A Day at the Somme—"15 September 1916" by Wilfrid Ewart

Excerpted from Way of Revelation: A Novel of Five Years; Lt Ewart was a member of the 2nd Scots Guards during the attack described here.

1.  THEY perished.

When the roll came to be called at a little village in the valley of the Ancre, barely one-fourth of those who had marched into action ninety-six hours before answered to it.

Colonel Steele fell gloriously. From a shell-hole in the midst of the battlefield, though mortally wounded, he directed the sway- ing fortunes of his battalion while consciousness remained, thus at the last earning the admiration of the officers and men who had hated him. His second-in-command, Major Brough, had fallen an unexpected victim to illness and, without taking part in the action, went home. The young adjutant, Langley, coming up with all speed from reserve was fatally struck down. Alston, grievously wounded, lay a prisoner in German hands. The two other company-commanders, Vivian and Darell, supported by the remnants of their men, were last seen fighting at the bayonet's point, a grey sea of Germans in full counter-attack closing round. The subalterns and ensigns fared no better on that great and terrible day. But Cornwallis went happily, oh! how happily home to England with a bullet in arm and thigh.

Of the rank and file, the non-commissioned officers and private soldiers, the majority of those not accounted for were found to have attained their ultimate rest.

Out of the fight which for twenty-four hours swayed up and down the green-brown, shell-scarred slopes of Ginchy, Morval and Lesboeufs until at length the victory was won out of the fightcame Captain Sinclair, smiling, dirty, tired, limping . . . and alone.

The 2nd Scots Guards (SG) Were on the Far Left

2.  Night brooded over the battlefield. It was the hour for the burial of the dead. 

To Lieutenant Sir Adrian Knoyle who, as it happened, had been detailed to remain among the officers in reserve befell this duty. A cold rain drove in gusts. A wet wind blew. Gloom and darkness lay over all. Gloom and darkness reigned in his heart. Bitterness strangled it.

They lay around scores of them, a hundred, three four hun- dred. Impenetrable blackness hid them. But when the star-lights went up they could be seen as men sleeping vague forms outlined upon the ridge of a trench, upon the lip of a shell-hole.

All shapes, all attitudes, all positions. Some on the back, hands to thigh, heels together, gazing upwards; some on the side and some curled up as though enjoying pleasant dreams; some flat on face, arms and legs outspread ; some with head resting on arm or pack and one knee raised. Some whole ; some twisted, bent up, in halves or shreds; some with nails dug deep into mud and weird contorted faces; some rigid, some stiffening by degrees, and some quite limp and loose. Some in couples clasped like children who crouch together from sudden fear ; some lying across one another carelessly. Some drunk with rum in death. . . . Germans, too, Germans very much like the rest. And once, once only, a grey and a khaki figure locked on each other's bayonets.

He touched them at times stumbled over them. Picking his way among the shell-holes, he felt the soft, unnatural flesh, the hair, rough, draggled and wet, without life, coagulated; the body stiff, unyielding, unresponsive and empty.

Mingled with the soil, torn from their bodies their letters, their pipes, their photographs of women, their tobacco-pouches, their lockets of women's hair, all the poor paltry things they valued once tied up with the pay-book, hung around the neck, tied to the string of the metal disc.

The rain drove in gusts. How the wind keened! There was an occasional rifle-shot. Figures moved in the gloom.

"Who are you?"

"Kamerad ! Burial-party !"

They, too, creeped like jackals among the slain!

Earth upon earth. Dust back to dust. Into the shell-hole, fling them. Cover them up!

Darkness and gloom. Gloom and darkness in the heart. Bitter- ness strangling it.

Clink of the spades.

"Come on! Heave in this one! Heavy, ain't he? . . . Cover him up!"

Reinforcements Moving Up 15 September 1916

3. Over that dread scene, over that waste of shell-holes, of greenish water, of scarred and upchurned earth, broken trenches and mangled wire, all night long, it seemed to Adrian Knoyle, a vague familiar figure stood. Through the paling gloom and the swish of the rain, through the shrill of the wind and its driving gusts, through the livelong night, he saw it standing there a sombre stooping form with hands folded and head bent as one pondering.

And when the star-lights went up, they revealed the white and mirrored room. And the woman of the dazzling tiara and the reddish-golden hair smiled. And the violins shivered out Humoreske while dancers spun and whirled.

Fort Vaux: Before the Great Battle — A Roads Classic

From the earliest days of that blazing month of August 1914, when the clash of nations began, Fort Vaux, plying with its questions the Woevre plain on the Thionville and Metz side, was awaiting on tenterhooks the results of the first collision. At night it saw the long glittering arms of the Verdun searchlights rake the skies above its head, scanning the stars for zeppelins or Taubes. Several regiments, marching past it, had taken up their station farther eastward, in front of Jeandelize or Conflans. The hours of waiting dragged on. It heard the firing of guns, but not from the quarter where it was keeping vigil. The sound was coming from Longwy, or perhaps from Longuyon. The storm, whirling along the Lorraine border, seemed to be swooping down upon the Ardennes.

Model of Fort Vaux

On 20 and 21 August the fort saw troops defiling past it, with laughter and song on their lips. They were marching toward Longuyon by the Ornes road. They knew nothing as yet of the rigours of this new war. With light hearts they went to it, as lovers go to a trysting place. The Third Army, massed at Verdun, was making for Virton. On the 22nd it had already come to grips with the Crown Prince’s Army.

On the 25th, the garrison was cheered by a stroke of good fortune of which it was at once informed. A German motorcar, which was carrying the General Staff orders, while running along the Étain road, went astray over the distances, and on the evening of the 24th came into our lines and was there captured. Our command, into whose hands the enemy’s plans had so luckily fallen, gave orders for a surprise assault on the left flank of the 35th Division of the Landwehr and of the 16th Corps, which formed the left wing of the Crown Prince’s Army. The former, throwing down their rifles, fled as far as St. Privat, and the latter beat a hasty retreat to Bouvillers. It is possible that this Étain fight, a little-known episode of the first battles, checkmated a rush attack upon Verdun.

Nevertheless it was necessary to give up the pursuit on the night of 25–26 August, in order to remain in close co-ordination with the movements of the neighbouring army and to pass along the left bank of the Meuse, leaving reserve divisions to guard the right bank on the line Ornes-Fromezey-Herméville.

What Fort Vaux then saw go by at the foot of its slopes is a sight which those who witnessed it will never forget. In after years they will tell it to their children and their children’s children, that the memory may be kept green in each generation.

Aerial View of the Fort Today

Along the road from Étain to Verdun, seeking a haven of refuge in the old fortress which, more than once in the course of centuries, must have sheltered the inhabitants of the Meuse valley against the onrush of Germanic hordes, came a hurried throng of two-wheeled and four-wheeled vehicles, of cyclists wheeling the machines which they had no room to mount, of wheelbarrows, of pushcarts, of pedestrians, of dogs, of cattle. Each took with him his most treasured possessions or what he had hastily snatched up in his house. On the carriages many had piled mattresses, trunks, quilts, provisions, furniture, and on the top of all these were the old people, the sick, and the children. Yet these three classes could not always find room on the vehicles. Among those who trudged on foot were the blind and the halt, women carrying their babies, little ones with a doll or a bird-cage in their hands. Some of them, their legs being shaky or not long enough, were too weary to drag themselves along. Behind these terror-stricken fugitives, the villages were in flames. They turned night into day over the whole countryside. Little by little the fire drew nearer. Now it is Rouvre that flares up, now Étain.

A woman stops by the roadside and sits down; she has bared her breast to suckle a round, rosy baby which already has crisp curls and looks like those7 infant Jesuses of wax that are placed in mangers at Christmastide. Around her is a group of three youngsters. A soldier comes up and questions her. He is already well on in years, a Territorial. The rapt look in his eyes, as he gazes at the children, is so tender that one feels he must have left a similar brood of his own at home.

“Where do you come from, my poor woman?”

“From Rouvres; they have set fire to it.”

“How pretty they are!” His “they” and hers are not the same, but his meaning is not lost on her.

“One is missing,” says the woman. And she begins to cry.

“What has happened to it?”

“They killed her. She was eight years old. They fired on her as she was running in the street. This one also they tried to take from me. I pressed him to me hard enough to drive him into my flesh. One of them was going to plunge his bayonet into the poor mite, but one of his comrades turned it aside.”

The child has had its fill. The group goes on again.

Click on Image to Enlarge

Views of the Fort after the 1916 Battle

This is the new war, the war of frightfulness preached by Bernhardi. There was an epoch when truces were patched up for burying the dead and picking up the wounded. There was an epoch when a certain war-time chivalry held sway, to protect the weak and the innocent. That period was the barbarous Middle Ages. But civilization and culture came into being, and we now have war without pity,8 without quarter. One of the two opponents, tearing up the scraps of paper which regulate the treaties and the duties of nations, turning its plighted word into a sham, and crushing the innocent and the weak, has compelled the other to put him into a strait-waistcoat, as if he were a madman. It is a war that opens unbridgeable gulfs and leaves behind it indelible memories. It is a war of Hell, which demands the sanction of God.

Fort Vaux, from its hilltop, saw all this. It felt that its own stones were less hard than the hearts of the men who had flooded the earth with this torrent of suffering.

At last the procession came to an end. The road now resembled one of those ancient river-beds which leave a white track amid the pale foliage of the willows.

The fort, on its lonely perch, was ruminating. “My turn will come. I bide my time. That mighty Douaumont that overlooks me, will it defend itself longer than I? It has a greater need of shells. As to Souville and Tavannes, if the enemy comes from the north, I am in front of them, I shall screen them.”

An important personage, no less than the Governor of Verdun himself, came to examine its resources, to look into its physical and moral condition, to test its strength.

“Are your eyes well guarded, and can they see far enough? Are your arms and your shields tough? Have you enough ammunition, food, drink? Do you know all your instructions, above all the one that is common to all the forts: to die rather than surrender?”

With such questions as these he visited the observing stations, the transverse galleries, the casemates, the turret, the armoury, the provision stores, the cisterns, and inspected the garrison.

He had already come once before, at the beginning of August. This second visit foreboded an early attack. The enemy was not far off: he was known to be at Étain, at Billy-sous-Mangiennes, at Romagne-sous-les-Côtes, not in great masses but in small detachments. From the north, he was passing above Verdun and turning off to the Argonne. Verdun, well defended, served the French Army as a pivotal point for the immortal struggle of the Marne.

The Outside of the Fort Today

One of the neutral historians of the war, Gottlov Egelhaaf (quoted by M. Hanotaux), has written: “If the Crown Princes of Bavaria and Prussia had been in a position to seize Verdun in August-September 1914, and accordingly to force the line of the Meuse, the German armies would have burst upon Paris at one fell swoop. The two Princes, however, were held up at Verdun, and thus the German supreme command was forced to take the decision of leading back the right wing of their army. Verdun could not be captured, and for this reason it seemed essential to change the plan of campaign.” A very lame explanation  of our victory on the Marne, but one that at least emphasizes the importance of the part played by Verdun in September 1914. Fate decreed that Verdun should twice attract and twice wear out or shatter the German forces.

Only by hearing the roar of the guns could Fort Vaux follow the battle fought on the left bank of the Meuse, before Rambercourt-aux-Pots, Beauzée, La Vaux-Marie. From the roar of the guns it could convince itself of the enemy’s retreat, of his withdrawal to the north.

Suddenly, however, on 17 September, it hears the guns farther to the south. The enemy hurls himself at Hattonchâtel and the Meuse Heights, bombards the Roman camp above St. Mihiel, fights in the barracks of Chauvoncourt. He has not yet abandoned the quarry that he covets. After trying to invest Verdun on the left bank, he returns by way of the right bank, but the front is fixed at Spada, Lamorville, and Combres.

It is fixed at three and a half to five miles in front of Fort Vaux on the line Trésauvaux-Boinville-Fromezey-Ornes-Caures Wood. On 18 February 1915, a red-letter day, the fort is pounded with 420mm shells. Douaumont has been favoured with some on the 15th and 17th, and it was only right that Vaux should follow Douaumont. The fort examines its wounds and is happy.

“The engineers have worked well. Only my superstructure has suffered. My casemates are of good material.”

And it will rejoice exceedingly to learn next day that the range of that famous 420mm battery has been found, that it has been shelled in its turn and destroyed. The giants have been silenced, and that promptly.

Near the Top of the Fort, a Blown Cupola

April and May were months of hope. Would they bring victory with the spring? The guns thundered daily at Marcheville and at Les Éparges, which had been gained. The Woevre was smoking as if weeds had been heaped up there for burning. Then the cannonade slackened off. Decidedly the war would be a long one against an enemy who stuck to our countryside like a leech. It needed patience, staying-power, will, organization, munitions. All these would be forthcoming.

So the troops got accustomed to war as well as to garrison life. The Territorials billeted in the villages of Vaux and Damloup, when they were off duty, played games of chance in the street or used the cemetery as a place for sleeping. They helped the country folk in their haymaking. They looked for mushrooms or strawberries in the woods of Vaux-Chapître and Hardaumont, after first looking for lilies of the valley. In the trenches their life, so full of thrills the previous winter, glided along in a calm that was no doubt relative—but what is there that is not relative?—and in monotony. On the summer evenings, on the escarp of the fort, the little garrison sat down with legs dangling, and watched night rising from the Woevre plain. Now and then a distant rocket would end in a shower of stars.

All this went on till one day, at the end of August 1915, the fort was sharply taken to task:

“You are not so important as you make out—or rather the whole land of France is as important as you. Did she not open out lines from one end of the country to another to shelter her defenders? It can no longer be denied that the enemy may be made to respect us at any point whatsoever of the national soil. Berry-au-Bac is an isolated salient on the right bank of the Aisne, and Berry-au-Bac has not yielded. It can no longer be denied that with artillery and determination one can capture any redoubt. Les Éparges formed a natural fortress, and we have taken Les Éparges. The fortified places have been unlucky during this war. They offer too easy a target for the big howitzers. Antwerp, Maubeuge, Warsaw, Lemberg, Przemysl, surrendered with their war material, their magazines, their troops. Verdun will no longer be a fortified place. Verdun will offer no resources, no booty to the enemy. Verdun will be nothing but a pivotal point for an army. You will no longer be anything but a look-out post and a shelter....”

“That may be,” the fort admitted. “In any case, I am only a soldier, and it is my business to obey. But my loins are strong. It will need much steel to crush them. You will see what I am capable of, if ever I am attacked.”

The fort, now shrunken, became enveloped in the mists of winter. It heard less and less of the guns. Its diminished garrison grew bored in the almost deserted corridors. The news which came from the rear contained mysterious hints of a great Allied offensive which was slowly preparing and would develop when the time was ripe, perhaps not before the summer of 1916: England would methodically complete her gigantic new military machine, and Russia would need time to heal the wounds inflicted on her during the 1915 campaign. It is flattering, when one lives on the border of the Woevre, to have such distant and important friends, even if they need a certain amount of time for settling their affairs.

In January and February 1916 the fort felt certain qualms:

“I don’t like being left so quiet as this. We know nothing here, but we have intuitions. Things are moving on the other side. Surely something is brewing.”

Things were moving indeed in the forest of Spincourt and in that of Mangiennes. Our aviators must have some inkling of it, for they make more and more frequent flights. But the soil is ill-fitted for observation, with its countless dips and its undergrowth. Even where there are no leaves, the brushwood defends itself against aerial photographers.

Your Editor (L) and Group Overlooking a 75 Turret 

Information comes that the railway of Spincourt, Muzeray, Billy-sous-Mangiennes, is working in unaccustomed fashion. It seems that the big calibre guns have been detrained.

We are assured that new German corps have been brought into the district, among them the 3rd, which is returning from Serbia.

Finally, the belfries of Rouvres, Mangiennes, Grémilly, Foameix—how had they been spared till then?—were overthrown by the Germans: no doubt they might have served as guiding marks for our artillery!

Whence come these vague rumours and these definite reports? There is no chance of finding out for certain. The soldiers who come back from Verdun bring them back and retail them. Silence is not a French virtue. There is uneasiness in the air. Yet the weather is so appalling—squalls of wind and snowstorms—that the attack seems unlikely, or at any rate postponed.

“To-morrow,” thinks the fort, which has faith in the strength of its walls. “Or the day after.”

On 20 February the weather takes a turn for the better. On the 21st, at seven o’clock in the morning, the first shell falls on Verdun, near the cathedral. The greatest battle of the greatest war is beginning.

From:  The Last Days of Fort Vaux, March 9–June 7, 1916
By Henry Bordeaux

The Glasgow Cenotaph

St. George Square, Glasgow

Over 200,000 Glaswegians served in the Great War—18,000 of them did not survive and 35,000 more were wounded or injured. After the war, a memorial committee was   established, chaired by the Lord Provost Sir James Watson Stuart. It recommended the building of  a public memorial in George Square, site of Glasgow's City Chambers, and financial support for disabled servicemen.

The  Cenotaph  was designed by Sir J.J. Burnet in 1922 and is flanked by sculptures of lions by Ernest Gillick.  It is described as a 9.7-meter-tall polished grey granite tall squat obelisk  in a U-planned enclosure with low walls and a pair of sculptured lions couchant [lying down, heads raised] guarding the site.

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West Face

There is a gilded metal cross in the form of a sword on the face and below it a representation of St Mungo in front of Glasgow's coat of arms.The rear (east) face bears a carving of the Scottish version of the Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom. In the foreground is a panel with an embossed wreath.

The obelisk bears several inscriptions. On the west face, carved into the stone either side of the figure of St Mungo: "PRO PATRIA / 1914 1919 / 1939 1945" and then below, in raised lead letters: "TO THE IMMORTAL HONOUR OF THE / OFFICERS NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS / AND MEN OF GLASGOW WHO FELL IN THE GREAT WAR / THIS MEMORIAL IS DEDICATED / IN PROUD AND GRATEFUL RECOGNITION BY / THE CITY OF GLASGOW" and then, carved into the stone at the base of the cenotaph: "THEIR NAME LIVETH FOR EVERMORE"

Lion Couchant 

On the east face, carded to either side of the royal coat of arms is "PRO PATRIA / 1914 1919" and then below raised lead letters read: "TOTAL OF / HIS MAJESTY'S FORCES / ENGAGED / AT HOME AND ABROAD / 8654465 / OF THIS NUMBER / THE CITY OF GLASGOW / RAISED OVER 200000" and then in smaller letters "UNVEILED / ON / SATURDAY 31ST MAY 1924 / BY / FIELD MARSHAL EARL HAIG OF BEMERSYDE / GM KT GCB / COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF THE EXPEDITIONARY / FORCES IN FRANCE AND FLANDERS / 1915-1919"

East Face

Further raised lead letters on the south and north faces read, respectively: "GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN / THAN THIS / THAT A MAN LAY DOWN HIS LIFE / FOR HIS FRIENDS", quoting from John 15:13; and "THESE DIED IN WAR / THAT WE AT PEACE MIGHT LIVE / THESE GAVE THEIR BEST / SO WE OUR BEST SHOULD GIVE".

Sources:  The Glasgow Story; Wikipedia, Wiki Commons, Historic Environment Scotland

Łódź 1914: Russia's Farthest Advance Toward Germany's Heartland

Before the Fighting
Russian Soldiers in Łódź

After absorbing the disaster at Tannenberg, further clashes in East Prussia and Galicia gave the Russian high command some renewed hope. They decided next to continue their  counterattacks by driving to the west with their Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Armies, and take Germany's mineral-rich and industrial region of Silesia.

Theater of Operations
"Varsovie"=Warsaw, Insert Shows Near Envelopment

As they had since the beginning of the war, the Germans learned of Russian plans from radio transmissions. To counter the Russian offensive, German Generals Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff planned an attack on the northern end of the Russian line, where the Russian First and Second Armies met. From 4 November  through the 10th, the German Ninth Army moved by rail from its position south of the city of Łódź in Polish Russia, facing four Russian armies, to the west and north, into Germany. After redeployment, the army was positioned along the Russian border northwest of Łódź and faced the First Russian Army. Austro-Hungarian forces moved into the positions formerly held by the Germans.

German Officers Examine Russian Dead

On 11 November, the German Ninth Army under August von Mackensen attacked preemptively to spoil the attack, take Łódź, and use it as a springboard to capture Warsaw farther east.  Over the course of five days, they pushed the dispersed Russian First Army back 50 miles while taking 12,000 prisoners, drove between it and the Russian Second Army, and turned the right flank of the Second Army, pressing it back on three sides against the city of Łódź.

Some of the Russian Prisoners

The Russians—not appreciating the situation—had begun their advance on Silesia on 14 November , but by the 16th, the Russian general staff, realizing the dangerous position of the First and Second Armies, halted the offensive and moved the Fifth Army north to assist the Second Army. As Mackensen began his encirclement of the Russian Second Army, the Fifth—commanded by General Pavel Plehave, one of Russia's most skilled commanders—arrived on 19 November, in time to bolster the defense and disappoint Mackensen. From the north, additional units of the Russian First Army moved south and in turn threatened most of a German corps with encirclement on the 23rd. Only the tactical skill of the trapped German commanders, especially General Karl von Litzmann of the 3rd Guards Division, saved the situation the next day, taking 16,000 more prisoners in their breakout.

6 December 1914: German Forces Enter Łódź

Mackensen remained determined to take Łódź and received reinforcements from Hindenburg.  A week of costly attacks by the Germans convinced Russia's supreme commander Grand Duke Nicholas the the city could not be held. On 6 December, the Russians evacuated Łódź, and much of western Poland. They abandoned their plans for an invasion of Silesia and would never threaten Germany's heartland during the war. German forces on the other hand would occupy Łódź for the duration.

Casualties

In the battle, the Germans took 136,000 prisoners. Russia's killed and wounded totaled 90,000. The Germans—35,000 men.

Sources: University of Łódź Study; Vital Guide: The Battles of World War I

Toc H (Talbot House)—A Sanctuary from War That Lives On—A Roads Classic

Talbot House or Toc H is in the Belgian town of Poperinghe, west of Ypres. It was the idea of Philip "Tubby" Clayton who wanted to create a place where soldiers on the Western Front could find some peace and quiet when they were away from the trenches. The house was named after Lieutenant Gilbert Talbot, who was killed at Ypres in July 1915. His brother, Neville, was a senior Church of England chaplain who had been tasked with finding chaplains to join battalions at the front line. It was while carrying out this task that he came across "Tubby" Clayton, who was attached to the East Kent and Bedfordshire regiments. Clayton arrived in Poperinghe in late 1915.

It was Clayton’s idea to find a house where soldiers could relax as much as was possible given their circumstances—a place “where friendships could be consecrated and sad hearts renewed and cheered, a place of light and joy and brotherhood and peace.” Clayton managed to rent out a townhouse in Poperinghe from a wealthy local brewer for 150 francs a month. The house had been damaged by shell fire—the loft in particular needed repairs. The Royal Engineers did this work, and by December 1915 the sanctuary was ready to be opened. 

The house was named Talbot House in memory of Lieutenant Gilbert W. L. Talbot, age 23, who was the brother of Reverend Talbot. Gilbert was serving with 7th Battalion, the Rifle Brigade, when he was killed at Hooge Chateau in the Ypres Salient on 30 July 1915. It soon became known by its initials with the "T" pronounced as "Toc," the British Army signalers' code for "T." Rank counted for nothing in Toc H, and the house was open to those who were about to go up to the front line as well as to those who had a break from the frontline trenches. A notice was hung by the front door bearing the message "All rank abandon, ye who enter here.”

Click on Image to Expand

A chapel was made in the loft. A carpenter’s bench was used as a makeshift altar, and it remains in the loft to this day. Whereas the rooms downstairs were full of song and laughter, the chapel was different. Clayton was very aware that many of the men who arrived for a service would be killed in battle. He was also aware that many of the men who arrived for one of his services also knew that their chance of survival on the front line was very small. Clayton described these services as “difficult."

As much as was possible given the proximity to the front lines, Clayton tried to produce a "home-from-home" effect. Harry Patch, "the Last Fighting Tommy," described it as “ ‘the haven’ because that’s exactly what this place was to the men—a place of peace where you could relax, and that’s the only time you could forget the strains of war for a couple of hours.”

When the Great War was over, Monsieur Camerlynck, the hop merchant, returned. However, he was overwhelmed by the number of ex-soldiers who came knocking at the door to see the old house again and put it up for sale. In 1929 Lord Wakefield of Hythe bought the house for £9,200 and donated it to the Talbot House Association, a British-Belgian association that still keeps the site open. There is also an international charitable association know as Toc H inspired by the work of Tubby Clayton.

Sources:  Talbot House, GreatWar.co.uk, HistoryLearningSite

The United States' Entry into the First World War: The Role of British and German Diplomacy

By Justin Quinn Olmstead

Boydell Press, 2018

Reviewed by Emily Cloys, University of Southern Mississippi

This Title Can Be Ordered HERE

Originally published on H-War, May 2022

After two and a half years of maintaining a nonmilitant status as World War I raged across the European continent, the United States broke its neutrality and joined the war in April 1917. A pivotal moment in U.S. history, the nation’s entry into World War I has generated an extensive collection of studies analyzing the circumstances that precipitated U.S. intervention. In The United States’ Entry into the First World War: The Role of British and German Diplomacy, Justin Quinn Olmstead offers an innovative argument to the historiography by positing that British and German diplomacy played a determining role in the United States’ involvement in World War I. Rather than placing emphasis on U.S. public opinion, Wilsonian statecraft, or domestic concerns, as previous studies have done, Olmstead asserts that there is a direct link between the formation of U.S. policies during the war and the nation’s diplomatic relations with Britain and Germany. By exploring key points of intersection between the United States, Britain, and Germany, such as the British blockade, unrestricted submarine warfare, and the Zimmerman telegram, Olmstead enters well-trodden academic territory, but he distinguishes himself by situating the events outside of their immediate context and into the broader context of diplomatic relations.

Olmstead divides his work into five thematic chapters. The cornerstone of his argument takes shape in the first chapter, where he traces the tradition of conciliation and friendship that Britain and Germany attempted to cultivate with the United States in the decades prior to World War I. The following chapters hinge on this paradigm of diplomatic practice as Olmstead sets out to prove that the same traditions of diplomacy that existed before the war continued to influence the nations’ interactions after the war began. In the second chapter, he addresses the British blockade of Germany and the ways the British government worked to appease the United States’ disputes to the blockade. The third chapter shifts to Germany’s implementation of unrestricted submarine warfare and the German government’s efforts to diffuse American objections in the face of disasters like the sinking of the Lusitania. In the fourth chapter, Olmstead examines how Britain and Germany used nominal peace overtures to bolster the support of the United States. He ends with a chapter on the infamous Zimmerman telegram, which he characterizes not as a diplomatic blunder but as a justifiable maneuver based on the previous history of German, U.S., and Mexican relations.

The United States’ Entry into the First World War provides a cogently argued, well-organized analysis of U.S., British, and German diplomacy during World War I. Olmstead deals with the intricate labyrinth of foreign relations with skill, forging a unique perspective on the factors that contributed to U.S. policy making during the war. He instills the British and German diplomats, like Sir Edward Grey, Sir Cecil Spring Rice, Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, and Gottlieb von Jagow, with agency, presenting them as rational thinkers who undertook the difficult task of defending their nation’s controversial tactics while simultaneously attempting to preserve their relationship with the United States. Though the United States eventually entered the war on the side of the British, Olmstead is quick to emphasize that both Britain and Germany achieved diplomatic success—Britain in persuading the United States to join the war and Germany in sustaining U.S. neutrality for two and a half years.  

Political Poster for British Foreign Secretary
Edward Grey, Who Expertly Took Advantage of
Presidential Advisor Colonel House

What readers will find missing in Olmstead’s account is the agency of the U.S. government itself. The U.S. officials, namely, Woodrow Wilson and [especially] his advisor Colonel Edward House, tend to appear as inexperienced, passive recipients of British and German diplomatic strategies, unwittingly coerced into decisions that profited their foreign counterparts. Olmstead does not consider, for instance, why U.S. leaders might have supported neutrality or entered the war for their own purposes, for reasons unrelated to external influence. While Olmstead deftly constructs two sides of the diplomatic triangle, he lessens the extent of his argument by leaving the third underdeveloped.

This absence of content does not detract from the overall legitimacy of Olmstead’s work. Olmstead’s study reflects a sturdy scholarly infrastructure, under-girded by a thorough base of primary and secondary sources. Befitting the diplomatic focus of his work, Olmstead centers his attention on government-related documents from U.S., German, and British national archives, including official records, letters, memoranda, and the personal papers of pertinent officials. Olmstead also demonstrates a firm grasp on the secondary scholarship, highlighting key historiographical themes throughout his work and responding to the issues with his own assessments. An instructive review of the primary and secondary source material appears in a bibliographical essay at the end of the book, particularly beneficial for those unfamiliar with the topic or planning to undertake research on a similar subject.

Amid a wide-ranging body of work on U.S. involvement in World War I, Olmstead’s book supplies a fresh angle of exploration, predicated not on a series of individual events but on an underlying network of diplomacy that coursed through international relations. Those interested in U.S. diplomatic history or the factors that influenced the United States to enter World War I will find the book especially relevant. A study aptly timed to coincide with the 2018 centenary of the end of World War I, The United States’ Entry into the First World War adds complexity to the conversation surrounding what prompted the United States to join the war.

Emily Cloys

 

Weapons of War: The Ross Rifle

Click on Image to Enlarge

The Mark II Ross Rifle

By James Patton

Scotsman Sir Charles Ross (1872–1942), 9th (and last) Baronet Lockhart-Ross was a colorful character and a prolific inventor, the holder of patents for firearms, agricultural machinery, hydraulic systems, and even ship designs. In 1893 and 1897, he patented a straight-pull bolt-action rifle. Quoting from Wikipedia: "The operating principle of the straight-pull bolt action comprises a sleeve to which the bolt lever or handle is attached. This sleeve is hollow and has spiral grooves or 'teeth' cut into its inner surface in which slide corresponding projections or 'teeth' on the outside of the bolt head or 'body'. As the bolt lever and sleeve are moved, the bolt head is forced to rotate through about 90°, locking or unlocking it in the receiver of the rifle." The simple “back-and-forth” cycling of the bolt was faster than with manually turned bolts. 

Sir Charles Ross in 1921

Having family wealth, Ross started manufacturing his rifles in the UK but moved to Quebec in 1903 to qualify for a contract with the Canadian government for 12,000 military rifles. Ross offered several advantages over the British Short Magazine Lee-Enfield (SMLE), including lighter weight (partly due to a smaller magazine), more accurate at longer ranges, a faster rate of fire, and easier disassembly because it required no special tool.

The original Ross rifle was in 7.0x66SR (.280) and used a high-velocity cartridge (2,998 fps). When the Canadian military became his most important customer, he was required to change to the SMLE’s 7.7x56R (.303) cartridge (2,441 fps) to simplify logistics. Ross made three variants, designated Marks I, II and III, plus many sub-variants. Civilian rifles were issued in many different calibers, even .22LR. Between 1903 and 1915, 419,310 Ross rifles were manufactured, of which 342,040 went to the military.

Most of the Canadian army Ross rifles were Mark IIs. It weighed slightly less than 10 pounds, with a 30½- barrel. The overall length of 50¼ inches increased the muzzle velocity (2,460 fps) and improved accuracy. 

Unmodified, the rifle had to be loaded using a stripper clip, and the magazine held one clip load. The barrel-mounted folding-leaf rear sight was similar to the 1898 Mauser. The front sight blade was protected by a removable metal cover.

The bayonet was unusual in shape, with a blade that was 101⁄8-inches long and about 11⁄8-inches - described as a “butcher knife”.  

In 1914 the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) went to France armed with the Ross and were soon in combat. While the rifles had been impressive on the target ranges, problems quickly arose. 

Most serious was the straight-pull rotating bolt became inoperable when even small amounts of dirt or mud worked its way into the screw heads in the sleeve. Plus these could also be damaged by rough handling.

 Another serious flaw was that, after field-stripping, the bolt could be incorrectly assembled, which could cause the rifle to fire without the bolt securely locked, blowing the bolt back into the user’s face.

Also, cartridges were prone to jam when feeding from the magazine, likely due to slightly different tolerances from the various ammunition manufacturers.  

The barrel was nearly 5 inches longer than the SMLE’s, which soldiers found to be unwieldy in close quarters.

Finally, the bayonets would sometimes fall off when the rifle was fired.

Consequently, in July 1916 the Ross rifles were pulled from service with the CEF and replaced with SMLE’s. Records show that 95,674 Ross rifles were sent to storage.

1915: Canadian Force in Bermuda on Temporary
Assignment Prior to Deployment to Western Front
Carrying Ross Rifles

However, several hundred were fitted with American prismatic rifle telescopes and remained in use as highly accurate sniper rifles. These rifles worked well because snipers, unlike average infantrymen, kept their weapons (and ammo) well cleaned and oiled. 

After withdrawal from front-line service, the Ross rifles continued to be used for training. About 67,100 rifles that had been modified to accept single shot loads were used post-WWI by both the British army and marines. A considerable quantity found their way from British stocks into the Russian civil wars of 1919-23 and at least 80,000 saw continuing service with the Baltic states until captured by Soviet forces in 1940. Also in that year the British received 75,000 rifles from Canada for issue to the WWII Home Guardsmen. In 1942 a batch was sent to the USSR. Many of the Soviet rifles were rechambered to their standard 7.62x54R (.30) cartridge. Post-WWII Soviet marksmen used these 7.62 Ross rifles in international competition.

What was the American experience with the Ross? In 1917 the U.S. Army was acutely short of rifles needed for an army of eventually six million. Even diverting American production of British P14 Enfields and Russian Mosin-Nagants was insufficient; some trainees received obsolete .30-40 1892 Krags or even ‘trap door’ .45-70 1873 Springfields, and there are reports of training with broomsticks. 

In 1917 Canada had about 90,000 Ross rifles sitting in inventory. New York tried to buy some of these but hit a snag because the rifles would be subject to an import duty. To avoid this, in November 1917 the federal government purchased 20,000 Mark II Ross rifles, including bayonets, for $12.50 each. These rifles were used for training only.

The Unique Site and "Teeth" of the Ross Rifle

Post-war the American-owned Ross rifles were offered for sale for $5 each. There were few takers, even with a 30% price cut. By 1926, the unsold rifles were in dead storage, and in 1940 they were sent back to Canada under Lend-Lease. 

The Ross rifles never saw combat with American forces, but they enabled more suitable rifles to be available. Although the Ross was entirely satisfactory as a training rifle, history ranks it only slightly better than a broomstick.

Sources include: The American Rifleman; WikiCommons; Milsurps.com

Rutland of Jutland: From Heroism to Disgrace

Flt. Lt. Frederick Rutland—Hero

The Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916 was the great naval battle of World War One. It was also historic as it was the first time that an aircraft was involved in a naval battle. After contact had been made between the British and German cruiser screens, Flight Lieutenant Frederick J Rutland (1886–1949) was ordered to take off at 15:08 hours for reconnaissance in Seaplane No.8359—a Short 184—from HMS Engadine, a seaplane tender. He and his observer, Lt. Gerald Livstock,  reported course changes of one of the enemy cruisers before a carburetor pipe broke and curtailed the sortie. Rutland was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) "for his gallantry and persistence in flying within close distance of the enemy light cruisers."

He earned further recognition at Jutland for diving overboard—against orders—to save a wounded sailor who had fallen in the ocean while being evacuated from his damaged ship. For this act of bravery he was awarded the Albert Medal in Gold. His notable war service continued after Jutland. On 28 June 1917, Flight Commander Rutland took off in a Sopwith Pup from a flying-off platform mounted on the roof of one of the gun turrets of the light cruiser HMS Yarmouth, the first such successful launch of an aircraft in history.

Rutland (Left) and Livstock

Rutland had joined the Royal Navy as a boy seaman in 1901. He was graded as flight sub-lieutenant in the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) in December 1914,  awarded his aviator's certificate by the Royal Aero Club on 26 January 1915 after training at Eastchurch  and promoted to lieutenant on 7 January 1916. By the end of the war, he had become one of the most admired war heroes of the Royal Navy, but in the next phase of his life, Frederick Rutland would betray his service and his nation. He would be assigned a code name for his new life—Agent Shinkawa.

After an adultery scandal tarnished his reputation in the British military, Rutland saw no future in the service and hoped to leverage his fame elsewhere. That opportunity arose when he was approached by Shiro Takasu, a Japanese naval attaché, in December 1922 with an attractive job offer. Rutland retired from the navy in 1923 and moved to Japan for four years, where he earned a high salary as a consultant for Mitsubishi, teaching pilots how to land on aircraft carriers. He returned to the mundane life of a London businessman in 1928 but could not bear the boredom. Exciting prospects returned when Takasu reconnected with Rutland in London in 1931 and made another tantalizing proposition: How would he like to move to sunny Los Angeles and rub shoulders with movie stars as an emissary for the Japanese Navy?

Rutland's Sopwith Pup Takes Off from the Forward
Turret of HMS Yarmouth, June 1917

Max Everest-Phillips, a former British diplomat to Japan who has written about his exploits, says "Rutland played a significant role in the evolution of Japan's offensive capability that made the attack on Pearl Harbor possible."

The spy helped "facilitate Japan's capacity to develop aircraft carriers, the technology that enabled Japan in 1941 to launch a 'first strike' attack in the US Pacific." The Japanese paid him the equivalent of $600,000 a year—ten times the salary of a Japanese admiral. His paymaster was Japanese Navy official Eisuke Ono, whose daughter Yoko later married John Lennon.

"Rutland fed them details of US troop and fleet movements, military preparedness and warplane production," says author of  a new Rutland biography Ronald Drabkin. "He placed a former IRA member as his spy in a Lockheed plant developing the new P-38 Lightning fighter plane, to obtain specs." He liaised with Japanese agents in Mexico to send secret messages across America's southern border, and fed information to the Japanese embassy in Mexico City. One of Rutland's secret agents was Charlie Chaplin's longtime butler, Toraichi Kono. Rutland used his contacts within Hollywood's British expat community to gain information from former officers, but his time was running out. The FBI had been watching him, tapping his phones, and monitoring his meetings with Japanese agents and forced him to return to England in 1941.

Interesting Later MI-5 Photo of Rutland
Compare to Top Photo

While MI-5 had ample evidence of Rutland's spying against America, they had no proof he had spied against Britain and so he remained a free man. After the Pearl Harbor attack, Rutland was taken into custody in London by MI-5 and was interned in Brixton prison for the duration with Nazi sympathisers including British fascist leader Oswald Mosley.

Disgraced and despondent, on 28 January 1949, Rutland turned on the gas stove in a small hotel in the Welsh village of Beddgelert and lay down to die. In a suicide note addressed to his eldest son, he wrote “My life has been an adventurous one, always full of excitement. I have always told myself that so long as life was worth living, I would live it to the full, and when it no longer held any real interest, it would be time to go."

Sources:  Hollywood Reporter, Wikipedia, Daily Express

A World War One Sailor Was the First Beneficiary of Plastic Surgery

HMS Warspite, 6-inch Gun Mount Damaged at Jutland

Petty Officer Walter Ernest O'Neil Yeo (1890–1960) of the Royal Navy was the first person to have plastic surgery according to the Guiness Book of World Records. In 1917, skin grafts were transferred by Surgeon Sir Harold Gillies from his chest and shoulder to his face in order to replace facial scar tissue and both upper and lower eyelids that he had lost whilst manning the guns aboard the Dreadnought HMS Warspite in 1916 during the Battle of Jutland.

Original Injury

The process required several procedures and was complicated by post-operative infections. At one point the grafts were reported to be "floating in a sea of pus." Yet, Yeo was eventually declared "Fit for Service" in July 1919 and returned to the ranks. He required a further operation in August 1921, however,  after which he was medically discharged from the Royal Navy.

Early Stage—Note Scar Tissue Around Eyes

Intermediate Stage with Damaged Eye Lids

Later Stage—Work Around Eyes Progressing

Walter Yeo was the son of a sailor who died at sea, who became a career navy man, himself.  He was married with a daughter before his injuries, and after the war he and his wife had another daughter. In his later life he became a publican in Plymouth, England.

[Note: The photos here seem show the progression of the process, but I'm not sure of the exact stage is depicted or their dates. Also, I've not been able to find a definitive post-surgery photo.]

Sources: DevonLive,  Yeo Society, Wikipedia