Recommended: Historian Thomas Fleming Tries to Recapture the Experience of His Father in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive

Two Argonnes

By Thomas Fleming
Originally published in American Heritage, October 1968

Shoulder Patch of the 78th "Lightning" Division

Could I re-create the reality of the Argonne? As history, yes. I could see it with a clearer, colder eye. I could give reasons, make analyses that my father and his friends, struggling through the shell-churned mud, simply could not consider. But as for recapturing those singing, brawling Doughboys, what they really thought and felt about the rain-soaked, shell-shrieking days and nights, with the constant smell of death in the mind and in the nostrils, no. Their garrulous reticence (for that, I finally decided, was the only way to describe it) may be explained by a line Guy Chapman records in his story of the British front in World War I, A Passionate Prodigality. “The war, old chap, is our youth, secret and interred.” But I suspect a larger explanation. The Argonne was the last enormous expression of America’s youth, and perhaps they sensed the tragedy, sensed that this marvelous innocence had been violated there by old Europe’s grimmer, more terrible vision of life and death. Never again, after the Argonne, would we go to war with a smile and a song.

Time has created two Argonnes. Mine, a thing of words and terrain and memory, belongs to my generation. My father’s sleeps with him and his friends beneath the crosses at Romagne and other cemeteries, or hides beneath the banter at division reunions. Both are true.

Otherwise the reunion was a sad and somewhat frustrating experience. All my father’s close friends were dead. In discussing the Argonne, the surviving old soldiers were unbelievably vague about details. Like my father and his friends, they preferred the funny memories—stealing chickens, chasing French girls, outwitting second lieutenants or MPs. It made me realize, with something of a shock, how little death or wounds, fatigue or hunger, fear or bravery, had been mentioned in the stories I had heard when my father was alive. The commanding officer of the contemporary 78th Division, Major General John G. Cassidy, slashed all sorts of red tape to give me access to company and regimental histories. But I left Fort Dix with little more than the raw material of personal history. It was clear that if I was going to recapture my father’s Argonne, much would depend on what the place itself gave me.

Historian Thomas Fleming (Left) and His Father
Thomas (Teddy) Fleming of the 78th Division

The morning after I arrived at Verdun I hired a car and guide and took the highway that runs north along the banks of the Meuse River, a curiously placid-looking stream only a few hundred yards wide, with low, almost nonexistent banks. The road passed French and German cemeteries, monuments to that earlier cataclysm, the year-long struggle for Verdun that consumed almost a million soldiers before America entered the war. When the road swung west across the Meuse I unfolded a multicolored map and asked eagerly: “Where’s the Argonne?”

“The forest of the Argonne?” replied Robert Devillars, my guide. “That is many miles away. Let us first go to Montfaucon.” Soon our little Renault was straining up an ever steeper hill; it finally groaned to a stop before a towering monument, a circular column of stone that rose 327 feet to a figure of Liberty at the summit. Immediately behind it were the ruins of a church and other buildings, the remains of the once-thriving village of Montfaucon.

From this steep-sided height I learned the first and most important lesson about the Argonne: its immensity. “See there,” said M. Devillars. “There is the forest of the Argonne.” My eyes strained toward a thin dark line on the western horizon. In between, the land rose and fell in a vast panorama of rolling hills and clumps of forest past the foot of Montfaucon to the banks of the Meuse.

The Argonne was not a battle for a forest. It was fought for the control of a region, of which the forest, stretching some fifteen miles along a dominating ridge, was the western boundary. From Montfaucon the vision of that 26 September 1918, dawn, when 225,000 Americans in nine divisions had surged forward, suddenly made a mockery of the word personal. From the New Yorkers of the 77th Division, thrashing through the Argonne Forest, to the Illinoisans of the 33rd Division, up to their cartridge belts in the oozing swamps along the Meuse, each unit experienced its own distinct version of hell. Did the single human being, the single regiment, even the single division, matter in such a cataclysm? I wondered, trying to see the whole stupendous scene with the historian’s eye. Suddenly the answer was clear.

Yes.

Yes, because the very immensity of the experience staggered the mind. One could, of course, write an objective article about the Argonne, discussing the tactics, the progress made by the various divisions on the first, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, day. But to rescue the Argonne from this kind of abstract, impersonal history, to find its human dimension, it was absolutely necessary to reduce it to a smaller scale. Yes, I thought, returning to the car and driving down the hill toward the forest, coming here was not a mistake.

The Lightning Division Ready to Depart Camp Dix for France

The intuition gathered momentum as we drove along the valley of the Aire River. It was a gray, sunless day, typical Argonne weather, and the landscape was in perfect harmony with the atonal sky. The Aire was as colorless as the back of a mirror and, seen from a distance, as inert as a dead snake. Dun-colored earth undulated to the right and left, broken by an occasional cluster of red-roofed farmhouses, or an isolated patch of woods. The long miles of open fields seemed peculiarly naked. The few fences were almost invisible wire, and there were no stone walls, no rocks, no hedges. It was all as bare as the Nebraska plain—but by no means as flat. Close up, the undulations became surprising hills or shallow ravines. It was a landscape in which only mass and density could make an impression, and the forest of the Argonne played this role with dark insistence. Mile after mile it was a brooding, impenetrable presence, on its twisting western height.

There in its little valley lay compact Varennes, famous in French history as the town where the fleeing Louis XVI was captured and sent back to Paris and his doom. Thousands of Pennsylvanians of the 28th Division died to drive the Germans out of it. A monument, one of the many that dot the Argonne region, commemorates their sacrifices. There was the village of Exermont, and that nearby narrow ravine where a German counterattack struck the exhausted, depleted Kansans and Missourians of the 35th Division on 29 September 1918 and almost turned the battle into a rout. There was Le Chene Tondue, a saw-toothed height jutting out of the Argonne Forest into the valley like the prow of a ship. From it German artillery dominated the lower half of both the valley and the forest. Next we passed the heights of Cornay and Châtel-Chéhéry, equally crucial to the upper half of the valley. Storming those nearly perpendicular slopes made men remember their elders’ stories of Lookout Mountain and Cold Harbor in the Civil War. The divisions fighting east of the Aire had “scalloped” away these strong points at a terrible price, while across the valley other outfits swarmed up the steep slopes of Montfaucon. Both had to fight their way up a huge amphitheater with enemies flinging destruction at them from three sides. Next we drove across the forest itself, pausing to stare down the shrouded slope where the famed “lost battalion” of the 77th Division was cut off but held out for five searing days against repeated German assaults. The round outlines of their foxholes are still visible after 50 years.

We were close to personal history now. The 78th Division had marched up through the Argonne’s blasted, shell-stripped trees in the wake of the 77th. The Jerseyans had spent the two weeks preceding the Argonne buildup, and the first week of the battle itself, holding a sector of the St.-Mihiel line, about thirty miles to the southeast. To confuse the Germans about American intentions during the build-up, they had orders to keep the sector boiling, and they obeyed them with enthusiasm. Their days and nights were devoted to aggressive patrolling and limited attacks. The Germans retaliated with intense bombardments. In the history of my father’s regiment, the unnamed historian tells how one of these barrages fell with special fury on my father’s Company C, killing Lieutenant Donat G. O’Brien and several other men.

My father was a tough, cocky Irishman from the downtown slums of Jersey City. When the chaplain urged everyone to take the full $10,000 insurance policy the government was offering at rock-bottom rates, Sergeant Fleming had sneered: “I can take care of myself,” and opted for only $3,000. After a night spent with his face in the shuddering St.-Mihiel mud with chunks of deadly metal humming around him, he signed up for the full $10,000. “I never thought I’d come out of it in one piece, after that night,” he said.

Troops of the 78th Division Resting During the
Meuse-Argonne Offensive

 

At the same time, my father retained his faith in something he called “Irish luck.” Those who scoffed at this superstitious philosophy must have wondered, after the death of Lieutenant O’Brien. As my father told it in later years, that first barrage caught them in the open. “You never saw anyone dig holes faster in your life,” he said. “I was down about three feet when the Lieutenant crawled over to me and told me to get out, he was taking over my hole as a command post. I told him to go dig his own goddam hole. Finally he ordered me out, and it was go or get court-martialed.” Fifteen minutes later, while Sergeant Fleming, still cursing fluently, was digging himself a new hole a few dozen yards away, a shell made a direct hit on O’Brien’s command post. “All we ever found of the poor guy,” my father said, “was a piece of his raincoat.”

Over 2,000 Lightning men had been killed, wounded, or were missing by the time Pershing ordered the division withdrawn from St.-Mihiel for service in the Argonne. They made some of the sixty-mile journey in trucks, but most of it they covered in traditional infantry fashion, “picking up one brogan and putting the other one down,” as my father liked to describe it. While they marched, they sang. The 6th Regiment’s favorite was “Smile, Smile, Smile.” Others preferred “K-K-K-Katy,” “Mademoiselle from Armentières,” or “Madelon.” It was a singing war.

But this sentimental streak (on the wall of his bedroom, my father had framed the words of that saccharine song “My Buddy”) was strangely combined with an almost primitive toughness. Frank Mueller, a member of Company C, told me, “The first time I saw your father, he was a bayonet instructor at Fort Dix. He made my hair stand on end, the way he’d snarl, ‘Stick it into his guts and pull it out the same way!’ ” Going into the Argonne, Mueller recalls my father getting into an argument with one of his best friends. “We were marching along, and all of a sudden, Red just flattened him. Right there in the road. Out cold, with one punch. Nobody talked back to your old man.”

Ahead were Argonne days and nights when both the sentiment and the toughness would be tested to their utmost limits.

Terrain along the St. Juvin-Grandpré Road

I drove out of the Argonne Forest along a road that runs through the towns of Lançon and Senuc. My father’s regiment had marched up this road on the night of 15-16 October 1918. The rain, by then a standard feature of the battle, came down in relentless sheets, and darkness was total. No one had the slightest notion where he was going. Guides who supposedly knew the way were as lost as everyone else. The confusion was par for the Argonne course. As they had moved up through the forest, the commanders of the 78th Division had been told that they would relieve the Sand Division. They had rushed their best young officers forward, to spend days mapping and patrolling the Sand’s front. Then, without so much as a whisper of explanation, they were told to relieve the 77th, along a front about which they knew no more than they could read on their maps.

The 78th Division was split into two brigades of two regiments each. Except for battalions held in reserve, both brigades were supposed to be in line at 5:30 A.M. on the morning of the 16 October, to launch an all-out attack on the town of Grandpré, on the Bois de Bourgogne beyond it to the left, and on a smaller woods known as the Bois des Loges, to the right. Because of the total confusion in which they marched, both wings of the division arrived late. The second battalion of the 310th Regiment, for example, marched all night in the rain and got nowhere. At 10:30 A.M. , under direct orders, they had to leave the shelter of the Argonne’s trees and move across the Aire River and an open field 500 yards wide, through an enemy barrage that cost them, one veteran remembers bitterly, “more casualties than we took in two whole weeks at St.-Mihiel.”

The German defenses known as the Hindenburg Line ran from the Bois de Bourgogne through Grandpré and the Bois des Loges into the little village of Champigneulle. In 1968 I sat in the farmhouse of André Godart, a bluff, barrel-chested citizen of Champigneulle who was 15years old when the 78th Division came across his father’s fields. The Germans had tunnels running from the cellar of the family farmhouse to the forward trenches and blockhouses. Godart took me out in the pasture behind his house, and to my amazement the eye could still trace the snaking line of the German trenches, while in the distance several of the concrete blockhouses were still visible, sunk deep in the earth, with only a slit, like a baleful mouth, for machine-gun fire. Here, as everywhere in the Argonne, the deceptive contours of the rolling earth were startling. The ground fell away in a long gradual incline across naked fields all the way from Champigneulle to the Grandpré-St.-Juvin road. In 1918 those fields, Godart said, were thick with barbed wire, huge belts of it every hundred feet. In the north, the British were using 4,000 tanks to open paths through the wire for their infantry. In the Argonne, the Americans had only 189 tanks, and most of these had been knocked out the first day. All Pershing could offer his infantry were artillery barrages to blast holes in the wire. More than one soldier died trying to find holes that were not there.

German Machine Gun Post Above Grandpré

I drove with Godart down the road from Champigneulle toward Grandpré. About halfway, he stopped the car and pointed across another naked field toward a clump of woods—the Bois des Loges. This was the primary objective of the right brigade of the 78th Division. It was only a few thousand square yards, but from the 78th’s viewpoint it might have been designed by the devil and handed to the Germans as a gift. It was a series of ravines, like a giant corrugated iron roof, thick enough to conceal machine guns and to protect the defenders from detection by artillery, yet thin enough to give them murderous fields of fire. The men of the 309th and 310th Infantry reached the edge of the woods, but that was only Act One in a terrible two-week drama. There were machine guns every forty yards firing down the ravines. When Company F of the 310th attempted to penetrate the woods from another angle on the eighteenth of October, the Germans let them advance 200 yards and then blasted them with machine gun fire from both flanks. In four searing days, the 310th took 800 casualties in the Bois des Loges, and the 309th suffered proportionately.

Again and again, with unquestioning courage, the companies tried to fight their way forward, destroying one machine-gun nest only to be cut down by flanking fire from another, grappling with repeated counterattacks which, in the undemonstrative language of the 78th Division’s history, “resolved” the fighting into “combats between small groups.” A special feature of the nightmare in the woods was gas. The shells plopped almost soundlessly around the fighting men day and night and the deadly swirls of phosgene and mustard settled in the ravines and even in the foxholes, forcing the men to wear their uncomfortable masks almost constantly. “We slept in the damn things,” one 310th man told me.

To continue reading the article go to page 4 at:

https://www.americanheritage.com/two-argonnes#4

Not Quite Ready for War: Herbert Asquith Before the July Crisis of 1914

 

Herbert Henry Asquith, 
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908–1916

By George H. Cassar

Prime Minister Herbert Asquith was generally lax about defense issues during the early years of his administration. He never allowed the Committee of Imperial Defense—CID—to develop into an agency powerful enough to influence strategic planning. He regarded it with indifference and only on occasions set it to work on central issues. Even when he did so, he failed to impose its findings on the War Office and Admiralty. At meetings, which he called only infrequently, he seldom used his authority to bring matters to a head. Asquith never initiated, responding only when proposals were placed before him. Even then he gave no lead and refused to be pushed into adopting measures before the necessity for them was apparent.

After the Agadir Crisis, Asquith adopted a more positive attitude and accelerated the pace of defensive preparations. By August 1914 his administration had, mainly through the agency of the CID, taken far-reaching steps to strengthen the nation’s security. Two invasion inquiries, one in 1908 and the other in 1914, confirmed the Admiralty’s claim that  it could protect Britain from an outside attack. The army, though small, was ready to fight in a continental war.  Every detail had been worked out to transport the troops to their assigned place in the French line. The modernization of the navy was complete and numerically it enjoyed a significant preponderance over any rival.  A national air force was established in 1912. Imperial conferences and discussions fostered unity and coordination in military affairs between Britain and the dominions. A War Book was prepared, setting out in minute detail the action to be taken by every department the moment war threatened. Finally a war risk insurance scheme was adopted and arrangements were made for the state to take control of the railways on the outbreak of war. 

These measures were certainly adequate for a brief and limited war but they fell far short for the kind of conflict that developed in the closing weeks of 1914. What was missing when the nation found itself compelled to wage a modern war? Despite a decade of international tension and excitement, the authorities had taken no steps to build a continental-size army or an ordnance industry sufficient to meet the requirements of such a force. They neglected to set up a permanent central planning staff to coordinate the work of the naval and military departments. A reasoned strategy was lacking, as was a structure of supreme command to oversee operations in the opening days. On top of this, there were no arrangements to convert the nation’s industries to war purposes. Nothing had been done to regulate manpower so as to prevent skilled men, who would be more valuable in industry or transport, from enlisting in the services. Indeed there was no mechanism to study, let alone deal with, the nature of the national effort required in total war.

Given the near unanimous belief of the experts that any future war would be brief, Asquith can scarcely be held accountable for many of the deficiencies that arose. There were certain problems, however, which could have been foreseen and dealt with through better planning and greater allocation of financial resources. Matters relating to national security were not a high priority for Asquith and his colleagues. The Liberal cabinet was largely composed of  men unequivocally committed to the ideas of social reform and welfare spending. It viewed defense costs in peacetime as a necessary evil, to be kept as low as possible consistent with a reasonable margin of safety. Generally the military policy of the Asquith government between 1908 and 1914 was defensive and non-provocative. 

On the domestic scene, the years immediately before 1914 were extremely troublesome for Asquith. Controversy was caused by the suffragettes’ sensational campaign to gain voting rights for women, the militancy of industrial strikers and the disestablishment of the Anglican the Anglican  Church in Wales. But the greatest challenge to Asquith and his government came from Ireland.

Somewhat Inaccurate News of the "Curragh Mutiny"

The only way Asquith had assured himself of the support of the Irish Nationalists during Lloyd George’s budget fight was to accept their demand for a free Ireland. To that end his government drafted a Home Rule Bill in 1912. The Lords rejected it, but they could only delay it for two years. In 1914 the bill would become law, as the Commons would have passed it in three successive sessions.

The issue was complicated by a division among the Irish themselves. The inhabitants of Ulster in Northern Ireland were predominately Protestant and their region industrial in contrast to the rural, Catholic south. They objected vehemently to inclusion in an autonomous Ireland in which they would be a minority. John Redmond, who led the Irish Nationalists, was equally determined to accept nothing less than a united, self-governing Ireland. Asquith, needing the votes of the Irish Nationalists to stay in power, was reluctant to make any changes in the bill for Ulster’s sake.

As the Home Rule Bill passed through the various stages of its transition to the statute book, the situation in Ireland steadily deteriorated. Ulster loyalists found a champion in Sir Edward Carson, a brilliant lawyer who proposed to organize a provisional government in case Home Rule became law. Ulstermen began to arm those traditionally opposed to Home Rule and intent on exploiting the crisis to bring down the Liberal regime, encouraged them to armed rebellion. Bonar Law, who had replaced Balfour as the Tory leader, told Carson that  he would support any action the latter deemed necessary, whether constitutional or not. In the south,  nationalists recruited volunteers to answer the private army in Ulster. Violence flared out. In March 1914, Asquith, before moving the third reading of the Home Rule Bill, included a provision that would allow the Ulster counties to opt out of Home Rule for a period of six years. The measure failed to mollify Carson and was too great a concession by Redmond. Then, in March 1914, the government decided on a show of force, only to be embarrassed when 60 officers of the Third Cavalry Brigade, stationed at the Curragh, announced they would resign their commissions unless given a written assurance that they would not be ordered to march against the Protestant loyalists. The incident at the Curragh was settled by negotiation after the Secretary for War, Jack Seely, unwisely acceded to the officers' demands. The agreement restricted the government’s freedom of action in Ireland and quickly repudiated. In these circumstances, Seely resigned, and Asquith personally assumed control of the War Office.

Portrait of Asquith (seated right) with His
Wartime Cabinet and Advisors

 

The question of Home Rule, which had bedeviled successive British governments for half a century, appeared to be passing beyond the ability of Asquith and his colleagues to resolve. The problem, inherently difficult, was exacerbated by the irresponsibility of the Unionists and by the weakness and inaction of the Liberal cabinet. Asquith, in fact, was at his worst. Until forced by events or by the extremism of his opponents, he avoided irrevocable commitments and was content simply to pursue a wait and see attitude. He might have been able to check resistance in the early stages by firmness and by making clear that the best he could do to deliver Ireland without Ulster. The absence of the will to act  encouraged both sides to play for higher stakes. 

As the threat of civil war hung over Ireland, inter-party discussions continued throughout the summer. Asquith hoped to narrow the differences separating the two sides and in July he believed he had succeeded. At his request the King summoned a formal conference at Buckingham Palace. It opened over irreconcilable differences. At this point, events in Ireland were eclipsed by the spectre of a general European war.

From Asquith as War Leader, George Cassar, Bloomsbury Academic (2nd edition), 2003

Cadorna's Strategic Vision: Take Vienna

Marker in the Village of Corno di Rosazzo Where
the First Shot of the War on the Italian Front Was Fired

Holger Herwig in his work The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary first introduced me to Italian General Liugi Cardorna's mad victory plan that was the operational "theory" behind  Italy's entry into the war. His objective was the capture of Vienna to compel the Dual Monarchy to make the territorial concessions the Italian leadership was seeking.

Cadorna proposed a main attack from Friuli across the Isonzo River, a defensive posture around the Austrian Trentino salient, and secondary attacks in the direction of Tolblach and Carinthia. . . [T]he first battles would take place two or three days' march inside the Austrian frontier, to be followed within 45 days by a decisive battle on the Ljubljana plain, from where he would launch his final assault on Vienna.  In April 1915, Cadorna repeated his assurance that he would be in Trieste and threatening the heart of the Austro-Hungarian Empire within a month of the outbreak of war. . . What the military historian John Gooch has called Cadorna's "amazing strategic vision of a march on Vienna" and "complete disregard of the realities of trench warfare" were seconded by Victor Emmanuel III's Order of the Day on 27 May 1915.

I haven't thought much about this hare-brained scheme that utterly failed at the start since reading Herwig's book, but I recently came across a U.S. Army staff study of the war on the Italian Front. It has some interesting insights on Cadorna that I thought were worth sharing.

General Luigi Cadorna

Italy ended its neutrality by signing the Treaty of London on 26 April 1915. The treaty stipulated that Italy would share in war indemnities, pressure the Pope not to initiate peace moves, and start hostilities within one month. The Allies promised Italy war loans, and strange as it might seem, protection from Austrian attack.

A small group of men working in secret had brought Italy to war. Their war aim of acquiring territory was clear, but they did not know how to achieve that aim, or even if it was militarily possible. Prime minister Salandra gave the job of translating the national aim and his policy of sacro egoismo, (sacred egoism) into a workable military strategy to General Luigi Cadorna.

General Cadorna had started on this translation when he rewrote the war plans in December of 1914. Italy had always planned a defensive war against Austria, but would now wage an offensive one. It would be offensive because Cadorna felt Italy had to defeat Austria-Hungary decisively enough to persuade her to give up parts of her empire. Cadorna saw Vienna as the only objective significant enough to cause the Austrians to lose the will to fight. His plan was to strike toward Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, and once on the Ljubljana plain to turn north toward Vienna." He assumed that the Austrians would not be able  to reinforce the defensible terrain along the line formed by the  Julian and Carnic Alps because of concentric actions by allies,  particularly Russia. 

Cadorna's fixation on the geographical point of Vienna, something that was probably never realistically attainable, effectively closed off Italy's other options to win the war. By focusing on the defeat of the Austrians in the field, Cadorna ignored the lessons of Italian history that clearly favored other options over a decisive defeat of Austria on the battlefield.

Cadorna's Road to Vienna on Modern Highways

Except for the Ethiopia fiasco, Italy had reached her aims without decisive victories, and even in spite of defeats on the battlefield. Whatever the Italian failings on the field of battle, her success in war settlements was outstanding. By fixing on an independent defeat of Austria on the battlefield Italy closed off what historically had been her most successful option; let your allies win it for you. . . The desire for a decisive Italian defeat of Austria meant  that Italy would pursue an independent course during the war. She would neither receive or give much support in the way of troops or materiel [until late in the war after the Caporetto fiasco].

In spite of these prewar difficulties, when Italy entered the war Austria-Hungary had over ten months of experience in working with her German ally under wartime conditions. mere were still many problems, but Austria-Hungary would practice a form of coalition warfare while Italy operated independently of her allies. Italian operations would often be hampered by concentric and parallel allied operations that would not happen as expected. Italy declared war on 23 May1915 against Austria-Hungary, but not against Germany. Cadorna's plan depended on speed, surprise, and the front staying mobile. Unfortunately for the Italians, the declaration of war before mobilization was complete alerted the Austrians. Even though the Austrians had started to reinforce the Italian Front as early as April 1915, by May they still had only 100,000 troops to Italy's 875,000. To compensate for this disadvantage, Archduke Eugene, the Austrian commander for  the Italian theater, used his geographical advantage of holding  the higher terrain to compensate for his smaller number of troops. 

Cadorna's plan was to defend in the Trentino while attacking toward the Ljubljana plain, but the first Italian offensive action took place in the Trentino. The Italian First Army attacked the southern sector toward Adige while the Fourth Army attacked toward Brenta in the Southeast. The Italian soldiers willingly pressed the attacks but were hampered by ineffective artillery fire and general ineptness. The Austrians watched, undoubtedly with amusement, as brass bands advanced with the attacker. The Austrians fell back to their fortified positions and held. Try as they might, the Italians could not dislodge them.

While the First and Fourth Armies were experiencing the difficulties of fighting an uphill battle in the Trentino, the Italian Second and Third Armies moved toward the Julian Alps.  For the first two to three days their advances were unopposed, but their slow movement gave the Austrians time to reinforce the front with forces from the Serbian and Russian fronts. The Austrian forces fell back from an indefensible line along the Judrio River to an excellent defensive line along the Isonzo. Italian attempts  to force a bridgehead at Gorizia failed, setting the stage for a static front and attrition warfare. 

Terrain Along the Isonzo
(10th Battle of the Isonzo Shown)

The Isonzo front stretched along incredibly difficult terrain. Peaks towered 600 meters over the valley floors. The eastern end of the line was anchored on the sea. The western end of the line rested in mountainous terrain. Cadorna's plan did not anticipate a static front along this line, primarily because he counted on Allied action to prevent the Austrians from reinforcing the front quickly enough to prevent a breakout onto the Ljubljana plain; this did not happen. Russia was unable to launch simultaneous offensive operations because it was tied down by the Central Powers' Gorlice-Tarnow offensive. Serbia could have done something but literally let the Austrian troops march under her guns on their way to the Isonzo front. Another reason the plan failed was the slow-motion advance of the Italian corps commanders. The slow advances let the Austrians seize key positions that the Italians should have taken without loss."'

Cadorna's initial plan failed, and unfortunately for 600,000 sons of Italy who would lose their lives in the next three-and-a-half years, he showed no flexibility in seeking alternative  means for victory. The Italians and Austro-Hungarians were faced  off along the Isonzo, and the stage was set for some or the worst  attrition warfare of the war.

Source:  "Operational Art on the Italian Front During the Great War," Maj. Robert C. Todd, School of Advance Military Studies

What Brought on the February Revolution? — Riots

Ivan the Terrible's Double Headed Eagle Must Fall

Here Professor Joshua Sanborn of Lafayette College will explain how the strains of mobilization and defeats on the battlefield led to deep discontent in cities and the borderlands of Russia. Civil disorder, consisting of a nearly continuous series of strikes and riots, ensued and would eventually bring down Nicholas II and his regime. Strikes, soldiers' mutinies, ethnic repression—every imaginable type of riot—would lead to and trigger the February Revolution of 1917.

Despite confident claims of historians ever since, Russian men did not go off to war in a fit of patriotic fervor, or I should say, not all of them did. Throughout Russia, the declaration of war sparked riots, some of them enormous and serious. Officials in the Siberian province of Tomsk anxiously telegraphed the Ministry of Internal Affairs soon after mobilization began in July 1914 (Old Style) that 

Reservists are producing disorder almost everywhere. . . in Novonikolaevsk [present-day Novosibirsk] a mob of reservists sacked stores and began to sack the bazaar, the disorders were stopped with the assistance of [army troops]. . . The mobs threw stones at them, one rifleman was wounded with bullets, as a result of  which the troops opened fire. . . 

Nor was the disorder limited to Tomsk. In the city of Lugansk, riots began with an attack on liquor stores, and the crowd then proceeded to loot food and clothing stores before breaking windows in private residences "with shouts of 'hurrah!'" In Ekaterinoslav, the riot was sparked not by a run on the liquor store, but by the unfurling of a patriotic flag and an attempt to start a pro-war demonstration by Black Hundreders, at which point reservists set upon the man who had produced the flag while others threw bricks at policemen, touching off a brawl that ended only when police fired into the crowd, killing one and wounding seven. In Ufa province reservists "dispersed the police and destroyed the induction center, thanks to which the work of medical examination and forming units to send to the front had to stop." 

When 1917 dawned, then, demonstrations, strikes, and violent uprisings were already fundamental aspects of Russian political life, even in the capital, where the announcement of the call-up of only sons in 1915 had prompted groups of reservists and regular workers to take to the streets, to throw rocks at police, and to clog up major thoroughfares like Nevskii Prospekt with banner-toting demonstrators. As the war dragged on and economic conditions worsened, so too did discontent among workers and reservists build. 

On 9 January (22 January ) 1917, the twelfth anniversary of "Bloody Sunday," which had sparked the Revolution of 1905, nearly 150,000 Petrograders went on strike and conducted a protest march in which they demanded an end to the war, complained about rising prices, and pleaded for pay raises. Similar demonstrations took place on the same day all over the empire, from Moscow, to Baku, to Tver, to Tula.

Strike waves and urban demonstrations rolled over urban Russia for the first two months of the year, until finally the rising tide of unrest crested the well-worn banks of autocratic politics. The catalyst on 23 February (8 March ) was economic deprivation, as bread stocks dipped to such low levels that residents were forced to wait for hours in the pre-dawn cold simply to buy a couple of rolls or a small loaf. Frustrated citizens, led by women, took to the streets chanting "bread."

A Disturbance on Nevskii Prospekt

Workers left their factories to join the procession. By 10 o'clock in the morning there were 20,000 of them; by noon, that number had reached 50,000; by nightfall, police estimates figured the crowd to be nearly 100,000. Food stores were broken into, bread stocks were looted, and the tsarist authorities had their last great test to face. 

As we all know, they failed that test. Citizens mobilized on the streets, refused orders to disperse, and finally convinced several reserve army units to join the side of the protestors against tsarist authorities. Raising the familiar banners of "Down with the War" and "Down with the Autocracy," they sang the Marseillaise as well and marched proudly down Nevskii Prospekt. This was an uprising that the government could no longer control. Within four days of the huge bread riots, the Duma had formed a "Provisional Committee" to try to restore order where the tsar's officials had failed. Three days after that on 2 March (15 March ), the tsar himself was persuaded to step down by his high command. The February events proved to be the most successful wartime rebellion of them all. 

 

But it was not, as should now be clear, a unique and "spontaneous" outpouring of elemental rage by beaten-down theretofore passive subjects of the tsar. Instead, it was simply the latest and the largest of what had become a common wartime phenomenon: riots against state power. These uprisings varied in their scope and their direction. Most registered some degree of dissatisfaction with the war and with the government. Many were expressed in the new ethnic key that had already become common throughout the realm. All, however, displayed the capacity and willingness for political action, often violent in nature, on the part of the varied peoples of the Romanov Empire.

 

Source: February 2017 Over  the Top: Magazine of the World War I Centennial

Admiral Sims on the Best Use of the U.S. Navy

1917, Admiral Sims (Center) Here with General Pershing 
and British Representatives  Led U.S. Naval Forces
in Europe During the War

I have previously written about how the U.S. Naval Representative to the Allies (Admiral William Sims) had a contrasting approach to working in a multi-nation coalition than his counterpart, General John J. Pershing, Commander of the American Expeditionary Forces. That article can be read HERE.  However, I learned some additional details about Admiral Sims in a  paper titled: "The United States Navy in the Mediterranean During the First World War and its Immediate Aftermath (1917-1923) by John Hattendorf, and I thought some of its details are worth sharing

Although he still hoped that the United States could be the neutral mediator, rather than a belligerent, a series of events forced President Wilson into taking sides in the war. In late February 1917, Britain provided the United States with the text of the telegram that British naval intelligence had intercepted and decoded from German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmerman to the German Ambassador in Mexico. Anticipating that Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare would force the United States into the war, Zimmerman directed the Ambassador to work secretly with the Mexicans to prepare for this contingency. In the event the United States declared war, Germany pro-posed that an alliance be formed between Germany, Mexico and Japan against the United States. As part of this, Germany would provide support for Mexico to reclaim its lost territories in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Germany’s intent in this was to create a strategic diversion that would hinder the United States from supporting Britain and France, allowing the victorious forces coming from the Eastern Front to over-whelm the allies. . . 

USN Destroyer USS Bulmer at Queenstown, Ireland

At this point before Congress had formally declared war, Secretary of the Navy Daniels summoned to Washing-ton the new President of the Naval War College, Rear Admiral William S. Sims, and directed him to proceed immediately to London, where he was to have discussions at the Admiralty to plan how the U.S. Navy could be employed in the war. Da-niels and Admiral Benson, who held the newly created post of Chief of Naval Operations, were suspicious of the British anddid not want to provide any substantial direct support. Sims ,however, had shown, years before, that his thinking paralleled Mahan’s long-held views that only a coalition of free nations could prevent Germany from achieving victory.

Meanwhile with the U-boats continuing their attacks on merchant ships carrying Americans, President Wilson asked for a declaration of war against Germany “to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth ensure the observance of those principles”

. . . With an overwhelming majority of votes, Congress passed the declaration on 6 April 1917. In the fol-lowing months, British and French military delegations came to Washington to discuss the potential contributions of American armed forces. In the course of these talks, they revealed a range of secret agreements that the allies had made for dividing among themselves the spoils of war. Wilson and members of his administration were deeply shocked. The United States had no such plans for achieving political goals of its own, only to achieve what they saw as the general good of mankind. Wil-son agreed that the United States would send a limited number of forces to Europe, with the U.S. army units serving under French overall command to achieve French strategic military objectives, and the U.S Navy, serving under British overall command to achieve British strategic maritime objectives.

U.S. Naval Air Station, Brest, France

In London, Admiral Sims’s role in personal liaison developed into a large command — U.S. Naval Forces, Europe —with Sims rising in rank, first to Vice Admiral in 1918, and then to full Admiral in 1919. Sims saw his command as being an advanced headquarters of the Navy Department in Washington, with Sims dealing only with the Navy Department and, in turn, directing and coordinating the work of all the varied commands under his general direction. Each separate command reported to Sims for direction, materiel needs, supplies, plans, and recommendations for improving operational effectiveness. In this, one of the most important and innovative parts of his headquarters with the planning section which employed a number of highly talented officers and Naval War College graduates, many of whom would become famous two decades later as senior officers in the Second World War. Sims’s headquarters was the first major staff organization in the U.S. Navy and became a prototype for a counterpart in Washington after the war

Sims discussed the American naval role with representatives of the Allied navies. From this, he concluded that the most effective method for the U.S. Navy to participate was to use its forces to strengthen the weak areas in already on-going Allied naval operations. He felt that any attempt to operate American forces in separate areas or as distinctly American units would be wasteful and inefficient. Sims made arrangements with the foreign governments for U.S. Navy supplies and repairs, allowing U.S. Navy ships to put into any of the bases of  Allied navies in order to obtain urgent supplies, as if they be-longed to that country’s navy. American commanding officers signed the receipts for what supplies they received and these were passed through the appropriate channel within the Allied navy to their own headquarters, which then passed them to Sims’s headquarters for auditing and reimbursement. At the height of activity in late 1918, there were U.S. naval forces based in Ireland, England, and Scotland, with the Grand Fleet in the North Sea, in the Azores, at Murmansk, Russia as well as at Gibraltar and in the Mediterranean.

World War I Caused a General Strike in Switzerland

Memorial for Soldiers of the Zurich Canton Who
Died During Their World War One Service

Prewar (1901–1913)

The turn of the 20th century for Switzerland was an era of sustained and rapid economic growth. The value of exports doubled between 1887 and 1912. A third of the population derived an income, either directly or indirectly, from foreign trade. Per capita, Switzerland was the world’s leading exporter of machinery and, for a time, was even the top export nation, outstripping the United Kingdom and Germany.

The textile industry (textiles and clothing) was by the far the largest employer in Switzerland. In 1900 almost half of all industrial workers were employed in this sector.  However, many Swiss continued to emigrate. Between 1900 and 1910, 50,000 people left their homeland. Yet, Switzerland remained a country of net migration due to the influx of foreigners, most of whom found work in the construction industry. At the outbreak of the First World War foreign migrants accounted for almost 15 percent of Switzerland's population, the highest in Europe.

The First World War (1914–1918)

Swiss Soldiers Guarding the Umrail Pass During the War

During both World War I and World War II, Switzerland maintained armed neutrality, and was not invaded by its neighbors, in part because of its topography, much of which is mountainous. Consequently, it was of considerable interest to belligerent states as the scene for diplomacy, espionage, and commerce, as well as being a safe haven for refugees. As a small neutral state, Switzerland was spared the ravages of war during the First World War, although its army, led by General Ulrich Wille, was mobilized. According to the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland, around 3,000 Swiss soldiers died during active service due to illness or accidents. More than half (1,800) died at the end of 1918, killed by the Spanish flu epidemic.

Tensions simmered between German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland because the former tended to sympathize with the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary, and the latter with the French, British and their allies. Swiss politicians and military personnel severely tested national cohesion by disregarding the principle of neutrality and negotiating with Germany and Austria-Hungary.  There was also mounting social unrest. During the war, men were conscripted to guard the Swiss borders for hundreds of days at a time. They received only meager pay and were not compensated for the income they lost during their compulsory military service. The price of food and rent doubled due to supply shortages. Since the state printed money to cover the costs of mobilization, inflation rose, slashing the value of people’s savings.

The National Strike (1918)

Swiss Troops Guarding the BKW Energy Company
During the Strike

The economic hardship created by the war had a profound impact on workers. In November 1918 the situation reached boiling point in Switzerland, Germany and elsewhere.  for labor organizations it made sense to consider strike as a means to apply political pressure. The Oltener Aktionskomitee (OAK) repeatedly sent the federal government demands underpinned with strike threats. In contrast to the early war years, the federal government now had to respond at least in part to working-class issues.

In autumn 1918, the collapse of the old order and rise of the labour movement in Germany and Austria were impossible to ignore and right-wing circles increasingly feared a similar development in Switzerland. Some saw the strike of Zurich bank employees (from 30 September/1 October 1918), which the radical Zurich workers’ union supported with a local general strike, as a rehearsal for the revolution. Others—like General Ulrich Wille—wanted to teach the protesting workers a lesson, if possible before the foreseeable demobilization of the army. Troops demonstratively marched into Zurich on 7 November.

At its twentieth meeting on 6 November, the OAK had yet no idea about the forthcoming events and dealt with routine business. It met on short notice for a special meeting on 7 November given the general outrage that the deployment of troops had caused among organized labor. After extensive debates and aiming to keep hold of events and channel the protest movement, it called for a work stoppage in 19 industrial centers.

The protest strike of 9 November, the Saturday which saw the collapse of the German Empire, ran without incidents. In Zurich, the workers’ union decided to continue the movement until the state of siege was lifted. On Sunday, 10 November, demonstrators and the military clashed violently on Münsterplatz, which fueled the conflict. The OAK was faced with a choice between associating itself with the Zurich approach or the loss of its influence. Ultimately, it called for an unlimited general strike for Tuesday 12 November.

Soldiers and Protesters in Zurich During the Strike

A national general strike for 12 November 1918 was called, in which over 250,000 workers took part. The Federal Council sent in a large troop contingent to quash the protest. The number of direct victims was low (four fatalities). However, Spanish flu claimed the lives of 3,000 soldiers involved in the operation. Most of these men came from rural areas and this is one reason why relations between workers and farmers remained strained for a long time.

Some of the protestors’ demands were quickly met, such as the election of the National Council by proportional representation and the establishment of a 48-hour work week. However, it would be many years before other demands, such as women’s suffrage and an old-age pension scheme, were answered.

Sources: The Swiss Department of Federal Affairs; Encyclopedia 1914–1918.

Six Recommended Books About the World on the Eve of War

From the Editors

1. Tuchman, Barbara, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, Ballantine Books, 1996.
2. Chace, James, 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft, and Debs—The Election That Changed the Country, Simon & Schuster, 2005.
3. Vandervort Bruce, Wars of Imperial  Conquest in Africa, 1830–1914, Indiana University Press, 1998.
4. Wolfe, Bertram D., Three Who Made a Revolution: A Biographical History of Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin, Cooper Square Press, 2001. 
5. Morton, Frederic,  Thunder at Twilight: Vienna 1913/1914, Da Capo Press, 2014 (2nd edition).
6. Neiberg, Michael S., Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of World War I, Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2011.

These Are All Available at Amazon.com

Originally presented in the Fall 2012 issue of The Journal of the World War One Historical Society

A Hindu WWI Recruiting Poster in Hindi (Translated)

 

The caption reads: 

‘Before enlistment…’ The right hand caption reads: ‘Ten days after enlistment… This person has been a recruit for ten days and with his bonus and his uniform he is going to enlist others of his locality and he is happy.’

The main body of the text reads:

‘Brothers, rush, run to enlist or you will regret it later. The Sarkar Bahadur [the honourable Government] has now raised the enlistment bonus from Rs.50/- to Rs.65/. You will get Rs.10 on enlistment, Rs.40/- when you join your regiment, and Rs.15/- on completion of training. The pay has also been increased.

In addition to the monthly wage of Rs.11/- you will get Rs.24/ every six months for the period of the war. Your monthly wage therefore is not Rs.11/- but Rs.15/-. In addition on going on active service you will get a monthly allowance of Rs.5/-. Clothes and food are free whether you are in India or have been sent to the war.

The following can enlist in the infantry: Muslims (Shaikh, Saiyyid, Mughal, Pathan), Brahmin, Rajput, Bhumihar, Ahir, Kurmi, Pasi, Lodhi and Gaderiya. In the artillery anyone can enlist from whose hands Hindus would accept a drink of water. The age should be between 18-30 years, height 5ft 2" and chest 32".

Enlist speedily in whichever unit you choose, and earn rupees and respect, or you will rue the loss of this opportunity. For further details contact us. Come on your own or with some recruiter. Come quickly. Mohammad Nazir, District Recruiting Officer, Ballia.’

The text translated by Professor Radhika Singha for the Imperial War Museum

Who Was Benjamin Hotchkiss?

 

Poilus Firing a Hotchkiss Machine Gun

Benjamin Berkeley Hotchkiss (1826–1885) was born in Watertown, Connecticut, and grew up in a family involved in machinery. His father and brother, both inventors, had established a business that manufactured their patented articles. In 1856 Hotchkiss designed a rifle field gun that the Mexican government purchased. Along with his brother, Andrew, he came up with a projectile for rifled artillery. It had two sections (front and rear) made of cast iron that were joined by a band of lead, intended to fit into and take the shape of the grooves of the rifling in the gun. This created a much more accurate shell. Hotchkiss also helped his family to develop a better percussion fuse, and, as a result, more Hotchkiss shells were used for rifled cannons during the American Civil War than those any other munitions manufacturer in the country. His family was so closely associated with the Union cause that during the New York City draft riots of 1863, Hotchkiss had to ride through the streets of Manhattan concealed beneath a pile of cloth.

Benjamin Hotchkiss

Success followed Hotchkiss after the war. He traveled to Paris, where he invented an improved metallic cartridge case and made many improvements in hand-held firearms and cannons. Hotchkiss designed a revolving-barrel machine gun and created a revolving cannon that destroyed a boat during trials, having hit the ship with 70 shots out of 119 fired. While aboard a train in 1875, he met a Romanian army officer who told him of the need for a magazine repeating rifle. In a half-hour, Hotchkiss sketched a design for such a weapon, which later proved to be superior to all others at the time.

Hotchkiss was reputed to be the world's best artillery engineer. By 1882, his B.B. Hotchkiss Company had branches throughout Europe. Hotchkiss was working on a new machine gun design when he died in 1885. His company perfected his plans after his death, and brought out a gas-operated machine gun in 1897. The first gas-operated and air-cooled machine gun, the Hotchkiss  Modèle  1914 was used extensively in World War I, most notably by the French Army and the American Expeditionary Force. It was initially supplied to frontline troops in 1916 when a parliamentary committee of inquiry concluded that the Hotchkiss was more reliable than the previous principal machine gun, the St. Etienne. It had a heavy barrel with external fins to dissipate heat, and weighed 88 pounds (40 kilograms). It could fire at the rate of 450–500 rounds per minute and had a muzzle velocity of 2,325 feet per second. It was fed by strips of belts, each holding 24–30 rounds. A 250-round belt was also made.

Source: How Products Are Made Website;  Britannica

Anzacs at Krithia: "Ours Is Just to Do and Die"

Machine Gun Position on Helles Front

Krithia was a Greek village on the tip of the Gallipoli peninsula, approximately eight kilometers north of Cape Helles, the site of the costly British landings of 25 April 1915. The village was at the foot of the dominating heights of Achi Baba peak which had been the first objective of the British troops on 25 April. 

Click on Map to Enlarge

Cape Helles Sector

Unable to break through at Anzac, Hamilton focused the MEF’s energies on the Helles sector, targeting the village of Krithia (Alҫitepe) and the hill known as Achi Baba (Alҫi Tepe). An attack by British and French forces on 28 April – the First Battle of Krithia – made little headway and cost some 3000 casualties. To offset these losses, Hamilton dispatched the 29th Indian Brigade and British 42nd Division to Helles from Egypt. Another French division arrived shortly afterwards. The Ottomans matched this build-up of forces and on 1-2 May launched a major attack on the Allied line, which only just held.

Before Second Battle of Krithia

The British 29th Division, in the First Battle of Krithia, advanced the line to within three kilometers of the village. The Australian 2nd Brigade and the New Zealand Brigade were transferred from Anzac Cove to Helles to assist the British and French in the second Battle of Krithia from 6 to 8 May.

Anzac Dead in Second Battle

British attacks on 6 May gained some ground but two further attacks next day failed to make progress. A further British attempt failed on 8 May and just before 5 pm that afternoon, the 2nd Brigade, commanded by Colonel James M’Cay, was given orders to attack at 5.30 pm when it was still light. The Australians advanced from a trench manned by Indian soldiers and 500 meters further on unexpectedly found another trench manned by British soldiers. This trench was named by the Australians as ‘The Tommies Trench’ and the Australians either jumped into it or laid down behind it. Three minutes later, M’Cay with more Australians approached and M'Cay called on the men taking shelter to continue the advance. The Australians pressed forward under heavy enemy fire before casualties compelled them to stop 400 metres from the Turkish trenches and two kilometers from Krithia. The Australians in an hour had suffered 1000 killed and wounded. On the left, the New Zealanders gained a little ground but at a heavy cost. With the Turks digging in and receiving reinforcements, the two brigades returned to Anzac Cove.

British Troops Attacking During Third Battle

A month later, another assault was made to capture Krithia and open a path to Achi Baba.  The previous failures in the first and second battles resulted in a less ambitious plan being developed for the attack, but the outcome was another costly failure for the Allies. From that point on, Helles was a lost venture.  Neither Krithia nor Achi Baba would ever fall to the Allies during the Gallipoli campaign.  For more see our related article HERE.

Sources: Australian War Memorial; NZ History

“Empires at War: Austria and Russia” Opens Today at the National WWI Museum and Memorial

 

Empires at War,  now open at America's National World War One in Kansas City, MO, features never-before-seen objects from the Eastern Front of the Great War.  By the close of World War I, four empires had collapsed, including both the Russian and the Austro-Hungarian Empires. Empires at War: Austria and Russia examines the conflict on the Eastern Front, an aspect of the war often less surveyed but with cataclysmic results for the millions affected.

Often viewed as the "spark" that ignited the First World War, Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were assassinated on 28 June 1914. As one of the very first nations to declare war, Austria accused Serbia of plotting and backing the assassination and threatened invasion. Russia roared in to support its Slav brothers, rapidly mobilizing its forces, resulting in huge losses and contributing to revolutions at home.

Russians Operating a Trench Mortar

Austrian Bowl for the Home Front

The Eastern Front was a ‘war of movement’ where the Central Powers, with over 2.5 million troops, faced a much larger, but disorganized, force of 4 million Russians. Drawing from original objects recently added to the Museum and Memorial’s collection, the exhibition features an extraordinary collection of never-before-seen Austrian and Russian material culture—uniforms, equipment, flags, hats, helmets and more.

“The subject matter of this exhibition rose out of the wealth and diversity of Austrian and Russian objects and archival materials that the Museum and Memorial has been fortunate to acquire over the last decade. Unlike many exhibitions, it is not presented chronologically but by topics.” said Doran Cart, senior curator at the National WWI Museum and Memorial. “Pivotal battles, Austrian and Russian women in the war, and the changes in the nations are illustrated, and their stories told by the participants.”

Russian Propaganda Poster (Detail)

Austro-Hungarian Radio Operators

Although the Museum and Memorial has been collecting internationally since 1920, material culture from the Eastern Front of the war has been difficult to acquire due in part to the collapse of dynasties. The commemoration of the Centennial of WWI brought opportunities to re-engage the international community and enrich the collection, shedding new light on the enduring impact of war on the Eastern Front.

 

Russian Army Belt Buckle

Empires at War: Austria and Russia 

Opens 27 August 2021 and is on view in Exhibit Hall through January 2023. Admission is included with the purchase of a Museum ticket.