Monday, July 21, 1919. 1919 Motor Transport Convoy makes 82 miles in 10.5 hours, air disaster in Chicago, riots in Norfolk, Austrians receive draft peace treaty.

In spite of engine troubles in a couple vehicles, the transcontinental Army convoy made a record, heretofore, 82 miles in 10.5 hours, arriving in DeKalb Illinois right at 5:00 p.m.

The convoy was clearly getting in the swing of things as their speed was really picking up.

They left Chicago Heights at 6:15 a.m, which means that they necessarily missed the drama in Chicago later that day when the Wingfoot Air Express, which belonged to Goodyear, crashed in Chicago, killing its 13 occupants.

The Wingfoot Air Express being loaded on July 21, 1919.

The crash was the worst air disaster in the United States up until that time.  It was transporting passengers, all of whom died in the collision, to the White City Amusement Park.  The craft caught fire over the city. When this occurred, five individuals, including two crewmen, attempted to parachute to safety but none survived the experiment.

The airship crashed into a bank, killing ten employees therein.

Airships are usually billed as extremely safe, but they certainly have had their collection of serious accidents.

In Norfolk Virginia celebrations to welcome returning black veterans turned violent in another instance of the spreading Red Summer of 1919.  Authorities in Norfolk were quick to react and called upon Federal authorities to restore order, which they did by sending in sailors and Marines from the nearby base.  Two deaths resulted from the riot.

Lynchburg Virginia, July 21, 1919.

Austria received the draft of the peace treaty that the Allies sought to impose upon the now disintegrated empire.  While we hear less about it than the Versailles Treaty, it was likewise a fairly harsh treaty.

Camp Merritt, New Jersey, July 21, 1919.

April 30, 1919. The USS Tennessee launched, brewing of beer to cease.

Helen Lenore Roberts, age 16, the daughter of Tennessee's Governor Albert H. Roberts, at the April 30, 1919 launching of the USS Tennessee.  Brooklyn Navy Yard.

The USS Tennessee, which was completed to late to serve in World War One but which would go on to see service in World War Two, was launched.

Dignitaries, including Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt and Governor Roberts, at the launching of the USS Tennessee.

The Tennessee was the first ship of its class, for which the class was named.  She was at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, but was not sunk in the surprise attack. She went on to see service in nearly all of the principal Pacific engagments.

On the same day, pioneering Navy pilot Lt. Com. Patrick Bellinger was photographed.

Navy Pilot Patrick N. L. Bellinger, who would be part of the Navy's Trans Atlantic flight, photographed on this day in 1919.

The occasion was the naming of pilots who were to take part in the soon to be launched Navy Trans Atlantic flight.  Bellinger would go on to complete a forty year career in the Navy and rise to flag officer rank during World War Two.

There was a lot of tense news also going around on April 30, 1919.

Italy had walked out of the Paris Peace Conference over the issue of the city of Fiume.  Like a lot of European cities in this era, the population was quite mixed and no one state had really good claims to what had been a multi ethnic Austrian Empire port city. The Italians, however, did not see it that way.

The big news, however, was the launching of an anarchist terror campaign in the United States, the first bomb of which had gone off the day prior.  A postal office worker realized the connection between the package which had gone off and others, so that more explosions did not occur immediately.

Also on that day was the news that the brewing of beer was to cease on May 1, 1919.

And Carranza's finances weren't looking good.

World War One Ends. November 11, 1918, 1100 (0400 MST).

"To Our Hero's".  Cemetery Wall in Paris, France.  France's contribution to the Allied victory in World War One surpasses that of any other Allied nation. . .something you'd sometimes not realize if you only read the English language accounts of the war.  MKTH photograph.

On this date in 1918, the Great War came to an end.*

Usually such posts are highly retrospective, and I suppose this one will be to a degree, but not in the "oh what a terrible waste" fashion that so many of them are.  The "Oh, What A Lovely War" view of the war popularized by the posthumous post World War Two publication of Siegfried Sassoon's poetry is largely baloney.**  In reality, the view taken earlier, that Germany was a horrible world menace on the European stage ruled by its military and a few autocrats who cared little about the rivers of blood they were spilling in order to impose Germany's imperial will on Europe is much closer to reality.

Indeed, its telling that in order to being the peace about, it had to occur in the context of a German revolution.  That revolution threatened for a time to make former Imperial Germany into a communist Soviet state, and put the new provisional government in the position of having to put down a left wing revolution.  That alignment, and the unrepentant view of Germany's hard right and its military would guaranty a second war, not the supposedly "harsh" terms of the Versailles Treaty.  A hard won victory, therefore, would not bring lasting peace, but that too really isn't for the reasons so often cited.

Indeed, had the provisions of the Versailles Treaty been more strictly enforced, World War Two would not have come about.  And had the conditions of the treaty been arrived upon more quickly, when Germans had no choice but to admit that they'd been fully defeated on the battlefield and the revolution only saved Germany from the Allies entering German soil in action, as they did in 1945, the excuse that the treaty became would not have occurred.  And the treaty did become a German excuse, and the "stabbed in the back" myth would arise, but more than anything it was the smashing of the Old Order that brought about the second war.

But was the collapse of the imperial order in nations that had not moved sufficiently towards democratic rule as populations moved from rural peasantry towards industrial laborers that really created the mess that would result in World War Two.

Almost every European nation had faced this in some fashion, but some had handled it much better.  Nations like Germany, Austro Hungaria, and Russia, however, had not.  Indeed, they'd not only failed to accommodate the new world of a more educated working class, but in Germany's case they'd actually arrived upon an autocratic imperial state late.  Nations like France and Germany, in contrast, had moved more and more towards real democratic rule much earlier, and therefore the forces that would gather in the vacuum of the demise of the Old Order would not impact them in the same degree, or indeed in the democratic UK, at all.

In nations like Germany, Russia and (for WWI Allied) Japan, however, the demise of the Old Order would create a vacuum that would be filled by a vicious extreme forces, communistic or fascistic in nature, that opposed democratic rule and glorified martial violence.  In some places those forces would oppose any hint at restoring the Old Order, as in Russia, in others they'd co-opt elements of it, as in Italy.  In all such places, the result was to bring about disaster in every form.

When that war came, much of what the world had become acclimated to in the First World War would play out in horrific fashion.  And much of that can be blamed on Germany, which had often acted just as barbarously in the Great War as they were to act in World War Two.

Germany had in large measure brought that defeat in the Great War upon itself.  While people like to look back for some reason and imagine the Germany military of World War One and World War Two as hyper competent, quite the opposite was often true.  While the Spring 1918 offensive was absolutely brilliant, Germany's dithering with the collapse of Russia guaranteed that a million men it desperately need on the Western Front would not be available.  If Germany was stabbed in the back, it's own autocratic class and military leadership did the stabbing, as Germany set about advancing in a country it had already defeated and had helped push into civil war.  It acted as if it had won the war, when in fact it had not.

Officers of the newly crated Third Army which was formed in France too late to see combat, but which would go on to occupation duty in Germany.

Of course the arms of the Western Allies cannot be ignored in that role. The ability of the British to rebound in the face of the 1918 offensive was magnificent, even if the common British view that they seemingly won the war on their own is exaggerated.  The long suffering French deserve huge credit for the defense of their own country and carrying the war through to the end, which included the contribution of Marshall Foch whose coordinating the efforts of the Allies was a monumentally difficult task.

Drafted inductees into the U.S. Army, Los Angeles California, November 11, 1918. The U.S. continued to draft right up until the end of the war.  I don't know what happened to men brought in this late.

And the US deserves much more credit than it is typically given by non American historians even if its military leadership deserves much more criticism than American ones will give it.  The surprising ability of the U.S. to create a 4,000,000 man Army in just over a year's time, and to deploy 2,000,000 of them to France (and Italy) was a stunning achievement.  The individual fighting qualities of the American soldier were also hugely impressive, although much of that was due to the soldier being very green and, frankly, poorly lead.

Paris crowd, November 11, 1918.

The U.S. Army, in fact, was committed to action in a manner that was to prove wasteful of lives as the American leadership persisted in the belief that there were no lessons to be learned from the Allies.  The American effort was only able to get away with this as the Army was thrown into action at a time when massive force was likely to prevail against the Germans, even if it proved to be hugely costly.  Indeed, real questions should be raised as to why the American leadership continued to persist in this fashion when even the very early efforts demonstrated how bloody such actions would be, even if the American willingness to endure the bloodshed, much like the Union's willingness to endure it in the latter half of the Civil War, guaranteed that an Allied victory would occur.***

American Red Cross works gathering in London for a parade, November 11, 1918, in honor of the war's end.

And it did so bring it about, even if it did not do so single-handedly.  That sacrifice should not be forgotten.

_________________________________________________________________________________

*Before anyone points it out, yes I know that a state of war continued on until the execution of the Versailles Treaty, or even later if you consider that the US had to declare the war to be over unilaterally after the U.S. refused to enter into the treaty.  Indeed, I've already been "corrected" on that once.

Well, whatever, but the war ended on this day. Germany wasn't going back to fighting under any circumstances, and couldn't, after entering into the Armistice on this day.

**The morose British war poet view of the war is largely a post World War Two view of it that reflects more than anything the state of the British mind following World War Two, which left Britain with an empire that it obviously was going to leave and with an utterly wrecked economy.

***The U.S. Navy, on the other hand, was really effectively commanded in the Great War and contributed enormously to a reduction of the effectiveness of German submarines.  It's role, however, is largely forgotten.

Postscript

This day is also marked as Polish independence day, although it would be just as easy to pick a date several weeks earlier and indeed would perhaps be more accurate as various Polish political bodies had declared independence from Russia and Germany by this time.

There are several sad deaths often noted about the day.  Augustin Trebuchon was the last French soldier to die in the war.  He was 40 years old and had joined the French Army in August, 1914.  A shepherd by trade, he'd fought the entire war.  He had occupied the role of messenger throughout the war and knew that an agreement had been signed even when his unit went into action that morning, committed to an attack even with the knowledge that peace was likely to be soon agreed upon.  That battle went on until 6:00 p.m., a good seven hours after the armistice had been signed, when the unit received word that the fighting had ended.  French officials originally recorded his death as November 10, as they were embarrassed to admit that they had been fighting when peace was imminent.

George Lawrence Price was the last Canadian soldier killed.  The 25 year old private originally from Nova Scotia was killed in a small unit action by a German sniper when they were reconnoitering some Belgian houses and discovered German machinegunners.  He'd come into the Canadian army as a conscript the prior year, having been conscripted from his then home in Saskatchewan.

Private George Edwin Ellison was the last British soldier killed.  The British cavalryman, age 40, had served for a time as a per war soldier and had been recalled into his old unit, the 5th Royal Irish Lancers, in 1914.

Charles I, the Austro Hungarian Emperor, announced he would give up the Austrian crown.  He would do the same in regards to Hungary two days later.  He never actually abdicated in hopes he'd be recalled.  He wasn't.

Counter campaigns against Dutch socialist occured in the Hague.

British, Canadian and American troops, numbering about 600, engaged with a Red Army force of 2,500 at Tulgas, where the Armistice had no effect.  About 1/2 the force were Americans.  The combined unit had been attacked but after two days launched an Assault, 20th Maine at Gettysburg style, and drove the much larger Red unit back.  Red Army casualties nearly exceeded the number of men total in the Allied force.

Countdown on the Great War, November 3, 1918: A rebellion starts in Germany, Austro Hungaria gives up.

Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur of the 42nd Division, November 3, 1918, the day before the 42nd would return to the line and shortly before the then six time winner of the Silver Star was taken prisoner by soldiers of the 1st Division who mistook him for a German general.  He was always of unconventional dress.

1. The German Revolution of 1918-1919 starts with a mass meeting of German workers and sailors in Kiel who demanded "Peace and Bread". German police react by shooting into the crowd.  Sailors react by sending delegates out all over Germany.  In short order, the German Empire was facing the Allies in France and a revolution at home, following road that Austro Hungary had already gone down.  By November 4 Kiel itself would be in the hands of revolutionaries, soldiers having sent to restore order having been turned around or having joined in the rebellion.

2.  Austro Hungary signs the Armistice of Villa Guisti and quits the war.

3. The Provisional All Russian Government was established in Omsk to challenge the Bolshevik claim to government.  On the same day the Reds erected the Robespierre Monument in Moscow, which would collapse four days later.

Countdown on the Great War, October 30, 1918: French reach the Aisne, Central Powers collapse in the Balkans, Revolution in Hungary, the war stops in the Middle East

1.  French forces reached the Aisne River.

2.  In the Balkans the Italians and French took Shkoder Albania, while the Serbs took Podgorica, Montenegro.

3.  Combat stopped in the Middle East with the formal surrender of the Ottoman Empire.

In Cheyenne they learned of the Ottoman's quitting. . . and also the residence problems of the former Governor Osborne.

They learned the same in Laramie. . . where nurses were being called due to the flu and the next conscription cohort was being notified.

4.  Hungarian revolutionaries seized public buildings and King Charles IV was forced to recognize the success of the coup.  Austro Hungaria as a political entity was effectively over.

Countdown on the Great War, October 29,1918: Austria announces it wants to quit, the birth of Yugoslavia and the mutiny in the German navy spreads.

Headlines in Cheyenne informing readers that the Austrians were seeking to quit the war.

1.  Austria seeks an armistice from the Italians, and also with the Allies in general. 

The Casper Daily Press, no doubt under pressure from its other Casper competitors, announced that it was gong to a weekly in this same issue in which it spoke of Autro Hungaria's desire to get out of the war and the continued ravages of the Spanish Flu.

2.  The Allies occupied Vittorio Veneto, Italy.

3.  The German Navy abandoned its plans for final offensive operations.  Mutinous sailors would soon return to their ships and demonstrate their loyalty, at first.  Before that, however, the mutiny spread to Wilhelmshaven.

4. The State of the Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs proclaimed its independence from Austro Hungaria.  Czechoslovakia was also declared as a state on this date.

5.  The Ottomans held their positions at the Battle of Sharqat, the first time that they had done so for weeks.

Countdown on the Great War: October 28, 1918. The German Navy rebels and scuttles, the Hungarians quit Austria and the German army continues to take to the air.

1.  Having received orders to set sail to engage the British fleet, German sailors at Schillig Roads mutiny and refuse to prepare to get underway and refuse to weigh anchor  The crews of two of the ships, battleships, commit sabotage on their vessels.  What would become the Kiel Mutiny had commenced.

2.  The Germans scuttle seven submarines based at Pula, Austro Hungaria.  Another was scuttled at Trieste, Italy.

3.  Czechoslovakia declares independence from Austro Hungaria.

4.  Revolution breaks out in Hungary as the Hungarian National Council proclaims its independance from Austria.

Hungarian revolutionaries, including soldiers, with Aster flowers.  The flowers gave their name tot he rebellion, the Aster Revolution.

5.  The Austro Hungarian high command ordered a general retreat from all northern Italian positions.

6.  The Allies capture Makri and Evros in Macedonia.

7. The Germans established nine new air squadrons.

Countdown on the Great War: October 24, 1918. The German Navy goes completely insane, The Italian Army goes full bore

The SMS Kaiser Wilhelm II from which the German High Seas Fleet would receive its final order to set sail during World War One.  She would survive the war to be decommissioned in 1920.

1.  The German Navy, in a flight of truly wackiness, orders the German High Seas Fleet, now supported by returning submarines, to deploy in a few days against the British fleet for the long awaited giant naval showdown.  The act, coming after the German fleet had remained in port for years, only served to spark German sailors, largely drawn from the Socialist German working class, and radicalized after years in port, into rebellion which would flower in several days.

It is difficult not to view the Order of October 24, as it has come to be known, as both insubordinate and completely unhinged.  Moreover, it came about in no small part as the German Navy, save for its submarine fleet, had basically sat the war out but was now upset on how it was going to clearly end in a German defeat.

The entire effort of Germany to build a high seas fleet capable of rivaling the British was a dubious effort from the onset, but the Germans under Kaiser Wilhelm II had attempted it.  Building a navy is a difficult prospect of any nation and traditionally only nations taht have a strong seafaring culture have managed it.  The Germans did not have a high seas history to speak of and geographically any sane German surface navy was always going to be principally a Baltic entity.  None the less, starting in the 19th Century, the Germans had engaged in a dreadnaught building war with the British.

When the moment for the Germany navy came during World War One the German Navy largely flunked it, save for its U-boat campaign which was both brilliant and ruthless.  The surface navy, however, the Battle of Jutland notwithstanding, largely did nothing.  The huge expensive entity remained mostly bottled up, predictably, in port, with its officers largley fearful of committing it in a decisive engagement as any such effort stood to most likely cause its expensive loss.  In their defense, such a loss would have exposed northern German to the potential ravages of the Royal Navy, so their reluctance to commit it was not completely unhinged.

With the Germans acquiescing to Woodrow Wilson's October 5 demand that they cease unrestricted submarine warfare it became plane to those in the military and the upper echelons of government that Germany was indeed defeated and that coming to terms with the Allies was now a matter of weeks.  Surprisingly, the upper command elements of the Army, which was well aware of the situation Germany was in, took the matter much better than the navy did.  The Navy objected to the loss of its U-boat campaign and its commander, Admiral Carl Friedrich Heinrich Reinhard Scheer ordered the commander of the High Seas Fleet, Admiral Franz Ritter von Hipper, to prepare an order sending the High Seas Fleet with the released submarines into action in the English Channel, but anticipating that the British would meat the fleet first off of the Dutch coast.  Von Hipper issued his order on this day, which read:

Commander of the High Seas Fleet
Op. 269/A I
SMS KAISER WILHELM II, 24.10.1918
VERY SECRET
O. MATTER
O.-COMMAND No.19.
A. Information about the enemy
It is to be supposed that most of the enemy forces are in Scottish east coast ports, with detachments in the Tyne, the Humber and the Channel.
B. Intentions
The enemy will be brought to battle under conditions favorable for us.
For this purpose, the concentrated High Seas forces will advance by night into the Hoofden, and attack combat forces and mercantile traffic on the Flanders coast and in the Thames estuary. This strike should induce the enemy to advance immediately with detachments of his fleet toward the line Hoofden/German Bight. Our intention is to engage these detachments on the evening of Day II of the operation, or to have them attacked by torpedo-boats during the night of Day II or III. In support of the main task the approach routes of the enemy from east Scottish ports to the sea area of Terschelling will be infested by mines and occupied by submarines.
C. Execution
i) Departure from the German Bight by day, out of sight of the Dutch coast;
ii) Route through the Hoofden so that the attack on the Flanders Coast and the Thames Estuary takes place at dawn on Day II;
iii) The Attack:

a) against the Flanders coast by the commander of the 2nd Torpedo-Boat Flotilla with Graudenz, Karlsruhe, Nürnberg and the 2nd Torpedo-Boat Flotilla.

b) against the Thames estuary by the 2nd Scouting Group with Königsberg, Köln, Dresden, Pillau and the 2nd Torpedo-Boat Half-Flotilla

Covering of a) by the fleet and b) by the C-in-C of the Scouting Forces;

iv) Return so as to reach the combat area favorable to us, near Terschelling, one or two hours before nightfall on Day II.
v) Protection of the return (Day II) by part of the 8th Flotilla
vi) Mine laying by the leader of 4th Scouting Group with 4th Scouting Group (supported by minelayers by Arkona and Möwe) and the 8th Flotilla, on the approaches of the enemy, in accord with plan No. I.
vii) Disposition of submarines on the enemy routes in accord with plan No. III
viii) Attack by torpedo-boats during the night of Day II to III, in case an encounter has already taken place, from near the Terschelling Light Vessel towards the Firth of Forth, in accordance with the orders of the commander of torpedo-boats. On the meeting of the torpedo-boats with the fleet in the morning of Day III, see the following order;
ix) Entrance into the German Bight by departure route or by routes 420, 500 or 750, depending on the situation;
x) Air reconnaissance: if possible.

This effort would have been risky at any point during the war, but its taking place in October 1918 was simply delusional.  Indeed, it's doubtful that it could have taken place at any point after mid 1917.   By the fall of 1918 German sailors, largely drawn from the German Socialist working class, were becoming heavily radicalized and mutinous.  Indeed, mutinies had occurred in 1917. The years of being idle in port had contributed to massive discontent among them and the morale necessary to conduct such an operation had evaporated at some point mid war.

Moreover, even assuming that the loss of loyalty of the sailors could have been overcome, which it could not, this attack would have made very little sense as a solo effort so late in the war.  If it had been undertaken in the Spring of 1918 in conjunction with the 1918 German Spring Offensive it would have at least have taken place in context with what was going on in the war. Even if it had been effective in October 1918 it would have had little long term impact with the German army now steadily in a fighting retreat.

Indeed, thinking that a navy that had been idle in port for years was capable of taking on a navy that had been on the high seas for years was itself delusional. And by this point in the war the Royal Navy was augmented on the North Atlantic with the American Navy, which was a major surface navy in its own right.

In any event, as will be seen, the High Seas Fleet never sailed.  It's enlisted men wouldn't allow it to.

2.  The Italians commence an assault on Austro Hungarian positions at Vittorio Veneto on a massive level, firing 2,500,000 artillery shells over seven days and sending up 400 aircrfat to oppose 470 or so Austro Hungarian ones.

 Victorious Italian troops, October 1918.

Fifty-seven divisions were committed to the assault, including three British divisions, two French division, one Bohemian division and an American regiment.  The Austro Hungarian Empire started the battle with sixty one divisions but Austro Hungaria would come apart during the battle, which would go on to the Austrian surrender on November 3, by which time all of the empires constituent parts had declared independence or withdrawn from the empire.  It was the concluding battle for Austro Hungaria of the war.

U.S. troops of the 332nd Infantry at Grave di Papadopoli, October 31, 1918.  We do not usually think of Americans fighting in Italy during World War One, but they did in small numbers.

3. The Allies continued to advance in France.

 American troops waiting to go into action at Fismes.  Note how heavily laden these troops are laden, more for marching than for fighting.

Countdown on the Great War: October 19, 1918. Empires and monarchies of all types continue to fall apart, the Allies continue to advance, the German Navy continues to sink ships, and the Flu remains uncontained.

1. The Allies captured Bruges, Courtrai, and Zeebrugge, Belgium.  In the process, 12,000 Germans surrendered.  The Belgian Army engaged in the last cavalry charge of World War One when the Guides Regiment successfully charged at the Burkel Forest.

2.  The Portuguese sailing ship Aida sunk by a German U-boat. The British ships Almerian and the HMS Plumpton struck mines, sinking the Almerian and damaging the Plumpton. The German submarine UB-123 also hit a mine in the North Sea and went down with all hands.

3. The West Ukrainian People's Republic was established in the Ukrainian provinces of the Austro Hungarian Empire.

4.  A flu hospital was established in Casper.

5.  Old allegiances of all types were seemingly being modified everywhere.  Icelanders voted overwhelmingly for becoming a separate kingdom with the Danish king as their sovereign.

Countdown on the Great War. The British take Tripoli, the Germans decimate a Greek shipping column, Poles maneuver for independence.

1.  British occupy Tripol without resistance.

2.  The German U-boat U-23 sunk nine Greek vessels in a single day.  An Egyptian vessel in the Mediterranean was sunk on the same day by an unknown German submarine.

3.  Poles in Austrian Galatia declare the Republic of Zakopane.  Zakpane is a resort city in southern Poland that was at that time part of the Austrian Empire. The goal of the act was to push for a unified post war Poland.

The Global Collapse of the Central Powers. The news of September 23, 1918

Because we've been dealing mostly with the American effort in France, we've ceased keeping readers here up to date on other theatres.  If we did, this would read as an even lengthier treatise than it already risks becoming.

But there was a lot going on.  Specifically, in the Macedonian Front the Central Powers were going into a headlong collapse. . . as were the Turks in the Middle East where some pronounced mounted warfare was gaining significant advances.

One of Cheyenne's papers, remarkably up to date (as many of these World War One papers were, they were on time and pretty close to being on target, frequently), was reporting the Serbs gaining ground against the Austro Hungarians and the collapse of the Turks.  It also noted that the Russian Whites had exhumed the bodies of the Czar and his family and reinterred them.

William Jennings Bryan, received the cold shoulder in Cheyenne.

And, yes, once again, there was a clash on the Mexican border.

In Laramie readers of one of the town's two local papers also learned about the events in the Middle East.  In spite of what would seem to have been the obvious signs of a complete Central Powers collapse, the paper noted that the planning was for the war to go on into 1919, which was universally believed among the Allies.

And snow was coming to high altitude Laramie. . .

Casper readers of one of Casper's two papers found a really busy front page.  Events in Macedonia lead the headlines but the Turk's fate figured prominently as well.

The clash on the Mexican border and the exhumation of the Czar and his family also figured prominently and Casperites were informed that men were going to be released from non essential industries so that they could go into the Army.  Their place would be taken by women.

And the Casper paper reported that Catholic Archbishop John Ireland was in failing health and likely to pass away.  Ireland was a towering figure at the time.

The Italians advance at high altitude. The Battle of San Mateo. August 13, 1918.

On this date in 1918, the Italian Army launched a small scale, but very high altitude, assault on Austrian positions in the Italian Alps.

Italian mountain troops, Alpini, launched a company sized attack on Austrian Jägers at San Mateo, taking the 3678 meter high peak (the Austrians would take it back a few weeks later on September 3). In doing this, they managed to seize a position that was used for artillery to control nearby passes.

The battle was the highest battle on record until a 1999 conflict between India and Pakistan would surpass it. 

The battle is interesting for a variety of reasons, including the use of specialized troops on both sides, and featuring an Italian assault that is a monument to mountaineering.  While it was a small scale battle, the loss of face to Austria was significant and they dedicated an inordinate amount of forces to take it back, even though the Italians regarded holding the position as impossible and didn't really attempt to do so.  The September 3, 1918 recapture of the peak is regarded as the last successful Austrian operation of the war, but it was a Pyrrhic one both because Austrian fortunes in the war, now that the 1918 German Spring Offensive had failed, were becoming increasingly and obviously rather poor, and because the Italian counter bombardment was so bloody that losses to the Austrian forces were excessive.

The battle serves as a grim reminder of the war to this day. As recently as 2004 the bodies of a few Austrian soldiers were recovered from a nearby glacier.

And just when the German drive seemed to be slowing. . . .

the Austrians, who only yesterday were reported as being on the verge of collapse, launched a major offensive.

Romania bows out.

The Romanians reached an accord with the Central Powers on this day in 1918.  

Maybe the Germans were winning?

The treaty had some odd results. Romania was left as a nation, but only a satellite nation of the Germans, giving up territory that it claimed, but gaining some too, resulting in a bigger Romania than there had been prior to its disastrous entry into the war, but one in which the Germans called the shots.

Romania's king refused to sign the treat it it was repudiated at the end of World War One.

Significant points were Romania returned  Southern Dobruja and ceded part of the same territory in the north to Bulgaria with the remainder of the territory in Central Power's control.  It ceded to Austria Hungaria passes in the Carpathians.  I leased its oil to Germany for ninety years (oh, the Germans and that Romanian oil).  The Central Powers recognized the union of Bessarabia with Romania, no skin off the Central Powers nose there however.  Finally, German civil servants had veto power over all decisions by Romanian cabinet ministers and to even fire Romanian civil servants.

Poster Saturday: Subscribe to the War Loan!

A look at the other side today, an Austrian poster urging subscription to a war loan.

These farming folks look like they don't have much to donate to any war loans. The farm wife is in her bare feet, an old man is plowing.

Sometimes these posters say more than they mean to.

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk Executed

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was executed on this day in 1918, thereby officially ending Russia's participation in World War One.

 

And so Russia exited the war.   The several week interlude between the treaty in final form being proposed and the signature of the treaty had been caused by Trotsky's walking out of the conference, which committed the Central Powers to a renewed offensive which took massive amounts of Russian territory.  The pause was a Russian disaster, but it would be a German one too as they had to commit large numbers of troops to garrison what had been taken, and they committed themselves to a Eastern Front advance at the very time they should have used all available resources to built up in the West.

The Cheyenne State Leader for February 16, 1918. Revolution in Mexico and Victory Pies

The Leader was correct, a new revolution had broken out in Mexico even as the contesting forces of Zapata and Villa continued their struggle against Carranza.

As the Mexican culture site puts it:

On February 16, 1918, soldiers loyal to the governor of the state of Guerrero, General Silvestre Mariscal, arrested Santiago Tlatelolco in the military prison, who took up arms to try to free his leader. Nearly 300 men who were under the command of Mariscal and had accompanied him to the Federal District took up arms in the Escuela de Tiro de San Lázaro, where they were quartered.

They were immediately repulsed by the law and order forces, under the command of General Miguel Madrigal, who defeated them and forced them to flee. Some escaped towards Peñón. Others, toward Tlalpan, where they tried to join the Zapatista armed forces that devastated the southern region of the Federal District.

So things really weren't settled south of the bordern.

North of the border restrictions on wheat were resulting in Victory Pies in restaurants.

Victory pies?

Well, what those apparently entailed is substituting out 1/3 of the flour substance for something other than wheat. 

Dancer turned aviator Vernon Castle was reported killed in an aviation accident in Texas.

Things were getting unsettled in Austria, which appeared to be teetering towards bowing out of the war.  Close to home, the war looked like it was bringing the Medical corps or cavalry back to Cheyenne. Cavalry had certainly had a presence there previously..

Attrition and Saving the Bacon. The United States and World War One

 January 1918 Coke calendar.  Soon, soft drinks would be about your only option.  World War One gave a big boost to the Prohibition movement, but a lot of the days after reading the days news you'd probably feel like you needed a drink.

If you've occasionally read the headlines of the newspapers from 1915, 16 and 17 (and now 18) we've put up here, there's something that should probably be obvious from reading them.

The Allies were loosing the war.

Okay, maybe not loosing. But the Allies sure weren't clearly winning.

Let's take a look at that, at this point, the beginning of 1918.

And to start off on that, let's take a look at it as an observant reader of one of the newspapers we've been putting up might have read it.  I think such a reader, observing the news of the prior day over his cup of morning coffee, or the news of the day over his soon to be banished glass of evening beer, would have been worried. And particularly so if they had a son in the service (and let's face it, while there were women volunteering to serve in various roles, the services were overwhelmingly male at the time. . . and in fact they still are).

 

Women did serve of course, and I don't mean to suggest otherwise, in a variety of ways.  Indeed, if you subscribe to Reddit's 100 Years Ago Today subreddit you'll frequently find the photographs of British nurses and war workers who died as a result of the war.  Pretty poignant.
 

So, what would such a person have absorbed before they went to work after that cup of Joe. . . or after they came home and poured that glass of beer?

Well let's go back to 1914, as nobody reads a newspaper or absorbs the news in a vacuum.

 Readers of the Cheyenne July 28, 1914 morning paper were greeted with the news that Europe was on the brink of war.  If they got the evening paper, and many did, they'd next read that Europe was in fact at war.  Another name already familiar to Wyomingites which would be followed the next few years, that of "General Villa", was also on the front page that morning.

Readers of the Casper Record in then tiny Casper would have been less disturbed that morning.  And keep in mind there was no commercial radio at the time either.

Starting in August of 1914 they'd have been reading about the horrific outbreak of a titanic war in Europe. And in that war, the Central Powers, Germany and the Austro Hungarian Empire, gained ground, and a fair amount of it in the East, in 1914.  Their progress was arrested in the west, but not before they'd shown a willingness to trample over the neutrality of a small nation, Belgium, and to have come frighteningly close to breaking through and overwhelming France. . .something they had done last time they'd fought the French in 1870.

Then things seemed to stabilize in the West while bloody huge battles continued on in the East.  Chances are our reader would have vaguely sympathized with the Allies, but only to a degree.  Ethnic feelings about the war were strong and some German Americans were less than keen about the Allies while Irish Americans had mixed feelings about the English. Generally, however, that war was "over there" and we weren't in it, and we were glad.

All along, and so commonly forgotten in histories about the war, our reader would be worrying at least a bit about the situation on the American border with Mexico.  The Mexican Revolution had been going on in one form or another since 1910 and things just refused to stabilize. The US, moreover had demonstrated a feeling that intervening in Mexico, as necessary (in our view) was justified.  Chances are that our reader might have been more concerned, in 1914, about Mexico than Europe.  Indeed, the United States had intervened in the Mexican Revolution by landing troops in Vera Cruz in April, 1914.

Marines and Sailors raising the Stars and Stripes in Vera Cruz, April 1914.

We occupied the town until November.

 

 Sailor searches Mexican man in Vera Cruz.

And so we go to 1915. The war in Europe just keeps on keeping on, but the war south of the border is really ramping up.  Mexico is in a full scale civil war, and its bloody indeed.  American eyes, to a large extent, and for good reason, were looking south and worrying. The US government was keeping a watchful eye and getting involved.  In the background, some men like Theodore Roosevelt were demanding that the US enter the war in Europe, but most Americans were keeping Europe on the distant horizon and worrying about Mexico in the not so distant foreground.

Nonetheless, the war in Europe was making an appearance in Wyoming. In June of that year British Remount agents started purchasing horses in the state.  By the wars end they'd be purchasing them all over the globe, and indeed they already were.  An economic boom in the state, fueled by the war, was on.

Things were getting scary.

And the changes going on couldn't be missed.

So then arrived 1916.  And the U.S. was attacked.  By the rebel Mexican Division del Norte commanded Pancho Villa.  Now the US was in a conflict, although a low grade one as the US retaliated by entering Mexico in pursuit of Villa.

 March 9, 1916 evening edition of the Casper Daily Press detailing the raid on Columbus and the US entry into Mexico. The paper termed it an "invasion", which must have been jarring to the newspaper's readers.  The US didn't view it that way, but the Mexicans more or less did.

The entire time it threatened to break out into a general war with Mexico in which the US would be at war with the Carranza government in Mexico City.  Troop needs required the calling up of the National Guard to man the border in very short order, with the entire National Guard ultimately rotating through border posts over the 1916-1917.

The US actually did end up exchanging some shots with the de facto federal army of Mexico at Carrizal while still trying to hunt down and wipe out the insurgent Pancho Villa. Finally, at that point, with a full scale war looming, it seemed, we backed down and entered into an uneasy occupation of Chihuahua while we negotiated for an exit.  As we were negotiating, the war in Europe started to become more and more of a problem.

The U.S. Army set back at Carrizal hit the press in full force by June 24.  On the same day the press reported that the Germans had one another victory at Verdun, while stopping the "Slavs", when in fact the Russian offensive had terminated the German's hopes at Verdun.

In early 1917 we left Mexico under an arrangement with Carranza's government.  The whole thing had been very inconclusive and far from a victory of any sort.  Carranaza, whose government we had been aiding in the civil war in Mexico before we were attacked by Villa, and indeed, that likely caused Villa to attack us, had shown us contempt.  Villa was on the rise once again.  Tension on the border had not gone away and US troops were not out of danger.  Indeed, cross border action, both ways, continued.

The smile on the soldier to the left's face was likely quite genuine.  The 6th and the 16th Infantry crossing back into the United States, February 1917.

There were big headlines going in, coming out was still on the front page, but not nearly as big in the headlines. 

And then came the Spring of 1917.

Even as we were struggling to find a way out of Mexico, with that struggle being in the newspaper nearly every day, we were starting to worry more and more about the war in Europe, which was now drawing nearer and nearer. And then, just as we were getting out of Mexico, getting into the war in Europe suddenly looked inevitable, as it was. February 1917 saw the US finally take its troops out of Mexico and the National Guard was finally allowed to stand down, but that same month saw the Germans resume unrestricted submarine warfare, something that would cost American lives.  Also in that same month the Zimmerman Note, a German diplomatic effort to coax Mexico and Japan into an alliance with the US in the event of war, was revealed. National Guards men were finding themselves called back up in anticipation of war just weeks after the last of them had gone home.  The cycle was so fast that many National Guardsmen would likely have been better off in every sense if they hadn't gone home at all.

 

Starting in February 1917 the hypothetical reader of the news we imagine here would have seen one thing after another rushing the US towards war.  By April the war had arrived.

The war news after that was confusing. At first the US talked as if it was only going to raise a Navy. But soon thereafter it had enacted mass conscription.  It was obviously going to raise a huge Army, but how huge wasn't evident at first.  By late summer it was pretty clear it was going to be really big, and the Navy wasn't going to be the primary fighting arm of the nation.  At the same time both the British and the French launched huge offensives, with the British ones featuring the first use of tanks. There was reason for our reader to hope that the war might even end before the US really got committed in Europe.

That hope was soon dashed. The offensives rapidly stalled and by Fall revolution had broken out in giant Russia.

We don't often think how that news must have read to the average person.  In many histories written later its often noted that this meant that Americans could accept that the war was really one "to make the world safe for democracy".  I'll bet that at the time, at least for a savvy reader, the news of the fall of Russia was unbelievably grim.

Imperial Russia in the war meant that the Central Powers tied up on a two, or really three, front war with one of those fronts involving a combatant with a much larger population and fast resources and territory.  Never mind how primitive Imperial Russia was and how inept.  I think this would have been at least obvious to a savvy reader.  And then, right after that, a massive Austrian offensive through Italy back on its heals. To most readers, it would have appeared, rightly, that Italy was about to be knocked out of the war.  And it would have been hard not to conclude that the extra defensive front that would have opened up against France would have been disastrous.

And that's about where you are right now. 

According to the Wyoming Tribune, the Kaiser was saying he was going to win.  Readers of the paper would have to wonder if he was right.

So, at this point, New Years Day, 1918, you'd know that the first American troops had arrived in France, and indeed some had already been killed in action.  You'd also know that Russia was descending into chaos and its giant army had dissolved.  And you'd know that Italy had nearly been defeated in the past few weeks.  You'd also know that the French and the British had mounted successful offensives in late 1917, but they hadn't succeeded in gaining a breakthrough.  You'd know that the British had taken Jerusalem in the Middle East but the Turks were trying to take it back. You'd know that U-Boats were ranging the seas, and indeed they'd sunk a British ship with large loss of life just a couple of days prior.  And you'd know that Pancho Villa was fully resurgent and a force again in Northern Mexico, and there were renewed Mexican raids, from somebody, going on along the border.

It would have been hard to have been optimistic.

Of course, you'd also be aware that there were persistent rumors that there were serious foods shortages in Germany.  And you'd know that US troops were arriving in France.

And locally, no matter what you might think of it, a major economic boom was going on.  Indeed, it had changed the entire town.  That would have been impossible not to notice.

Okay, so that's what you know. And what would you have thought of all of that?

Well, that depends, I suppose, on how much you deduce for yourself and how much you accept what others are saying.  Personally, I think in my own case, as I have a little military experience, and I would have had at the time, and assuming that I would have been in Casper on a frigid January 1918 rather than in the service (it was easier to get in, if overage, at the time), I would have been pretty concerned.

It would have seem obvious to me that the German defeat of Russia would mean that the Germans would now be free to move hundreds of thousands of troops to the Western Front and they would have also have had all the resources available to them that Western Russia has, and that's a lot.  My guess would have been that that would take a few months, but once they did it, they'd be ready to launch a major offensive to knock France out of the war, and end it.

Of course, that's based on what I would have known. What I wouldn't have known is that the food crisis in Germany was now at the true crisis level and starvation was starting to set in.  I would also not have know that the revolutionary spirit that was haunting Imperial Russia was now also setting in, inside of Germany, and revolution was becoming a real possibility, particularly in the radicalized German Navy's enlisted ranks.  And I would never have guessed that Imperial German avarice and incompetence would lead it to keep advancing in Russia even as the country surrendered and descended into civil war such that Germany was unable to move substantial numbers of men to the West after all.

I also would not have guessed that the Germans had so depleted their horse stocks that they were now incapable of mobile warfare.  And I wouldn't have guessed that the Germans proved unable to exploit Russian resources which could have addressed that, and their food, situation.

I would also not have known that moral was so low in some units of the French army that they could no longer be used for offensive warfare.  Obviously that wasn't true of the entire French army, but it was true of some of it and it was a serous problem.  And I would not have realized that British and French manpower resources were now so stretched that they were importing Chinese labor in order to relieve service troops.

So, I would have been legitimately worried. 

Which gets to a topic that we'll likely look at more later.  The U.S. role in the First World War.  

It's always been somewhat controversial in a way. The way we view it has been, for a long time, significantly different than the way at least the British view it.  But viewed in context, a century past, while the British retained the ability to launch offensives, and the French somewhat did, their manpower situation was now desperate.  Italy was barely hanging on, and while Germany was facing severe problems of its own, only its own greed and incompetence kept it from working through those problems and solving them in time to win the war in the spring of 1918.  Without the commitment of U.S. troops to the defense against that 1918 spring offensive, as we'll see in a few months, the Germans may well have prevailed that spring.  And certainly without the increasing number of American troops in action, brief though that period of action was in the spring, summer and fall of 1918, its doubtful that the Allies could have overcome the increasing German manpower advantages. They likely would have gotten their act together sooner or later.

So, while we will look at the situation in greater depth later, did the entry of the United States into the war in 1917 win it for the Allies?  Nobody can say for sure. But a good case for that can be made.

And I would have been skeptical that U.S. troops would arrive in time.

Booze was on its way out, temporarily. But cigars were still in, temporarily.  The war was bringing in cigarettes in a major way.