The Inside Story of "The Scrap of Paper"

Contributed by James Patton

Propaganda Poster

Sir Edward Goschen, the British ambassador in Berlin, called on Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg for a final interview. Goschen's report to Sir Edward Grey, quoted below, indicates the origin of the phrase, "a scrap of paper" (i.e. the 1839 treaty guaranteeing Belgium's neutrality), which had an important effect on world public opinion. Note that Goschen isn’t actually quoting von Bethmann-Hollweg but, rather, is summarizing the gist of his remarks. Thus the exact wording — “a scrap of paper” — is Goschen’s, not necessarily the German chancellor’s.

Sir Edward Goschen

In accordance with the instructions contained in your telegram of the 4th instant, I called upon the Secretary of State that afternoon and inquired, in the name of His Majesty's Government, whether the Imperial Government would refrain from violating Belgian neutrality. Herr von Jagow at once replied that he was sorry to say that his answer must be "No," as in consequence of the German troops having crossed the frontier that morning, Belgian neutrality had been already violated. Herr von Jagow again went into the reasons why the Imperial Government had been obliged to take this step, namely, that they had to advance into France by the quickest and easiest way, so as to be able to get well ahead with their operations and endeavor to strike some decisive blow as early as possible. It was a matter of life and death for them, as if they had gone by the more southern route they could not have hoped, in view of the paucity of roads and the strength of the fortresses, to have got through without formidable opposition entailing great loss of time. This loss of time would have meant time gained by the Russians for bringing up their troops to the German frontier. Rapidity of action was the great German asset, while that of Russia was an in exhaustible supply of troops. 

I pointed out to Herr von Jagow that this fait accompli of the violation of the Belgian frontier rendered, as he would readily understand, the situation exceedingly grave, and I asked him whether there was not still time to draw back and avoid possible consequences, which both he and I would deplore. He replied that, for the reasons he had given me, it was now impossible for them to draw back... 

This interview took place at about 7 o'clock. In a short conversation which ensued Herr von Jagow expressed his poignant regret at the crumbling of his entire policy and that of the Chancellor, which had been to make friends with Great Britain, and then, through Great Britain, to get closer to France. I said that this sudden end to my work in Berlin was to me also a matter of deep regret and disappointment, but that he must understand that under the circumstances and in view of our engagements, His Majesty's Government could not possibly have acted otherwise than they had done. 

Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg

I then said that I should like to go and see the Chancellor [von Bethmann-Hollweg], as it might be, perhaps, the last time I should have an opportunity of seeing him. He begged me to do so. I found the Chancellor very agitated. His Excellency at once began a harangue, which lasted for about twenty minutes. He said that the steps taken by His Majesty's Government was terrible to a degree; just for a word -- "neutrality," a word which in war time had so often been disregarded -- just for a scrap of paper Great Britain was going to make war on a kindred nation who desired nothing better than to be friends with her. All his efforts in that direction had been rendered useless by this last terrible step, and the policy to which, as I knew, he had devoted himself since his accession to office had tumbled down like a house of cards. What we had done was unthinkable; it was like striking a man from behind while he was fighting for his life against two assailants. 

He held Great Britain responsible for all the terrible events that might happen. I protested strongly against that statement, and said that, in the same way as he and Herr von Jagow wished me to understand that for strategical reasons it was a matter of life and death to Germany to advance through Belgium and violate the latter's neutrality, so I would wish him to understand that it was, so to speak, a matter of "life and death" for the honor of Great Britain that she should keep her solemn engagement to do her utmost to defend Belgium's neutrality if attacked. That solemn compact simply had to be kept, or what confidence could any one have in engagements given by Great Britain in the future? The Chancellor said, "But at what price will that compact have been kept? Has the British Government thought of that?" I hinted; to his Excellency as plainly as I could that fear of consequences could hardly be regarded as an excuse for breaking solemn engagements, but his Excellency was so excited, so evidently overcome by the news of our action, and so little disposed to hear reason that I refrained from adding fuel to the flame by further argument.

Source:  the WW1 Document Archive

New York and the First World War reviewed by Margaret Spratt, Ph.D.

New York and the First World War:
Shaping an American City

by Ross J. Wilson.

Ashgate, 2014

In 1915, a new song produced by Tin Pan Alley in New York City swept through the U.S. and could be heard in every music hall and front parlor with an upright piano. "I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier" expressed the popular beliefs of pacifism and isolation from the European War of the moment. Less than two years later, in 1917, a new song took America by storm. It was called "Let's All Be Americans Now" and was written by a Jewish immigrant from Russia named Irving Berlin. The lyrics pled the case for support of the Allied cause and appealed to new Americans with the lines: "…now is the time, To fall in line, You swore that you would so be true to your vow, Let's all be Americans now." Nowhere did these words resonate more significantly than in New York City.

As Ross Wilson, the author of this outstanding study, explains, New York City was a city of immigrants. Thus, it epitomized the struggle Americans of various ethnic and cultural backgrounds faced as war raged in Europe. Comprised of dozens of distinct neighborhoods with their own ethnic associations, institutions, and newspapers, New York City's transformation to a relatively cohesive patriotic unit was neither smooth nor swift. Suppression of free speech, political corruption, and violence as well as the formation of civic loyalty groups and mass activities, all contributed to this process.

Order Now

In addition, New York City represented to the rest of the nation all that was suspicious. How could you trust a landscape that was in such flux, inhabited by hundreds of thousands of migrants from every destitute corner of Europe? They were Jews and Catholics, Serbians and Italians. They spoke other languages, dressed in native garb, and brought "strange" ideas like socialism with them from a morally bankrupted Europe. Were they really Americans? And most importantly, would they "fall in line" as the song implored? If the citizens of New York City could embrace loyalty to America's interests, so could the rest of the nation.

The author is a senior lecturer at the University of Chichester in Great Britain. His study breaks new ground in a number of ways. Urban history of World War I has concentrated on European cities that were either in the middle of or close to military action. The metropolis was as much a victim of total war as the forest of the Argonne. But a study of New York City gives us the opportunity to look at the war experience as it was played out in the public spaces and private homes of citizens far from battle. As Wilson explained, "…this is not a study of the city as the war raged on some faraway battlefields: this is a study of the city at war."

September 1918 Bond Rally in Times Square

The book is divided into six chapters tracing the ideological transformation of the "immigrant" city into an "American" city from 1914 on. The author looks at the formation and activities of dozens of relief organizations and defense societies. He examines the efforts of the city's elites as well as food rioters. He sees the Liberty Loan campaigns and the institution of the draft as altering the city  not only ideologically but also physically. Perhaps most noticeable were changes at the end of the war when public spaces such as streets and squares were renamed to commemorate local servicemen and over 100 memorials were placed all through the five boroughs.

New York Remembers the War: 7th Infantry Memorial, Central Park

From the viewpoints of urban and World War I history, this is a path-breaking book. The research is top notch. The historiography essay in the introductory chapter and the bibliography are well worth perusal. But this is not a book for the casual reader—rather it will attract the serious scholar. Part of the Ashgate Studies in First World War History, the book is seriously expensive. However, this historical study will attract an appreciative audience.

Margaret Spratt, Ph.D.

Recommended: Videos from the Historical Aviation Film Unit

If you enjoy watching the aircraft of the Great War in the air and in all their restored beauty, the videos of the Historical Aviation Film Unit from Down Under are hard to beat. My favorites are the dogfight sequences where they match some of the classic fighters of the war. Here are a couple of stills I grabbed from two of the hundreds of videos they make available.

A Fokker Dr.1 Closes In for the Kill from: Twilight Dogfight

Three SE-5A's (Corrected from Original)

See the entire playlist at:  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5783AC5B8CC52FA6

A Litmus Test War Poet

In my experience, connoisseurs of World War I poetry either love or detest  A.E. Housman.  [Full disclosure here: I discovered Housman's elegy "To an Athlete Dying Young" in high school and was a fan before I discovered WWI and the war poets.] Generally, I have found that those who particularly enjoy the early period Great War Poets (say, Rupert Brooke and John McRae) are in the pro camp and aficionados of the later, bitter and ironic phase (e.g. Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon), tend to reject him.

Here are three examples of Housman's pertinent work:

"In Valleys Green and Still"
Pre-WWI

The soldier's is the trade:
         In any wind or weather
     He steals the heart of maid
         And man together.

"Here Dead We Lie" 
1914

Here dead we lie because we did not choose
To live and shame the land from which we sprung.
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose,
But young men think it is, and we were young.

"Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries"
                                                                               1917

     These, in the day when heaven was falling,
         The hour when earth's foundations fled,
     Followed their mercenary calling
         And took their wages and are dead.

     Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
         They stood, and earth's foundations stay;
     What God abandoned, these defended,
         And saved the sum of things for pay.

Since I am a bit out of my depth here, I sought out some better informed commentary that might shed some light on this. I found these comments on Housman and "Here Dead We Lie" by critic Anthony Lane.

Housman has never really wilted out of fashion; “A Shropshire Lad,” his first and most celebrated book of poems, has remained in print since it was published, in 1896. After a slow start, it found particular favor during the Boer War, in which Housman lost a brother, and especially during the First World War, in which everyone lost brothers and sons. Housman was never Poet Laureate—he turned down almost all honors that came his way, managing to appear both lofty and lowly—but, to more than one generation, his poetry became an unofficial well of consolation:

That is Housman for you: the more simple, even heroic, the note he sounds—and the words of the poem above are as plain as crotchets on a stave—the more you catch a strain of discord or unease beating time below. After all, how consoling are those lines? If you were the parent of a dead soldier, Housman would give you plenty to take pride in; on the other hand, the poem—this is all it consists of—is spoken not by the mourners but by those who are mourned, and the last line, if read out loud, could easily sound bitter at the premature dashing of hopes.

From Anthony Lane, New Yorker, 19 February 2001

Our Winter Animal Exposition

Since we have been operating this blog, I've discovered that animal articles and anything from our "Rat Catchers" series magically give a big boost to readership.  So here are a few of our favorite photos from the files.  We had a "War Horse" feature a while back, so there are no equines in this series.

Bonneau and His Friend John McCrae

Mule Ration Train in Vosges Mountains

Dog-Drawn Machine Gun, 1914

Beagle Therapists at a British Hospital

The Chap on the Right Reminds Me of Francis the Talking Mule

Camel Ambulance Train in the Middle East

HMS Glasgow (Formerly SMS Dresden) Mascot "Tirpitz",
Captured at the Battle of the Falklands
Tirpitz Was Later Auctioned-Off to Raise Funds
His Stuffed Head Is Part of the Imperial War Museum and Can Be Viewed HERE

Très Cool
 "Moritz," Mascot of Manfred von Richthofen  

A Favorite Historical Photograph

9 March 1916, Part II: Villa's Raid on Columbus, New Mexico, Sets Off the Punitive Expedition

One hundred years ago, a bandit, opportunist, political operator, and – in his own way – a Mexican patriot, became part of America's and – albeit in several steps removed  – the Great War's history. On 9 May 1916 Pancho Villa led 500 men in a raid on a desolate little village across the U.S. border named Columbus, New Mexico. Historians dance around it, but it was simply an act of terror. Villa, however, never "spilled the beans" as to why he initiated the raid, but the editor of this blog believes it was most likely to provoke the very response he got, an American military excursion into Mexico to undermine the regime of Mexico's latest leader to emerge after the revolution begun in 1910,  General Venustiano Carranza head of the dominant "Constitutionalist" faction. 

100 Years Later, Pancho Villa Holds a Place in America's Collective Memory

The United States and six Latin American nations officially recognized the Carranza government on 19 October 1915, a direct insult to Pancho Villa and his followers, who had earlier parted ways with Carranza. Feeling betrayed, the Villistas set forth on a course of retaliation directed mainly at Americans.  In one instance, Villa's irregulars assassinated 17 U.S. citizens aboard a train traveling from Chihuahua City to the Cusi Mine at Santa Isabel, Chihuahua. Although this act infuriated the American public, it was the Villistas' next attack, the raid on Columbus, New Mexico, that caused the U.S. government to seek retribution.

Why Villa chose Columbus as a target for his most daring raid is unclear. The small town had only one hotel, a few stores, some adobe houses, and a population of 350 Americans and Mexicans. Most likely, Villa was enticed to attack Columbus because it was the home of Camp Furlong and the Thirteenth U.S. Cavalry Regiment under the command of Col. Herbert J. Slocum. The Thirteenth had been garrisoned at Columbus since September 1912. At the time of the attack, the regiment comprised 500 officers and men, but only about 350 men were at the camp. A local citizen warned Slocum that Villa was nearby. As a precaution, Slocum strengthened the patrols and outposts of the camp with detachments from the regiment. Since Villa had numerous sympathizers living in Columbus and the vicinity, he had no trouble obtaining information on Camp Furlong's troop strength or other bits of intelligence.

The Damaged Town

Although Villa's rationale for attacking Columbus has never been explained, the outcome is clearly documented.  The secretary of war reported that "Villa's command crossed the border in small parties about 3 miles west of the border gate, concentrated for and made the attack during hours of extreme darkness after the moon had set and before daylight." After a bloody confrontation in which 18 Americans died, two troops of the Thirteenth Cavalry under the direction of Maj. Frank Tompkins pursued the bandits. The troops chased the Mexicans south of the border for 12 miles before their ammunition and supplies were exhausted. The raid, however, could hardly be considered a victory for Villa and his men. Besides killing a small number of soldiers and civilians, his men came away with a few horses and a meager amount of loot from the stores and homes of the town.

Villa's Men Captured at Columbus

Both public outcry and pressure from the Army moved President Wilson to order the military to pursue Villa and punish him. General Funston, now commanding the Southern Department, telegraphed the War Department the day after the raid, "I urgently recommend that American troops be given authority to pursue into Mexican Territory hostile Mexican bandits who raid American territory. So long as the border is a shelter for them they will continue to harass our ranches and towns to our chagrin." Wilson responded by directing Secretary of War Newton Baker to organize a punitive expedition. On the advice of his senior military, Baker would designate John J. Pershing to lead the mission.

The adventures of the Punitive Expedition to be continued in future postings on Roads to the Great War

Source:  Mitchell Yockelson's "The United States Armed Forces and the Mexican Punitive Expedition" at Prologue, the online  magazine of the National Archives and Records Administration

9 March 1916, Part I: Newton Baker Sworn In as Secretary of War

By Keith Muchowski

A few weeks back we wrote about the resignation of Woodrow Wilson’s secretary of war Lindley M. Garrison. Today marks the 100th anniversary of the swearing-in of his replacement: Newton D. Baker.

Baker and His Son in 1913

On the surface Newton Baker’s appointment seemed like a stretch. Up to that point he had had little experience in national or military affairs. Moreover, with his spectacles, pipe, thin frame, and bookish manner the Midwestern lawyer hardly exuded a military bearing. When Baker finally did come to the attention of Washington and the general public in the winter of 1916, many believed him to be a staunch pacifist. His purported pacifism fit in well with President Wilson’s strategy going into the 1916 presidential race. Outgoing Secretary Garrison’s Continental Army Plan proved unpopular with many in Washington and the public at large. Even worse, Garrison himself had become increasingly associated with Preparedness advocates. Wilson’s upcoming campaign was predicated on the notion that he had “kept us out of war.” In this context putting Baker in the War Department was a logical choice.

Newton Diehl Baker had been the private secretary to the postmaster general in the second Grover Cleveland Administration. He went on from there to become the City Solicitor (1903–11) and Mayor (1912–15) of Cleveland, Ohio. Baker was a progressive reformer and in this capacity modernized the municipality via such means as road paving, sewer treatment, public transportation, improvements to the potable water supply, and management of the Great Lakes shoreline. These were mundane but important measures at a time when many Americans still lived in crowded, unsanitary conditions with no electricity or running water.

Baker initially did not want to accept Wilson’s offer to run the War Department. Indeed he seems not to have wanted to go to Washington at all; while mayor he had twice turned down President-elect Wilson’s offer of the post of secretary of the interior. Baker was in Cleveland that first week of March 1916 when President Wilson wired offering the position. Baker was hesitant and skeptical, but eventually accepted. After that it all happened quickly. On Wednesday 8 March Baker left Cleveland on a train bound for Washington, where the following day he was sworn in as Secretary of War. Baker was 44 years old and the youngest member of the Wilson Cabinet.

Secretary of War Newton D. Baker Inspects a Training Camp
at American University in 1917

There were no guarantees when he arrived in Washington; had Wilson lost the presidential race that November, Baker would have been out of a job in less than a year. The prospect of one year and out may be why he took the job. Instead he stayed the next five years, through the end of Wilson’s second term. Wilson proved wise in his selection of Baker. Generous and conciliatory by nature, the new secretary of war was a witty and charming man who managed to walk a fine line between the presidential, Congressional, and military leadership.

Baker Was Remembered 10 Years
After the War with Admiration

That June came the fight over the National Defense Act of 1916, followed by Wilson’s re-election campaign. The Germans began unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1917 and created a diplomatic crisis that same winter with the Zimmerman Telegram. The U.S. military that Baker had taken over was essentially a constabulary force of some 200,000 ill-equipped men. When war finally came there was the draft to deal with, commanders to choose, and sensitive military and diplomatic issues to be worked out with the Allies. Secretary of War Baker also had to contend with a number of ugly, racially charged incidents involving African American soldiers and hostile civilians living adjacent to stateside military bases. 

By the Great War’s end, Newton Baker presided over an American Expeditionary Force numbering in the millions. When he was being sworn in on 9 March 1916, all of that was in the future. Right now the new secretary of war had a more immediate problem: Pancho Villa and his force of 500 men attacked Columbus, New Mexico, that very day. Tomorrow in 9 March 1916, Part II we will discuss Villa's raid.

Our contributor, Keith Muchowski, is an outstanding blogger, who looks at American history from a New Yorker's viewpoint. Visit Keith's Blog, The Strawfoot, for more interesting insights on the history of the First World War.

A Rainbow Division Lieutenant in France reviewed by Peter Belmonte

A Rainbow Division Lieutenant in France: 
The World War I Diary of John H. Taber

Edited by Stephen H. Taber.

McFarland & Company, Inc., 2015

John Taber was a 22-year-old graduate of Columbia (class of 1917) when he was assigned to Company K, 168th Infantry Regiment, 42nd Division, in the fall of 1917. A graduate of the first Plattsburg Officer's Training Camp, he served throughout the war with the 168th. Along the way he kept a diary on scraps of paper, and after the war he augmented and expanded his notes into a personal account of his war. Upon his death, his second cousin, editor Stephen H. Taber, inherited these papers; Stephen decided to transcribe and publish his cousin's account, and the result is this fine book.

Order Now

John Taber served as a platoon leader, and he was very candid, and sometimes humorous, in recording his actions and thoughts. Taber's regiment stopped in England on their way to France, which he succinctly summed up his view upon leaving after a brief stay: "I am glad to leave England. I feel as if I had been spending the past week in a morgue" [p. 9]. He is equally frank in his assessment of his fellow officers, both peers and superiors. While it's common knowledge that there was considerable friction between regular officers and National Guard officers, it's not as well known that the National Guard officers held some reserve officers in disdain. Taber describes his feelings in this regard. While in training, one battalion commander told the non-commissioned officers not to pay attention to the reserve officers. Taber, and his fellow reserve officers, felt that the regimental commander, Colonel Matthew A. Bennet, was "a martinet, and as cold and unapproachable as a fish" [p. 13]. His own battalion commander, Major Guy S. Brewer, was "hard and unreasonable with an obvious partiality for National Guard officers [p. 13]." His view of Brewer would change for the better once the regiment entered combat, however.

In addition to his comments about England, Taber wasn't shy about revealing his opinion of some of the places he visited. Of Luxembourg, through which his regiment passed on their way to Germany as part of the Army of Occupation, Taber said: "The dinky trains are in keeping with everything else in this comic opera country" [p. 143]. And he left no doubt as to his feelings about the village of Neunkirchen, Germany: "Surely there never was a dirtier, smellier, gloomier excuse for a village" [p. 147]. I highlight these comments because of their frankness and humor. But Taber wasn't just a literate crank; he was also very observant and did a wonderful job of describing the places he went and the people he met.

John H. Taber, Officer Candidate

Taber experienced the misery, boredom, and fear felt by all infantrymen in combat during that war. The value of this book lies in the fact that Taber recorded it all: training behind the lines, moving forward to the fray, gas attacks, bombardments, and details of his billeting arrangements and meals. The subject of replacements in combat units is of special interest to me, and Taber recorded his observation of some men who joined his company just before St. Mihiel: "… I took over my old platoon, to find out that a large part of the recently acquired replacements had had little or no training. Of course they were terribly frightened. It was a crime to send them into action" [p. 111]. Anyone who thinks that St. Mihiel was a cakewalk for the Americans should read Taber's account of the first few hours of that battle.

Taber went through all the battles and skirmishes that his regiment was involved in, except for the second phase of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, when he was sick with pneumonia in the hospital. He rejoined his regiment for the last part of the offensive, and, if you think the Germans were completely exhausted and unwilling to fight by then, Taber's account will change your mind. His description of his time in the Army of Occupation reads like a travelogue, culminating in Pershing's review of the 42nd Division (Taber heard every word of Pershing's speeches to the division and was completely unimpressed).

Raiding Party from the 168th Infantry

Stephen Taber has omitted editorial comments altogether, and the reader won't find accounts of the overall strategy or progress of the war, except as those things were perceived and recorded by his cousin. And that's actually refreshing, because we read about what a typical platoon leader did from day to day, how he personally experienced the war, and what he thought about the men with whom he served. How did such men fill their time? Taber played cards with fellow officers, looked after billeting for his men, practiced French with the locals, went on brief sightseeing expeditions. He even went AWOL in Paris for a few days after his discharge from the hospital following his bout with pneumonia after St. Mihiel. We can learn much from accounts such as these.

Stephen Taber is to be commended for preserving and publishing this book. As for me, I can't get enough of these first-person accounts.

Peter Belmonte

Battleships with Torpedo Tubes?

Contributed by Naval Historian Steve McLaughlin

Almost all battleships were fitted with torpedoes up until World War I. The image below is of the torpedo room of the USS Oregon, heroine of the Spanish-American War, 1898. Torpedo ranges had increased from about 3,000 yards in 1905 to about 10,000 yards by 1914, so their running distance was comparable to gun ranges. But it took about ten minutes for a 30-knot long-range torpedo to travel 10,000 yards, so hitting an individual ship was, quite literally, a long shot. 

Torpedo Room, USS Oregon

Fired against a long line of ships (as in line-of-battle — the British battle line at Jutland was about 12,000 yards long), however, there was a fair chance that a salvo fired from all of your battleships would hit some of the enemy's battleships. This was a tactical factor that exercised a great deal of influence through World War I. Battleships and battle cruisers fired a total of 21 torpedoes at one another during the Battle of Jutland (British capital ships fired 13, German ships 8), without scoring a single hit. The only other instance of a battleship-on-battleship torpedo attack seems to have been by HMS Rodney against the Bismarck on 27 May 1941. The general consensus is that Rodney did not score a hit. Many navies removed underwater torpedo tubes from their battleships after the First World War.

Battleship HMS Marlborough Both Fired a Torpedo and
Suffered a Torpedo Hit at Jutland Launched by SMS Wiesbaden
(corrected from original) 

I should note that torpedo speed could be traded for longer range. In most cases during World War I, submarines fired torpedoes from within 1,000 yards of their targets, so the torpedoes could be set for maximum speed (40–45 knots), which, combined with the short range, gave a much better chance of hitting, giving a travel time of less than a minute. To get longer range, you had to set the torpedo for a slower speed. During the war both the British and Germans developed 15,000-yard torpedoes, but the speed had to be reduced to 20 knots or less, which meant a running time of about 20 minutes —again, a real long shot.

An AEF Veteran Looks Back on His Enlistment Ten Years Later

Abian Wallgren (1892–1948) was a cartoonist who enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1917. His drawing talent somehow pushed or pulled him to the Doughboy's newspaper, the Stars and Stripes, where he became resident cartoonist.  Later he worked on the American Legion Weekly. Ten years after his enlistment, he took a nostalgic look back to what he experienced as a new member of the American military.  These appeared in the Weekly.

By the way, commentator James Lileks has an excellent collection of Wallgren's wartime cartoons  HERE

Lest We Forget: The Man with a Donkey

Simpson, 1915

In 2008, John Simpson Kirkpatrick, the man with the donkey and one of the most enduring of all Anzac legends, was denied the ultimate recognition of courage and sacrifice — the Victoria Cross. In the early fighting at Gallipoli Private Simpson was killed ferrying wounded soldiers to safety from the front line.

Although his commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred Sutton, recommended him for the country's highest military award, the Defence Honours and Awards Tribunal disqualified Simpson from being posthumously awarded the medal. That is because his bravery was not supported by the required documentation: the sworn statements of at least three witnesses to his actions.

Witness accounts of Simpson's deeds exist, but they are mostly unspecific diary accounts of his journeys from battlefield to dressing station. Simpson was fatally wounded in the chest by Turkish gunfire on the morning of 19 May 1915,and was buried at 6:30 that evening at Hell Spit, on the southern end of Anzac Cove.

The day after Simpson's death, Colonel John Monash, then the commander of the Australian Imperial Force's 4th Infantry Brigade at Gallipoli, sent a submission to Australian and New Zealand Divisional Headquarters. Monash (later General Sir John) wrote: "I desire to bring under special notice, for favor of transmission to the proper authority, the case of Private Simpson…(who) has been working in this valley since 26th April, in collecting wounded, and carrying them to dressing stations."

Sutton, the commanding officer of the 3rd Australian Field Ambulance, who had tied his own Red Cross armband around Simpson's donkey, wrote in his diary on 1 June 1915: "I think we will get a VC for poor Simpson."

Simpson's feats have immortalized him in the minds of Australians, but he will apparently never receive the honor his commander sought for him.

Source: TheAge.com.au

High-Stakes Poker: The End Game on the Eastern Front

Trotsky

A German courier arrived in Petrograd on the morning of 23 February 1918 with Germany's new and more brutal peace terms. Since the Russians had stalled throughout the peace process, employing radical, indeed shocking, diplomatic practices which necessitated the German Army's return to operational activity, and since the Russians obviously had no capital or the prospect of raising capital in the immediate future to pay indemnities, the Germans decided to extract their pound of flesh in territorial annexations that outstripped the line Hoffman showed to Trotsky earlier on 30 January. The Germans now expected the Soviets to cede the following territories: Finland, Russian Poland, Estonia, Livonia, Courland, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Bessarabia. In addition, the Bolsheviks also had to cede to Turkey the provinces of Ardaham, Kars, and Batumi. Although this ultimatum came with a 48-hour deadline, half of this period had elapsed by the time Lenin saw it. When Bukharin stubbornly opposed agreeing to this draconian peace, Lenin calmly yet firmly announced to the Central Committee that there was no time for theoretical meanderings. In Lenin's mind, these brutal conditions were in fact a last chance to save the revolution from the imperialists.

The only task remaining was to sign a document that is the infamous Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. In an effort to convince the Germans that the Soviets had decisively shifted course, Trotsky resigned as commissar of foreign affairs and was replaced by one Grigorii Sokolnikov as the acting commissar. He went to Brest-Litovsk, where General Max von Hoffman, who ultimately negotiated this peace at gunpoint, waited. The treaty was signed with little fanfare on 3 March 1918. The Germans stuck to their claim that they had not annexed any territory. Instead they were safeguarding the rights to national self-determination of the peoples of Central Europe. Moreover, the Germans also maintained that they sought no indemnities from the Russians. But the appendix to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk revealed a financial agreement that granted them the status of conquering power and the Russians that of a dependent colony.

German General Max von Hoffman

While the Germans had accomplished their goal of achieving peace in the east in time for the spring campaigns in the west, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk did little to solve their crushing problems. For the bounty of Ukraine to have an impact on Germany, the Germans now needed more time for the crops to be planted, to grow, and be harvested. The Entente's ultimate victory prevented the Germans from enjoying the spoils gained at Brest-Litovsk. Even more demoralizing, the German soldiers on the Eastern Front who had come into contact with the Russians had been infected with Bolshevism, thereby rendering them ineffective as operational forces. Instead of being able to transfer vast numbers of soldiers to the Western Front, the German army in Russia remained in place, acting as a pseudo police force until November 1918.

Germany's collapse in the autumn of 1918 proved Lenin to be correct, at least in part. Lenin viewed the treaty as a political necessity that he would obey only as far as her was forced. The Treaty of Breat-Litovsk did grant the infant Soviet Union a brief breathing space from the upheavals of war and revolution, but Lenin still had to wage a tenacious battle with stiff inner party opposition before he won confirmation of the treaty at the Fourth Party Congress, 14–16 March. Leftwing radicals did indeed get their revolutionary war, but it proved to be very different from the conflict they envisioned. Instead of a war to liberate the workers of the world from capitalistic bondage, the Russians found themselves embroiled in a brutal civil war. Fortunately for the Bolsheviks, when Trotsky resigned as commissar of foreign affairs, Lenin appointed him commissar of war, and in April/May 1918 they would start the process of winning the civil war and consolidating the power and authority of the Bolshevik party over the Russian people.

When the Germans lost the Great War the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was negated and the Bolsheviks managed to gain back much territory ceded to the Germans once they emerged victorious from the civil war. The challenge that the Bolsheviks placed before the world was not lost on the leaders of the Entente. Because of Woodrow Wilson's 14 points, the Germans arrived at Versailles believing that they were about to negotiate a peace without annexation and indemnities. Despite the best efforts of President Wilson, the Europeans were not ready to pursue peace without draconian consequences for the defeated foe. 

Lenin

The Germans did it to the Russians, and in the minds of the French and British, it was now their (the Germans') turn to suffer a devastating defeat. Ironically, the Russian Imperial Army fell victim to the collapse of Russian society and was not decisively defeated by the Germans. In addition, the German military entered the postwar period believing that the failure of civilians and politicians—not military operational performance —allowed the Entente to dictate the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.

From a paper delivered by Professor John W. Steinberg at the 2001 Conference, "The Great War on the Eastern Front."

Great Informational Kiosks on the Italian Front

If you plan to travel to Italy and Slovenia to tour the Italian Front, you will be pleased to discover that they are very tourism friendly.  One dimension to this is their outstanding system of informational kiosks at the key sites.

This one marks a frontline trench on the Carso Plateau where the early battles of the Isonzo were fought.  Note the trench map, period photos, and multilingual descriptions of the sites. Below are segments of other kiosks at sites I've visited with my groups over the years. 

At the northern end of the Carso overlooking the key city of Gorizia is Monte San Michele, one of the most legendary battlefields of the war.  After capture, Italian forces converted its quarry to the fortified artillery position shown here.

The high-water mark for the Austro-Hungarian Empire on the Italian Front was at Val Magnaboschi on the Asiago Plateau in June 1918, during what is known as the Battle of the Solstice. At the entrance of the valley is a concentration of memorials and cemeteries.

Monte Zovetto was the site of a British Army outpost in 1918. The Tommies who manned it are pictured here. The locals refer to the site as the "Scottish Trenches."

On the Montello, above the Piave river, Italy's greatest ace, Francesco Baracca, fell in 1918.  A beautiful temple-like memorial marks his crash site.

Fort Verena fired the first shots of the Great War on the Italian Front in 1915. The fort is at the crest of a ski slope today and can be visited on a chair lift.

Goeben and Breslau: Fateful Warships

SMS Goeben (left below) was the second of two Moltke-class battlecruisers of the Imperial German Navy, launched in 1911 and named after the German Franco-Prussian War veteran General August Karl von Goeben. Several months after her commissioning in 1912, Goeben, with the light cruiser Breslau (right ship in photo), formed the German Mediterranean Division and patrolled there during the Balkan Wars.

After the outbreak of World War I on 28 July 1914, Goeben and Breslau under the command of Admiral Wilhelm Souchon evaded British naval forces in the Mediterranean and reached Constantinople. When the German embassy was informed of the arrival of the Goeben and the Breslau, Ambassador Baron Hans von Wangenheim persuaded the Turks to allow the ships to enter the harbor. Once Souchon's ships were safely in the harbor, the German diplomat reminded the Turks that Great Britain had recently broken a contract to supply two new battleships to the Turkish government. The British Admiralty, nervous about the threat of a European war, had decided to keep the new warships for its own use instead of transferring them to Turkey. The Germans now offered to provide the Turks with the ships they needed by selling them Goeben and Breslau. After several hours of negotiation, the Turks agreed to purchase the German ships.

The two ships were transferred to the Ottoman Empire on 16 August 1914, and Goeben became the flagship of the Ottoman navy as Yavuz Sultan Selim. On 30 October 1914, Turkey officially joined the war on the German side, substantially won over by the acquisition of the powerful German warships. The decision by the Young Turks to join the hostilities radically shifted the dynamics of the war and had an earthshaking impact on Middle East, which is still being felt in the 21st century. Yavuz Sultan Selim remained the flagship of the Turkish navy until she was decommissioned in 1950.

Adapted from Trenches on the Web and Wikipedia articles.

The Last Great Cavalry Charge reviewed by Michael P. Kihntopf

The Last Great Cavalry Charge: 
The Battle of the Silver Helmets, Halen, 12 August 1914

by Joe and Janet Robinson and Francis Hendriks

Fonthill Media, 2015

Depiction of the Charge

Since 2009, authors Robinson (ably assisted by co-authors) have given military aficionados a factual, colorful, and riveting picture of the Kaiser's army as it approached the Great War. From those excellent previous works I was reminded of the two old soldiers, neither of whom had seen combat in their lengthy peacetime careers, sitting to whiskies and talking over tales of their collective past. All the stories centered on how they turned country bumpkins into smart and effective soldiers. When all the yarns had been spun one of the soldiers leaned back in his wicker chair and sighed. With the sigh came the question: "I wonder how my men would have done under fire?" This book answers that question for the most prestigious and perhaps the most highly trained branch of the German Army, the cavalry, through a detailed account of an overlooked battle at an obscure crossroads—an overlooked battle which pitted elite horsemen of Germany against the small Belgian Army before the French could rally and before the British arrived.

Authors Robinson and Hendriks begin The Last Great Cavalry Charge with details which should educate the novice on just how well trained and equipped the German cavalry was. This plumber's description of accouterments and tactics is well tempered by an excellent analysis of the cavalryman's character which played so heavily into how that group performed on the first battlefield. What a glowing picture of cavalry emerged in those few pages; however, beneath the luster was a tarnish whose discoloration was in how the German General Staff structured the command lines in cavalry organization and its use in an age of machine guns, magazine rifles, and quick firing artillery.

Site of the Charge Today

From the Militär-Wochenblatt of the late 19th century a cavalryman speaks out: "No technology comes to our aid. We have only that which our ancestors had a thousand years ago: a man, a steed, and iron — everything else we have to create out of ourselves." (Quoted in The Kaiser's Army, Eric Dorn Brose, 2001, page 15). The German cavalry was charged with screening the right wing of the army as it swung itself across Belgium in the early days of the war. In the screening mission was an important subtask—contain the Belgian army by keeping it away from the fortress complex at Antwerp. To achieve these tasks, the cavalry had a vast distance to cover, and speed was of the essence. As a result, the zealous horsemen quickly outdistanced their supply and communications lines within hours of crossing the Belgian border. Everything was in short supply, and the whereabouts of the enemy and the terrain that had to be crossed was even more of a mystery. These deficiencies became apparent when the cavalry came into contact with the enemy that decided to stand its ground on 12 August near Halen.

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The Belgian force consisted primarily of cavalry and bicycle units. Cavalry facing cavalry should have been the make-up of the first battle, lance upon lance, saber to saber. But the Belgians had read the reports of cavalry actions in the Boer and the Russo-Japanese Wars. They decided that they should meet the Germans with dismounted troopers wielding carbines, machine guns, and supported by field artillery. The Germans had read the reports too, but they decided to meet the enemy mounted. The results of the decision to meet bullets with horseflesh are highly predictable. Eight assaults were made on the Belgian line; each one left more German casualties on the field than the previous one. But the injured and dead were not all caused by enemy fire. Poor intelligence had missed terrain features which included unseen sunken roads that became man and horse traps and barbed wire barriers which deterred the momentum of the charge.

The authors amply quote battle participants' journals and reminiscences to enhance their narratives. The declaration of the victor of a battle has always depended on who had possession of the battlefield at the end of the day. Although the Belgians chose to evacuate the area in the face of overwhelming odds, the Germans had clearly suffered the most with the loss of 472 men and the demise of the cavalry.

The Last Great Cavalry Charge very graphically provides an answer to those old soldiers who have left their drinks tumblers to the servants. The bravado of the professionals, no matter how well trained, is often no match for reality. Practices of the parade ground are just that, a parade. I highly recommend this book.

Michael P. Kihntopf