Setting a New Course: After World War I — How the Marines Found a New Mission with Amphibious Warfare

Marines Heading for Action: World War I

By Chris K. Hemler

The Marine Corps had emerged from the First World War with newfound credibility, combat experience, and, most importantly, public support. Throughout their service in General John J. Pershing’s American Expeditionary Forces—and most notably at Belleau Wood—the Marines displayed remarkable courage, grit, and resiliency. Enjoying more autonomy and higher-quality recruits because of their Service’s relatively small size, the Marines used their wartime exploits to nurture their identity as an elite, specialized force. A dash of embellishment on top—aided by the complicity of the American press corps—solidified the Marines’ image all the more. Even before the belligerent nations made their peace at Versailles, France, in 1919, the Marine Corps had bolstered its reputation as a distinct and unparalleled American fighting force.  Yet, even in light of a reinforced image, Marines and outsiders alike continued to disagree about the Corps’ proper role in the American military apparatus. Should the Corps continue a trend of expeditionary service, act as a colonial police force, or reassert its naval roots and purpose?  Though the Service had strengthened its standing, the First World War further compromised the existential purpose of the Marine Corps.

In the shadow of the First World War, then, the Marines returned much of their focus to their prewar function as an advanced base force of the U.S. Navy. Under this vision, which found both its roots and its strength in the ideas of the indomitable naval theorist Alfred Thayer Mahan, the Marines were to act as a maritime force capable of securing and defending overseas bases that would, in turn, sustain American warships anywhere in the world. By seizing an expanding web of coaling stations for the U.S. fleet, the Marine Corps would play a fundamental role in any future naval conflict.

Despite an obvious amphibious connection with the Marines’ future operations in World War II, this early concept of advanced base operations differed in one basic element: it was a reactive, defensive force rather than a robust team built for offensive landing operations. Based on the early model, the Marines were to seize vacant territory and fortify it for battle. At most, they anticipated nominal resistance. More likely, the Marines expected to land ashore and simply claim the bases as their own. As two notable Marine historians revealed, “in practice all of the training concentrated on the defense. . . . The advance-base force was in actuality little more than an embryo coastal artillery unit.”  

John Lejeune

Two Marines in particular deserve credit for gradually shifting the Corps’ attention from the defense of unoccupied shores to the rapid, offensive seizure of strengthened enemy posts. The first, Lieutenant General John A. Lejeune, became Marine Commandant in 1920 and set the Service on a progressive but patient path toward aggressive amphibious operations. Unsettled by growing Japanese aggression in the Pacific and alarmed by the significant territorial concessions made to the Japanese at Versailles, Lejeune connected American security in the Pacific with the United States’ ability to launch offensive landing operations across the region. Pursuing his vision for a modern Marine Corps, Lejeune slowly refined and buttressed the Corps’ purpose in light of contemporary security concerns.

Lejeune was hardly the first to acknowledge the growing rift in the Pacific. Indeed, by the early 1920s, the Navy Department identified Japan as its most likely future enemy and began deliberate preparations for the looming contest. The Americans’ resultant plan— famously labeled War Plan Orange—went through a series of revisions in the succeeding decades, each of which centered on defending the Philippines and leading a prolonged naval campaign to capture Japanese bases across the Pacific. Here, Lejeune’s shift toward offensive amphibious operations neatly paralleled (indeed, reflected) the Navy’s intention to turn back Japanese expansion. War with Japan would compel a succession of amphibious assaults across the Central and Western Pacific. Lejeune, and Marine leaders who followed, were determined to position the Marine Corps for that exact task. Of course, shifting the Marines’ focus to offensive landing operations not only helped solve the operational problems of a future Pacific War, it also delivered an existential purpose for the post–World War I Corps.

To study the growing problem in the Pacific with more focus, Lejeune appointed a brilliant young staff officer by the name of Lieutenant Colonel Earl H. Ellis. Though Ellis was known as a heavy drinker with a fiery temper, he also carried an equally established reputation as one of the Corps’ most talented strategic thinkers. Even for the disciplined and professional Lejeune, Ellis’s aptitude as a Marine officer far outweighed his dangerous penchant for stiff drink. As commanding general of the 2d Marine Division during the First World War, a subordinate once alerted Lejeune that Ellis appeared “indisposed” because of his usual habits and might therefore be unsuited for his battlefield duties as adjutant. In reply, Lejeune snapped that “Ellis drunk is better than anyone else around here sober.”

Earl Ellis in France, 1919

Having established a personal rapport with Lejeune, Ellis emerged from World War I ready to tackle the general’s next great task: that of confronting the Japanese in the Pacific. Alongside the Navy Department’s broader development of War Plan Orange, Ellis quickly acknowledged the disturbing but unavoidable work that awaited the Corps. To win a contest in the Pacific, the Marines would have to prepare for a succession of concentrated amphibious assaults. As the prescient Ellis well knew, such attacks would be met by fierce and organized Japanese resistance from hardened island positions. In words that would become prophecy, Ellis declared: “The landing will entirely succeed or fail practically on the beach.” 

Fatefully, Ellis would not live to see the theoretical battles that he studied with such vigor and diligence. In 1923, he died mysteriously on Palau Island while on a self-appointed reconnaissance mission to study existing Japanese defenses.  Nonetheless, his capstone research, eventually christened “Operation Plan 712: Advanced Base Operations in Micronesia,” formed the Corps’ interwar foundation of amphibious strategy and doctrine. In part, Ellis’s pioneering work helped advance the rising stature and expectations of the Marines. By 1927, a Navy Department directive specifically assigned amphibious landing operations to the Marine Corps, and in 1933, Navy General Order 241 reorganized the Corps as a Fleet Marine Force.

Marines Heading for Action: World War II

Through these bold bureaucratic moves—and in large part thanks to the energetic leadership and vision of Lejeune and Ellis—the Service found itself explicitly assigned and structured for its budding amphibious mission.

Source: "Getting the Shells to Fall Where You Want Them”; Marine Corps History, Summer 2020

The All-Russian Zemstvo Union

Donate to War Victims
Konstantin Alekseevich Korovin, 1914

By Siobhan Peeling 

The All-Russian Zemstvo Union of 1914 mobilised local self-government bodies and professional specialists to provide medical aid to soldiers, relief for refugees and orphans, and assistance in army provisioning and food supply. It quickly grew into a huge national infrastructure, an unofficial government. Internal divisions and government ambivalence, however, hampered their efforts to address Russia’s wartime social and economic dislocation.

A zemstvo  was an institution of local government set up during the great emancipation reform of 1861 carried out in Imperial Russia by Emperor Alexander II. Nikolay Milyutin elaborated the idea of the zemstva [plural], and the first zemstvo laws went into effect in 1864. They were composed of deputies elected by the local population and employees from the professional intelligentsia, such as doctors, teachers, statisticians, and agronomists, who came to be known as the "third element." Their jurisdiction included securing food supply, administering charitable relief, developing trade and industry, participating in public education and health, cooperating in preventing cattle disease and crop destruction, and collecting taxes to spend on road upkeep and institutions of local justice. [The root zem comes from the word zemlya, meaning land.]

In practice, nevertheless, the public institutions were able to add to their sphere of competence, particularly in times of national crisis. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, zemstvo representatives created a general organisation for the relief of sick and wounded soldiers and the first all-Russian congress of zemstva met in November 1904, adopting an appeal to the Tsar for constitutional reform that was taken up by opposition groups in the 1905 revolution.

Wartime Rallying

On 25 July (7 August) 1914, six days after the German declaration of war on Russia, an emergency session of the Moscow provincial zemstvo pledged its energies to the war effort and suggested an empire-wide association of zemstva to organise medical aid. Less than a week later, a conference of delegates from 35 provinces resolved to create the All-Russian Union of Zemstva, under the leadership of Prince Georgii L’vov (1861–1925), approved by imperial decree on 15 August (28 August) 1914. At the same time, Moscow’s town duma [legislature] fashioned the Union of Towns as a voluntary association of municipalities engaged in medical relief. In spring 1915, as defeats on the Galician front revealed the scale of the crisis in munitions supply, the joint Union of Zemstva and Towns, known as Zemgor [gorod means town], was established to assist in supplying the army. The unions raised money for their activities through contributions from their provincial organisations and donations from private sources all over Russia. These funds became vastly outweighed, however, by sums disbursed from the state treasury and payments for state orders, so the unions were simultaneously organs of self-mobilisation and tightly intertwined with state structures.

Key Leader: Prince Georgii L'vov

Scope of Efforts

The tsar approved modest initiatives by the town and zemstvo unions. They were to last for the duration of the war to convey the sick and wounded from railway centres behind the army’s rear to hospitals across the country for treatment, under the flag of the semi-official Red Cross. By 1916, however, their activities had expanded considerably by virtue of the scale of the tasks at hand, the ineptitude of the central government, ambiguities in the unions’ remits and the ambitions of their personnel, until they were responsible for thousands of employees and monthly budgets of tens of millions of rubles. The presence of zemstva in the vicinity of the front meant the unions were soon cooperating with the army to deal with streams of casualties in the war zone itself. The demands of equipping hospital trains and buildings, meanwhile, involved them in matters of supply and manufacture.

The fact that the unions were never properly legalised put them in a precarious position but also freed them from statutes that ordinarily restricted the operation of local self-government organs. Their work in the towns and provinces was generally directed by ad hoc committees whose membership comprised not only zemstvo and town duma boards but also a range of specialist professionals. Union regulations did not impose strict control over committee activities, merely requiring they be carried out in accordance with local conditions. This gave them the flexibility to assume a range of functions inadequately fulfilled by the state, such as providing relief for families of mobilised men, war orphans and refugees, conducting vaccination programmes, assisting agricultural production and intervening in food and labour supply and army provisioning.

The central government, however, remained ambivalent about this independent initiative and concerned about the political colouration of the unions’ professional employees. In the course of 1916, the regime curtailed union meetings, many workers left the committees and field operations fell off. Members of the union leadership began to agitate for a government of public confidence, as proposed by the Progressive Bloc in the national parliament, the State Duma, to resolve the problems facing the country. Following the February revolution in 1917 the head of the Zemstvo Union, Prince L’vov, became Prime Minister of the new Provisional Government, the unions were restructured and zemstvo boards became the official repositories of government power in the provinces, but they could not hold back economic disintegration and social polarisation and did not survive the Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917 and the ensuing Civil War.

Russian Women Making Uniforms

Achievements

Assessments of the unions of zemstva and towns vary. Early accounts, influenced by recollections of leading union personnel, presented them as powerful organisations, possessing the confidence of the population and the army, whose largely successful wartime work was undermined only by financial constraints and government hostility. Later historians, such as Michael Hamm and William Gleason, began to point to inadequacies in union contributions, internal divisions between politically radical employees and conservative elites on local committees and indifference among the mass of the population. The story of the union leadership was at times conflated with that of the Duma and related as one of excessive caution on behalf of Russia’s ineffectual moderate liberals in the face of mounting political, social and economic crises.

Since the late 1970s, interpretations have become more nuanced, emphasising the heterogeneity of attitudes within the unions, the government, and the population to the role of these organisations and the mixed results of their programmes. Cooperation between government and unions was possible and, thanks to the dynamism of union staff, more than 3,000 hospitals were established, an adequate ambulance service from the front existed, tens of thousands of refugees were fed, clothed and registered, and thousands of orphans were housed. They achieved much in the supply of meat to the army and the distribution of prisoners of war and refugees to compensate for agricultural labour shortages. Their contribution to munitions provision, however, was less significant and they added to the organisational chaos underlying the crisis in food supply.

The burdens of servicing the war effort, meanwhile, devastated the capacity of local organs to meet increased demand among the civilian population for information, schooling, healthcare provision and mitigation of the soaring cost of living. Ultimately, the structures linking civic organisations, state and population mobilised by all combatants in the war were not deeply enough entrenched in Russia. The unions represented both the climax of the participation of self-government bodies and the professional intelligentsia in national life and its demise.

Source:  Online Encyclopedia, 1914-1918

Nine Telling Quotes from Richthofen's The Red Battle Flyer

For a century, Manfred von Richthofen has been the most universally admired hero of the Great War. Sixty-three million soldiers were mobilized for the war—why does this one individual stand out, even beyond hundreds of others highly recognized for their courage and gallantry? Naturally, with 80 aerial victories, he was the leading ace of the war, making him, almost automatically, the most prominent of that breed apart, those men able to soar above the desolate trenches, the "Knights of the Air.” In the pantheon of heroes this aligns him with other "achievers par excellence" like baseball's Joe DiMaggio or basketball's Michael Jordan.

On top of this, however, Richthofen's story contains countless other elements reinforcing his image as the most intrepid and charismatic of the war's combatants. With great diligence, the German government made sure his accomplishments were universally known and honored him with the order Pour le Mérite. But Richthofen himself, whether consciously or not, was, in many ways, his own best advocate. Painting his triplane red, of course, was a promotional work of genius. Not only did it suggest a standing challenge to all comers, it led to one of history's all-time unforgettable nicknames, the "Red Baron." Richthofen also wrote his own best-selling book—part autobiography and part propaganda piece—published in English as well as German before war's end, The Red Battle Flyer (Der Rote Kampfflieger). 

1.  My teachers did not think overmuch of me. On the other hand, I was very fond of sport. Particularly I liked gymnastics, football, and other outdoor amusements. I could do all kinds of tricks on the horizontal bar. For this, I received various prizes from the Commander [of the Academy]. 

2.  I am a restless spirit. Consequently, my activity in front of Verdun can only be described as boresome. . . I had had enough of it. I sent a letter to my Commanding General . . . My dear Excellency! I have not gone to war in order to collect cheese and eggs, but for another purpose.' At first, the people above wanted to snarl at me. But then they fulfilled my wish. Thus I joined the Flying Service at the end of May 1915. My greatest wish was  fulfilled. 

3.  I almost fell upon [Boelcke's] neck when he inquired whether I cared to go with him to the Somme. Three days later I sat in the railway train and traveled through the whole of Germany straight away to the [Western  Front]. At last, my greatest wish was fulfilled. From now onwards began the finest time of my life. At that time I did not dare to hope that I should be as successful as I have been. 

4.  I decided to have my packing case [aircraft] painted all over in staring red. The result was that everyone got to know my red bird. My opponents also seemed to have heard of the colour transformation. . . [Now, my red machine] is not unknown even among the troops in the trenches and is called by them `le diable rouge'. 

5.  The great thing in air fighting is that the decisive factor does not lie in trick flying but solely in the personal ability and energy of the aviator. . . In my opinion the aggressive spirit is everything and that spirit is very strong in us Germans. Hence we shall always retain the domination of the air.

6.  The idea of fighting again on the Western Front attracted me. There is nothing finer for a young cavalry officer than the chase of the air. . . “Now came my most beautiful time. Life in the Flying Corps is very much like life in the cavalry. Every day, morning and afternoon, I had to fly and to reconnoiter, and I have brought back valuable information many a time. 

 

7.  The celebrated triplanes and Spads were perfectly new machines. However, the quality of the box matters little. Success depends upon the man who sits in it. 

8.  Generally speaking, we of the Flying Corps do not think of records at all. We merely think of our duty. […] Still, it is some fun to have downed half a hundred aeroplanes. […] I hope that I may live to celebrate a second lot of fifty. 

9.  Now the battle that is taking place on all fronts has become really serious; nothing remains of the "fresh, jolly war" as they used to call our activities at the outset. Now we must face up to a most desperate situation so that the enemy will not break into our land. Thus I have an uneasy feeling that the public has been exposed to another Richthofen, not the real me. Whenever I read the [1917] book I smile at its brashness. I no longer have that brash feeling. Not that I am afraid, though death may be right on my neck and I often think about it. Higher authority has suggested that I should quit flying before it catches up with me. But I should despise myself if, now that I am famous and heavily decorated, I consented to live on as a pensioner of my honor, preserving my precious life for the nation while every poor fellow in the trenches, who is doing his duty no less than I am doing mine, has to stick it out. (1933 edition).

Morale Versus Technology in the Trenches

World War I revealed that three men and a machine gun can stop a battalion of heroes.

By Price T. Bingham

Although technological developments can lead to immense changes in the conduct of war, it is hard to anticipate what form these changes will take. The machine gun illustrates the tremendous impact of innovative technology on land warfare. Precision engagement could dwarf the influence of that weapon. Examining the introduction of the machine gun will help frame the questions we must address today in making the changes necessary to exploit technology and avoid the catastrophic errors that European armies made when the machine gun was initially fielded.

Machine guns transformed warfare by vastly increasing infantry firepower. The experience in European colonial wars of the last century strongly suggested that greater firepower made it too costly for massed infantry or horse cavalry to cross a killing zone only a few hundred meters wide. The immense advantage of weapons such as the one produced by Hiram Maxim moved Hilaire Belloc to quip:

Thank God that we have got

The Maxim gun and they have not

The lethal firepower of six Maxim guns explains why the British suffered only 48 dead at the Battle of Omdurman in 1898 while the Dervishes lost over 11,000. As Edward Arnold noted, “In most of our wars it has been the dash, the skill, and bravery of our officers and men that have won the day, but in this case the battle was won by a quiet scientific gentleman living in Kent.” Although Sir Edward realized the implications of what had happened, many did not.

While there was some appreciation that improving the lethality of firepower would demand changes in war fighting, European armies were unable to ask the right questions. Not surprisingly, answers to the wrong questions prevented them from anticipating innovations that new technology provided.

The French in particular failed to grasp how improved firepower might affect offensive operations. Not having asked the right questions, they arrived at answers that put too much emphasis on morale versus technology and strengthened the conviction that the offensive spirit of their soldiers would suffice. But the experiences of World War I revealed the limits of the human element when it became clear that “three men and a machine gun” can stop a battalion of heroes. 

Only after sustaining immense casualties while attempting to cross the killing zones on the battlefield of 1914–18, made possible by developments in firepower such as the machine gun, did armies make dramatic changes in war fighting. By the end of World War II, technological changes led to the end of horse cavalry and to the advent of mechanized vehicles for mobility, armored protection, and firepower. The armies of today have further increased their reliance on vehicles not just on the battlefield but across the entire theater. 

Source: "On Machine Guns and Precision Engagement", JFQ, Summer 1997

Remembering a Veteran, Capt. Albert Jacka, 14th Battalion Australian Imperial Force, VC, MC and Bar

Albert Jacka was born on 10 January 1893 at Layard in Victoria. He completed elementary schooling before working as a labourer, first with his father and then with the Victoria State Forests Department.

He enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 18 September 1914 as a private in the 14th Battalion. After training in Egypt, Jacka's battalion landed at Gallipoli on 26 April 1915. Just over three weeks later, on 19 May, with the ANZACs now entrenched above the beaches, the Turks launched large-scale frontal assaults against their positions. Some Turks captured a small section of trench at Courtney's Post. Early attempts to drive them out failed, until Jacka, taking advantage of a diversion created by bomb throwers at one end of the Turkish position, leapt in, killing most of the occupants. For this he was awarded Australia's first Victoria Cross of the First World War.

Jacka quickly became famous—his likeness was used on recruiting posters and his exploits featured regularly in newspapers, particularly in his native Victoria. He began a rapid rise through the ranks, finally becoming a captain in March 1917. Jacka having risen no higher has been attributed to his frequent disputes with superior officers.

Jacka at Mudros, Dardanelles Theater

After Gallipoli, the 14th Battalion was shipped to France, where, at Pozières in August 1916 and at Bullecourt in 1917 he won the Military Cross and a bar to that award. The Australian official historian, Charles Bean, described his actions at Pozières, during which he recaptured a section of trench, freed a group of recently captured Australians, and forced the surrender of some 50 Germans, as "the most dramatic and effective act of individual audacity in the history of the AIF." He was severely wounded during this action and was hit by a sniper's bullet in July 1917. On each occasion he returned to the front, always furthering his reputation as one of the AIF's most respected warriors. In May 1918 he received the wound that ended his combat career, this time during a German gas bombardment near Villers-Bretonneux.

Jacka returned to Australia in September 1919. Greeted by a large crowd upon his return, Jacka was described in one newspaper as "the symbol of the spirit of the ANZACs." After being demobilised in January 1920 he went into business with two former members of his battalion. He married the following year, and he and his wife later adopted a daughter. In 1929 Jacka was elected to the St Kilda Council, becoming mayor the following year. His political career was characterised by his strong interest in assisting the unemployed. Meanwhile, his business, which had performed well until the late 1920s, was forced into voluntary liquidation in 1930.

Jacka's Funeral Procession, January 1932

At the same time, Jacka's health began to deteriorate. He entered Caulfield Military Hospital in December 1931 and died from kidney disease the following month. More than 6,000 people filed past his coffin as it lay in state and his funeral procession, flanked by thousands of onlookers, was led by over 1,000 returned soldiers. The coffin was carried by eight Victoria Cross winners. Jacka was buried with full military honours in St Kilda cemetery.

Source: Australian War Memorial

The Weekly War: How The Saturday Evening Post Reported World War I

Edited by Chris Dubbs and Carolyn Edy

University of North Texas Press, 2023

Courtland Jindra, Reviewer

In our increasingly fractured media environment where people tend to go into their different media silos for entertainment, news, and culture, it may seem strange that a magazine sought to be the main source of news and culture to “average” America. The Saturday Evening Post of the early 20th century attempted to appeal to, and influence the opinions of, middle America. While the rich city dweller might subscribe to Harper's Weekly, your typical American in what we'd now term "flyover country," had seen nothing like this until Cyrus Curtis bought the struggling newspaper in 1897. Curtis converted the publication to a magazine, hired the ambitious young editor George Horace Lorimer, and together they'd turn The Saturday Evening Post into a juggernaut that appealed to middle class Americans, with everything from short stories by popular authors, to in-depth articles about famous newsmakers of the day, pieces on business and sports, recipes, reviews of theater, and so on. Basically, it was a one-stop shop for a bit about everything going on in the country at the time.

When war clouds gathered on the horizon in the summer of 1914, Lorimer decided he should send correspondents to Europe to cover what might prove to be the biggest story of the age. The Saturday Evening Post did not usually have staff writers as such—the magazine depended on people to submit their work freelance—but Lorimer changed his mind during the war and worked on getting writers overseas so they'd give him stories that he was sure the public would be interested in. Once the shooting started in late July, his prescience was duly rewarded. Lorimer had people on the ground from practically the earliest days of the fight. Hundreds of articles would be written during the next five-and-a-half years about the conflagration and its aftermath. Most would focus on the Western Front, but the magazine would run pieces from Russia, Serbia, Italy, the Ottoman Empire, pretty much anywhere there was a good yarn to tell. 

This anthology, put together by Chris Dubbs and Carolyn Edy, cherrypicks 33 essays and columns from four distinct periods of the war (early days, the lead up to U.S. engagement, Americans in the fight, and after the war) to give a flavor of how the entire conflict was covered. Chapters before each section also discuss some of the memorable events and stories that were published at the time but not included in the anthology proper.

Several of the writers are included multiple times in the volume since the Post's correspondents (few of whom had ever actually covered a war before) wrote numerous articles from the afflicted countries. Most articles are quite memorable, with wonderful turns of phrase and imagery. They're occasionally filled with humor but always a sense of pathos. In one, “Europe's Ragdoll”, Irvin S. Cobb describes how much Belgium suffered at Germany's expense. He describes a destroyed toy doll he saw that had been left on a random road:

Since then, I have seen many sights. Some were dramatic and some were pathetic and nearly all were stirring; but I still recall quite clearly the little picture of the forks of the Belgian road, with a background of empty fields and empty, wrecked houses, and just at my feet the doll, with its head crushed in and the sawdust spilled out in the rut the ongoing army had made. And always now, when I think of this, I find myself thinking of Belgium.

Another, “Ward Eighty-Three” by Elizabeth Frazier, documented time she spent as a volunteer nurse at a French hospital. In one vignette she discusses a Frenchman who denigrated the Croix de Guerre he had received. Later she noted:

It was not until several days later when I came upon him unobserved, poring over the official notice of decoration, and caught the look of pride, of emotion in the young face, that I really got the matter straight. Twenty-one is twenty-one the world over, and always hides its loves.

In covering the Balkans, Herbert Corey noted in an article titled “An Army of Homesick Old Men” when the Allied offensive was reclaiming territory that:

Then the French did one of the graceful things they can always be counted on to do. “This," said the officer in command, "is an old Serbian town. The Serbs shall be the first to enter."

There is a piece describing the ongoing Armenian Genocide and one from an observer of the signing of the Versailles Treaty (and how anti-climactic is all seemed). I could probably pull quotes that have stuck with me from nearly all of the selections, but I think “Ruins” (again by Elizabeth Frazier) describing the devastation of eastern France culminates both the tragedy of war and why France was so adamant that Germany had to suffer in its aftermath:

During the war certain German potentates had openly avowed their intention to "strike France to the heart for fifty years." Beholding the systematic destruction, it seemed as if they had done it.

All in all, this is a well-curated tome and a must-have for a lover of long-form writing from the era.

Courtland Jindra

Beautiful New Poster Series from the American Battle Monuments Commission

Our recent article on the Somme American Cemetery has drawn a number of inquiries about the beautiful poster for the cemetery that I included in the presentation. This is from a new series of posters from the American Battle Monuments Commission. As part of the centennial of the founding of the commission, they have produced a comprehensive series of vintage-style works of art commemorating all its cemeteries.  The project was inspired by the Federal Art project that the government released after the Great Depression to promote its parks and showcase landscapes that belonged to the American people.

These vintage works were designed by French artist DOZ, whose touch is inspired by famous photographers from the 1950s who made a point in capturing joyful, lighthearted moments of daily life. Included in the series are posters for all the World War I cemeteries and major monuments.  Shown here are four of the 12 posters covering  the First World War.

DOZ developed these posters using his neo-retro style characterized by the use of bright colors that give a contemporaneous feeling to the design. Usually contracted to create designs for tourist towns in France and abroad, designing posters of commemorative sites was a first and a challenge for the artist. He said it was important for him to not create somber designs, but instead to convey the beauty of the sites, depicting them as testimonies of peace.

At this time, the commission is not offering printed versions of the posters, but the high-resolution printing file for each poster is viewable and available for download HERE.  Please note that the posters are copyrighted and may not be reproduced for commercial purposes.

When Emperor Franz Josef Learned of the Archduke's Assassination

The Archduke's Bloody Tunic

By Greg King and Sue Woolmans

Franz Josef was at Ischl that Sunday when the telegram arrived from Baron Rumerskirsch [a member of the Archduke's entourage]:

Stunned and deeply shaken by the incomprehensible, I am broken-hearted to inform you that in the course of a drive through Sarajevo His Imperial Highness and Her Highness were hit by shots from a dastardly assassin's hand and badly wounded. They were taken at once to the Konak where immediate medical help was present but it was not possible for human help to save them and Their Highnesses passed away after a few minutes without having regained consciousness.

Count Paar, the emperor's adjutant, took the cable to Franz Josef. The old emperor said little. As if overwhelmed at the news, he closed his eyes for a few moments, then spoke—inadvertently, Paar thought—expressing in a moment of weakness a sentiment he never otherwise would have revealed. “Horrible! The Almighty does not allow Himself to be challenged with impunity. A higher power has restored the old order that I unfortunately was unable to uphold.” 

Emperor Franz Josef had responded with harsh insensitivity. The shocking remarks have been questioned as out of character for the old emperor, yet his subsequent behavior confirmed his sense of relief. He had always regarded his nephew with suspicion and his morganatic marriage as an unwelcome, humiliating situation that had dragged the dignity of the imperial Habsburgs through the mud. 

Certainly no one has questioned the veracity of Franz Josef's daughter Marie Valerie, who rushed to her father on hearing the news although, as she noted in her diary, she knew “that it would cause him no grief, merely excitement.” She found her father “amazingly fresh.” He was, she recorded, “moved, to be sure,” and spoke “of the poor children with tears in his eyes,” but, “as I knew beforehand, not personally stricken.” In their conversation, he made only a passing reference to the assassination of his heir, telling his daughter coldly, “For me, it's one great worry less.”

The emperor now acted to tie up loose ends. He ordered Franz  Ferdinand's Militärkanzlerei (Military Chancery) immediately closed. All of the archduke's mail was seized, his files and papers confiscated, and everything sealed in the emperor's archives. Later that Sunday, an adjutant presented the emperor with the proposed text of a public statement on Franz Ferdinand's assassination that included the line “The death of my Beloved Nephew, a death painful to me. . .”

Seeing these words, Franz Josef picked up a pen and crossed through “a death painful to me.” Colonel Bardolff confirmed this lack of feeling when he met the emperor a few days later. After delivering an account of events in Sarajevo, Franz Josef quizzed Bardolff. “And how did the archduke bear himself?” “Like a soldier, Your Majesty,” Bardolff replied. “That was to be expected,” the emperor commented. That was it; not a word of sympathy for the victims before Franz Josef quickly moved on, asking, “And how did the maneuvers go?”

Source: Over the Top, June 2014

Fall 1916: Rumania Staggered

After remaining neutral for two years, Rumania—miscalculating the apparent success of Russia's Brusilov Offensive—chose to enter the war on the side of the Entente on 27 August 1916. The government's prime motive, like Italy's in 1915, was to obtain more territory. King Ferdinand and Premier Ion Bratianu, however, had grossly overestimated the fighting power of their army and the weakness of the Central Powers.

Rumanian Infantry Form a Skirmish Line

Following an initial advance across the Transylvanian Alps into Hungary, Rumania was invaded from two directions. From Bulgaria in the south, a combined force of Germans, Turks, and Bulgars under the command of Field Marshal August von Mackensen attacked between the Danube and the Black Sea. Rumania moved troops from the advancing forces in Transylvania to oppose the counter-invasion which threatened all of their Black Sea ports as well as Bucharest, the capital. Then in late September, General Falkenhayn, recently demoted as chief of staff, arrived to take command of the German Ninth Army in Transylvania to the north. He quickly attacked, capturing Hermanstadt and driving two Rumanian divisions back into the mountains.

In quick order the two German commanders and a third Austro-Hungarian force relentlessly crushed the Rumanian opposition. By 5 December, Bucharest had fallen, Rumania's oil fields had been set ablaze, and three-fourths of Rumania was occupied. The arrival of Russian forces staved off total disaster. A defensible line was formed on Sereth River in the northeast allowing Rumania to retain a major portion of Moldavia.

German Cavalry Pursuing Rumanian Troops

There was little action in the next year, but in December 1917, the exhausted Rumanian government had to ask the Central Powers for terms. They had lost a war and suffered over 400,000 casualties for their territorial ambitions. Things would change dramatically for Rumania at the Paris Peace Conference, but that is a story we will address at another time.

'Twixt the Marne and Ypres: The Race to the Sea Through Artois

German Infantry Poised to Attack

Action shifted in early October to the vicinity of Arras and Souchez village near the Lorette Heights and Vimy Ridge. Once the Germans were contained before Albert, French cavalry units headed north to take part in the operations to block attacks on Arras and Lens and outflank the German right wing. French reinforcements flooded into Artois between 29 September and 2 October, transported by bus from the railway stations around Amiens. On 2 October, however, the French were buffeted by a powerful assault at Monchy-le-Preux, to the northeast of Arras.

Next, elements of several German armies tried but soon abandoned a direct assault on the city of Arras. They had been frustrated primarily by the French 77th Division, recently arrived from Lorraine. It was commanded by a senior general, Ernest Barbot, who had been scheduled for retirement had war not broken out in 1914. His troops were deployed north of Arras on 2 October around the village of Souchez which is strung along the Arras-Bethune highway. His use of the 75 cannon at point-blank rage convinced the German commanders they would not take Arras via coup-de-main.

Subsequently, two corps of German cavalry were ordered to break into the French rear and cut the rail lines bringing reinforcements. The village of Vimy was captured. The German horse troops, however, unexpectedly ran into some local territorial troops fighting effectively from prepared positions and got bogged down. Another opportunity lost.

On 4 October, Foch arrived on the scene, re-energizing the two armies in the sector, Castelnau's Second Army and Maud'huy's Tenth Army. Also, the additional French troops that the German cavalry was hoping to block began arriving in force around Arras and went on the attack. The cavalry commander, General Marwitz, was compelled to withdraw east of the heights.

Memorial at Souchez to General Barbot
and the 77th Division

With what they believed to be a temporary advantage, the French attacked on 8 October but were surprised to find that a new corps arriving from the east, the XIVth, had force-marched from Mons to reinforce the Germans. These new troops effectively slammed the door on the advancing French. The German Army needed to keep moving north though. Sixth Army had been probing north towards Lens, which they captured on 4 October, and on to La Bassée and Lille where they would collide with British troops moving into the sector from the Aisne. These newly arrived Tommies would play a critical role in what was to be the last phases of the Race to the Sea. Rudyard Kipling in his History of the Irish Guards gives an overview of the major redeployment the General French's BEF would conduct in October 1914:

Held up along their main front, the Germans struck at the Flanders plain, the Allies striving to meet the movement and envelop their right flank as it extended. A British force had been sent to Antwerp; the Seventh Division and the Third Cavalry Division had been landed at Zeebrugge on the 7th October with the idea of helping either the Antwerp force or co-operating with the Allied Armies as circumstances dictated. Meantime, the main British force was being held in the trenches of the Aisne a hundred and twenty miles away; and it seemed good to all concerned that these two bodies of British troops should be consolidated, both for purposes of offence, command and, by no means least, supply, on the Flanders flank covering the Channel. . . It will be remembered that the Second and Third British Army Corps were the first to leave the Aisne trenches for the west. On 11 October the Second Army Corps was in position between the Aire and Béthune and in touch with the left flank of the Tenth French Army at La Bassée.

It was in the 11-mile gap between La Bassée and Armentières in the north that the final act of the Race to the Sea would be played out. The fierce fighting would result in setting an immovable section of the Western Front that would not be abandoned by German forces until October 1918.

William Jennings Bryan's Response to the Lusitania Sinking

Wilson's First Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan

By Paolo E.Coletta

I. Addressing the Unfolding U-boat Threat

The death of an American, Leon C. Thrasher, on 28 March 1915, on the torpedoed British unarmed passenger ship Falaba, drove home the danger that threatened Americans on belligerent ships. The Falaba case was doubly important because it would serve as a precedent if similar torpedoings occurred and drove President Wilson, Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, and key State Department Counselor Robert Lansing to restudy at length their position on the U-boat. 

As Lansing saw it, by warning its citizens against traveling on belligerent ships the United States would give up its right as a neutral to protect them on the high seas and in effect give up its wartime trade with the Allies in favor of Germany, or the United States could insist upon the right of Americans to travel, subject to the normal rules of visit and search, thereby guaranteeing the Allied trade and risking war with Germany. He chose the second course. By permitting Americans to act as shields for trade with the Allies, Lansing was extending the strict accountability doctrine to cover any ships which had an American aboard. 

Bryan vigorously objected. He told Wilson that an American knowing of the submarine danger who took passage upon a British ship was guilty of contributory negligence and denied that U-boat warfare could be condemned as illegally improper. Undecided between Lansing and Bryan, Wilson asked Lansing for an opinion. Lansing saw the sinking of the Falaba as a "wanton act . . . in direct violation of the principles of humanity as well as of the law of the nations." He would ask Germany to "disavow the act . . . punish the perpetrator . . . make just reparation for the death of Leon C. Thrasher,” and take steps to avoid future incidents. 

Bryan disagreed. Did not the arming of British merchantmen justify U-boat attacks? Why not enter a claim against Germany without announcing the American position on submarine warfare? Moreover, he would deny to a single individual, by taking passage on a belligerent merchantman, the right to involve the entire nation in difficulty. Lansing stuck to his position, adding that the German publication of notices to American citizens not to take passage on British ships traversing the German war zone was a "formal threat" to those who would exercise their "just rights" on the high seas and an "insolent" procedure which usurped the prerogative of the State Department.  He would answer additional U-boat attacks with armed force. Bryan instead saw Germany as wishing to avoid the raising of embarrassing questions and held to his doctrine of contributory negligence. Wilson broke the impasse by saying that he would postpone final settlement of claims arising out of the Falaba, Cushing, and Gulflight incidents until after the war "in case present efforts fail." He temporarily rejected Lansing's "strict accountability" doctrine and reduced Bryan's fear of war with Germany by accepting his suggestion that he "make a protest against the holding up of our trade with neutrals at the same time we protest against the submarines." 

II. Lusitania 

But then any goodwill Germany may have gained by offering full recompense for torpedo damage to the Gulflight vanished on 7 May 1915 when 124 Americans were among the 1,201 persons lost on the Lusitania.

Bryan charged that Britain had been using Americans to protect her munitions on the Lusitania and asserted that "to maintain strict neutrality we must send a note to England protesting against her interference with our shipping—as well as one to Germany for destroying the Lusitania." But House believed that the United States must force Germany to give assurances that she would not sink passenger ships if she did not voluntarily do so, Page demanded war with Germany lest the United States forfeit respect from the Allies.  Lansing concluded that Germany was culpable regardless of the fact that the Lusitania carried contraband, and Wilson hesitated to arouse the hackles of the Allies with a protest as long as the submarine problem remained unsettled. Bryan was alone in demanding what he called a "Real Neutrality," one which gave equal treatment to both sides. This required that the interests of America, not those of any belligerent, be placed "first," that the Lusitania affair be settled by peaceful means, and that the right of a neutral to travel was not more sacred than that of a neutral to trade. In the end, Wilson, saying that his arguments seemed to be unanswerable, adopted Lansing's position and wrote a note in which he completely upheld the doctrine of the freedom of the seas. Rather than severing diplomatic relations as Lansing wished, however, he would give Germany an opportunity to alter her submarine methods. 

During the next two weeks Bryan reiterated a four-part plan: use conciliatory means with Germany; warn Americans from traveling on belligerent ships; postpone settlement of the Lusitania  case until after the war; and send guilty Britain a note. Wilson declined his advice on all points except on the note about Allied violations of neutrality. Yet he preferred to revive the old modus vivendi in which the British would lift their food blockade of Germany and Germany cease U-boat warfare, and in the end vetoed even the note to Britain lest it be thought he was making a concession to Germany. Germany rejected the modus vivendi except on terms that would prove unacceptable to Britain and in her reply to the Lusitania note presented a legalistic defense of the sinking of the ship and concluded that U-boats could not follow the rules of cruiser warfare.

Robert Lansing on the Right Advising the President

III. Bryan's Departure

Bryan charged the Cabinet was being pro-Ally, was rebuked by Wilson, and hinted that he would resign if the Lusitania case was not solved peaceably. Wilson asked him to submit new suggestions on a course of action. Bryan repeated his four-part plan; he had no further ideas. He had done all he could to advise Wilson, he concluded, and could do no more. Wilson pondered Bryan's plan but chose Lansing's policy of "strict accountability.”

Had American ships and citizens been barred from the danger zone as Bryan suggested, a clash with Germany might have been avoided because no Americans would have been on ships sunk by U-boats. Unrestricted submarine warfare would then concern only the Allies. However, Wilson's compounding of national honor, international law, morality, emotional sympathy with the Entente powers, and the safeguarding of the important trade with the Allies led to a policy of inflexibility on the submarine issue. Since he could not compel Wilson to adopt his views, Bryan's only alternative was to resign, which he did on 8 June. Wilson then sent his note. Germany must follow the rules of "cruiser warfare" and also give assurances that American lives and ships would be safeguarded. 

Bryan's saying that he had resigned because of disagreement with Wilson in method but not in objective was mystifying, for the Lusitania note was less harsh than the strict accountability note of February. If he was out of the administration, he was in no sense "out of the picture,” however, and he obtained both a hearing and a following. His resignation left a void in the highest echelon of American government. There was no one left around Wilson who sincerely believed in neutrality. Out of office, Bryan immediately became the leading spokesman for the anti-interventionists.

Source: Over the Top, May 2015

Report Card: The AEF's Performance at Cantigny and Château-Thierry

Doughboys of the 1st Division at Cantigny with a French Schneider Tank

By  Mark E. Grotelueschen

When General Ludendorff launched Operation MICHAEL in mid-March 1918, only four full American divisions were in the front lines of the Western Front, and of those four only one was completely trained and in full command of its own sector. Americans were occupying just 27 of the Western Front’s roughly 750 kilometers of trenches. By the end of June, AEF divisions were occupying more than 95 kilometers of frontage, a clear indication of America’s growing contribution to the Allied war effort. In May and June, more than 460,000 American troops arrived in France, assuring both the Allies and the Germans that the American presence would grow dramatically in the coming months. More important, in specific locations along the increasingly active Western Front in the spring of 1918—at Cantigny, Château-Thierry, Lucy-le-Bocage, Belleau Wood, and Vaux—a growing number of American units demonstrated that they were willing and able to fight with the grit and determination necessary to achieve an Allied victory.

Wounded Doughboy at Cantigny

The American divisions employed in these early operations—the 1st, 2d, and 3d—showed all the signs of inexperienced units in their first engagements. The Allies that fought with them, the Germans that fought against them, and even the American officers and men within the divisions and at AEF GHQ all were aware of this fact. Yet these three divisions, and those that came after them, were fighting in extraordinarily difficult tactical, operational, and strategic situations. All but one went into combat without having completed a full training program. At times, they arrived on a battlefield and went into action without sufficient maps or enough time to examine the terrain and establish liaison with the units alongside them. In light of these challenges, it is not surprising that these untried officers and men made mistakes and suffered more casualties than hindsight suggests they should have. 

3rd Division Machine Gunners on the South Bank of the Marne

Yet for all their inexperience, they occasionally demonstrated sufficient skill to competently plan and execute attacks against a more capable and experienced foe and showed the tenacity and courage to fight their battles through to victory even in the face of the initial problems, mistakes, and terrible losses that were almost unavoidable characteristics of any Great War battle.

Marines after Securing Belleau Wood

The Americans displayed these strengths and weaknesses in May and June 1918, when these AEF divisions helped stop and then turn back a desperate German Army. These same divisions, as well as a number of others, would show them again in mid-July during the true turning point of the war—the Second Battle of the Marne.

Excerpted from Into the Fight April–June 1918; U.S. Army Campaigns of World War I Commemorative Series

Kitchener: The Man Not the Myth

By Anne Samson

Helion & Company Ltd., 2019

James Thomas, Reviewer

Click on Image to Enlarge

There have been many Kitchener biographies over the years, some balanced, some practically hagiographic. This most recent is a good one. The problem with doing a biography on a figure such as Kitchener is not only that he is so iconic but that he was a very complex person whose career covered more than one nearly legendary period in the history of the British Army. Anne Samson’s biography of Kitchener is not just the latest, but her Kitchener: The Man Not the Myth, immediately stands out as different enough to be unique, and well done enough to be quite impressive.

As a military historian whose career began over 40 years ago studying late Victorian and Great War British military, I was initially put off by Dr. Samson’s admission that she is not a military historian and so would not deal directly with the military aspects of Kitchener’s career. By the end of the book, though, this proved to be a benefit and not a detriment, and perhaps an apology is in order as Samson’s biography is now a favorite. It is very well written, and Samson’s turn of phrase, insight, and analysis are outstanding.

H.H. Kitchener built his career through the building and maintenance of the empire in the glory years of the Victorian era. Never attaining the heroic stature of Wolseley, Roberts or even Buller, unfortunate controversy over his desecration of the Mahdi’s grave and the desperate measure of concentration camps in the Boer War tend to sully his reputation. Samson even notes the story of “Breaker” Morant, which hurt Kitchener’s image much more in the modern world (thanks to the excellent movie of the same name) than it did to his contemporaries.

Outliving and outlasting most of those contemporaries, Kitchener almost by default became the symbol of a desperate nation facing the horrors of the Great War. To the generation of Britons who fought World War I, nothing could match the power and encouragement of the steely-eyed Lord Kitchener demanding the nation’s participation in the fight. Unfortunately, his leadership was not as remarkable as this image, and it was primarily his death by a German mine that turned him from scapegoat to martyr. 

There are only a few critical points to make about Dr. Samson’s book. Thomas Pakenham’s The Boer War is still the definitive study of that conflict and could have helped in some of the events and assessment of Kitchener’s actions had she included it in her study of that period. She does an excellent job using the multitude of biographies as starting points, but Pakenham should also have been used.

One other thing worth noting is that Dr Samson does not address the questions regarding Kitchener’s sexuality. This would not be an issue, except that her title and narrative suggest that the book will delve into his personal side, and she even devotes an entire chapter to his private life. It could be suggested that if the book details his religious beliefs then his sexuality is also not off limits. To those who know the rumors, her multiple references to Oswald Fitzgerald are more than just hints and should be addressed. Perhaps it is simply a reflection of today’s neo-Victorian squeamishness that sex is not mentioned, and it does not detract from the quality of the book, just as it did not detract from Kitchener’s skills as an Army officer. As with lack of military details, the more one already knows about Kitchener, the better Samson’s book is.

Overall, these negatives are more "nitpicking" than serious issues, and Samson’s Kitchener: The Man Not the Myth is a welcome addition to both Victorian and Great War scholarship.

James Thomas