Dowager Lady Grantham's Special Message for Roads to the Great War Readers

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 February issue features our usual  collection of articles, links, imagery, and the special message below:

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A Message from Violet  Dowager Countess of Grantham The Official Favorite Downton Abbey Character of Worldwar1.com Dear Roads to the Great War Readers,  No doubt you will regard this as rather unorthodox, my pushing my way into an electronic publication. First electricity, then telephones, now the Internet. Sometimes I feel as if I’m living in an H.G. Wells novel. But life is a game, where sometimes the player must appear ridiculous. While there can be too much truth in any relationship there is a time for forthrightness. I must say that I find this fascination in our former colonies with my family's story a bit puzzling, and — forgive me for saying this — utterly middle class. Especially so, since before Downton Abbey there was Abingdon Pryory and the Greville Family Saga, which I'm amused to say were brilliantly chronicled by that American from Hollywood, California, the late Mr. Philip Rock. (Why does every day involve the intrusion of an American?) If you would like to discover the source from which Downton Abbey's producers borrow their plot and some of my dialogue, you might consider reading this wonderful trilogy that was reissued recently.  By the way, the first volume of the Abingdon Pryory Trilogy — The Passing Bells — covers the Great War, the second the postwar period, and the last the run up to the Second World War. I'm certain readers of Roads will recognize the provenance of the first volume's title:  What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle: Can patter out their hasty orisons. . .  Dowager Lady Grantham

The Execution of Captain Fryatt

Before the war was a year old, Captain Charles Fryatt had already had a number of close shaves with German U-boats. After growing up in Harwich, Essex, he followed his father into the merchant navy. In March 1915, captaining the SS Brussels, he attempted to ram a prowling U-boat, actions that won him national acclaim.

But, on 25 June 1916, his ship was cornered by five gunboats and Captain Fryatt was imprisoned.  He was tried in Bruges on charges of being franc tireur — a civilian engaged in hostile military activity. Captain Fryatt had earlier told his captors he did his duty to protect his crew but, according to press reports, was not allowed to speak at his trial.

The hearing, sentence and firing squad all took place on the same day, 27 July 1916. When his funeral was held in Harwich, schoolchildren were given the day off and the streets were lined with people. Among the lasting tributes, the local hospital was named after him.

The public reaction to Charles Fryatt's death echoed that of Nurse Edith  Cavell eight months earlier. In both cases, the Germans had intended to show defiance would not be tolerated. In both cases they acted in accordance with their military code and international law. Stephen Badsey, Professor of Conflict Studies at the University of Wolverhampton, explained: "Both were guilty of breaching military law and once the Germany military had determined they had a right to execute them they were going to go ahead and do it, without thinking through the wider impact.

In both cases they failed to consider the propaganda battle. The outcry in both cases was that Germany had "violated civilisation." Newspapers across the world raged at the actions of the German army. Headlines were fat with words like "murder" and "atrocity".

In a letter to Mr Fryatt's widow, King George V called his death an "outrage". Every means of communication — songs, postcards, posters, films, and even stamps — were used to convey such examples of "the Hun" at work.

Both Fryatt and Cavell were initially buried close to where they were shot, but shortly after the war their bodies were exhumed and brought back to England. The same train carriage was used in both cases. Capt Fryatt's funeral was held at St. Paul's cathedral, but his body was also taken home and buried at All Saints' Church, Upper Dovercourt, Essex.

He was celebrated in two main memorials, but as well as the hospital, a road and a pub in Harwich also bear his name.

Adapted from a BBC Website article

100 Years Ago: Allied Naval Operations at the Dardanelles Begin, 19 February 1915

The naval assault on the Dardanelles began 100 years ago today with bombardment by an assemblage of British and French battleships against the outer forts at the entrance to the Dardanelles.  Although it seemed modestly effective, it was merely the opening of a month-long exercise in wishful thinking that would end in utter failure. The idea of a naval-only assault succeeding in capturing territory and forcing a nation like Turkey out of the war was both strategically, and in a practical sense, absurd. At postwar hearings questions like, "How could a fleet capture a capital like Constantinople or a peninsula like Gallipoli?" shattered the underlying logic of the whole ships-without-land-forces approach. The operation, in addition, was mounted at tremendous disadvantages for the Allied fleet, which some admirals recognized at the time, but which the expedition's chief advocate, Winston Churchill, chose to ignore or minimize.  

HMS Cornwallis (left foreground) Firing on 19 February 1915

No matter how much armor battleships carry, for instance, forts can be, well, simply more fortified and able to withstand more hits. Advantage forts. Forts, meanwhile, are fully stable gun platforms and have every gunnery targeting solution within their range already in hand. Warships, however, are bouncing, rolling, and vibrating while underway, making targeting incredibly complicated and are sitting ducks while at anchor. Advantage forts. Then there were additional complications like mobile artillery batteries land-side that were almost impossible for the ships to locate, while the battleships were easily sited by the gun crews. Oh, and by the way, the straits were mined and had to be cleared of these before the battleships could get through to Constantinople. These additional points entailed further disadvantages for the battleships.

For a month,  there were more bombardments deeper into the straits that seemed to yield better results, especially when Marines were sent ashore to clear some of the key positions. (Of course, the defenders returned as soon as the Marines returned to their ships.)  During this period, though, it became clearer to the local commanders that they were in a quandary — one that they would never resolve — that they could not allow the battleships to get close enough to reduce the concentration of six forts at the Narrows until the mines had been cleared. Conversely, the minesweepers could not get near the minefields until the guns were silenced.

Fort Sedd el Bahr at the Mouth of the Straits

The losses, however, would exceed the admirals worst fears.  The naval-only approach to the Dardanelles Campaign would end with with the defeat of a full-fleet assault by all the assembled British and French battleships on 18 March 1915. During that disaster, considered by Turkish historians to be the decisive event in the year-long fighting in the area, three battleships were sunk, three knocked out of action, and several more received serious damage. That evening the admirals called for land forces to help capture the forts, so the mines could be cleared, to allow the ships to sail on to Constantinople. What followed was a land campaign as ill-considered and beyond the capacity of the invading forces as the naval operation, but that's a story to be told elsewhere.

Samuel Gompers's Insight

American labor leader Samuel Gompers was a big booster for the war effort.  Shortly after the United States declared war, he made something of a rah-rah speech that contained this gem that I think proved true not only for the First World War, but the Second, as well.

This war is a people's war — labor's war. The final outcome will be determined in the factories, the mills, the shops, the mines, the farms, the industries, and the transportation agencies of the various countries. That group of countries which can most successfully organize its agencies of production and transportation, and which can furnish the most adequate and effective agencies with which to conduct the war, will win.

Gompers Visiting an American Trench on the Italian Front

Listen to the full speech at the Library of Congress Website:   (Audio File)

Fire and Movement: The British Expeditionary Force and the Campaign of 1914 Reviewed by James M. Gallen

Fire and Movement: The British Expeditionary Force and the Campaign of 1914

by Peter Hart

Published by Oxford University Press, 2014

The history of 1914 is one of armies mobilizing and first experiencing the war that would consume them over the next four years. Each army has its story. Fire and Movement is the story of the British Army during those early days of World War I. While continental powers had their massive ground forces at the time, Britain defended its Empire by ruling the waves and maintaining a small professional army. This war was not to be the one the British anticipated and, in the time frame covered by this book, they sent only a small expeditionary force to fight alongside the much larger French Army.

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One cannot tell the story of 1914 without looking down the long road that led to war, and author Peter Hart begins his book with the lead-ups that prepared the belligerents for the war they would fight. British alliances were driven by an interest in preventing any one nation from achieving dominance of the Continent. The ascent of the German Empire, particularly its challenge to the Royal Navy, strained its relations with Britain and drove the United Kingdom to establish its primarily alliance with its traditional rival, France. 1914 found the British prepared for a war it expected to fight by destroying the German Fleet followed by blockade. But although the war took unexpected turns, Britain's recent war against the Boers had left it with an advantage over its allies and foes, namely a greater appreciation for the value of mobility and power —  that is, a war of fire and movement.

Hart's book follows the BEF through the battles of 1914, those that frustrated the Schlieffen Plan, deflected the knockout punch against France, and set up a stagnant war of trenches and slaughter that put the Germans on the road to eventual defeat. The names of the battles are known to the devoted Great War student: Mons, Le Cateau, the Marne, Aisne, the Race to the Sea, and, finally, Ypres, where mobility and hopes of a quick victory sank into the mud. The narrative concludes with the legend of that unique day when the warriors suspended hostilities to share their Christmas celebrations.

A synopsis of each battle is presented, but the particular contribution of this book to the Great War literature is its focus on the experiences of individual British soldiers. Readers are introduced to memoirs of dogfights, air bombing, the treachery of false surrenders, cold and filth, pain and death, philosophical acceptance, and occasional humor. Hart's style leavens his own narratives with long quotes from the participants themselves that help us see the battles through their eyes. To cite a few, looking toward the heavens, a Lt. Francis Le Breton reports what he saw:

This aeroplane then came back over us, and a British biplane came up from the other side of the Aisne, and the two aeroplanes had a duel. We could hear the shots fired. After a little manoeuvring the British machine suddenly tilted up sideways and started falling: it recovered partly, however, and flew back in a rather slanting attitude whence it came.

Many of us have seen sterile recreations of trenches in museums, but we get a much different perspective from the words of a solder of the 15th Brigade:

Oh that mud! We had heard lots about Flanders mud, but the reality transcends imagination, especially in winter. Greasy, slippery, holding clay, over your toes in most places and over your ankles in all the rest — where it is not over your knees — it is the most horrible 'going' I know anywhere. Whether you are moving across plough or grass fields or along lands, you are perpetually skating about and slipping up on the firmer bits and held fast by the ankles in the softer ones.

1914 Trench in Flanders

The trenches were not just filthy and sloppy. They caused pain and illness that could only be described by one who experienced them, such as Lt. Arthur Ackland, who wrote:

The bottom of the trenches became deep in icy mud. In this they stood, up to their knees, day and night, for we could not spare a man from the trenches, and soon we began to experience what we call now 'frost-bitten feet'. No one knows what it is but I think myself it comes from the continual pressure of the mud and lack of ventilation to the feet. Anyhow, it is a dreadful thing and the men suffered agonies from it.

As hard as it is to imagine, amidst the horror soldiers were still able to see irony and make attempts at humor. Capt. Arthur Martin-Leake observed:

We had roast pig for dinner today. The beast was reported officially to have died from shell wounds!! It is extraordinary how often edible creatures meet this end.

My favorite part of the story is the Christmas Truce, the Christmas in which civility temporarily suppressed the terrors of war. In the words of Rifleman Graham Williams:

Then suddenly lights began to appear along the German parapet, which were evidently makeshift Christmas trees, adorned with lighted candles, which burnt steadily in the still, frosty air!...First the Germans would sing one of their carols and then we would sing one of ours, until when we started up 'O Come All Ye Faithful the Germans immediately joined in singing the same hymn to the Latin words 'Adeste Fideles'.

Fire and Movement gave me a greater understanding of the initial developments of the Great War and their significance. Many military history books paint the big picture, the sweep of armies, and the significance of campaigns. While this book does that to some extent, it mainly focuses closely on the experiences of the individual soldiers. I particularly recommend it for readers in search of their stories.

James M. Gallen

Rakı with Norman, My 2009 Interview of Historian Norman Stone

Historian Norman Stone

One of the rewards/punishments for being a magazine and website editor is that you get a lot of review copies of new titles from publishers. As I was in the last stages of preparation for my 2009 trip to Gallipoli, I received a copy of Norman Stone's concise new history titled World War One from Basic Books, his American publisher. I found it a terrific little work (not much in the military history field has so frequently surprised me or made me smile) and want to strongly recommend it to you. Reading some of the accompanying biographical information, I learned that the author was currently teaching at universities in Ankara and Istanbul. An email exchange with the publisher's marketing staff yielded his email address, and the professor and I were soon corresponding. It turned out that that academic year, he was at Bilkent University in Ankara, but he would be visiting Istanbul for a brief post-Ramadan holiday while I was passing through. We could meet for a drink and talk about his book. There were some complications, but on the evening of my first full day in Istanbul I found myself in a yellow cab heading for a rendezvous with one of the most acclaimed of all World War I authors at the bar of his elegant 19th-century hotel, the Grand London. (Its owner later bragged to me that it is used as a set in a lot of films made locally.)

Great Place to Meet a Noted Historian, No?

As we were getting acquainted, our discussions focused mostly on his new work and how pleased Norman and his publisher were about its reception. The manuscript was originally produced for a small publisher as part of a series, but that party got cold feet over the marketability of a WWI title. When mega-publisher Penguin Books heard about it, however, they jumped on it, guaranteeing a larger production run, international distribution, much more visibility on its release, and a much, much more lucrative deal for the author. Needless to say, after outstanding reviews and excellent initial sales, a large second run is being planned. We spent some more time covering the single major criticism of World War One that has surfaced: Norman's assertion that the July Crisis of 1914 was not a case study in mutually reinforcing diplomatic blunders as it's usually depicted, but a series of manipulations by a German government exploiting the Archduke's assassination to initiate a war they desired to fight before Russia got too strong for them. Norman told me that he's convinced Germany's intentions and strategy were fully revealed in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and that if they had won in the west something similar would have ensued there. After he explained this, I finally understood why he opened the work with the signing at Brest-Litovsk, which had puzzled me initially.

Norman then shared that he needed to get some food before his midnight departure for Ankara and invited me to join him for dinner. I had eaten already but was happy to tag along and accompanied him through some sort of time warp to a nearby alley that had a series of outdoor cafes strung out along its route. The crowd was international, the feel exotic. "This is as close as I'll ever get to the Casbah," I thought to myself. We worked our way to a crowded spot where he was recognized by a waiter and some of the other customers —  obviously, Norman is a regular there —  and suddenly another table and two chairs magically appeared. We sat. I was surprised to find myself lounging in the middle of a street, next to the owner of the Grand London, whom I had met earlier.

Be Very Careful With This!

Norman ordered dinner and drinks for himself and informed me that I needed to be introduced to the Turkish national drink, rakı. A bottle and two glasses quickly appeared.  Rakı is a distilled beverage made from grapes and other fruits. It has a licorice taste and —  I can now attest  — packs a wallop. This would dramatically shift our interaction from balanced discussion to basically a one-sided — albeit highly entertaining — monologue by Norman. Part of this was due to my residual jet lag, part to the impact of rakı on me. The most import factor, though, was rakı's influence on my drinking companion. I haven't mentioned it yet, but Norman is a Scotsman. In our initial chatting this was hardly a communications issue. As the rakı flowed, however, Norman's Scottish brogue became more and more pronounced, and a point was reached after an hour or so, where I could no longer understand a single word he was saying. He noticed this and quickly diagnosed my reduced responsiveness as my being exhausted from my 8,000-mile journey and very kindly packed me in a cab, paid the driver himself, and sent me safely back to my own hotel. I do remember a few things, though, and I would like to share them with the readers. (Don't forget the effects of rakı, however.)

Coverage of the break-up of the German and Austria-Hungarian empires is succinctly addressed a the spirit reminiscent of Winston Churchill's 1945 letter to President Roosevelt warning that "When the war of the giants is over the war of the pygmies will begin." Buttar describes the earlier war of the pygmies with detail on what happened to Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and finally Poland after the Great War. All these stories are better known to the world today with the demise of the Soviet bloc. For scholars on Eastern Europe this section of The Splintered Empires should be required reading.

We discovered that we have a mutual friend. When he was writing his master work, The Eastern Front, Norman visited the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Just as I would years later, he found it daunting to navigate between the library collection and the archives section. And just as I was, he was rescued by a gentle little lady named Agnes Peterson, Curator of the European Collection at the Hoover. Agnes was also the person who encouraged me to share my discoveries with fellow WWI enthusiasts, and, I guess, bears some responsibly for this Blog that you are now reading. Sadly, I had to tell Norman that our friend had died recently. Of course, we raised a toast to her memory.

Norman gave me much helpful advice about visiting the Gallipoli sites. He emphasized the importance of the failure of the naval campaign, and the fact that for any amphibious landing its easier for the land forces to get resupplied than the troops coming off the ships. I told him that I thought the greatest opportunity for success by the Allies, the Suvla Bay operation in August, was "blown" by incompetent generalship. He responded that the greatest limitation on the Allies at Helles, Anzac, or Suvla was in providing water for the advancing troops. At Suvla this factor weighed heavily on the British commander, Lt. General Stopford. The following days visiting the battlefields, I was always aware of how dry things looked and that there always seemed to be few sources of water around the Allied positions.

Some of Norman's  best tales were off the World War I topic. I heard that evening about his work as a speech writer for Margaret Thatcher and his preference for teaching Turkish students, who are receptive to learning new things, versus Oxford-Cambridge types, who come in preformed and un-receptive to new thinking, if I heard things right.

The Sort of Place We Ended Up and I Met Rakı

I wish I remembered more from that evening because I had a really great time with Professor Norman Stone. He autographed my copy of his book: "For Michael Hanlon, with many thanks for being so kind." Same to you, Norman. I'll remember our evening together every time I taste licorice for the rest of my life.

The Engineering Challenges for AEF: Northern Russia

The Story of the 310th Engineers in Murmansk and Archangel

Source:  From the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Website

http://www.usace.army.mil/About/History/HistoricalVignettes/ChiefOfEngineers.aspx

Remembering a Veteran: Ernst Jünger, 73rd Hanoverian Fusiliers, German Army

Proof That Soldiers Think About Food a Whole Lot

And food, I believe, must always have been the greatest relaxation of fighting men. Raids may come and raids may go — but food goes on forever. One bad meal will eclipse the memory of twenty good ones and leave the world in dismal gloom, presided over by his Satanic Majesty, the cook, who degenerates into a mere "belly-robber" and becomes the unhappy recipient of a thousand other uncomplimentary titles. The mess sergeant too is accused of vice of every description, from midnight raids on the larder, to feeding the food for hungry, suffering soldiers to the pet goat of another company. 

But even good food has special names of its own. Food in general is "chow." Stew is "slum" or "slumgullion." Coffee is "Java." Salmon — and there is a lot of it — is "gold-fish" or "sea-turkey." Corned beef is "corned willy," and canned meat of almost any variety is "bully-beef," or "monkey meat." In barracks when the mess is ready, the cook simply makes the announcement, "Come and get it I" and there is never any doubt about what he means. 

I was standing outside one of the squad tents recently when the voice of the rifleman corporal came booming out through the canvas. 

"When I get back," it said, "when I get back, I'm goin' to the Waldorf-Astoria, and I'm goin' to order soup and celery and olives and all that stuff, and a steak about three inches thick, and vegetables and salad and a piece of juicy huckleberry pie; and then I'm goin' to order a can of salmon and set it on the table, and then I'm goin' to say, 'Sit there, you damn' goldfish, and watch me eat!' Win I eat? O, boyl" 

And thereupon, the mere thought of "real food" caused such a mighty chemical "kick" that noises of human throttling and flying mess kits filled the air, and I moved on out of range.

Lt. Harold Speakman, 332nd Infantry in Italy
Memoir, FROM A SOLDIER'S HEART

What Are Today's Historians Studying About World War I?

I have been provided a copy of the tentative program for the 82nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Military History. It will be hosted 9–12 April 2015 by the U.S. Air Force's Air University at Montgomery, Alabama.  The four-day conference has a long, long program, but I would estimate that about 20 percent of the presentations are related to the First World War.  

U.S. Marines Begin Arriving in France, 1917

If past trends are any indication, a number of these talks will be expanded into full books in the future.  I've listed the WWI talks below. There seems, to me, to be some trends discernible, but I'll let you make up your own minds without my comments. I think you will also find the names and affiliations of the speakers interesting as well. An alternative title for this article is "Who Is Doing Cutting-Edge Research on the Great War."  

"The Impact of Irregular Warfare upon the Great War: The American Experience"
Steven Masternak, United States Air Force

"The Problems of Air-to-Ground Communication/Cooperation in the AEF"
Lawrence Mitchell Burke, II, Carnegie Mellon University

"Assessing Chemical Weapons in the Aftermath of World War I"
Thomas Faith, U.S. Department of State

"Victory in Mourning: How Five Million French Veterans Returned from World War I"
Bruno Cabanes, Ohio State University

"Transformation Arrives: The National Defense Act and Mexican Border Service, 1916–17"
William Boehm, National Guard Bureau

"A Cold Start: Reexamining the U.S. Army’s Stumble into War in 1917"
Rory M. McGovern, U.S. Military Academy

"Intoxicating Memories: Representations of Drinking on the Western Front"
Adam Zientek, Stanford University

"Conchies and Yellowbellies: Conscription and Conscience in the United States during World War I"
Jeffrey Copeland, U.S. Air Force Academy

"The Sinking of the Lusitania, Wilson’s Response, and Paths Not Taken: Historical Revisionism and the Ghost of William Jennings Bryan"

Douglas Peifer, Air War College

"Auf See Ubesiegt: German Naval Representations in the Decades Following the First World War"
Keith W. Bird, Corporation for a Skilled Workforce

"Sites of Memory and Mourning in Print"
Andrew Keitt, University of Alabama at Birmingham

"Conflict and Commemoration: World War I and the American War of Movement"
Nimrod Frazer, Independent Scholar

"Victory: British Soldiers and the Meaning of the Armistice"
Alex Nordlund, University of Georgia

"Seeing the World Anew: World War I Memory’s Impact on Nazi Historical Interpretation"
Derrick Angermeier, University of Georgia

"Leipzig Did Not Fail: How the Memory of Atrocities in World War I Provided a Foundation for Human Rights"

Alison Vick, University of Tennessee

"War Winners: Allied Reframing of the Salonika Campaign in Postwar Memoirs"
Robert L. Nelson and Justin Fantauzzo, University of Windsor

Recent Commemorative Event on the Salonika Front

"'We Too Should Lay Down Our Lives for Our Brothers": The Material Culture of Memory in WWI Germany"

Brian Feltman, Georgia Southern University

"Brothers in Arms: Republican Paramilitary Groups in Germany and Austria, 1918–1934"
Erin Hochman, Southern Methodist University

"Memory and Masculinity: Contested Images of Manliness in German Soldiers’ Writing on the Great War"
Jason Crouthamel, Grand Valley State University

"Rise and Fall of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, 1900–1918"
Stanley D. M. Carpenter, Naval War College

"War and the Unravelling of the State in the Ottoman Empire, 1912–1919"
James M. Tallon, Lewis University

At Gallipoli: The Colonel and the Corporal

Turkish Cemetery at Gallipoli with Mustafa Kemal Sculpture

For someone who has read only English-language sources about the Gallipoli campaign there is some adjustment required when you arrive in the area. The Gallipoli peninsula is a Turkish national park. While the Allied sites, monuments, and cemeteries are impressive and properly cared for, the Turkish sites exceed them in quantity and size. 

Mustafa Kemal's Quarters During the Battle

Two heroes of the battle receive a lot of attention. The best known, of course, is Mustafa Kemal, founder of modern Turkey, who earned his reputation here. That being said, what we witnessed can only be called an effort at cult building.  There are countless monuments and images of him (like the inserts) across the Gallipoli peninsula and at Çanakkale with kiosks extolling all his contributions. The yellow house (right) is in the village of Bigali behind the Anzac front line. It was Mustafa Kemal's quarters during the Gallipoli campaign and must-see stop for visitors.

Corporal Seyit's Monument Near the Site of His Heroics

A second Turkish hero, however, is prominent both in Istanbul at the National Military Museum and on the peninsula. He is known as Corporal Seyit. He was an artilleryman at one of the emplacements near Kilid Bahr on the straits, 18 March 1915, the day of the major naval assault. The hoist on his artillery piece broke. Seyit carried three 275kg shells to the loading point on his back. The super-strong corporal seems to be the designated enlisted hero of the battle. Interestingly, he was a participant in the naval, rather than land, campaign.

Veiled Warriors: Allied Nurses of the First World War Reviewed by Editor David F. Beer

Veiled Warriors: Allied Nurses of the First World War

by Christine E. Hallett

Published by Oxford University Press, 2014

If, like me, you're an avid follower of the TV series Downton Abbey, then you have probably admired the aristocratic Lady Sybil. During the Great War she devotes herself to the duties of a VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) who, with minimal if any training, helps to take care of wounded soldiers on the grounds of her family's lavish estate. Also, if you've read Vera Brittain's classic Testament of Youth you may recall Brittain's own account of her good and bad experiences as a VAD during the war. Other literature has also portrayed the VAD as a hardworking, courageous, and long-suffering voluntary "nurse". Thus it's not surprising that such publicity has led us to neglect or ignore the fact that most of the professional and effective nursing of the troops was carried out by qualified, trained, and skilled nurses, not VADs.

A British Nurse Cares for Her Patients

Christine Hallett sets this record straight in her highly informative, thoroughly researched, and admirably organized book. Veiled Warriors above all brings home to us that behind the sometimes mythical or romantic image of the VAD lies the reality — in hospitals at home and in all the combatant countries, near or far from the front lines, in casualty clearing stations (CCSs), in tented or open aid stations, in mud, rain, and bombardment, there were to be found dedicated and trained professional nurses who had volunteered to help fight the war by taking care of wounded and dying men. This included volunteer American nurses, who, while their country remained neutral, were working for the armies of both sides of the conflict.

These professional nurses, dedicated and skilled, were nevertheless women of the early 20th century. Besides the war, they often had other battles to fight. This was a time of the suffragette movement and the struggle for women's rights to vote. British nurses, unlike their peers elsewhere in New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States, were still struggling for official professional recognition in the form of registration and certification. Moreover, male chauvinism in the medical profession, as elsewhere, could easily be found — often the outcome of prejudice or questionable logic:

. . .for many members of the military, the presence of any woman-trained or untrained-at the bedside of the wounded soldier was dangerous: the female military nurse put not only herself but her patient and, indeed, the whole army in danger, because she disturbed the masculine balance of warfare-confusing the thinking of the male combatant and softening his approach to his mission (p. 268).

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Yet political and social problems paled next to the actual duties the nurses had to perform and the conditions they often worked under. The changing nature of battles and campaigns frequently dictated where nurses must be and the kinds of medical challenges they might face, whether in Europe, East Africa, Mesopotamia, Serbia, Romania, or on hospital ships off Gallipoli. We are given explicit descriptions, often in the words of the nurses, of the horrors they faced — the dreadfully wounded, maimed, and disfigured men who were brought to them, frequently in overwhelming numbers. The author does not hesitate to provide graphic details of these challenges. Another war to be fought was the constant danger of infections:

Patients with anaerobic wound infections required frequent dressing changes to remove pus, apply antiseptics, and give the wound a chance to heal. Gas gangrene could often only be halted by amputating the infected limb. In some cases, nurses found themselves in the heartbreaking situation of dressing an amputation stump only to find it infected with gas gangrene. In some cases, patients returned to theatre several times, to have more and more of a limb removed as the deadly infection spread (p.82). On top of surgical nursing, these caretakers were required to feed, wash, toilet and comfort their patients, many of whom were in terrible pain or hardly able to breathe. Such labor-intensive work, as Hallett points out, couldn't have been achieved without the help of dedicated orderlies and volunteers such as VADs.

It's difficult to describe all the qualities of such an impressive book as Veiled Warriors. The author's prose is lucid and flowing, and although she uses numerous letters, diaries, and other written materials from the nurses themselves, she has the knack of providing direct quotes only where they are most telling. Her seven chapters are preceded by a useful introduction and summed up by a conclusion. Thirty illustrations — each actually a photograph — help bring her material even more alive, and copious endnotes accompany each chapter. A 21-page bibliography shows the extent of the author's impressive research and a detailed index guides us to specific topics or people within the text.

In reading this book I feel I got not only a fresh look at the history of the war but also a new and full insight into the role nurses played in it. Many of these women were no less heroic than the men they cared for. Their working conditions were often as frantic and challenging as those of the trenches. Some were stranded behind moving battle lines and had to trek hundreds of miles to get home. Many were killed while others were wounded either physically or psychologically, and it's no wonder that a home for damaged nurses was set up in England after the war. Eventually their profession gained the international recognition it deserved, but their sacrifices during the Great War are little remembered. We can be grateful that Christine Hallett's Veiled Warriors now exists to so effectively set the record straight.

David F. Beer

Prewar Colonization of Africa

While searching for some maps for an unrelated article, I stumbled across this interesting map showing the European colonization of Africa on the eve of the Great War. I had not realized before how comprehensive the effort was. Only Liberia and Abyssinia (Ethiopia) were unclaimed at the time.

Source:  History of the World War,  March and Beamish

This, of course, raises the issue for us in the 21st century: What in the world was this fascination that Africa held for Europeans? I only had time for a little research on this matter, but I did find this interesting discussion at the Saylor Foundation website.  (PDF article — Why Did Europe Colonize Africa?)

R.W. Seton-Watson: A Forgotten Mover and Shaker

A Brtish historical website I was visiting has this rather bland and understated description of the career of the gentleman depicted on the stamp above. "Robert William Seton-Watson was important as the first British historian of central and southeastern Europe. His historical knowledge also allowed him to influence government policy toward the region at the end of the First World War."

This leaves out much information about Seton-Watson, himself, and what those policies were that he influenced.  Here is what I discovered in some other sources on the web and my own bookshelf.

Seton-Watson was a brilliant academic at the University of London and Oxford, who was wealthy and just despised the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His prewar travels to Hungary led to increased sympathy for the minority peoples of the Dual Monarchy — Slavs, Slovaks, and Romanian. His views at the time were completely out of sync with the British diplomatic community. During the war, he became the principal propagandist for Tomas Masaryk in the west, mostly in a journal he personally financed titled "The New Europe".  

At the Paris Peace conference he was able to meet with Woodrow Wilson, despite being on the "outs" with his own government. His friend Masaryk became first president of Czechoslovakia, and Seton-Watson advised on many issues affecting the region, such as helping to settle the border between the new state of Yugoslavia and Italy. He received honors of various kinds after the war from Romania, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia.

He was less influential during the Second World War — the British Government suppressed his publishing — and was saddened when the Iron Curtain came over the countries he had helped liberate after the Great War. He's not forgotten in those places today, as the 2007 stamp above from the Slovak Republic shows, that found freedom after the end of the Cold War and the defeat of Communism.

The Great War's Largest Shipyard: Hog Island, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The Shipways at Hog Island

The United States entered World War I in April 1917. Within days, the federal government created the Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC) to construct a fleet of merchant ships. The EFC hired the American International Shipbuilding Corporation to build and operate the largest shipyard in the world, Hog Island, near Philadelphia.  The first ship (named SS Quistconck for the Lenape name for the site), was christened August 5, 1918 by Edith Bolling Wilson, wife of US president Woodrow Wilson. The shipbuilding process practiced on Hog Island was an early experiment in standardized construction of ships. The ships built there, known as "Hog Islanders" were considered ugly but well-built.

A "Hog Islander"
Troop Transport USS St. Mihiel Before WWII

At its peak, Hog Island employed some 30,000 workers and launched a vessel every 5.5 days. Its workers built 122 ships in four years, and although none saw service before the end of the war, many carried supplies during World War II. At Hog Island, the United States learned how to build large ships quickly on a grand scale from prefabricated parts. Henry J. Kaiser would adopt similar methods for his massive shipyards of the Second World War

From the Smithson Institution's "On the Water: Answering the Call, 1917-1945" exhibit and Wikipedia

Who Named the "Pals Battalion"?

Historian Peter Simkins says it was Lord Derby (Edward George Villiers Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby).

Lord Derby

One of the figures in Britain who did anticipate a long war was Field Marshal Lord Kitchener. He was appointed, somewhat against his will, Secretary of State for War at the outbreak of war. Kitchener tapped into this mixture of local civic pride, national patriotism, and a sense of belonging to a community. Once Kitchener tapped into this in end of August, beginning of September 1914, the British Army suddenly expanded almost overnight.

Now, the key to this was local effort, local civic pride and the symbol of this in 1914, was the idea of the Pals battalion. Around 26–27 August, it was announced in Liverpool that Lord Derby was going to try and raise a battalion of "Pals". By this he meant that he thought the battalion could be raised of local lads who might be willing to join the army more readily if they knew they were going to serve and eventually fight alongside their friends.

Recruiting Poster for a Footballers' Pals Battalion

This idea caught on in Liverpool and within a week or so, Liverpool had four Pals Battalions. Within a period of about three weeks, the great industrial cities and towns of the North of England were all raising units on a local level. By the end of 1914, there were well over a hundred of these Pals battalions from all sorts of places. 

His idea was a success and soon groups of men from the same workplaces, villages, churches, and even football teams were joining the army together. The men were happy to fight with people they knew, and their families were pleased. They knew the friends would be there to look after each other during the war. (PBS Interview)

Memorial on the Somme Battlefield to the Accrington Pals (11th East Lancashire Regiment)
Out of some 720 Accrington Pals who took part in the attack, 584 were killed, wounded, or missing.

By the end of September 1914, over 50 towns had formed Pals Battalions. Larger towns and cities formed several battalions each. The was a great flaw in the scheme, however, as the Accrington Pals example above shows — similar to American National Guard units, if a Pals Battalion took heavy casualties the population of local communities could be tragically decimated in one blow.

The Rear Area During Fighting in the Champagne, 1915

From Vive la France! by American Journalist E. Alexander Powell 1917

This is the most vivid description of what went on in the rear area during a major battle I've ever read. Powell was an observer during the September 1915 Second Battle of Champagne.

One of the things that particularly impressed me during my visit to Champagne was the feverish activity that prevailed behind the firing line. It was the busiest place that I have ever seen; busier than Wall Street at the noon-hour; busier than the Panama Canal Zone at the rush period of the Canal's construction.

The roads behind the front for twenty miles were filled with moving troops and transport-trains; long columns of sturdy infantrymen in mud-stained coats of faded blue and wearing steel casques which gave them a startling resemblance to their ancestors, the men-at-arms of the Middle Ages; brown-skinned men from North Africa in snowy turbans and voluminous burnouses, and black-skinned men from West Africa, whose khaki uniforms were brightened by broad red sashes and rakish red tarbooshes; sun-tanned Colonial soldiery from Annam and Tonquin, from Somaliland and Madagascar, wearing on their tunics the ribbons of wars fought in lands of which most people have never so much as heard; Spahis from Morocco and the Sahara, mounted on horses as wiry and hardy as themselves ; Zouaves in jaunty fezes and braided jackets and enormous trousers ; sailors from the fleet, brought to handle the big naval guns, swaggering along with the roll of the sea in their gait ; cuirassiers, their steel breastplates and horse-tailed helmets making them look astonishingly like Roman horsemen; dragoons so picturesque that they seemed to be posing for a Detaille or a Meissonier ; field-batteries, pale blue like everything else in the French army, rocking and swaying. over the stones; cyclists with their rifles slung across their backs hunter-fashion; leather-jacketed despatch riders on panting motor- cycles ; post-offices on wheels ; telegraph offices on wheels butchers' shops on wheels; bakers' shops on wheels ; garages on wheels ; motor-buses, their tops covered with wire-netting and filled with carrier-pigeons ; giant searchlights ; water-carts drawn by patient Moorish donkeys whose turbaned drivers cursed them in shrill, harsh Arabic ; troop transport cars like miniature railway-coaches, each carrying fifty men; field- kitchens with the smoke pouring from their stovepipes and steam rising from the soup cauldrons; long lines of drinking-water waggons, the gift of the Touring Club de France; great herds of cattle and woolly waves of sheep, soon to be converted into beef and mutton, for the fighting man needs meat, and plenty of it; pontoon-trains; balloon outfits; machine guns; pack-trains; mountain batteries; ambulances; world without end, amen.

Though the roads were jammed from ditch to ditch, there was no confusion, no congestion. Everything was as well regulated as the traffic is in the busiest London streets. If the roads were crowded, so were the fields. Here a battalion of Zouaves at bayonet practice was being instructed in the "haymaker's lift," that terrible upward thrust in which a soldier trained in the use of the bayonet can, in a single stroke, rip his adversary open from waist to neck, and toss him over his shoulder as he would a forkful of hay. Over there a brigade of chasseurs d'Afrique was encamped, the long lines of horses, the hooded waggons, and the fires with the cooking-pots steaming over them, suggesting a mammoth encampment of gypsies. In the next field a regiment of Moroccan tirailleurs had halted for the night, and the men, kneeling on their blankets, were praying with their faces turned toward Mecca. Down by the horse-lines a Moorish barber was at work shaving the heads of the soldiers, but taking care always to leave the little top-knot by means of which the faithful when they die, may be jerked to Paradise.

Thanks, CIA. . .

for the great articles on espionage before, during and after the Great War.  Here are some of the articles the agency has made available at their website:

Allen Dulles During the War

The Exploits of Agent 110: Allen Dulles in Wartime

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol37no1/html/v37i1a05p_0001.htm

The Kaiser Sows Destruction

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol46no1/article02.html

Okhrana Agent Dolin

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol10no2/html/v10i2a06p_0001.htm

Revolutionary Propagandist & Agent V.L. Burtzev

The Sherlock Holmes of the Revolution: Vladimir Lvovich Burtzev

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol11no4/html/v11i4a07p_0001.htm

The Lohmann Affair: The Weimar Republic's Attempts to Circumvent the Versailles Restrictions

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol4no2/html/v04i2a08p_0001.htm

Private Peaceful Reviewed by Jane Mattisson Ekstam

Private Peaceful 
by Michael Morpurgo

HarperCollins, 2003

Private Peaceful is the story of two brothers who go to war—sixteen-year old Thomas (nicknamed Tommo) and his older brother, Charlie. What happens at the end of the story changes the younger brother’s life for ever. Memory and remembrance, innocence, love, courage, and cowardice are the prominent features of Morpurgo’s story. Private Peaceful is not only a story of life at the front but also that of the family left behind: a widowed mother; Thomas and Charlie’s older brother, Big Joe, who has brain damage after having contracted meningitis at the age of six months; and Charlie’s pregnant wife, Molly.

Still from the 2012 Movie Version of Private Peaceful

Throughout the novel Thomas, the narrator, recalls incidents from his bucolic childhood in Devon, southwest England. These memories are contrasted with the harsh and terrifying reality of war. All look up to Charlie, who, Thomas observes, “always made things alright again”. At the end of the story, however, it is Charlie who must die; Thomas is powerless to save his older brother from the firing squad after his court-martial for disobedience and cowardice. Far from being a coward, Charlie demonstrates considerable courage as he disobeys orders to stay with Tommy, who has been seriously wounded in battle.

Characteristically, Charlie faces his fate with courage and without bitterness even though he recognizes that the sentence is a gross miscarriage of justice. The sergeant who ordered him to leave his brother and charge the enemy lines bears a personal grudge against Charlie and seizes his opportunity to dispose of a source of irritation by ordering Charlie to carry out a mission that is as meaningless as it is suicidal. Morpurgo’s postscript records that 290 British and Commonwealth soldiers were executed by firing squad for desertion or cowardice and “two for simply sleeping at their posts”. The story of Charlie is their story.

Thomas does not have the courage of his brother at the beginning of the war and is frequently overcome with horror and panic when he is ordered to attack a German trench, is gassed, listens to the sound of shells and wonders if/when he will be hit, faces charging Germans armed with bayonets, or sees his friends and fellow soldiers being mown down by German machine guns. He compares his situation to a fox caught in its lair, with the hounds waiting for him outside. Only Charlie understands his brother’s fear. Thomas wants to believe in God so that he can see some point to his present position and can look forward to Heaven and “a new life after death”. Toward the end of the novel he expresses his envy of Big Joe, who believes strongly in Heaven:

I envied him that. I could no longer even pretend to myself that I believed in a merciful god, nor in a heaven, not any more, not after I had seen what men could do to one another. I could believe only in the hell I was living in, a hell on earth, and it was man-made, not God-made.

When Charlie is not with him, Thomas finds consolation in the few remaining signs of nature that have survived the ravages of battle, larks singing or a few blades of grass which spark distant memories of a world far removed from the present. As he notes at the beginning of the story, nothing will ever be the same again. This is indeed one of the most important themes of the novel.

The DVD of Private Peaceful Can Be Ordered HERE

Nothing makes sense to the two brothers. Why should they fight? Why should they kill Germans, who are, as they soon discover, no different from them? The only sanity that the brothers can find is in the letters from home. The family believes that the war will soon be over. There is joy at the birth of Charlie and Molly’s baby son. At the front, however, while Charlie and Tommy welcome letters from home, they do not talk about those they have left behind because they wish to keep the two worlds separate. As Charlie explains to Thomas, “by talking about [those from home] I bring them here, and I don’t want to do that. You understand, Tommo?” Thomas needs no explanation.

At Ypres, where Thomas is wounded, his misery is summed up in one short sentence—“I know that I am dying my own death, and I welcome it”. The irony is that it is not his death that he is dying but that of his brother because it is at Ypres that Charlie disobeys orders and stays with his wounded brother. The use of the present tense throughout the novel enhances the brothers’ suffering. This becomes particularly poignant as Thomas visits Charlie the night before his execution. The final chapter, “one minute to six”, describes the last few seconds of Charlie’s life. Thomas knows that Charlie will walk with his head held high—“He is not stumbling. He is not struggling. He is not crying out." The repetition of “he is not” is particularly powerful here. There is no cowardice in Charlie, only integrity and dignity. Once the execution has been carried out, Thomas notes that the birds start singing again; nature restores some kind of order to the chaotic world of war. At this point Thomas makes up his mind to survive not because he believes in the war but because he has a promise to keep—to return to his family as a man and as its guardian.

It comes as no surprise that the powerful story of Thomas and Charlie has been made into a movie, which was released in America  this past year.  Morpurgo has a special ability to tell the story of war from the individual’s perspective (the reader is reminded of his novel War Horse and Spielberg’s film of the same name), highlighting the contrast between the past and the present and demonstrating that war changes everything. The picture of the two butterflies that separates each chapter and section of the novel represents life, as the butterflies, who lead such a transient life, fly upward in unison and harmony, they remind the reader of the old world that has all but disappeared. From it emerge a new order and a new man—one who knows not only what his duty is to his family but also to himself. Thomas Peaceful looks forward to a time of peace, a chance to build a new existence on the ruins of the old. The reader is left in no doubt that the lessons learned in war have equipped him more than adequately to do just that.

Jane Mattisson Ekstam

Remembering a Veteran: Lt. Gordon Muriel Flowerdew, VC, Canadian Cavalry

Gordon Flowerdew was born in Billingford, England, in 1885, educated at Framlingham College, Suffolk, emigrated to Canada in 1903, and homesteaded north of Duck Lake, Saskatchewan. He moved to British Columbia sometime after 1910, and in 1914 he enlisted as a private in Lord Strathcona's Horse. He was commissioned an officer in 1916 and given command of C Squadron in 1918. Lieutenant Gordon Muriel Flowerdew was awarded his Victoria Cross posthumously. 

On 30 March 1918, in the Bois de Moreuil, France, Lieutenant (acting Captain) Flowerdew, 33 years old, was commanding C Squadron of Lord Strathcona’s Horse, a unit of the Canadian Cavalry Brigade. His squadron was ordered to charge two entrenched lines of enemy, each about 60 strong, having machine guns at their centre and flanks. One line was about 200 yards behind the other. Flowerdew ordered one troop, under Lt Harvey, VC, to dismount and provide covering fire while Flowerdew, leading the remainder of the squadron, charged, passing over both lines and killing many of the enemy. Although the squadron had about 70 percent casualties, the survivors then established

themselves in a position where later they were joined, after much hand-to-hand fighting, by Lieutenant Harvey's party. Lieutenant Flowerdew was dangerously [fatally] wounded through both thighs during the operation but continued to cheer on his men.

From the Online Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan and Lt. Flowerdew's VC Citation

The Lafayette Escadrille Memorial Restoration Project Needs Your Support

One the greatest traditions of the First World War is the story of the Lafayette Escadrille, the French aero squadron composed of American pilots who chose to come to the aid of France at the height of the fighting. Afterward, their service was honored with a beautiful memorial (pictured below) located just outside Paris. Within this monument lie the remains of America's first combat airmen —individuals who answered the call to fly and fight in the name of freedom, not because they had to, but because it was the right thing to do.

As part of the Centennial Commemoration of the War, the American Battle Monuments Commission plans a $14 million restoration of this great memorial, which will require private funding. A group of volunteers has been organized to encourage the fundraising effort. The program and information on how you can personally support this important project are described in a brochure in PDF format that you can download right now. Just click on the link below.

The Memorial Was Showing Considerable Wear and Tear When I Visited with My Summer 2015 Group (Below)

For full details on the restoration project click here:

http://www.worldwar1.com/pdf/Lafayette_Project.pdf