Saturday, June 2, 1945. Pope Pius XII gave an address to the College of Cardinals

Pope Pius XII gave an address to the College of Cardinals warning that danger still existed in Europe.

As we very gratefully acknowledge, venerable brethren, the good wishes which the venerable and beloved dean of the Sacred College has offered to us on your behalf, our thoughts bring us back to this day six years ago when you offered your congratulations on our feast day for the first time after we, though unworthy, had been raised to the See of Peter.

The world was then still at peace: but what a peace and how very precarious!

With a heart full of anguish, perplexed, praying, we bent over that peace like one that assists a dying man and fights obstinately to save him from death even when all hope is gone.

The message which we then addressed to you reflected our sorrowful apprehension that the conflict which was ever growing more menacing would break out-a conflict whose extent and duration nobody could foresee. The subsequent march of events has not only justified all too clearly our saddest premonitions but has far surpassed them.

Today, after six years, the fratricidal struggle has ended, at least in one section of this war-torn world. It is a peace if you can call it such-as yet very fragile, which cannot endure or be consolidated except by expanding on it the most assiduous care; a peace whose maintenance imposes on the whole church, both pastor and faithful, grave and very delicate duties: patient prudence, courageous fidelity, the spirit of sacrifice!

All are called upon to devote themselves to it, each in his own office and at his own place. Nobody can bring to this task too much anxiety or zeal. As to us and our apostolic ministry, we well know, venerable brethren, that we can safely count on your sage collaboration, your unceasing prayers, your steadfast devotion.

I. The Church and National Socialism 

In Europe the war is over: but what wounds has it not inflicted! Our Divine Master has said: "All that take the sword shall perish with the sword" (Matthew xxvi, 52).

Now what do you see? You see what is the result of a concept of the State reduced to practice which takes no heed of the most sacred ideals of mankind, which overthrows the inviolable principles of the Christian faith. The whole world today contemplates with stupefaction the ruins that it has left behind it. These ruins we had seen when they were still in the distant future, and few, we believe, have followed with greater anxiety the process leading to the inevitable crash.

For over twelve years-twelve of the best years of our mature age-we had lived in the midst of the German people, fulfilling the duties of the office committed to us. During that time, in the atmosphere of liberty which the political and social conditions of that time allowed, we worked for consolidation of the status of the Catholic Church in Germany.

We thus had occasion to learn the great qualities of the people and we were personally in close contact with its most representative men. For that reason we cherish the hope that it can rise to the new dignity and new life when once it has laid the satanic specter raised by National Socialism and the guilty (as we have already at other times had occasion to expound) have expiated the crimes they have committed.

While there was still some faint glimmer of hope that that movement could take another and less disastrous course either through the disillusionment of its more moderate members or through effective opposition from that section of the German people which opposed it, the church did everything possible to set up a formidable barrier to the spread of ideas at once subversive and violent.

In the spring of 1933 the German Government asked the Holy See to conclude a concordat with the Reich: the proposal had the approval of the Episcopate and of at least the greater number of the German Catholics.

In fact, they thought that neither the concordats up to then negotiated with some individual German states nor the Weimar Constitution gave adequate guarantee or assurance of respect for their convictions, for their faith, rights or liberty of action.

In such conditions the guarantees could not be secured except through a settlement having the solemn form of a concordat with the Central Government of the Reich.

It should be added that, since it was the Government that made the proposal, the responsibility for all regrettable consequences would have fallen on the Holy See if it had refused the proposed concordat.

It was not that the church, for her part, had any illusions built on excessive optimism or that, in concluding the concordat, she had the intention of giving any form of approval to the teachings or tendencies of National Socialism; this was expressly declared and explained at the time (Cfr L'Osservatore Romano, No. 174, July 2, 1933). It must, however, be recognized that the concordat in the years that followed brought some advantages or at least prevented worse evils.

In fact, in spite of all the violations to which it was subjected, it gave Catholics a juridical basis for their defense, a stronghold behind which to shield themselves in their opposition-as long as this was possible-to the ever growing campaign of religious persecution.

The struggle against the church did, in fact, become ever more bitter: there was the dissolution of Catholic organizations; the gradual suppression of the flourishing Catholic schools, both public and private; the enforced weaning of youth from family and church; the pressure brought to bear on the conscience of citizens and especially of civil servants; the systematic defamation, by means of a clever, closely organized propaganda, of the church, the clergy, the faithful, the church's institutions, teaching and history; the closing, dissolution and confiscation of religious houses and other ecclesiastical institutions; the complete suppression of the Catholic press and publishing houses.

To resist such attacks millions of courageous Catholics, men and women, closed their ranks around their Bishops, whose valiant and severe pronouncements never failed to resound even in these last years of war. These Catholics gathered around their priests to help them adapt their ministry to the ever changing needs and conditions. And right up to the end they set up against the forces of impiety and pride their forces of faith, prayer and openly Catholic behavior and education.

In the meantime, the Holy See itself multiplied its representations and protests to governing authorities in Germany, reminding them in clear and energetic language of their duty to respect and fulfill the obligations of the natural law itself that were confirmed by the concordat.

In those critical years, joining the alert vigilance of a pastor to the long suffering patience of a father, our great predecessor, Pius XI, fulfilled his mission as Supreme Pontiff with intrepid courage. But when, after he had tried all means of persuasion in vain, he saw himself clearly faced with deliberate violations of a solemn pact, with a religious persecution masked or open but always rigorously organized, he proclaimed to the world on Passion Sunday, 1937, in his encyclical "Mit Brennender Sorge" what national socialism really was: the arrogant apostasy from Jesus Christ, the denial of His doctrine and of His work of redemption, the cult of violence, the idolatry of race and blood, the overthrow of human liberty and dignity.

Like a clarion call that sounds the alarm, the Papal document with its vigorous terms-too vigorous, thought more than one at the time-startled the minds and hearts of men. Many-even beyond the frontiers of Germany-who up to then had closed their eyes to the incompatibility of the national socialist viewpoint with the teachings of Christ had to recognize and confess their mistake. Many-but not all! Some even among the faithful themselves were too blinded by their prejudices or allured by political advantage.

The evidence of the facts brought forward by our predecessor did not convince them, much less induce them to change their ways. Is it mere chance that some regions, which later suffered more from the national socialist system, were precisely those where the encyclical "Mit Brennender Sorge" was less or not at all heeded?

Would it then have been possible, by opportune and timely political action, to block once and for all the outbreak of brutal violence and to put the German people in the position to shake off the tentacles that were strangling it? Would it have been possible thus to have saved Europe and the world from this immense inundation of blood? Nobody would dare to give an unqualified judgment.

But in any case nobody could accuse the church of not having denounced and exposed in time the true nation of the National Socialist movement and the danger to which it exposed Christian civilization.

"Whoever sets up race or the people or the state or a particular form of state or the depositaries' power or any other fundamental value of the human community to be the supreme norm of all, even of religious values, and divinizes them to an idolatrous level distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God." (Cfr Acta Apostolica Sedis, Vol. XXIX, 1937, pages 149 and 171.)

The radical opposition of the National Socialist State to the Catholic Church is summed up in this declaration of the encyclical. When things had reached this point the church could not without foregoing her mission any longer refuse to take her stand before the whole world.

But by doing so she became once again "a sign which shall be contradicted" (Luke ii, 34), in the presence of which contrasting opinions divided off into two opposed camps.

German Catholics were, one may say, as one in recognizing that the encyclical "Mit Brennender Sorge" had brought light, direction, consolation and comfort to all those who seriously meditated and conscientiously practiced the religion of Christ. But the reaction of those who had been inculpated was inevitable, and, in fact, that very year, 1937, was for the Catholic Church in Germany a year of indescribable bitterness and terrible outbreaks.

The important political events which marked the two following years and then the war did not bring an attenuation to the hostility of National Socialism toward the church, a hostility which was manifest up to these last months, when National Socialists still flattered themselves with the idea that once they had secured victory in arms they could do away with the church forever.

Authoritative and absolutely trustworthy witnesses kept us informed of these plans-they unfolded themselves actually in the reiterated and ever more intense activity against the church in Austria, Alsace Lorraine and, above all, in those parts of Poland which had already been incorporated in the old Reich during the war: there everything was attacked and destroyed; that is, everything that could be reached by external violence.

Continuing the work of our predecessor, we ourselves have during the war and especially in our radio messages constantly set forth the demands and perennial laws of humanity and of the Christian faith in contrast with the ruinous and inexorable applications of national socialist teachings, which even went so far as to use the most exquisite scientific methods to torture or eliminate people who were often innocent.

This was for us the most opportune-and we might even say the only-efficacious way of proclaiming before the world the immutable principles of the moral law and of confirming, in the midst of so much error and violence, the minds and hearts of German Catholics in the higher ideals of truth and justice. And our solicitude was not without its effect. Indeed, we know that our messages and especially that of Christmas, 1942, despite every prohibition and obstacle, were studied in the diocesan clergy conferences in Germany and then expounded and explained to the Catholic population.

If the rulers of Germany had decided to destroy the Catholic Church even in the old Reich, Providence had decided otherwise. The tribulations inflicted on the church by national socialism have been brought to an end through the sudden and tragic end of the persecution! From the prisons, concentration camps and fortresses are now pouring out, together with the political prisoners, also the crowds of those, whether clergy or laymen, whose only crime was their fidelity to Christ and to the faith of their fathers or the dauntless fulfillment of their duties as priests.

For them all of us have prayed and have seized every opportunity, whenever the occasion offered, to send them a word of comfort and blessing from our paternal heart.

Indeed, the more the veils are drawn which up to now hid the sorrowful passion of the church under the national socialist regime, the more apparent becomes the strength, often steadfast unto death, of numberless Catholics and the glorious share in that noble contest which belonged to the clergy.

Although as yet not in possession of the complete statistics, we cannot refrain from recalling here, by way of example, some details from the abundant accounts which have reached us from priests and laymen who were interned in the concentration camp of Dachau and were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus. (Acts v, 41.)

In the forefront, for the number and harshness of the treatment meted out to them, are the Polish priests. From 1940 to 1945 2,800 Polish ecclesiastics and religious were imprisoned in that camp; among them was a Polish auxiliary bishop who died there of typhus. In April last there were left only 816, all the others being dead except for two or three transferred to another camp.

In the summer of 1942 480 German-speaking ministers of religion were known to be gathered there; of these, forty-five were Protestants, all the others Catholic priests. In spite of the continuous inflow of new internees, especially from some dioceses of Bavaria, the Rhineland and Westphalia, their number, as a result of the high rate of mortality, at the beginning of this year did not surpass 350.

Nor should we pass over in silence those belonging to occupied territories, Holland, Belgium, France (among whom the Bishop of Clermont), Luxembourg, Slovenia, Italy.

Many of those priests and laymen endured indescribable sufferings for their faith and for their vocation.

In one case the hatred of the impious against Christ reached the point of parodying on the person of an interned priest, with barbed wire, the scourging and the crowning with thorns of our Redeemer.

The generous victims who during the twelve years since 1933 have in Germany scarified for Christ and his church their possessions, their freedom, their lives, are raising their hands to God in expiatory sacrifice. May the just Judge accept it in reparation for the many crimes committed against mankind no less than against the present and future generation and especially against the unfortunate youth of Germany, and may He at last stay the arm of the exterminating angel!

With ever-increasing persistence National Socialism strove to denounce the church as the enemy of the German people. The manifest injustice of the accusation would have deeply offended the sentiment of German Catholics and our own if it had come from other lips. But on the lips of such accusers, so far from being a grievance, the accusation is the clearest and most honorable testimony to the strong, incessant opposition maintained by the church to such disastrous doctrines and methods in the interest of true civilization and of the German people; to that people we offer the wish that, freed now from the error which plunged it into chaos, it may find again its own salvation at the pure fountains of true peace and true happiness, at the fountains of truth, humility and charity flowing with the church from the heart of Christ.

II. Looking to the Future 

A hard-learnt lesson surely, that of these past years! God grant at least that it may have been understood and be profitable to other nations!

"Receive instruction, you that judge the earth!" (Psalm ii, 10.)

That is the most ardent wish of all who sincerely love mankind. For mankind, now the victim of an impious process of exhaustion, of cynical disregard for the life and rights of men, has but one aspiration: to lead a tranquil and pacific life in dignity and honest toil. And to this purpose it hopes that an end will be put to that insolence with which the family and the domestic hearth have been abused and profaned during the war years.

For that insolence cries to heaven and has evolved into one of the gravest perils not only for religion and morality but also for harmonious relations between men. It has, above all, created those mobs of dispossessed, disillusioned, disappointed and hopeless men who are going to swell the ranks of revolution and disorder, in the pay of a tyranny no less despotic than those for whose overthrow men planned.

The nations, and notably the medium and small nations, claim the right to take their destinies into their own hands. They can be led to assume, with their full and willing consent, in the interest of common progress, obligations which will modify their sovereign rights.

But after having sustained their share-their large share-of suffering in order to overthrow a system of brutal violence, they are entitled to refuse to accept a new political or cultural system which is decisively rejected by the great majority of their people. They maintain, and with reason, that the primary task of the peace-framers is to put an end to the criminal war game and to safeguard vital rights and mutual obligations as between the great and small, powerful and weak.

Deep in their hearts the peoples feel that their rule would be discredited if they did not succeed in supplanting the mad folly of the rule of violence by the victory of the right.

The thought of a new peace organization is inspired-nobody could doubt it-by the most sincere and loyal good will. The whole of mankind follows the progress of this noble enterprise with anxious interest. What a bitter disillusionment it would be if it were to fail, if so many years of suffering and self-sacrifice were to be made vain, by permitting again to prevail that spirit of oppression from which the world hoped to see itself at last freed once and for all!

Poor world, to which then might be applied the words of Christ: "And the last state of that man becomes worse than the first." (Luke xi, 24-26):

The present political and social situation suggests these words of warning to us. We have had, alas, to deplore in more than one region the murder of priests, deportations of civilians, the killing of citizens without trial or in personal vendetta. No less sad is the news that has reached us from Slovenia and Croatia.

But we will not lose heart. The speeches made by competent and responsible men in the course of the last few weeks made it clear that they are aiming at the triumph of right, not merely as a political goal but even more as a moral duty.

Accordingly, we confidently issue an ardent appeal for prayers to our sons and daughters of the whole world. May it reach all those who recognize in God the beloved Father of all men created to his image and likeness, to all who know that in the breast of Christ there beats a divine heart rich in mercy, deep and inexhaustible fountain of all good and all love, of all peace and all reconciliation.

From the cessation of hostilities to true and genuine peace, as we warned not long ago, the road will be long and arduous, too long for the pent-up aspiration of mankind starving for order and calm. But it is inevitable that it should be so.

It is even perhaps better thus. It is essential that the tempest of overexcited passions be first let subside: Motos praestate componere fluctus (Virgil, Aeneid 1, 135).

It is essential that the hate, the diffidence, the stimuli of an extreme nationalism should give way to the growth of wise counsels, the flowering of peaceful designs, to serenity in the interchange of views and to mutual brotherly comprehension.

May the holy spirit, light of intellects, gentle ruler of hearts, deign to hear the prayers of His church and guide in their arduous work those who in accordance with their mandate are striving sincerely despite obstacles and contradictions to reach the goal so universally, so ardently, desired: peace, a peace worthy of the name; a peace built and consolidated in sincerity and loyalty, in justice and reality; a peace of loyal and resolute force to overcome or preclude those economic and social conditions which might, as they did in the past, easily lead to new conflicts; a peace that can be approved by all right-minded men of every people and every nation; a peace which future generations may regard gratefully as the happy outcome of a sad period; a peace that may stand out in the centuries as a resolute advance in the affirmation of human dignity and of ordered liberty; a peace that may be like the Magna Charta which closed the dark age of violence; a peace that under the merciful guidance of God may let us so pass through temporal prosperity that we may not lose eternal happiness (cfr collect third Sunday after Pentecost).

But before reaching this peace it still remains true that millions of men at their own fireside or in battle, in prison or in exile must still drink their bitter chalice. How we long to see the end of their sufferings and anguish, the realization of their hopes! For them, too, and for all mankind that suffers with them and in them may our humble and ardent prayer ascend to Almighty God.

Meanwhile, venerable brethren, we are immensely comforted by the thought that you share our anxieties, our prayers, our hopes; and that throughout the world Bishops, priests and faithful are joining their supplications to ours in the great chorus of the universal church.

In testimony of our deep gratitude and as a pledge of infinite mercies and Divine favors, with sincere affection we impart to you, to them, to all who join us in desiring and working for peace our apostolic benediction.

Today In Wyoming's History: June 2: 1945  Ft. F. E. Warren made a redeployment center for Quartermaster and Transportation Corps troops, a rather surprising thing considering how late in World War Two this was.

"37mm anti-tank gun is shown firing cannister ammunition at Japs hidden in tall grass lining the road along route #5 between Yangiran and Bone Province. North Luzon, P.I. 2 June, 1945. Photographer: T/5 Morris Weiner."

August Hirt, age 47, German anatomist and Nazi who performed experiments on concentration camp inmates committed suicide.

The Soviet Union demanded a right of veto in the proposed United Nations Security Council.

"Sentimental Journey" by Les Brown topped the Billboard singles charts.

Last edition:

Friday, June 1, 1945. The Levant, the fate of the German Cossacks, and of Danish collaborators.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, British Army, Collaborators, Ethnicities, German Wehrmacht, Imperial Japanese Army, It was because of World War Two, Levant, Okinawa, Peggetz Massacre, U.S. Air Force, USSR, World War Two

Tuesday, June 13, 1899. The Battle of Zapote River

The hard fought Battle of Zapote River occured this day seeing the U.S. Army prevail against much larger numbers from the First Philippine Republic, due to superior arms and training, and Naval support.

The loss in the second-biggest engagement of the Philippine Insurrection caused the Philippine forces to resort to guerilla war thereafter.

Cpt. William H. Sage won the Congressional Medal of Honor for his role in the battle.

With 9 men volunteered to hold an advanced position and held it against a terrific fire of the enemy estimated at 1,000 strong. Taking a rifle from a wounded man, and cartridges from the belts of others, Capt. Sage himself killed 5 of the enemy.

Sage would go on to serve in the Border War in Mexico and rose to the rank of major general during World War One. After the war, he commanded Ft. D. A. Russell in Wyoming, where he became fatally ill.  He died in 1922 at age 63, just one month away from retirement. 

Douglas MacArthur entered the U.S. Military Academy.

Last prior edition:

Friday, June 11, 1899. Pope Leo XIII concecrates the entire human race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Labels: 1890s, 1899, Catholic, Christianity, religion

October 17, 1919 Airborne visitors to Casper and more crashes.

Mishaps continued to take a toll on aviators and their planes participating in the 1919 Air Derby.  Included in the mishaps were a directional one, that took an airplane all the way to Casper.

At the time, Casper's air strip was near Evansville.  Portions of it can still be seen there, but you have to know what you are looking at in order to appreciate what it was.

With the ongoing toll on American military aircraft its quite frankly surprising that the race continued, but perhaps at this point it would have been embarrassing to stop it.  Even with that, however, the airplane mania continued, as the flying school mom item gives evidence of.

One of the features of the aircraft in question is their short engine life.  No doubt more than one engine was replaced on more than one craft during the race.

In other news, it looked at the time as if the Reds were about to fall in Russia.

In the U.S., some worried about homegrown Reds.

New York Herald Cartoon, "To Make America Safe For Democracy", October 17, 1919

August 8, 1919. Making Cheyenne.

The 1919 transcontinental Motor Transport Convoy entered Wyoming on this day in 1919.

The convoy east of Cheyenne.

Governor Carey was on the road as well, meeting the convoy at Hillsdale, a small Wyoming town that is now a shadow of its former self.  From there they proceeded on to Cheyenne, where Ft. D. A. Russell somewhat ironically provided a cavalry escort through Cheyenne and onto the post.

They were treated to a rodeo at Frontier Park and the town's businesses closed at 4:00 p.m. for the festivities.

Elsewhere, the Third Afghan War came to an end when the warring parties signed the Ango-Afghan Treaty of 1919. The war had been short and fought for limited purposes. The result was the establishment of the current Afghan border and the end of British subsidies to Afghanistan.

In the wreck of the Austrian Empire, the First Hungarian Republic dissolved.  As confusing as the names may be, it was replaced by the Hungarian Republic, a more conservative government.

August 4, 1919. The Motor Transport Convoy goes nowhere at all, Romanians take Budapest.

For its entire journey, the Motor Transport Convoy had taken Sunday off.  It didn't due that for Sunday, August 3.

That may be because its progress had been cut in half by muddy roads.  At any rate, things caught up with it on Monday, August 4, when it was forced to take the day off due to mechanical problems that had to be addressed.

A Cheyenne newspaper noted the convoy on the front page for the first time due to the delay.

Cheyenne reported the delay was due to the need of a gasket for a Model B Liberty truck, which it also noted as being nonexistent at Ft. D. A. Russel and, moreover, being a mystery. But the convoy's diary make sit plain that the cause of the delay was more than that.

An Army that was advancing was that of Romania's, which entered Budapest.

Romania Army, wearing French Adrian helmets, entering Budapest in 1919.

People like to cynically cite the phrase about World War One being the war to end war, and then cite to World War Two, but World War One's fighting didn't even stop on November 11, 1918, like people like to imagine.  All sorts of ancillary wars sprung up or kept on.

Romanian cavalry in Budapest.  Romanian cavalry was very good.

Romania and Hungary had gone to war on November 13, 1918, just two days after the Armistice on the Western front, and the war came to a conclusion on this day in 1919.  The war had really begun in earnest, however, after a period of armistice, in April when Romania determined to strike against the Communist Hungarian government of Kun, and he determined to strike first.  The preemptive strike was a failure and Kun's government became a failure, falling under opposition on August 2.  Romania had the backing of the Allies and occupied Hungary for a time, withdrawing in 1920.

On this day a Jersey cow by the name of Oxford Mesembryanthemum sold in the east for the price of $15,000, an absolutely phenomenal price in the money of the time.

Also making money was a film entitled, Easy To Make Money, which was released on this day in 1919.

1st Battalion, 148th Field Artillery, mustered out of service and discharged at Ft. D. A. Russell.

Wyoming and Colorado National Guardsmen of the 1st Battalion, 148th Field Artillery, those being the Wyoming and Colorado Guardsmen assigned to the 148th, were mustered out of service and discharged on this date in 1919.  The were civilians once again.

The 148th Field Artillery musters out of service at Camp Mills, New York.

On this date the 148th Field Artillery mustered out of service at Camp Mills, New York.

That brought to an end the Great War service of the 148th, but it did not mean that the Guardsmen who were in the unit were now civilians. Rather, they were released from service with the unit and sent on to their home states for discharge or to military establishments near their home states.  In the case of Wyoming National Guardsmen, that meant a trip to Ft. D. A. Russell at Cheyenne.  Colorado Guardsmen in the unit likewise were discharged at Ft. D. A. Russell.

Their service was nearly over, however, as that wouldn't take long.  With that discharge they came to the end of three years of service, with a brief interruption, at least in the case of men who had first been activated for border service in the Punitive Expedition.

The 148th Field Artillery would come back into existence on  September 16, 1940 as part of the build up prior to World War Two.  It would serve in the Pacific during World War Two and would go on to serve, as part of the Oregon National Guard, in the Korean War.  It was one of the National Guard units that saw service during the Vietnam War.  It's currently party of the Idaho National Guard.

Camp Mills no longer exists.  It was located in what is now Garden City, New York, a community on Long Island.

Bells of Balangiga to depart

Gen. Jacob Smith inspects the ruins of Balangiga a few weeks after the battle there.

The Bells of Balangiga, war trophies from the Spanish American War, are going back to the Philippines, according to a government press release.

The bells have long been a matter of contention between the United States and the Philippines.  The 9th Infantry, which took the bells, maintained that it was ambushed in the locality, where it was garrisoned, and the bells symbolized its defense of itself from a surprise treacherous attack.  The Philippines have asserted the battle represented an uprising of the indigenous population against occupation and that the conclusion of the battle featured the killing of villagers without justification.  Both versions of the event may be correct in that it was a surprise attack on a unit stationed in the town and, by that point in the war, 1901, it had begun to take on a gruesome character at times.

Whatever the case may be, the bells, from three Catholic Churches, have long been sought to be returned.  Two of the bells are at F. E. Warren Air Force Base, which which the 9th Infantry had later been stationed at when it was Ft. D. A. Russell, and a third has been kept in Alaska.  It would appear that they're now going to go back to the churches from which they came in the Philippines, almost certainly accompanied by at least some vocal protestations from Wyoming's representation in Congress, I suspect.  As the current Wyoming connection with the 9th Infantry, let alone the Philippine Insurrection, is pretty think, it's unlikely that the average Wyomingite, however, will care much.  Indeed, while it caused its own controversy, a former head of a veteran's position in the state came out for returning the bells the last time this controversy rolled around a few years ago.

Huns Retreat. Lonely Hearts at D. A. Russell. Doggerel in the Oil Patch. The news of August 10, 1918.

All the news fit to print, and then some.

On this Saturday morning in sunny Wyoming, 1918, readers around the state were reading of the huge change in fortunes for the Allies, who were now advancing rapidly towards the German frontier.  But other news crowded and shoved onto the front pages of the state's various newspapers as well.

In Casper, Casperites were greeted with the news that the local Home Guard was going to complete the issuance of rifles.

At Cheyenne's Ft. D. A. Russell readers learned that a lonely soldier was seeking a girl measuring 5 to 5.5 feet who was not a drunkard.  The publishing suitor noted that he measured 5 feet 4.5 inches high and had well to do parents, and was seeking a Cheyenne girl to marry.

A less chivalrous character in Virginia testified at trial that he wouldn't serve in the war even if the Turks landed on our shores and carried our women off to bondage.  My goodness.

In grimmer news, a medical officer who was formerly stationed at Ft. D. A. Russell was found dead in San Antonio, shot in the head.

Wyoming Oil World, a newspaper rather obviously dedicated to the petroleum industry, found itself moved to verse on this day in 1918, although not very good verse.  The subject was the dread Powder River, Let'r Buck war cry of Wyomingites.

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..

The Wyoming Tribune for April 9, 1917. And now Austria. And youth training camp cancelled.

It looked like the United States would be at war with Austria, as well as Germany, soon.  And the news hit about Cuba being at war with Germany.

A training camp for boys at Ft. Russell had been cancelled. . . training for new recruits for the Army was the reason.

The Sunday State Leader for April 8, 1917: Join the Guard, but not the Navy?

The shape of a national Army was beginning to take place in the first days of the wary.  The US would conscript, although there was opposition to it, and the Army was going to be huge.

Americans were joining the National Guard, lining up, as they had in prior wars, to go with their state units rather than the Federal Army.  With conscription that would soon change, but here we see the evolution of the Army.  Joining state units had long been the wartime norm.  It still was, but that was going to change in short order, although conscription had been a feature of the Civil War as well.

Men (and of course now women as well) weren't joining the Navy in the same numbers.  But, as it'd turn out, the role of the U.S. Navy would not be as vast as some had thought.

And Ft. D. A. Russell was going to be busy.

The Cheyenne State Leader for March 30, 1917: Guardsmen mobilzing at Ft. D. A. Russell.

Ft. D. A. Russell was being used for Guard mobilization this time.  It hadn't been a year prior for the Punitive Expedition.

The Laramie Daily Boomerang for March 29, 1917. Laramie's Guardsmen ordered to Ft. D. A. Russell as, maybe, the Kaiser makes a peace move?

The Medical Company of the Wyoming National Guard, based in Laramie, was ordered to Ft. D. A. Russell outside of Cheyenne. At the same time, the Laramie paper was hoping against hope that entry into the war might not be necessary.  Who could blame them?

The Connor Hotel, by the way, still stands in Laramie, although I don't think it's a hotel anymore.

The Laramie Daily Boomerang for March 27, 1917. Laramie's troops not yet ordered to Ft. Russell.

The Medical detachment of the Wyoming National Guard was expecting orders to return to Ft. D. A. Russell, where they'd been only a couple of weeks ago, but they hadn't yet received them.

In other news, a big air force was being planned and the new Russian government was being reported as "very popular".

The Wyoming Tribune for March 20, 1917. Colorado Cavalry at Ft. Russell. Lack of coat lethal?

Wyoming was contemplating adding cavalry to its National Guard, but Colorado had it. 

Colorado cavalrymen were disembarking at Ft. D. A. Russell.  They were demobilizing late in comparison to the Wyoming National Guard.

And one Wyoming National Guardsmen wouldn't be called back up for World War One.  He'd died of pneumonia. 

Pvt. Charles Schmidt of Company B, Lander Wyoming, had become ill after having to turn in his overcoat at Ft. D. A. Russell.  Apparently a lot of men were sick, and that likely explains the delay we recently read about in discharging from active service the men from Laramie, who made up the medical company.

March in Wyoming is cold and these papers have had stories of a cold spell being in the works in this time frame.  It seems a lot of men were sick and frankly viruses going through troops is a pretty common thing in military units.  Overcoats were an item of equipment, not a uniform item, which may sound odd to readers who have no military experience, but that's exactly how field jackets were viewed when my father served in the Air Force during the Korean War and how they were viewed when I was in the National Guard in the 1980s.  The National Guard had denied that it was taking the coats from the men when the story broke, but obviously there was some truth to the story for some units.

Would an overcoat have kept Pvt. Schmidt alive?  It sure couldn't have hurt.

The Cheyenne State Leader for March 11, 1917: Laramie planning welcome for its Guardsmen

Laramie's troops were still delayed in Cheyenne, but Laramie was planning a big welcome for them when they returned.  Otherwise, Ft. D. A. Russell's contingent of Guardsmen were leaving for all points.

The Laramie Boomerang for March 10, 1917: Laramie's troops retained in Cheyenne

The Laramie Boomerang was reporting that Laramie's Guardsmen had been unexpectedly detained in Cheyenne. 

There could be several reasons that this decision came about. For one thing, Laramie's unit was a medical detachment, not too surprisingly as the location of the University of Wyoming in Laramie gave the unit an educated population to draw from.  So perhaps it was kept at Ft. Russell until the other troops had cleared in case medical needs popped up.

Additionally, these troops were only traveling 50 miles, as oppose to the long distances being traveled by other Wyoming troops.  There may not have been available transportation space, in which case retaining the troops going back to Laramie would have made sense.

And finally, as many of these men were students, they didn't have much to go back to.  It was too late in the semester for the many students to return to school, and a lot of them probably were leaving right from Laramie on to their actual homes, or were competing for what little work there was in Laramie.

At any rate, while the rest of the Guardsmen were leaving Cheyenne, they stayed an extra couple of days.

The Cheyenne State Leader for March 7, 1917: Mustering Out

Mustering out was going quickly.  This Wednesday paper was reporting that Wyoming National Guardsmen would be mustered out by Saturday. 

What that would have meant, in this context, is that they were spending all day cleaning equipment and inventorying it.  After that, they'd be released from full time duty and returned to their local units.  What occurred to the men who had never actually been in those units, and that was quite a few men, I don't know.

The Cheyenne Leader for March 6, 1917: Deming's approval of Wyoming's troops

Wyomingites were cheered that Deming New Mexico appreciated the qualities of their National Guardsmen.

Meanwhile, a big party had occurred for the returned Colorado and  Wyoming Guardsmen in  Cheyenne.

And the Leader claimed that Americans were solidly behind Wilson's policy of "armed neutrality".