War in the Altipiani: Part I – Where Hostilities Opened on the Italian Front

There was a geographical "wild card" to the 1915 border between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Italy. In the southeastern part of the Trentino, running roughly west to east from the city of Rovereto are a series of four plateaus (collectively "Altipiani Trentini") covering almost 600 square miles, about the size of Greater London. East to west they are the Folgaria, Lavarone, Luserna, and Asiago Plateaus.

Asiago Plateau with Italian War Memorial, Beyond Asiago Town

The Altipiani are simply enchanting — the image of the Asiago Plateau above is representative — they are all prime resort areas today. These four linked tablelands effectively form a series of steps downward into the Veneto, which would have been the rear of the main Italian deployments during most of the war, or, reversing the perspective, upward into the Trentino, the capture of which was a prime Italian war aim. Consequently, after the Isonzo basin, the Altipiani would be the next most critical battlefield on the Italian Front.

Two Key Mountain Positions on the Periphery of the Altipiani

Two significant mountains located on the north and south flanks would be important objectives of both sides. On the north, Mte Ortigara (6,900 ft) was the locale of a horrendous defeat for the elite Alpini troops of the Italian Army in 1917. Mte Pasubio (7,322 ft)  had been in Austrian territory but was quickly occupied by the Italians, who built 52 galleria (dugouts excavated from rock) to support their troops on the summit, where the front line held despite the blowing of a stupendous Austrian mine in March 1918.

Fort Verena: Fired the Opening Shots in 1915, Destroyed in the Strafexpediton of 1916

Since the Altipiani were strategically important both governments, each nation built a line of concrete and iron fortresses, set back five kilometers from the actual frontier. These 14 forts utilized the region's immense cliffs and mountaintop rock, as well as satellite batteries and garrisons for their defense. The facing walls of forts played a significant role in the first year of warfare on the Italian Front. On 24 May 1915 the four 150mm guns of Fort Verena (altitude 6,600 ft), shown on the top of page 12 fired the first shots on the front against the opposing Austrian line. Fort Luserna  and the nearby town of Luserna absorbed considerable punishment in that opening barrage.

Part II Tomorrow: The Strafexpedition

What Did You Do in the Great War, Mr. Joyce?

What did you do in the Great War, Mr. Joyce?

I wrote Ulysses.  What did you do?

Tom Stoppard, Travesties

Having left his native Dublin in 1904, James Joyce (1882–1941) settled for a decade in picturesque Trieste on the periphery of the Austro-Hungarian Empire . He published his masterful short story collection Dubliners on the eve of war. When Italy joined the hostilities in 1915, however, Trieste was threatened with invasion, and the author abhorred the thought of any exposure to war. 

James Joyce in Zurich

He fled to Zurich for the duration, where he was highly productive — completing A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in 1916 and much  of Ulysses (published in 1922). In his free time in Zurich he managed to meet fellow author Stefan Zweig, cross paths with Vladimir Lenin, and observe the birth of Dada, the First World War's contribution to modern art. it was in Zurich, however, where his eye troubles became serious.  

Ulysses contains some war references, usually antiwar. It's set in 1904 so it predates the Great War and only the Boer and Russo-Japanese wars are mentioned. One apparent reference to the Battle of Tsushima seems a chronological error.  The battle occurred almost a year after Bloomsday (16 June 1904). It seems likely, though, that is was the current war that in any case was on the author's mind. A few of the shorter war references I've been able to track down in Ulysses include these:

• Silly billies: mob of young cubs yelling their guts out. Vinegar hill. . . War comes on: into the army helterskelter: same fellows used to.  Whether on the scaffold high.
• Peace and war depend on some fellow's digestion.  Religions.  Christmas turkeys and geese. Slaughter of innocents.  Eat drink and be merry.  Then casual wards full after.  Heads bandaged. . .
• "British Beatitudes!. . . Beer, beef, business, bibles, bulldogs, battleships, buggery and bishops."
• Tuberculosis, lunacy, war and mendicancy must now cease.
• Father Conmee crossed to Mountjoy square.  He thought, but not for long, of soldiers and sailors, whose legs had been shot off by cannonballs, ending their days in some pauper ward, and of Cardinal Wolsey's words: If I had served my God as I served my king He would not have abandoned me in my old days.

After the Armistice, Joyce and his family returned to Trieste, but it had become a backwater —  no longer an imperial jewel.  It was on to Paris, but Zurich held a permanent place in his heart. Fleeing the Nazis, he returned in the Second World War and died there in January 1941.

Zurich retains a lasting affection for the Irish author. It is headquarters for the James Joyce Foundation and Library and in 2002 placed the statue shown below at his grave site.

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A Roads Classic (and Correction) — Edward I. Tinkham and the First American Flag

Since I have been publishing Roads to the Great War I haven't had to publish a correction, but this one is necessary and only fair to all the parties involved, which include two of America's leading universities, two American heroes who died serving in the war, and two of the regular contributors to this blog.

In August we presented a series by Patrick Gregory about how the Stanford University contingent of American Field Service volunteers, led by a distinguished young man named Arthur Kimber, was designated by Secretary of War Newton Baker to carry the first American flag to the battlefields of Europe, after the nation's declaration of war. They achieved their mission in a well-publicized ceremony in June of 1917. Patrick's story was fully accurate in all details. 

Unfortunately, your humble editor (now very, very humble) had major memory breakdown when he posted that series. It turns out that not only is there another claimant to the "First Flag Presented" honor, but I published a series covering that very group in January 2015.  Luckily for me, my friend and author of that series, Jim Patton, quickly pointed out the conflicting postings for me.  I've been wrestling with how to sort this out since then, and now I'm going to give it a try.  First, the other side of the story.  It turns out that when America declared war, there was already another American Field Service unit in place in France.  It was from Cornell University, and it was led by a dynamic young man named Edward Tinkham.  His unit carried an American flag into the front when it went into action at the Chemin des Dames sector on 23 May 1916, about a month before the Stanford group's ceremony.  It apparently did not receive the same level of publicity as the other group, and perhaps may have been forgotten, except that 14 years after the event, it received formal recognition from President Herbert Hoover at a memorial dedication at Cornell University.

Now, how can I make amends for contributing to the confusion?  The one thing that transcends the conflicting claims is the story of both of the men who led their universitys' efforts, Arthur Kimber of Stanford and Edward Tinkham of Cornell. Both started with the American Field Service, delivered their flags, became military pilots, died in service, and are buried in Europe. Since Edward's story is the one I forgot about, I'm going to reacquaint our readers with his story first.  Below is the last article in Jim Patton's series, to provide some context, along with links to the other pieces.  We will re-post Arthur Kimber's story at a later date.

Edward Tinkham of Cornell: Never to Return Home

by James Patton

Edward Tinkham was a Cornell University student who left school at the end of 1915 to join the American Ambulance Field Service (AFS) in France. He served throughout the battle of Verdun (with SSU 3 & 4) and was awarded the Croix de Guerre. He then returned to Cornell and recruited a whole section (TMU 526) for the AFS, which in April 1917 became the first American unit to become combatants, hauling shells and troops for the French on the Aisne. 

Student, Volunteer, Naval Aviator

Later he joined the new U.S. Navy aviation service, trained in France, and served as a seaplane pilot at the NAS Porto Corsini in Italy. For this service he received the Italian Croce al Merito di Guerra. Vice Admiral William S. Sims, former chief of U.S. Naval Forces in European Waters, in testimony before the Senate in 1920, spoke about Navy aviation during the war:

The only one of our forces that were in contact with an enemy that did not get away, an enemy that was willing to fight, were, necessarily, air pilots, and they are all officers; and they want to be well-educated officers, too, because they have got a difficult proposition to handle when they are up in the air; it is navigation. . .

And speaking specifically about NAS Porto Corsini:

The air forces which had an opportunity to fight enemy forces that were willing to fight, because a large part of the time the enemy air forces were at least equal, and sometimes superior, to, ours.

American Volunteers Monument France – Edward Tinkham Is Included in Those Remembered
(Contributor James Patton Is Center Right in Blue Shirt and Cap)

Edward Tinkham, however, would  never return home after the fighting ended. From the AFS Bulletin 82, 18 February 1919:

Ensign Kimberly Stuart, U.S. Naval Aviation, formerly of Section 4 and sous-chef and chef of Section 10, writes at the end of last month from Hotel S. Marco, Ravenna, Italy, that Edward I. Tinkham, in the same branch as Ensign Stuart, is still very ill. Ensign Tinkham was member of Sections 3 and 4 and chief of the first T.M.U. No. 526, sent out from rue Raynouard in 1917.

From Tinkham’s biography in the AFS Friends of France:

Shortly after the armistice he was taken sick and was transferred to the Italian Military Hospital at Ravenna where he died of meningitis and pneumonia on March 30, 1919.

More details come from an Italian source:

Edward Tinkham died at 8:10 AM, Mar. 30th, 1919 at the Italian Military Hospital in Ravenna, Italy. His body was cremated and his ashes were placed in the Muro perpetuo at Ravenna.

These accounts agree on two facts: Tinkham was ill for a long time, maybe over four months, and he died of spinal meningitis and/or pneumonia. Nobody, especially in 1919, was afflicted with either meningitis or pneumonia for a long time, but no source has been found to explain what was going on.

The Italian source also reported that Tinkham’s father, Julian, was with him when he died and arranged the burial.

Edward's Name Inscribed on the American Volunteers Monument

After the end of hostilities, Tinkham and the other Porto Corsini bomber pilots were commended in a letter written by R. Adm. Frederick R. Harris, the chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks (coincidentally also a Cornellian) after he reviewed the damage done by bombing to the Pola facilities.

The Navy had no decoration scheme until 4 February 1919 when P.L. 65-253 established the Navy Cross and the Distinguished Service Medal, retroactive to 5 April 1917. A medals board was convened in March 1919 to review all commendations, as well as new candidates, for consideration to receive these awards. The board ultimately recommended the award of 1,839 Navy Crosses to Navy and Marine personnel, and Tinkham was on the list. Due to the large number of awards at one time, the citations were brief:

The Navy Cross is awarded to Ensign Edward I. Tinkham, U.S. Navy (Reserve Forces), for distinguished and heroic service as a seaplane pilot in which capacity he made many flights for patrolling the sea and bombing the enemy coasts, showing at all times courage and a high spirit of duty.

Previously, in June 1917, the Cornell faculty, in an unprecedented act, had awarded Tinkham his BS degree, retroactive to the Commencement of 1916. Due in large part to Tinkham’s effort, 122 Cornellians served with the AFS. Only the Harvard, Yale, and Princeton contingents were larger.

Although the war put paid to romanticism, there were still some romantics left at Cornell. Professor A. B. Recknagel wrote this heroic Ode to Tinkham:

As the first song birds of returning Spring
Bring hope and vigor after Winter’s dearth
So Tinkham with his band of Cornell youths
An earnest was of great help to come
And of our country girding for the strife

Consumed as with a bright fierce flame
Of patriotic fervor, he is not dead
Whom once we knew and loved
He is translated, apotheosized
As One who also loved humanity.

After Edward’s death, Julian Tinkham sold his business interests and devoted himself wholeheartedly to promoting the League of Nations and the cause of peace. A diehard, he campaigned tirelessly for the U.S. to reconsider and join the League, frequently contributing what today we call op-ed pieces to the New York newspapers. He moved to his farm (another story) and turned his house at 509 Park St. in Montclair, NJ, into a venue for meetings and lectures. He redeveloped his 1.7 acres of grounds, and from 1924 to 1926 he opened them to the public as a "Peace Garden," where visitors could “enjoy tea in his garden amidst fountains and lily ponds with goldfish and other attractive features.” There were protests from the neighbors, lawsuits, and a city zoning violation action, which ultimately closed the place down. One of the fountains was "The Model for the League of Nations" by the noted Philadelphia sculptor A. Sterling Calder. After Julian’s death in 1940, this work was moved to Mountainside Hospital in Glen Ridge, NJ. In recent years the house was the residence of economist Paul Volcker, Federal Reserve Chairman from 1979 to 1987.

"League of Nations" Fountain Commissioned by Julian Tinkham

And the Tinkham mystique lived on for a while longer. On 23 May 1931, on the occasion of the dedication of the Cornell War Memorial, President Herbert Hoover said:

Fourteen years ago this morning a group of American boys carried an American flag into the fighting on the Aisne front, and thereby made a splendid gesture symbolic of the might of the New World mustering for the decisive issue. This unit was composed of undergraduates of Cornell and was under the leadership of Captain Edward Tinkham, a Cornell student in the class of 1916. It was a vanguard of a mighty army of American youth that flowed across the Atlantic in the months that followed.

For a number of years the Italian Navy base at Ravenna held an annual remembrance for Tinkham, and on the date of President Hoover’s address, the Italian Navy also honored Tinkham in a ceremony at the U.S. Embassy in Rome.

In addition to his Naval Air Service, Edward Tinkham was one of 19 men from the old AFS TMU 526 who died in the service. A total of 149 men who served with the AFS camions were lost. See the earlier accounts of his remarkable service in the Great War at these Roads to the Great War postings:

Part I: With the American Field Service

Part II: With TMU 526, of the AFS and the Rèservé Mallet

Part III: Difficult times in the Camion Service

Part IV: Training to be a Navy Pilot

Part V: Training to be a Navy Pilot

How did I first get interested in Edward Tinkham and his story? As an undergraduate at Cornell, I frequently walked past this plaque. And yes, I also know the stories of Mason and McCullough.

Sources: American Field Service, Congressional Record (Jan. 1920), Cornell University, Willis Haviland Lamm, Montclair Historical Society, Montclair Public Library, Seal and Serpent Society.

Germany Digests the Lessons of U-boat Warfare

The Germans started World War I with only 24 U-boats. Their campaign against Allied shipping did not begin until early 1915, and after several starts and stops, unrestricted submarine warfare did not begin until February 1917. Over the next year, the Allies lost more than 5.5 million tons of merchant shipping, a loss rate that substantially exceeded new construction.

The U-boat threat was brought under control during the last year of the war, primarily through the implementation by the Royal Navy of escorted convoys, a measure that it had initially resisted. Convoying greatly complicated the open-ocean search problem for German submarines, because a group of ships was not much more likely to be found than a single ship, while escorts reduced the damage that submarines could cause when they did succeed in finding ships to attack.  It is important to note that escorts were much less effective at actually destroying submarines than they were at limiting their effectiveness by forcing them to submerge after their initial attack, which generally allowed the rest of the convoy to escape

WWI U-boat Riding the Surface

In practice, the British were able to counter Germany’s resort to unrestricted submarine warfare only with the help of the Americans, who provided them with additional convoy escorts and merchant shipping, and who, with Britain, successfully pressured the large merchant fleets of countries that remained neutral to continue operation even after the prize rules were abandoned. Thus, Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare campaign failed both because it brought the Americans into the war and because it failed to knock other neutral merchant fleets out of the war. Therefore, in an important sense, the political effects of the campaign negated its military effects, because Britain probably would not have survived the First Battle of the Atlantic if the Royal Navy and the British merchant marine had continued to face the U-boats on their own. As Arthur Hezlet has noted, “The defeat of the U-boats was not because the guerre de course (independent commerce raiding) could not by its nature be decisive: it was because the Allies were able to be strong everywhere and make a gigantic effort.”

The submarines that fought World War I were surface ships which were expected to submerge only in order to attack and escape better-armed surface targets, but which also lost a considerable portion of their mobility and situational awareness when submerged and, therefore, much of their potential offensive power. This characteristic was of course based largely on technical constraints, but it was also a function of expectations about their primary mission, which was assumed in most cases to be coastal defense or fleet cooperation, both of which contemplated attacks against major naval assets, against which surface engagements were suicidal.

The German campaign against Allied merchant shipping demonstrated instead that attacks against merchant ships could be most effectively prosecuted at night, on the surface, at relatively close range, even in the face of escorts. The challenge was to maximize the effects of these attacks, escape the escorts alerted by these attacks, and reengage.  Defined in this way, the operational demands placed on the “submersible” submarine were less in conflict with its basic technical limitations than when the challenge was to attack powerful naval vessels, as in the coastal defense or fleet cooperation missions.  This lesson drove the German submarine force toward the operational and tactical methods it employed in its World War II guerre de course, which emphasized night surface attacks by groups of submarines which would pursue individual convoys and repeatedly attack them over a period of a week or two.

Karl Doenitz at Sea During WWI

These “wolf pack” tactics were pioneered by German Nazi Admiral Karl Doenitz during the interwar years. Wolf pack tactics did not demand a radically new type of submarine, and German interwar submarine designs were evolutionary, emphasizing longer range and endurance and larger torpedo salvos and magazines. The most important technical development that made wolf packs possible was the maturation of high frequency (HF) radio as a command and control mechanism. HF radio provided over-the-horizon performance from a relatively small, low-powered transmitter, and allowed deployed submarines to report convoy sightings to a central command post, which could then broadcast this information to all other submarines in that broad ocean area, allowing them to marshal for a concentrated attack by a dozen or so submarines.

Using night surface attacks, these wolf packs would strike the convoy simultaneously, from multiple azimuths, with multiple torpedo salvos, and then slip away.  Many such attacks would be conducted over the course of several days, with the wolf pack using the daylight hours to separate from the convoy and race ahead of it on the surface to get into firing position for the following night.

Source: U.S. Naval War College, Newport Paper #16

They Didn't Want to Die Virgins: Sex and Morale in the British Army on the Western Front, 1914–1918 reviewed by James Thomas

They Didn't Want to Die Virgins: Sex and Morale in the British Army on the Western Front, 1914–1918

by Bruce Cherry
Helion and Co., 2016

Illustrations from They Didn't Want to Die Virgins (author's collection)

Describing Victorian soldiers, Rudyard Kipling wrote that "single men in barracks don't grow into plaster saints." The generation of "Tommies" who fought in the Great War, as well as those in all wars before and since, are very much the same. Civilians quite often combine a total ignorance of the life of a soldier with a need to idealize them as their nation's finest young men, flawless and pure. Nature has made most men, especially most young men, very sexually...enthusiastic. Armies around the world have always had their "camp followers" and readily available "bawdy houses." With small professional armies fighting in foreign lands, civilians could remain blissfully ignorant of how men in uniform dealt with their sexual needs and desires. However, the vastness of the First World War expanded all military matters exponentially, including coping with that most basic of human drives.

Giant armies were now made up of more men in uniform than had ever been seen before, slaughtering each other in vast numbers with unprecedented violence, The sheer numbers of young men, combined with a total dearth of young women, and those men living with the near certainty of violent and painful death or injury, intensified their sexual needs. Ironically and sadly, the Great War occurred near the end of the long overly moralistic Victorian Era, when all things sexual were stifled, hidden away, or driven underground. Now the children of the Victorians were thrown into the double dose of unheard-of violence and unspoken sexual impulse. Bruce Cherry's outstanding book They Didn't Want to Die Virgins tells the story of these young men and the British Army's and government's attempts to deal with all things sexual in the war while dealing with civilian pressure for enforced celibacy.

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For the soldiers themselves outlets for sexual energy were sought in all avenues, from increasing availability of pornography and masturbation to friendly French and Belgian women and prostitutes approved and not approved. For the Army the goal was maintenance of morale and avoidance of disease. Seemingly worse than their fear of disease was the Army's concern that if soldiers' "normal" sexual needs were not met, they might turn to each other, and "unnatural" sexual congress between men would most certainly destroy the morale of the Army.

In a war that was grinding away the nation's youth at an alarming rate with shell fire and rifles, it would be unthinkable to lose men to venereal disease or bad morale. For the government it was the struggle between meeting the physical needs of the troops — including their sexual needs — and keeping civilians, whose support was essential for continuing the war effort, from knowing too much about the realities of the war's horrors and the men's sexuality. There were also, of course, the additional problems of coping with Tommy's sexuality by the French Army, French civilians, and the French government, all of whom had to deal with the British soldiers' presence in their country.

For Bruce Cherry, the research necessary to write this book posed more problems than the usual difficulties confronting historians. Even in more modern times, an individual's sexuality is rarely discussed openly. For young men of the Victorian/Edwardian generation, even diary writers were reticent about recording sexual matters. Direct references in official documents are also quite rare. Cherry does a masterful job digging out information, learning from the periphery, analyzing data, and then collating all the material and presenting to the reader a masterful study. It is ironic that while sexuality is such a fundamental part of all humans, talking about it is difficult and trying to examine this largely unspoken topic from the past is even more challenging. In They Didn't Want to Die Virgins Cherry overcomes these challenges and presents to the reader an excellent glimpse into the multifaceted sexual life of Britain's soldiers of the Great War.

James Thomas

The Doughboy Cookbook

This has been one of the most visited sites at our DOUGHBOY CENTER Website over the years.  Visit it
at:  www.worldwar1.com/dbc/food.htm to see all the recipes for the favorite (or well-remembered) rations of American soldiers in the Great War.

The Value of the Rum Ration

Had it not been for the rum ration I do not think we should have won the war. 

1922 parliamentary testimony on shell shock

Standard One-Gallon Rum Jar for the British Forces
 S.R.D.-Special Red Demerara, 86-proof Jamaican Rum

Although all but ignored in the official military records, rum, as well as the canteens, estaminets, cigarettes, letters, and trench newspapers, was essential to the trench soldier. It was these small comforts that affected the individual in the firing line; grand operational plans mattered far less. Rum was overflowing in both song and poem and played an essential role in the life of most trench soldiers: by raising morale; by helping men to cope with the strain of war; by being employed as a medicine; by being offered as a reward; and finally, by reinforcing the hierarchy of the army and the masculinity in soldiers. 

Taking Their Ration in a Trench

By examining the many uses of rum, a window into understanding the often neglected trench culture of the individual soldier is provided. Viewed in this way, rum was a complex and multi-layered tool for morale. Equally important, "Demon Rum" was the soldiers' tool and without it, the common men who made up the soldiers' profession – the bankers, clerks and farmers, who put down their pens and ploughs for rifles – might have collapsed under the terrible strain, both physical and psychological, of trench warfare.

Under the spell of this all-powerful stuff, one almost felt that he could eat a German dead or alive, steel helmet and all.

Canadian Soldier

Source: “More a Medicine than a Beverage”: “Demon Rum” and the Canadian Trench Soldier of the First World War
Tim Cook, Canadian War Museum

Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker's Photo Album, Part II

From Auburn University's Eddie V. Rickenbacker Collection

Members of the 94th Aero Squadron Before a Hannoveraner CL.III
Left-to-right: Jimmy Meissner, Eddie Rickenbacker, Alden Sherry, Reed Chambers, & Weir Cook
(Thanks to Steve Miller for the Details)

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Enemy Bomb Damage, Nancy,  France

Rickenbacker Welcomed Home with Mother, Columbus, Ohio, 1919

Aviation Pioneers Billy Mitchell and Hap Arnold

Rickenbacker Motor Company "Super Sport"

Medal of Honor Certificate, Awarded 1930

Rickenbacker's Account of Being Lost at Sea for 24 Days in 1942

Capt. Eddie Just Before His Death in 1973

Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker's Photo Album, Part I

From Auburn University's Eddie V. Rickenbacker Collection

The Future Captain Eddie, 1906

Racing a Maxwell, 1915

Lt. Rickenbacker Operates a Motorcycle with Sidecar

In Front of a Caudron Trainer

Chateau-Thierry with Bridges Intact 

Rickenbacker and Another Aviator with a Captured 
German Hannoveranner CL.III

Sgt. Victor E. Bertrandias Seated in a Nieuport with 
Lt. Charles A. Rankin Standing Beside the Plane

Rickenbacker with His SPAD XIII of the Hat in the Ring Squadron

Ten Political Cartoons on the War and Politics of 1916

1916 Was Expected to Be a Better Year Than 1915 for the Allies

Early in the Year the Russians Busted the German-Supported 
Turks in the Snoot at Erzurum 

American Anger Was Growing Over Submarine Sinkings

The German Press Portrayed the Americans as Believing Themselves
Entitled to Special Treatment

The Kitchener Armies Were Arriving on the Battlefield

Anti-War Cartoon from The Masses

Former President Roosevelt Portrayed as a Warmonger

Woodrow Wilson Re-elected on "Keeping the Nation Out of the War"

The Crown Prince Staggering Away from Verdun

Victory Should Come in 1917, Shouldn't It?

Sources:  Library of Congress, Wiki-Commons, Punch

The First Ace: Second Lieutenant Adolphe Célestin Pégoud

Pégoud Receiving the Croix de Guerre

The term "ace" was first used in World War I when French newspapers described Adolphe Pégoud (1889–1915) as l'as (French for "ace") after he shot down five German aircraft. After serving in the French Army he pursued a career in aviation and received his private pilot's license in March 1913.

While he was a test pilot for Blériot, he was credited with being the first aviator to fly a loop, although it was discovered much later that a Russian pilot had preceded him by 13 days and, also to be the first pilot to jump with a parachute from his aircraft. Joining the French Air Service he was assigned to fly a Maurice Farman over the Argonne sector, where he achieved his five victories.

Click Image to Enlarge

Immortalized in Comics

After gaining a sixth victory, Pégoud was shot down and killed 31 August 1915 by one of his prewar students, Walter Kandulski. 

Pégoud's Tomb at Montparnasse Cemetery, Paris

Sources:  Tony Langley Collection, Wikipedia, Traces of War and The Aerodrome.com

And the World Went Dark: An Illustrated Interpretation of the Great War reviewed by David F. Beer

And the World Went Dark: 
An Illustrated Interpretation of the Great War

by Steven N. Patricia

Casemate Publishers, 2016

As its title indicates, this is a visual presentation of the First World War. It's also an excellent introductory book in that it is short (88 pages), briefly touches on numerous aspects of the war, and is heavily illustrated with drawings by the author — the majority of them in sepia, thus giving an impression of old photographs of the early twentieth century. The artwork is impressive, as would be expected of author Steven Patricia, an artist and historian with some 30 years' experience as an illustrator for such clients as The Art Institute of Chicago, the National Park Service, and The National Geographic Society. The size of the book, about 11.5 x 8.25 inches, moreover, allows ample space on each page for both drawings and text and thus prevents the impression that this is only a graphic treatment of the war.

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With its combination of drawings, text, maps, and passages from poems, diaries, and other documents of participants, the book provides a general but effective account of the war. A few of the statements made by the author may be open to debate, but this is the risk of creating a short account of a complex and tumultuous event.

Starting by introducing the causes of the war, the author takes us through to the end of hostilities and the Armistice. Early in the book we find useful lists of each participant's date of entry into the conflict plus numbers mobilized by each nation and overall casualties suffered, including Montenegro, Romania, and Bulgaria. Drawings of a soldier from each country appear within the text. A section on the war in the air deals with the lives of airmen, fighters, heavy bombers, and balloons. Another on the war at sea covers ships, underwater warfare, mines, troop transports and hospital ships, plus cats and other naval mascots. Several pages evocatively show in text, drawings and quotes, the sinking of a British ship and the harrowing experience of both crew and a cargo of horses.

The war on land is equally well treated, with Eastern, Italian, African and Western fronts touched on in that order. A diagram of a trench reveals some detail, as do brief sections on barbed wire, a trench raid, artillery, grenades, snipers, veterinarians, gas, dogs, horses, and, of course, the dead and wounded. All are embellished with impressive sketches. The book ends with the complete text of Wilfred Owen's poem "The Parable of the Old Men and the Young."

Typical Page

Almost three pages of bibliography (together with a drawing) conclude this interesting book. What caught my attention here is that more than half the sources consulted consist of web references, e.g. Lynch, George. War Wire, babel.hathitrust.org/. Web and blog pages – unlike our presentations at Worldwar1.com – can be quite ephemeral, and in fact the three online references I looked up were not there. But then this book poses not as a scholarly text but as a general and artistic introduction to the Great War, and in this it most certainly succeeds.

David F. Beer

France's Role at the Somme and in the Great War

French Troops, Fay, Somme Sector

On my recent group tour of the Somme battlefield, I made a concerted effort to cover the French contribution to the battle.  This meant incorporating stops at sites on both sides of the River Somme, like the the Montagne de Frise and Curlu, which were captured on 1 July; journeying to the most southerly reaches of the battle; Lihons, Soyécourt, and Chaulnes; and following the French advance on the flank of the September 1916 British push, during which it was the French Sixth Army that made the farthest advance east in the entire campaign to Rancourt (location of a moving French memorial) and the village of Sailly Saillisel.

View of Somme from Montagne de Frise toward Curlu
Both Sites Captured 1 July 1916

For our group, most of whom had never read much about the French contributions to the Battle of the Somme, I believe it was eye-opening.  For me,  I felt a little guilty, I realized that had not done justice to the French contribution in my earlier tours.  I might be writing more about this in future postings, but I want to share a comment I remember from a review I read a few years ago.  It is a sort of caution to us in the English-speaking world how deeply the war involved and touched France.

The Great War shaped the subsequent history of France as surely as France shaped the Great War. Mourning marked every family; bitter political animosities that came to the surface in 1917 contributed ultimately to the decline of the Third Republic; and the totalization of war, that made civilians as well as soldiers the targets of military aggression, became a tragic hallmark of twentieth-century European life. Equally importantly, France and the Great War makes evident how French resolve in the face of unparalleled adversity shaped the history of the Great War. Given that, any analysis of the First World War that leaves France on the side-lines is fundamentally inadequate

Martha Hanna, University of Colorado, in her review of France and the Great War 1914-1918. by Leonard V. Smith, Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau.

Remembering a Veteran: Lt. Coleman F. DeWitt, U.S. Air Service, Italy

Co-Pilot Lt. James Bahl and Lt. Coleman DeWitt

During the Battle of Vittorio Veneto on 27 October 1918, Lt. Coleman DeWitt, 25, and his crew were attacked by five Austro-Hungarian Aviatik D.I pursuit planes while returning from a bombing mission. Instead of avoiding the battle by landing their lumbering aircraft, Coleman, first pilot on a Caproni Ca.3, chose to fight. According to observers of the episode:  "Two of the enemy planes were shot down, thanks to the accurate aim of the encircled aircraft which continued to fight, even when it broke out in flames until, trapped and overcome by the powerful group of enemy planes, it fell and the entire crew perished in the accomplishment of their daring action,'' the invitation reads.

Caproni Ca.3 Like That Flown by Lt. DeWitt

The Battle of Vittorio Veneto was the final action fought on the Italian front. The Italian victory led to the Austro-Hungarian surrender. DeWitt's body was sent to New Jersey three years later. A funeral was held on 3 July 1921, attended by Fiorello La Guardia, who had been Coleman's commander and later became New York's mayor. Coleman was posthumously awarded the  Medaglia d'Oro al Valor Militare (gold medal for bravery), Italy's highest award, assigned to just 23 airmen in the war. He is honored with his own room in the Vittorio Veneto war museum.

Sources: Freerepublic.com and Historynet.com