The Red Baron’s JG 1 vs. the Black Squadron

James Patton

Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen (1892–1918), familiarly known as the Red Baron, was an obscure cavalry lieutenant in 1914. With the advent of static warfare, his unit was broken up and he was assigned to a supply unit, duty that he found distasteful. He volunteered for aviation service in May 1915, serving as an observer until October, then went through flight training. He flew two-seaters until August 1916, when he finally became a true fighter pilot. He chanced to catch the eye of  Oswald Boelcke (1891–1916), known as the “Father of Air Fighting Tactics,” who selected von Richthofen for his elite “Jasta 2“ (short for Jagdstaffel 2). Von Richthofen later formed his own elite squadron, Jasta 11, which out-performed Jasta 2. In January 1917, he painted his Albatros D-III bright red, which led to his famous sobriquet. 

SE-5a of Captain Grinnell-Milne
with 56 Squadron Markings

The Red Baron became a special target for the British Royal Flying Corps for several reasons. First, he shot down a lot of their planes; second, he was in-your-face flamboyant; and third, although of noble background, he was not gentlemanly in his behavior, pursuing his foes ruthlessly. The RFC bore a huge grudge against the Red Baron for hunting down their first ace, Maj. Lanoe Hawker ,VC, who was trying to nurse his shot-up DH-2 back to his lines.

With the mounting success of Jasta 11 and then von Richthofen’s  four-squadron Jagdgeschwader 1 (JG1), known as the “Flying Circus”, the RFC decided to create a special "Black" squadron whose primary mission was to hunt down the Red Baron and his ace pilots. In March 1917, No. 56 Squadron was born, staffed exclusively with experienced pilots, some already aces (particularly Capt. Albert Ball, VC), equipped with brand-new SE-5 aircraft, the latest and best available, and dedicated to fighting in packs rather than in dashing mano-a-mano duels, always outnumbering their quarry and luring them into traps.  

Maj. James McCudden's Four-Blade Propeller

Since the original pilots were all experienced, they tinkered with their aircraft. In particular, Maj. James McCudden, VC, an engineer, supervised changes in engine compression, the exhaust system, the propeller, and the dihedral angle of the top wing, as well as reductions in weight, in order to improve high-altitude performance. With these aircraft, a flight of No. 56 changed its mission and went after the German high-altitude reconnaissance planes, particularly the Rumpler C.VIIs. McCudden died on 9 July 1918 while test-flying a modified SE-5.

In the course of their service, No. 56 scored 427 victories (most in the RFC/RAF) while losing 40 killed and 31 taken prisoner. The squadron had 22 aces, including McCudden (57 victories) and Ball (44).  

Memorial to 56 Squadron Pilot Albert Ball

No. 56 didn’t get the Red Baron, although they came close, claiming one of his top subordinates, Lt. Werner Voss (48 victories), who in an epic fight was tricked into taking on eight No. 56 pilots, all of whom were aces, and scored hits on all the No. 56 planes before he was shot down. No. 56 also brought down Lt. Kurt Wissemann, who had shot down the French ace Capt. Georges Guynemer (54 victories) 17 days earlier. 

No. 56 has had a long and colorful history. Known as "The Firebirds" since 1960, when it transitioned to the RAF’s first supersonic aircraft, the Lightning F-1, today it is an RAF Reserve unit that tests, evaluates, and operates drones; previously, from 1992 until 2008, No. 56 was the only Reserve Squadron operating the Tornado F-3 frontline interceptor. 

The squadron has its own website, which you can visit HERE.

"Seemed Like a Good Idea": American Subchasers in the Great War

Three Submarine Chasers in Port

The U.S. Navy employed a type of anti-submarine craft from which much was expected. These were the 70-ton, 110-foot wooden-hulled patrol boats with the evocative name of "submarine chasers." Outfitted with gasoline engines, they were armed with a single three-inch gun and a small number of depth charges. No fewer than 448 were ordered, and 303 took part in the war. Seventy-two were sent to Europe, equally divided between Plymouth and the Straits of Otranto in the Mediterranean. The French navy purchased 50 in 1917 and another 50 in 1918. They were armed with a 3-in Poole deck gun, racks of depth charges, a Y-gun launcher, and Lewis and Colt machine guns on the bridge wings. Below decks were a galley, an engine room, a radio room, quarters for two officers and a crew of over 20 men, fresh water tanks, and storage rooms. To achieve the technical specifications for speed, the chasers each had to be fitted with three enormous Standard 220-hp gasoline engines.

They never really fulfilled the hopes placed on them, however. They were too slow and too small to escort convoys, and, while able to withstand rough weather, could not make much headway in heavy seas. The gasoline fuel made them prone to fires. Admiral Sims admitted to a French officer that the United States was using them simply "because we have them." They had been designed before the difficulties of anti-submarine warfare were fully realized. On the other hand, the relatively unsophisticated nature of the boats made them well suited for amateur crews, called up for service from the Naval Reserve. 

Location of the Otranto Barrage

Those deployed at Otranto had a high proportion of college men and were dubbed the "Harvard-Yale Squadron." The "Otranto Barrage" was an Allied naval blockade of the Strait of Otranto between Brindisi in Italy and Corfu on the Greek side of the Adriatic Sea in the First World War. The blockade was intended to prevent the Austro-Hungarian Navy from escaping into the Mediterranean and threatening Allied operations there. The blockade was effective in preventing surface ships from escaping the Adriatic, but it had little or no effect on the submarines based at Cattaro.

At Otranto, the little boats worked in groups of three or four to exploit what was thought to be a war-winning invention, the hydrophone. It was believed, perhaps correctly, that the American listening devices were superior to anything developed by the Allies. In order to function effectively, the hydrophones required silence, with nearby ships stopping their engines so a submarine might be detected. Three of the "chasers" would then supposedly locate the enemy submarine by "triangulation." Another "chaser," or preferably a destroyer with more offensive firepower, would be on hand for the "kill." Their use in this manner conformed to Benson's desire that they act "offensively," but the commander at Otranto reported to Sims: "It has been very difficult to induce people to believe the safety of their vessels was enhanced by stopping them for set periods in waters traversed by enemy submarines." 

Subchaser SC-26 at Sea

The little "chasers" at Otranto conducted 37 submarine hunts and believed they had made 19 "kills." In fact, none could be confirmed. However, there is evidence that the subchasers hampered enemy U-boat activity. Hampering the progress of enemy submarines meant shortening their hunts, ideally preventing them from crossing the barrage lines entirely, but in any case slowing them down and forcing them to return to base with fewer days and hours in the shipping lanes. In fact, the numbers seem to bear out the effectiveness of the effort. As the barrage lines were fortified by chasers and other ASW craft, U-boat kills in the Mediterranean were significantly reduced.

Sources:  "The U.S. Navy in the Great War" by Paul Halpern, Relevance, Spring 2004; "U.S. Navy Submarine Chasers in the Great War" by Todd A. Woofenden at The Subchasers Archives.

La Chanson de Craonne (Video)

In French with French and English Subtitles

You Can Visit the Western Front This September

Since I came back from my first trip to the Western Front in 1990, I have been telling everyone that you can't really appreciate what happened in the Great War until you have actually visited and walked its battlefields.  From 1991 to 2018 I led World War One tours to France, Flanders, Italy, and Gallipoli and I can't remember a traveler who said the experience had not changed his thinking about the war.

This year my old outfit, Valor Tours, Ltd.,  is providing the sort of tour I can strongly recommend to our readers.  Below are some details from the brochure.  You can download the full brochure HERE.  MH

Highlights

• Explorations of the major American battlefields in France, including their memorials and cemeteries

• Stops at Verdun, the Somme, Champagne, Chemin des Dames and Marne battlefields 

• Compiègne Armistice Glade

• Museums Include: Musée de la Grande Guerre, Château-Thierry Visitors Center, 14-18 Museum en Argonne, 1870 Museum, Main de Messiges Trench Complex, Musee Somme 1916,  Cambrai Tank Museum

• Some Special Places: Reims Cathedral, George Patton's First Tank Attack, the Red Baron's Crash Site, WWII Fort Driant, Verdun Memorial and Ossuary, Fort Douaumont,  Thiepval Memorial, Cavern des Dragons, Lochnagar Mine Crater 

• Opportunities for fine French cuisine and a Champagne cellar tour

Some Details

Your Guide

Tour Director Mike Grams, an American citizen, was born in Verdun where his father was based; his mother worked as a  translator at St.Mihiel. He has lived and traveled extensively throughout France and speaks French fluently. Mike and his wife now spend most of the year in France, where he has escorted many groups and individuals around France since retiring from the wine business.

A Centennial Look Back at Treating Wounds and Preventing Infection in World War One Casualties

Near the Front
Treatment at a British Wound Dressing Station

The military experience in World War I profoundly shaped the medicine practiced on the battlefield. Trenches were inherently unhealthy environments. “We lived a mean and impoverished sort of existence in lousy scratchy holes,” recalled British soldier George Coppard in his memoir. 

Overcrowding with poor sanitation led to diarrheal diseases like dysentery. Rats ran freely. Closely packed men lacking the ability to shower or change clothes created conditions amenable to the spread of vector-borne diseases like the aptly named trench fever, transmitted by lice. Prolonged standing in cold water resulted in a malady dubbed trench foot. These conditions came on top of the exhaustion, malnutrition, and malaise that afflicted frontline combatants . 

Doctors also struggled mightily to contain the epidemic of trauma that engulfed Europe over these four years. In their efforts to do so, they established intricate evacuation chains to move the wounded to hospitals where ongoing research on shock and infection led to novel therapies like blood transfusions and innovative wound irrigation methods. By 1917, surgery became increasingly aggressive across multiple specialties as laparotomies and craniotomies emerged as standard of care.

Problematically, the medical and surgical needs of the war outstripped the abilities of belligerents’ medical professions. The resulting personnel deficit left illprepared physicians treating the wounded while also providing women doctors with unprecedented opportunities . . .

Those individuals who survived their initial injury were at high risk of death from infection. The unsanitary conditions of the trenches where, according to one military medical manual, “the earth teemed with micro-organisms,” exacerbated the problem.  By October 1914, almost 70 percent of German wounds were infected. Physicians responded to this threat with multiple interventions. Anti-tetanus sera proved particularly effective in World War I and by 1915 became a mandatory therapy. With its addition, the rate of tetanus dropped from around 20 percent of wounds in 1914 to 0.1 percent by 1918.  

In the Rear
Treating a Wounded Man at an American Base Hospital

In the Russo-Japanese and Boer Wars, doctors treated most injuries conservatively, reasoning that operative intervention would cause increase morbidity and mortality compared to allowing the body to heal on its own. This strategy seemed to work well on the steppes of Manchuria and veldts of South Africa, but it failed miserably in the manure-churned fields of Flanders. Pioneers like H.M.W. Gray in the British Army, and especially Antoine DePage in the Belgian military, recognized the importance of keeping fresh wounds open with delayed primary closure, removing all foreign bodies, and extirpating any necrotic or devascularized tissue. These steps markedly reduced the rate of infection and helped obviate amputation following extremity injury.

By 1917, almost every doctor on the Western Front recognized the value of debridement; one even wrote a poem to memorialize it.

Of the edge of the skin

Take a piece very thin

The tighter the fascia

The more should slash’er

Of muscle much more

Till you see fresh gore

And bundles contract

At the least impact

Hardly any of bone

Only bits quite alone 

JRL Learmonth

Surgeons soon recognized that they could not cut out every bacterium with their scalpels. With the recently adopted principle of aseptic surgery impossible in the filthy trenches, they reverted to antiseptic principles, deploying various chemicals to kill the bacteria debridement missed and that compromised immune systems struggled to eliminate. Surgeons proposed a variety of modalities, but by far the most popular came from Nobel laureate Alexis Carrel.  

Carrel worked with Rockefeller chemist Henry Dakin, who invented an antiseptic treatment consisting of a solution of sodium hypochlorite buffered to physiologic pH–Dakin’s Solution. Carrel designed a series of fenestrated catheters to distribute the solution evenly through the wound bed. Anecdotally at least, the Carrel-Dakin system significantly reduced the rates of infection and remained the standard of care for treating septic wounds until the arrival of penicillin in the 1940s. Dakin’s Solution remains in use for contaminated wounds in both military and civilian patients.

Note:  For a list of other articles on treating wounds during the First World War that we have published on Roads, click HERE.

Source:  Extracted from "From Trench to Bedside: Military Surgery During World War I Upon Its Centennial," Military Medicine 184, 2019.

What Pre-Revolutionary Russia Can Tell Us About Russia Today: Part III — Revolutionary Russia

No revolution in Western Europe can be definitely and finally victorious as long as the present Russian state exists at its side. . . At the present time, a social revolution could be accomplished in Russia with the greatest of ease, much more easily than in Western Europe. 

Frederick Engels

Russia's Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876)
The 19th Century's Most Influential Revolutionary

Especially after the revolutions of 1830, when French liberals and revolutionaries replaced their king and the tsar crushed a rebellion in Poland, the better-informed people of Europe came to realize that dramatic change was in the air. As the philosopher Auguste Comte put it in 1831, "The first of the leading peculiarities of the present age is that it is an age of transition. Mankind have [sic] outgrown old institutions and old doctrines, and have not yet acquired new ones." But from where would such change come? Ideas were sprouting up everywhere—where would they be tested and put into practice? The answer was Russia.

Starting in the 19th century and expanding relentlessly through the Great War, radicalism in Russia would inspire worldwide terrorism and turn the nation into the main transmission station for the leftist ideologies of anarchism and Marxism. Eventually, of course, their supreme accomplishment would be within Russia itself, as the Great War gave history's most talented group of revolutionaries the opportunity to replace Romanov rule with totalitarian dictatorship. In the long run-up to the First World War, though, the turmoil in Russia had a broader international audience. By demonstrating that something irrationally destructive and uncompromising could be set loose even in a tightly controlled authoritarian state, the Russian radicals haunted monarchs, politicians, and generals and inspired reformers of every stripe.

The literature on the radical movements in Russia is almost as vast as the country itself and is simply beyond summarizing here. However, two issues deserve mention for their relevance to the centennial of World War I. How, despite intense monitoring by secret police, did the Russian leftists transmit revolutionary impulses through every sector of Russian society, winning adherents everywhere, even in the tsar's court? And how did the radicals succeed in winning international sympathy and support and inspire imitators across the globe, despite their prominent campaigns of assassination and terror undermining any claim to the moral high ground? They were simply murderers, after all.

The Russian radicals were relentlessly industrious and adaptable. Home-based or expatriate, as needed, they could originate doctrines, or they could also borrow extensively from kindred souls in other countries. They drew on writers like Marx or the German/American Karl Heinzen, who wrote an essay the Russians embraced justifying murder for political purposes. After a distillation process, they turned theories into action programs that worked in Russia. Also, effective revolutionaries seem to understand theatrics. They adjust the level and type of their activities to optimize the public's likely response to their actions and could—at a turn—make themselves seem victimized and gain sympathy. 

Example: After an earlier failed attempt on the life of Tsar Alexander II in 1866, the government cracked down hard on the nihilist radical groups who had made the attempt. However, the pamphleteers quickly labeled the crackdown the "White Terror." The public quickly forgot the work of the original failed single terrorist/assassin and focused attention on the "terrorism" practiced by the government. This process was replicated 15 years later when the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881 shocked the world and resulted in further repressive measures by the authorities and martyrdom for the executed conspirators. 

Mass Execution of the Conspirators in
Alexander II's Assassination

How were the Russian revolutionaries able to turn crimes and terror into a form of proselytizing, to which a critical number of people succumbed? Because the Russian radicals understood how to control the language of debate. Russian revolutionaries believed in the adage: "If you can control the language, you can control ideas. By controlling ideas, you can control the way people think and act." Russia became a revolutionary hotbed when a cadre of highly intelligent but disaffected individuals who understood this principle emerged spontaneously in the 19th-century as the result of the modern trends of urbanization and industrialization.

It was the dramatically expanding educated class that felt most strongly torn by the 19th-century struggle between tradition and change. The educated population provides any society with its intellectuals, its elite shapers and articulators of ideas. In Russia, though, where the cultural shock of modernization was intensified due to its stark contrast to the tradition of autocracy, this stratum was especially energized. Plus, these were the people best able to use language and control debates and they had an automatic seat of power in the schools and universities. That's where people of ideas congregate, get jobs, and pass on their beliefs and practices to their students. These intellectuals, though a small portion of Russia's population, would provide it with an ever-growing source of sympathizers, financial backers, and revolutionaries throughout the 19th century. 

In Russia, its revolutionaries evolved in patterns that have been observed in other movements over the last two centuries. There, [this came about] in a natural hierarchy within intellectual communities. Out of an expanding intellectual class emerges a sub-grouping of the self possessed, who feel anointed to set the standards and norms for others and sense themselves part of a congregation of kindred spirits sharing that authority — an elite of elites. This elite group is commonly known as the "intelligentsia." There appear to be certain tests that must be passed to gain full acceptance by other self-anointed members of the intelligentsia. Rational secular values must predominate, with extreme skepticism, if not rejection, of any respect for the legacy of the past, patriotism, traditional sex roles and marriage, business and capitalism, and especially religious life. Members or candidates for the intelligentsia naturally envision themselves as reformers, social critics at-large, or "philosopher kings" in extreme cases. If they find or imagine opposition to their program they can feel alienated and become hyper-energized. This pushes a very small number of the intelligentsia, the particularly tough-minded, action-oriented, and ruthless, to the highest state of reformer: the revolutionary.

About that "tough-mindedness.” At some point the once idealistic and well-intended intellectual feels compelled to cross a bridge leaving his present-day humanity on the one side and entering a new idealized world of the future that exists only in his mind, one in which his means for achieving his ends need not be justified, in which two wrongs can now make a right, and inconveniences, like observing the Golden Rule and normal civility, can be ignored. This is how the "smartest and best" of us can turn out like those who came to control the revolution in France where their zeal—described by the conservative politician and political philosopher Edmund Burke as "Epidemical Fanaticism"—led to the mass executions of the Terror and much later to the mass murders of the 20th century. The novelist Honoré de Balzac put it more bluntly—"The intellectuals are the new barbarians."

In any case by the middle of the 19th century, an inner core of revolutionary hopefuls embraced or tolerated by a predominance of educated citizens, had become an ingrained feature of every European city. In Russia this new intelligentsia would prove a self-contained poison pill and a model for revolutionaries up through our current day. 

If this sounds harsh, consider that the Russian intelligentsia of the 19th century created or perfected three different ideologies that sanctioned murder and terror to achieve its ends:

 

Nihilism (Home Grown)—In rejecting all moral principles and social obligations (nihilism = nothingness), most nihilists sought to overthrow the tsarist regime and encourage the creation of "New Men" (note the clever use of language; who doesn't want to be new?) partly through a sexual revolution.  Its more extreme adherents called for the destruction of all the standing political and social institutions and, more viciously, the liquidation of the entire royal family and any who sought to protect them. The movement succeeded in using the 1866 failed assassination of the tsar to discredit the regime. Later radical groups would perfect this technique of sabotaging the legitimacy of governments.

Anarchism (Multiple Roots)—A movement advocating the destruction of the state, the Russian version was given a collectivist and violent tone by Mikhail Bakunin, Sergei Nechayev, and Petr Kropotkin who championed downtrodden peasants and workers, decentralization of power, atheism, and individualism. Frenchman Pierre-Joseph Proudhon also contributed an enduring slogan among anarchists—"Property is theft!" In July 1879, People's Will, an anarchist offshoot, embarked on a campaign of terrorism and assassination, arguing that only a violent intellectual elite could force government reforms. Its successful murder of Tsar Alexander II would inspire a long series of political assassinations culminating in the efforts of Gavrilo Princip and his associates in Sarajevo that set off the Great War. The immediate results of the death of Tsar Alexander II, who had freed the serfs and was considered a progressive reformer, were the installation of a police state and the arrest of most members of People's Will, which led to a brief factionalizing of Russia's leftist radicals. 

(Click on Image to Enlarge)

The Influence of Anarchism Was Broad and Long Lasting in the United States

1.  Pamphlet for 1884 Thanksgiving Day
Protest in Chicago
2.  Mugshot for Leon Czolgosz, Anarchist and Assassin of President William McKinley
3. 1909 Russian Workers Protesting in New York City

Marxism (Borrowed from Germany)—Anarchist terrorism opened the doors for the most effective of these doctrines.One of the most significant groups to emerge in the last two decades of the 19th century was the Social Democrats. In contrast to the anarchists, the Social Democrats were not populists but derived their ideology specifically from Karl Marx. Initially they opposed terrorism and assassinations but by 1886 had adopted the earlier models and were planning to assassinate the current tsar, Alexander III. The police uncovered the plot and arrested the conspirators, including the brother of Vladimir Lenin, Alexandr, who was hanged, thus adding to Lenin's motivations. A more vicious group followed the Social Democrats at the turn of the century, the Social Revolutionaries. What followed was an orgy of such violence that by 1909 support for revolutionary violence temporarily vanished. [The subsequent story of how Vladimir Lenin reorganized what came to be called the Bolsheviks and rose to become the pre-eminent Russian revolutionary will be covered in our future articles on the Russian Revolutions.]

Professor Steven Marks comments about how the methods of Russian revolutionaries spread throughout the world:

The 19th-century practitioners of Russian radicalism were the first to formulate the terrorist practices that have been in use ever since. . . The Russians inspired the adoption of new organizational forms and new methodologies of terrorism. What were the lines of transmission between Russian anarcho-terrorism and the world? The exploits of Bakunin, the People's Will, and their Socialist Revolutionary successors after 1902 were known globally by means of Russian exiles, newspaper accounts, and popular books. Firsthand knowledge of the Russian revolutionary movement spread with the thousands of people leaving Russia for abroad. Active revolutionaries fleeing from the law, members of the intelligentsia seeking political refuge, Jewish emigrants, and aristocrats on tour all spread word of Russian developments to the European continent, England, and the United States. And also to Japan, its proximity to the penal colony of Siberia making it a common destination.

Meanwhile, newspapers around the world, especially radical and third-world publications, were documenting the deeds of the revolutionaries. Important books that raised awareness about them and sometimes glamorized them included the novels of Turgenev and Joseph Conrad. A long list of works by the Russian radicals proved to be bestsellers among their kindred souls in other countries.

This is, however, not the end of the story. Another group of virulent contagions originated in or were absorbed into the troubled body of 19th-century Russia and were subsequently injected into the bloodstream of the world. These would contribute to the outbreak of both World Wars and ensure their outcomes were unsurpassably brutal. Unfortunately, as with the radical trends, these infections are still with us, apparently incurable. 

Antifa Demonstration, Portland, Oregon, 21st Century
A Blend of Nihilism, Anarchism, and Communism?

Sources: “Russia’s Early Identity Questions” from the chapter "Russia's Historical Roots" in The Russia Balance Sheet by Anders Åslund and Andrew Kuchins,  © Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2009. Reprinted with permission; and the Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

A Recommended Classic — The Swordbearers: Supreme Command in the First World War

To Order This Title, Click HERE

By Correlli Barnett
William Morrow & Co., 1963
Reviewed by Desmond Pound

Originally presented in the New York Times, 21 June 1964

To write the biography of an individual general or the story of a particular campaign is relatively easy. Correlli Barnett, a young military historian from Oxford, has undertaken a much more complex task. He has set out to study, from the mass of material available in three languages, the characters and achievements of four commanders, of three different nationalities, in World War I and to assess the impact of their contrasting personalities upon great events.

His selections are Col. Gen. Helmuth von Moltke, Adm. Sir John Jellicoe, Gen. Philippe Pétain and Gen. Erich Ludendorff. They are admirably chosen. The four sections deal with four of the most intensely dramatic episodes in the whole history of modern war. As sheer narrative they are enthralling. But their interest is heightened because we see, as seldom so clearly before, how much may depend upon the temperament of the commander, his age, his physical fitness, his relations with his political superiors and his knowledge of facts often concealed from his enemies—and from his critics.

Take General von Moltke. Nephew of the great field marshal, outwardly the sealed pattern of the staff‐trained German general, he was inwardly skeptical, unambitious, and curiously unsoldierly. To him was entrusted the execution of the great Schlieffen Plan for the invasion of France. It was expected to secure victory within six weeks.

He knew every detail of it. Yet when the Kaiser chose him, in 1905, to succeed Count Schlieffen as Chief of the General Staff, he confided to Prince Bülow: “I lack the power of rapid decision. I am too reflective, too scrupulous and, if you like, too conscientious for such a post.” He was then 57. When the hour struck he was 66, a portly man in poor health, doubtful of success and distrustful of the unstable Kaiser. Is it any wonder that he cracked up, within 30 miles of victory?

A More Vigorous Moltke (L) Riding with the Kaiser

Admiral Jellicoe also resisted his appointment as C‐in-C of the Grand Fleet in 1914—not from any lack of self‐confidence but from a gentlemanly reluctance to deprive his friend and chief, Adm. Sir George Callaghan, of the honor. He was rightly overruled. A dedicated professional, he had been handpicked years before by Sir John Fisher for the supreme command. At 55, he was physically and mentally at his best: no one in the Royal Navy doubted his competence, his coolness or his courage.

Did his initial hesitation denote a lack of the ruthlessness which is essential in a commander? After the Battle of Jutland he was bitterly criticized, not least by Winston Churchill, for undue caution. To this, it was said, was due the escape of the German High Seas Fleet. The swashbuckling Adm. Sir David Beatty became the popular hero and his successor.

WHAT are the facts? Certainly Jellicoe “played it safe.” But he had no option. In a masterly analysis, Mr. Barnett shows what has never been brought out before, that Jellicoe knew, better than any man living, that the inferiority of the British ships in design, construction, armor, guns, shells and, consequently, gunnery, precluded him from gambling with the safety of the country. (When Beatty took over, he became even more cautious.) In perhaps the most impressive chapter in an impressive book, the author traces back the shortcomings of the Royal Navy, technical, organizational and personal, to their sources—the conservatism of the Admirals and the inefficiency of the armament firms.

Like Jellicoe, Pétain was a realist. He had even more to be realistic about. When he assumed command at Verdun, the situation was bad enough, “the battle apparently already lost, the defense system submerged beneath the German offensive, the French troops seemingly in a state of helpless rout and disintegration.” By calmness, patience and skill, he restored that situation.

Things were much worse when he became commander‐in-chief after the disastrous failure of General Nivelle's offensive. The French Army was now not only routed but mutinous. France was on the brink of collapse. Without any softness or indulgence but with a profound sympathy for the fighting soldier, without any fine speeches about la gloire or la patrie but with an obvious determination to see that the poilu was properly treated in the matters of rest, food, shelter and leave, Pétain rebuilt the shattered divisions and regained their confidence. Overruling the hotheaded warriors in the back areas, he insisted on waiting for the Americans before launching any but limited, local offensives.

Inevitably he ran up against Clemenceau and Foch, as Jellicoe ran up against Churchill. He was, in fact, temperamentally a pessimist. (With the troops, he had suffered too long under optimists.) Had his experiences made him also a defeatist? Almost certainly in old age, when he was trying to cope with the consequences of a third and yet more crushing defeat. Abroad, no words were then too bad for him. But is it surprising that there were many Frenchmen who remembered that he had twice saved France single-handed and continued to regard him with respect?

Jellicoe

Lastly, Ludendorff. A supreme tactician of immense energy and seemingly iron resolution, he came near, with his “infiltration” methods, to winning the war for Germany in the spring of 1918. But he was a paper tiger. Because soldiers were to him statistics and not individuals, he did not realize that his creation of “shock” divisions had sapped the morale of the mass of German troops and left them without the will to fight When his mistake was brought home to him, he collapsed, a querulous, nervous wreck. The least likable of the four, he is psychologically not the least interesting.

Mr. Barnett made his name with his first book, The Desert Generals. So well did he capture the spirit of desert war that old “desert rats” found it hard to believe that he was still at school when El Alamein was fought. His second, finely printed and illustrated, with excellent maps, places him in the top class, with writers like Maj. Gen. J. F. C. Fuller and Capt B. H. Liddell Hart. Both of them rate him as one of the outstanding military historians of the rising generation. So does the present reviewer.

Desmond Pound

The Little War at the National WWI Museum and Memorial

Starting this past February and running to 9 February 2025,  the National WWI Museum in Kansas City is  presenting a special exhibit on how the war affected children in the belligerant nations. In their introductory statement, the curators had this to say:

War impacts everyone; world wars, even more so. Explore the lives of children swept up by the storms of World War I while adults were fighting on the front line and supporting the war effort. What does a world war look like to a child? For some, it was saying good-bye to their grown-ups going away to far-off lands. For others, it was holding their grown-ups’ hands as they fled their homes. Often, it was hunger and hardship.

Information on tickets can be found HERE.  Below are some samples of the material on display.

The Train de Bargigli: A Unique Organization on the Russian Front

By Scotland Liddell, special correspondent of The Sphere in Russia

"There are trains—in the United States, for instance—that have their dining-rooms and drawing-rooms and smoking-rooms and barbers' shops and observation cars and, if you read their handbills, "other attractions too numerous to mention." But there never has been a train like that of Colonel Alexandre de Bargigli of Italy on the Eastern Front. If you are an officer or soldier in Russia, you must know the train. Probably you owe it a debt of gratitude. If you are not a Russian soldier, you ought at least to know of the wonderful work done by Colonel de Bargigli's organisation.

Let me explain one thing in the first place. Not far from the point where I sit writing this you can see a railway line that cuts the trenches in half. On this railway line is the train. It rests as near the trenches as the authorities determine. The locomotive is always ready for duty at a moment's notice, and there are enough wagons to carry off 500 wounded men as well as several hundred unwounded officers and soldiers.

Library of Congress Photo

The Train de Bargigli

The train is everything an ordinary train is not. It is a Red Cross hospital with a staff of sisters, an operation wagon, and all conveniences. Part of it transports wounded men to the nearest sanitary train which goes to the base hospitals in the cities. It is a dentist's parlour where aching teeth can be removed and threatening molars stopped in time. No fees charged, of course. It is an hotel where tired officers can have a bed and breakfast — and lunch and supper too if they care to stop. It is a café with an ever- flowing pot of tea and an ever-boiling samovar. If you prefer coffee, say so, and you will have it tout de suite. It is a restaurant in which one need not tip. The meals, like the service, are also free of charge, and there is no extra price needed for a second helping.

"Mozhno?" the little sister says when an empty plate is seen. "May I ?" she asks, meaning may she fetch more food. There's hospitality for you! Not "Shall I ?" but "May I ?"

Post Office and Tea and Tobacco Shop

The train is a post office to which letters may be given. No stamps are required. They are franked free of charge. The soldiers' letters are censored also, the names of places being struck out. If a soldier cannot write, a sister will be his secretary and write his humble message in the Tsar's Russian and add a lot of nice things the soldier wants to say but cannot. And there are tea and food for the man afterwards, just as there are tea and food for every hungry and tired simple soldier who comes along. Machorka, the chopped-up roots of the tobacco plant, which the soldier prefers to that part of the weed that is open and above ground, is also given free of charge to those who have no money.

There is a stable on the train with real live horses in it, and there are cows and poultry that earn their keep. Pigs also are there, promising to pay when they have grown up and out. There is a laundry, with peasant women — refugees — as laundry maids. There is a tailor who will make you a suit — but please bring your own cloth.

 The Peasants' Appreciation of the Train

Peasants come daily for their meals. No other food is to be had, but Colonel de Bargigli gives ample satisfaction to the hungriest. The train is Liberty Hall. The youngest peasant or soldier or officer has the same welcome and treatment as a commanding general or the military chief of an army staff, and both the young and important men turn up each day. A very young peasant arrived a week or two ago, but his choosing to be born on the train was almost a taking advantage of the liberty for which the train is noted.

One of the waggons is a shop. Tobacco, and sugar, and white bread, and soap, and note-paper — even the fancy kinds on which young soldiers write their billets-doux — and sweets, and cheese, and tinned foods of varied kinds, and kodaks, and even films and photographic chemicals and supplies are all to be had. A pretty sister will serve you. Her smiles alone are worth a visit. Her eyes . . . You will have eyes for nothing else. The profits of the shop — store prices, by the way — go to the Red Cross, and, besides that, the train is entirely self-supporting.

There are other things the train is, but the most important is that the train is the last train of all, just as it is surely the first. During the tragic weeks of the great retreat the train of Colonel de Bargigli kept right in the battle zone and never moved with its freight of wounded until the final moment. The last wounded man was lifted carefully into a waggon before the train steamed off. But the train never went very far. It discharged its load into a sanitary train, then returned to the firing zone again. The enemy's cavalry were clattering through the streets of censored before the train left. And so in all the other places in the weeks that followed. On several occasions the train left at the same moment as that of the sappers who blew up the bridges and points.

Colonel de Bargigli and his Train in the Retreat

Colonel de Bargigli's train was one of the few oases in the desert of a terrible retreat. "Still here ?" an officer would say, riding up on horseback. "There are wounded coming. “We're waiting for them," would be the reply.

"But the enemy-----" The Red Cross flag that fluttered above the railway trucks was all the answer needed. At one time it seemed that the train and all its crew must surely fall into the enemy's hands. Indeed, they said further east that the train had been captured. The line in front was cut; the line behind was occupied by the German-Austrian forces. Safety could have been reached on foot, but no one walked away. Perhaps some wounded men would come. . . . The enemy was repulsed, and the train was saved. And that was the end of the retreat.

Italy's Aid

Things are quieter now on the Eastern front, but the train is still the nearest to the battle- line. The battle sounds are ever to be heard. Colonel de Bargigli is not a Russian by birth; he is a member of an old Italian family. For twenty-one years he was an Italian subject. In peace time — in days of national peace — he is a judge, but it is for his work with the Russian Army that he will be long remembered.

[Editor's Note:  Col. de Bargigli's train seems to have been active on the Polish front in 1915. This article was published in February 1916 and I can find no subsequent reference to the train. I did discover, however, a mention in another article by correspondent Scotland Liddell that he had received a message from the colonel who had a serious heart problem and was recuperating in Sevastapol. I would venture that his war service had come to an end.]

Source:  From Tony Langley's War In a Different Light

The Ziegfeld Follies of 1918

Broadway supported America's war entry from the nation's entry into the struggle. Very early on, George M. Cohan composed the marching song of the AEF Over There. The biggest extravaganza on the Great White Way in 1918 was the Ziegfeld Follies of 1918. 

Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr.

Named after its founder, Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld (1867–1932), and inspired by the Folies Bergères in Paris, the Ziegfeld Follies (1907–1931) remains one of the most celebrated American revues of the 20th century. Its brisk pace, ripped-from-the-headlines content, popular songs, and innovative designs, combined with its regimented display of beautiful, young, white female bodies made it a distinctly modern entertainment form. Each installment of the Follies offered a series of acts, ranging from solos and comedy routines to full-company dance numbers and fashion spectacles. In keeping with the revue format, the theme and narrative varied from year to year, but the show consistently offered a rapid-fire "revue" or review of current events, hit Broadway plays, technological innovations, and other modern developments.

Lillian Lorraine and W.C. Fields

The Ziegfeld Follies of 1918 had 151 Performances with music from a selection of the most talented composers of the day, including  Dave Stamper and Irving Berlin.  The cast included some of the most beloved entertainers of the 20th century: Will Rogers, Eddie Cantor, Fanny Brice and W.C. Fields. The famed Ziegfeld Girls provided elaborate dancing routines. Each of the stars played roles in several of the 26 scenes of the review. Will Rogers, for example, joked about American politics and the Irish demand for Home Rule but also appeared in musical numbers, lassoing Ann Pennington as she danced, and strutting in white tie and tails with Lillian Lorraine.  One of the tableau set-ups apparently included a mock-up of a British tank, but I was unable to locate a photo showing it. 

The numerous song selections  included:

• I'm Gonna Pin a Medal on the Girl I Left Behind

• Garden of My Dreams

• When I Hear a Syncopated Tune

• Any Old Time at All

• I Want to Learn to Jazz Dance

• Would You Rather Be a Colonel with an Eagle on Your Shoulder or a a Private with a Chicken on Your Knee  (Sung by Eddie Cantor)

Naturally, the routines had a distinctly military flavor, which acerbic columnist Dorothy Parker had fun with in her review of the 1918 Follies:

One sweetly solemn thought comes to me o’er and o’er—“Can they ever produce a revue when we get through with the war?” I brood over the thing practically without ceasing, but I can find no answer to it. I can see no future whatever for our musical entertainments once peace is declared.

How will they ever costume the show-girls if not in the flags of the Allies? What will the prima donna do if she can’t appear at least once as Columbia? How will they ever get the curtain down if it can’t fall on a finale of the tights of all the Allies? What will they do for the big scene, if they can’t use the Lee Lash trench with Our Boys—all exempt—gazing manfully out into the wings, over the property sandbags?

How could there be a score with a good-bye song; or a marching song in which the doughboys are referred to as “Sammies;” or a musical number almost entirely composed of the phrases “over there” and “over here;” or choruses introducing strains of “The Marseillaise?”

The thing is too much for me. I don’t see how the managers are ever going to get along without a war somewhere around. . .

Will Rogers with the Ziegfeld Girls

Look at this year’s Follies, for instance. Where would they be if there hadn’t been the Allies to fall back on? Why, Echo doesn’t even answer. The audience staggers out of the New Amsterdam Theatre, all used up with patriotism, muscle-bound from applauding Dolores swathed in the stars and stripes, and Kay Laurell simply gowned in the French flag.

Every few minutes there is a parade of most of the beautiful women in the United States, dressed in what comes under the head of uniforms; or a song about the Blue Devils; or a trench scene; or a Ben Ali Haggin tableaux; or a finale of the Allied color bearers. It is charming to hear the buzz of spirited argument, during the finale, as the audience tries to settle which flag belongs to what Ally. Everything is fair enough, of course, when they are dealing with France, England, Italy, and Belgium; but it does get a bit thick when they start bringing in the colors of Montenegro, Portugal, and Serbia.

There is one great moral lesson to be derived from the Follies and that is this: if we must have our patriotic spectacles of an evening, Mr. Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., is unquestionably the man to produce them. Any more dazzling stage pictures than those which go to make up the Follies, I have never beheld. They deserve every word that the advertisements say of them, and more besides. And I never knew there were as many pretty girls in the world as they are gathered together on the New Amsterdam stage; really, I saw so many beautiful women in the course of that one evening that it was a positive relief to go home and look in the mirror.

 

Sources: Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism, IBDB, Today in NYC History, Allthatsinteresting.com, New York Public Library, Fitzpatrickauthor.com, Playbill