Today In Wyoming's History: October 16, 1940 . R Day

Caption reads:  "Delegates of N.Y. Youth Congress present petition at White House opposing compulsory conscription. Washington, D.C., June 20. A delegation from the New York Youth Congress called at the White House today with a petition opposing President Roosevelt's proposed plan to regiment the young men and women of American in compulsory military training and forced labor. The delegation shown on the steps of the White House are, left to right - Wesley Nelson, Church of the Master; Tom Jones, Brooklyn Negro Youth Federation; Jean Horie, Executive Secretary of the New York Youth Congress; and David Livingstone, United Wholesale and Warehouse Employees Union, N.Y. Local 65"

Today In Wyoming's History: October 16: 1940  "R Day", the deadline for all men aged 21 to 36 years old to register for conscription.

Today In Wyoming's History: September 16, 1940. Conscription starts and the National Guard mobilized.

Some of those conscripted men in 1945.

On this day in 1940, a couple of monumental events occurred in the history of the US and the state. These were:

Today In Wyoming's History: September 16: 1940 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Selective Training and Service Act, which set up the first peacetime military draft in U.S. history.

1940 President Franklin Roosevelt orders the Army to begin mobilizing the entire National Guard for one year’s training. The National Guard's horsed cavalry regiments, would go into Federal service for the last time. Horse mechanized units, such as Wyoming's 115th Cavalry Regiment (Horse-Mechanized) would go into service for the first and last time.

The story is always told a little inaccurately, and even the way we posted it on our companion blog slightly is.  The 1940 Selective Training and Service Act, reviving a conscription process started during World War One, was the first "peacetime draft" only if we omit the story of state mandatory military service which had existed from the earliest colonial times (recognizing the colonies as precursors to the state) up until after the Civil War, when it petered out.  Indeed, this history is why the National Guard, not the Army or Navy, is the senior service, dating back to December 13, 1636.  People didn't "join" the militia, they, or rather men, were compelled to be in the militia.  Only when the Frontier period caused populations to be so transient did this really change and even today many states define all men of sixteen years to sixty to be in the militia.

But Federal conscription itself was an anomaly and had only existed twice before, once during the Civil War and then again during World War One.  It had never been in existence in peacetime. And for that matter, hardly any Americans in 1940 had a living memory of mandatory militia duty, although there would have been those had been alive when it still existed.

Also of huge significance was the mobilization of the National Guard.

The mobilization of the Guard in 1940 is well known, but underappreciated.  The U.S. Army would have been incapable of fighting World War One or World War Two without the National Guard. During the Great War the reorganized Guard, reorganized as its state determined peacetime branches did not all comport with the Army's needs for a largescale European war, constituted a large percentage of the actual fighting force throughout the war.  It's peacetime establishment was reorganized again in the 1920s to match needs upon mobilization and accordingly many of the Army units that fought in the Army's early campaigns, all the way into 1943, were made up of Guard units.  Indeed, to at least some extent the Army simply used up Guard units until it could deploy newly trained men.

The significant story of the National Guard in both world wars was downplayed by the Army as, in spite of its absolute reliance on the Guard, the Regular Army always looked down on it in this period and tended to ignore its contributions.  Those contributions were enormous, and the Army's treatment of the National Guard's history unfair, and the wartime treatment of its officers shameful.

Conscription would soon start a labor shortly and ultimately start a series of social crises, conflicts and changes that permanently changed the United States and its culture.  One year of service, as had originally been passed into law, would not have done that, but when that service extended into years and ultimately into the largest war fought in modern times, it certainly did.  World War One, coming in an era of more privative transpiration, even though it was only twenty years prior, had not resulted in the transcontinental mixing of races and cultures the way World War Two did, and of course the Great War was shorter.  Those conflicts certain arose, but many of them arose afterwards, as reflected in the Red Summer of 1919.  The Great War changed the country as well but those changes really bloomed during World War Two, for lasting good and lasting ill.  The Civil Rights movement that started with the integration of the Armed Forces in 1948 really had its roots in the war during which there was a lot of dissatisfaction on the part of segregated blacks in regard to segregation, both in the military and in society itself. By wars end that segregation was going to be on the way out, even if that wasn't appreciated at the time.

The war also started the process of dismantling the strong ethnic neighborhoods in the country's majority white population and to at least some degree turned the temperature up on the melting pot.  At the same time, the war encouraged a period of loose morals that would begin to reflect back on the country after the war, really starting off when Hugh Hefner took the wartime image of the town girl that had adorned American bomber after bomber and put her in glossy centerfolds.  Much of what the war brought is still being sorted out, and the full impact of it will likely take another half century or more to really appreciate.

And that process, for the United States, began today, eighty years ago.

May 22, 1920. Carranza's Assassination hits the news, and Bergdoll's Departure. The Belmont Run, and Federal Employees get to Retire.

Postman, May 22, 1920.

The dramatic news that Carranza, who had been such a large figure in the Mexican Revolution, and the American Press, had been assassinated hit in the U.S.

Also taking headlines was the flight of Grover Cleveland Bergdoll, a millionaire draft dodger.

Bergdoll had first been in the press as a pre World War One aviator, showing that he at least had an element of personal courage.  But when the war came, he skipped his draft physical and evaded the authorities for two years.  He was finally arrested in January, 1920.

He was tried and convicted, and then oddly allowed out of prison when he claimed the need to recover a cache of gold he'd buried while a fugitive.  On a stop at his home in Philadelphia, while under guard, he managed to escape and flea with his chauffeur. 

He went, oddly enough, to Germany, where he further avoided attempts to kidnap him by American soldiers of fortune on two occasions, killing one of them.  He returned to the United States twice while a fugitive and even toured a bit on one occasion.  He finally surrendered to authorities in 1939 and served the remainder of his term plus added time, being released in 1944.  He remained under psychiatric care until his death in 1966.

The Belmont was run on this day in 1920.

United Hunts Racing Association meet at Belmont Park Terminal track, May 22, 1920.

Beatrice Clafin and M.M. Van Beuren at the United Hunts Racing Association meet at Belmont Park Terminal track, Belmont, New York, May 22, 1920.

The Civil Retirement Act went into effect on this day, providing retirement for employees of the United States government.  

We're so used to thinking of this as always having existed we fail to appreciate that in fact a century ago retirement was not only not a sure thing, it was contrary to the norm.

Causalities of Tension and Incompetence.

Iran shot down a Ukrainian airliner over Tehran this week, after its retaliatory missile strikes on US facilities in Iraq.  The plane was carrying Iranians mostly bound for Canada, which has a large Iranian immigrant population.

To make this plane, Iran's military shot down a civilian aircraft over their own capitol city.

This is because the Iranian military isn't great.

Iran has universal male conscription at 18 years of age.  Interestingly, prior to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, it also conscripted women, but stopped at that time.  This means it has a large conscript military.

And while it has obtained arms, as the greed and stupidity of nations exceeds their best interests all too often, their military is basically a 1970s vintage force.

We don't know what happened to lead to this tragedy, but my guess is that a tired and scared group of Iranian conscripts had been harangued by officers and seniors about expecting an American attack to the point they were worn out and scared.  So they fired on what they thought was an American military aircraft and 176 completely innocent people, most of whom were their fellow countrymen. We don't know what happened to the men who fired the missile, but we can be assured that it is or was bad.

Nothing will happen to the men ultimately responsible for the tragedy, which is the Iranian Islamist leadership that has governed the country for forty one years and kept in on a violent path of regional Shiite dominance. That government will ultimately go down in an Iranian revolution of some sort, and much of their theocratic views forever with it.

Where this leaves the Iranian American Conflict is not known, but what has turned out to be the case is that an extremely risky course of action the US embarked on due to an order of President Trump and under the apparent urging of Mike Pompeo has been surprisingly effective so far.  Nearly everyone agrees that Gen. Soleimani was a terrorist whose demise should not be lamented.  That he was a uniformed officer of the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, and the method by which it occurred really ramped up the risks, but Iran's response was ineffective, perhaps intentionally so, or perhaps simply because it was.  And Iran managed to put the period on the entire event by following up an ineffective missile strike by shooting down a Ukrainian airliner.  The U.S., in the meantime, has essentially declared the matter over.

Either as an example of truly masterful strategy, or by accident, the U.S. has effectively moved the bar on state sponsored terrorism and, due to the past week, managed to make state employed uniformed terrorist a routine target in wars on terrorism and to have exposed Iran's conventional forces as less than impressive.  Iran may have in fact suffered a set back as a sponsor of terrorism and given its history, that's a large part of its diplomatic approach to the world. Without it, it's not much.

At least not much until it acquires a nuclear weapon, which it is now working on.  Indeed, exposed as conventionally incompetent and now with a reduced military portfolio because of the changed nature of the game, it may be stepping back because it knows this has become a must for it.

Or so it probably believes. The irony of it is that nuclear weapons for small nations are, frankly, completely worthless.

Asymmetrical War and Gross Overreaction

Dear readers, it is important to note that Pearl Harbor has not been struck by the Japanese in a second sneak attack.

Eh?

Well, the reason I note that is that event was the last one which caused the United States to declare war on anyone. Sure, we've fought several undeclared conflicts since then, one, or two, of which were illegally fought in that they required, in my view, a declaration of war, but there's no risk of "World War III".

None the less, some in the Press are even kicking around World War III headlines, which provides evidence of why people who are deeply informed on any one topic tend to take the Press with a very high dose of salt.

At the same time, we'd note, basically historical ignorance combined with people's basic love of panic, and people do love a good panic, is contributing to the complete and utter nonsense that's circulating right now.

Okay, what's this about and what's really going on, to the extent we know.

Death from above.  Starting with the Obama Administration and continuing now onto the Trump Administration individual enemies of the US and those near them have found themselves alive one moment and in eternity the next through strikes conducted by Predator drones, such as this one in Iraq.  Last week Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani found himself in the situation of flying into Baghdad to consult with those he lead in the name of the spread of Shia Islam to being in the next world and finding out if the 7th Century founder of Islam was right. .  or wrong. . . or perhaps a now greatly misunderstood Gnostic preacher who wasn't sending a message as now understood.

Last week President Trump, without informing Congress, ordered a drone strike on Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani.  Soleimani, in an acting of stunning hubris, flew into a nation where Iran maintains client militias in the Iranian's government effort to subvert the Middle East for the purpose of spreading the Shia theocracy, even while its own people are leaving Islam in droves and declaring they've had enough of the Shia theocracy.

Indeed, were the Iranian government lead by men with flexible minds overall, they'd democratize the country immediately, which would give Shia fundamentalism a much better chance of retaining influence in Iran, assuming its not too late, than their current course.  The course they're on right now will result in the secularization of the nation through disgust, sooner or later, and an educated Iranian population is already well into the process of pondering Islam's contradictions and problems.

But that's not the course of action they're going to take. They're going to go down with the ship, and make it worse for themselves.

And part of that is sponsoring guerrilla war against all sorts of forces and states in the region, including subverting the Iraqi government  and sponsoring militias there.

Gen. Qasem Soleimani had been instrumental in it and he met a fate he basically deserved.  

He deserved it as he was an instrument in a struggle that depended at its core on Iran's opponents not behaving like Iran.  And just like the rude motorist who finds himself cutoff by a tow truck driver who has had enough, Iran is complaining about it.

Citing Gasoline Alley may seem odd here, but in essence, Iran is behaving like Doc.

Iran of course feels this way as its been allowed to.  Western powers have restrained themselves from taking on the theocracy since its first creation, no matter how difficult that nation has been, for a variety of reasons.  And there's real logic to that approach.  Sooner or later, Iran's going to collapse under its own oppressive weight and the problem will be solved.

None of which means that anyone must tolerate their violent misbehavior in the meantime.

Which also doesn't mean that killing a top general of their's is wise

Indeed, all of this is very problematic.  For one thing, it's extremely odd to be using killer drones over the downtown street of a country you theoretically are aiding.  Indeed, as we are the guest, and they are the host, we presumably would want permission to act in this fashion.

We didn't get that, and we wouldn't have received it either.  Iran has strong influence in the Iraqi government.

Additionally, flat out killing an Iranian general in this fashion, while technologically impressive and oddly honest in a way as well, isn't really strategically sound for a variety of reasons, first and foremost of which is that overall any one general's ability to influence the long term outcome of a struggle is always questionable.  

Even if he is key, however, doing it outright will cause the Iranian people to rally to their government, no matter how much they might otherwise detest it.  Deeply Orthodox Russian soldiers fought for the atheistic Soviet Union heroically, as Mother Russia had been attacked.  

Red Army soldier, likely a Soviet Pole, and a Catholic, during World War Two.

And while it may be a bad or disturbing example, German soldiers fought tooth and nail during the final months of World War Two against the advancing Soviets.  Viet Cong solders, increasingly youthful as the war went on, fought hard in the 1970s for a cause they only understood loosely at best simply because the other side was there, in their concept of another side.

The point is that this actually may serve to prolong the struggle with Iran.

Which is why, if it was necessary, most nation's would have gone about this differently.  In Baghdad nobody would have though much of a couple of RPG rockets slamming into a car followed by concluding bursts of AKM (AK47) fire.  It'd look like another Iraqi militia had done it.

Indeed, a colleague of mine who had once been a Navy SEAL told me that in his day, for sidearms they carried Browning Hi Powers. They were used by so many nations at that time that if one was dropped, you could never tell what military had been there.

This assumes, of course, that it was necessary to kill Soleimani, which is a big assumption.  It's difficult for me to see how that would have been true.  Of course, the New York Times is now declaring he was no big deal, but the Times, like Chuck Todd, has become so partisan its lost all objectivity.  Suffice it to say, however, taking us to a higher level of conflict with Iran right now really raises some questions.

One question it doesn't raise is whether or not we're going into "World War III".

There's actually some outright moronic speculation of this type.  On Twitter, for example, the Twitter Twits are causing this to trend today:

Politics · Trending

#Iranattack

Trending with: #IranUsa, #WWIIl

That's just silly.

But perhaps not as silly as this:

Selective Service

@SSS_gov

·

Jan 3

Due to the spread of misinformation, our website is experiencing high traffic volumes at this time. If you are attempting to register or verify registration, please check back later today as we are working to resolve this issue. We appreciate your patience.

Eh gads, any narcissistic fool who seriously is calling the Selective Service as they think there's going to be a resumption of conscription is truly a bed wetter.  Head out of the phone bucko, and read some real history.

There isn't even going to be a conventional war between Iran and the United States.  Iran would loose it and they know that.  All of which makes the public freaking out about this downright dumb.

Indeed, probably the most amusing freak out was that of Rose McGowan. She's an actress, and therefore is part of the vapid set, who posted a gif of an Iranian flag with a sunny and a smiling bear, or something, on it, with this text:

Deaar #Iran, The USA has disrespected your country, your flag, your people. 52% of us humbly apologize. We want peace with your nation. We are being held hostage by a terrorist regime. We do not know how to escape. Please do not kill us. #Soleimani

That's really stupid.

That it was stupid became pretty obvious really quickly and she began to back-peddle enduing up with this:

Ok, so I freaked out because we may have any impending war. Sometimes it’s okay to freak out on those in power. It’s our right. That is what so many Brave soldiers have fought for. That is democracy. I do not want any more American soldiers killed. That’s it.

Oh horse sh**.  This was an example of vapidness blowing up on the commentator.  There's a lot of it around right now.  And its just not very smart.

There's going to be no conventional war with Iran.  We aren't going to engage in one, and the Iranians aren't either.  Neither side, in fact, could easily do it, but it it occurred, it would be the end of the Iranian theocracy, and they likely know deep down that its winding down anyhow and they don't want to accelerate that.  At some foreseeable point in the near future the Shiite mullahs of Iran will have the same level of influence on Iran that the Church of Sweden has over that county's affairs. That's not to say none, in either case, but it won't be what it is now.

Speculation about the effectiveness of the Iranian military has been rampant for a really long time, but the best evidence is that it isn't.  The common citation to their effectiveness is the example of their war that Iraq fought with Iran from 1980 to 1988 in which both sides actually demonstrated a raving level of military incompetence.

Fighting to a draw with modern weapons and World War One technology isn't an example of military prowess.  At that time Iran had a western trained 1970s vintage military with 1970s vintage military equipment and Iraq had a Soviet trained 1970s vintage military with 1970s vintage military equipment.  Both side managed to forget their training nearly immediately and fought with their respective 1970s equipment as if it was 1917.  

Iran still has 1970s equipment but now are largely internally trained and, in a conventional war, would be even less competent than they were in the 1980s, much like the Iraqis were in the 1990s and 2000s. And they likely have no illusion about being able to fight anyone.

Iranian F-14s in the 1980s. The F-14 was a great plane, but old airplanes with no parts don't stay great and technology has moved on.

Indeed, they don't really try. The Iranians like asymmetrical, irregular war, and that's what we'll likely see.  But we will see that.

Which does bring us back around to a more tense situation.  Will Iran try to close the Persian Gulf and what will the Europeans do if they do (they depend on it being open more than we do)?  Will Iran ramp up terrorism?

Indeed, the latter appears to be a certainty, as Iran has already stated that its retaliation will be "against military sites". That's worrying, but what that suggest is that they'll engage in asymmetrical war at a calculated level.  Basically, like Arab nations did with Israel for decades.  Just enough violence to not really provoke a war terminating their state.

All of which means that this will go on, most likely, for years. . . depending upon our reaction, which is proving to be the difficult one right now.  And that's the weird situation that Iran finds itself in.  Like a habitual rude driver, they suddenly find themselves having angered somebody who appears to be irrational and are now in the "oh crap. . . did that tow truck driver cut me off and is he getting out of the cab with a beer and a gun. . . ?"  Nobody knows what any reaction from the United States will be right now.

Including Americans.

But it won't involve World War Three and it won't involve conscription.

It'll be more analogous to the the long Arab Israeli struggle, at least for the time being.  Which means that panicked might have to do a little studying.

So then what? Lex Anteinternet: December 1, 1969. The United States resumes a lottery system for conscription.

Last week we published this item:

Lex Anteinternet: December 1, 1969. The United States resumes a lott...:

In that, we noted the following:

The resumption of a lottery system for the draft, in which each registrant was assigned a number and the number then drawn at random, was designed to attempt to reduce the unpopularity of conscription at that point in the Vietnam War.  Numerous changes were made to the system during the war including ending a marriage exemption and ultimately curtaining an exemption for graduate students. With the adoption of the lottery system also came a change in age focus so that rather than top of those in the age range being drafted it then focused on those who were 19 years old. The reason for this was that if a person's number wasn't chosen in the lottery as a 19 year old, they were not going to be drafted and could accordingly plan around that.

So, as noted, the concept was that the lottery would reduce resistance to the draft.

So, did it?

In fact, it did remarkably, and not only that, protests of the Vietnam War dropped off on college campuses remarkably in 1970.

Now, not completely.  Indeed, one of the absolute worst events associated with the era of college war protests, the shooting at Kent State, would come in 1970.  But there was a marked reduction.

Indeed, university faculty, which had evolved from a sort of genteel conservatism early in the 20th Century into an increasingly liberal faculty over the years, was both surprised and disappointed as they'd come to believe that the core of the opposition was social concern, rather than personal concern.  It turned out that at least the evidence was the opposite.

So, what generally occurred with the lottery is that a large number of men knew after a lottery call that they were never going to be drafted and they accordingly planned conventionally.  Another group knew for sure it had been drafted and planned for that. A number in the middle felt their chances of being drafted were likely, reviewed the deferments they might be qualified for, with quite a few heading for Reserve component recruiters or the ROTC building.

The opposition to the war certainly didn't end.  But the heat had been taken out of the issue to a surprising degree.

December 1, 1969. The United States resumes a lottery system for conscription.

This is, frankly, a bit confusing.

The United States had resumed conscription following World War Two in March 1948.  It had only actually expired in January 1947, showing how a need for manpower in the wake of World War Two caused it to actually continue to exist in spite of a large reduction in force following the end of the war.

After coming back into effect in March 1948 it stayed in existence until 1973, but was then done away with following the end of the Vietnam War. By that time conscription was massively unpopular.  It can't be said to have ever really been "popular", per se, but it didn't meet with real resistance until the Vietnam War.

The resumption of a lottery system for the draft, in which each registrant was assigned a number and the number then drawn at random, was designed to attempt to reduce the unpopularity of conscription at that point in the Vietnam War.  Numerous changes were made to the system during the war including ending a marriage exemption and ultimately curtaining an exemption for graduate students. With the adoption of the lottery system also came a change in age focus so that rather than top of those in the age range being drafted it then focused on those who were 19 years old. The reason for this was that if a person's number wasn't chosen in the lottery as a 19 year old, they were not going to be drafted and could accordingly plan around that.

Because of the way that the draft worked prior to 1969, and even after that date, many men joined the service when faced with the near certainty of being conscripted. As a result, oddly, far more men volunteered for service than who were actually conscripted.  Additionally, the number of men who were volunteers for the service who served in Vietnam outnumbered those who were drafted, with a surprisingly large number of troops who served in the war itself volunteering for service in Vietnam.

It's odd to think that in a nation in which every holiday has somehow been turned into Veteran's Day. . .

a question like this just doesn't seem to really matter:

Did a Queens Podiatrist Help Donald Trump Avoid Vietnam?

But then, the same generation that started turning every holiday into Veteran's Day is the one that the individual in question is from. And that process started, at least in part, as some felt bad about taking that path at the time, even though they didn't feel bad about it at the time.

I still can't help but wonder what became of Pvt. Dilley.

You remember Pvt. Dilley, at least if you followed this and our Today In Wyoming's History blog.

Drafted men boarding a train to a military camp for training.  Is Pvt. Dilley looking back at us?

I particularly wonder in light of the story of the Wyoming National Guardsmen of the 148th Field Artillery we discussed here the other day, and their proud service.

For those who might not recall. Pvt. Dilley was a young soldier who joined the National Guard when the Guard was recalled to service following the declaration of war against Germany.  In early August, he disappeared.  At first it seemed foul play or a tragic accident was involved.  It was suspected that he'd drowned in a stream, for example.

Well, soon after that, it appeared that Dilley had just despaired of military life and had gone AWOL, and that had grown into desertion.

He never reappeared.

His elderly father hoped for his return but felt that he had been murdered. Authorities didn't support that view and believed he'd simply taken off.

If he did, he took off into a country that would draft a 4,000,000 man Army and which became aggressive about "slackers".  It would have been hard for Dilley to remain out of uniform.

American medics treating a battlefield casualty, March 6, 1918.  Is Dilley on the stretcher?  Is he treating the wounded.

In 1917 it probably didn't seem that way. The country didn't have Social Security Cards at the time.  Most people didn't drive, actually and driver's licenses were mostly a thing of the future.  Lots of people had no birth certificates.  In short, "ID" was basically a thing in the American future.

If Dilley deserted, as the authorities believed, and was not murdered, as his father believed, staying out of the military would have been tough for a man of his age.  Some did manage, however.  Perhaps he did.  Perhaps he somehow simply managed to dodge service, although as noted that was far from easy.  Maybe he took a job in a shipyard or something of the type, which provided some of the few draft exempt occupations that were available during the war.

Did Dilley find work in a plant during the war that exempted him from service? And if he did, did he pass a sign like this everyday and feel guilty about his path, or relieved that he wasn't in France?

Some took the opposite approach, as we've read about before, and escaped the law by entering the service where they blended into the mass of men joining for World War One.  Dilley may have done that. Perhaps he just joined back up, or was drafted under an assumed name.

Its impossible to not to wonder what became of him.  If he did end up back in uniform, was his second experience with military life better than the first?  He was supposed to be a medic in the Wyoming National Guard. What did he end up in his second experiment with the service, he that occurred. A medic again?  A clerk? An infantrymen?  In the Army of 1917-18 non combat roles were much fewer than those in later eras.  Did he march in the mud of France carrying a 1917 Enfield on his shoulder at the Marine watching Renault EGs roll by wishing he'd stayed in the Guard?

We'll never know.

His father never found out.

But we wish we did.

American Renault EG artillery tractor towing a French made 155 howitzer.  Did Dilley end up marching past his former compatriots of the Wyoming National Guard and wish he'd stayed in (although being an artillerymen was dangerous enough in its own right).

Great War Post Script. November 12, 1918: Mutinous German sailors decide to attack the Allies? Draftees still have to report.

The Cheyenne State Leader was wrong.  German sailors were not mobilizing to set sail to take on the Allies.

No, not even close.

The Casper Daily Press did better on the first post World War One day of 1918. 

Like Cheyenne, there'd been a lot of celebrating the prior day.

That next day, however, those who had been selected to report for military training, i.e., conscripted, still had to go, even if the Selective Service System was immediately ceasing to classify men for additional conscription.

More news from the border, Noyon falls to the French, mule reunion, and twenty personal questions. The News. August 29, 1918.

Sniping was still going on, but I don't know if this ultimatum was delivered or not.  It may have been.

The Casper paper was also reportign that Gen. Cabell had issued an ultimatum.

As usual, the Laramie Boomerang was less dramatic about things.  But there was disturbing news about new "sin taxes".

The Wyoming State Tribune lead with the fall of Noyon to the French, as did every other paper.  But it also had a touching story on an equine reunion and discussed the twenty personal questions new draftees would be asked.  Along with a story on the events in Nogales.

Oh, the humanity. July 19, 1918. Headline from the New York Times.

BASEBALL TEAMS MUST GO TO WORK; Baker Makes Final Ruling That the Players Are in a Nonessential Pursuit.AFFECTS ALL OF DRAFT AGEFew Stars Are Not Included in Order and the Big Leagues' Future Is in Doubt.OFFICIAL ADVICE AWAITEDSecretary Favors a Change in Regulations to Take in All WhoAre Only Entertainers. Text of Baker's Decision Recreational Value of Game. All Must Make Sacrifices.

Transportation disasters and milestones, and a draft war. July 9, 1918.

101, officially, (it may have been 121) people were killed and 175 injured in  a train collision of two trains belonging to the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway near Nashville.  Many were black munitions workers on their way to work in Nashville.

The locomotives were actually repaired and put back into service, being retired in 1947 and 1948.

It is the worst railroad accident in American history.

Elsewhere, and more specifically in Alberta, American aviatrix Katherine Stinson made the first airmail flight in Western Canada, flying a mail sack from Edmonton to Calgary.

Stinson had been flying for six years at the time and had already set air records. Indeed, she's figured on our blog before.  She would later become an architect and worked in that profession for may years.

In other news of the day, July 9, was day two of the Cleburne County Draft War in Arkansas.  The small armed conflict involved draft resisting members of the Jehovah's Witnesses who became involved in a gunfight with local law enforcement and then fled into the rural hills, picking up other draft resistors on the way.  The Arkansas National Guard responded to search for them.  The event would end in a few days, after the loss of one life in the conflict, when the resistors surrendered.  This was one of three "draft wars" in Arkansas, which was highly rural and retained strong aspects of the Southern ruralism at the time, which would occur during World War One.

La na mBan occurs in Ireland

A large protest by the Irish Women's Workers Union occurred this day in Dublin, Ireland.   The protest, besides the crowds associated it with it, featured a pledge, which read:

A Solemn Pledge from the Women of Ireland.

Because the enforcement of conscription on any people without their consent is tyranny, we are resolved to resist the conscription of Irishmen. We will not fill the places of men deprived of their work through refusing enforced military service. We will do all in our power to help the families of men who suffer through refusing enforced military service.

The union itself came about as labor unions in Ireland were closed to women.  Perhaps ironically the first head of the union was male.  At any rate, this protest provided another example of how things were really not going that well for the Allies at this time.  Indeed, they were close to loosing the war.

Consider, in this early June day in 1918, the Germans had launched their fourth major attack in their Spring Offensive and only the intervention of American troops had prevented the last one from succeeding.  They appeared to be capable of resuming such activity again and again.  Russia was now out of the war.  Conscription in Canada had met with such opposition that the opposition was effectively preventing it from contributing any conscripted men to the war effort at all and the same thing was occurring in Ireland.

May 28, 1968. Creedance Clearwater Revival releases its self named album

The hit from the album, which had been released as a single the prior year, was Suzie Q, a cover of a song from the prior decade by Dale Hawkins.

Creedance Clearwater Revival

Like a lot of bands from "the 60s", CCR was really a band from the late 60s, although it had been around since 1959 as the Blue Velvets.  In the early 60s they renamed themselves the Golliwoggs and recorded under that label.

In 1966 two members of the band, John Fogerty and Doug Clifford entered reserves of the military, the Army and Coast Guard Reserves respectively, when faced with active duty military service. This restricted the ability of the band to tour although it continued to somewhat.  In January 1968 they changed the band's name to its final form and later that year both Fogerty and Clifford completed their military service.  Their initial album came on this date in 1968.

The Irish Anti Conscription Pledge

On this day in 1918 the Irish Anti Conscription Committee urged the following to be posted for enrollment on every Catholic Church door in Ireland:

Denying the right of the British government to enforce compulsory service in this country, we pledge ourselves solemnly to one another to resist conscription by the most effective means at our disposal.

The Military Service (No. 2) Act, 1918 attempts to extend conscription to Ireland. April 9, 1918.

And would, accordingly, prove to be a big mistake.

The Irish had volunteered in large numbers to serve in the British Army during World War One, which of course was their army as they were part of the United Kingdom.  In spite of that, this did not mean by any means that all was well with the relations between Ireland and London.  It had never been, although that relationship had improved greatly over the last couple of decades.

The improvement of that relationship lead to a movement towards home rule that would have almost certainly caused Ireland to be self governing on domestic maters, while still part of the United Kingdom, by 1915 but for the arrival of World War One.  At that point all discussion on this topic was surrendered for the duration of the war.  Parliament had been cognizant, however, that Ireland's situation was fluid and it had not extended conscription to Ireland.  The strained relationship had, of course, lead to the Easter Rebellion of 1916, but that uprising had not been supported by the majority of the Irish and indeed was unpopular at the time.

Faced with the crisis of the German Spring Offensive and a severe immediate military crisis, Parliament finally acted to extend conscription to Ireland on this date.  

That would prove to be a grave error, just as it would prove to be in Canada.

Wyoming State Tribune, March 29, 1918. The Germans in control of the breweries?

Lots of grim war news.

And a report that the Germans were in control of the breweries to the tune of, a fellow from the Anti Saloon League claimed, 75%. That is, he said, 75% of all the stock owned in breweries was owned in Germany.

Hmmm. . . . .

And a draft evader was shot in the Seminoes after fighting to contest his arrest.  As this shows, there was opposition to the draft during the Great War and it was sometimes pretty determined, even if most people accepted it readily.

The Easter Riots Commence in Quebec City, March 28, 1918.

Several days of rioting, which would run through April 1, commenced on this day in Quebec City in 1918.

 

An example of a Canadian recruiting poster directed at the residents of Montreal (with which my family has a connection). Such efforts were not entirely successful.  This unit sought to recruit members of the fairly large Irish Canadian community of Quebec.

The underlying cause of the riots was conscription, which was deeply unpopular in Canada in general and hugely unpopular in Quebec, which saw the war as a European affair that they had very little stake or interest in.  404,385 Canadian men became liable for military service under the Military Service Act, which became law on January 1. 385,510 sought exemption and, given the vague nature of the statute, most succeeded.

The immediate cause of the rioting was the arrest of a French Canadian man who failed to present his exemption papers.  He was released, but things soon were totally out of control.  Soldiers had to be called into the city under the War Measures Act of 1914.  The deeply unpopular act and the riots lead to the proposed Francœur Motion under which Quebec was proposed to declare that it would be happy to leave the Canadian union if the rest of the then very English country found Quebec to be "an obstacle to the union, progress and development of Canada".  The motion was not introduced in the end out of a fear of what it would lead to.

In some ways the rioting strongly recalls the reaction that the Irish had to conscription which lead to the Easter Rebellion of 1916. England itself had no tradition of conscription for land service (it did for sea service) and conscription was actually more strongly established in the United States which had required militia service by state in all states up until after the Civil War, with there being outright conscription during the Civil War.  The English accepted it however.  None of the Dominions took well to it and Ireland, part of the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, was massively opposed to it.  Originally the Irish were exempted from English conscription but when that was repealed in 1916 it lead to the Easter Rebellion and ultimately to the Anglo Irish War and Irish independence.  Australia rejected attempts to impose conscription in that Dominion in a national plebiscite, while New Zealand on the other hand adopted it.  Canada too adopted it after a prior failed attempt, but as can be seen, it was not a success and it fueled early thoughts of Quebec separation.

The irony of this is that while this was occurring, Ireland, Australia and Canada all contributed large bodies of men to the war voluntarily.  So,in the end, efforts to impose conscription in those localities were at best a waste of time and effort and at worst a cause of net manpower loss.

It's worth noting that conscription remained unpopular in Australia and Canada during World War Two and while both nations imposed it, only late in the war were conscripts required to serve overseas.  In Australia's case disgruntled conscripts were a source of poor units that otherwise stand apart from the really notable fighting qualities of the Australian Army.  Canadian conscripts seem to have accepted their late war fate and generally have worked out well when they were finally required to go overseas.  Ireland was of course independent , although a dominion, by World War Two, and it refused to declare war but once again supplied a large number of troops to the British forces.  Surprisingly Australia twice imposed conscription post World War Two, once during the Korean War and again during the Vietnam War.  Canada briefly followed the British example of Cold War conscription but phased it out very quickly and has never resumed it.

Laramie Boomerang, February 18, 1918. Exact same weather report a century prior.

Today's weather report could have been a repeat of the one in this issue of the Laramie Boomerang from February 18, 1918.

Two draft evaders headed for Mexico?  Seems like a poor move.