Saki's Christmas Carol

H.H. Munro, aka Saki, gained popularity before the Great War for his witty and offbeat stories. He could have avoided serving, but Munro enlisted and died at the Somme in November 1916 at age 45. 

According to several sources, his last words were "Put that bloody cigarette out!" before he was shot by a sniper. Munro has no known grave. He is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial. Sometime before his death, he made this contribution to war poetry titled "Carol" —

While shepherds watched their flocks by night
  All seated on the ground,
    A high explosive shell came down
      And mutton rained around.

Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I — The People's War Reviewed by Michael Kihntopf

Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War 1 —
The People's War

By Alexander Watson

Published by Basic Books, 2014

Perhaps the greatest mistake any reader of Great War literature can do is pass up this book. The title can bring to mind another dull overview of the war and its nearly three inch thickness can put off many an aficionado. However, the title and the thickness hide the real purpose of this book. The words 'The People's War' should have had top billing.

Alexander Watson, a lecturer in History at Goldsmiths, University of London, has brought about something that many of us look for in a history work about the war but can never find: what made a people continue supporting the war even when casualties reached astronomical proportions? The author effectively delves into the very psyche of the Central Powers' citizens to explain their motivation. Yet he draws other aspects into it also, such as why, considering how many obstacles the ruling governments put into place which thoroughly alienated its subjects, did the people continue to support the war effort? Added to these explanations, just for good measure, is a very detailed description of the people's experience, such as atrocities, dislocation, and genocide, during brief or extensive periods of occupation by a conqueror (not necessarily by the Central Powers).

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The first chapter of the book is the obligatory depiction of who actually started the war that we have run across so many times. Watson lays out the usual political intrigues and I expected the usual outcome: the Central Powers started it. I was pleasantly surprised to find his assessment somewhat more challenging to follow and more reflective in nature. Rather than blame the start on any one person or government, the author brings the reader to believe that war would have been avoidable if only the very people who should have prevented it, the political statesmen, were not so intent on bringing the July crisis to such a fever pitch that it was irretrievable from going to war. They had fully expected to preclude war through their negotiating abilities, which turned out to be woefully lacking and prone to outside influences. They were not the Bismarcks or Aerhenthals that they had aspired to be. Once war was declared and began mutating from a local conflict to the threshold of a global conflict, those statesmen could no longer contain the military and the nationalistic, conservative temperaments of those who followed and took control.

Chapter two, once again, begins blandly by explaining the many prewar plans that the Army General Staffs of Germany and Austria-Hungary had for dealing with Serbian and Russian threats to their lands. And, once again, Watson throws in a new aspect. How did the people see their part in the mobilization? Many authors over the years have gleefully pointed to the diversity in ethnic make-up of the Central Powers as the key to their overall failure in the conflict and that such ethnic conflicts surfaced early. The author's research paints an entirely different picture. There was an enthusiasm toward war across all nationalities in both empires, Watson argues, based on the primal instinct of cultural survival. In Germany, the invasion of East Prussia and the ensuing treatment, mass executions and deportations, of native populations awoke a feeling that the war was being fought for survival. Austro-Hungarian peoples also saw their support of the war motivated by the actions of the Russians as they drove into the eastern provinces. It is singularly important that the governments did not channel this enthusiasm. Instead, they held all non-Germanic populations as suspect to aiding the enemy. Suspected threats, including parliamentary representatives and spiritual leaders, were rounded up and jailed. Community leaders were displaced leaving the greater population adrift in a sea of uncertainty as occupiers looted, pillaged and murdered their way across newly acquired territory.

Budapest When War Was Declared, 1914

And so the book continues. Each chapter has a similar beginning, a paradigm of the Great War that we are used to seeing. The author follows this not by disproving it, but rather explaining how the people saw the governments' actions as the best possible solution, and following with what the decision ultimately meant for the people who were fighting the war. Many of the government policies that surfaced during the war regarding conquered Eastern European areas would resurface in World War II. Lithuanians, Poles, Jews, and Russians were to be deported and replaced by Ukrainian Germans. In Galicia and Poland the Russians sent 3.3 million inhabitants to wander in the Russian interior where refugee facilities were not available. Farther east, the Ottoman Empire attempted to annihilate the Armenian population to secure its borders

Budapest World War I Memorial

This work is enthralling. As I started each chapter I was initially put off by being fed some commonly noted facts, but my attention was instantly brought back as the author introduced firsthand accounts of what a particular government policy meant to the people. This work takes more of a social history view than the usual diplomatic and military perspectives that we are used to when reading about the Great War. We cannot deny that it does not take heroism to order people into fighting the war, but it does take heroism to carry out the orders.

Michael Kihntopf

Photos: Tony Langley and Steve Miller

Does Your Loved One Pine for Maconochie with Tickler's Plum and Apple Jam for Dessert?

Or has he decorated his den with sand bag walls and duck board flooring? Then, just possibly — like the editors of Roads to the Great War — he is afflicted with Western Front-itis. We know at Roads to the Great War that this is a particularly troublesome malady for their families to deal with at this time of the year. Just what to get them for Christmas? In their personal collections they probably  already have an authentic Princess Mary gift box, or Horatio Kitchener or Uncle Sam in a poster calling them to duty, or a  Pip, Squeak, and Wilfred medal set. And period clothing, such as that advertised below, is just impossible to find in the 21st century. So, just what "over the top" present can you get for the World War I enthusiast in your life?

Original Ad from The Wipers Times

Fortunately, Kimball our assistant editor has been researching this matter for our readers and has discovered the latest "must have" for our fellow aficionados: the story of the Wipers Times.

Two Scenes from the Movie

Top: A Functioning Printing Press Is Discovered in Ypres;
Bottom: In the Trenches on the Somme

The story of the most famous trench newspaper of the war, The Wipers Times, is now available on DVD and the production is simply superb. The 90-minute dramatization starts with the discovery by Captain Fred Roberts's (Ben Chaplin in a +++ performance) unit of pioneers of a forgotten printing press in the town of Ypres, where they are quartered. After they learn their top sergeant is a skilled printer, and Roberts and his assistant Lt.  Jack Pearson rationalize their appropriating it for their own use, they decide to go into the newspaper business. Now as proprietors and editor/assistant editor of a new publication some decisions need to be made. What title? Well only the "Times" sounds sufficiently trustworthy, but it needs its own cachet, so they decide to add the printing location (as pronounced by the Tommies); hence, the Wipers Times was born. What material to present? Well, the new editors, being junior officers stuck in the frontline trenches,  instinctively target those above them (the brass), behind them (staff officers), and hovering over them (the Fates, responsible for imposing the calamity of trench warfare). Naturally, the the Times is soon a big hit with the troops and an annoyance to members of the high command and general staff.

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The video follows the adventures of the group through the rest of the war, performing  their normal duties, which involve a lot of trench maintenance, while producing a hit publication, the greatest challenge of which is the never ending struggle for new, fresh material. Two features of the film add considerably to this base narrative.  To give the viewer a feel for the content and wicked humor of the newspaper, the setting regularly shifts to a slightly surrealistic cabaret, where the soldiers we have been watching are now the performers for the comedy sketches, songs, and poems published in the Wipers Times. In contrast, there are some surprising hard-core combat episodes covering the period when the men and officers of the unit are sent to the Somme as infantry. These include one of the most authentic feeling over the top sequences I've seen in a Great War film (and I've seen a lot of them.)

So if you are  looking for the perfect WWI present for someone whose interest in it is boundless,  a DVD of The Wipers Times is perfect.

Georgia, U.S.A. in the Great War: Part II

The Otranto Disaster

On the morning of 25 September 1918, about 690 Doughboys (infantrymen), mostly Georgians from Fort Screven, boarded the old British troopship HMS Otranto, which set sail with a large Allied convoy bound for England. The Otranto was a medium-sized, prewar passenger liner that, like so many others, had been pressed into military service by the British Royal Navy. 

The tragic 1918 sinking of the British Otranto upset many Georgia communities. Nearly every county in the state lost at least one man when the ship went down off the coast of Scotland.

As the convoy entered the Irish Sea on 6 October still a day from port, the weather became worse, with gale-force winds. A tremendous wave struck the Kashmir, a converted troopship within the convoy, causing it to break ranks and veer hard. It rammed at full steam into the unsuspecting Otranto and caused severe damage to the liner. With a gaping hole in her side and a loss of power, the Otranto was helpless against the strong, storm-driven current, and she began to drift toward the nearby Scottish island of Islay and its rocky coast. The Otranto began to sink slowly before a huge wave pushed the ship onto Islay's rocks. The ship broke apart and quickly sank. Approximately 370 men were killed, an estimated 130 of whom were Georgians.

Influenza

In late September 1918, new draftee replacements for the Fort Screven Coast Artillery units began reporting to the infirmary seriously ill. Within a few days, it became clear that the men had contracted the dreaded Spanish flu. On 1 October the number of ill at Augusta's Camp Hancock jumped from two to 716 in just a few hours. The next day, Camp Gordon near Atlanta reported that 138 soldiers had contracted the virus. On 5 October Camp Hancock was quarantined with 3,000 cases of flu, but the quarantine came too late, as 47 cases had already reached the nearby city; by evening, more than 50 soldiers were dead, while many more had contracted pneumonia. Though seriously affected by the Spanish flu epidemic, Georgia escaped the massive numbers of sick and dying counted in other states along the East Coast.

Remembering the War

World War I officially ended on 11 November 1918, known as Armistice Day. Most Americans wanted to remember the war and the sacrifice of the men who had fought in it. This spirit of remembrance led to Armistice Day being recognized as a new national holiday. The tragic sinking of the HMS Otranto had stunned many Georgia communities, perhaps none more than the small town of Nashville. The seat of a sparsely populated and agricultural Berrien County, Nashville lost 20 residents in the Otranto sinking and another 27 young men to combat or disease. At the war's end, the citizens of Nashville decided to erect a monument honoring the community's fallen heroes.

Spirit of the American Doughboy

Sculptor Ernest M. Viquesney, an Indiana native living in nearby Americus, Georgia, designed a statue of a Doughboy in combat. The seven-foot-tall bronze soldier stands in bronze mud amid broken stumps and tangles of barbed wire. The town of Nashville paid $5,000 for the public sculpture, which was first unveiled  in November 1921.

A 1920s postcard depicts Ernest M. Viquesney's sculpture, Spirit of the American Doughboy,
 which stands in downtown Waycross, GA. Viquesney produced more than 
150 of these statues for towns across Georgia between 1921 and 1943.

As word of Viquesney's statue spread, representatives from other towns visited Americus to see the monument. New orders poured in, and Viquesney went into business, making the statues he now called the Spirit of the American Doughboy. The sculptor would go on to produce more than 150 statues between 1921 and 1943 and deliver them to towns all across the nation.

In 1922 two of America's war dead received special recognition and a large memorial site in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. These fallen young men represented America's Unknown and Known Soldiers, comprising the nation's unknown or missing dead and all of the known troops killed during World War I. Congress chose Charles Graves of Rome, Georgia, who had been killed in combat at the age of 18 and buried with full military honors in France, to be America's Known Soldier, and plans were made to create a monument and coordinate his reburial in Arlington. Graves's mother, however, wanted him buried at the family cemetery near Rome. Congress honored the mother's wishes and sent the body to Georgia. The following year, Graves was buried once again, this time in a more prominent memorial at Rome's Myrtle Hill Cemetery. Later, three World War I machine guns were placed around the site to "guard" Charles Graves for eternity. The city planted 34 magnolia trees around the cemetery to honor each of Floyd County's lost lives.

Source:  The New Georgia Encyclopedia, (Link)

Georgia, U.S.A. in the Great War: Part I

The 106th Field Signal Battalion marches near Camp Wheeler in Macon, circa 1918

Georgia played a significant role during America's participation in World War I (1917–18). The state was home to more training camps than any other state and by the war's end had contributed more than 100,000 men and women to the war effort. Georgia also suffered from the effects of the influenza pandemic, a tragic maritime disaster, local political fights, and wartime homefront restrictions.

War Sentiment in Georgia

As newspaper headlines around the world reported the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo, Bosnia, on 28 June 1914, Georgia papers paid very little attention to the news. The assassination provoked an immediate response from several European countries, however, all of whom were concerned about the growing political instability and the possible shift in power on the continent. In early August, hardly a month later, war broke out in Europe after Germany attacked Belgium. U.S. president Woodrow Wilson was determined to keep the United States out of the conflict. On 19 August he delivered a speech defining America's stance on the war. "Every man who really loves America," he said, "will act and speak in the true spirit of neutrality, which is the spirit of impartiality and fairness and friendliness to all concerned...The United States must be neutral in fact as well as in name."

Nearly a year later, the torpedoing of the transatlantic liner Lusitania on 7 May 1915 caused little outcry in Georgia, although voices from the North were quick to call for America's entry into the war. Hoke Smith, a U.S. senator from Georgia, said that war was not needed to avenge the deaths of a few "rich Americans" who had gone down with the ship. Local newspapers in Savannah and Athens also warned the public against hastily supporting the case for war, which had already hurt the state's economy. A curtain of Royal Navy ships, forming the British blockade of Europe, prevented Georgia cotton, tobacco, timber, and naval stores from reaching potentially lucrative German and Austrian markets.

The events of the war also contributed in large part to what is known as the Great Migration, during which black Americans moved from the South to urban areas in the North. New war-related jobs suddenly available in northern cities, coupled with the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan and mass lynchings across the South, spurred this flight. The Great Migration reached its peak between 1915 and 1930, by which time Georgia had lost more than 10 percent of its black population.

The Declaration of War and the Selective Service Act

On 6 April 1917, the United States declared war on Germany, thereby entering World War I. For about two years, Georgia's newspapers had been writing against the war because of its negative impact on the state's economy. Yet almost overnight the media changed their tune, becoming anti-German and strongly patriotic.

War fervor in Georgia sometimes raged to the immediate detriment of common sense. Soon state newspapers were warning readers to be on the "lookout for German spies." The loyalty of some Georgians suddenly became suspect: state labor leaders, teachers, farmers, and foreign immigrants were scrutinized for their "patriotism." Dirt farmers, especially the ones who still professed Populist leanings, were pressured into buying war bonds, signing "Declarations of Loyalty," and draping American flags over their plows while they worked. The state school superintendent encouraged all students and teachers to take a loyalty oath and to plant and tend what would become known as "liberty gardens." Teachers stopped covering German history, art, and literature for fear of being thought disloyal.

Loyalty pledges and flag-waving aside, President Wilson soon realized that volunteerism alone could not sustain an army capable of defeating Germany, so on 18 May 1917, he approved the Selective Draft Act (popularly known as the Selective Service Act) to remedy the problem. On 5 June all of Georgia's and the nation's eligible men, ages twenty-one to thirty, were required to register for the draft.

Many white men in Georgia sought to prevent black men from being drafted. As in the Civil War, when some planters refused to lend their slaves to the Confederate government for various kinds of war work, some land-owning whites in 1917 refused to allow their black sharecroppers to register for the draft or to report for duty once they had been called. Many black men were arrested and placed in camp stockades for not heeding draft notices that they had never received from landowners. Selective Service officials blamed Georgia's white planters for many such delinquency issues; for most of the war, local draft boards "resisted sending healthy and hard-working black males" because they were needed in the cotton fields and by the naval stores industry.

The very idea of conscription was abhorrent to many Georgians, including U.S. senator Thomas Hardwick, Rebecca Latimer Felton, and Thomas E. Watson. Watson even challenged the Selective Draft Act in federal court, when he announced his intentions of defending two black men who were jailed in Augusta for failing to register for the draft. Donations poured in to help support the case. On 20 August 1917, the trial took place outdoors in order to accommodate the large crowd that came to hear the old Populist's oratory. In the end the judge upheld the constitutionality of the act and more than 500,000 men were registered in Georgia.

Federal Installations and War Camps

The state had five major federal military installations when the United States entered the war in 1917. The oldest garrison was Fort McPherson, located south of Atlanta, which opened in 1889; the newest was Fort Oglethorpe, constructed near the Tennessee border just a few years after the Spanish-American War in 1898. Fort Screven, a large coastal artillery station on Tybee Island, guarded the entrance to the Savannah River. Augusta housed both the South's oldest federal arsenal, the Arsenal at Augusta, and the army's second military airfield, Camp Hancock.

Two soldiers from the Pennsylvania's Twenty-eighth National Guard Division stand guard in 1917
at Camp Hancock, just outside Augusta.

Georgia had many war-training camps as well. The large national army cantonment at Camp Gordon, which opened in July 1917, was located in Chamblee, northeast of Atlanta, and was the training site of the famous 82nd All-American Division. The division included men from several different states, including the AEF's most famous Doughboy, Alvin York of Tennessee, but Georgians made up almost half its number. National Guard training camps were based in Augusta and Macon; Augusta's Camp Hancock was home to the 28th Keystone Division, while Camp Wheeler in Macon hosted the 31st Dixie Division, which was entered by almost all of Georgia's National Guard. Eventually more than 12,000 Georgians were active in the 31st. Specialist camps, such as Camp Greenleaf for military medical staff, Camp Forrest for engineers, and Camp Jesup for Transport Corps troops, were scattered around the state. At Souther Field, located northeast of Americus, a flight school trained almost 2,000 military pilots for combat in the skies over France.

Part II tomorrow.  The men trained in Georgia head "Over There" for the "Big Show".

Source:  The New Georgia Encyclopedia, (Link)

Western Front Virtual Tour — Stop 47: The Lost Battalion Site

From the personal experience monograph of Captain Nelson M. Holderman, who at the time commanded Company K of the 307th Infantry. Holderman later received the Medal of Honor for his service during the incident.

On October 2, 1918, elements of the U. S. 77th Division attacked northward in the Argonne Forest. A force under the command of Major Charles W. Whittlesey, consisting of headquarters scouts and runners of the 1st and 2d Battalions of the 308th Infantry, Companies A, B, C, E, G and H of the 308th Infantry, two platoons of Companies C and D of the 306th Machine-Gun Battalion, and Company K of the 307th Infantry, reached its objective east of the Moulin de Charlevaux. Company K of the 307th Infantry joined the command after the objective had been reached.

Neighboring units and supporting troops had been stopped far short of the line reached by Major Whittlesey. The Germans quickly seized this opportunity to work their way behind this isolated unit and cut its communications with American troops to the rear. This force-known to history as the Lost Battalion was cut off and surrounded. It had only one day's ration for four companies.

Upon reaching his objective, Major Whittlesey had organized for defense. Enemy artillery shelled the position. This ceased after a time and trench-mortar fire followed. An attempt to establish contact with the rear failing, the situation was reported by pigeon message and the force disposed for all-around defense.

The following message was then sent to all company and detachment commanders:

Our mission is to hold this position at all cost. Have this understood by every man in the command.

Fire from enemy machine guns and trench mortars continued. About 3:00 p.m. the next day (October 3) the Germans launched a frontal attack supported by fire from the flanks and rear. The leading assailants got close enough to throw grenades, but the attack failed. About 5:00 p.m. another attack came from both flanks. This too was repulsed but with heavy American losses.  By way of medical assistance the Americans had three Medical Corps enlisted men; no medical officer had accompanied the outfit. All dressings and first-aid bandages were exhausted on the night of the 3rd.

Daylight of October 4 found the men tired and hungry. All, especially the wounded, had suffered bitterly from the cold during the night. More enemy trench mortars went into position and opened a steady fire, causing heavy casualties. Scouts reported that the Germans were all around the position in large numbers. No word from the rear had been received. Again the situation was reported by pigeon message.

During the afternoon of the 4th an American barrage, starting in the south, swept forward and settled down on the position, causing more losses. German trench mortars added their shells. At this time the last pigeon was released with a message giving the location of the force and stating that American artillery was placing a barrage on it.

American planes flew over the position and were fired on by the Germans. About 5:00 p.m. a new German attack was repulsed. Water was being obtained from a muddy stream along the ravine below the position. Often a canteen of water cost a casualty, for the enemy had laid guns to cover the stream. Guards were therefore posted to keep men from going to the stream during daylight. A chilly rain the night of the 4th added to the discomfort.

About 9:00 p.m. a German surprise attack failed. The wounded were now in terrible condition and, like the rest of the force, were without food.  Indications of American attacks from the south had been noted, but no relief came. Actually, several battalions of the 77th Division had been almost wiped out in valiant but vain efforts to reach the Lost Battalion.

During the afternoon of October 5, French artillery located to the southwest opened a heavy fire on the position. The Germans waited until the French fire lifted and then launched another attack which the Americans again stopped.

Shortly after this, American airplanes attempted to drop packages in the position but their aim was bad and the packages fell in the German lines. The men realized that this was an effort to get food to them.  Bandages for the wounded were now being taken from the dead; even wrap-leggings were used. It became increasingly difficult to get water.

On the morning of October 6 the enemy's rifles and machine guns started early and his trench mortars again took up their pounding. Another American airplane came over and dropped packages, but again they fell in the German lines. Soon afterward there were signs that the Germans were forming for another attack, but this was broken up by American artillery fire.

During the afternoon of October 6 a murderous machine-gun barrage plastered the position and took a heavy toll. This was immediately followed by an attack which, though beaten off, added to the roll of dead and wounded.  By this time ammunition was running low. But despite everything, courage and morale remained high. The men were determined to fight to a finish.

About noon on the 7th another attack was repulsed. At 4:00 p.m. enemy firing ceased. From the left flank an American soldier appeared limping toward the position. He carried a long stick with a piece of white cloth tied to it. This soldier had been captured while attempting to obtain a package of food dropped by the airplanes. He brought a letter from the German commander, neatly typewritten in English.

SIR:

The bearer of this present, private __________ has been taken prisoner by us. He refused to give the German intelligence officer any answer to his questions, and is quite an honorable fellow, doing honor to his Fatherland in the strictest sense of the word.

He has been charged against his will, believing he is doing wrong to  his country, to carry forward this present letter to the officer in charge of the battalion of the 77th Division, with the purpose to recommend this commander to surrender with his forces, as it  would be quite useless to resist any more, in view of the present conditions.

The suffering of your wounded men can be heard over here in the German lines, and we are appealing to your humane sentiments  to stop. A white flag shown by one of your men will tell us that you agree with these conditions. Please treat Private__________ as an  honorable man. He is quite a soldier. We envy you.

Major Whittlesey made no reply, oral or written. He ordered two white airplane panels which were being displayed to be taken in at once. Nothing white was to show on the hillside.  The fiercest attack of the siege followed. Wounded men dragged themselves to the firing line, and those who could not fire loaded rifles. The enemy used flame throwers in this attack, and nearly took the position. But finally he was driven off.

At dusk on the 7th it seemed impossible to hold out. Only two machine guns were left of the original nine. No gunners remained to man them. Ammunition was almost exhausted. The next attack would have to be met with the bayonet. There had been no food since the morning of October 3rd. The water obtained was slimy and bad. Still these men were willing to fight on.

That night the enemy withdrew and American troops arrived soon afterward. One hundred and ninety-four (194) men [photo above] out of the 700 that jumped off on the morning of October 2nd were able to walk out of the position. Many of these were wounded.  Despite the desperate situation and the hardships, the morale of the Lost Battalion had not been broken. Inspired by their leader, the men were determined to fight to a finish.

Weapons of War — The French 75mm Field Gun

This was the French Army’s main artillery gun during World War I. It was introduced in 1897 and was the first fully integrated quick-firing gun. It also had an innovative recoil system that made for a smoother operation. 

Its great moment of the war may have been during the retreat after the colossal French defeat in the 1914 Battle of the Frontiers in slowing the German advance into northern France. This allowed General Joffre to regroup and prepare his counterstroke.

As a German soldier wrote in his diary during the Battle of the Marne:

"September —. The attack is violent on the outside; we remain close together, man to man, inundated by the shell from the French artillery. It is a fire of hell." 

When the U.S. became involved in World War I, space on ships was limited and manpower had priority over heavy equipment, so American troops often used French heavy equipment, including this 75mm field gun. An early adaption of the weapon was for anti-aircraft purposes. Interestingly, the German Army, which had found their comparable field piece unsuitable for this purpose, used captured French 75s to defend against Allied aircraft.

After World War I, it was upgraded with pneumatic tires and improved ammunition and was still the French Army’s main artillery gun until the 1940s. France also exported this gun to many other counties in the 1930s, and it was used in 1941 in World War II against the Japanese in the Philippines and in North Africa against the Germans. Erwin Rommel who had come to respect French artillery during the 1914 march to the Marne faced the weapon in both World Wars.

German Civilians Examine a Captured French 75

Some Details:

Country: France
Year: 1897
Caliber: 75mm
Shell Weight: 5.55 kg
Muzzle Velocity: 625 m/sec
Maximum Range: 6860m
Produced: Over 17,000
Maximum Rate of Fire: 15 rounds/minute


Source:  First Division Museum at Cantigny

Remembering a Veteran: Captain Bruce Bairnsfather

Bruce Bairnsfather was born in Murree in India in 1873 to an army family and was educated at Rudyard Kipling's old school where he proved a poor student — more interested in scribbling caricatures of his masters than in passing his exams. Eventually he scraped through the Army entrance exam and enlisted in the militia — which he hated. He then studied at commercial art school but re-enlisted with the Royal Warwickshires when war broke out in 1914. Serving in the mud and misery of the trenches of the infamous Plugstreet Wood he started drawing cartoons that realistically and yet humorously depicted the appalling conditions of the trenches. They were soon published as the series that came to be known as FRAGMENTS FROM FRANCE, and they became an immediate roaring success. Soon his principal character, a phlegmatic, moustachio-ed soldier known as "Old Bill", was immortalized in the famous situation of "The Better 'Ole" and reproduced on pottery, on postcards, playing cards, in books, plays, and films, in the UK, North America, and, indeed, worldwide. There followed an extraordinary career. Yet Bairnsfather died in obscurity and relative poverty, and, although Gen. Sir Ian Hamilton called him "The Man Who Won the War" and he was courted by the Secret Service, he received no official award from his country for his evident genius in raising the morale of the nation during the Great War. 

Two of the friends I've made in leading tours of the WWI battlefields are Tonie and Valmie Holt, founders of Holt's Battlefield Tours. After taking their company to the leadership of the military history travel industry, Tonie and Valmie have moved on to other ventures and are now publishing the best battlefield guides available for travelers. They have also taken the lead in honoring one of the most beloved figures of the war and have authored a delightful biography of Bairnsfather, In Search of the Better Hole.

Order In Search of the Better Hole at: http://www.guide-books.co.uk/bairnsfather.html

Remembering World War I: An Engineer’s Diary of the War reviewed by Peter L. Belmonte

Remembering World War I: An Engineer’s Diary of the War

by Charles Edward Dilkes
Edited by Virginia A. Dilkes, Georgia Dilkes Harris, and Lola Dilkes Koniuszy

Published by Juliet Publishing, 2014

Charles Edward Dilkes (1887–1968) graduated from Georgetown University with a background in engineering in 1910. On 1 May 1917, Dilkes responded to the nation's call to the colors by enlisting in the army and being assigned to the 1st Engineer Regiment at Washington, DC. In explaining why he enlisted, Dilkes, ever patriotic, said that "[e]very man must shoulder a weapon in defense of his home". For the rest of his time in the army, including service overseas in combat, Dilkes served in the 1st Engineers, part of the 1st Division.

Departing from Hoboken on 7 August 1917, Dilkes didn't have to wait long to experience combat as his ship, the Finland, was attacked by U-boats on August 20 as they neared France. The ensuing battle, eagerly watched by Dilkes and probably thousands of other soldiers and sailors, involved transports with deck guns, destroyers, and airplanes.

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Upon safe arrival in France, Dilkes and his regiment underwent training that included construction of barracks and stables along with infantry training and tours of duty in the trenches. Dilkes, who applied several times for officer training without success, also attended a school on road building. During their tours of duty in the trenches, the men repaired trenches and barbed wire entanglements, fortified reserve trenches, and constructed and repaired dugouts. While in the trenches, engineers had to participate in wire-stringing details in No-Man's-Land. Dilkes statement gives one an inkling of the perils of such work: "I was always ready to leave when the next detail arrived; there was no delay either …"

Dilkes describes a harrowing nighttime trip to the rear along a communication trench that was being heavily shelled. Loneliness had a way of magnifying the terror involved in such a trip: "On reaching the slope a company of infantry was hurrying along, and in the rear of this outfit I followed. I felt relieved a bit, for, if wounded, there was aid; but when alone there is nothing but the stars to offer sympathy." (p. 61) Throughout the narrative Dilkes records vignettes of war that he experienced, including searching the dead for rations and watching a muleteer calmly unhitch his two lead mules that had just been killed by shell fire and then drive on with the remaining two mules. Indeed, the book is replete with accounts of air raids, gas attacks, and artillery barrages, as well as stories of suspected German spies in French or American uniforms.

1st Division Engineers in Action

Dilkes, promoted to sergeant in April, 1918, went through all the battles of the 1st Division. He did his first real work in combat while the division was near Cantigny. There the men constructed "roads, observation posts, barbed wire entanglements, trenches, dugouts, and first aid stations." (p. 46) Constructing a communication trench required men to be posted every three feet; at the signal, each man then commenced digging a portion of trench six feet deep, three feet long, and two feet wide. Dilkes's description of such work, performed at night while anticipating or experiencing enemy artillery fire, evokes a feeling of helplessness in the reader.

During the Aisne-Marne campaign, Dilkes's company followed the assault wave as a part of the reserve; their duties included clearing debris from the roads in order to make them passable for follow-on artillery and supply units. At St. Mihiel, Dilkes and his company accompanied the infantry assault wave as wire-cutters. After the fighting died down, Dilkes helped set demolition charges to German items that might have appealed to souvenir-hungry Doughboys, but which could have been booby traps. During the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, Dilkes performed much the same types of duties, filling in craters and repairing and reconstructing roads.

After the Armistice, the 1st Division became part of the Army of Occupation in Germany, and Dilkes describes his march to the Rhine bridgehead. Although happy with his treatment by the German family with whom he was quartered, Dilkes, in common with most Doughboys, was dissatisfied with his post-war army life. "Drills, hikes, inspections, and reviews were the daily routine...I considered my work finished with the signing of the armistice; now home and discharge were my cry".

After his return home, Dilkes, using a diary he kept during the war, wrote his memoirs for his family. Editors Virginia A. Dilkes, Georgia Dilkes Harris, and Lola Dilkes Koniuszy, Charles Dilkes's daughters, used his diary and memoirs to prepare this book. The editors include what they call "Living History" sidebars, snippets of information gleaned from various sources that illuminate or summarize aspects of the regiment's history. They have also included many General Orders and other commendations that were issued to either the regiment or the division.

Memoirs of infantrymen abound; this book, however, helps us to remember that, amidst the patrols, trench raids, and artillery duels, the backbreaking work of the engineers in and just behind the front lines continued. It is interesting to read Dilkes's engineer-centric narrative. Firsthand accounts by enlisted engineers are comparatively rare, and the editors have done a good service by publishing their father's memoirs.

Peter L. Belmonte

What Happened at Hooge Chateau?

Hooge Chateau, 1915

Hooge Chateau, on the Menin Road and in the heart of the Ypres Salient was the scene of very fierce fighting in every year of  the First World War. The Germans used flame-throwers here for the first time and here also the British adopted steel helmets for the first time. The chateau was completely destroyed, along with the adjacent entire village. 

Hooge Crater

• On 31 October 1914 the staff of the 1st and 2nd Divisions were wiped out when the chateau was shelled. (This was the critical and decisive day of the First Battle of Ypres.)

• From 24 May to 3 June 1915 the chateau was defended against German attacks, and in July 1915 crater was made by a mine detonated by the 3rd Division. On 30 July, the Germans took the chateau, and on 9 August it and the crater were regained by the 6th Division. 

• The Germans retook Hooge on 6 June 1916.

• At the opening of the Battle of Passchendaele on 31 July 1917, the British 8th Division advanced 1.6 km beyond the chateau. Several large craters from underground mines were created nearby over the course of the 1917 fighting. 

• The chateau was lost for the last time in April 1918 during the second Ludendorff spring offensive but regained by the 9th (Scottish) and 29th Divisions on 28 September.

Hooge Crater Cemetery

Hooge Crater Cemetery is 4 km east of Ypres on the Menin Road. There are now 5,923 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery, of which 3,579 are unidentified, but special memorials record the names of a number of casualties either known or believed to be buried among them, or whose graves in other cemeteries were destroyed by shellfire.

Across the road from the cemetery located in its former chapel is the Hooge Crater Museum, which opened in 1994. It is the composite collections of two individuals who roamed the battlefields and purchased artifacts from the salient for decades.

The collection is large, eclectic, and utterly fascinating.  The material is presented in the old style — "Here's some stuff to look at" — with none of the audience participation or highly stylized look of the nearby Flanders Fields or Passchendaele Museums — that some old-school types (like your editor) prefer.

Next door to the museum is another must-see. Just to the east, on the grounds of an inn,  is the site of the former crater.  It is now a lovely pond with an outdoor battlefield museum surrounding it.

The December Issue of the St. Mihiel Trip-Wire

Our oldest and best-known recurring publication at Worldwar1.com is our free monthly newsletter the St. Mihiel Trip-Wire. Every month we provide a portal to a vast amount of information on the Great War. Our December issue features our usual  collection of articles, links, imagery, and a special feature on the Christmas Truce of 1914.  Below is just one of the articles from our latest edition.

To view the full issue just click on:

Worldwar1.com/tripwire/smtw.htm

Ten Notable Artists Who Served in the Great War

Western Front Virtual Tour — Stop 46: Montfaucon

Within the Avocourt-Malancourt sector, the Germans held one of their most formidable positions on the entire Western Front...On the horizon, the dominating heights of Montfaucon rose threateningly. It was from these heights that the German Crown Prince had observed the futile assaults upon Verdun two years before. So strong was this position (enhanced by superb fortifications, a commanding view, and covered by excellent fields of fire) that the Germans called Montfaucon the "Little Gibraltar" and boasted that it could never be taken. Strong as the enemy positions were by nature, the Boche had rendered them still more formidable by four years of ceaseless labor, constructing trenches, gun positions, entanglements, and pill boxes to cover every conceivable approach the Allied forces might use in an attack.

From: U.S. Army Battle Analysis, "The Battle of Montfaucon," Command and General Staff College

Announcing Our Recommended Titles on the Great War — 1915

Recommended Centennial Reading

The Great War in 1915
Every year of the Centennial, Worldwar1.com will be recommending a reading list to allow you to follow the big events of 100 years ago.  Here are our 1915–2015 suggestions:

Germany Before the War

Bernd Huppauf, New York University

It may be very difficult to understand that the large majority of the German population had the feeling that they were engaged in a war that had been forced upon them,

Modern, Affluent Berlin 1912

that they were a part of a war in which they defended their very existence, and that this was a war fought not for material possessions, the annexation of territory, or colonies, but that it was a war in which Germany herself defended her bare existence. Indeed, it might be difficult to understand that that was the common feeling in Germany.

In order to be able to understand this, one has to look back to the previous years, the last four decades. Germany had been united in 1871 and considered herself to be a young nation — a latecomer.

The world had been carved up before they arrived. The world in terms of colonies, the world in terms of power politics, had been finalized, and the Germans came late. Yet, they felt they deserved a position in this world, according to their self-esteem, according to their size, according to their grandiose history leading back into the Middle Ages. For quite some time, there was a discussion of the inevitability of war common amongst all European societies.

There was the fear that with German unification, the power structure had changed to a degree, that now war had to be waged, that war had become inevitable. The only question remaining — when was it a good time to start the war?

Berlin During the War

In England, and in France, in particular, the imaginary war was waged in novels, in science fiction, in pseudo-scientific discourse, so it was no grand surprise that in 1914 the majority of the German population felt that what had happened was a logical consequence of a development that had happened over many years.

From the PBS Website, The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century

A Scrap of Paper: Breaking and Making International Law During the Great War Reviewed by Jim Gallen

A Scrap of Paper: Breaking and Making International Law
During the Great War

by Isabel Hull

Published by Cornell University Press, 2014

For all the stories of trench warfare and unannounced sinkings, one would think that World War I was governed by no law other than that of the jungle, based on no maxim but that might makes right. A Scrap of Paper tells a different story. It examines the issues that arose, the theories of law that competed as intensely as the cannon and warship and the men who framed them. The Great War is portrayed as a time when scraps of paper called warriors to the field of battle, swayed international opinion, and fueled propaganda duels.

The western front of World War I rose out of divergent interpretations of The Treaty of 1839 which established an independent Belgium with its neutrality guaranteed by Great Britain, Austria, France, Prussia and Russia. This solemn obligation to the British and a "scrap of paper" to the Germans was debated by Belgium's guarantors and its violators. Did it obligate its signers or was it an irrelevant anachronism?

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War having been engaged, legal disputes turned to balancing the rights and obligations of conquerors and conquered. Thus new questions arose. When was a levee en masse, a civilian resistance against advancing enemies, legal, and when was an insurrection against an occupying power unlawful? What obligation did the occupier have to feed and govern the occupied and what rights did it have to extract work and taxes? What use could be made of POWs and what level of subsistence must they be provided? When did military necessity justify actions that were otherwise illegitimate?

Furthermore, under what circumstances and to what extent was a blockade permissible? Could food be interdicted even if it caused starvation? How effective must it be to be lawful? Could it be enforced against neutral ports bearing goods to belligerents? Could neutral shipping be stopped or sunk? Would humanitarian aid, such as the food for Belgium raised by American Herbert Hoover be exempt from blockade, even if it did relieve Germany of its obligation to feed its captives? Was it justified as economic warfare? All of these questions were raised by each side in support of its positions.

Additionally, new weapons called for new laws. Airplanes and zeppelins permitted bombings of enemy cities. Could they be employed against civilian targets? Was a German bombing of London any more illegal or inhumane than British interdiction of supplies directed toward Germany? Could submarines be expected to halt and inspect merchant shipping and make provisions for its crew and passengers before sinking it?

Bombing Civilians Raised Legal Issues

A Scrap of Paper is a blend of law and history. It is history of law and history of the war. It probes the influence of the violations of international law on neutrals. German atrocities in Belgium and the rights of neutrals on the high seas were of paramount importance to the United States, while the Netherlands, caught as it was in the middle, and the Scandinavians with their German sympathies, saw things differently. This book provides insights into the propaganda campaigns of both sides.

Ultimately the breaking and making of international law is shown as a struggle between competing visions of law, influenced by the interests of the belligerents. The new conditions of the war itself necessitated new law, some of it codified during the peace that followed. The legal issues discussed in this book are reminiscent of those of other wars, both before and after the Great War. The studies of military necessity shine light on Lincoln's justification for the Emancipation Proclamation. Examination of the legality of sinkings and bombings presaged the immensely greater scale of indiscriminate destruction of World War II. When I first picked up this book I was of the opinion that the law of war was largely what could be justified by the victor. By the book's end I realized that there have been many efforts to civilize the most uncivil of human activity.

Author Isabel V. Hull has done an impressive job in her research and writing. For a student of the law of war it is magnificent. A reader will pick up some aspects of the general history, but it takes a lot of reading for a few slivers of information. This is a book for experienced and deep students of the Great War, so casual readers should start elsewhere.

Jim Gallen

Remembering a Veteran: Edward I. Tinkham – AFS Volunteer, Camion Driver, Naval Aviator, Part IV

Part IV: Edward Tinkham Trains to Be a Navy Pilot 

by James Patton

Wrote James Rothwell, 21 Sept 1917:

[First] a few…left...to enter the aviation service. Within the last month many have been leaving for… the several branches of the U.S. Army…Only five of the original body are now left...The U.S. Navy authorities in Paris are getting together a bunch of students for a naval aviation school to start the end of September...I have been talking with Tinkham who is in full agreement that the [new] transport service…is not… for men like me. He has resigned…and will take up naval aviation.

Tinkham in 1916

Edward Tinkham joined the Navy in Paris on 17 September, entering as a Seaman 2nd Class. Eighteen other ex-AFS men (including Rothwell) would make up the rest of the first NAS Moutchic Cadet class. On the same day at the same place in Paris ex-AFS man Willis B. Haviland (SSU 2) resigned from the Lafayette Escadrille and re-joined the Navy (he previously served 1907–1911), also to be a Navy pilot.  

Haviland went straight to the French seaplane school at Heurtin. Tinkham, Rothwell,  and the others were sent to Pauillac, where they found themselves again driving trucks, hauling supplies to the new NAS at Moutchic on Lake Lancanau, located four miles inland and 32 miles west of Bordeaux and commanded by Lt.(j.g.) J.L. Callan USN(RF). This NAS opened on 27 September, and on 24 October classes started in navigation, gunnery, signaling, airplanes, motors, and Navy regulations, including both ground school and seaplane instruction, taught by officers from the First Yale Unit.

For basic flight, Tinkham’s class went to the French École d’Aviation Militaire at Tours. This experience was described by Joseph Cline, who was there shortly before Tinkham:

We were divided into small groups…each group assigned to an instructor. One leather flying coat, one pair of goggles, and one crash helmet were issued to each group and these were passed from one student to another as his turn came to fly. The plane used for our primary instruction was the Caudron G-3…the instructor sat in the rear cockpit. After takeoff he would turn the controls over to the student and instructions would begin. If the nose was too high the instructor would push forward on your helmet. If it was low, he would pull back on the helmet. If the left wing was down he’d tap on the right shoulder, right wing down tap on the left shoulder. A flight lasted about 30 minutes.

After each flight the instructor…would explain all of the mistakes you had made while in flight. He gave you hell in French…Our instructor…was very excitable and emotional. He would shout and scream at a student who was doing something wrong…a French student explained…he knows everything [a] student does wrong. When he does, he will throw away his hat. If he is getting to worse trouble he will throw away his cane. And if at last he throws away his pipe, the man is dead. About two-thirds of our group [soloed] in less than five hours of dual instruction. This course included a cross-country flight…a spot landing from 4,000 feet with dead stick in a small field we called the salad patch and an altitude test to 8,000 feet where we were required to stay for one hour.

After Tours, the class returned to NAS Moutchic for training in FBA Type H seaplanes. This course concentrated on anti-submarine patrolling.

 FBA Type H Seaplane

On 23 March 1918 Tinkham completed his seaplane training and was rated as Naval Aviator No. 1498. He was also promoted to landsman-quartermaster, still an enlisted man.

Meanwhile, in November 1917, the Italian government requested that U.S. naval aviation activity be extended to Italy, offering to completely equip the stations if the U.S. would man and operate them. The original request was made at Washington by the Italian Naval Attaché and the resulting agreement as to the nature of this aid was drawn up in Rome by now-Lt. J.L. Callan, now at U.S. Navy HQ in Paris, and Cap.(di V.) De Filippi, head of Italian Navy Aviation. This agreement was approved by the two governments in early February. It was subsequently agreed that the U.S. Navy would take over the Italian stations at Bolsena and Porto Corsini, plus construct a new one at Pescara (never put into service due to failure by the Italians to supply aircraft). Bolsena was a training station situated on a lake about 60 miles from Rome. The Porto Corsini station was located on the Adriatic Sea near the town of Ravenna about 70 miles from the Austro-Hungarian base at Pola. The Pescara station was also on the Adriatic, about 200 miles south of Porto Corsini and 120 miles from the Austro-Hungarian base at Sibenik.

On 19 Feb 1918 the first American aviation detachment to enter Italy arrived at Bolsena. Two days later the Bolsena training base was commissioned as a U.S. Naval Air Station, Ten.(di V.) Calderara of the Italian Navy transferring the command to Ens. W. B. Atwater, USN(RF).

Training was started at once. The flight instructors were Italian until the Americans became proficient in handling the Italian planes. At first FBA flying boats were used exclusively for training, but later some Macchi L-3 and Ma.5 seaplanes arrived and thereafter training in these two types was also given. One SVA seaplane was sent to the school, but it did not prove satisfactory. Ground school work was also organized and instruction was given in theory of flight, navigation, engines, Navy regulations, the Bluejackets Manual, and signals.

The only casualty at NAS Bolsena during its nine months of operation occurred on 20 March 1918 when Clarence A. Nelson, Machinist Mate 1st Class (A), USN, was killed while making his first solo flight. In his memory, the town of Bolsena named the road leading from the town to the hangars Via Nelson.

NAS Bolsena trained 134 pilots. Most of these were sent to air stations in France. Some statistics of NAS Bolsena: greatest number of aircraft, 18; number of flights, 5,540; total actual flying time, 2,216 hours 9 minutes.

NAS Moutchic Summer 1918

The next step in the plan was to assume the operations in the northern Adriatic. The Navy turned this job over to now-Lt. Haviland, their bona-fide combat pilot, who was called back from loan to the RNAS. at Dunkerque. He selected pilots from those available at NAS Moutchic, including Tinkham and ten other ex-AFS men (five from TMU 526). All went to NAS Bolsena on 18 May for type-rating in Macchi seaplanes, training in aerial combat tactics, and bombing practice.

While at NAS Bolsena, Tinkham was commissioned as an ensign, USN(RF). Not all of the NAS Porto Corsini pilots were commissioned at this time.

Sources: Cornell University, American Field Service, U.S. Navy Naval History and Heritage Command, Willis Haviland Lamm