The flurry of telegram traffic between the various capitals of Europe in late June of 1919 was almost similar to the volume seen in the weeks before the Great War.  With the fifth anniversary of that cataclysm rapidly approaching, and no formal peace treaty having yet been signed and accepted, there was burgeoning nervousness that war might return to ravage Europe.  Despite months of Allied negotiations to craft terms of a final treaty with Germany, the German response had waivered between hostile rejection and begrudging acceptance.  Still, no German signature had touched the treaty, in part as no German politician wished to affix their name.  Chancellor Philipp Scheidemann (Friedrich Ebert had risen to the post of President of Germany with the newly announced Weimer Republic), spoke for all his colleagues when he said: “What hand should not wither that puts this fetter on itself and on us?”

The task fell upon Gustav Bauer, the next in line of authority as Schneidemann chose resignation as opposed to destroying his political legacy.  Even Ebert declared the treaty’s demands “unrealizable and unbearable,” decrying not only the punitive terms but the process in which the treaty had been crafted without any input from Germany or the former Central Powers.  This wasn’t a peace treaty but a division of war spoils and an unconditional surrender, or so Germany complained.  Bauer cabled the Allies, stating that he would sign the treaty if a handful of articles containing language about German culpability for the war and war crimes trials for the exiled former Kaiser be removed.  The Allied response was clear – sign the whole treaty within 24 hours or French troops would cross the Rhine and occupy Germany.  In desperation, the new Weimer government asked Paul von HIndenburg if the German army could potentially resist a renewed Allied offensive.  They likely knew the answer before even asking the question.

On June 28th, 1919, in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles, 27 delegates representing 32 nations gathered to sign the final instrument of peace to end the First World War.  It had been exactly five years to the date of Franz Ferdinand’s assassination.  Germany had sent their Foreign Minister to oversee the signing.  Gazing over the Foreign Minister as he signed was the gigantic self-portrait that Louis XIV had commissioned.  The portrait’s title spoke of the Allies dominance on this day – “The King Governs By Himself.”

The treaty signing in the Hall of Mirrors – thousands of onlookers joined journalists and diplomats to oversee the brief ceremony

That any final terms of a peace treaty between Germany and the victorious Allies would be harsh could hardly have been a surprise.  The process of even arriving at an Armistice had seen Germany agree to give up most of their military and infrastructure, not to mention an occupation of the Ruhr by the French that increasingly looked tantamount to annexation.  Similar treaties/armistices with what remained of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires had been debilitating as well, as both empires were stripped of their territories, their infrastructure plundered and their armies legislated into irrelevance.  Only post treaty/armistice violence would lessen some of the strongest terms, as the Hungarian revolution and the following Turkish War of Independence forced the Allies’ hand to renegotiate.  And in the winter and spring of 1919, Germany had no appetite or ability to militarily resist.  Continue reading →

The first President of Hungary, Mihály Károlyi, had been forced to swallow many bitter pills in his short time in office.  The last appointed Hungarian Prime Minister by Austro-Hungarian Emperor Charles I, Károlyi had ushered the relative bloodless Astar Revolution (with a couple of notable exceptions) and Hungary’s full independence.  In short order, Károlyi watched the Allied powers disintegrated the lands of the ancient Habsburg regime by decree and by force.  The latest blow had arrived the day before with the arrival of the “Vix Note” – a communique from the French that Hungarian troops were expected to retreat even further than originally agreed upon in order for those lands to be seized by Hungary’s neighbors.

The note had caused Károlyi’s prime minister to resign on March 21st, 1919 as the Hungarians didn’t wish to agree to France’s demands but were in little military position to resist.  With his authority evaporating as quickly as Hungary’s borders, Károlyi proclaimed that the National Council, the legislative body through which he ruled, would attempt to form another government.  But as Károlyi was a determined anti-communist, only the center-left Social Democrats would be allowed as the organizing party.  The Social Democrats agreed on the same day and made a surprising announcement – Károlyi was resigning as President.

Mihály Károlyi had most certainly not told the Social Democrats he intended to resign.  And the Social Democrats had most certainly not told Károlyi that they had secretly entered into an alliance with the Hungarian Communist Party and had released their imprisoned leadership the night before.  Béla Kun, the Moscow-dispatched leader of the Hungarian Communists, immediately declared a Hungarian Soviet Republic, deposing and arresting Károlyi by fiat.  Kun then radioed Vladimir Lenin in Russia, telling him that a “dictatorship of the proletariat” had seized control in Budapest.

The fear of most nations around the world since the Russian Revolution of 1917 had arrived – a Communist dictatorship had taken hold in the heart of Europe.

The Astar Revolution – Hungary’s hopes for an Allied-supported government died a quick death, even with a pro-Allied leader like Mihály Károlyi at the helm

“I was certainly no adherent of the ancient regime, but it seems doubtful to me whether it is a sign of political shrewdness to beat to death the smartest of the many counts [Count István Tisza] and to make the stupidest one [Count Mihály Károlyi] president.”  – Sigmund Freud

Hungary’s fate was far from sealed as the Great War ended on November 11th, 1918.  It took a series of terrible moves from leadership to ensure the rise of a Soviet Republic.  Continue reading →

For the handful of Australian troops on watch at the Finschhafen District military headquarters in Morobe, New Guinea, January 5th, 1919 seemed to be as nondescript as the multitude of days, weeks, months and even years before it.  The region, formerly part of the provinces of German New Guinea, hadn’t seen meaningful combat in more than four years since Australian troops invaded and occupied the colony, driving out the Germans in some of the earliest combat of the Great War.  The brief campaign had been Australia’s first independent military action and had kept region out of the hands out of British or Japanese interests.

The sight greeting the Australians seemed more appropriate for 1914 than 1919 – a column of fully armed New Guinean native German troops, with a resplendently dressed Major in his pressed and cleaned field dress uniform – marching down the streets of Morobe, directly towards the headquarters.  Upon arriving at the front door, the German Major drew his sword and presented it to the Australian commanding officer.  Major Hermann Detzner and the last of his men would surrender – bringing to an end the longest, strangest quasi-guerilla campaign of the First World War.

Hermann Detzner – after the war.  His celebrity would be his undoing

Had Otto von Bismarck had his way, no German soldier would have set foot in New Guinea – or anywhere outside of Europe, for that matter.  The man nicknamed “the Iron Chancellor” for his mastery of 19th Century realpolitik had little time for the expensive vanity projects that were often the result of colonial expansion.  Overseas colonies required vast expenditures of resources without any guarantee of profit and could only further entangle Berlin in the foreign policies of France or Britain, all plainly without the naval might to secure such holdings.  In short – Bismarck sought to avoid precisely most of the military and foreign policy missteps that Germany ended up making in the 1880/90s.  But the allure of powerful financial interests, coupled with domestic political considerations (colonial policies sold well at the ballot box), pushed the Chancellor to embrace the establishment of private colonial ventures.  It would only be a matter of time before private German interests became part of the national interest and forced Germany to send engineers, laborers and finally soldiers overseas. Continue reading →

There was no Christmas cheer among the soldiers marching to the Reichskanzlei (Chancellery) in Berlin on December 23rd, 1918.  The men were from the Volksmarinedivision, the revolutionary paramilitary unit created, in theory, to defend the newly established Council of the People’s Deputies and the burgeoning German leftist revolution.  In reality, the Volksmarinedivision was closer to the Independent Social Democrats and the so-called “Spartacists”; the more militant wings of the new government that preached a political gospel similar to that of Russia’s Bolsheviks.  The Volksmarinedivision had ransacked the Kaiser’s old Berlin residence, the Stadtschloss, and encamped themselves there after looting or destroying much of the historic artwork of the building.  The Council of the People’s Deputies had protested the division’s actions, seeing them increasingly more as hooligans than soldiers.  In response, the Council ordered the Volksmarinedivision out of Berlin and to dismiss all but 600 of their men.  When the paramilitary group refused, the Council stopped their paychecks.

Lieutenant Heinrich Dorrenbach, the group’s commander and close ally to Karl Liebknecht of the Spartacus League, marched on the Reichskanzlei ostensibly to follow orders – he had the keys to the Stadtschloss in hand and was prepared to reduce his forces and leave the city, provided the government issue their backpay.  But no German politician would claim that they were authorized to pay Dorrenbach and his men, deferring the decision to Berlin’s Chancellor and the Chairman of the Council, Friedrich Ebert.  Ebert had no patience for the Volksmarinedivision, whom he considered thuggish radicals led by a “rootless adventurer.”  The issue of the Volksmarinedivision had been one of many that was quickly dividing the new government, and Ebert was vainly trying to mollify both the political left and right in his ad hoc administration.  Whether Ebert intended to pay the Volksmarinedivision eventually or not, he wasn’t going to be threatened into a decision.

Dorrenbach had his answer.  His men swarmed the Reichskanzlei, blocking the doors and access roads.  Another contingent marched to the Kommandantenhaus, the military headquarters for the city, looking to capture the city’s military commander, the politician Otto Wels.  The building’s guard, regular army troops, resisted and shots were fired.  It didn’t matter.  The superior numbers of the Volksmarinedivision had overwhelmed the government, taking Wels and other key political figures hostage.  The moment that Ebert and many members of the Council of the People’s Deputies had tried to avoid had arrived – the German revolution was about to turn bloody.

Karl Liebknecht – Germany’s Lenin, at least in the eyes of many.  He lacked Lenin’s ruthlessness or political savvy, having often to be dragged along into decisions affecting the revolution

From the very beginning of the chaotic German end to the war, there was a fear in Berlin (and indeed, across Europe) that Germany was quickly staging their own rendition of the Russian revolution.  Continue reading →

In the late hours of November 17th, 1918, the southern Siberian city of Omsk was suddenly abuzz with activity.  A key junction along the Trans-Siberian Railway and the meeting point between the railway’s northern and southern branches, Omsk had seen it’s fair amount of political activity for months as the Provisional All-Russian Government, informally known as The Directory, had established the city as it’s seat of governance.  Uniting many Socialist Revolutionary members (SRs) who had held power in the original Soviets and the elected Constituent Assembly, along with former Tsarist officers, the Directory appeared as the potential precursor for a unified White Russian political movement. 

The Directory even appeared on the verge of gaining international recognition as Vice-Admiral Alexander Kolchak, recently returned to Russia from various overseas diplomatic tours, had decided to join The Directory’s Council of Ministers as the Ministers of both War and the Navy.  Kolchak had originally returned to Russia via Japan with the intention of traveling to the other side of the empire to join the former Tsarist officer-led Volunteer Army.  Instead, the Vice-Admiral had cast his lot with militarily inferior, but politically more diverse Directory.  Kolchak was held in high esteem by the Allies, and the British in particular, with British Military Attaché General Alfred Knox saying of Kolchak that he had “more grit, pluck and honest patriotism than any Russian in Siberia.”

Omsk’s commotion this evening however wasn’t more would-be politicians but Cossack soldiers.  Moving throughout the city, one by one, many of the 14 ministers of the Directory were swooped up by the Cossacks and placed under arrest.  By the following morning, the few Directory members who were left understood what had occurred in the wee hours – Kolchak and his supporters had staged a coup, arresting most of the SR-aligned ministers and executives.  By a private vote, the remaining Ministers gave their consent to elect Kolchak the “Verkhovnyi Pravitel” or “Supreme Ruler” of Russia, consolidating all political and military authority under his office.

From the Caspian to the Pacific, the newly formed “Russian Republic” held one of the largest territorial empires on the globe.  And for better and for worse, the White Russian movement now had a singular leader.

Admiral Alexander Kolchak – he would be viewed as the defacto leader of the entire White Russian resistance, but in reality Kolchak was barely in charge of his own Siberian government and held little practical influence over the rest of the White armies or leaders

The end of the war in Europe meant nothing towards ending the growing Civil War in Russia.  Despite invoking fear across the former Russian Empire and in many capitals around the world, the ruling Bolsheviks controlled precious little territory.  In the west, Ukraine, Finland and the Baltic States had split away.  In the northern port cities, the Allies held sway, occupying large swathes of land that would be directly or in-directly governed by White Russian collaborators.  The Caucasus were losing some ground back to the Bolsheviks, but chunks of the region were still led by a loose confederation of ethnic governments, leftist Menshevik politicians and thuggish Cossack warlords.  And in the East, thanks to the Czechoslovak Legion and Allied intervention, the entire country from Azerbaijan to Vladivostok had been in the hands of the newly formed Provisional All-Russian Government.  The regions that lay in the hands of the Bolsheviks’ opponents were large – well more than half of the original Russian Empire – but the industrial base of the country and large population centers were mostly under Red control.  Continue reading →

A heavy fog had enveloped Ville-devant-Chaumont, just north of Verdun, obscuring the view even just meters away for the American troops of the 313th Infantry Regiment of the 79th “Liberty” Division.  The regiment, called “Baltimore’s Own” due to the high number of locals from that city, was utterly exhausted having been on the front lines of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive for nearly two months.  They could hear the crackling fire of German machine guns ahead of them, but were more interested in the running footsteps to their rear.  It was a communique from their commanding officer to hold their position and to neither advance nor retreat until following orders were given.

The 313th was relieved, with one exception – 23 year-old Private Henry Gunther.  Gunther had left a fiancé and a successful early career as a banker in Baltimore when he was drafted.  The son of German immigrants, Gunther arrived in France eager to prove his patriotism yet quickly became discouraged amid the slaughter of the trenches.  Gunther wrote to a friend complaining of his life in France and encouraging his friend not to volunteer.  Army censors read the letter and demoted Gunther.  In response, the former banker began to volunteer for dangerous assignments to prove his loyalty, even being hit with shrapnel as a runner that could have sent him home.  Gunther refused; he still hadn’t regained his honor.

Injury and risky service didn’t return his rank or apparently his unit’s respect and it cost him at home.  Gunther’s fiancé wrote that she was ending the relationship, further sending Gunther into a spiral of reckless heroism.  His fellow soldiers noted that as the war seemed to be coming to an end Gunther became more and more withdrawn, perhaps knowing that his opportunities to find redemption or meaning amid the bloodshed were dwindling.  Gunther wasn’t going to obey any orders to hold his position on this day – he was going to attack.

On the other side of the line, the German machine gun nest saw a figure emerge from the fog, charging at them with a fixed bayonet.  They fired, careful to avoid hitting him, hoping that he’d stop or retreat.  Gunther jumped to the ground but quickly rose again, resuming his charge.  In broken english, the Germans yelled at Gunther, frantically waiving their arms to tell him to stop; “Baltimore’s Own” wouldn’t be discouraged.  At last, fearing for their own lives, the German machine gunners fired off a five-round burst, striking Gunther in the head, killing him instantly.

It was 10:59am on November 11th, 1918.  The last combat casualty of the Great War had fallen.

Henry Gunther’s grave site in France.  Gunther is widely acknowledged as the last combat death of the First World War before the armistice.  More would die in accidents or sporadic fighting after 11am, to say nothing of the war in the East

Four days earlier a far different sight could be seen by French soldiers in their trenches near the town of La Capelle.  Three large cars, each with the black eagle of Imperial Germany on their sides, approached the front lines with their headlights on. Two German soldiers were perched on the running boards of the lead car, one waving a white flag, the other, with a long silver bugle, blowing the call for ceasefire – a single high tone repeated in rapid succession four times, then four times again, with the last note lingering.  The German delegation to discuss an armistice had arrived.  Continue reading →

With only a couple of exceptions since the Battle of Jutland in the summer of 1916, the German High Seas Fleet had sat mostly at anchor at the Schillig roadstead off of the main German naval base in Wilhelmshaven.  Days of inactivity had turned to weeks, which turned into months, which transformed the expensive, mighty battleships of the Kaiserliche Marine into rusting hulks crewed by aggravated, bored sailors.  The attitude around Wilhelmshaven had only become worse in recent days as the U-boat fleet had been ordered to return to port as the new government of Max von Baden ended Germany’s unrestricted U-boat campaign as an American-requested prerequisite to armistice negotiations. 

But there was an air of excitement at Wilhelmshaven on October 24th, 1918.  Orders had come down from the Chief of the German Admiralty, Reinhard Scheer – the High Sea Fleet would prepare to launch it’s entire armada out into the North Sea.  18 Dreadnoughts, 5 battlecruisers, 14 light cruisers, 60 destroyers and torpedo boats and nearly 30 submarines would sail for the Thames Estuary to engage a numerically superior British Navy in the thick of their home waters.  The likely endgame was clear to German officers.  The Chief of Staff to the High Sea Fleet’s admiral wrote in his diary that the coming offensive was “a battle for the honour of the fleet in this war, even if it were a death battle,” yet was necessary as “it would be the foundation for a new German fleet.”  

Acting clearly against the wishes of the civilian German government, and even the Kaiser, the Kaiserliche Marine had put into the motion the first pieces of what on paper would be the largest naval battle in human history – twice the size of the forces at Jutland if all ships became engaged.  It would end with their nation in defeat and engulfed in revolution.

German sailors – and a variety of civilian supporters – march in the major naval base in Kiel.  The “Kiel Mutiny” would become the first acts in the German Revolution that ended World War I

The condition of the German Navy had seemingly been both a source of concern and a blind eye for the Oberste Heeresleitung or German High Command.  

The sailors of the High Seas Fleet returning from Jutland on June 1st, 1916 were exuberant, having won a tactical victory and believing the congratulations sent to them by their Kaiser that they had “started a new chapter in world history” by defeating the vaunted British Royal Navy.  But the cost of Jutland – 11 ships – had precluded another significant campaign in the minds of the German command, and the High Seas Fleet had only left Wilhelmshaven three times since June of 1916, and only once since the fall of that same year.  Scheer, the commander of the High Seas Fleet until August of 1918, had in part led that charge, arguing that unrestricted submarine attacks were the only hope Germany had for winning the war on the seas.  As a result, outside of the U-boats, the Kaiserliche Marine had nothing to do but wait.  Continue reading →

It was night on October 23rd, 1918 as a series of rowboats silently dipped their oars in the waters of the Piave river in Italy.  The Piave had remained as quiet as the rowboats’ occupants since the Italian defensive victory that summer, halting and then repelling an Austro-Hungarian offensive launched with hopes of knocking Rome out of the war.  But the men aboard these boats were neither Italian or Austro-Hungarian, but British, members of the Honourable Artillery Company (an infantry battalion, despite the name) and the Royal Welch Fusiliers.  While neither company could be viewed as “special forces,” they were most certainly elite forces of the Crown as the HAC had it’s lineage back to 1087 and it’s Captain-General was officially listed as the King George V.    

Their assignment was to secure the series of islands on the Piave river that now constituted no-mans-land, starting with the largest island, Grave di Papadopoli.  The HAC and Fusiliers landed with bayonets fixed, sneaking and stabbing their away across the island before the soldiers of the Dual Monarchy were finally able to sound the alarm.  In a brief, but tough fight, with Italian diversionary troops even being defeated on the southern part of the island, Grave di Papadopoli was captured by Allied forces.  The stage was set for the following morning, the one year anniversary of the Italian army’s humiliating defeat at Caporetto, as 1.4 million Allied troops would throw themselves at 1.8 million Austro-Hungarians.  The result would be the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the end of the 600+ year Habsburg Monarchy.

Vittorio Veneto – a major Italian victory that in historical hindsight looks more like a case of Austrian collapse than anything else

By late October of 1918, it could be questioned whether or not a battle even needed to take place to bring about the end of Austria-Hungary’s participation in the Great War.  The same day as the Germans learned that President Woodrow Wilson wouldn’t mediate an armistice based on his Fourteen Points, at least not without strenuous pre-conditions, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister Baron István Burián von Rajecz asked for similar terms from the Allies.  As Rajecz made his request, the Allies formally accepted Czechoslovakia into their alliance.  Trying to curry favor with the various ethnic groups now striving to break away from the Empire, Emperor Charles I issued an imperial manifesto that days later that would fundamentally changed the Austrian half of the government, giving autonomy to most ethnic states.  It wasn’t enough.  The literal next day, the Hungarian parliament passed a resolution ending the Austro-Hungarian partnership, despite having just renewed it for two years, and declared independence.  The Dual Monarchy was now a singular one (although the formal cancellation of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 wouldn’t happen until the end of the month).  What remained was rapidly falling apart.  Continue reading →

Prince Maximilian von Baden, the newly appointed Chancellor of Germany, was likely as anxious as any member of the German government to hear that Berlin had finally received a response from American President Woodrow Wilson on October 14th, 1918.  Ten days earlier, Max, a relatively unknown liberal member of the Prussian nobility and former military staff officer, had publicly declared Germany’s willingness to engage in an armistice based around Wilson’s Fourteen Points.  The Prince of Baden had initially resisted the post when offered to him by Kaiser Wilhelm II, knowing full well that even the most generous possible terms of a future armistice would likely cost Germany dearly and Max was not interested in going down in history as the Chancellor who offered up Germany’s de facto surrender.

But following a crown council meeting on September 29th, 1918, both Hindenburg and Ludendorff had advised the Kaiser that nothing short of an armistice could save Germany as neither general could ensure the Empire’s ability to hold together what remained of the Western Front.  While there was debate as to what Germany expected from any armistice request – Ludendorff vacillated between viewing an armistice as defeat or as simply a delaying tactic that would allow the German army to regroup – Baden had been tasked with making the offer.  The prior Chancellor and government had resigned in protest to news that the Kaiser and his two top generals alone had decided to seek peace, believing that in Berlin’s parliamentary democracy only the Reichstag retained the right to matters of war and peace.  Although Baden’s appointment would appease the growing liberal sectors of the Reichstag, the Prince of Baden knew he would be viewed with suspicion by all factors of the parliament – a toady to the conservative Kaiser or as a weak-willed liberal seeking peace.

Baden and others hoped that an armistice based upon Wilson’s Fourteen Points would be temperate in it’s punishments.  The message they received on October 14th, 1918 crushed those hopes.  Wilson would not lead any armistice negotiations.  Indeed, there would be no negotiations and no armistice with the current construction of the German government.  If the Kaiser abdicated the throne and Germany stopped their “illegal and inhumane practices” of submarine warfare and scorched earth tactics as they retreated in France, only then could the fighting cease.  And any final terms would be dictate by the Allies as a whole, not with America as a mediator.

There would be no easy peace for Germany.  And the nation would wrestle with how much they were willing to pay to end the bloodshed.

Max von Baden – center, with mustache.  He would resign on the eve of the Armistice, as Germany was plunged into revolution

If there was one issue that the various heads of state and military leaders of the warring powers could agree upon by the fall of 1918 (with perhaps the prominent exception of Erich Ludendorff), it was that an armistice was not only necessary, but desired.  But what any armistice would look like or how it would come about were open questions with constantly changing answers.  Continue reading →

Lieutenant Paul Jürgen Vollmer of the 120th Württemberg Landwehr Regiment’s 1st Battalion was hoping that his approaching adjutant was bringing good news that early morning of October 8th, 1918.  Most of the reports he had been given had been to retreat as American and French forces slowly but surely carved their way through the Argonne forest, albeit at great cost.  The news was indeed good – the Prussian 210th Reserve Infantry Regiment had arrived at the front, perhaps allowing Vollmer to counterattack.  The veteran German commander rushed 200 yards to the front to see his reinforcements.

What he saw was only 70 new men sprinkled among his own regiment, all with their weapons on the ground and eating instead.  Vollmer vainly attempted to get the men marching; they said they wouldn’t move until they had breakfast.  Only the sounds of gunfire and retreating Germans past a nearby hill rallied the 210th to set down their utensils.  One of the fleeing Germans shouted “Die Amerikaner Kommen!” as he ran past, prompting a handful of the 210th to throw up their hands in surrender.  Vollmer immediately grabbed his pistol and forced a few of them to pick up their weapons.  As he did, a few Americans ran at the German position, one of them shooting his M1911 semi-automatic pistol.  Vollmer and the rest of his men were sure this had to be the advance scouts of a larger American unit and after Vollmer had emptied his pistol without hitting the lead American – and seeing the American shoot several more of his men – he offered to surrender.

A large American with a red mustache, broad features and a freckled face approached Vollmer and accepted the surrender of the men under Vollmer’s direct command.  It was only then that the German realized no American reinforcements were coming.  132 Germans had surrendered to (then) Corporal Alvin York and six other soldiers.  The Americans were beginning to learn how to fight and win in the trenches.

Alvin York – he would become one of the most famous individual soldiers in American history, but his post-WWII politics (he was in favor of attacking the Soviet Union) had him fall from public view

The Americans had been served their first real taste of defeat in the opening days of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, as the German counterattack badly bloodied the 35th Division to the point of nearly destroying it.  Among the many casualties had been Lt. Col. George S. Patton who was personally leading from his 304th Tank Brigade.  Patton had been frustrated with the inability of his tanks to advance and rounded up some men in a nearby trench to dig out his stuck tanks.  One of the soldiers questioned the wisdom of exposing themselves to German artillery for Patton’s tanks – Patton replied by striking the soldier in the head with a shovel.  Even Patton remarked in his diary that he may have killed the man, who did not get up after being struck.  Patton’s willingness to expose himself and others to dangerous conditions would catch up with him that very same day, as Patton would be hit in the leg with a machine gun bullet that tore a wound the size of a silver dollar through his buttocks.  If not for the courage of his orderly, Private Joe Angelo, Patton would have bled to death near the town of Cheppy in the forests of the Argonne.  Continue reading →

Sunrise was still many hours away when the densely packed forest of the Argonne on the Western Front lit up with the whistles and cracks of fired and exploding artillery on September 26th, 1918 (the same day as the Saint-Quentin Canal offensive).  The mountainous and wild woodlands of the Argonne had been scarred by the war, but plenty of trees remained standing.  The thick forests became shrapnel as the Allied artillery groped to find and destroy the Hindenburg Line trenches that protected the southern flank of the critical Sedan rail junction along the Meuse river.  As the Germans huddled in their positions, awaiting the inevitable infantry attack, they at least felt confident knowing the Allies would have to make their way across large sections of open terrain; perfect targets for machine guns and artillery.

Opposing them would not be the usual assortment of weary British soldiers or beleaguered French troops.  15 divisions of American “doughboys” would lead the charge, with 31 French divisions fighting alongside – 1.2 million Allied soldiers in all.  The American divisions were twice as large as any European counterpart, but for many of the young men in the trench, this would be their first significant action in the Great War.  Over the next 47 days, the United States would get it’s first – and last – taste of the horrors of the trench system of the Western Front.  Reputations would be won and lost, including multiple Medals of Honor for the battle.  And the Meuse-Argonne Offensive would claim more American lives than any battle in the nation’s history*.

American troops ready to march on the Argonne

For the better part of a year after their declaration of war, the United States’ participation in Europe’s death struggle had matched the dismissive evaluation of former German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg who declared that American support of the Allies would only result in the “delivery of food supplies to England, financial support, delivery of airplanes and the dispatching of corps of volunteers.”  And for the part better of 1917, America struggled to even match that analysis. Continue reading →

The Canal de Saint-Quentin, the waterway that connected the River Oise and the Somme, had been one of the great engineering marvels of the 19th Century.  At first a sleepy little spillway during the 1700s, the Napoleonic Era saw the canal widened and given more depth, with a series of locks and tunnels that turned the route into the busiest man-made waterway by freight in France until the 1960s.

By the fall of 1918, the Canal de Saint-Quentin found itself a part of another major engineering marvel, this time of the 20th Century – the Hindenburg Line.  Indeed, the canal was viewed by both the Allies and the Germans as the most impenetrable section of the entire line, as between the canal’s rushing waters and the Hindenburg Line’s mixture of barbed wire, trenches and massive, reinforced concrete defenses, the ability to cross the Line was for all intends and purposes impossible.  Any attacker would have to wade through the canal under fire, limiting the ability to get tanks and heavy equipment across while going through an additional a no-man’s-land covered by machine guns and artillery.  Given the Great War’s track record of amphibious operations and plans, an offensive against Saint-Quentin seemed borderline suicidal.

As September 26th, 1918 was about to become September 27th, 1,044 British field guns and howitzers and 593 medium and heavy guns lashed out at Saint-Quentin, along with 30,000 poison gas shells in the largest British bombardment of the war.  The barrage was to open the way for the first wave of 30 British/Australian divisions and 2 American divisions, with the inexperienced Americans tasked to charge in first.  The attack had been hotly contested at the highest levels of the Allied governments and even mid-level British officers thought the offensive was nothing more than a “sacrificial stunt” to vainly attempt to keep Germany on the ropes as they retreated from their Spring Offensive gains.  

For the first time, the fearsome Hindenburg Line would be fully engaged by the Allies.  The momentum of the war rested upon the outcome.

The remains of the one of the Hindenburg Line’s bunkers

One hardly had to be clairvoyant in late September of 1918 to see that the Great War was finally, mercifully, coming to a head.  Since their “Black Day” in Amiens in early August, the German army had been in a headlong retreat back to the Hindenburg Line, surrendering tens of thousands of prisoners as well as miles of ground that had cost them a million men earlier in the year.  The Austro-Hungarian attempts at forcing a conclusion in Italy had been stymied, the Ottomans were being driven out of the Middle East with horrific casualties and the Bulgarians were in the process of surrendering.  The Central Powers were no longer on the verge of collapse – they were actively collapsing. Continue reading →

The transformations of four years of war were readily apparent at 1am in the skies above Al-Afuleh in Palestine on September 19th, 1918.  One British Handley Page 0/400 bomber flew over the city, the headquarters of the Ottoman/German command for Palestine in the Jezreel Valley, dropping it’s payload of sixteen 112-pound bombs.  Four years earlier, the first “heavy” bomber in aerial history, the French Voisin III, could carry one 132-pound bomb, dropping it indiscriminately with little to no accuracy.  Aerial operations in 1914 were reconnaissance-focus; by 1918, both sides were using planes in intra-service coordination to attack and overwhelm their enemy’s lines.  With a singular strike, the Handley Page bomber destroyed the telephone exchange and main railway station, serving communications between the Ottoman/German High Command and their soldiers.

A few hours later, the British army roared to life, with 385 field guns lashing out at the Ottoman line.  A massive coordinated campaign of artillery, cavalry, infantry and Arabian guerillas would destabilize what remained of the Central Powers’ position in Palestine, destroying two Ottoman armies and reducing the Ottoman morale to dust.  As had happened to the Germans and the Bulgarians, now the Turks would face a killing stroke that would set in motion the end of their Empire.  It would be a fitting conclusion to a battle chosen by the British because of the proximity to the ancient city of Megiddo – or as it was known in Hebrew, Armageddon.

British troops advance with air cover – the modern ability of airpower to attack ground forces would set a historic precedent at Megiddo

The capture of Jerusalem in late 1917 had been a welcome victory for an Allied war effort that appeared to be falling apart.  In a few sharp battles, British General Edmund Allenby had driven the Turks out of southern Palestine with thousands of casualties to few losses of his own.  Where the British had been stymied in the Sinai and Gaza for years, racking up losses of tens of thousands of men, in six months Allenby had gutted the Ottoman line, destroyed entire armies and all for the loss of perhaps just over 3,000 men.  Accuracy, speed and guile had been Allenby’s tools and they had worked wonders against veteran Turkish soldiers and accomplished German commanders like Erich von Falkenhayn and Friedrich Freiherr Kress von Kressenstein.  But the victories hadn’t meant the end of the Palestinian campaign and Allenby would now face his greatest opponent – the British War Office.  Continue reading →