Louisiana and the Great War: Then and Now

From Know Louisiana

World War I, known as the "Great War,” has long been acknowledged as a major turning point in American history, as much for the social forces it unleashed at home as for the nation’s military efforts abroad. In fact, the U.S. direct involvement extended for only a year and a half and required a minimum of sacrifice from most of its citizens. Nevertheless, the war shaped a whole generation of Americans in a profound way. During this time the federal government expanded its power and reach, while spontaneous social and cultural movements transformed the world in which most Americans, including Louisianans, lived.

Prosperity and Patriotism

The shock of the Great War first came to Louisiana in the form of an economic panic in the late summer and fall of 1914. Because of the disruption in worldwide commodities markets, small farmers and planters in the state faced depressed prices for agricultural goods and limited access to credit. Despite this initial turmoil, it quickly became apparent that Great Britain and France would need tremendous amounts of war material in their fight against Germany and that America would supply much of this demand. Farm prices gradually began to tick upward throughout 1915 and 1916; they skyrocketed once the United States officially entered the conflict in April 1917. Cotton tripled in price to almost 40 cents per pound in spot markets throughout 1918, while sugar doubled to seven cents or more per pound. Other Louisiana products, such as timber and petroleum, saw similar gains. America’s entry into the war signaled the beginning of one of Louisiana’s characteristic economic booms, a period of unprecedented prosperity to be followed, as was often the case, by a postwar depression that wiped out most of the monetary gains.

In 1917 and 1918, however, working men in Louisiana enjoyed a distinct advantage as the draft pulled away thousands of young, employable men for military service. In addition to the abundance of work in forest and field, the federal government employed thousands more in the expansion or creation of 11 major military installations in the state. For example, Camp Beauregard, just north of Alexandria, which had been a National Guard facility before the war, soon swelled to include more than 1,300 buildings on 15 square miles of former timberland. At its peak enrollment in the summer and fall of 1918, more than 22,000 men received military instruction on Camp Beauregard’s ranges and training grounds. In New Orleans, the government underwrote major expansions in the maritime infrastructure: three new shipyards, a $2.5 million repair yard, and a massive warehousing terminal that could accommodate 700 rail cars and more than 178,000 tons of shipping, which previously represented ten days worth of commerce on all of the city’s wharves combined. With all this available work and a yawning gap in the state’s labor pool, wages reached the unheard-of levels of $1.50 or $2 a day and sometimes more in urban areas. Awash in cash, agricultural and industrial laborers paid off old debts, indulged in luxury items, and even put deposits down on automobiles, houses, and small farms. Banks saw their credits double and even triple.

Red Cross Nurses Parade on Canal Street, New Orleans, 1917

With money in their pockets, Louisianans overwhelmingly supported the war effort, often going “over the top” with subscriptions to various fundraising campaigns. The Red Cross, YMCA, and a host of lesser-known organizations sponsored such efforts. In addition, many Louisianans participated in one or more of the five Liberty Bond drives initiated at the national level. New Orleans raised more than $103 million for these assorted campaigns, while Shreveport alone contributed more than $15 million to the Liberty Bond drives. Federally organized Councils of Defense, including 64 parish councils and hundreds of community councils, facilitated many of these fundraising activities. Although limited in their authority, they circulated government edicts on production, conservation, and labor and worked closely with the Justice Department and local draft boards to enforce Selective Service registration. Local women’s auxiliaries collected food and clothing for distribution and organized educational seminars on family welfare, nutrition, and health, among other pursuits. Less creditably, the councils and other “vigilant” citizens maintained social conformity by aggressively confronting dissenters and foreign-born citizens, especially German Jews, about any offhand or public comments that might be construed as supportive of anything less than “100 percent Americanism.” To the outside observer, it appeared that most Louisianans, black and white, wholeheartedly embraced the hyper-patriotism of the time.

Beneath this veneer of unity, however, deep divisions within Louisiana society found ample opportunities for expression. In particular, the so-called “great migration” of African Americans from the state evidenced a powerful dissatisfaction with the economic and social conditions of Louisiana in the era of Jim Crow. With massive war contracts piling up and the flow of European immigrants to America cut off by the fighting, northern industries looked to the South to fill their labor needs. High wages, signing bonuses, and reimbursements for travel and relocation lured many African American workers and their families to St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, and other northern cities.

For many, though, the major incentive to relocate proved to be simply escaping segregation itself. In a letter to the Chicago Defender, one New Orleans man explained that he was anxious to relieve himself “of the burden of the South. I indeed wish very much to come north[,] anywhere in [Illinois] will do since I am away from the Lynchman’s noose and torchman’s fire.”Another wrote that he was “now looking to the North of this benighted land for hope . . . that if once there that I may be granted the [opportunities] of peacefully working out my mission on earth[,] without fear of molestation.”

The appeal of the North proved so great, in fact, that Louisiana’s total African American population actually declined between 1910 and 1920. Incredibly, some rural plantation areas saw upwards of a third or more of local African Americans abandon their homes for points north. Eventually, the cumulative effects of this exodus and the draft on the state’s labor force became so worrisome to white planters that Governor Ruffin Pleasant issued a “work or fight” order in 1918. Local authorities used this order, often unsuccessfully, to force supposedly underemployed African Americans into menial, underpaying jobs in households and businesses.

Louisiana Veterans of the 42nd Rainbow Division Returning Home, 1919

The apparent ambivalence of some groups to the call for military service also suggests the simmering social conflicts within Louisiana during the war years. The state could scarcely have been labeled unpatriotic, as it sent more than 71,000 officers and enlisted men into the armed forces. But the vast majority of these men were draftees, not volunteers. For a state only some 20 years removed from the extremely partisan, class-driven discord apparent in populism, lingering political and economic resentments often morphed into a vague but nonetheless real rejection of what came to be seen as another “rich man’s war, but a poor man’s fight.”

Such feelings sometimes translated into an individual’s refusal to register for the draft or even report for induction when called. Indeed, Louisiana had more than 8,000 cases of draft desertion, putting the state’s rate at almost a full percentage point higher than the national average. State officials were quick to blame this elevated number on the large African American population, which, they claimed, was mostly ignorant or illiterate and therefore could hardly be expected to comply with the demands of service registration. Certainly, the migration of many blacks caused considerable confusion when it came to locating eligible men to serve. Yet, the fact that middle-class African American leaders sometimes resorted to public chastisements of antiwar sentiment in their communities belied the conviction that patriotism ran rampant in all quarters of the state and especially among those subject to the daily humiliations of life under Jim Crow. Such antiwar feeling proved just as strong, if not stronger, among many of the state’s poor whites, a group already politicized by populist and socialist rhetoric in the preceding decades.

Legacy

Huey Long

Some Louisianans’ resistance to serve in the armed forces hardly affected the overall mobilization efforts for America’s rather limited military involvement in the war. However, military service did remain a key social marker in Louisiana for a generation or more after the conflict ended. Indeed, Huey Long’s avoidance of wartime service (he received a deferment) and his defense of antiwar state Senator S. J. Harper of Winnfield, who was brought up on sedition charges, provided a point of attack for many of his opponents during the 1920s and 1930s. Carrie Moore Davidson, a society lady from northeast Louisiana whose only son was killed in action during the war, framed her opposition to Long thus: “When I come to total the final score, I cannot forget that when my boy was fighting in France to make it safe for the Longs they were dodging the draft over here.” Yet the fact that many of his most political bitter rivals had served as officers rather than enlisted men only validated Long’s class-infused criticisms of Louisiana’s upper crust.

In later years, these officers, many of whom were Louisiana State and Tulane University graduates, became influential members of the state’s business and political establishment, almost all in vehement opposition to Long. Many also found their way into the American Legion, a veterans’ organization created after the war that, while disavowing political aims, nonetheless drew men of a more reactionary stripe. Rising from its ranks was Sam Houston Jones, a district attorney and good-government type from DeRidder, who eventually became the figure around whom the conservative forces of the state rallied to defeat Earl Long in the 1940 gubernatorial election. Like his brother, Earl Long missed out on military service during the war. Meanwhile, Jones’s World War I record was featured prominently in his political biography, and Legion posts around the state received him enthusiastically on his campaign tour. Even some 20 years later, the conflict continued to cast its shadow across the cultural panorama of Louisiana. That influence, though, was soon to be eclipsed by another war that would demand a far greater sacrifice from the American people.

Remembering Louisiana's WWI Service

A trio of exhibits about Louisiana's part in World War I are opening on 28 September around state capital, Baton Rouge. The Louisiana State Museum's Capitol Park Museum, the Old State Capitol Museum and the USS Kidd Veterans Museum all will hold free public receptions on 28 September to open exhibits marking the centennial of the year that the United States entered the war.

"Campaigning for Victory: Poster Art of the Great War" will be shown at the castle-shaped Old State Capitol through 17 December. There's a wider variety of artifacts at the USS Kidd Museum's, "Voices from the Lost Generation: Louisiana in the Great War, 1917–18", about four blocks south of the old Capitol, and at the Capitol Park Museum's, "For Home and Country: Louisiana in the Great War," about eight blocks north. Both exhibits will continue well into next year.

Sources

Reonas, Matthew "World War I" knowlouisiana.org Encyclopedia of Louisiana. Ed. David Johnson. Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, 16 Nov 2011. Web. 18 Sep 2017;  6 September 2018, Miami Herald.

World War I Seaplane and Aircraft Carriers Reviewed by James Thomas

World War I Seaplane and Aircraft Carriers

by Mark Lardas

Osprey Publishing, 2016

HMS Ark Royal

The modern United States Navy, like all of today's major navies, is built primarily around air power and the aircraft carrier. These massive ships, with all their support vessels surrounding them, exhibit the nation's strength through their ability to launch aircraft to deliver ordnance anywhere in the world. Even today's newest class addition, USS America, LHA-6, is designed to deliver marine amphibious forces entirely by aircraft without landing craft. As fundamental as this naval philosophy is today, however, prior to the Great War aviation was still a novelty. Few, if any, in the naval establishment believed little airplanes could do any damage to great big warships. As with so many other types of technology and thinking, World War I began the process of changing that notion.

Mark Lardas takes on one element of naval transformation in his excellent little book, World War I Seaplane and Aircraft Carriers. As with most Osprey publications, it is brief, concise, and heavily illustrated. It is a bit simplistic, with the occasional grammatical imperfections, yet it is also a very fine examination of the topic. Lardas describes both general naval aviation development and the differences in development by the principal belligerents of the Great War.

Sopwith Camel Taking-Off HMS  Pegasus

As military aviation evolved, navies developed two basic types of aircraft and thus two means of transporting those aircraft. Seaplanes are those craft that have flotation devices so they can land and take off from the water, rather than having wheels and skids for the usual airfield runway use. These seaplanes can be hoisted onto and off ships with cranes and simply carried on board. Without floats, planes with landing gear require ships with either catapults to launch them off short platforms or ocean-going flight decks, allowing them to land on and take off directly from ships.

Initially, as no ships were designed with aviation in mind, the first aircraft transports were conversions from other types of vessels. Sections of deck were cleared and platforms built or large portions redesigned so that flight decks could be fitted. Later ships would be designed specifically to handle aircraft of all types. Each nation had a different view about what aviation meant to naval operations and as aircraft evolved, so did the development of ships to carry them. Britain led the way, and earlier than the other countries built the first seaplane carrier, HMS Ark Royal, and through design evolution, by the end of the war had a ship designed as a true aircraft carrier for transport, landings and takeoffs of airplanes, HMS Argus.

None of the other nations devoted as much energy in the development of naval aviation, though all made some efforts. France was advancing very well until the necessities of national survival in the trenches shifted her efforts away from naval aviation. France's land-based aircraft, of course, were exceptional. Without global empires as large as Britain's, other countries did not need navies as big or as technologically advanced. Still, the work of all the nations and especially the developments in the years following the war, set the stage for World War II, when navies and especially aircraft carriers played such a fundamental role.

Mr. Lardas's book is a very fine study of this extremely important foundational stage in naval aviation development. Because it is also an Osprey publication, the reader can expect outstanding illustrations, including both photographs and colorful drawings. World War I Seaplane and Aircraft Carriers should be on the shelves of anyone interested in naval aviation.

James Thomas

100 Years Ago Tomorrow: The Battle for Polygon Wood Opens

Shells Screamed Through the Air!

Australian Pioneers Building a Plank Road to Bring Up 
Supplies and Ordnance for the Coming Assault

In the days leading up to 26 September 1917 the men of the Fifth Australian Division prepared for their first major battle in Belgium. In the shattered countryside to the west beyond Polygon Wood engineers and pioneers struggled to extend the plank road and other tracks to the new front line won by the First and Second Australian Divisions at the Battle of Menin Road on 20 September. Medical details established regimental aid posts close to the line to which the badly wounded could be brought quickly from the battlefield for attention before being carried back by field ambulance stretcher bearers to horse-drawn and motor ambulance collecting points along the Menin Road. And up the Menin Road to various dumps came supplies of food, water, engineering stores, and ammunition.

Polygon Wood Located Middle Right on This Map

Artillerymen and their horses fought the mud and shell craters to bring up the guns to support the attack. The guns assembled for the barrage to support the Fifth Division infantry was an awesome force: 205 pieces of heavy artillery, one gun for every nine meters of front. In addition, there would be the usual array of lighter 18-pounder guns of the field artillery brigades. Assembled forward of the artillery were the heavy Vickers machine guns of the machine gun companies. A number of these would provide emergency barrages if the attacking infantry needed defense against a sudden enemy counterattack. Others, along with the artillery, would lay down a curtain of bullets in front of the advance.

Many other elaborate preparations were in hand. Planes of the Royal Flying Corps would fly over the infantry as a "contact patrol". These planes were distinguished by black streamers on the rear edge of their left wings and were to call for signals from the ground by sounding a klaxon horn or dropping lights. The infantry would respond with red flares and, the position being noted, the pilot would hurry back to drop this intelligence to divisional headquarters. There were even so-called "Intelligence Policemen", German speakers whose job it was to interview prisoners and gain tactical information about the battlefield for relaying back to the divisional intelligence officer at Hooge Crater

Then slowly, between 20 and 24 September the 12 infantry battalions, some 10 000 men, of the division came forward. Some took over frontline positions while others were held back as reserves. All of this assembly was done under daily German artillery bombardment of the approach area, causing about 100 casualties a day. A significant German attack on 25 September on the British division to the south, in which the Australians became involved, threatened the plan for 26 September, but as the line was stabilized, at some cost to Australian units, it was decided to continue with the planned attack.

The Butte Within the Wood Was a Major Objective; 
the Division's Memorial Was Placed There, Soon After the War

During the night of 25–26 September the men of the assaulting battalions reached taped lines laid across the southwestern third of the blasted tree stumps of Polygon Wood. At this point it was vital not to alert the watching Germans by unusual noise or the lighting of cigarettes, which would bring down an enemy artillery barrage. At 5:50 a.m. on 26 September the guns opened up in front of the Australian infantry, who immediately moved forward behind its protecting wall of shells. If one had been on the butte, where the Fifth Division Memorial now stands, the sound of battle would have been overpowering. Captain Alexander Ellis, wrote a vivid description of the scene:

Our artillery opened in a single magnificent crash and thousands of shells screamed through the air and burst in a long, straight line of flame and destruction about 200 yards [180 meters] ahead of the waiting infantry…the 4,000 men of the six attacking battalions dashed forward at a run. Somewhere behind the line of destruction lay their victims, shuddering in their pill-boxes, staggered by the sudden commotion, dazed by the concussion of the shells…then, slowly, very slowly it [the barrage] crept forward. A long line of skirmishers disengaged itself from the dense mass of men and followed the advancing screen of shells…Above their heads thousands of machine gun bullets cut the air as they whistled shrilly past on their destined way, and the strident din of many Vickers guns throbbed through the troubled morning air. But these were but the tinkling wood-wind notes in the hell's orchestra that played about them. For the deafening crash of the rapid firing 18-pounders, the hoarser roar of the scores of heavy guns behind them and the stupefying concussion of shrapnel and high explosive shells in the barrage in front were by now all mingled in the hideous rhythmical clamour of the perfect drum-fire barrage. Thus, at 5.50 a.m. on the 26 September 1917, was the Division launched into the Battle of Polygon Wood.

Gathered Around a Captured Pillbox, Artillery Craters Apparent

The infantry's main obstacles on the battlefield were the dozens of German concrete pillboxes which protected the enemy machine gunners. They had to get to the pillboxes just as the barrage lifted from them and the occupants still dazed by explosions. At some pillboxes there was resistance, but many German soldiers surrendered when they found themselves so rapidly surrounded. The butte itself was soon rushed and found to be full of German dugouts. The entrances were blocked and bombers with grenades worked their way through the underground positions, finally pushing the occupants into surrender. German planes came over and machine gunned the butte area while enemy artillery began pounding the rear areas behind the Australian advance, causing many casualties.

At 7:30 a.m. another protective barrage began and the Australians pushed on to their final objective for the day a few hundred meters beyond Polygon Wood. By 8 a.m. the required ground had been gained and the advance was over. During the rest of the day German counterattacks came to nothing, and the Battle of Polygon Wood was declared a great success for the AIF.

This clean-cut success suggests the reason the Fifth Division picked the butte at Polygon Wood for their memorial on the Western Front. Divisional historian, Captain Ellis, described it as a "fine success" and Charles Bean wrote of this "clean, strong blow". Bean attributed it, however, to the "most perfect barrage that had ever protected Australian troops" rolling ahead of them like a "Gippsland bushfire". However, like all success on the Western Front, Polygon Wood was won at great cost.

Today, from the 5th Division Memorial on the Butte, 
Looking Toward the Aussies' Approach Route

Source:  Australian Department of Veteran Affairs

Beginning a New Series: Doughboy Basics—The Things You Should Understand About the AEF

For the next 12 Sundays, I am going to present some essential information on the American effort in the Great War. I've spent 25 years gathering this material, mostly from a vast variety of sources.  In some cases, however, I've found the accepted wisdom to be wrong,  so some of the material in the series will be my own, but I stand by it.  Today we begin with a graphic overview.

Fall 1917: 11th Engineers Take Earliest U.S. Combat Casualties

By the end of summer 1917, American soldiers were in France as part of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF). While mobilization had been rapid, American military leaders were not ready to send American divisions to the front lines. AEF infantry and artillery needed more time to prepare, sending officers and small groups to experience the front. Most American combat troops went into training with British and French armies.  A few AEF units went straight to work at the front. The 11th U. S. Engineers was one of these.

Men of the 11th U.S. Engineers

The 11th Engineers arrived in England on 27 July. It was the first American volunteer unit to receive the salute of a British monarch. By late August 1917 they were in France at Boulogne and shortly began railroad repair and construction in the British III Army sector. Many of the men had been in the army only a few months.

By September their responsibility included almost 120 miles of track behind British lines in Flanders. They took turns at training for gas warfare while working. Serving under British command, American soldiers adapted quickly. American cooks received British Army cooks’ training to adapt to English rations and special arrangements were made to provide coffee instead of tea.

American engineer support at the front proved critical at this point in the war. Advances were measured in hundreds of yards or a few miles. The density of men and equipment under regular bombardment strained the road system. Successful defense often hinged on the ability to relocate men, equipment, and supplies. Railroad construction engineers were needed constantly.

On 5 September, Company F of the 11th Engineers came under shellfire as they worked in Gouzeaucourt. Sgt. M. Calderwood and Pvt. W. Brannigan were wounded, becoming the first casualties among combat troops of the AEF. Several noncombatant AEF medical staff had been wounded in British lines earlier, but Calderwood and Brannigan were the first combatant casualties.

Combat Engineer
Recruiting Poster

Later that year, in November 1917, 11th Engineers displayed great bravery and fortitude in the face of an intense German counterattack. On 20 November, the British Army attacked toward Cambrai with over 300 tanks in the lead. The Germans counterattacked and penetrated toward Gouzeaucout, where the 11th Engineers were building a rail yard.

Engineers working on the rail yard joined British forces, took up rifles, or helped dig foxholes. Some engineers were captured and others scattered into nearby fields. Seven officers and 265 engineers armed with rifles reported to the headquarters of the British 20th Division. They acted as a reserve and dug in new positions.  When the British attacked the Germans in the afternoon engineers from the work site went with them and helped free a number of their comrades captured earlier.  The British army recognized their contribution in an official communication to the AEF. 

Captured Men of the 11th Engineers Photographed
by Future American Walter Heinsen
(Contributed by Walter's Grandson, John David Heinsen)

“I desire to express to you my thanks and that of the British forces engaged for the prompt and valuable assistance rendered, and I trust that you will be good enough to Colonel Hoffman and his gallant men how much we all appreciate his and the prompt and soldierly readiness to assist in what for a time was a difficult situation,” wrote Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig in a letter to General of the Armies John J. Pershing regarding the 11th Engineers.

Source:  ABMC Website

The Foch-Hindenburg Armistice Telegrams

Probably most of readers have heard of the Willy-Nicky (Kaiser-Tsar) telegrams exchanged at the start of the war, but might not know the matching set at the end of the war between Generals Foch and Hindenburg to set up the Armistice negotiations.  They're rather proforma, lacking entirely the intimacy of the Imperial cousins in the earlier set. They do, however, have an certain tone about them. Hindenburg in the opening document indicates he has been in communication with President Wilson but is apparently not aware there would not be American representation at the meeting.

Telegraph from Paul von Hindenburg to Ferdinand Foch, 12.30 a.m., 7 November 1918

German General Headquarters to the Allies' General Headquarters; the German Commander-in-Chief to Marshal Foch:

The German Government, having been informed through the President of the United States that Marshal Foch had received powers to receive accredited representatives of the German Government and communicate to them conditions of an armistice, the following plenipotentiaries have been named by it:

Mathias Erzberger, General H. K. A. von Winterfeld, Count Alfred von Oberndorff, General von Gruennel, and Naval Captain von Salow.

The plenipotentiaries request that they be informed by wireless of the place where they can meet Marshal Foch.  They will proceed by automobile, with subordinates of the staff, to the place thus appointed.

Telegraph from Ferdinand Foch to Paul von Hindenburg, 1.30 a.m., 7 November 1918

To the German Commander-in-Chief:

If the German plenipotentiaries desire to meet Marshal Foch and ask him for an armistice, they will present themselves to the French outposts by the Chimay-Fourmies-La Capelle-Guise road.

Orders have been given to receive them and conduct them to the spot fixed for the meeting.

Telegraph from Paul von Hindenburg to Ferdinand Foch, 1 p.m.,  
7 November 1918

The German plenipotentiaries for an armistice leave Spa today.  They will leave here at noon and reach at 5 o'clock this afternoon the French outposts by the Chimay-Fourmies-La Capelle-Guise road.

They will be ten persons in all, headed by Secretary of State Erzberger.

Telegraph from Paul von Hindenburg to Ferdinand Foch, 1.50 p.m., 7 November 1918

German General Headquarters to the Allied General Headquarters:

The Supreme German Command to Marshal Foch:

From the German outposts to the French outposts our delegation will be accompanied by a road-mending company to enable automobiles to pass the La Capelle road, which has been destroyed.

Telegraph from Paul von Hindenburg to Ferdinand Foch, 6 p.m., 7 November 1918

The German Supreme Command to Marshal Foch:

By reason of delay the German delegation will not be able to cross the outpost line until between 8 and 10 o'clock tonight at Haudroy, two kilometres northeast of La Capelle.

Source: Source Records of the Great War, Vol. VI, ed. Charles F. Horne, National Alumni 1923

The Traumatic Birth of Kaiser Wilhelm II

On 27 January 1859, the first child of the Prussian Crown Prince Friedrich and his wife Victoria was born in Berlin. One of the doctors present noted that the royal baby was born "seemingly dead" after long and painful hours of labor endured by his (then only 18-year-old) mother. It was a complicated and unexpected breech birth, and for the attendant physicians, both English and German, the struggle to save the baby's life was made more difficult by the fact that royal etiquette forced them to work under the long skirts of the princess. The young mother had been heavily sedated with chloroform, a recent medical discovery whose risks were yet unknown. It was an invention that Queen Victoria had found to be so useful herself that she had personally ensured her eldest daughter Vicky received it for her first labor.

Only later did it become apparent to the proud mother and those close to her that all was not well with the newborn. The forceful intervention of the physicians had caused injury to the prince's neck and had severed some nerves leading to the left arm, leaving him permanently disabled, although the full extent of the damage was not apparent at the time and would be revealed only gradually.

Despite the many cruel and imaginative ways the best doctors of the time attempted to cure the unhappy child's disability—with the application of electric currents, with so-called "animal baths" in which a freshly slaughtered hare was wrapped around the lifeless arm, by strapping the "good" arm to the boy's body, thus forcing him to attempt to use the useless one—the child that was destined to rule the most powerful military state of the late 19th century was unable even to get dressed by himself or cut up his own food. His mother was barely able to conceal her disappointment in her child, and the son, aware of the rejection, developed a strained love-hate relationship with his mother. Later in his life, these ambivalent feelings toward his English-born mother turned into a similarly strained relationship with England—with disastrous consequences.

Why should the birth of a baby—albeit a royal one—attract the attention of historians? There is the obvious reason that the child in question was predestined to become Prussian King and German Kaiser. The Prince, named Wilhelm, like his grandfather, who was King of Prussia and would become German Emperor in 1871, was to rule Germany for 30 years, from 1888 until his abdication and flight to the Netherlands in November 1918.

The baby who had suffered such a traumatic start grew up to be a troubled, hyperactive, and difficult child and later a disturbed, cruel, and sometimes even dangerous man. For some commentators the reasons for this lie not only in the horrific "cures" for his physical disability, his harsh upbringing with an exaggerated emphasis on discipline and Prussian-style militarism, and the strained relationship with his mother, but also to some extent in the traumatic events surrounding the birth itself. Specifically, side effects from the use of chloroform, together with prolonged oxygen starvation in the child, have led to speculations about possible brain damage, although it is impossible to prove such a thesis beyond doubt.

Dr. Annika Mombauer,  January 2008, Over the Top

Eyewitness: Through the Periscope: RMS Lusitania

Clear bow-shot from 700 meters. . . Torpedo hits starboard side close abaft the bridge, followed by a very unusually large explosion with a violent emission of smoke (far above the foremost funnel). In addition to the explosion of the torpedo there must have been a second one (boiler or coal or powder).

The superstructure above the point of impact and the bridge are torn apart, fire breaks out, a thick cloud of smoke envelops the upper bridge. The ship stops at once and very quickly takes on a heavy list to starboard, at the same time starting to sink by the bow. She looks like she will quickly capsize.

Much confusion on board; boats are cleared away and some of them lowered to the water. Apparently considerable panic; several boats, fully laden, are hurriedly lowered, bow or stern first and at once fill with water. . .

Kapitänleutnant Walter Schwieger's War Diary, 7 May 2015

Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis 1890-1928 Reviewed by James M. Gallen

Russia in Revolution: 
An Empire in Crisis 1890–1928

by S.A. Smith

Oxford University Press, 2017

The Russian Revolution is one of—and arguably the most significant—sequels of the Great War. Russia In Revolution is the 38-year story of an empire whose chronic state of crisis led to a series of revolutions that transformed its country and shook the world. From the 1860s and especially the 1890s Russia's aristocracy strove to maintain its nation's status among European powers by industrialization, development of agriculture, expansion of railroads, and modernization of the military. While contributing to the Russian economy, this energy also created new social classes such as more prosperous peasants, industrial workers, commercial and industrial capitalists, and professional middle classes whose demands for their day in the sun destabilized the traditional societal balance.

Shooting During the February Revolution

One clear point from Russia in Revolution is that it was war that undermined the stability of the Russian state. The progress being made in Russian society raised expectations but did not prevent the critical mass of discontent that made revolution inevitable. Defeat in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 and the slaughter of the Great War heated the civic borsch to the point of overflow.

The 9 January 1905 march of 150,000 workers and their families to the Winter Palace to present a petition to the tsar was met by troops who opened fire killing 200 and injuring 800. Word of Bloody Sunday spread throughout the land, setting off months of strikes, rebellions, demonstrations, and political organizing. The fusion of labor movements with the educated middle class and gentry raised demands for a constitution, civil rights, and an end to the war with Japan. Loyalty of the generals provided time for the tsar to promulgate the concessions, establishing a Duma that eased the pressures and enabled the modernization of the country to resume.

The outbreak of war brought a surge of patriotism and fealty to the tsar. As visions of victory receded from view the lengthening casualty lists, food shortages in what, at the advent of the war, had been the world's greatest exporter of grain, and rampant inflation led to strikes that disrupted war production and gave greater cohesion to the voices of discontent. Demands for an end to the war and economic improvement, particularly in the renamed capital of Petrograd, resulted in more troops firing on protesters, the organization of political committees, and intrigue within the Duma. The generals, who had held the line for the tsar and his regime in 1905, switched to the Duma, forcing the abdication of the tsar on 3 March 1917, after only 12 days of unrest.

May Day, 1917: Posters Calling for a World Proletariat and the End of Capitalism

The March revolution was more of a disintegration of the regime than a defeat by an organized opposition. The pieces were picked up by the Duma-authorized Provisional Government, in which Alexander Kerensky played a major role along with military groups, labor unions, local soviets, and regional authorities. The challenge facing the Provisional Government was to consolidate power in its hands by gaining support from splintered power centers advancing disparate and conflicting policies. Lenin arrived in Petrograd on 3 April, a month after the abdication of the tsar, on a sealed train provided by Germany to transport him from exile in Switzerland.

The Provisional Government's determination to fulfill its obligation to the Allies by continuing the war led to the Kerensky Offensive of 18 June to 6 July that was a disaster on both the military and the domestic political fronts. Dissatisfaction with the war gave the Bolsheviks and other groups an issue with which to consolidate opposition to the Provisional Government, resulting in the October Revolution, which brought the Bolsheviks to power. Once in power Lenin sought to extricate Russia from the war in a way that would wreak the least havoc on the country he now governed. It is pointed out that he justified some of the territorial concessions demanded by Germany in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, at least in part, because of his belief that revolution would spread across Europe, erasing national boundaries through the withering away of the state that would follow the ascension of Communism.

The Bolshevik triumph was neither thorough nor final. Through October 1922 the "Whites," consisting largely of officers and supporters of the ancient regime, fought with Western aid and intervention, to restore Russia as it had been; however, the support of the population for the Reds finalized their victory and a hold on Russia that would last for over 60 years.

Author S. A. Smith has drawn upon recently released documents along with other materials to compose in Russia in Revolution. He examines the revolution from all facets, including ideological, political, ethnic, economic, military, and personal. Readers will find themes that figure so prominently in other accounts of the revolution, such as the contribution of Empress Alexandra and the role and murder of Rasputin, dispatched in a very few paragraphs. Smith has provided us with a thorough study of an empire that tore itself apart and slowly put the pieces back together again into a country that would immensely affect history, doing so in the course of being an historical cul-de-sac going from capitalism to communism and back to capitalism. Smith concludes that the Russian Revolution ended in tyranny, raising questions about justice, equality, and freedom, spawning revolutionaries (including Ho Chi Minh) who took its spirit to other lands. Despite the magnitude of the Russian Revolution's ideals and tragedies, Smith posits that future historians may find the great revolution of the 20th century in China, not Russia.

James M. Gallen

An Economic Rationale for America Entering the War

Editor's Note:  I've always been suspicious of economic arguments about the origins of the First World War, especially America's later entry.  This excerpt from a paper sent to me by the late Latin American specialist Professor Robert F. Smith, PhD, and  is the first such argument that seems credible to me.  

His argument:

By 1916, both Britain and Germany were still active in the region and Britain had begun planning for a postwar boom, foreseeing that military expenditures could be turned toward commercial endeavors.

French Commerce and Industry
Secretary Étienne Clémentel
Hosted the 1916 Paris Conference

The June 1916 Paris Economic Conference fueled American fears of a postwar European financial surge in Latin America.  Allied governments agreed to the conference out of a desire to plan a postwar economic order that included a crippled and subjugated Germany.  They wanted to coordinate a program that punished Germany economically for its warmongering and kept the nation from regaining its commercial preeminence when hostilities ceased.  The conference spoke of dividing the world into regional spheres of influence.  

To reach this goal, the Allies agreed to tighten their economic sanctions against Germany and continue those sanctions after the war.  Senator William Stone of Mississippi was alarmed by the Conference’s position, pointing out that while it was proposing commercial warfare against Germany, it was also planning a system that could easily be turned against the U.S.  Stone’s concern was validated by the fact that the U.S. was neither invited to the conference nor mentioned as part of the postwar economic order under discussion.  The magazine Iron Age editorialized that “even in the midst of war (the Allies) were planning for a new era of industrial expansion (and the U.S. was) doing nothing to prepare for this challenge.”   The Paris Conference made Americans realize just how vulnerable they were in foreign markets, especially Latin America.   Despite preoccupation with the war, Britain and France had not lost sight of their interests overseas.  Yet, while Americans were concerned with Allied financial activities, the U.S. ultimately declared war on Germany because Germany was the greater threat to wartime and postwar economic prosperity.  Latin America was not the focus of this concern, but it became a battleground.

Germany’s militarism, added to its control of critical industries, made that nation a greater threat to the U.S. than the Allies. Government analyst Thomas Norton wrote in 1915 that “the dominance of Germany in the dyestuffs production and commerce of the entire world is so marked and inherently of such potential might that it does not hesitate to make itself felt whenever and wherever an effort is made toward emancipation from its control.”   The German chemical trust owned over 4,500 chemical patents in the U.S. alone.  A German cartel also controlled the prices of copper in the world, which was a threat to American electrical interests. Wilson, and the U.S. in general, was feeling hemmed in by German commercial activities. German submarines also limited the safe travel of Americans.  While neutrality should have protected U.S. merchants from German attack, U-boat captains often destroyed a ship rather than risk surfacing to question that ship’s nationality.  American fear turned to anger when civilians on the ships Lusitania and Sussex were lost to German torpedoes.  

By 1917, random German U-boat attacks had become a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. Wilson, and many Americans with him, began to believe that German militarism and commerce did not constitute a safe future for the world.  “An economically healthy Europe that was able to participate actively in world affairs,” wrote Historian Burton Kaufman, “was essential if President Wilson was to achieve a postwar community of nations predicated on the principles of liberal capitalism and peaceful commercial competition.” Germany did not fit into that model, and if victorious, would surely construct a new economic system with its allies to the detriment of the U.S. No matter who won the war, a huge postwar economic battle would ensue, with the US caught in the middle.  Action was needed, and unrestricted submarine warfare ensured that American actions were directed at the German Empire.

Cartoon Published Just Before the President's War Message

The protection of American financial interests and trade was a critical factor in leading Wilson to ask Congress for a declaration of war on Germany on 2 April 1917.  He reasoned that the “present German submarine warfare against commerce” was both “warfare against mankind” and “against the government and people of the United States...” Moreover, he said, “one of the things that has served to convince us that the Prussian autocracy was not and could never be our friend is that from the very outset of the present war it has filled our unsuspecting communities ...with...criminal intrigues...(in)...our industries and our commerce.” Though all of Europe was a threat to American interests in Latin America, Germany was the greater threat to American interests in general.  War, however, would give the U.S. an opportunity to promote its interests in that region specifically.

Source: "Capturing Commerce: America’s Great War Front in Latin America"

Eyewitness: Serbians Storm Kajmakčalan, September 1916, Part II

Editor's Introduction

E.P. Stebbing (Scottish Nat. Mus.)

Edward Percy Stebbing (1872–1960) was a pioneering British forester and forest entomologist in India. He was among the first to warn of desertification and desiccation and wrote on "The encroaching Sahara". He spent 1916 on the Macedonian Front as a transportation officer for the Scottish Womens' Hospital volunteer ambulance organization supporting the Serbian Army.   He was just behind the front line at Ostrovo during the most critical operation of 1916, the capture of Kajmakčalan Peak, today  located almost precisely on the Greek-Macedonian border.  After the war he published an account of his service at the Serbian Front in Macedonia.

The Battle of Kajmakčalan resulted in a victory for the Allies against the Central Powers.  The Serbs, led by General Živojin Mišić, commander of the Serbian First Army, were victorious against the Bulgarians, finally taking the key position, but at a huge cost to the Serbs. Few battles have been fought at such heights. Kajmakčalan, with its twin peaks, is, at its highest point, 8200 feet. And once a certain height was reached, the battle was hand to hand.  (Heroes of Serbia Website)

Bulgarian Troops Counterattacking

Stebbing's Description of the Fighting, Part II

(The initial part of this account appears in the 16 September 2017 posting at Roads to the Great War.)

September 25th.—The day was quiet with intermittent artillery fire. The attack opened fiercely tonight to N.E., N., and N.W., with the usual accompaniment of star shells, flares and machine-gun, bombs, and rifle fire. It lasted for several hours and a fiercely contested battle was evidently taking place.

September 26th.—The attack of last night continued into the early hours of this morning and was especially fierce in the direction of Starkov Grob. Throughout the day there were occasional outbursts of artillery fire which increased after nightfall with fierce bursts of small arms fire.

September 27th.—The heavy firing on night of 25th-26th September was the fiercest engagement which has yet taken place. It was hand-to-hand, the Bulgarians counter-attacking the Serbians to recover lost trenches on the heights. The enemy came on four times and got into the Serbian trenches, only to be thrown out. It is rumoured, however, that the Serbians lost portions of trenches they had previously taken. The latter had 500 killed and 1000 wounded, and they say that the Bulgarian losses were far heavier, which is probable, as they were the attackers, and the ground up there is almost devoid of cover. Wounded from this fight were brought down to the hospital to-day, amongst these the Serbian colonel. Colonel Stojchitch, previously alluded to. He told me that the fighting had been of the fiercest with the bayonet and no quarter given. To make matters worse, the ammunition ran short, probably owing to the block on the railway.

I rode out to a hill a couple of miles away in the late afternoon, from which a fine view of the whole upper part of Kajmaktcalan is obtained. The Serbian batteries were firing salvoes on to the crest, whilst the bursting shells of the Bulgarian batteries dotted the slopes below, searching the Serbian lines. The night was comparatively quiet, but star shells and flares were constantly sent up, each side doubtless expecting an attack.

Heard this evening that orders had been issued to give the Serbs a couple of days' rest before the final

assault is made. The Serbian colonel told me that they are now up to the upper line of trenches very near the crest. He said that the fighting was of the deadliest. His regiment, 2500 strong, had suffered severely in these advances, numbering now only 950 ; that he had had 30 officers killed and as many wounded, including himself, he being in a forward trench at the time. I saw the place later.

The Crown Prince of Serbia Visiting the Hospital Area

September 28th.—Practically no firing to-day. The Serbs are resting and their batteries waiting for more ammunition. Heard to-day that General Wassitch has determined on a big push in two days' time to clear the Bulgars off the crest of Kajmaktcalan, and finally pierce this stronghold.

September 29th.—I went up to the Drina dressing station some five miles or so below the firing line. The guns were quiet up here, and the mountains, putting on their autumn tints, were glorious. The road up the Drina is described later.

I had heard from Captain Gooden, liaison officer, that the grand attack was to commence to-night and remained in Ostrovo to watch it. Already the shades of night had fallen on the lower parts of the mountain, but the summit was bathed in soft yellow light from the rapidly setting sun. Soon this turned to blood red, a fitting pall for the night of carnage which was so soon to take place up there on the heights. The night bid fair to remain clear and starlight. As often as not during the past fortnight the upper part of the great mountain has been enshrouded in mist. From our position we could only see the flashes of the guns and the reflected light of the star shells, flares, bombs, etc., for a swelling in the upper part of a spur below the crest hid the actual scene of the fight and deadened to some extent the noise of the rifle and machine-gun fire. The bursting of the Bulgar shells was distinctly visible, ceaselessly searching for our batteries. We sat and watched the great fight for some hours. Now and then the telephone spoke, but there was nothing definite yet. The fight continued throughout the night, but the sound decreased in the morning, possibly due, we thought, to the fact that the wind was blowing from the south up on to the crest. No news had come in to say that definite success had been attained, no news that was given out at any rate. 

Memorial Chapel Atop Kajmakčalan

Through  the day the guns waxed and waned, and in the camp, to which I had to return, as one went about the work one feverishly wondered how things were going up there. In the evening just before supper anxiety was set at rest. A telephone message came through, saying that the Serbs had captured the crest and that the Bulgarians were in full retreat down the steep northern slopes of Kajmaktcalan. We were all, Serbians and British alike, very jubilant that night, and there was great festivity in the Serbian camp and our hearty congratulations were not wanting.

The Serbians had still much hard fighting in front of them where Monastir was to fall, and that fall was to be directly attributable to their magnificent efforts and extraordinary pluck. But they never fought a better fight than when the 3rd Royal Serbian Army, to which we were so proud to belong, captured the crest of Kajmaktcalan after an Homeric contest, and once again set foot on the beloved soil of their native land.

Eyewitness: Serbians Storm Kajmakčalan, September 1916, Part I

Editor's Introduction

E.P. Stebbing (Scottish Nat. Mus.)

Edward Percy Stebbing (1872–1960) was a pioneering British forester and forest entomologist in India. He was among the first to warn of desertification and desiccation and wrote on "The encroaching Sahara". He spent 1916 on the Macedonian Front as a transportation officer for the Scottish Womens' Hospital volunteer ambulance organization supporting the Serbian Army.   He was just behind the front line at Ostrovo during the most critical operation of 1916, the capture of Kajmaktcalan Peak, today  located almost precisely on the Greek-Macedonian border.  After the war he published an account of his service at the Serbian Front in Macedonia.

The Battle of Kajmakčalan resulted in a victory for the Allies against the Central Powers.  The Serbs, led by General Živojin Mišić, commander of the Serbian First Army, were victorious against the Bulgarians, finally taking the key position, but at a huge cost to the Serbs. Few battles have been fought at such heights. Kajmakčalan, with its twin peaks, is, at its highest point, 8200 feet. And once a certain height was reached, the battle was hand to hand.  (Heroes of Serbia Website)

Stebbing's Description of the Fighting

About the middle of September the real attack on  the Kajmaktcalan [ed. note–Stebbing is using a rough transliteration of the Serbian] and Starkov Grob positions began.  The fortified crest of the former mountain, with the  equally strong Starkov Grob one to the west, formed the key to the whole position. Once taken it meant that the Serbs could descend on the other side in the direction of the Monastir plain, though there would be plenty of hard fighting to undertake on the Cherna before they reached that point. It was on September 18th that I saw the real commencement of the attack on Kajmaktcalan.

Serbian Troops on the March

Something took me into Ostrovo on a brilliant morning. We had beautiful autumn weather for the most part during the next month. The slopes of the great mountain lay bathed in sunlight with fleecy cloud masses here and there, in part composed of smoke from the batteries. These were hard at work. The bursting shrapnel from the Bulgarian guns could be distinctly seen, as also our batteries firing up over the ridge searching for the Bulgar batteries on the far side, hidden in almost impenetrable ravines ; their guns hauled up to this great height at the expense of almost superhuman labour. To get our own batteries into their present position, as I subsequently saw for myself, was a task which no one would have dreamt of attempting before this war. The bombardment on this morning was very severe, much more so than it had been for many a week past, on and off. Away to the west the cannonade was also very heavy. This was to culminate in the assault on Fiorina which fell on this night. The Kajmaktcalan mountain mass rises sheer up due north of Ostrovo at a distance of about a couple of miles. It looks an impossible place to get troops and guns up into.

Italian, Serbian, and Russian Officers Assigned to the Sector

The battle of Kajmaktcalan is usually given as having been fought and won on September 18th. But this is not the date upon which the final summit was won. I describe this battlefield in a later chapter from notes made at the time of visiting it. The taking of the three successive lines of trenches on the slopes and crest of Kajmaktcalan and the Starkov Grob position to the south-west took the best part of ten days or more. Being encamped so close and within sound and view of the mountain, I daily recorded the various phases of the battle as the news came in to us by telephone. Also many of the seriously wounded from the battlefield came direct to us, brought down from the field dressing station on the Drina immediately below the fighting line. I had the good fortune to become great friends with a colonel of one of the infantry regiments, Colonel Stojchitch, who was badly wounded in the arm in one of the fierce fights up on the great mountain side. The actual crest was taken on September 30th. Truly was it a fight fit for gods up there, far above tree level on the stony and rocky slopes in the bitter cold of late autumn, and all honour to the men who fought it. It was the Army to which we belonged that was fighting up there,  and we followed the fortunes of the great contest, as they waxed and waned, with close attention and anxiety ; for until the Bulgarians were turned out of there, the fortunes of our hospital were still in the balance. Retreat would be impossible for us and none were keen on becoming prisoners to the Bulgars.

Kajmakčalan Viewed from the Village, Peak Obscured by Clouds & Artillery Smoke

The following daily record as jotted down in my diary is of interest :

September 19th.—Artillery fire broke out heavily during the night.

September 20th.—A severe action was fought tonight up on Kajmaktcalan, preceded by heavy gun fire, with the first machine-gun, bombing, and rifle fire heard up there.

I was told that the Serbians were attacking the first of the three lines of trenches protected by wire entanglements. For three hours the turmoil continued. The Serbians were enfiladed by machine-gun fire and lost heavily. My little bell tent faces north over Kajmaktcalan, and I lay on my cot looking across to where the great mountain mass cut the dark vault of the heavens, studded with brilliant stars. The slopes were flickering with the flashes of the guns and the star shells, whilst the crest gleamed dull red. One hoped to see it all a bit nearer one day. Some progress was made, we heard.

September 21st.—A stormy wet thundery day. Kajmaktcalan is hidden in dense cloud masses. It must be bitter cold work for both sides carrying out modern war at that elevation under such conditions. A lull in the firing. It is quite strange to be without the sound of guns in our ears.

September 22nd.—The guns commenced firing again this afternoon, the visibility having improved. The check, owing to the mist, has been rough on the Serbians, as it has enabled the Bulgarians to strengthen their positions.

Bulgarian Counterattack Against the Peak

September 23rd.—Guns have been at work all to-day, and to-night a fierce engagement, the hottest we have had for several nights, is taking place up on Kajmaktcalan. 

Sunday, September 24th.—Heavy fighting took place on the mountain this afternoon. The progress is slower than was anticipated.

Part II of this account will be presented tomorrow. . .

Remembering a Veteran: Col. Hiram Bearss, USMC

Col Hiram I. Bearss, had the most varied career of any officer of the AEF. As a temporary colonel he arrived in command of the Base Detachment of the 5th Marines. He had already been approved for a Medal of Honor for services in the Philippines in 1901, which was awarded in 1934. With duty at St. Nazaire he was also made CO of the base, including several U.S. Army labor companies. When Col Doyen assumed command of the newly created 2nd Division, Bearss commanded the 5th Regiment of Marines, then the 4th Brigade. "Hiking Hiram," as he was known, was relieved in February 1918 when Wendell Neville arrived to command the 5th  and Doyen returned to the brigade. 

Bearss was placed in command of the 3d Bn, 9th Infantry of the 2nd Division, especially to train this polyglot unit composed of mainly recent immigrants. He did a fine job and later became CO of the 9th Infantry at Toul. He was assigned to duty with the 2nd Division and then to the 6th Marines as assistant to the regimental commander. Because he was over in grade he eventually was transferred as CO of the 102nd Infantry, 26th Division. 

He led them admirably at St. Mihiel, where the 26th Division helped close the salient, and later at Marchville where he earned a DSC.“His indomitable courage and leadership led to the complete success of the attack by two battalions of his regiment at Marcheville and Raiville. During the attacks these two towns changed hands four times, finally remaining in our possession when the enemy withdrew. Under terrific machine gun and artillery fire he was the first to enter Marcheville, where he directed operations. Later, upon finding his party completely surrounded, he personally assisted in fighting the enemy off with pistol and hand grenades.”  Later,  he assumed command of the 51st Brigade, 26th Division. 

Retiring as a brigadier general, he was also the recipient of the Army & Navy Distinguished Service Medal; Legion of Honor (officer); CdG, Palm and a CdG, Silver; and the Belgian Croix de Guerre. A Fletcher-class destroyer, commissioned in 1944, was named after him

Bearss died 28 August 1938, in an automobile collision in Columbia City, Indiana, while en route from Chicago to Peru, Indiana. He was buried at Peru in Mount Hope Cemetery

Details courtesy of George Clark