Camp Zachary Taylor, Kentucky. August 26, 1918.

Base Hospital.

Field Artillery Officers Training School.

Scene at Divisional Headquarters.

The 100 Days Offensive: The Battle of Albert concludes

On this day in 1918 the Battle of Albert, part of the Second Battle of the Somme, concluded with the Anglo American capture of Albert and Arras.

The battle, the third by that name, was part of the Battle of Bapaume.

I became so preoccupied with the 2018 Primary Election that I neglected to say much about the 1918 one. . .

which of course took place on the same Tuesday on the calendar.

So what was going on?

Well, the following Casper newspaper from 1918 gives us a bit of a clue:

The Casper Daily Tribune for August 21, 1918, which also noted the results of the prior day's primary election.

 

I ran this on one of the 100 Days threads, but it's a report of the election results and give us a look at what was going on.

 

The sitting governor was Democrat Frank Houx.  Houx had been elected to Secretary of State, not Governor, but took over when Democrat John B. Kendrick was elected to the Senate on a rare wave of Democratic good fortune in the state.  Kendrick was the Governor at the time, so he had to resign, and Houx then stepped in, as per the Wyoming constitution.

Houx was an unusual personality.  He had studied law but had not completed his studies, taking up business pursuits instead.  He was Missouri born and his father had served in the Confederate army during the Civil War.  Indeed, Houx was related to General Sterling Price.  He'd come west to take up ranching in Montana and was headquartered out of Cody.

Houx was dedicated to his job but very much fit into the Democratic mold of the time.  He was very much for Wilson's efforts in the war, as almost everyone was during the war, and a strong backer of the Prohibition movement.  He was running for Governor for the first time.

Against him was Robert D. Carey, the Wyoming born son of the popular if sometimes controversial Joseph M. Carey.  Robert was well educated and was a rancher and banker in Cheyenne.

The Casper paper was reporting that Houx had received a serious challenge from "Osborne", whom I think was former Democratic Governor John E. Osborne.  Osborne had recently resigned from a position in the Wilson administration and had returned to Wyoming and apparently took a run at the Governor's office again.

The 100 Days: The Second Battle of the Somme commences.

The Casper Daily Tribune for August 21, 1918, which also noted the results of the prior day's primary election.

On this day in 1918, the British resumed advancing, after having halted to regroup and reorganize.

New Zealnders during the Battle of Bapaume in a scene that could easily be mistaken for one from the Second World War.

The offensive resumed with a New Zealand assault at Bapaume, part of the Second Battle of the Somme, in what is known as the Second Battle of Bapaume.  The first day's assault was successful but the following day was slow, which was to characterize the overall progress in the region over the next several days. The Kiwis were continually on the assault, but the battle did not feature the breakthroughs seen earlier in the 100 Days Offensive.  The effort lasted through September 3, with the town being taken on September 29.  That was only a phase of the massive large scale offensive, however.

Bapaume on August 30, 1918.

The town of Albert was taken during the resumed offensive on its second day, August 22.  The British forces expanded the assault thereafter with what is referred to as the Second Battle of Arras on August 26.  Bapaume was taken by the Kiwis on August 29.  The Australians crossed the Somme on August 31 and then fought the Germans and broke through their lines at Battle of Mont S. Quentin and the Battle of Peronne.  Australian advances between August 31 and September 4 were regarded by General Henry Rawlinson as the greatest military achievement of the war.

British Whippet tank, August 1918.

The Canadians Corps seized control of the western edge of the Hindenburg Line on September 2, with British forces participating.  Following this came the famous Battle of St. Quentin Canal which would feature all of the Anglo American forces under Australian General John Monash.  Cambrai would follow that.

Laramie Boomerang for August 21, 1918, also noting that Carey and Houx were advancing to the general election.

Things were clearly starting to fold in for the Germans.

The New York Herald, August 21, 1918.

Nicolae Ceaușescu denounces the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, August 21, 2018.

The Communist leader of Romania, Nicolae Ceaușescu, delivered a speech in support of the Czech government and against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

We remember Ceaușescu for his bloody demise in the Romanian uprising in 1989.  Ironically, if he had been able to read the tea leaves better, he might be remembered for this, his statement in favor of Romania and against the USSR, a brave thing to do under the circumstances, in 1968.

German prisoners bringing in wounded soldiers and captured machine guns during the third Battle of the Albert, near Courcelles, France, August 21, 1918

First Development Battalion, Camp Sevier, South Carolina. August 21, 1918.

The Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact Invade Czechoslovakia. August 20, 1968.

Czechs with their flag walking past a burning Warsaw Pact tank. 

On this day in 1968 the Warsaw Pact nations invaded Czechoslovakia.

The action commenced very late in the day, at 11:00 p.m. to be precise, and featured an armored invasion by forces from the Soviet Union, Poland, East Germany, Bulgaria and Hungary.  The total combined Warsaw Pact forces totaled 500,000 troops, the same number of men that the United States committed to Vietnam at the height of the Vietnam War.  It was not a small operation.

The Czechs had not prepared for the invasion and the government quickly called on its citizenry to not resist, a call that wasn't fully headed.  In part the Czechs were of the view that resistance was futile, which explains a lack of preparation, but they had also assumed that they would not be invaded by fellow Communist countries, a naive assumption.  Having said that, Romania, Yugoslavia an Albania refused to participate.  Indeed, the invasion was denounced by Romania on the day it occurred and Albania reacted by withdrawing from the Warsaw Pact.

The Big Picture: Love Field, Dallas Texas, August 20, 1918.

The open air kitchen used by German prisoners while a new mess hall and kitchen is being erected Camp Miramas, near Marseilles, France. August 19, 1918.

Wounded British soldiers of the 9th Division being following action at the Outtersteene Ridge, Meteren, West Flanders, Belgium, August 18, 1918

"Wounded British soldiers of the 9th Division being attended by Royal Army Medical Corps personnel after being brought in by German prisoners during action at the Outtersteene Ridge, Meteren, West Flanders, Belgium, August 18, 1918"

 Wounded British soldiers of the 27th Brigade, 9th Division, in a trench at a regimental aid post near Outtersteene Ridge following the formation's successful attack on Outtersteene Ridge, Flanders, Belgium, August 18, 1918

The Saturday Evening Post. August 17, 1918.

The cover for the issue of the Saturday Evening Post that came out on Saturday, August 17, 1918, featured a female driver of the National League for Women's Service, a wartime organization formed by the National Civic Federation to aid in the war effort.  As a post we're working on here will explore, man such civilian organizations aided the war effort in various ways during World War One and some of them had a strong female contingent in an era that generally predated women in the service, although some nations did begin to incorporate women into their armed forces in this period.

Typhus Fears In Casper and salamanders in the water, August 16, 1918.

Typhus is something we don't worry much about in the United States anymore, but at one time we did.  Problems with typhus in the water supply were a frequent source of concern for Casperites early in the city's history.

And fortunately an oilfield worker was only slightly burned, and returned to work on the Muddy Field. 

August 16, 1918. U.S. troops land in Vladivostok. . .

they'd already landed in Archangel on the 2nd.

U.S. Ship in Vladivostok in December 1918.

Their mission there was really unclear.

They'd been gathered together from a variety of locations, including the Philippines, for the U.S. commitment to the Allied effort in Russia, which itself was rather vague. They were instructed not to get involved in the local fighting, which meant that aas an armed group the purpose of their arms was rather vague.  Peacekeepers, basically, unlike their fellows in Archangel, which had no instructions and which were under British command, and committed to fight the Reds.

With the British forces in Palestine. Red Cross attendants giving aid to an Anzac soldier overcome on the march towards the Holy City. This photo was made between Khan Younous and Jaffa about six miles west of Jerusalem. August 16, 1918.

The news of August 15, 1918. UW to form training unit, Conscientious Objectors go to forced labor, and the reappearance of Pancho Villa on the front page.

The Laramie Boomerang was reporting on the war news, including the formation of what would be something basically the equivalent of ROTC.

Ulster, or Northern Ireland, was making a pitch, or rather its politicians were, to Woodrow Wilson as well. And the perennial hopes that the Communists were about to collapse in the Soviet Union made the front page again.

The war also greeted the readers of the Cheyenne State Leader, but with some more sensationalist news. 

Were 21 Conscientious Objectors really going to have to go to forced labor on farms and donate their pay to the American Red Cross?  I hope not.

And had Pancho Villa reappeared on the front page.

Night attack with phosphorous bombs, Gondrecourt, Aug. 15, 1918 / Signal Corps photo by Sgt. J.J. Marshall.

The 100 Days: Haig says no to Foch and the Offensive at Amiens stops. August 15, 1918

 Sir Douglas Haig.

Field Marshall Haig, on this date, refused an order from Field Marshall Foch to continue the advance at Amiens.

By this point in the battle Haig was having logistical problems and his order was sound.  Rather than advance further, he chose to halt to reorganize his forces, which consisted of the British Third Army and U.S. Army II Corps in order to prepare them for a new offensive.

Casper Home Guard To Muster. The Casper Record: August 14, 1918.

It turns out that Casper's Home Guard unit was the only one in the state, and it was going to muster the Monday after this issue of the Casper Record.

Patriots were expected to "turn out and witness".

Opha May Johnson enlists in the United States Marine Corps Reserves and becomes the first female Marine.

On this day in 1918, Opha May Johnson enlisted in the Marine Corps and became the first known female member of the Marine Corps.

 Opha May Johnson.

There would be about 300 "Marinettes" enlisted during the Great War.  Like Johnson, they'd perform clerical duties for the Marine Corps.

Johnson, it should be noted, was first simply because she was first in line that day. Others joined on the same day.  She became an NCO and supervised other clerks during the war, perhaps because she was in her 40s at the time and older than many of the other newly enlisted female Marines.  

And like all the others who joined during the war, she was mustered out of service shortly after the war when the Marine Corps eliminated its female contingent.  She later worked as a clerk for the War Department.