Sabin Howard's A Soldier's Journey—Centerpiece of the National World War One Memorial in Washington, DC.

All Images Can Be Enlarged by Clicking on Them

Models for the Combat Section

In 2017 we presented an article by our British correspondent Patrick Gregory on the progress made by artist Sabin Howard on his centerpiece 60-foot-long freestanding high-relief bronze for the new World War One memorial.  Please take a look at Patrick's article. It stands the test of time with much information on the the artist's philosophy and the technology he planned to use to create the massive sculpture, which will be the largest of its type in the western hemisphere.

Current State of the Construction During the Shutdown
To the Rear of the Camera, One Block Away, Is the White House

Artist Sabin Howard with a Mock-Up of the Sculpture

However, in the ensuing two and a half years there's much new information come available about A  Soldier's Journey.  On 3 April, I was invited to view a webinar on the status on the memorial which is now under construction. The report included updates from the engineers and construction managers, as well as a report from lead designer Joe Weishaar.  Joe did a wonderful job of describing  how the final design has evolved.  In my view, the final version has come out simpler but more elegant and stroll-inducing than the 2016 initial proposal. I think it will draw more traffic in this configuration. That said, the reputation and public perception of the quality of the new memorial will be based almost entirely on Sabin Howard's creation. In a realistic, non-abstract style that young and old can readily understand, it dynamically tells its story moving progressively left to right. The more I'm exposed to his design, the more I'm convinced he has come up with an inspiring theme that honors with grandeur the Doughboys and the nation's experience in the war.

I've downloaded some images from the webinar and the accompanying documentary film to show what will be coming in over the next three years as the park is completed and A Soldier's Journey is phased in.  I found myself very excited as I listened to Mr. Howard describe his work.

These Are the Models for the "Returning Home" Section
The Young Lady on the Right Is the Artist's Daughter

Father Duffy Conducts a Burial Ceremony in France

Real-life models  of the works 38 human figures are used throughout the multi-step design process.  Armatures of each figure will be created using 3-D printing by a firm in England. They will be returned to the U.S. where Sabin will sculpt the finished figures in clay.  The clay figures will be then cast in bronze. This, of course, will be quite time consuming. Depending on when construction can resume, the full park site should be completed in about a year and will be opened to the public. A Soldier's Journey will be phased in and is hoped to be fully installed by late 2023 or early 2024.

Phasing-in Scheme, First Installation

To listen to Sabin Howard discuss his work, I highly recommend this 14-minute documentary, which also includes comments by Americans whose relatives served in the war and some of the best period photographs I've seen.  

A Soldier's Journey from WW1centennial on Vimeo.

Walking in the Footsteps of the Fallen: Verdun 1916

by Christina Holstein.

Pen & Sword Books, 2019

James Thomas, Reviewer

Memorial to Emile Driant, First French Hero of Verdun

Walking in the Footsteps of the Fallen is a tour guide. However, this is an understatement and is like saying World War I's Battle of Verdun was just a battle or that Christina Holstein is simply a docent. This is the latest in Holstein's collection of studies of that horrific battle that stretched from February until December of 1916. Of all her books, this is the most moving and perhaps the one that would be most approved of by Jean Norton Cru, veteran of the battle and critic of all things written about the war.

Author Christin Holstein

Christina Holstein is generally—and quite accurately—considered the leading expert on all things regarding the Battle of Verdun. Her books represent a lifetime of study, exploration, and guiding others through the intricacies of the story and the grounds where it played out. Each book tells the story, as in the first, Walking Verdun, or part of the story, such as Fort Vaux. By describing the battle in relation to the places where it happened, Holstein is in fact giving tours, but there is so much more than that. By packing each volume with photographs both contemporary and recent, the reader—or visitor—gets more than just a tour of the battlefield. Instead, the reader gets the best sort of history lesson, and that lesson is thorough and since the lessons are about Verdun, disturbing.

Walking in the Footsteps of the Fallen is the most disturbing and most impressive of her collection because in this one she leaves the main tourist paths and takes the visitor on four tours to the lesser-known and less-traveled trails to learn about the experiences of many of those thousands who died in that ten-month slaughter-fest. Scattered throughout the area there are small cemeteries, individual markers, some simply in fragments and others restored. Holstein has tracked down the stories of many of these men and recounts those stories to the reader.

I visited Verdun once, a lifetime ago, in 1980. Memories of the place are certainly vivid, especially of Fort Douaumont and the Ossuary, but the walking tours in those days were straightforward and, while moving, did not have the overwhelming power brought by Holstein's specific human stories. If her books had been available in those pre-PhD days, my already present love of history would certainly have been fueled into the professional fire that developed later. (Looking back at that visit with the regrets of hindsight, I realize how nice it would have been to stop and speak—even in very amateurish French—with the elderly men with canes and ribbons who shuffled along the trails revisiting the scenes of their own youth..

Unlike the brochures and pamphlets that visitors generally pick up at battlefields and other historical sites, and which usually only make sense holding them in hand while walking the site, Holstein's books are as useful reading at home as they are while walking the battlefield. This is particularly true of her most recent volume,Walking in the Footsteps of the Fallen, which takes the reader deeper into the walkable areas of the battle and deeper into the lives lost in that battle, which, in fact, makes the visitor more than just another tourist.

James Thomas

The 19th Century Roots of the Great War, Part II

See Yesterday's Entry for Part I

Bismarck Visiting With Emperor Franz Joseph

5. Austria-Hungary and Germany Form Their Alliance, 5 October 1879

Facts: As a bulwark against Russia and to restrain Austria-Hungary from Balkan

misadventure, Bismarck negotiated a "Dual Alliance" with Franz Josef, who gained German military support in return.

Importance: Bismarck had tied the fate of Germany to a once-great, but disintegrating, power. In 1882 Italy makes it a Triple Alliance but will  not fight with them in 1914.

6. Wilhelm II Crowned Kaiser / Bismarck's Days as Chancellor Are Numbered,  15 June 1888

Facts: Incompatible in temperament, aspirations, and over methods for conducting diplomacy, Bismarck and the Kaiser worked together for two years before the Iron Chancellor was sent packing.  

Importance: Wilhelm subsequently played a more personal and often destructive role in shaping policy, with the Russian-German relationship quickly withering.

7. French and Russian Rapprochement Follows the Fall of Bismarck, 1892–1894

Facts: As Karl Marx once predicted, France and Russia—without Bismarck's skilled hand to prevent it—fell into each other's arms. A military agreement was followed by a full alliance and economic links.

Importance: Germany and Austria now had to plan for the possibility of a two-front war, although Russia was preoccupied with expanding in Asia at the time.

Kaiser Wilhelm II, Admiral Tirpitz, and General Moltke the Younger

8. German Strategic Planning Becomes Incoherent, 1890s–20th Century

Facts: A split developed in German strategic thinking as the Army—responding to the French-Russian Entente—began planning for a two-front ground war, while the Navy—responding to the Kaiser's Weltpolitik imperial policy—prepared to challenge the primacy of the Royal Navy and the Foreign Office advocated economic penetration into the Middle East with such ventures as the Berlin-Baghdad Railway that threatened Russian interests and the British Raj. Meanwhile, the Kaiser's public utterances succeeded in alarming all the other powers.

Importance: These measures collectively succeeded in driving the opposing

coalition of 1914 into one another's arms. 

Sources: Over the Top Magazine,  May 2008 and January 2014

The 19th Century Roots of the Great War, Part I

1. Napoleon Bonaparte Defeated at Waterloo 18 June 1815

Facts: The murderous ardor released with the French Revolution seemed spent with Bonaparte's final defeat. The concurrent Congress of Vienna gave the traditional powers, the "old order," a chance to reestablish authority and a balance of power.

Importance: Over the next 99 years the forces of urbanization, science, economic growth, and modernism undermined that "old order."

2. Revolutions Terrify the European Ruling Class,  1848–1849

Facts: Revolutionary fervor reappeared in 1848. The old order restored its primacy, but many concessions had to be made: a Third Republic est. in France; nationalities legitimized; some freedoms granted.

Importance: Rulers more closely monitored their publics; "professional" revolutionaries emerged; middle classes were encouraged as a bulwark against disorder.

European Officer/Observers 
Meeting with General Stoneman of the Union Army

3. American Civil War Shows the Potential of Industrialized War, 1861–1865

Facts: Arguably the first "total war," the U.S. Civil War drew observers from all

the major powers. Reports were compiled on the battlefield efficacy of rifled artillery, armored ships, observation balloons, telegraph, and other technologies.

Importance: The use of railroads to move troops and provide logistical support was especially influential on Europeans.

4. Franco-Prussian War Gives Birth to a German Empire and the Lasting Enmity of France,  1870–1871

Facts: Provoked by Bismarck, the war resulted in the rout of France, the taking of Alsace-Lorraine, and the birth of the German Empire.

Importance: A triumph for Prussian militarism, the war shifted Europe's balance

of power and led to lasting enmity between France and Germany. Bismarck became Europe's "Honest Broker."

See Part II

Tomorrow

Sources: Over the Top Magazine,  May 2008 and January 2014

"Get the Boys Home Toot Sweet"

There's an outstanding account of the demobilization experience of the Doughboys in the Spring 2020 issue of Army History.

Download the Full Issue of the Magazine in PDF Format

HERE

Recommended: The French Experience at Gallipoli

French Field Kitchen at Gallipoli

Originally published at The Conversation, 23 April 2015

With almost the same number of soldiers as the Anzacs—79,000—and similar death rates—close on 10,000—French participation in the Gallipoli campaign could not occupy a more different place in national memory. What became a foundation myth in Australia as it also did in the Turkish Republic after 1923 was eventually forgotten in France.

Some of the reasons are obvious.

France was fighting for its very existence and many, including Joseph Joffre, the commander-in-chief on the Western Front, thought Gallipoli a sideshow at best and a wasted effort at worst. It was a British-conceived-and-led campaign, although the French were a fully fledged expeditionary force with their own staff and command structure.

It was also a failure, and while that never prevented anyone spinning redemptive narratives about heroism and national virtue, the French had plenty more relevant episodes to use for such purposes during the Great War, from the Marne in 1914 and Verdun in 1916 to final victory in 1918.

Even regarding the “front of the Orient,” as they called it, the French saw Gallipoli merely as a curtain-raiser to the subsequent campaign in Macedonia, to which most French units from Gallipoli transferred and which finally defeated Bulgaria in 1918, contributing to the victory over the Central Powers. Gallipoli failed to achieve any of its goals.

What was in it for the French?

Other reasons for the neglect of the campaign are less obvious—and more revealing—about its actual nature.

The French conceived of the Dardanelles in part at least as a colonial campaign. This was not true of its ostensible goals, since the idea of defeating the Ottoman Empire and linking up with Russia was clearly part of a continental conflict between the major European powers. One consequence of success would be (as it eventually was) the partitioning of the Ottoman Middle East. The French could not afford not to take part in case the British won. Even more tellingly, the campaign was conceived in a colonial mode.

As the “sick man of Europe,” it was assumed that the Ottoman Empire would collapse at the mere demonstration of Allied naval and military might. The land campaign would be just like the expeditions that had subordinated “native” peoples to French and European authority prewar—in Indochina, China, and Morocco.

Even after the naval fiasco of 18 March, when British and French ships failed to force the Dardanelles, the French imagined that the land campaign would be an easy march along the shores of the Sea of Marmara to Constantinople.

Finally, two-thirds of the French Expeditionary Force were composed of colonial soldiers, though two-thirds were also white. While two regiments were specially raised for the campaign from metropolitan France, many of the other soldiers came from elite European colonial regiments or white settlers from Algeria and Tunisia.

Despite initial plans, it proved impossible to use native North African soldiers (though they later went to Macedonia) because they would be fighting against fellow Muslims and possibly occupying the holy sites of the Middle East.

But a quarter to a third of the French soldiers were Tirailleurs Sénégalais, or Senegalese Infantry, though in reality they were recruited from all over French West Africa and included some creoles from the West Indies and islands of the Indian Ocean. While it is not true that there was no memory of the Dardanelles campaign in interwar France, it was largely colonial, being especially strong among the settler community in North Africa.

Needless to say, the Senegalese had their own oral traditions, but they were never in any active sense part of the official “memory” of the campaign. When the empire vanished after the Second World War, and French Algeria with it, the most obvious sources of a commemorative culture of Gallipoli disappeared.

Continue Reading the article at:

http://theconversation.com/why-we-dont-hear-about-the-10-000-french-deaths-at-gallipoli-40014

The Thing Called Armageddon: An Anecdote from Siegfried Sassoon

At 9:00 p.m. the company fell in at the top of the ruined street of Saint Martin. Two guides from the outgoing battalion awaited us. We were to relieve some Northumberland Fusiliers in the Hindenburg Trench—the companies going up independently.

It was a gray evening, dry and windless. The village of Saint Martin was a shattered relic; but even in the devastated area one could be conscious of the arrival of spring, and as I took up my position in the rear of the moving column, there was something in the sober twilight which could remind me of April evenings in England and the Butley cricket field where a few of us had been having our first knock at the nets. The cricket season had begun…. But the company had left the shell-pitted road and was going uphill across open ground. Already the guides were making the pace too hot for the rear platoon; like most guides they were inconveniently nimble owing to their freedom from accoutrement, and insecurely confident that they knew the way. The muttered message, “Pass it along—steady the pace in front,” was accompanied by the usual muffled clinkings and rattlings of arms and equipment. Unwillingly retarded, the guides led us into the deepening dusk. We hadn’t more than two miles to go, but gradually the guides grew less authoritative. Several times they stopped to get their bearings. Leake fussed and fumed, and they became more and more flurried. I began to suspect that our progress was circular.

At a midnight halt the hill still loomed in front of us; the guides confessed that they had lost their way, and Leake decided to sit down and wait for daylight. (There were few things more uncomfortable in the life of an officer than to be walking in front of a party of men all of whom knew that he was leading them in the wrong direction.) With Leake’s permission I blundered experimentally into the gloom, fully expecting to lose both myself and the company. By a lucky accident, I soon fell headlong into a sunken road and found myself among a small party of sappers who could tell me where I was. It was a case of, “Please, can you tell me the way to the Hindenburg Trench?” Congratulating myself on my cleverness, I took one of the sappers back to poor benighted B Company, and we were led to our battalion rendezvous.

We were at the end of a journey which had begun twelve days before, when we started from Camp Thirteen. Stage by stage, we had marched to the life-denying region which from far away had threatened us with the blink and growl of its bombardments. Now we were groping and stumbling along a deep ditch to the place appointed for us in that zone of inhuman havoc. There must have been some hazy moonlight, for I remember the figures of men huddled against the sides of communication trenches; seeing them in some sort of ghastly glimmer—(was it, perhaps, the diffused whiteness of a sinking flare beyond the ridge?) I was doubtful whether they were asleep or dead, for the attitudes of many were like death, grotesque and distorted. But this is nothing new to write about, you will say; just a weary company, squeezing past dead or drowsing men while it sloshes and stumbles to a front line trench. 

Nevertheless, that night relief had its significance for me, though in human experience it had been multiplied a million-fold. I, a single human being with my little stock of earthly experience in my head, was entering once again the veritable gloom and disaster of the thing called Armageddon. And I saw it then, as I see it now—a dreadful place, a place of horror and desolation which no imagination could have invented. Also it was a place where a man of strong spirit might know himself utterly powerless against death and destruction, and yet stand up and defy gross darkness and stupefying shell fire, discovering in himself the invincible resistance of an animal or an insect, and an endurance which he might, in after days, forget or disbelieve.

Anyhow, there I was, leading that little procession of Flintshire Fusiliers, many of whom had never seen a front line trench before. At that juncture they asked no compensation for their efforts except a mug of hot tea. The tea would have been a miracle, and we didn’t get it till next morning, but there was some comfort in the fact that it wasn’t raining.

It was nearly four o’clock when we found ourselves in the Hindenburg Main Trench. After telling me to post the sentries, Leake disappeared down some stairs to the Tunnel. The company we were relieving had already departed, so there was no one to give me any information. At first I didn’t even know for certain that we were in the front line. The trench was a sort of gully: deep, wide, and unfinished looking. The sentries had to clamber up a bank of loose earth before they could see over the top. Our company was only about eighty strong and its sector was fully six hundred yards. The distance between the sentry posts made me aware of our inadequacy in that wilderness. I had no right to feel homeless, but I did; and if I had needed to be reminded of my forlorn situation as a living creature, I could have done it merely by thinking of a field cashier. Fifty franc notes were comfortable things, but they were no earthly use up here, and the words “field cashier” would have epitomized my remoteness from snugness and security and from all assurance that I should be alive and kicking the week after next. But it would soon be Sunday morning; such ideas weren’t wholesome, and there was a certain haggard curiosity attached to the proceedings, combined with the self-dramatizing desperation which enabled a good many of us to worry our way through much worse emergencies than mine.

Out in No Man’s Land there was no sign of any German activity. The only remarkable thing was the unbroken silence. I was in a sort of twilight, for there was a moony glimmer in the low-clouded sky; but the unknown territory in front was dark, and I stared out at it like a man looking from the side of a ship. Returning to my own sector I met a runner with a verbal message from Battalion HQ. B Company’s front was to be thoroughly patrolled at once. Realizing the futility of sending any of my few spare men out on patrol (they’d been walking about for seven hours and were dead beat), I lost my temper, quietly and inwardly. Shirley and Rees were nowhere to be seen, and it wouldn’t have been fair to send them out, inexperienced as they were. So I stumped along to our right-flank post, told them to pass it along that a patrol was going out from right to left, and then started sulkily out for a solitary stroll in No Man’s Land. 

I felt more annoyed with Battalion Headquarters than with the enemy. There was no wire in front of the trench, which was, of course, constructed for people facing the other way. I counted my steps; two hundred steps straight ahead; then I began to walk the presumptive six hundred footsteps to the left. But it isn’t easy to count your steps in the dark among shell holes, and after a problematic four hundred I lost confidence in my automatic pistol, which I was grasping in my right-hand breeches pocket. Here I am, I thought, alone out in this god forsaken bit of ground, with quite a good chance of bumping into a Boche strong-post. Apparently there was only one reassuring action which I could perform; so I expressed my opinion of the war by relieving myself (for it must be remembered that there are other reliefs beside battalion reliefs). I insured my sense of direction by placing my pistol on the ground with its muzzle pointing the way I was going. Feeling less lonely and afraid, I finished my patrol without having met so much as a dead body, and regained the trench exactly opposite our left-hand post after being huskily challenged by an irresolute sentry, who, as I realized at the time, was the greatest danger I had encountered. It was now just beginning to be more daylight than darkness, and when I stumbled down a shaft to the underground trench, I left the sentries shivering under a red and rainy-looking sky.

By ten o’clock I was above ground again, in charge of a fatigue party. We went halfway back to Saint Martin, to an ammunition dump, whence we carried up boxes of trench mortar bombs. I carried a box myself, as the conditions were vile and it seemed the only method of convincing the men that it had to be done. We were out nearly seven hours; it rained all day and the trenches were a morass of glue-like mud. The unmitigated misery of that carrying party was a typical infantry experience of discomfort without actual danger. Even if the ground had been dry, the boxes would have been too heavy for most of the men; but we were lucky in one way: The wet weather was causing the artillery to spend an inactive Sunday. It was a yellow, corpse-like day, more like November than April, and the landscape was desolate and treeless. What we were doing was quite unexceptional; millions of soldiers endured the same sort of thing and got badly shelled into the bargain. Nevertheless I can believe that my party, staggering and floundering under its loads, would have made an impressive picture of “Despair.” The background, too, was appropriate. We were among the debris of the intense bombardment of ten days before, for we were passing along and across the Hindenburg Outpost Trench, with its belt of wire (fifty yards deep in places); here and there these rusty jungles had been flattened by tanks. 

The Outpost Trench was about two hundred yards from the Main Trench, which was now our front line. It had been solidly made, ten feet deep, with timbered firesteps, splayed sides, and timbered steps at intervals to front and rear and to machine-gun emplacements. Now it was wrecked as though by earthquake and eruption. Concrete strong-posts were smashed and tilted sideways; everywhere the chalky soil was pocked and pitted with huge shell holes; and wherever we looked the mangled effigies of the dead were our memento mori. Shell-twisted and dismembered, the Germans maintained the violent attitudes in which they had died. The British had mostly been killed by bullets or bombs, so they looked more resigned. But I can remember a pair of hands (nationality unknown) which protruded from the soaked ashen soil like the roots of a tree turned upside down; one hand seemed to be pointing at the sky with an accusing gesture. 

Each time I passed that place, the protest of those fingers became more expressive of an appeal to God in defiance of those who made the war. Who made the war? I laughed hysterically as the thought passed through my mud-stained mind. But I only laughed mentally, for my box of Stokes-gun ammunition left me no breath to spare for an angry guffaw. And the dead were the dead; this was no time to be pitying them or asking silly questions about their outraged lives. Such sights must be taken for granted, I thought, as I gasped and slithered and stumbled with my disconsolate crew. Floating on the surface of the flooded trench was the mask of a human face which had detached itself from the skull.

From: Memoirs of an Infantry Officer

Alvin York: "Don't Want to Fight"

See Line 12.

The Campaign in Gallipoli

by Hans Kannengiesser Pasha
Translated by Maj. C.J.P. Ball

The Naval and Military Press, Ltd., 1927 (facsimile)

Michael Kihntopf, Reviewer

German General & Turkish Field Marshal—
Liman von Sanders with Mustafa Kemal

Hans Kannengiesser (1868–1945) was a major general seconded from the German Army to the Turkish Army. He initially arrived in Constantinople as part of the 500-man military mission (a list of the officer corps is an appendix to the book) in December 1913. The Turkish government had asked for German help in reorganizing their army after the disastrous defeats in the Balkan Wars. The employment was met with protests from the French government, who controlled the Turkish police, and the British government, who controlled the navy. At the onset Kannengiesser's duties were with the War Office, during which he came into daily contact with Enver Pasha, one of the three Young Turks who controlled the government, and with his friend, Liman von Sanders who headed up the military mission.

The author's preface clearly lays out what his intentions were toward writing The Campaign in Gallipoli: "I have to date vainly awaited a history of the Gallipoli campaign, something more than a casual story in the newspapers … this is the reason why I have now seized a pen and believe myself to be fulfilling a comradely duty." The completed book appeared in 1927. The copy I reviewed was a facsimile produced by The Naval and Military Press. My research did not reveal any other books by Kannengiesser or even a biography beyond its Turkish placement.

The Campaign in Gallipoli begins with the author returning to Constantinople aboard ship after observing a practice mobilization and a conscription process in Northern Anatolia in early August 1914. Rumors abounded of world-shaking actions, but factual news was non-existent in a day without wireless communication. Throughout the trip, his anxiety was quite high because of the lack of communication available. Whenever the ship docked along the Black Sea coast, he sent his aide to find out what news was available. The aide always came back with no news. It wasn't until they finally arrived in Constantinople that Kannengiesser learned that the war had begun. Predictably, his reaction on hearing from a man in the street that Germany had declared war on France and Russia was to correct the man and tell him that undoubtedly France and Russia had declared war on Germany.

Turkish Field Piece at Gallipoli

With that observance I expected that the author would be another Great War German general who would bombastically criticize the Allies and dwell on the Central Powers fighting the good fight with incompetent commanders. I was pleasantly surprised to find the author's further writing very neutral and decidedly professional in tone with the exception of perpetuating the myth that Russia declared war on Turkey when it laid mines off the Bosporus and the Turkish navy had retaliated almost immediately by bombarding Russian ports. But even in that belief, Kannengiesser very succinctly notes that Turkish ships were shelling the Russian ports within one day of the supposed mine laying, a feat that was impossible without planning, considering the distance across the Black Sea. I decided to go on with the reading.

The next few chapters lay out what importance Turkey had in the Great War and why the Turks decided on an alliance with Germany. None of the paragraphs imply that Turkey was pulled into the fray without a choice. In his assessment of the Turkish Army, the author is quick to point out that the Balkan Wars and the Italian invasion of Libya had destroyed the army and depleted its supplies. I got the impression that he was not supportive of Turkey's decision. After the general descriptions, Kannengiesser launches into the Allied attempt to force the Dardenelles in November 1914. It is very apparent that the author, in 1927, had access to British documents on the campaign, and he reports what they said very accurately without bias. I could almost say that he applauded the actions, and his depiction of squabbling over Constantinople by the Allied governments and Greece (still a neutral at this time but opposed to seeing Russia in control of the strait) is quite interesting.

The author also outlines Liman von Sanders's (he was promoted to field marshal in the Turkish Army) plan to defend the Dardanelles in detail. In essence von Sanders knew the army couldn't lay out trench lines from one end of Gallipoli to the other. He, instead, opted for the concentration of a few divisions at likely landing places with the rest of his force in such positions that they could come to reinforce resistance when it was needed. Kannengiesser lays out the order of battle in detail and adds a brief description of the divisional and corps commanders. There are very few disparaging comments in these descriptions and the word "incompetent" never appears.

Depiction of British Forces Attacking Heights Above Suvla Bay in August
This Is When the Author Made His Biggest Contribution to the Campaign

Kannengiesser became involved in the fighting on 26 April 1915. Von Sanders ordered him to take over the 5th Division after the previous commander was ordered to another division. Kannengiesser's description of Kemal is complimentary, except that he notes Kemal took advice from no one, including his staff. When the author arrived at the divisional headquarters he was told that he was not needed and for the next two chapters the reader gets to experience Kannengiesser's frustration as he shunted from one division to the next, finally winding up in the 9th Division as an adviser of sorts. His advice often fell on deaf ears, but there were incidents in which his directions, such as digging trenches deeper and moving key elements out of sight, were accepted. He was constantly out at the front pointing this or that out and trying to improve the conditions that the common soldier lived under. Instead avoiding him, the men began to look forward to his company while the officers worried about his popularity.

Being constantly out in the front put him in places that proved crucial to the defense. His claim to fame rests in one particular incident. He was placed in command of two regiments in the 9th Division and ordered to move them north to find out what was going on near Suvla Bay in August 1915. Kannengiesser issued the orders for his regiments and then set out to reconnoiter the area he was to take over to better position the regiments when they arrived. There was news of Allied activity in the area, but nothing was known of its degree.

When Kannengiesser arrived on the heights overlooking Suvla Bay he found that the Allies were landing in force. His regiments were two days away. The author interrupts to say that there were many reports of what he did next, including a picture of him raising his sword and leading his division forward against an already entrenched enemy. Very quickly he says the incident didn't happen that way. Instead what he did was gallop along the heights looking for the contingent that was supposed to be watching the site. He found a battery of light artillery protected by an infantry platoon of about 20 men. He ordered these men, who questioned his authority, into action. They demurred, especially since he had to talk through an interpreter. As he puts it, "I threw myself at them," and they opened fire. The English, who were beginning to ascend, immediately lay down and did not return fire. Kannengiesser had the opinion that the English, under the hot sun and beginning the climb, were glad to stop and lie down. Luckily for him, two infantry regiments were traversing the area behind him. He took over command, after great difficulty again, and pushed them into defensive positions.

His defense of the heights goes into some detail regarding the Allied side, naming regiments and their intentions, and he quickly states that his meager force should have been overwhelmed. However, it wasn't. Why? He doesn't offer any explanation, despite an apparent access to British documents, except that maybe the commanders were worried about supplying water forward. To that he notes that had the Allies taken the heights there was water in abundance. Another explanation offered was that the commanders were simply not aggressive enough.

Kannengiesser was eventually wounded and sent to Constantinople to recover. In the meantime, the campaign boiled down to a stalemate, and he didn't return until the very day that the evacuation began. The Campaign in Gallipoli ends with no further exploits on his part except recovering abandoned supplies.

This book is a well-balanced depiction of the Gallipoli campaign from the Turkish perspective. The author does not talk in the bombastic manner so prevalent among German chroniclers. His description of a typical Turkish soldier is not critical, citing culture and religion as a driving factor. It lauds the soldiers' courage and determination. Moreover, it is well rounded, drawing heavily from British sources for a depiction of their actions. Another attribute is that Kannengiesser gives identity to his staff and commanders down to company level. He does not lead the troops; captains and the like do and they are named. This is a book that should be on the Great War aficionados' shelves.

Michael Kihntopf

22-23 April 1918: The Zeebrugge Raid

The Main Assault Ship HMS Vindictive After the Action

Zeebrugge on the Belgian coastline was an outlet for German U-boats and destroyers based up the canal at Bruges, and the British planned to sink three old cruisers, Iphegenia, Intrepid, and Thetis, in the channel to block it. These would have to pass a long harbor mole (a causeway or pier), with a battery at the end, before they were scuttled. It was decided therefore to storm the mole using another old cruiser, HMS Vindictive, and two Mersey ferries, Daffodil and Iris II, modified as assault vessels. Two old submarines were to be used as explosive charges, under the viaduct connecting the mole to the shore.

Vice Admiral Keyes

The attack went in on the night of 22–23 April, under the command of Dover Patrol Commander Vice Admiral Roger Keyes. Vindictive was heavily hit on the approach and came alongside in the wrong place. Despite much bravery by the landing party, the battery remained in action. One submarine did succeed in blowing up the viaduct, but the first blockship was badly hit and forced to ground before reaching the canal entrance. Only two (Ipheginia and Intrepid) were sunk in place.

Two Block Ships, Intrepid and Iphigenia, in Place

Much was made of the raid. Keyes was knighted, and 11 Victoria Crosses were awarded. The Germans, however, made a new channel round the two ships, and within two days their submarines were able to transit Zeebrugge. Destroyers were able to do so by mid-May.

Sources: BBC Website and The Times History of the War

Addendum from Our Regular Contributor Steve Miller

The Zeebrugge Raid Memorial:

A Unique and Precious Military History Documentary

Imagine you could jump into your Wayback Machine and dial in a visit to the site of one of the decisive battles of world history, say Cannae or Waterloo, meet Hannibal or Wellington, and have him guide  you around his battlefield.  In the course of your visit he shares with you his plans of that day, his strongest memories, and his regrets after decades of reflection.  Well, you have this opportunity for one, and only one, battle in all of history. In 1964 just before television became overwhelmingly partisan and politicized, CBS News invited former President Dwight Eisenhower, who had been supreme commander of the Allies on D-Day, to visit Normandy on the 20th anniversary of the battle to discuss the event.

Newsman Walter Cronkite does a masterful and unobtrusive job asking the right questions at the right time and place, but the old general is the star. Utterly engaging with his forthrightness and sincerity—although even after eight years in the White House, Ike's not TV-smooth, like almost every present-day politician—he commands the presentation for its full 90-minutes.

Victory Recipes: "Food Will Win the War"

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Source:  PBS: The American Experience

How My Old Man Survived the Spanish Flu and a Stay in the Pesthouse

George Hanlon at 80

The old man, George Hanlon (1905–1991), had an interesting time of it during the Great War in our home town of San Francisco. Years ago, I did  a presentation for the S.F. Chapter of the World War One Historical Association titled "Thanks, Dad, for the World War I Memories." I am going to focus on one part of that presentation for this article, but first I should explain how a boy aged about nine to 14 years old got to see and experience a broad range of the unfolding events of an exciting time for America and his own city.

My grandparents had broken up just about the time war broke out in Europe. My two aunts went to live with grandmother Laura in Arizona and Dad and his younger brother uncle Jimmy stayed with Grandfather Jack. I never met the man, but by all reports, Jack was a real hard case.  He soon ordered his oldest son to find work after school to support his upkeep. Consequently, at age ten, George found employment with Mr. William Randolph Hearst as a newsboy with Hearst's afternoon paper, the Call. His regular corner was  at 22nd and Mission Streets, but he was frequently picked up on a truck with other boys and brought to venues like boxing arenas, ballparks, political rallies, and so forth to sell papers.  This job led to a lot of adventures for him, plus the chance to contact many interesting people—a life experience not open to other school kids from the working-class Mission District.

For example, Dad was selling the Call on Market Street the day of the 1916 Preparedness Day Bombing and saw the casualties (about ten, I think) still bleeding out on the street. He viewed the demise of air daredevil Lincoln Beachey at the 1915 Worlds Fair (on Lincoln Beachey Day, to everyone's surprise). There were also countless military and navy events he attended, and he even saw General Pershing once. Now, George Hanlon was  a born storyteller and talker and would chat up his customers and other newspaper people at these events. These included Jack London, future heavyweight champ Jack Dempsey,  New Yorker founder and Stars and Stripes editor Harold Ross (a Call reporter), Mayor Sunny Jim Rolph, and San Francisco's celebrity gangsters of the day, Spud Murphy and Kayo Kruvosky.

In the middle of all this, though, there was illness.  Like today, very serious illness.  And since at this writing—like all my readers—I'm enduring this odd form of incarceration called "sheltering in place" due to the Bat Soup Plague, it occurred to me that there might be some interest in what dad told me about the visit of the Spanish flu to the city by the Golden Gate. In addition, sometime before, during, or after those events young George managed to contract smallpox and get confined in the city's infamous House of Pestilence, the Pesthouse, so I'll include some of his memories about that experience, too.

The Spanish Flu Hits San Francisco

Market Street, San Francisco, Armistice Day 1918

I checked the statistics, and, according to one article I found, there were 45,000 cases reported in San Francisco (about 10% of the population at the time) with 3,000 deaths (6.7 per 1,000). For comparison, the number of the city's sons and daughters listed on the memorial to the war's fallen in Golden Gate Park is 758. The flu hit the city in two waves, one Oct–Nov, and the second Dec–Jan. Dad thought the second wave was worse, at least morale-wise, because it was an utter surprise, and people thought they had already beaten off the epidemic.

He passed on some more interesting details about the pandemic over the  years. There was a long period of anticipation because the flu marched across the county from east to west. Recall that it was brought back to America first by wounded Doughboys brought home through Boston, so it sort of marched across America. He thought that, initially, the locals mostly underestimated it or thought it would "burn itself out." The two worst areas hit by the flu had strong ethnic flavors back then: North Beach (mostly Italian) and his own Mission District (mostly Irish). There were a lot of closings, including churches and theaters, but these lasted only about a month for each wave. The city and county hospital was swamped with cases, and the Navy set up a huge field hospital in the spanking new Civic Center plaza. 

By far his strongest memories involved the wearing of masks. The city's mayor and public health officials strongly supported them. When the first wave hit, there was a mandatory mask wearing order issued. It was a criminal offense to be without your mask in public and some people were thrown in the clink, others fined. Naturally, masks came to be in short supply, so many people had to improvise their own. The masks were brought back when the second wave of the flu came. By that time the populace was much more resistant to wearing them and the order was not as strongly enforced for the most part. Dad told me there were celebrations when the order was finally rescinded.

At the newsboy level,  he and the other kids (all borderline delinquents) resisted wearing them properly. They would drop the mask so it was just hanging around their necks and most people would not notice. The beat cops, however, were offended and did not tolerate this practice. They would sneak up on the perpetrator and give them a not-too-gentle tap on the back of the head with their billy clubs. Trying to imagine the response to this 100 years later in the touchy-feely, sensitive America of today sets me to laughing.

Armistice Day happened to fall in the middle of the first surge of the illness. The photo above shows the Armistice Day celebration on Market Street in San Francisco, with everyone is wearing masks, not all of them properly positioned. Somewhere in that crowd was young George Hanlon, probably dropping his mask.

The Pesthouse

Pesthouse Compound, San Francisco

Early San Francisco had a lot of problems with epidemics of various kinds, even the bubonic plague at the turn of the century. Consequently, the city fathers decided in the 19th century to build a quarantine facility on sparsely populated Potrero Hill in the southeastern part of town. It was given a grim official name, the House of Pestilence, which was shortened by everyone to the Pesthouse. It was both despised and feared by San Franciscans, rich and poor alike. No one was exempt from a visit there.

Smallpox was a persistent problem, and around the time of the First World War my father caught a case in one of the outbreaks of the illness. Consequently, he was ordered quarantined and condemned to a stay in the Pesthouse. He remembered arriving there with great foreboding, and his first impressions did not reduce his anxieties at all. The appearance of the ward and the grotesqueness of the infected patients were shocking to him. (He only had a mild case, himself.) However, he told me the staff was somewhat kindly, the library sufficiently stocked, and the food wasn't too horrible. Best of all, he soon found some ways to make money.  

If you look at the photo above from the University of California, the Pesthouse was a compound rather than a single building. I don't know where dad was quartered, but he was on the top floor, whichever building it was. One problem the patients on his floor had was getting the packages of food their families brought to the facility, but could not bring inside the building. Dad was always excellent with ropes and pulleys, and he soon set up rig to lift up the care packages. At first,  he just settled for a little share of the food, but he finally declared that he was henceforth going to charge a nominal fee per box. No one complained. He told me one his best customers was a descendant of Jesse Chisholm of Chisholm Trail fame. Included in the deliveries were, of course, a variety adult beverages for the inmates. Dad, also mentioned prostitutes made occasional appearances on the premises but never claimed to have facilitated their access.

His other moneymaking venture proved so lucrative that he actually overstayed his own illness to keep raking in the loot. He told me that when his fellow sufferers had been deemed fit for discharge there was still some residue of the smallpox pustule or scab that had to be removed with a scalpel and the site disinfected. (He called it the "seed," but I don't think that is medically accurate.) With the large number of smallpox patients, there was a waiting  period of several days for this procedure before the almost healthy patient could get discharged. Dad "volunteered" to help with this process.  He was taught the procedure by some staff member and given his own scalpel and a bottle of alcohol. Unbeknownst to the medical people, Dad informed his patients that there would be a charge for his helping expedite their discharge. He told me they were always happy to pay his fee and get out of that place as quickly as possible. I don't know what the fee was, but it was a lot more than he was making selling newspapers. This went on until most of the patients from the recent outbreak had left. The head doctor, who by this time knew what was going on, took him aside one day and said something like, "George, thanks for the help, but it's past time for you to go home." He was back on his corner at 22nd and Mission the next day.

Anyway, this is what Dad's life was like in the time of the Spanish influenza when the Great War was going on.  Thanks again for the World War I memories, Dad.

A Visual Insight into the Caporetto Breakthrough

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You are positioned on the ruins of Tolmin Castle in presented day Slovenia looking to the northwest.  The river in the foreground is the Soca, formerly known as the Isonzo. Exactly 8 miles in the distance is the river town of Kobarid, formerly Caporetto.  In October 1917 Italian, German and Austrian troops were deployed across the river basin and up into the mountains rising on either side. Here, one of the most decisive breakthroughs in all of military history would take place in the opening of the Battle of Caporetto.  A second breakthrough, similar in execution and impact, took place concurrently in far northern sector of the battleground, but in this article we will restrict ourselves to what happened here in the southern section around  the town of Tolmin.

This map shows the deployment of the Italian 12th Division astride the river on the morning of 24 October 1917.  The map's orientation is 90 degrees counter-clockwise from the photo.  Tolmin Castle is not shown, but would be just off the map to the immediate right of the village of Dolje.  The 12th Division was deployed in three thin lines,  just strong enough to slow down an enemy assault.  The river basin was thought by the Commando Supremo to be an excellent "kill zone" for the artillery deployed on the surrounding hills and mountains.  This kill zone would not come about on the morning of the attack, however, because of the suppressive power of the awesome artillery and gas assault of the attackers and the rain and dense fog that obscured the vision of all the observers in the valley that morning.  Neglecting the effect of bad weather was a major oversight of the Italian high command that, but it was not the greatest flaw in their defensive preparations.

The decisive problem for the Italian soldiers that day was that their commanders had deployed them in a doubly flawed fashion.  In places, the three lines of the forces were too distant to support each other, and in others, the lines converged and made it possible for a powerful thrust to breakthrough all three positions  with a single attack.

In this version of the photo, the three Italian lines are superimposed on the terrain: yellow for 1st, red for 2nd, and white for 3rd. Reserve formations are far to the west, behind the mountains shown on the extreme left. Austrian forces are on mountains to the right, German divisions are concentrated around Tolmin, in the foreground and to the left of the picture.   Note that the Italian 1st line goes right up into the high mountains.  At the outbreak, the Austrians attacked these troops (there were tens of thousands of the best Italian soldiers, including elite arditi and alpini, on the mountainside)  from the peaks above to pin them down.  Meanwhile, German troops attacked down both sides of the river and were half-way to Caporetto before the Italians knew what hit them.   There would be no relief for the now surrounded  men on the mountains. No one could see what was going on, and even without the fog, there was no possibility of sending reinforcements from the distant 2nd line, down one mountain and up another to relieve the trapped men.  Within the first hour of the ground assault in just this part of the battlefield, Italy has suffered its greatest defeat of the war, and the catastrophe has just begun to unfold.

Let's look now at what's happening on the left side of the photo.  German soldiers, including the inimitable Lt. Erwin Rommel, crashed through the Italian 1st line and moved against the 2nd line, capturing its strong points and observation posts in detail.  The Italian reserves, miles off the left side of the photo, were too far to the rear to arrive in a timely way, and there was another nearer dynamic unfolding that soon occupied their attention. About two miles to the left of our photograph, on the slopes of a steep mountain named Mte. Jeza,  the three Italian lines came dangerously close to one another.  At this point another breakthrough took place that allowed the opposition to circle around the 3rd Italian position, (white line) along the high peaks above the river. Every Italian position on the 1st, 2nd or 3rd line could be rolled up from the rear. With a matching situation eventuating from the northern breakthrough, Commando Supremo realized its entire front was collapsing and gave the orders to withdraw and retreat deep into Italy.  German and Austrian units were in full pursuit.