100 Years Ago: Bastille Day in Paris

One hundred years ago, despite having its army deeply involved in a double death-struggle – both at Verdun and on the Somme – the celebration of the Republic's great national holiday went on. At least one commentator noted that the celebration had a peculiar international feel. Certainly the images of the day's events reflect this. (The poster above from the day involves a fundraising relief effort at the Paris city hall.)

One or two Poilus surrounded by members of the Allies' forces.

This was the only photo I could find identifying a French unit in the parade. (I'm a bit suspicious that it might be an Italian unit, though.)

Scotsmen on parade.

The Parisians seem enchanted with the Sikhs of the Indian Army.

The fabled Russian Expeditionary Force put in an appearance.  There was no snow on their boots, however.

Major General William S. Graves and the American Expeditionary Force in Siberia

Contributed by John M. House

World War I was in its final months, though no one knew that was the case. One of the Allies was caught in the death throes of a civil war. American Doughboys were fighting alongside French and British soldiers in the trenches on the Western Front. America’s families were learning the pain of loss and worry over loved ones far away. The Great War was ending its fourth year. The date was 6 August 1918.  

Major General William S. Graves in Vladivostok, Siberia

A late evening meeting at a train station in the Midwest marked the start of a remarkable adventure that few Americans today know anything about. The details seem almost to come from a spy novel in which two men meet quietly in an out-of-the-way location to launch thousands of young men on an invasion of a foreign nation halfway around the world. The situation is murky. The threat is unclear. Intelligence is limited. Strong willed military and civilian leaders from the United States and its allies have argued for and against the invasion. Insufficient numbers of American or Allied soldiers are available for occupying the entire country.

Imagine the thoughts rolling through the mind of Major General William S. Graves, an 1889 graduate of the United States Military Academy and commander of the U.S. Army’s 8th Division headquartered at Camp Fremont, California. He arrives at the Kansas City, Missouri, train station at 10:00 p.m. after a two-day train ride from his duty station. The secretary of war Newton Baker has summoned him for a meeting. Time is short. Rather than meet at the Baltimore Hotel as planned the two men discuss a fateful decision at the train station. Baker tells Graves he will lead the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) that is deploying to Siberia. Baker also says, “If in the future you want to cuss anybody for sending you to Siberia, I am the man.” Graves receives a sealed envelope with a seven-page letter titled “Aide Memoire” dated 17 July 1918. This document provides an outline of American policy in Russia. Baker’s last instructions to Graves were, “Watch your step; you will be walking on eggs loaded with dynamite. God bless you and good-bye.” Such words would make anyone wonder just what they had been told to do. Graves would discover just how much dynamite was in those eggs in the months ahead. The American soldiers with him would also discover the truth in Secretary Baker’s warning.

Earlier in 1918, Major General Graves had been the executive assistant to the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, General Peyton C. March, who handpicked him for the Siberia assignment with the personal approval of the secretary of war. One of Graves’s assistants was Captain Robert L. Eichelberger, who would later rise to be a general officer himself. When Graves learned that he was to take command of a division to deploy overseas, he had Eichelberger select a division for the two of them to join. 

Therefore, Graves and Eichelberger found themselves reassigned to the 8th Division at Camp Fremont, near Palo Alto, California, in July 1918. Graves expected the division to deploy to Europe in late August. During their trip to California, Graves told Eichelberger that the government was considering sending soldiers to Siberia with him as the commander. Nonetheless, General March had assured Graves that he would go to Europe and not Siberia. Eichelberger would stay with Graves and accompany him to Siberia serving as chief of staff and intelligence officer at different times during the deployment as the AEF Siberia experienced the typical rotation in personnel rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Major Sidney Graves, the general’s son, also would deploy to Siberia. Obviously, General Graves’s plans to command in Europe changed. While Graves did not show his staff the complete “Aide Memoire” at one time, the document served as their guide to American policy throughout their stay in Siberia.

General Graves and the Command Staff, AEF Siberia

General Graves’s new mission would take him thousands of miles away to a land where few Americans had been and even fewer wanted to visit. He would have to balance the demands of allies and American officials with the needs of his soldiers and the human suffering of the people who lived in the region. Orders and morality would sometimes conflict. Throughout this mission, the instructions in the “Aide Memoire” would serve as a guide. Graves worked hard to achieve this balance so he could follow his orders and protect the innocent civilians in Siberia. The soldiers of the 27th Infantry Regiment Wolfhounds and the 31st Infantry Regiment Polar Bears provided the muscle when he needed it whether in combat or humanitarian support. Their sacrifices are not well known, but they are worth remembering.

The War Department leadership considered Major General Graves an outstanding officer, which led to his selection for this independent command in Siberia.  Unfortunately, his service there wrecked his career.  Graves later wrote about apparent communications by individuals in the State Department that he was a weak commander and ill suited for the missions he had. His lack of large-unit command was mentioned as an issue regarding his selection to lead the AEF Siberia. Negative reports from Russian newspapers were finding their way into the American press and reports within the government. Many of these reports accused the AEF soldiers of actually being Bolsheviks. Graves felt that this was mainly due to his decision not to support Kolchak in his efforts to establish a government.

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This concern over Bolshevik influence apparently became so severe that the American government began monitoring the actions of the AEF veterans. General Graves reported that about sixty AEF veterans and family members gathered for a dinner in November 1921 at the Commodore Hotel in New York. When an unknown man joined the group, a member of the committee who had organized the dinner inquired as to who he was. This new arrival showed a Department of Justice badge and informed the person questioning his presence that he was there under official orders and that no one should bother him. An inquiry to the hotel assistant manager after the dinner confirmed that the Department of Justice agent had shown the hotel personnel his badge and that they had no choice but to seat him as demanded. Graves was convinced that someone in the government dispatched this agent to observe and report on the actions and comments of the AEF Siberia veterans. After the Siberian intervention, Graves would command the 1st Division and the Panama Canal Zone. He provided testimony about the depravity of Semenov before the Senate in 1922.  Yet, even with this successful career, he would remain politically suspect until his death in 1940.

Extracted from Wolfhounds and Polar Bears: The American Expeditionary Force in Siberia, 1918 – 1920 by Colonel (USA Retired) John M. House

Faith in the Fight: Religion and the American Soldier in the Great War reviewed by Margaret Spratt, PhD

Faith in the Fight: Religion and the American Soldier in the Great War

by Jonathan H. Ebel

Princeton University Press, 2010

Chapel, U.S. St. Mihiel Cemetery

When one visits an American military cemetery abroad, one is struck by not only the beauty of rows upon rows of sparkling white markers against a background of green lawn but also the sense of reverence visitors demonstrate as they walk among those pristine and orderly resting places. To some, they represent a view of heaven on earth. To others, these peaceful cemeteries are the antithesis of the hell that the soldiers endured before their untimely deaths.

Having just returned from France where the graves of American soldiers dot the rural landscape, Faith in the Fight helped me sort out the philosophical contradictions of total war. As historians learn very early in their educations, actions are relatively easy to understand compared to motivations. The role that religion played in the lives of American soldiers and war workers is crucial to an understanding of that generation’s commitment to an unprecedented war effort.

The author, Jonathan Ebel, recognizes that individual expressions of faith as well as descriptions of wartime experiences are a messy lot. But he observes that "War made a soldier feel alone and, alone with this faith, led him to draw on the elements of faith that were of the greatest importance to him, and in which he found the greatest comfort." Using wartime narratives and articles from the Stars and Stripes, the official newspaper of the AEF with a circulation at its peak of 522,000 copies, Ebel has attempted to analyze the oft-romantic words of the soldiers and war workers as they faced adversity unknown to their family and friends at home.

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This is a challenging study that succeeds in sorting through the personal and public uses of religion as motivation and justification for going to war. Certainly Christianity was used by propagandists and clergy to explain the need for masculine involvement, and the spread of muscular Christian organizations such as the YMCA played a role. The author believes there was a deeply established religious foundation in America that dated well before 1917. An enthusiastic populace responding to the call to arms with religious zeal exemplifies that belief, but this book is much more than an exploration of religious justifications.

The author looks at two groups whose motivations and experiences differ from those of white males. One chapter is devoted to black soldiers’ war experiences. He points out that the desire to end racism and the hope that exemplary military service might lead to that event contributed to the hope of religious redemption.

Ebel also looks at the meaning of womanhood and the roles women played during the war in a separate chapter. He assigns women to three groups: War Wives and Mothers, Sisters in Arms, and New Woman Warriors, believing that these categories help to place women within the context of war. However, he is quick to point out that women always served within a domestic sphere even as they drove a truck filled with medical supplies to an aid station close to the front.

In two different chapters, Ebel uses the soldiers’ own words to examine how they made sense of death. He discovered that “the suffering and bleeding, writhing and dying. . .were modern forms of martyrdom. . .which brought salvation to the fallen.”

Certainly the emotion one feels walking about in an American military cemetery in France echoes that sentiment. Images of sacrifice and martyrdom dominate the memorials and chapels that see few visitors but stand as testaments to the fallen.

Chapel, U.S. Meuse-Argonne Cemetery

The author cannot resist the temptation of comparing the role of religion in the Great War to wars across time, but he clearly points out that the Great War was not a war of religion. However, when speaking of the soldiers and war workers he states, "Religion informed their sense of duty, gave them the language, narratives, ideas, and symbols to frame the conflict and to understand their part in it." Religion helped them cope with the possibility of death of their comrades and themselves and, perhaps most important, justified “the greatest sacrifice of war: the sacrifice of one’s unwillingness to kill.”

Although Faith in the Fight was published six years ago, its relevance has not diminished. It is an important part of the intellectual canon for what it says about the Great War and also for what it says about ALL war.

Margaret Spratt, PhD

Navigating the Italian Front

One area that has been neglected so far in the Centennial commemorations is the Italian Front of the Great War.  I am hoping that will pick up soon, and I'll be doing as much as I can to correct that in our Worldwar1.com publications. However, since I've given a number of talks on the fighting there and led tours there, I know there is quite a bit of confusion about the location and character of the geography in its various sectors. Here is a little primer so you can understand which areas are being discussed when you see articles or TV programs on the war on the Italian Front. The are five sectors, five kinds of battlefields, to be mindful of. Since the terrain was different in each, the character of the fighting there was different as well.

Here Is Your Editor and Guide Atop the Italian Bastion of Monte Grappa (Sector 5) with the Dolomite Alps in the Distance (Sector 3A)

This key map locates the different sectors show on the subsequent slides. The S-shaped front was about 400 miles long from the spring of 1915 until the Battle of Caporetto in October 1917.

Here are slides showing the features and terrain of the five sectors.

This area is also known as the Lower Isonzo.  It was the main location of Isonzo Battles #1–11 and the site of the greatest casualties on the Italian Front.  The Carso Plateau, the city of Gorizia,  and a second rocky plateau, the Bainsezza, were the main obstacles to the Italian advance on Trieste.

The Upper Isonzo, on the edge of the Julian Alps was the location of the most famous battle on the Italian Front and one of the most lopsided military engagements of the 20th century.

The mountaintop warfare in the High Alps was the most dramatic element of the war in Italy. It featured mine warfare on mountains, incredible engineering feats, and some unique ways to die not seen on the Western Front  – Avalanches, Freezing, Starving, and Falling Off Cliffs.

This lovely transition zone between the Lower Tyrol/Trentino and the Venetian Plain was the site of Austria-Hungary's forgotten, but important, 1916 offensive and desperate fighting post-Caporetto. The war opened in 1915 on the north edge in the Fortress Zone marking the prewar borders between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Italy. 

After the Battle of Caporetto, the German and Austrian pursuit drove the Italians far south, from the Adriatic to the Asiago Plateau. However, the Italians with Allied reinforcements were able to hold on to a strong (and shorter) defensive line. The marker above shows where Ernest Hemingway was wounded.  Please remember, though — Ernest Hemingway was NOT at Caporetto.

Keeping the Memory Alive: A Visitor’s Experience at the National World War I Museum

by Cody Northrup

            

I had the opportunity to visit the National World War I Memorial and Museum in Kansas City this month, and as a history teacher with a particular interest in the First World War, I wanted to share the experience with my fellow World War I aficionados. While the museum itself is fairly new, having just been opened in 2006, the memorial that sits above it has a history dating back nearly a century. In 1919, just months after the battlefields finally grew quiet after four years of combat, citizens of Kansas City felt the urge to pay a lasting tribute to the American participants in the war. They were able to quickly raise several million dollars, and the final product of their activism, completed in the 1920s, is a sight to behold. Describing the numerous statues and symbols that adorn the memorial deserves an article all its own, but the main attraction is the Liberty Memorial Tower, stretching 265 feet in the air. While exploring the memorial, it is difficult not to appreciate its majestic design.

Kansas City may not seem like the most obvious location for what the United States had deemed its official WWI museum, but it is an appropriate area for numerous reasons. The commanding general of the American Expeditionary Force, John J. “Black Jack” Pershing was born and raised just miles outside the city (the museum is actually located on Pershing Street), and an artillery captain in the war named Harry S. Truman, who went on to become President of the United States, came from neighboring Independence. Additionally, only seven states in the nation produced more Doughboys than did Missouri, which enlisted over 128,000 soldiers in all.

            

Onto the museum itself, I feel there are three strengths that should be highlighted. The first of these is the accessibility it provides to all audiences. History buffs will surely feel the greatest sense of awe when exploring the exhibits, but those with little background knowledge of the war can easily catch up on the context with the videos that play throughout the museum. Even children can stay involved by completing a scavenger hunt guide. The second strength is the museum’s ability to establish balance and impartiality. The first half of the exhibits cover the war from 1914–17, while the second half focuses on the United States’ involvement from 1917–18. I did not feel that the material presented any bias for or against any country. It is up to the viewer to make up his or her own mind based on the artifacts displayed. And while the Western Front deservedly receives much attention, lesser known topics such as the role of Asian powers in the war and the AEF Siberia receive some much-appreciated spotlight as well.

A glimpse into life in the trenches 

The final strength is the somber atmosphere the museum is able to create. While the visit was an exciting experience, I feel that the First World War was a tragic event and appreciated the ability to reflect on it in such a way. Upon entering, visitors cross a glass bridge, suspended over a field of 9,000 (artificial) poppies. Each of these poppies represents 1,000 lives that were lost in combat. While I know that 9,000,000 is an enormous number, seeing the sacrifices before me in this visual way allowed me to better understand just how dramatic that number is.

            

While viewing the museum’s first display, featuring artifacts from a peaceful prewar Europe, one can hear the sounds of artillery being fired from a distant part of the building. It creates a sense of the impending doom that quickly struck the people of Europe in the summer of 1914. Other examples are the peepholes that allow one to look in on mannequin soldiers seeking cover in a life-size trench and a ledge that lets viewers look down on soldiers crossing a shell-pocked no-man’s-land. I felt like a voyeur who was able to step back a century into time when observing these exhibits. While I am certainly glad I never had to experience the horrors of trench warfare firsthand, gaining a glimpse of it through these battlefield recreations gave me a new sense of what the combat must have felt like. It wasn’t the new facts that I learned at the museum that I most appreciated; rather, it was this sense of reflection that the displays were able to instill.

            

I should add here, and as the generation born in the late 19th century who had the misfortune of achieving adulthood in a war-torn world can attest to, timing is everything. The atmosphere I described is best achieved on quiet day. A ticket allows visitors two days of admission. The first day I visited, I happened to arrive at the same time as a large middle school class on a field trip. Luckily, the second day I attended saw the museum pretty empty, allowing me to appreciate it without fighting for room to view the exhibits with the other visitors. If you plan on visiting, perhaps give the museum a call beforehand in order to avoid large crowds.

Looking down on the field of poppies upon entering the museum

While there are far too many collections and artifacts on display to begin to mention in this space, I would like to spotlight a temporary exhibit that commemorates the centennial anniversary of the two bloodiest battles of the First World War — Verdun and the Somme. Titled “1916: They Shall Not Pass,” it features a multitude of items used in these now legendary battles, such as a Vickers machine gun, a 340mm mortar shell, and a bullet-pierced helmet. The exhibit will continue to be displayed through March 1917, when it will be replaced by one dedicated to the anniversary of the United States’ entry into the war. It is awe-inspiring to be up close and personal with these objects, knowing that exactly 100 years ago they were being used to permanently change the world as we know it.

Unfortunately the First World War has become largely forgotten in the collective memory of Americans. Because of this, I appreciate efforts — whether it is sites like Roads to the Great War or museums like the one in Kansas City — that use the centennial anniversary of the war to keep its memory and significance alive. If you have any questions about a particular piece of the museum, leave a comment here or contact me at northrup@nmmi.edu. 

A Dozen Great War Quotes

At first there will be increased slaughter — increased slaughter on so terrible a scale as to render it impossible to get troops to push the battle to a decisive issue. Everybody will be entrenched in the next war. The spade will be as indispensable for a soldier as his rifle. All war will of necessity partake the character of siege operations. Then we shall have a long period of continually increasing strain upon the resources of the combatants. Soldiers may fight as they please; the ultimate decision is in the hands of famine. 

Ivan Bloch, Modern Weapons and Modern War, 

1897 

What minister who declared war in August 1914, would not have recoiled with horror had he known the shape of the world in 1918, not to speak of the present? One who had such an intuition and did so recoil was, of course, the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Grey.

Henry Kissinger, 

A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh, and the Problems of Peace 1812–1822

You can be a virgin in horror the same as in sex. How, when I left the Place Clichy, could I have imagined such horror? Who could have suspected, before getting really into the war, all the ingredients that go to make up the rotten, heroic, good-for-nothing soul of man? And there I was, caught up in a mass flight into collective murder, into the fiery furnace. . . Something had come up from the depths. . . Men are the thing to be afraid of, always, men and nothing else. 

Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Journey to the End of Night

. . .thralled and breathless, I was watching the first big infantry charge I had ever seen. It was a glorious and terrible sight, and exultant. The infantry pushed and tore through the village of Sedd el Bahr up to the fort belching fire and death from the cliff beyond. . . A man who lived ten minutes under that Turkish fire seemed to have a charmed life. Most dropping within minutes. But before they dropped they worked — ah, how they worked while they lived! Each did his small vital bit; and when he lurched bleeding into his sea grave, a comrade, newly come, snatched up his job until he, too, died. . . 

Major A. H. Mure, aboard River Clyde, V Beach, Gallipoli, 

25 April 1915

It does not pretend to be impartial. I was fighting for my hand, upon my own midden. Please take it as a personal narrative pieced out of memory. I could not make proper notes: indeed it would been a breach of my duty to the Arabs if I had picked such flowers while they fought. 

T.E. Lawrence

Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Author's Preface

During the last days disorders have taken place in Petrograd, followed by force and assaults on the lives of soldiers and members of the police. I forbid every kind of assembly in the streets. I warn the population of Petrograd that commands have been issued and repeated to the troops to use their arms and not to stop short of anything in order to assure tranquility in the capital.

Lt. Gen. Sergei Semenovich Khabalov, 

Commander Petrograd Military Area, 25 February 1917 

And now I'm drinking wine in France,

The helpless child of circumstance.

Tomorrow will be loud with war,

How will I be accounted for?

Lance Cpl. Francis Ledwidge, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers (KIA 31 July 1917) 

Soliloquy

You know my system, I stick a bit of plaster here, then another there, then another there. The Boche doesn't advance so fast—hardly advances at all. I stick another bit there, and the Boche is stopped. You can always stop the Boche.

Ferdinand Foch, 26 March 26 1918

Just before he was named Generalissimo

My subject is war, and the pity of war. 

       The poetry is in the pity.

              Wilfred Owen, 

Preface

Richthofen has really been killed in action! I am completely shattered by the news. No words will suffice to do justice to his deeds, or to describe the grief which every German feels at the loss of this national hero; it is just impossible to grasp. . .

Herbert Sulzbach, German Artillery Officer

With the German Guns

There's absolutely nothing so uncanny as to hear a shell approach. It is not comfortable in broad daylight, but at night it is positively bloodcurdling. 

Sgt. John A. Cegner, 141st Infantry, AEF

[It's] another of those pesky half-holidays, with some things open, other things closed and everybody confused and/or uninterested. Now it's called Veterans Day, but when Nov. 11 was Armistice Day, it had meaning and poignancy — parades at slow time, muffled drums, black armbands, gold star flags in front windows of grieving mothers. The Civil War was a horror, but World War I was the real thing, dragging this coltish young nation into the international arena. It was all so innocent that those of our generation cannot hear "My Buddy" or "Over There" without a lump in the throat. I won't say "Happy Veterans Day" because the phrase makes no sense.

Herb Caen,  San Francisco Chronicle

9 Nov 1986 Column

The AEF's M-1917 Helmet

A Doughboy Reenactor in Authentic Gear

By Mark A. Reynosa

The United States entered World War I in April 1917, and at the time the United States Army did not have a helmet for its troops. The adoption of a helmet by the French, British, and German armies convinced the U.S. Army that a helmet was needed as a standard piece of equipment. In June 1917 the Army selected the standard British helmet design for its use. This was the British Mk. I steel helmet. There were three main reasons for the selection of the British Mk. I helmet design:"the immediate availability of 400,000 ready-made helmets from England, the simplicity of manufacture from hard metal, and the superior ballistic properties." When the British Mk. I was selected by the U.S. Army, the U.S. production version was designated and standardized as the Helmet, M-1917. Until U.S. production of the M-1917 could begin, the Army purchased the 400,000 available British Mk. I helmets in England and issued them to the American Expeditionary Forces already in Europe. Production was begun on the M-1917 helmets in the fall of 1917. By the end of November 1917, large quantities of M-1917 helmets became available for the U.S. Army. 

Rear View

The M-1917 helmet was very similar to the British Mk. I helmet, basically an inverted bowl stamped out of a single piece of manganese alloy, which was made up of 13 percent manganese and was .036" thick. This differed from the British helmet, as the Mk. I helmet was made up of 12 percent manganese. Thus, ballistically, the M-1917 helmet increased protection for the wearer by 10 percent over the British Mk. I helmet and could withstand a .45-caliber pistol bullet traveling at 600 feet per second fired at a distance of ten feet. A rim was spot welded to the edge of the steel bowl, with the ends butted, as opposed to lapped, which was done on the British Mk. I helmet. Riveted to the steel bowl were two flexible guiding loops for the chin strap. Here again, the U.S. M-1917 helmet differed from the British Mk. I helmet. On the U.S. helmet the loops were secured by solid machined rivets, whereas the British Mk. I helmet used split rivets. An adjustable leather chin strap was riveted to the steel bowl and consisted of two halves, each joined together by metal loops which were secured to the ends of the leather halves by steel split rivets. Also riveted to the steel bowl was the helmet lining. To make the outside surface of the helmet anti-glare, the helmets were first painted, then fine sawdust was blown on the wet paint, and finally the helmet was painted again. To increase protective properties the helmets were painted in an olive drab shade.

Machine Gunners of the 3rd Division at Château-Thierry

During the fall of 1917 production was begun on the M-1917 helmets. By the end of November 1917, the first deliveries of large quantities of M-1917 helmets were being made to the U.S. Army. On 17 February 1918 approximately 700,000 M-1917 helmets had been produced. As United States involvement in World War I increased, the U.S. Army placed additional orders for the M-1917 helmet. By July 1918 orders for the M-1917 helmet reached 3,000,000, in August 6,000,000, and in September 7,000,000. In November 1918, when hostilities ended and American production was ordered to cease, U.S. manufacturers had produced a total of 2,707,237 M-1917 helmets.

Excerpted from U.S. Combat Helmets of the 20th Century; reprinted with permission.

Read the July 2016 St. Mihiel Trip-Wire

The July issue of our monthly newsletter, the St. Mihiel Trip-Wire, is now available online at:

http://www.worldwar1.com/tripwire/smtw.htm

Here are the Discover World War I features in this issue

• Verdun: Not Dead, Not Past
• Multiple Articles on the Centennial of the Battle of the Somme
• Report on the WFA-East Coast, USA, Symposium & Memorial Day Events
• Coming WWI Symposia & Seminars
• A Great War Poetry Blog
• Next Issue of  Over the Top
• The Centennial Ticker
• Raising Fund for the National Memorial
• 100 Years Ago: The First Day on the Somme
• Battlefield Tours: The Somme, Flanders 1917, Caporetto, and the Italian Front
• WWI News Stories from the 21st Century
• Japan's Imperial Navy in the Mediterranean
• Ford (Despite the Peace Ship) Goes to War

1916 on the Isonzo, Italy's Most Successful Advance

Overview

If the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain. . . then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue.

            Sun Tsu - The Art of War 

When Italy entered the Great War in 1915, it hoped to tilt the balance of force against the Central Powers, ending the war quickly and allowing them to gain some long sought after territorial gains on the cheap. By the start of 1916, however, Italy found it was engaged in a protracted total war, placing undreamed-of social and economic strains on the nation. Italy's government and military had to justify this burden with some successes on the battlefield. Their new allies had also started placing demands on them to continue on the offensive to alleviate pressures on their fronts. Austria-Hungary, likewise, had mobilized its entire empire to support its war effort and needed to keep popular support. Also, to inhibit the disintegration threatened by the growth of ethnocentric nationalism, Austria-Hungary could not afford to surrender any territory. On the Isonzo, all of this meant that in 1916 Italy needed to continue attacking and Austria-Hungary needed to continue defending. The war of attrition would continue growing with both sides blind to the inevitable consequences. 

Fifth Battle of the Isonzo

9–17 March 1916

In February of 1916, on the Western Front the German Army launched a tremendous assault on the city of Verdun and its surrounding fortress zone in northeast France. At a conference at Chantilly, France Marshal Joffre requested that Italy and Russia take the offensive on their respective fronts to reduce pressure on the French forces. Cadorna ordered a broad, but half-hearted, offensive nearly immediately. 

Probes were made at Tolmino, Gorizia, and the Carso. In most cases they were more demonstrations than full assaults. These died out after about a week because of bad weather and some bracing counterattacks staged by the Austrians, most notably at Santa Maria near Tolmino. The Italian Army also still needed more guns and artillery shells. The Allies committed to sending Italy heavy artillery pieces, but further offensives were delayed until the new weapons and sufficient shells could be assembled. 

Meanwhile, in the Trentino, the Austrians were marshaling their own forces for an assault. If they could mount a successful attack down off of the mountains, cross the Asiago Plateau, then occupy the Venetian Plain, they could cut off all the Italian forces in the Carnic and Julian Alps and along the Isonzo. This major operation, called the Battle of Asiago by most and the Straffe [Punishment] Expedition by some began on 15 May 1916. Asiago will be the subject of another major article on La Grande Guerra and will not be discussed here in detail. It did, however, have some dramatic effects on the Isonzo Front, and these need to be outlined briefly. 

At first the Austrian attack in the Trentino looked dramatically successful. Comando Supremo delayed further its plans for offensive operations and moved troops to reduce the threat to their rear. The deployment from the Isonzo to the Asiago Plateau was done fairly quickly since the Italian forces were traveling over shorter, interior lines. By early June the Austrian offensive was grinding to a halt. The Italian situation was further helped by the Russian response to their call for pressure on the Austrian Army on the Eastern Front. The subsequent series of actions known as the Brusilov Offensive were so successful that Austrian Supreme Commander Conrad von Hötzendorf was forced to give up his Trentino Offensive and move troops to distant Galicia. Italy responded in turn by mounting a counteroffensive which ultimately regained part of the Asiago Plateau. 

Back on the Isonzo Front, General Borojevic had decided to strengthen some local positions and the Italian Third Army was directed to mount attacks to discourage the Austrians shifting more men to the Trentino. Italian operations at Monfalcone were fairly low-scale, but the concurrent Austrian attack on the Carso marked a turning point for the Great War on the Italian Front. In their assaults on the Italian IX Corps at Mte San Michele and San Martino they introduced gases of the asphyxiant type leading to some quick local successes with heavy losses casualties among their opponents. The Italian killed, wounded, and gassed totaled 4,600 men in just a few days. 

View from Monte San Michele

As the Italian counteroffensive on the Trentino slowed, the focus of Comando Supremo shifted back to the Isonzo. Now, they decided, the time was at hand to capture strategic Gorizia. Again, they used their shorter interior lines to shift troops, this time back to the Isonzo sector. In August they would be ready to mount what would turn out to be the most successful of their 11 Isonzo Offensives. 

Sixth Battle of the Isonzo 

4–17 August 1916

The Sixth Battle of the Isonzo is also known as the Battle of Gorizia, after Italy's sole objective for the operation. For once, by practicing the principle of mass or concentration and limiting the initial battlefield to an eight-mile-wide front, General Cadorna was able to align ten of his divisions against only two of his enemy's. This was made possible by the secrecy surrounding the preparations and his speed in switching back units from the Asiago sector.

The Isonzo, Where the Italian Army Crossed in Force

The battle began with what was intended to be a diversionary artillery barrage and an infantry feint by units of two corps against Monfalcone to the south. The fighting got out of control, though, resulting in over five days of tough combat. The diversion failed to draw any Austrian units around Gorizia south. 

The main advance began two days later from the towns of Oslavia and Padgora and featured the capture of Mte Sabatino and Mte Padgora despite strong resistance and heavy counterattacks. On 8 August, units of the 12th Italian Division were the first to enter Gorizia. The next day the Isonzo was crossed in force and the city secured. On the southern perimeter, the front broadened, growing to a width of 15 miles. The fierce fighting characteristic of the Carso was once again renewed. Mte San Michele and Mte Sei Busi were finally seized, but at tremendous loss of life. The Italian advance on the Carso continued several miles to the dry river bed of the Vallone.

Typical Brutal Terrain on the Carso Plateau

General Cadorna turned a bit cautious and Borojevic brought up reinforcements who dug in at strong locations, and the operation ended fairly quickly. The advance of three miles depth over the 15-mile front with the capture of several strategic targets was the first major offensive success by the Italian Army during the Great War. Italian morale temporarily soared and on 29 August the government finally declared war on Germany. For their gains, the Italian Army had suffered 50,000 killed and wounded; on the defense, Austria-Hungary lost 42,000. Planning was initiated by Comando Supremo to expand the Gorizia bridgehead as soon as sufficient ordnance could be collected.

Coming in the Fall of 1916: Three More Battles on the Isonzo

The Burning of the World: A Memoir of 1914 reviewed by David F. Beer

The Burning of the World: A Memoir of 1914

by Béla Zombory-Moldován. Translated by Peter Zombory-Moldovan

New York Review Books, 2014

This short paperback is an excellent read on a number of levels. First, although labeled as a memoir, it's written in the style of All Quiet on the Western Front and other such memoir/novels and thus makes a captivating narrative. The translation from the original Hungarian (by the grandson of the author) is in a clear and coherent literary style that compares well with other WWI classics of this genre. Some passages reveal sensitivity to color and texture not often found in war recollections, but this isn't surprising since the author (who lived from 1885 to 1967) was an established painter, graphic artist, and illustrator who graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest prior to the Great War.

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We briefly meet several other Austro-Hungarian artists and writers in The Burning of the World, men who, like the author, were drafted into the army as soon as war broke out for them in July 1914. Although we may not be familiar with their names, or with the names of some places and events important to the story and to the opening moves of an infantry regiment of the Royal Hungarian Army, brief notes on each chapter identify and explain all such names. Furthermore, a map of the Balkans and particularly of Hungary and Galicia at the back of the book keeps us informed of where we are. The notes and map are indispensable, as is the informative 14-page introduction to the book by translator Peter Zombory-Moldovan, who lives in London.

A photograph at the front of the book shows Béla Zombory-Moldován as a rather dapper young man in the company of over a dozen friends enjoying a vacation at a resort in Novi Vinodolski on the Adriatic coast. (Warning: you may need a magnifying glass to identify some place names on the map.) Everyone is shocked when the news of war reaches them.

Self-Portrait in Uniform

From there we follow Béla as he returns to Budapest, takes leave of his parents, is mobilized and commissioned as a junior officer, and then travels by train and afoot across Hungary to his first and last battle at Rava Ruska. He takes part in horrific fighting as some 300,000 troops attack the Russians on 6 September 1914 — but find themselves retreating by 11 September. Some 400,000 Austro-Hungarian casualties result from these actions, with 100,000 more taken prisoner by the Russians (who lose 250,000 men).

The chapter on Rava Ruska, titled "Into the Fire," takes us only halfway through Béla's story. We then follow him as he is wounded, agonizingly evacuated "by cart and train, and eventually hospitalized with the crazies" in a military hospital while his wounds heal. Much later he's able to return to quiet resort villages and attempt to paint once more, but not before he contends with unbearable civilian attitudes, a brittle relationship with his father, and dismay bordering on depression. As Peter Zombory-Moldovan aptly states in his introduction, ". . . it is the account of what happens after his return from the front that is, from a psychological point of view, the most revealing and interesting part of the work (xv)."

War in the Balkans inevitably involved numerous peoples with different backgrounds, aims, and languages. The polyglot nature of the Austro-Hungarian Empire created problems of communication that can only be imagined in a more homogenous nation, and these problems reveal themselves in the book. Soldiers who cannot understand their officers are sent into battle ill trained and poorly equipped, knowing that if they are injured they can  expect only the most primitive of help.

1952 Landscape by the Artist

Béla himself survived his wounds and the war, and went on to become the principal of the Budapest School of Applied Arts. He also became a noted landscape artist. His handwritten memoir came to light much later and, as mentioned above, was edited and translated by his grandson. It has so far only appeared in English. That the New York Review of Books chose to publish it in their Classics series is a further indication of its significance. For me it was an enjoyable, moving, and educational read that increased my understanding of some early events in WWI that I had little knowledge of before.

David F. Beer

Remembering a Doughboy on the Fourth of July

Lt. Robert Mitchell from Tennessee was an officer with the machine gun company of the 328th Infantry of the 82nd Division. He wrote the letter below on 6 October 1918, as his unit was preparing to help relieve the Lost Battalion in the Argonne Forest.

Nine days later he was killed in action. Lt Mitchell was buried in the Meuse-Argonne Cemetery where he rests today.

To: Winfred 

Sitting on the head of a cot, map case on knee and head ducked beneath canvas leanto against side of company officer's wagon.  The war news continues to be the best ever. We're licking the tar out of the Germans and I'm a live part of it.  The spirit of the boys is great and they are brimming over with confidence. These are stirring times and regardless of my personal outcome I'm glad to be a part of it.

Robert

Source: War Letters, edited by Andrew Carroll

Eyewitness: France Marches to War, August 1914

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Reported by Correspondent Phillip Gibbs

I went down to the East frontier on the first day of mobilization. It was in the evening when I went to take the train from the Gare de l'Est. The station was filled with a seething crowd of civilians and soldiers, struggling to get to the booking-offices, vainly seeking information as to the times of departure to distant towns of France. The railway officials were bewildered and could give no certain information. The line was under military control. Many trains had been suppressed and the others had no fixed time-table. I could only guess at the purpose animating the individuals in these crowds. Many of them, perhaps, were provincials, caught in Paris by the declaration of war and desperately anxious to get back to their homes before the lines were utterly choked by troop trains. Others belonged to neutral countries and were trying to escape across the frontier before the gates were closed. One of the "neutrals" spoke to me—in German, which was a dangerous tongue in Paris. He was a Swiss who had come to Paris on business for a few days, leaving his wife in a village near Basel. It was of his wife that he kept talking.  "Ach, mein armes Weib! Sie hat Angst fur mich."

The platform was now thronged with young men, many of them being officers in a variety of brand-new uniforms, but most of them still in civilian clothes as they had left their workshops or their homes to obey the mobilization orders to join their military depots. The young medical officer who had been speaking to me withdrew himself from his wife's arm to answer some questions addressed to him by an old colonel in his own branch of service. The lady turned to me and spoke in a curiously intimate way, as though we were old friends.

"Have you begun to realize what it means? I feel that I ought to weep because my husband is leaving me. We have two little children. But there are no tears higher than my heart. It seems as though he were just going away for a week-end—and yet he may never come back to us. Perhaps to-morrow I shall weep."

As our train passed through France on its way to Nancy, we heard and saw the tumult of a nation arming itself for war and pouring down to its frontiers to meet the enemy. All through the night, as we passed through towns and villages and under railway bridges, the song of the Marseillaise rose up to the carriage windows and then wailed away  like a sad plaint as our engine shrieked and raced on. At the sound of the national hymn one of the officers in my carriage always opened his eyes and lifted his head, which had been drooping forward on his chest, and listened with a look of puzzled surprise, as though he could not realize even yet that France was at war and that he was on his way to the front. But the other officers slept; and the silent man, whose quiet dignity and sadness had impressed me, smiled a little in his sleep now and then and murmured a word or two, among which I seemed to hear a woman's name.

In the dawn and pallid sunlight of the morning I saw the soldiers of France assembling. They came across the bridges with glinting rifles, and the blue coats and red trousers of the infantry made them look in the distance like tin soldiers from a children's play box. But there were battalions of them close to the railway lines, waiting at level crossings, and with stacked arms on the platforms, so that I could look into their eyes and watch their faces. They were fine young men, with a certain hardness and keenness of profile which promised well for France. There was no shouting among them, no patriotic demonstrations, no excitability. They stood waiting for their trains in a quiet, patient way, chatting among themselves, smiling, smoking cigarettes, like soldiers on their way to sham fights in the ordinary summer maneuvers. The town and village folk, who crowded about them and leaned over the gates at the level crossings to watch our train, were more

demonstrative. They waved hands to us and cried out "Bonne chance!" and the boys and girls chanted the Marseillaise again in shrill voices. At every station where we halted, and we never let one of them go by without a stop, some of the girls came along the platform with baskets of fruit, of which they made free gifts to our trainload of men. Sometimes they took payment in kisses, quite simply and without any bashfulness, lifting their faces to the lips of bronzed young men who thrust their képis back and leaned out of the carriage windows.

"Come back safe and sound, my little one," said a girl. "Fight well for France!"

"I do not hope to come back," said a soldier, "but I shall die fighting."

The fields were swept with the golden light of the sun, and the heavy foliage of the trees sang through every note of green. The white roads of France stretched away straight between the fields and the hills, with endless lines of poplars as their sentinels, and in clouds of grayish dust rising like smoke the regiments marched with a steady tramp. Gun carriages moved slowly down the roads in a glare of sun which sparkled upon the steel tubes of the field artillery and made a silver bar of every wheel-spoke. I heard the creak of the wheels and the rattle of the limber and the shouts of the drivers to their teams; and I thrilled a little every time we passed one of these batteries because I knew that in a day or two these machines, which were being carried along the highways of France, would be wreathed with smoke denser than the dust about them now, while they vomited forth shells at the unseen enemy whose guns would answer with the roar of death.

Guns and men, horses and wagons, interminable convoys of munitions, great armies on the march, trainloads of soldiers on all the branch lines, soldiers bivouacked in the roadways and in market places, long processions of young civilians carrying bundles to military depots where they would change their clothes and all their way of life—these pictures of preparation for war flashed through the carriage windows into my brain, mile after mile, through the country of France, until sometimes I closed my eyes to shut out the glare and glitter of this kaleidoscope, the blood-red color of all those French trousers tramping through the dust, the lurid blue of all those soldiers' overcoats, the sparkle of all those gun-wheels. What does it all mean, this surging tide of armed men? What would it mean in a day or two, when another tide of men had swept up against it, with a roar of conflict, striving to overwhelm this France and to swamp over its barriers in waves of blood? How senseless it seemed that those mild-eyed fellows outside my carriage windows, chatting with the girls while we waited for the signals to fall, should be on their way to kill other mild-eyed men, who perhaps away in Germany were kissing other girls, for gifts of fruit and flowers.