Riva del Garda: World-Class Resort on the Front Line

Riva del Garda from a Distance and Up Close

When war broke out on the Italian Front in 1915, at the southwestern tip of the destined-to-collapse Austro-Hungarian Empire lying on the north shore of  Lake Garda was the beautiful town of Riva del Garda.  Surrounded by the mountains of the South Tyrol (Trentino Alto-Adige for Italy, which wished to claim the region), Riva del Garda offered everything a resort could offer: high-quality hotels, cobbled streets with shops, magnificent views, climate, citrus trees and vineyards, thermal spas, and limitless recreational opportunities. Its attractions were known and taken advantage of by the Romans, Etruscans, and  preceding them, the Celts. It was in the 19th century, though, when the town's tourism exploded. In the German- and English-speaking worlds the newly affluent of the industrial age were drawn to the practice of "taking the waters" in spa towns like Bath and, well, Spa. Riva del Garda, given its many other attractive features, became popular with the nobility, the rich, and the cultural elite—such as Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, Sigmund Freud, Frederick Nietzsche, and even D.H. Lawrence. They gave the town an added refined air.

Selected Austrian Defense Works
#1 Barracks and Shoreline Fortifications

#1 Austro-Hungarian Commanding Officer

Because of its position on the Italian-Austrian border and the well-understood expansionist longings of Italy, the Austro-Hungarian Empire  planned the defenses around Riva del Garda carefully. Some of their preparations and sites can be visited today, including forts of different generations, wartime trenches, and tunnel and gallery complexes in the surrounding mountains. (Some of these are shown here.) When hostilities started, the Italian Army moved forces to the border, including substantial artillery units, which spent the next three years barraging the enemy positions and unintentionally, but most unfortunately, leveling much of the town.  Needless to say, tourism dropped to nothing during the war.

#2 Forte Garda

#3 Forte San Nicolo

Postwar, the pounding the town had taken from Italian artillery left so much damage there was no quick return of the tourism trade. The restoration of Riva del Garda was championed by the literary dynamo and war hero Gabrielle D'Annunzio, who was building his own estate, the Vittoriale, on the west shore of Lake Garda immediately after the war. It was D'Annunizio's architect, war veteran Giancarlo Maroni, who was at first lent to help with the rebuilding of Riva del Garda and who subsequently earned the responsibility for the town's master planning. The visible face of Riva del Garda is in good part Maroni's creation.

#4 Fort on Cima Oro

#5 Inside the Multi-Level Tunnel System at Cima Rocca

By the 1930s, Riva del Garda had returned to its leading place as one of the great resorts of Italy and the world.  While Riva del Garda was not on the front line in the Second World War, combat did come close during the last month of the war, when the U.S. 10th Mountain Division fought its last action and the last battle on the Italian Front just east of the town.  Today, the old war veteran holds its own as popular  and somewhat affordable vacation spot.

Sources:  Various Riva del Garda History and Tourism sites on the Internet

Remembering a Veteran: Welsh Poet Hedd Wyn, 38th Division, British Army

Hedd Wyn, born Ellis Humphrey Evans  (1887–1917), was the shepherd poet who became the symbol of a generation lost during the First World War. Better known by his bardic name Hedd Wyn ("Blessed Peace"), was killed on the first day of the Battle of Passchendaele.  Born in the village of Trawsfynydd, Wales, he wrote much of his poetry while working as a shepherd on his family's hill farm. His style, which was influenced by Romantic poetry, was dominated by themes of nature and religion. He also wrote several war poems following the outbreak of war on the Western Front in 1914.

Hedd Wyn was a Christian pacifist and did not enlist for the war initially, feeling he could never kill anyone. In 1916 the Evans family were required to send one of their sons to join the British Army. The 29-year-old Ellis enlisted, rather than his younger brother Robert. In March 1917 the government called for farm workers to help with ploughing, and many soldiers were temporarily released. Hedd Wyn was given seven weeks' leave. He spent most of this leave completing his epic poem The Hero (Yr Arwr).  As it was such a wet year, he overstayed his leave for another seven days. This extra seven days made him a deserter, so the military police came to fetch him from the hay field and took him to the jail at Blaenau. From there he traveled to the war in Belgium, where he went over the top on 31 July 1917, was soon wounded, and died later that morning.  He is buried at the Artillery Wood Cemetery, north of Ypres. Among the many fatalities that day was the Irish war poet, Francis Ledwidge, who was "blown to bits" while drinking tea in a shell hole

Weeks after his death, his poem The Hero won the 1917 Eisteddfod Bardic Chair (the highest honor bestowed to Welsh-language poets). When the tragedy was revealed during the ceremony, a black cloth was dramatically draped across the chair. Remarkably, the “Black Chair,” as it is now known, was carved by Eugeen Vanfleteren, a war refugee from Flanders. The original chair is on display in Hedd Wyn’s former home Yr Ysgwrn, now a center run by Snowdonia National Park Authority.  Hedd Wyn is the title of a well-regarded 1992 Academy Award-nominated biopic that's only available on YouTube.

Here's his best-known war poem:

WAR (Rhyfel)

Why must I live in this grim age

When, to a far horizon, God

Has ebbed away, and man, with rage

Now wields the sceptre and the rod?

Man raised his sword, once God had gone,

To slay his brother, and the roar

Of battlefields now casts upon

Our homes the shadow of the war.

The harps to which we sang are hung

On willow boughs, and their refrain

Drowned by the anguish of the young

Whose blood is mingled with the rain.

— Hedd Wyn

Translation by Alan Llwyd

Sources: literaturewales.org; Wales Museum; Wikipedia

1914–1918: The Phases of the Air War

From: "The Technology of Air Power During the Great War," by A. Gilam, in Computers Math. Applications, Vol, 26, No. 6

The reliance on technology during the Great War is demonstrated from its very beginning. Looking back at the war records, one is inevitably impressed by the rapidity of the mobilization that was made possible by the access to telegraph and railroad networks. The  German army and its air force began mobilizing on 1 August 1914, and on the same day, the French began making their own preparations. Three days later, the Germans invaded Luxembourg and Belgium, and as a result, the United Kingdom immediately entered the war. It took only a few days for the British Expeditionary Force to move into northern France. On 11 August, seven days after Britain joined the Allies, the first Royal Flying Corps crewmen began arriving in France. There is hardly a previous war effort that started with such a rapid mobilization. At this very early stage of the Great War, the conventional military wisdom was that aircraft is suitable for the detection of enemy troop movements from the air. Instead of relying on horse-mounted scouts that would report back to the field commanders on enemy concentrations, the airplane would perform the task more efficiently. Small wonder that in the early months of the war, ex-cavalrymen were often selected for pilot training.

Because of the emphasis on aerial reconnaissance, at the early stage of the war, airplanes were not even equipped with weapons. The typical BE2a used by the British usually lacked a machine gun or any other type of armament. Only when the war stabilized and the war effort concentrated on trenches was the need for the prevention of enemy reconnaissance fully perceived and appreciated.

The introduction of aerial warfare was accomplished with the help of major technological improvements. First in trying to mount a machine gun that could shoot through the propeller blades were the French, but their accomplishment was meager. All they came up with were deflection metal plates welded to the propeller blades that would deflect the bullets away from the propeller itself. After thorough examinations and testing, Anthony Fokker [a Dutchman], who worked for the Germans, invented the interrupter gear that synchronized the motion of the propeller to the pace of the machine gun. For the first time, a machine gun could shoot straight through the propeller without actually harming it, and thus the modern military aircraft came into being.

Equally decisive was the advancement in the field of aerial photography. Individual photographs, usually taken from an altitude of 16,000 ft., could capture an area of two by three miles. The photos would be taken by semi-automatic cameras, measuring three by four feet, which were mounted vertically to face downward and their shutters operated by a wind-driven generator. These photographs would then be assembled and would pinpoint even the most minute shifts of machine gun posts, artillery positions, supply lines and troops.

The synchronizing device and the improvement of aerial photography led to the second phase of the air war, which started in late 1914 and ended in early 1916. During the second stage, not only did aerial reconnaissance became more important, but the need for deterrence also became critical. It was imperative to keep the enemy observation airplanes from entering one’s own air space. Again, during this period success or failure depended on the mastery of technology.

Even though the Germans were the first to introduce into the battlefields the synchronized machine guns mounted on the Fokker E-types, they failed to capitalize on their technological edge. They did not produce the numbers required to guarantee an absolute military superiority. At the end of October 1915, they had only 55 Eindecker types in the battlefield and by the end of the same year, only 86. The delay at the German production lines enabled the English to turn to pushers and the French to develop the Nieuport 11, whose machine gun was mounted on top of the upper wing. The Allies tried to offset the technological gap by relying on superior numbers and on the aggressive Trenchard Doctrine, which advocated a relentless attack on enemy aircraft no matter how high the costs might be.

Verdun and Somme, the lengthy and bloody battles of 1916, mark the third stage of the air war. It was during these two catastrophic confrontations that the real value of aerial reconnaissance was first fully understood. Due to the awesome consequences of artillery direction from the air, the casualties became astronomical. On the first day alone on the Somme, the British Army suffered 60,000 casualties, 15 times its loss on D-Day almost 30 years later. Thus, aerial photography of enemy positions and the prevention of enemy activity in one’s own territory now became a major priority for the entire war effort. Instead of being perceived as auxiliary, air services had become major components of any military action. It is small wonder that the number of dog fights had increased and the number of airplanes participating in battles had multiplied.

Of necessity, the accelerated activity in the sky created a demand for faster and more powerful flying machines. Consequently, the English introduced the Sopwith Pup and the French the SPAD VII, the latter equipped with a power plant producing 150 hp. The Germans, for whom this stage started with the outmoded Eindeckers, realized that they would have to close the technological gap fast in order to survive. At the end of 1916, they began mass-producing the new fast Halberstadts and Albatroses (D types), armed with two guns. As of the battles of Verdun and the Somme, the quality of the hardware would become a major factor in gaining the upper hand.

As we reach the fourth stage of the air war, we definitely focus on a race in the field of technology. Since the introduction of the Albatros D-III in early 1917, the German air service could rely on a fast, powerful, and sturdy airplane that had revolutionized the air war. Due to the strong plywood construction of the fuselage and wings, German pilots now controlled superb flying machines that could dive, turn, and bank rapidly without damaging the airplane. From the very beginning, the Allies realized that their airplanes could not match  the new Albatroses. The major confrontation between the different types of machines occurred in April 1917, along the northern front (particularly at Arras). The English and the French air services were beaten so badly by the Germans that they called this dreadful month “Bloody April.” Throughout the rest of the year, British and French aircraft manufacturers were urged to upgrade their output. Only with the arrival of such powerful fighters as the Royal Aircraft Factory SE5, the Sopwith Camel, and the Nieuport 23 was the balance shifted once more. The Germans, too, recognized how decisive the technological edge was for the entire war effort, which is why they came up with their Amerikaprogramm, calling for the establishment of new aircraft wings before America’s participation in the war would secure the victory for the Allies.

The final phase of the air war further demonstrates how technology had revolutionized modern warfare. Early in 1918, the German high command decided to break the stalemate on the Western Front by launching the "Great Offensive," which would crack enemy trench lines prior to the involvement of the Americans in the war. This time, the penetration of enemy trenches was preceded by strafing actions launched from any available aircraft. By using air-to-ground war, aiming at infantry and artillery positioned in the trenches, the Germans finally managed to achieve the impossible, but the five offensives launched by Ludendorff eventually stalled and with American help, the Allies were able to stop the German initiative.

Next came an Allied assault on the Germans, and this time the utilization of the tank and liquid fire made trench warfare totally obsolete. Further than that, tactical air fights now became more regular and their impact more effective than before. The point is well made by aviation historian Malcolm Cooper: “Commencing with the British attack at Cambrai in November 1917, the systematic use of aircraft either to help break through defensive positions or to hold up a victorious advance became more and more common. In the great offensive of 1918, close aerial support of this nature was an important part of the tactical repertoire of both sides.” 

The American intervention in the war further highlights the importance of air power. Under the influence of Colonel Billy Mitchell and General Mason M. Patrick, an army air force consisting of 600 Allied airplanes participated in the offensives on the St. Mihiel salient and the Meuse-Argonne. On both occasions, Allied aircraft joined infantry and artillery forces in the effort to smash enemy troop concentrations and supplies. 

This was the military experience that eventually led such military thinkers as General Giulio Douhet, General Hugh Trenchard, and General Billy Mitchell to prophesy that the future of warfare depended on air power. The lesson they drew from the Great War was that the airplane became the most crucial factor in the pursuit of any military action in the modern age. Small wonder that the most common prescription for preventing future aggression in the aftermath of the Great War was understood to be the elimination of air power held by any potential aggressor. 

The Voyage of the "Red Ark"

Contemporary Cartoon

In December 1919, nicknamed the "Red Ark" (or the "Soviet Ark") by the press of the day, the USAT Buford was used by the U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Labor to deport 249 aliens, including Emma Goldman, to Russia from the United States because of their left-wing, anarchist, or syndicalist political activities.

In 1919 Alexander M. Palmer, the attorney general, and his special assistant, John Edgar Hoover, organized a plan to deport a large number of left-wing figures. On 7 November 1919, the second anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, over 10,000 suspected communists and anarchists were arrested in 23 different cities.

Emma Goldman

Hoover decided he needed a high-profile case to help his campaign against subversives. He selected Goldman, as he had been particularly upset by her views on sexual matters (Emma's preferred mode of revolution) and religion. In court, however, Hoover argued that Goldman's speeches had inspired anarchists to commit acts of violence in the United States and won his case. Goldman and her lover, Alexander Berkman, along with 247 other radicals, were deported to Russia.

Emma eventually made it to Russia. Expecting utopia, she was shocked about the lack of freedom there and personally informed Lenin of her disappointment. For the next two decades she journeyed the world as a vagabond preacher of progressivism, spreading joylessness and discontent wherever she stopped. Despite her exile, Emma managed to make it back to the U.S. twice, once for a speaking tour in the 1930s and then for her burial in Chicago in 1940.

Sources: Ellis Island Website; Wikipedia

Recommended: The Forgotten Honor of World War I by James Bowman

From The New Atlantis,  October 15, 2014

If the men of Europe who went to war in 1914 were permitted to return to the land of the living for long enough to read the literature of the Great War, what do you suppose they would make of our scholarly obsession, a hundred years later, with the question of the war’s beginning? They might well wonder if we still get the joke of the fake headline that is said to have circulated after the war: "Archduke Franz Ferdinand Found Alive: War Fought By Mistake." Our being po-faced about this is not only because we believe it to be in poor taste to laugh about so many deaths. The point of our digging around in the details of the diplomatic chain reaction that started "the greatest catastrophe the world has ever seen" — the words are those of the British foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey — or at least "the seminal catastrophe of the twentieth century" (George F. Kennan) is that we feel the pressure of the imperative to believe the war was, indeed, fought by mistake. A mistake that, just because it was a mistake, could have been avoided.

Explicitly or implicitly, that seems to be the view of almost every author in the small library of books that have come out in the last year or so about the causes and origins of the war — some including a perfunctory history of the war itself and some concluding in August 1914, at the end of what a century later appears to be the most interesting thing about the war: its beginning. Margaret MacMillan, whose history of the period in The War That Ended Peace is one of the most exhaustive, can speak for the others in the final words of her epilogue when she notes that, "if we want to point fingers from the twenty-first century we can accuse those who took Europe into war of two things. First, a failure of imagination in not seeing how destructive such a conflict would be and second, their lack of courage to stand up to those who said there was no choice left but to go to war. There are always choices."

It is not clear to me that she is right about either of these two things. First, no one could have foreseen the full extent of the horror that was to befall, but lots of people, including many of those who made the crucial decisions to go to war, had a fairly good idea that, as The Times of London editorialized at its outset, "Europe is to be the scene of the most terrible war that she has witnessed since the fall of the Roman Empire." And if Sir Edward Grey mistakenly believed that Britain’s navy would prevent her from suffering as much as other countries would, he was very far from lacking the imagination to see substantially what lay ahead. His more famous saying was that "the lights are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetimes." The pathos there derives precisely from the fact that he had taken a rough measure of the destruction that was to come — and that he thought he and his country had to go to war anyway.

And second, for Professor MacMillan to say that a greater determination on the part of the world’s statesmen to keep the peace could not but have resulted in a better choice for all the belligerents in 1914 is at one level a mere tautology. If the choice had been made for peace, there would have been no war, and if there had been no war, there would have been none of the destruction of the war there was, because they made the opposite choice. Hurrah! But of course we do not really know what consequences would have followed a refusal to fight. That is what makes Professor MacMillan’s assumption and that of the others who stress the mistake it was for anybody to fight, irrespective of whether he was aggressor or defender, into a profession of belief. If there are always choices, then there can never be an argument from necessity. Again, this is at one level a banality: there are always choices, right enough, but only so long as you have no prejudice against surrender. In practical terms, as Orwell said, the quickest way of ending a war is to lose it. In fact, it is pretty much the only way — apart from winning it.

But let us assume that Professor MacMillan is saying something rather more interesting than this. Perhaps she means that it is an article of faith with her — and with many others of like mind with her — that determined negotiators for the morally superior side in a conflict (tacitly assumed to be the British in this case) can always find that diplomatic will-o’-the-wisp, "a negotiated solution," no matter what the warlike determination or the bad faith of the other side might be. This idea is now such a truism that she feels no need to argue for it or even to spell it out. It is the origin of the curious notion that emerged a decade or so ago, during America’s war in Iraq, of "wars of choice" — an immense concession at the outset, though few saw it as such at the time, to the anti-war party. By acknowledging that one is fighting a war of choice, one has already admitted that it is an unnecessary war — and that the death and suffering the war causes, as wars inevitably do, are also unnecessary. If there are always choices, who but a monster or a sociopath would not choose peace?

Obligations of Honor

Those who, during the centenary observations, have written about the "lessons" of the First World War appear not to have noticed that thinking about war in this essentially pacifistic way is itself the principal legacy of the war and of its literary-historical aftermath. Partly, this is because, in retrospect, so much of what led up to war in August 1914 looks like a mistake, beginning with a wrong turn by the Archduke’s chauffeur down a side street in Sarajevo in a car with no reverse gear. This is what brought Franz Ferdinand and his wife face to face with their assassin, Gavrilo Princip, after he had decided to give up the attempt and retire to a coffee shop. Why, it’s not just a mistake, it’s what the media would call an ironic twist.

Continue reading the full article at:

https://jamesbowman.net/articledetail.asp?pubid=2363

Map Series #20: U.S. Homeland World War I Military Installations.

This is as complete an attempt at presenting all of America's military installations as I have ever seen. It incorporates the new training camps and airfields, plus the pre-WWI frontier and coastal artillery forts. I don't think it's quite complete for all Navy and Marine Corps installations, though. The cartographer, for instance, missed Quantico, which the Marines opened in 1917. Camp Fremont, CA, training site for the 8th Division was overlooked as well. Since there was room to add it, I did so. Also, there are a few installations I've never heard of and cannot find any evidence of their existence. My guess is that they were planned but never built. All-in-all, though, I think this is a tremendous achievement, which really captures the scale of the American effort in the war. MH

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Source: The Geography of the Great War by Frank M. McMurry, PhD, 1919

Felix A. Sommerfeld and the Mexican Front in the Great War

by Heribert von Feilitzsch

Henselstone Verlag Llc, 2015

Jim Gallen, Reviewer

U.S. Infantry in Brownsville, Texas,  Early in the Crisis

Even for many Roads readers, a Mexican Front in the Great War is a novel concept. In Felix A. Sommerfeld and the Mexican Front in the Great War author Heribert von Feilitzsch untangles the twines of espionage, intrigue, money laundering, and multi-party arms deals that demonstrate that there really was a Mexican Front and that it came remarkably close to igniting a second Mexican-American war. Between 1913 and 1916, Mexico was in the throes of a three-sided civil war in which the United States was deeply involved in choosing and assisting the sides, while German agents sought to exploit the unrest to distract the United States from the Great War in Europe and to divert American arms shipments from the Allied powers.

Felix A. Sommerfeld was an expatriate German Jew who came to the United States as a 19-year-old in 1898. He joined and subsequently deserted from the United States Army during the Spanish-American War, after which he returned to Germany. In 1902 he came back to the United States and spent the next several years in the U. S. and Mexico. When the interests of Germany and the United States diverged, Sommerfeld served his homeland as a naval intelligence agent. Having gained the trust of American and Mexican interests, he was called upon by both. This facilitated his operations as chief weapons and munitions buyer for Pancho Villa and as Villa’s diplomatic envoy to the United States, which made him a valuable asset for Germany.

The extent of initiatives by all parties demonstrates a much more serious situation than the Zimmerman Telegram, which is viewed as a Quixotic quest by many. German operatives were active in attempting to divert American arms from Allied to Mexican factions (some of which were to eventually be sold to Central Powers forces), to stir up trouble between Mexican partisans and the United States, and to cut off the flow of Mexican oil to the Royal Navy either through purchases of stock or sabotage of production capabilities. Many know about Villa’s Columbus, New Mexico, raid and the resulting Punitive Expedition in pursuit of him, but fewer are aware of the raids at Naco, Arizona, and elsewhere. Steps to incite insurrection by Mexican Americans threatened to set the Southwest ablaze. Concern over the situation was so great that intervention was actively debated in Congress and other public forums, and the U.S. Army drew up plans for a three-pronged invasion of northern Mexico.

Author Heribert von Feilitzsch has done almost incredible research into the activities of Sommerfield and his accomplices in transferring money and munitions among the parties and the interactions among the various Mexican factions. He has found and compared bank records, sales accounts, government archives, newspaper reports, court documents, correspondence, and other sources to unearth an extensive German conspiracy to further entangle the United States in Mexican affairs.

Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry with Dead Raiders After a 1918 Encounter in Arizona

For most Americans, the characters in this book are often familiar, such as Woodrow Wilson and John J. Pershing, but their association with Mexico is not within our ken. Others are known by name only, such as Pancho Villa, or unheard of, for example Venustiano Carranza, Felix A. Sommerfield, et al. The author helps by providing a cast of characters before commencing the text. Keep a bookmark by it for easy reference as you advance through the volume. The extensive end notes and bibliography are valuable for those seeking more.

This work reveals much about political and military conditions in Mexico in 1913–1916 and its tumultuous relations with the United States. It provides insights into Woodrow Wilson’s policy-making process regarding Mexico. Many readers may find names of familiar institutions on these pages, such as Olin Industries and Mississippi Valley Bank, as I did, plus well-known personalities, including J. P. Morgan.

Felix A. Sommerfeld and the Mexican Front in the Great War has changed my view of the role of Mexico in America’s road to the Great War. Von Feilitzsch has made a compelling case that, due to both German initiatives and Mexican instability, a second Mexican-American War was a real possibility during the early phases of the Great War. This could have had massive impact on America’s response and ability to engage in the European war. Conceivably, the international border could have migrated, either north or south, with incalculable influences on the United States, Mexico, and hemispheric relations. In my opinion Felix A. Sommerfeld and the Mexican Front in the Great War has established that, although not a belligerent, there truly was a Mexican Front in the Great War.

Note: The Spanish version of this book is also now available as a paperback and on Kindle. Thus both biographies of Sommerfeld (before 1914 and after) are now available in Spanish as well as in English.

Jim Gallen

An Execution and Its Sequel

 

Dramatization of a British Execution

From: A Brass Hat in No Man's Land

By Brigadier Frank Percy Crozier, 36th Ulster Division and 40th "Bantam" Division

While commander of the 9th Royal Irish Rifles two of Colonel Frank Crozier's men, an officer and and enlisted man, were convicted of cowardice and desertion in separate courts martial. Crozier later wrote about what ensued.

One day we received a wire. Rochdale [the officer] is to be ‘released from arrest and all consequences.’ They try to send him back to duty but I refuse to receive him.

[I am then asked] as to whether sentence of death should be carried out on [enlisted man] Crocker. In view of certain circumstances I recommend the shooting be carried out… in peace time, I and the rest of us would have been very upset indeed at having to shoot a colleague … Now the men don’t like it but they have to put up with it …I arrange that enough spirituous liquor is left beside him to sink a ship. In the morning at dawn … as he is produced I see he is practically lifeless … 

Inside the little garden on the other side of the wall, not ten yards distant from the centre of the line, the victim is carried to the stake. He is far too drunk to walk. He is out of view save from myself, as I stand on a mound near the wall. As he is produced I see he is practically lifeless and quite unconscious. He has already been bound with ropes. There are hooks on the post; we always do things thoroughly in the Rifles. He is hooked on like dead meat in a butcher’s shop. His eyes are bandaged – not that it really matters, for he is already blind.

The men of the firing party pick up their rifles, one of which is unloaded, on a given sign. On another sign they come to the Present and, on the lowering of a handkerchief by the officer, they fire – a volley rings out – a nervous ragged volley it is true, yet a volley. Before the fatal shots are fired I had called the battalion to attention. There is a pause, I wait. I see the medical officer examining the victim. He makes a sign, the subaltern strides forward, a single shot rings out. Life is now extinct. We march back to breakfast while the men of a certain company pay the last tribute at the graveside of an unfortunate comrade. This is war.

Brigadier Crozier

To this sad story there was a sequel. Some months later one of my officers was on leave, and as he had recently been awarded the D.S.O. was entertained to luncheon by his Club. At the function there were present some young business men who had not volunteered for war service. One of these asked my officer if it were true that ‘one of your men had been executed for desertion, and if so did he not think it was a very discreditable affair for the battalion and a disgrace to  the city?’ 

‘Well,’ my officer replied, ‘the unfortunate man volunteered to serve his country in the field; you have not done even that yet. He went through the trials of a truly terrible winter in the trenches. He endured bombardment, mud, exposure, cold, frost, trench-feet, sleepless nights and daily drudgery under conditions in which man was never intended to play a part (he had to play a part the whole time to keep going at all). This quite unnatural test broke his spirit. His brain was probably affected. In despair he quitted the line. Why don’t you and your other slacking and profiteering friends join up and have a shot at doing better than this unhappy comrade of ours? If you can’t stand the test and are executed because you are not endowed with the steel-like qualities which make for war efficiency, I shall think better of you than I do now. Our dead comrade, whom we had to kill with our own hands and rifles pour encourager les autres [ for the encouragement of others] is a hero compared with you! He tried and failed. He died for such as you! Isn’t it time you had a shot at dying for your country?’

All About Those Italian Battleships

RN Vittorio Emanuele 

(Pre-Dreadnought)

Sorry No Video Available

Vittorio Emanuele was an Italian pre-dreadnought battleship, laid down in 1901, launched in 1904 and completed in 1908. She was the second member of the Regina Elena class, which included three other vessels: Regina Elena, Napoli, and Roma. Vittorio Emanuele was armed with a main battery of two 12-in. guns and twelve 8-in. guns. She was quite fast for the period, with a top speed of nearly 21 knots.

Vittorio Emaneule saw action in the Italo-Turkish War as the flagship of the 1st Division. During the war, she participated in operations in Cyrenaica and the eastern Mediterranean Sea, including the seizure of the islands of Rhodes and the Dodecanese. She served during the First World War, but saw no combat during the war due to the hesitance of both the Italian and Austro-Hungarian navies to risk their capital ships in pitched battle. She remained in service as a training ship until 1923, when she was stricken from the naval register and broken up for scrap

RN Dante Alighieri 

(Second-Generation Dreadnought)

RN Conte di Cavour 

(Third-Generation Dreadnought)

Littorio Class, Part I 

(Post-WWI Dreadnought)

Littorio Class, Part II 

(Post-WWI Dreadnought)

8th Anniversary for Roads to the Great War

Greetings,

Eight years ago I decided to add a daily blog to my publishing efforts at Worldwar1.com. Our first article, presented on 15 May 2013, was a contribution from my friend and regular contributor Tony Langley on  Italian war artist Fortunino Matania.  After nearly 3,000 postings, I've decided  that for our  anniversary issue I should republish Tony's article. This time, however, instead of just one of Matania's masterworks,  I'd include a half-dozen to support Tony's piece.  I hope you enjoy this revisit and thanks for your readership over the years.  MH

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Fortunino Matania (1881–1963) is one of the greatest wartime realist illustrators—certainly of the Great War, maybe others as well. His imagery has contributed to the way millions of people viewed the war while it was being fought. He knew how to distill events into single scenes while still telling a narrative or presenting typical occurrences at the front and all this in a realistic style that has often been mistaken at first viewing for a real photograph.

He was an Italian-born artist who ended up working before and during the Great War for the most prestigious British weekly illustrated news magazines such as The Sphere. His images were sold worldwide to other publications and were later also used as illustrative material for postwar books and volumes. 

After the war he became known for being one of several artists who helped create a specific science fiction and sword-and-fantasy look for characters by Edgar Rice Burroughs. He was also very active in producing artwork that presented a view of classical antiquity that was somewhat reminiscent of the great works by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema but was nevertheless more suited to the tastes of an average reader of novels or pulp fiction stories.

A most prolific and competent illustrator during his long career, Matania is all but forgotten at present. It is rare to find full-color wartime illustrations by Matania. Most of his work was reproduced in magazines or as prints in black, white, and grey tone. The final, two-page illustration comes from a special edition of The Sphere that contained several other full-color illustrations by Matania and other artists working for this magazine. 

Tony Langley

Tommy's Kits: Agincourt—Waterloo—the Somme

 Click on Images to Enlarge
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Agincourt

Waterloo

The Somme

Source: Thom Atkinson  Soldiers' Inventories Project, images found at  Militaryimages.net

How Did Portugal End Up on the Western Front?

by Hugo Rodrigues

BACKGROUND

The alleged reason for Portugal's entry in the Great War was its historical alliance with England and later Great Britain, which dates back to 1386. This alliance (the Treaty of Windsor) was the cornerstone of Portuguese foreign policy until Portugal's admission into NATO after World War II but, as is perhaps to be expected, always meant much more for Portugal than for Britain. But other causes contributed to it as well.

Portuguese Cemetery, Pas-des-Calais, France

The Partido Republicano Português (Portuguese Republican Party) in power in 1914 owed much of its steady growth in popularity and ultimate success in overthrowing the monarchy (which fell, being replaced by a republic, on 5 October 1910) to the popular uproar caused by the king and cabinet giving in to the infamous British "Ultimatum" of January 1890, which threatened Portugal with war if Portuguese colonial expeditions didn't immediately evacuate parts of what would later become Rhodesia, which they had occupied. Both Portuguese public opinion and the republican leaders were thus still very reluctant to acknowledge as an ally a country which had inflicted upon the Portuguese nation as a whole what was regarded as one of the greatest humiliations of its history.

But the same republican politicians also realistically understood that Portugal's entry in the war was probably the only way to save its African colonies of Angola and Mozambique. Two secret treaties between Great Britain and Germany, signed in 1898 and confirmed in 1912, contemplated the partition of Angola and Mozambique between the former. Thus the Portuguese government felt that the only way to stop its colonies from being traded like small change between Britain and Germany at the future peace talks was to be present at those talks with a voice of its own and the right to make demands from Britain after fighting alongside her. And the only way to achieve this was entering the war.

PORTUGAL'S ENTRY IN THE WAR

Departing Portugal for the Western Front

But Britain herself was not enthusiastic at all about an eventual participation of its Portuguese ally in the war. The British held the Portuguese armed forces in the utmost (even racist) contempt and considered the country as a whole an absolutely worthless ally, incapable of defending itself and its colonies, let alone giving some sort of positive contribution to the British war effort.  Thus, despite skirmishes between German and Portuguese colonial troops and tribal revolts in Africa instigated by Germany were taking place since August 1914, in the same month the Portuguese government, under pressure from Britain, declared its neutrality, while reaffirming that the country was still bound by its old alliance with the United Kingdom. By 1915, though, the raising and training of a military force had already begun.

Only the relentless butchery on the Western front convinced the British and French commands that the Portuguese forces could be of some use. Portugal was therefore "allowed" to enter the war. The actual cause of the formal German declaration of war on 9 March 1916 was the seizure of 36 German and Austro-Hungarian merchant ships anchored in front of Lisbon since the beginning of the war on 24 February 1916, at Britain's request. These were to be used by Portugal to carry vital foodstuffs for the civilian population (or so ran the official version).

Despite Portugal's assurance that the ships would be handed back to Germany and indemnities paid, the German minister (Ambassador) Friedrich Rosen delivered a formal declaration of war by Germany on 9 March 1916, claiming Portugal was an "English vassal" and the seizure of the ships was an intentional provocation (the latter being of course absolutely correct). Portugal promptly reciprocated by declaring war on Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

THE CREATION OF THE PORTUGUESE EXPEDITIONARY CORPS

Training for Combat

After the German declaration of war on 9 March 1916, the Portuguese government pledged to send an expeditionary force to fight on the Western Front. Overcoming considerable difficulties, Portugal managed to raise a well-equipped and trained force in just three months. This astounding achievement, of which a celebrated parade held at Montalvo in 22 July 1916 was the crowning glory, became known as "the miracle of Tancos" (Tancos being the camp where the forming of the Portuguese units and the training of its soldiers took place).

By a decree of 17 January 1917, two separate expeditionary forces were organized:

The Corpo de Artilharia Pesada Independente (CAPI)—Independent Heavy Artillery Corps—would consist of three mixed groups of three heavy batteries each (one of 320mm railway guns and two of 190mm or 240mm pieces), plus a depot battery, and would be placed under French operational command. All of these artillery pieces would be supplied by Great Britain.

The Corpo Expedicionário Português (CEP)—Portuguese Expeditionary Corps—originally supposed to consist of a single reinforced division, was expanded to a two-division army corps, with a theoretical strength of 54,976 men, in February 1917. The CEP would be placed under the operational command of the British First Army in the Artois/Flanders front. 

The CEP began arriving at the harbour of Brest on 2 February 1917. From February 1917 until 28 October of the same year, a total of 59,383 men were shipped to France. From Brest, the troops embarked on a three-day-long train travel until the concentration area of the CEP in the area of Aire-sur-la-Lys/Thérouanne, where they underwent training in trench and gas warfare prior to occupying their assigned position in the front line. They also received British equipment, including helmets, and weaponry (namely the Short Magazine Lee Enfield and the Lewis gun). 

In the Trenches: Just in Time for the 1918 Campaign

By 11 May 1917, the first Portuguese units took their place in the front line, the deployment of the brigades being completed by 5 November of the same year.  Their fate, will be discussed in a future posting on Roads to the Great War.

Vera Brittain's Pilgrimage: A Roads Classic

One of the most memorable literary traditions of the Great War involves the postwar pilgrimage of VAD nurse and author Vera Brittain to the grave of her brother Edward on the Asiago Plateau. Author Francis Mackay  describes the visit in the excellent new addition to the Battleground Europe series, Asiago. Edward was killed in what is known alternatively as the Battle of Asiago or Operation Radeztky, part of an even larger action on the Italian Front, the Battle of the Piave in June 1918. Mackay describes both the action in which Edward fell and then Vera's postwar visit to his grave:

[The infantry assault began at 6:45 am on June 15th and several breeches were made in the British line.  Edward Brittain's] "A" Company had suffered severe casualties from artillery fire and was trying to hold nearly eight hundred metres of the line with (probably) only fifty rifles; an impossible task even when they were reinforced by the picquet platoon. Brittain, by now apparently the only unwounded officer in the company, appeared on the scene, returning from consulting with the French. Rapidly organizing a counter-attack group, which included some French soldiers, he led an attack which forced the enemy back. Some jumped out of the trench and ran back towards others coming through the wire. These enemy troops went to ground and opened fire on the Foresters, as did machine-gunners and riflemen on both sides of the wire. Brittain re-organized the defense of the trench, forming a flank with what troops were available. He apparently paused to observe the enemy, and was killed, possibly sniped by an Austrian officer. . . On the Allied right the Italian line [had been] breached, and the enemy penetrated about two kilometres towards the escarpment. They were held, but it took five days of bitter fighting to restore the line. In the centre the French beat off a mass attack with only minor casualties. The British were also attacked and the front line breached in several places, but after some hard fighting it was restored. Radetzky failed, and, after some bitter fighting, so did Albrecht. Conrad and Boroevic lost their last battles and the k.u.k. lost its will to win.

[Among the British dead was] Captain Edward Harold Brittain, MC, [who] was the adored elder brother of Vera Brittain. When war broke out the Brittain family had been living in Buxton and Edward sought a commission in the county regiment. He joined the 1/1 Sherwood Foresters in France, was wounded on the first day of the Somme, and awarded the MC. In 1914 Vera had been an undergraduate at Oxford but became a VAD nurse after her fiancé, Roland Leighton, was mortally wounded with the 1/7 Worcesters at Hébuterne in December 1915. After the war she wrote Testament of Youth, [Testament of Friendship, Testament of Experience], married, and was the mother of former Labour Cabinet Minister Baroness Shirley Williams.

After the Armistice . . .[many of the remains of A Company's casualties were re-interred] at Granezza Cemetery, near the southern end of the valley, and in the lea of Monte. Corno. This is a very quiet and peaceful place, and no less beautiful than the silent woods of the Barental Valley.

[Edward Brittain's] death was not more poignant than that of any other young officer or soldier, but the eloquence of his sister's writing ensured that the anguish felt by his family and friends was recorded for future generations. She articulated for others not so gifted with words the agony of yet another death among those nearest and dearest to a family. After many years, Testament of Youth still has the capacity to move, as many of today's generation will testify.

How strange, how strange it is," I reflected, as I looked, with an indefinable pain stabbing my chest, for Edward's name among those neat rows of oblong stones, "that all my past years-the childhood of which I have no one, now, to share the remembrance, the bright fields at Uppingham, the restless months in Buxton, the hopes and ambitions of Oxford, the losses and long-drawn agonies of the War- should be buried in this grave on the top of a mountain, in the lofty silence, the singing unearthly stillness, of these remote forests ! At every turn of every future road I shall want to ask him questions, to recall to him memories, and he will not be there. Who could have dreamed that the little boy born in such uneventful security to an ordinary provincial family would end his brief days in a battle among the high pine-woods of an unknown Italian plateau?"

Close to the wall, in the midst of a group of privates from the Sherwood Foresters who had all died on June 15th, I found his name "Captain E. H. Brittain, M.C., 11th Notts. and Derby Regt. Killed in action June 15th, 1918. Aged 22" In Venice I had bought some rosebuds and a small asparagus fern in a pot; the shopkeeper had told me that it would last a long time, and I planted it in the rough grass beside the grave.

"How trivial my life has been since the War ! "I thought, as I smoothed the earth over the fern. "How mean they are, these little strivings, these petty ambitions of us who are left, now that all of you are gone! How can the future achieve, through us, the somber majesty of the past? Oh, Edward, you're so lonely up here; why can't I stay for ever and keep your grave company, far from the world and its vain endeavors to rebuild civilization, on this Plateau where alone there is dignity and peace?"

But when at last I came from the cemetery, the child, who had been playing with his father near the car, ran up to me holding out a bunch of scabious and white clover that he had picked by the roadside.

"For the little signorina," he said.

By permission of Francis Mackay

Liaison 1914: A Narrative of the Great Retreat

by Edward Spears. Foreword by Winston Churchill

Pen & Sword, 2021. First published in 1930.

Peter L. Belmonte, Reviewer

The Author, Second from Right, with French Officers in 1914

Edward Spears was an Englishman born in Paris in 1886. He entered the British Army in 1903 and in July 1914 was sent as a liaison officer to the French high command, a position for which he was well suited due to his temperament and command of the French language. He was thus in the right place at the right time. During the following six weeks, Spears performed liaison duties and was well placed to comment upon the actions of many British and French leaders during the German advance to the Marne River. Readers familiar with this opening campaign through reading only surveys or general histories will appreciate this candid, intelligent view from a man who was closely involved with many aspects of the Allies’ retreat.

In later years, Spears often heard disparaging remarks, particularly among the French with whom he associated, regarding the British Army’s performance during the opening months of the war. Irritated at these inaccuracies, Spears wrote this book “to contribute something to the true story of the war, and to vindicate the role of the British Expeditionary Force in 1914” (p. xxxi). In this, Spears succeeds admirably.

When one considers that approximately 465 pages of this narrative are taken up by a description of events from 27 July through 14 September 1914, one may get an idea of the minute detail involved in the account. Spears details the intricate, often baffling maneuvers of the various units involved in the campaign, providing an almost hourly account. One can feel deeply the confusion that prevailed. This is not a detailed account of the battles during those days; rather, it is a vibrant account of the difficulties of liaison and decision-making among the French and British leaders.

Those who like to read about “how the sausage is made” will appreciate reading about the incredible strain and nerve-racking pressure under which the various headquarters staffs worked. Consider this report regarding a competent British staff officer:

On the previous night the strain had been so frightful that the Chief of Staff, [General] Sir Archibald Murray, exhausted by anxiety and overwork, had had a temporary collapse from shock when the false news was received that the enemy had attacked and defeated the I Corps at Landrecies. [p. 233]

Spears, as a liaison officer, saw and experienced all of this and more. Despite the fact that Spears was a young and junior officer, he performed the arduous tasks that had devolved upon him with remarkable skill and devotion to duty. Spears concludes an interesting passage about demanding duties of liaison officers with this telling observation: “His life is spent between the hammer and the anvil” (p. 331).

Despite his frenzied work as a liaison officer, Spears found time to volunteer for a flight as an observer in a French aircraft. Airborne, they met a German aircraft, and Spears records what must have been one of the earliest air combats involving an Englishman:

My only weapon was a French cavalry carbine, hardly better than a pistol, with three shots in the magazine. My thoughts were that a megaphone would have been more useful to point out to the German that it was dangerous enough to be where we were without playing any tricks. But having no means of communication I fired at him and he at us: the usual thing in war, each tries to kill the other for fear of being killed himself (p. 292).

Spears’s personal observations and comments about the men he met and worked with really make this a fascinating read. From field marshals and generals to privates and gendarmes, the author’s insights provide us with a human view of the war. He provides first hand character sketches of commanders such as French generals Joseph Joffre, Charles Lanrezac, Louis Franchet d’Espèrey, Louis de Maud’huy, and British field marshal Sir John French, among others. Spears is even-handed in his appraisal of these men, citing the good and the bad that he observed during these hectic weeks.

After recounting the events that drove the Allies back on the Marne River, Spears concludes that there were two main factors that resulted in 5th (French) Army failure: One is G.Q.G. (the French Supreme Headquarters) failure to accept Lanrezac’s assessment of German strength and intentions as they advanced along his front in Belgium. The second is Lanrezac’s reluctance to mount an offensive, particularly along the Sambre River and during the retreat in general. While recognizing British errors during the campaign, Spears also shows how British forces were an important force in stopping and driving back the German Army by mid-September.

Liaison 1914 is supplemented with 88 pages of appendices. These include orders of battle, orders, memoranda, reports, letters, etc., and more are included in ample footnotes in the text. Sixteen fine-quality maps and 49 photographs enhance the text. This book, although not the only resource to be consulted, is vital to an understanding of what happened during those crucial six weeks at the beginning of the Great War. I highly recommend it.

Peter L. Belmonte