtual Tour — Stop 26: The Leaning Virgin of Albert

A key destination for any tour of the Somme battlefields, Albert is a small town in the Province of Picardy. It found itself in the heart of some of the hottest action on the Western Front throughout the Great War. Unfortunately, Albert had one target that towered over the village making it an excellent observation post for whoever occupied it and an irresistible target for opposing gunners. Earlier town fathers, attempting to turn the community into a destination for Christian pilgrims, had built an impressive Romanesque basilica crowned with a gilded statue of the Virgin Mary holding up her baby son to God. The Virgin also appears to be lame, an apparent message of the power of prayer for the handicapped.

During the early days of the war, German artillery had shelled the basilica, trying to knock it down and prevent the French artillery spotters from using it. They only succeeded in dislodging the statue of Mary, which by 1916 hung at a precarious angle just below the horizontal. This was just too visible and too heavenly connected for the soldiers passing through the town. The Legend of the Leaning [or Hanging] Virgin was born.

The British rendition was that whoever knocked her down would lose the war, the Germans apparently believing the opposite. Another version of the legend had it that the fall of the Virgin would signal the end of the war. The details of the various versions seem secondary to the belief by troops of all sides that the Virgin's natural descent was halted temporarily by a divine hand so its final destruction could mark the war's end. It must have provided a double psychic reassurance that the forces of Heaven had taken an interest in protecting the Virgin and her Child and would eventually take steps to end the suffering on the battlefield.

Interestingly, the man most responsible for finally knocking down the Leaning Virgin survived the war and shared his tale many years later:

I have read with great interest Mr. Harvey's article [in Air Pictorial magazine]. . .On page 136 there is a picture of Albert Cathedral as it stood in 1917, and Mr. Harvey makes a note that legend had it that the monument's fall would herald the end of the war.

In 1918 I was on the staff of the 5th Corps, Heavy Artillery, and an Army Order had been issued that no more buildings were to be demolished by gunfire. One early morning we had a telephone message from the Infantry Colonel of the Battalion holding the line quite near to the Cathedral to the effect that he was suffering heavy loss from machine gun-fire from the Cathedral Tower, and he asked that we should blow the place to blazes. My General was out on reconnaissance work, and my Brigade Major was absent at the time so I (quite a young Captain) was in charge. Realizing the Army Order and knowing that I should get no satisfaction from Army H.Q., I chose one of the 8-in. Batteries in the Corps, worked out some imaginary trenches well beyond the Cathedral, and then ordered the Major of this Battery to fire a couple of hundred rounds at these imaginary trenches, knowing full well that the line of fire would go clean through the Cathedral!

The Major was thrilled with this order and it was duly carried out and the Cathedral Tower and most of the surrounding Cathedral was blown to hell, thus probably saving the lives of many of our Infantry.

F. G. Petch, M.C., Vice-President of the Air League, London, E.C.2.

This succinct background summary is quoted in part from the website: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A HERO: The Battle of the Somme from the Letters of William George Ashby Bentley, 2nd Hampshires.

P.G. Petch's account is from Air Pictorial, Vol. 30, No. 7 

Incidentally, beneath the basilica is an outstanding subterranean museum that contains a wonderful collection of authentic artifacts and weaponry from the fighting and tells the moving story of a little village that found itself in the middle of one of history's great battlefields.

Remembering a Veteran: General Sir Arthur Currie

From Articles by Joyce Kennedy and Michael Iavarone

A former militia volunteer, Arthur Currie [b. 1875] advanced through ability and force of personality to become the senior Canadian officer of the Great War. After surviving with distinction as a brigade and division commander, he was ready for more responsibility. Currie was an advocate of intense planning and preparation before going into battle — "Thorough preparation must lead to success. Neglect nothing." Canadian Corps Commander Sir Julian Byng let him apply his theories, placing him in charge of the training and preparations for the assault on Vimy Ridge. After that great success he succeeded Byng in command and subsequently led his troops in the conclusion of the Third Battle of Ypres [Passchendaele] and a string of victories commencing at Amiens in August 1918.

Knighted after his accomplishments at Vimy Ridge, Arthur Currie became Canada's first full general in 1919. He then served as Principal and Vice Chancellor of McGill University until his death in 1933.

Facts:

•     Born in 1875 at Napperton, Ontario
•     Enlisted in the militia at the beginning of the war and made his way up the ranks to become a lieutenant colonel of the artillery
•     Was part of the First Canadian Division and fought at the battles of Ypres and Saint Julien
•     Made a strong case for keeping Canadian soldiers together in a true Canadian division
•     Was successful in establishing a Canadian division and was the first Canadian promoted to the rank of general
•     Believed in fully preparing his troops before a battle, right from the officers to the lowly private.
•     Was successful for the planning and execution of the battle of Vimy Ridge (the battle that many feel recognized Canada as a true nation)
•     Was considered aloof from his troops and nicknamed "Guts and Gaiters"; however, often visited his troops at the front
•     Involved in the controversy over the fighting at of Mons in 1918, when a number of troops were killed hours before the Armistice
•     Knighted by King George V in 1917
•     Honours received: Commander of the Bath, Legion of Honour, Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George, Croix de Guerre, Distinguished Service Medal (U.S.) 

Quotes:

"... it is quite time that some corps commanders were told to go to blazes."

"I am a good enough Canadian to believe, if my experience justifies me in believing, that Canadians are best served by Canadians."

"We have shown that even in trench warfare it is possible to mystify and mislead the enemy."

"Thorough preparation must lead to success. Neglect nothing."

Address to Canadian Corps, March 1918:

"To those who fall I say: You will not die but step into immortality. Your mothers will not lament your fate but will be proud to have borne such sons. Your names will be revered forever and ever by your grateful country, and God will take you unto Himself."

An AEF Setback: August 1918

28th Division

Setback at Fismette Study of a Fiasco

Fismette & River Vesle from Fismes

These are official reports of this incident and have the coldness of such documents with a sprinkling of CYA.  For a personal and chilling account of this American defeat, read Hervey Allen's great memoir, Toward the Flame. This affair is one of the reasons the emblem of the 28th Pennsylvania National Guard Division became known as the "Bloody Bucket." A memorial bridge built by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania now stands across the River Vesle connecting the two villages discussed here. Extract from III Corps History Enemy Attack Against Fismette 27 August 1918 I. SITUATION: On the night of August 26/27, 1918, the village of FISMETTE was held by Companies G and H, 112th Infantry. These two companies totaled six officers and 200 men. This garrison relieved the previous garrison at 2 a.m. August 27. II. OPERATION: At 4 a.m. on the same day a heavy enemy barrage was placed in and around the town of FISMETTE. After 20 minutes the barrage lifted and the enemy attacked with a force estimated at about one battalion. The attacking troops were evidently picked troops, being referred to in the German communiqué as "Baden troops." The attacking forces were apparently divided into three columns, one attacking from the northeast. another from the northwest, and the third from the north of the town. The attack followed immediately upon the lifting of the heavy bombardment, and caught our troops while they were more or less demoralized as a result of same. The platoon occupying the east edge of the lawn put up a good resistance. but the platoons to the north and west gave way with feeble resistance ante. resulting in the enemy practically enveloping the remaining defenders on the lawn, some of whom escaped to the south and crossed the VESLE. The enemy attack was accompanied by low-flying airplanes, which dropped bombs and fired machine guns. There is a report that a soldier in an American uniform ran through the streets shouting that the lieutenant in command said resistance was useless and had ordered his men to surrender. It is not definitely settled as to whether or not this man was an American soldier or any enemy in disguise. III. RESULT: The result of the enemy operation was the loss of the village of FISMETTE by our troops and the loss of four officers and 161 men missing. These figures include our killed and wounded as well as prisoners who were left in the village when it was captured. IV. CONCLUSION: The following conclusions are drawn: (1) The attack, following immediately after relief, caught our troops before they had become familiar with the positions occupied. (2) The possibility of utter demoralization caused by an enemy in our uniform or a cowardly soldier of our own creating a panic among our men. (3) Our troops apparently assumed that the bombardment was a usual one, and consequently were not on the alert to repel an attack. (4) There was culpable negligence in not requesting artillery support. (5) There was not the spirit among the garrison holding the west and north of the town to fight to the last man. (6) The effectiveness of accompanying even a local attack by airplanes is shown. It is not so much a question of actual damage done by the airplane, but its effect upon the morale of the troops attacked. (7) Our defensive organization of the village itself was doubtless faulty, as no provision was made for the defense of the village in case flank attacks should occur. And no provisions were made to properly deploy our machine guns and rifle fire for the protection of the rear and flanks of the platoons in position. Streets of Fismette From: Capt. Withers, 28th Division To: G-3, III Corps Telephone message from 112th Inf. to 28th Division. Received at 28th Div. at 10:15 hrs, 27 August 1918. Absolutely unable to get patrols into FISMETTE. Got down as far as 100 yards from bridge. Streets of FISMES running north and south covered by machine-gun fire and one-pounders. Two casualties in one patrol of six men. REIMS Road covered with machine-gun fire from left. Noticeable absence of flares. FISMETTE very quiet. No firing on FISMETTE since 1000 hrs., August 27. If there any of our men in FISMETTE they are very few and scattered and in hiding. No evidence to confirm any of our men holding out. Will make further reconnaissance. We still control FISMES down to the river and we are constantly patrolling river front along entire front of sector. Relief of machine gun companies complete. Stokes mortars and one-pounders are in position. Action at Fismette III ARMY CORPS, AEF, A. P. 0. 754, August 28, 1918. General J. W. McAndrew. G.H.Q., A.E.F. My dear General: I am informed that today's German communiqué (which I have not seen) states that the Germans captured FISMETTE yesterday and 250 Americans. A part of my command until yesterday occupied FISMETTE. I had there some 190 officers and men altogether, infantry, If you will look upon the map you will see the position of FISMES, a large village on the south bank of the VESLE. Just opposite FISMES on the north bank is the small village of FISMETTE. The village of FISMETTE and no more was occupied by us. Ten days ago, after a German attack upon FISMETTE which almost succeeded, I saw that FISMETTE could not be held by us against any real attempt by the Germans to take it and that to attempt to continue to hold it would, on account of the lay of the surrounding terrain. involve the sure sacrifice of its garrison. Help could not be sent except by driblets at night. I, therefore. decided and began to withdraw the garrison of FISMETTE some 300 meters back across the VESLE River into FISMES. Before this was finished the French General commanding the Sixth Army, to which I belong, arrived at my headquarters and learning of my orders for withdrawal from FISMETTE himself, in person, directed me to continue to hold FISMETTE and how to hold it. My orders were changed in his presence and his orders were obeyed. Yesterday morning the Germans made a strong attack upon FISMETTE from two directions, taking the village and killing or capturing almost all of our men. I request that the Commander-in-Chief be acquainted with the facts in this case. R. L. BULLARD. Major General. N.A. Commanding III Army Corps. Advancing on the North Side of the Vesle The Fismette and the north bank of the Vesle were finally secured by the AEF on the night of 3-4 September 1918. Read more on the actions of the AEF in France at our Doughboy Center Website: Worldwar1.com/dbc/

The Care and Management of Lies: A Novel of the Great War — Reviewed by David F. Beer

The Care and Management of Lies: A Novel of the Great War

by Jacqueline Winspear

HarperCollins, 2014

If you've read the Maisie Dobbs mystery series set in WWI then you're familiar with the engaging writing of Jaqueline Winspear, a British author now living in California. However, The Care and Management of Lies breaks the mold of her Maisie Dobbs series. It's a "stand-alone" novel, still set in WWI but now involving two old friends, Kezia Marchant and Thea Brissenden, and Thea's brother Tom Brissenden, a farmer who marries Kezia in July of 1914. The relationship between the two women becomes complicated as war threatens and Thea, now a pacifist and suffragette, resents Kezia giving up her independence to cheerfully strive to become an ideal farmer's wife. As a wedding gift Thea sardonically gives her friend a copy of The Woman's Book (actually written by a Florence B. Jack and first published in 1911). A product of its times, the book gives copious advice on how to be the perfect woman and wife.

The touchy relationship between the two women is only one of several subtle psychological conflicts that run through the book and which Winspear handles with considerable depth and insight. Tom struggles to come to terms with the war and to enlist in spite of being exempted as a badly needed farmer. Being happily married to Kezia, a truly loving wife, makes the decision even harder for him. The constant toil and sweat required to run a farm, especially when young farmhands have gone off to the army and the government has imposed its own requirements on farmers, is a constant theme in the novel.

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Another backdrop for the novel is Kezia's experimental cooking. Starting pretty much from scratch, she learns to cook delicious if rather surprising meals for the men on the farm. Her efforts and recipes are often given enthusiastic and detailed description in the book, leading me to suspect that Jacqueline Winspear herself is an enviable cook. Interestingly, when Tom goes off to war he is able to have vicarious enjoyment of Kezia's meals because in her frequent letters she describes at sensuous length what she would be cooking for him that day had he been home. That Tom's fellow soldiers take great pleasure in listening to him as he reads the descriptions of the meals to them serves ironically to emphasize the lack of good food experienced by the men in the trenches.

The frequent passages on Kezia's cooking appeal most of all to the sense of taste, but the whole novel can be considered a sensual novel in that the author so skillfully calls on all our senses. No writing could illustrate the Western Front of WWI without heavy dependence on sound, sight, and smell, and no wounds or trench life in general could be described without the sense of touch. The author skillfully uses these appeals to the reader's senses to portray an immediate feel for what is going on in combat and within the soldiers' lives. I found that sometimes all our senses were called upon in a single paragraph.

The muted conflict between Thea and Kezia is gradually resolved in the course of the novel, but the conflict between Tom, the army, and the war is another matter. He is endlessly bullied by a brutal sergeant even though he is an exemplary soldier and well liked by his comrades. Anxious to know how these conflicts are resolved — quite surprisingly, as it turns out — is what keeps us reading. As the novel progressed, I found it harder and harder to put down.

The 1911 Book That Inspired  The Care and Management of Lies

How did this novel get its title? I don't know — although I wouldn't go as far as one reviewer did to call the title "unfortunate." It's clear from Thea's early agenda that many, especially the pacifists, consider the war itself to be based on lies, and the commonly voiced assurance that "it would all be over by Christmas" is far from the truth. In the spring of 1915 Kezia is still able to tell herself that Tom will be home "very soon." In the trenches the bullying sergeant twists the facts as much as he can to harm Tom. Letters home to the bereaved tell how their loved one died instantly and painlessly with great bravery — often a far cry from the facts. Even the detailed descriptions of the sumptuous meals Kezia would make for Tom if he were home, although not in any way intended to deceive, allow the tired, dirty, hungry, and often scared soldiers to tell themselves for a few brief minutes that they are not in the trenches but in the glowing warmth of a welcoming kitchen about to enjoy a delicious feast.

Fans of Maisie Dobbs will enjoy The Care and Management of Lies, especially if they are open to a quite different kind of novel by Jacqueline Winspear. Here we are carried along not by the "who dunnit" force of a mystery but by involvement in relationships, the nature of love and separation, sensual culinary imagery, and the ongoing illusion and savagery that war brings. I am not managing to lie when I say that this is a novel well worth reading.

David F. Beer

Some Images from the Somme

No, we haven't forgotten that July is also the month of the anniversary of the opening of the Battle of the Somme in 1916.  Here is a selection of evocative images from Tony Langley presented without commentary to help us remember:

Professor Matthew Bruccoli, 1931-2008: Scholar, Student of the First World War, and Friend

Recently we ran a piece featuring a famous quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald that was from the archives of the University of South Carolina. I received several inquiries as to why that particular college should have an impressive inventory of World War I material. It is because of one individual, Professor Matt Bruccoli. I think this rather personal article on my part tells the story of Professor Bruccoli 's dedication to telling the story of the Great War. It first appeared in the St. Mihiel Trip-Wire in August 2008. Incidentally, the Bruccoli Collection grew so large, it had to be shared with a second college, the University of Virginia.

Matthew J. Bruccoli I made a new friend this past March and lost him by June. He was Professor Matthew Bruccoli of the University of South Carolina, the world's leading authority on F. Scott Fitzgerald and the other authors of the Lost Generation. It was his work on the First World War, however, that led me to call him at his office one day — I wanted to interview him about the series of WWI literary classics that is being reissued by his university's press under his guidance and about his two vast collections of publications, memorabilia, and art from the war. I suspected the key to his enthusiasm for studying the war was the fact that all his projects are dedicated to the memory of his father Joseph, a veteran of the AEF, but I wanted to confirm this and learn more about the professor's projects. After introductions and outlining my initial questions — the sources of his interest in the war, his father's military experience, the literary impact of the war — the professor, whom I immediately read as being of the "gruff" personality type that does not suffer fools one iota, responded comprehensively. He held forth with passion, humor, and enormous pride on all the topics I raised and on some I should have raised. He was both scathing and hilarious when I asked him how a patriot like himself got along in an academia now dominated by people hostile to American traditions and position in the world. Believe me, after hearing about his many battles in the halls of academe, it was clear to me that he taken on all comers in those struggles for 40 years with glee and, I believe, with great success. 9 Mai 1915, Les ouvrages blancs — Artois, Marcel Durieux, Joseph M. Bruccoli Great War Collection, University of South Carolina The key — as I anticipated —  to all of his effort to encourage study and scholarship on the war was really his father, and what I learned about him was fascinating. When Joseph Bruccoli was called to arms in 1917 he happened to bring along a unique skill. He could drive the difficult-to-learn Pierce-Arrow truck of the era, of the type that was being sold to the French Army. So he was detailed to a group of Doughboys assigned to drive for the French forces, bringing supplies to the front line in every zone on the Western Front. This proved extremely hazardous for Joseph, who returned from the war wounded, shell-shocked, and with eight campaign badges. Despite his rough period of service, though, he found the war had intensified his love and admiration for his country and especially those who served in her military. He passed these values on to his son Matthew, who was born at the height of the Depression. I found the respect and love that Matt expressed for his dad admirable and touching. Pvt. Joseph Bruccoli, AEF Our further conversation involved a lot of discussion about the literature of the war, which I won't get into here, but I strongly recommend the series of books Matt selected for the university press to re-issue: (Link). At some point in our chat, however, some floodgate opened —  we each realized we were dealing with kindred souls. He was excited to discover that I led tours to the battlefields and asked me to design and lead a tour for himself and a group of students next year. Then, we talked about my magazine OVER THE TOP, and he was particularly happy to hear we had published James M. Cain's "The Taking of Montfaucon", which he considers one of the best stories to come out of the First World War. Spontaneously, he offered a war story by Thomas Wolfe from his collection for publishing in my magazine [which I did.] After two hours, or so, he had other matters to attend to, but we agreed to talk again when I returned from my spring trip to the Western Front. I looked forward to our future collaboration. Less than a week after our chat, I received a whole box of material from Matt, copies of all the books in the series published thus far, the Thomas Wolfe story, material from the Great War archives named after his dad, and a list of places he wanted to visit with his students on the forthcoming trip to France. I got back from Europe in mid-June and had a lot of catching-up to manage, having been away for over two weeks. On my to-do list, though, was renewing contact with the professor. You can imagine the shock I felt, then, when one of our readers sent me the announcement that Matthew Bruccoli had died of a brain tumor on 4 June. Apparently, he learned of his illness only a month before, so Matt went fairly quickly. His passing was a big loss both for American literature and for students of the Great War. For me, it was personal blow. Our direct contact had lasted no more than 120 minutes, but I really liked that man and looked forward to working with him.   MH

The First Indian Code Talkers Were from the Choctaw Nation

Hollywood and some history books get this one wrong. The first Indian code talkers to serve the American military were not the Navajo Marines of World War II, but Choctaw Nation soldiers in the First World War.

During World War I, Choctaw soldiers were organized into Company E of the 142nd Infantry, part of the Texas and Oklahoma National Guards' 36th Division. That division's big moment in the Great War came when it was called upon to relieve the Marines and Doughboys of the 2nd U.S. Division in the brutal Battle of Blanc Ridge in the Champagne in October 1918.  

Upon occupying trenches formerly held by the Germans near the village of St. Etienne, American troops discovered telephone lines left intact by the enemy. Colonel A.W. Blair, commander of the 142nd Infantry, deduced that the Germans had intentionally left the lines in order to bait the Americans into using them. He reasoned that the enemy troops would be able to tap into their former communication network and, thereby access any messages the Americans might send. With no time to spare for laying new lines, Blair chose to take advantage of the communications system the Germans had left behind but with a "code" in place he felt the enemy couldn't possibly break. By using Choctaw members of Company E to transmit messages in their traditional language, with at least one Choctaw placed in each field company headquarters, the tactic was a complete success. 

It’s reported that a captured German officer later confessed that his intelligence personnel were completely confused by the Choctaw language and were unable to de-code any American messages they intercepted. The U.S. Army and Marine Corps remembered the lesson for future wars.

Western Front Virtual Tour — Stop 25: Australian Memorials at Pozières

Australia’s official war correspondent, Charles Bean, described what these views would have looked like between July and September 1916: "Over the whole face of the country shells have ploughed up the land literally as with a gigantic plough, so that there is more red and brown earth than green. From the distance all the colour is given by these upturned crater edges, and the country is wholly red." The troops called the area "Mash Valley"

Between July and August 1916, the small village of Pozières became the central focus of the Battle of the Somme. Strongly defended Pozières  was stormed by Australian soldiers and captured from the German forces that had invaded and taken over the French village. In a few short weeks Australia suffered 23,000 casualties and 10,000 lives lost. There are two major Australian memorials to the two divisions that served here: the First Division monument (top), which is just southwest of the village, and the Second Division's (bottom), just to the east on the Albert-Bapaume Road. 

First Division: The monument is viewed from the ruins of the Gibraltar strong point at the southern edge of Pozières village, which was captured by Australian soldiers when they seized the village on 23 July 1916.  The dedicatory plaque lists the battle honours of the division, and the first name on the plaque is "Pozières". The whole landscape to the right of the memorial was the scene of further Australian advances beyond the village.

Second Division: A rough mound is all that remains of the windmill that stood here for centuries until 1916. It marks the highest point of the entire Somme battlefield (known as Hill 160). The Germans converted the ruins of the windmill to a machine gun post and concrete fortifications can still be seen on the mound. 

The Centennial at the Grass Roots: TMC's WWI Film Festival

Tomorrow night, the Turner Movie Classics network is launching an outstanding World War One film festival to mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the conflict. Below is the schedule for opening night alongside the list of films to be seen on future Friday evenings. Almost all the best-known classics are included ( I don't see The African Queen or Hell's Angels), but — most exciting for me — are the hard to find oldies like The Better Hole (Bairnsfather's Old Bill brought to the silver screen) and the original Waterloo Bridge. 

Remembering Mesopotamia

Turkey's entry into the war on 29 October 1914 immediately prompted Britain to open a new military front in the remote Ottoman province of Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq).

British and Indian troops, sent to the Persian Gulf in early November to protect British oil interests at Abadan, made rapid progress inland against weak Turkish resistance. In less than a month they had occupied the towns of Basra and Kurna, capturing more than 1,000 Turkish prisoners and losing just 65 of their own men.

Indian Troops in Mesopotamia

Despite the unforgiving climate, British forces continued to march steadily up the River Tigris in 1915. By 28 September, under the leadership of General Charles Townshend, they had taken the town of Kut-al-Amara just 120 miles south of Mesopotamia's major city, Baghdad. Scornful British estimates of Turkish fighting capabilities seemed to be amply borne out by events — witness, for example, the timorous surrender of 2,000 Turkish soldiers to a tiny British advance force in the garrison town of Amara in June 1915.

Ctesiphon

The tide turned quickly, however, at the Battle of Ctesiphon (22–26 November 1915). Envisaged as a trouble-free prelude to the final march on Baghdad, it was a bloody affair, in which Turkish troops — under the command of  Yusef Nur-ed-Din — withstood heavy casualties to defeat Townshend's attacking forces. More than half of the 8,500 British and Indian troops who fought at Ctesiphon were killed or wounded. The survivors then endured a dangerous and exhausting retreat to Kut-al-Amara without decent medical or transport facilities.

The Siege of Kut-al-Amara

Bolstered by 30,000 reinforcements, Turkish troops besieged Townshend's forces in Kut-al-Amara before the Allied troops could act on the British War Cabinet's advice to withdraw farther down the Tigris. The siege of Kut-al-Amara lasted 147 days, before the 11,800 British and Indian troops inside the garrison town finally surrendered on 29 April 1916.

General Townshend in Custody After the Surrender

Conditions during the siege were appalling. In bitterly cold weather and with little medical treatment, many of the soldiers did not survive the winter. Several attempts were made to relieve the besieged town, but they encountered stubborn Turkish resistance and all ended in failure. For instance, the relief force under the command of General Aylmer suffered heavy losses at  Hanna in January 1916 and at Dujaila two months later.

Brutal Treatment

The surrender of Townshend's army in late April 1916 shocked people in Britain, for whom the Mesopotamia campaign had previously a distant — and largely successful — venture. Kitchener rushed to defend the honour of the British and Indian forces at Kut-al-Amara, but it was impossible to avoid the fact that — after the humiliating retreat at Gallipoli — Allied forces had suffered another defeat at the hands of the despised Turks.

While the surrender of Kut-al-Amara led in London to the creation of a parliamentary committee of enquiry into operations in Mesopotamia, far more horrific repercussions were taking place on the ground. Captured British and Indian soldiers were brutally treated on their march to Turkish prisoner-of-war camps in Anatolia. Of the 11,800 men who left Kut-al-Amara with their captors on 6 May 1916, 4,250 died either on their way to captivity or in the camps that awaited them at the journey's end.

Despite the setback at Kut-al-Amara, the British position in Mesopotamia was far from hopeless. Indeed, with reinforced troop divisions and a new leader in General F S Maude, British and Indian forces again advanced rapidly up the Tigris in early 1917.

British Troops Entering Baghdad

Kut-al-Amara was recaptured on 24 February, and Ctesiphon, where the previous British advance had been checked in November 1915, was taken soon afterward. On 11 March, British troops finally entered Baghdad. The path was cleared for an advance into northern Mesopotamia, toward the heart of the Ottoman empire in Anatolia. When the war with Turkey ended on 30 October 1918, British forces in Mesopotamia had reached as far north as the oil-rich district of Mosul, which was captured on 3 November.

During the four years of fighting in the region, more than 31,000 officers and men from the British and Indian armies had died in combat or from disease.

Source: British Public Records Office

We Will Not Go to War — reviewed by Jane Mattisson Ekstam

We Will Not Go to War

by Felicity Goodall

The History Press, 2010

We Will Not Go to War is not a textbook but a series of snapshots from people's lives, told in their own words. Based on interviews that are complemented by unpublished memoirs, letters, and published memoirs, We Will Not Go to War explores what it was like to question one's conscience and decide not to go to war. The personal stories are told with straightforwardness and honesty. Goodall argues that conscientious objectors were courageous both in withstanding the pressure from the general public and in upholding their beliefs in the face of imprisonment and/or execution. Goodall's study counteracts the general view of pacifism as cowardly and shameful

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The 21 chapters discuss a wide range of subjects, from conscription and the Non-Combatant Corps to working on the land. The first eight chapters deal specifically with World War One; the remaining 13 show how the legacy of World War One influenced pacifism in World War Two. Chapter four, "Prison," contains heartrending comments by conscientious objectors. A case in point is Quaker journalist Hubert Peet, who describes the conditions as follows:

Now I want to tell you [his three daughters] about the little room in prison in which I have been living. It is about as big as the scullery at Peak Hill with a [sic] iron door with no handle on the inside and a little window with iron bars on it high up in the wall. All it has is a little table, a stool, a few pots and a wooden bed without any legs. This is put up against the wall during the day with the bed clothes over it. I have a spoon to eat with, a funny tin knife, a tin plate and a mug which I wash up myself after every meal. For breakfast and supper I just have porridge and brown bread and that's all. No butter or jam or cake. Then for dinner I get bread and potatoes and sometimes suet pudding, sometimes soup and sometimes a little bit of meat.

Anti-Conscientious Objector Poster

 

On completion of their sentence, conscientious objectors were released and returned to barracks —where they would disobey orders and be returned once again to prison. Periods of depression were common among conscientious objectors. Mark Hayler, for example, wrote that

Men would shout out in the night, yell anything to break the monotony. And when things went on month after month and went into years, it seemed as though there would never be an end to it . . .

Chapter 6, "Those at home," investigates the situation for wives, focusing on their emotional and financial stress. It contains letters in which wives express their distress at seeing other families together, men home on leave, and the general financial well-being of such families. Chapter 8, "Aftermath," is the shortest chapter in the book but contains important details about the fate of conscientious objectors at the end of the war. Most were not released from prison until April 1919, after which they were disenfranchised for ten years. It was also extremely difficult for them to get a job.

Similar Anti-C.O. Poster

John Brocklesbury, one of the 50 early resisters shipped to France (See my earlier introduction 'Thou Shalt Not Kill'), expresses his surprise at the strength of public feeling against him:

I was surprised to find how bitter local feeling was against me; it seemed much worse than in 1916. I had thought that having proved myself sincere they would give me credit for it. But no, they had suffered the poisoning effects of nearly three more years of war. Possibly they had thought that the British army, the only God that many of them trusted, would certainly break such resistance. But we had beaten the military and they hated us for it. I could feel it as I walked the streets, and I saw it in the faces of people who at one time pretended to be friends.

We Will Not Go to War is highly readable and copiously illustrated with photographs of conscientious objectors. The set of challenges in the final chapter, "Hindsight," is highly topical and reminds the reader that conscientious objection plays an important, albeit underestimated, role in wartime democracy. As Ernest Lenderyou writes in the quotation that concludes Goodall's study, pacifists contributed "to the maintenance of sanity and humanity in public life." Goodall concludes that "Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle."

Jane Mattisson Ekstam