Today In Wyoming's History: Halfway House Stage Stop, Park County, Wyoming

Today In Wyoming's History: Halfway House Stage Stop, Park County, Wyoming

Today In Wyoming's History: March 29, 1973

Today In Wyoming's History: March 29: 1973  The United States completes it's withdrawal from Vietnam.

By odd coincidence, this is also the day that Lt. William Calley was sentenced in 1971 in a courts martial for his role in the My Lai Massacre, although his prison sentence ended up not being a long one.

Today In Wyoming's History: Updates for March, 2018

Today In Wyoming's History: Updates for March, 2018: March 4:  Photograph added for the outbreak of 1918 Flu at Camp Funston, Kansas . March 7:  Newspapers added for 1918 .  Students walko...

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.

Wyoming State Tribune, March 28, 1918. Muleless Days?

The big news was on the war, of course, but a frightening item about a shortage of mules appeared on the front cover as well.

At that time, that was no minor matter.  Mules and horses remained the prime movers of short hauling and agriculture in the United States in 1918.  And the US was also a major supplier of both to the Allies.

Unlike automobiles, a demand for equines couldn't simply be supplied overnight.  A natural product had to develop naturally.  By this point in 1918 horses and mules that were born in the first year of the war were just getting to the point where they were trainable.  Horses and mules of older age, and usable for anything, had been pressed into the demand long ago.

Soldier's Farewell Parade, Indianaopolis Indiana, March 18, 1918.

Bulgarian authorities block travel to Czechoslovakia. March 28, 1968.

Bulgarian authorities blocked travel to Czechoslovakia on this day due to the civil unrest that was heating up in the Prague Spring.

Martin Luther King, Jr. leads his last march. March 28, 1968

On this day in 1968 Martin Luther King, Jr. lead what was to become his last march in Memphis, Tennessee.  The occasion was a sanitation workers strike.  The march unfortunately descended into a riot and the police shot sixteen year old Larry Payne.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

While King had no role in the violence and was opposed to violence of any kind, he felt deeply distressed by what had occurred and felt that he had failed in his appearance.

Yuri Gagarin's Death. March 27, 1968.

On this date in 1968, another year we're tracking, legendary Soviet Cosmonaut Yurk Gagarin, the first man to travel into space, died in when a Mig-15UTI crashed.  Flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin also died in the accident.  The aircraft entered an apparently uncontrollable spin for reasons that remain unknown.

 Gagarin in 1961.

Gagarin passed into history on April 12, 1961 with a lift off that was marked by this exchange:

Korolev: "Preliminary stage..... intermediate..... main..... lift off! We wish you a good flight. Everything is all right."

Gagarin:  "Поехали!" (Poyekhali!—Let's go!)"

At the time of his death Gagarin, whose first flight into space made him both internationally famous and a sort of Cold War figure, was 34 years old.

The 8th Cavalry Crosses into Chihuahua. The Battle of Pilares. March 26, 1918.

Troop A and Troop G of the 8th Cavalry, under the command of Captain Henry H. Anderson, following the raid on Neville's Ranch on March 25, crossed into Chihuahua Mexico in pursuit of the raiders who had committed the raid on this day in 1918.  It was a classic cavalry force, made up of cavalrymen supported logistically by mules.  The cavalry force tracked and closed with the raider over a course of seventy miles until they Mexican force doubled back towards the border and to Pilares, Chihuahua.  Then apprised to the fact that they were being pursued they staged an ambush for the cavalrymen.

It didn't work and the Mexican force soon broke, with the battle turning into an eleven mile running fight.  As it went, townspeople from Pilares joined the raiders in defending their town.  Oddly, some contemporary reports had, however, statements from a local Mexican Federal officer both claiming to have driven the Americans out of Pilares but also to have aided them against, presumably, Villistas. Given that Villa war far from beaten at the time, and Carranza's government proving to be far from stable, perhaps that also isn't too surprising.  In reality, the Mexican Federal troops arrived just as the Americans were ready to depart, and after the Mexican commander, present with 500 Mexican cavalrymen, protested their presence the Americans, the Americans did indeed depart.

The fighting in Pilares was fierce and in fact the cavalry charged the town, which is where the sole American casualty lost his life, shot out of his saddle in that event. Anderson wasn't really driven out of Pilares, but he did withdraw, but not before searching it very completely and then issuing an order to burn the town, which was done.  In the town, a large cache of German 98s were found, but again while that was deemed significant it isn't terribly surprising.   American forces also recovered materials linking the town to the Raid on Brite's Ranch and the Neville Ranch, the latter of course making perfect sense under the circumstances, including Glen Neville's chaps, which were found on the body of dead Mexican combatant.  Materials linked to the mail driver killed in the Brite's Raid, however, were also recovered and harder to explain.  Items belonging to the Mexican Federal army were recovered, but they were likely items that had been captured by Villistas in other raids.  The Mexicans sustained 33 deaths in the American counter raid, with the 8th Cavalry suffering the loss of a Pvt Carl Albert, A Troop, 8th Cavalry.  Some of the dead were identified including at least one known Villista but also several former Porvenir residents, including some who were teenagers.   One house was left standing due to the pleas of the owner, a Mexican woman with children who was desperate to keep her house intact.

As for the village of Pilares, victims of the Porvenir Massacre were buried there, so it would be logical to assume that they had some fear about Americans being in the vicinity, no matter what their allegiance may have otherwise been.  But later reports indicated that some of the Neville raiders may have been former Porvenir residents who had taken refuge there, it was not far away.  The town was close by and intimately impacted by the Porvenir Raid and therefore the Neville Raid is not illogically tied to it.

So what does this event tell us?  Well, while all the country now was focused on France, and with an Army that remained mostly in the US in training and which was now, huge, things continued to be very heated on the border.  The presence of German arms in northern Mexico could easily have lead to a furor which would have refocused attention on Carranza's Mexico in a way that would have been devastating for him, given the present size of the U.S. Army, but also for the fortunes of the Allies in the Great War.

But perhaps more than that, it focuses us on a conflict that had now evolved into a low grade guerilla war.  A man had lost his son, a group of Mexican villagers had lost their small town, a husband and his children had lost their wife and mother.  And to them, it probably all seemed far removed from whatever the greater cause was supposed to be.

Lex Anteinternet: The Kaiserschlacht Commences. Operation Michael, The Battle of Rosieres and the Battle of Arrars

Lex Anteinternet: The Kaiserschlacht Commences. Operation Michael

The Battle of Rosieres and the Battle of Arrars

On the 26th and 27th the British fought the Battle of Rosieres in which the British committed tanks. Nonetheless the Allies continued to lose ground and lost the town of Albert during the night.  Throughout the retreat phase that went  through the 27th Tommies occasionally panicked and took up defense positions at the report of German cavalry being just over the horizon.  Still, while they retreated continually they did not disintegrate and both the British and the French remained in action throughout.  On the 28th a German assault only a handful of miles, showing that the Germans were slowing.  A primary factor was that the German cavalry that was needed to exploit the breakthroughs in the Allied lines that continually occurred simply didn't exit.

There wasn't any. The Germans were now, in terms of fighting at the front, an infantry force only.  They'd lose the war as a result.  The could exploit gaps in the British lines no quicker than a man could advance, and with each days advance the German troops became more and more fatigued until, at last, they simply refused to move, even under threat of death.

Today In Wyoming's History: March 26, 1918.

And in Laramie, something indicating the direction of things to come occurred:

Today In Wyoming's History: March 26: 1918  Elmer Lovejoy of Laramie patented a powered garage door opener.  Lovejoy had previously built his own automobile.

Lovejoy would work on this for a period of years, actually, so apparently he wasn't satisfied with his first design.

Ferdinand Foch made Supreme Allied Commander

On this day in 1918 the Allies obtained a supreme military commander.

Well, sort of.

In actuality Ferdinand Foch, the French Field Marshall, was given the task of coordinating all  of the Allied activities in response to the Kaiserschlacht at the Doullens Conference.  His formal appointment of being the supreme Allied commander would come somewhat later.  Even at that, given the strong personalities involved, the role was always more of formulating policy and then seeking  the cooperation of other Allies.

In these regards, Foch's role was weaker than, but would anticipate, the role played by Dwight Eisenhower during World War Two.  In retrospect it seems amazing that this did not occur until 1918, the last year of the war, but getting to this point was not an easy one, and it came only in the face of seemingly looming military disaster. That it would go to a French commander, rather than a British one, also seems surprising in retrospect, but France had the largest army in the field, and of course most of that field was in France.

Foch was, at least in my view, a good choice. He had been in French military service since 1870 in one way or another, and had seen service in the Franco Prussian War.  He was irrepressible in spirit, something that had served him well not only in the Great War but before as well, as his advancement had been slower than it should have been in the pre war French Army, something that was likely the case because his brother was a Jesuit Priest and Republican France retained a Revolutionary and Napoleonic period anti clerical bias.  His appointment was not without controversy but he filled the role well and worked well with strong personalities that were technically his inferior in the Allied armies but which never saw themselves that way.

It's interesting to note that his appointment came just one day after the US had placed its troops under French command because of the crisis on the Western Front.

March 26, 1918. Bad news. Hopeful News. And, what? Me worry?

Significant positions were falling.

Romania was giving up.

The Germans were across the Somme. . .and sending reinforcements to their own advancing men.

But the Germans were slowing down, some, and new lines were reported to be forming. . . maybe.  March was telling us now to worry. . . heh, heh.

But in Casper, the economy was doing great!

I wonder what was causing that big increase in the demand for petroleum anyway?

The Neville Ranch Raid, March 25, 1918.

Today finds us, in the midst of all the news on the Kaiserschlacht, back on the border with Mexico.  The Neville Ranch Raid occurred on this fateful day of 1918.

The Neville Ranch was an isolated ranch in West Texas that was run by Edwin W. Neville.  Neville lived there with his son, Glenn, his Mexican servant, Rosa Castillo, her husband and their three children.  There were, ironically, more Mexicans living on the small isolated ranch than there were European Americans.  That hadn't always been the case. Mr.  Neville had a wife and two daughters, but after the  Christmas Raid on Brite's Ranch he moved them to Van Horn, Texas and stayed on with his son and Mexican help. After all, a ranch can't simply be abandoned but must be worked, and he likely felt that this left him with enough help to work the ranch and that his Mexican employees were likely safe.

This particular raid was not without warning.  Warning came earlier in the day to Captain Leonard Matlock, 8th Cavalry, that a Mexican (the exact nature and allegiance of the raiding force is still not known) raid on Neville's ranch was planned and he accordingly sent out a patrol. The patrol was detailed to go to the ranch and warn Neville, but he wasn't there when it arrived as he was in Van Horn, where his family otherwise lived, and buying supplies there.  He learned that something was going on and rode back to his ranch with his son, Glen, an eight hour ride by horse.  When he arrived he discussed the situation with his ranch residents in his ranch house when the raid broke out.  The party took refuge in a ditch near the house which was better protected but Glen was shot in the head and severely wounded.  Mrs. Castillo was also shot and mutilated by the raiders in sight of her children, something that seems to have been at least a feature of other similar raids in which Mexican raiders took  vengeance upon the Mexican employees of American ranchers.  The raiders then took to looting the ranch, which was also common, and Edwin, in a state of shock over his dying son and murdered female employee wondered off into the desert.

Mr. Castillo rode for assistance and found the 8th Cavalry patrol about six miles distant from the ranch.  That patrol, under a Lt. Gaines, returned to the ranch just after the raiders had departed and he sent word to his superiors of what had occurred.

As noted, the identify and even the exact purpose of the raiders remains unknown.  It is felt that they likely were Villistas, and they were well armed as they were carrying German made Mauser 98 rifles (the left some in the raid), the common military rifle used by all sides in the Mexican Revolution.  That latter fact, however, has lead some to suggest a German connection with the raid, and of course German military advisors were a feature of the Mexican Revolution.  The raid may have been in reprisal for the Porvenir Massacre as well.  Or maybe looking at an exact cause of a single raid on the border in this era is simply asking for too much.

This story didn't end with the raid itself, which is often cited as the last "serious" raid across the border in this era (it isn't).  With Neville lost and then found deranged in the desert, Glen dead, and Mrs. Costillo murdered, the raid was a human tragedy that served no purpose for the raiders.  It did, however, result in the mustering of the 8th Cavalry.  Shortly before Lt. Gaine's patrol arrived back at the ranch the raiders withdrew, loot in hand, to Chihuahua.  But that didn't see the end of things.

Neville would live into the 1950s.  But not on his ranch.  He opened a cafe in Marfa, but held a vendetta against the murderers of his son for the rest of his life.

General Pershing places the four combat ready US Divisions in France under French command.

You will constantly hear, and now without good reason, that General John Pershing was very reluctant to place US troops under European Command.  Indeed, he was reluctant to do so.

Indeed, Pershing basically disagreed with European strategy in general and wasn't at all impressed by the argument that French and British forces were trained and combat experienced.  He felt that their experience was one of failure.  He didn't agree with concepts of trench warfare.  He was a cavalryman and like the later cavalry generals of World War Two, such as Patton, an understudy of his, he totally disagreed with concepts of static warfare.

Pershing hoped to deploy large, square, American divisions backed by cavalry regiments in mobile warfare and was largely prepared to ignore Allied pleas to commit U.S. troops to European command. But he was also savvy to the battlefield situation. The U.S. had been rotating men from the four divisions then in France to the front to get them exposed to combat.  On this day he committed the four U.S. divisions to French command, in light of the massive German spring offensive.  As the offensive was primarily directed at the British at this point, the French would not immediately call upon them.

March 25, 1918. The slowing of Operation Michael and the appearance of a famous name in the papers

The papers were correct that Operation Michael was slowing down.  Estimates of losses were overestimated, however.

And a name that was to be famous, Douglas MacArthur, appeared on the front page.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: St. Joseph's Polish Catholic Church, Denver Colorado

Churches of the West: St. Joseph's Polish Catholic Church, Denver Colorado.

This is St. Joseph's Polish Catholic Church in North Denver.  The church is just a couple of blocks away from another Catholic Church., Holy Rosary Catholic Church, and a couple of blocks away from a Russian Orthodox Cathedral, reflecting the ethnic make up of this community at one time. Today, the neighborhood is largely Hispanic, but this church still offers Masses in Polish in addition to English.  the school next to it was flying a Polish and US flag on the day that I went by.  The church was built in 1902.

March 24, 1918. The British holding, and the Paris gun.

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.