Mike – Page 13 – Battles of the First World War Podcast

Episode 51: Meuse Argonne – The Most Serious Business

At 0230 on the 26th of September, 1918, 2,775 French and American guns opened up on the German lines from the Argonne Forest to the River Meuse. Three hours later, nine divisions of American Doughboys were up out of their muddy trenches and into the mist. The largest battle in American military history was underway.

The AEF 1st Army however, faced a formidable enemy who had spent years turning the Meuse Valley into a 10-mile thick defense zone. All of it would have to be chewed through to reach the target railroad hubs at Sedan, 35 miles away. In this episode we’ll discuss those German defenses as well as the preparations and plans made by the Americans for their attack.

The BFWWP is now on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BattlesoftheFirstWorldWarPodcast.

Any questions, comments or concerns please contact me through the website, www.firstworldwarpodcast.com. Follow us on Twitter at @WW1podcast, the Battles of the First World War Podcast page on FaceBook, and on Instagram at @WW1battlecast. Not into social media? Email me directly at verdunpodcast@gmail.com. Please consider reviewing the Battles of the First World War Podcast on iTunes.

Check out this episode!

Meuse-Argonne Bibliography

Hey Folks, here is the first draft of the articles and books that have been or will be used during the BFWWP’s next battle. There will, of course, be updates as new materials come in.

Meuse-Argonne

26th Infantry Regimental Association. St. Mihiel: Attack of a Fortified Position. 1999, usacac.army.mil/cac2/csi/docs/Gorman/06_Retired/02_Retired_1991_99/35_99_StMihiel_Dec.pdf. Accessed: 25 AUG 2018.

American Battle Monuments Commission. American Armies and Battlefields in Europe. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1938.

Barkley, John Lewis. Scarlet Fields: The Combat Memoir of a World War I Medal of Honor Hero. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2012.

Beattie, Taylor V. “Whittlesey’s ‘Lost’ Battalion.” Army History, No. 54, p. 21-30. Accessed 29 APR 2018.

Beattie, Taylor V., and Bowman, Ronald. “In Search of York: Man, Myth & Legend.” Army History, No. 50, p. 1-14. Accessed 29 APR 2018.

Bradford, Alfred S., Jr. Meuse-Argonne, 1918: Killing Machines. Journal of Military History.

Carroll, Andrew. My Fellow Soldiers: General John Pershing and the Americans Who Helped Win the Great War. Penguin Books, an Imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2017.

Carter, Donald A. St. Mihiel: 12-16 September 1918. Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 2018.

Coffman, Edward M. The War to End All Wars: The American Military Experience in World War I. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1998.

Dille, Earl K. “Alexander Skinker: Citizen Soldier.” Magazine of the Missouri Historical Society, 1999.

Duffy, Michael. Max von Gallwitz on the Battle of St. Mihiel, 12 September 1918. http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/stmihiel_gallwitz.htm Accessed: 25 AUG 2018.

The George C. Marshall Foundation. Education of a General: Chapter 11, St. Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne. https://www.marshallfoundation.org/library/digital-archive/education-of-a-general-chapter-11-st-mihiel-and-the-meuse-argonne/. Accessed: 25 AUG 2018.

Faulkner, Richard S. Disappearing Doughboys: The American Expeditionary Forces’ Straggler Crisis in the Meuse-Argonne. Army History, No. 83, p. 6-25.

________________. Meuse-Argonne: 26 September – 11 November 1918. Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 2018.

________________. “‘Up in the Argonne:’ The Tragedy of Lieutenant Justus Owen and the 82nd Division in the First World War.” The Georgia Historical Quarterly, Vol. 80, No. 2, p. 276-298.

Ferrell, Robert H. Collapse at Meuse-Argonne: The Failure of the Missouri-Kansas Division. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2017.

Foch, Ferdinand, and Thomas Bentley Mott. The Memoirs of Marshal Foch. Doubleday, Doran and Company, Incorporated, 1931.

Hallas, James H. Doughboy War: the American Expeditionary Force in World War I. Stackpole Books, 2000.

Hamburger, Kenneth E. Learning Lessons in the American Expeditionary Forces. Washington, DC: Center of Military History.

Hart, Keith. A note on the Military Participation of Siam in the First World War. Journal of the Siam Society. 2015, accessed 22 NOV 2018: http://www.siamese-heritage.org/jsspdf/1981/JSS_070_0n_Hart_MilitaryParticipationOfSiamInWW1.pdf#page=3

Herring, George C., Jr. “Glad I Was In It:” An Iowa Doughboy in the Great War, 1918-1919. Army History, No. 103 (Spring 2017), p. 6-23, Accessed 29 APR 2018.

Joel, Arthur H. Under the Lorraine Cross; An Account of the Experiences of Infantrymen Who Fought Under Captain Theodore Schoge and of Their Buddies of the Lorraine Cross Division, While Serving in France During the World War. Andesite Press, 2015.

Lanza, Conrad H. “The End of the Battle of Montfaucon.” Field Artillery Journal.

________________. The First Battle of Romagne. Field Artillery Journal, Vol. 23, No. 6.

________________. The Third Battle of Romagne. Field Artillery Journal.

Lengel, Edward G. To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2008.

Laplander, Robert J. Finding the Lost Battalion: Beyond the Rumors, Myths, and Legends of America’s Famous WW1 Epic. Waterford: AEF Services, 2018.

Mason, Monroe. The American Negro Soldier with the Red Hand of France. Franklin Classics, 2018.

Mastriano, Douglas V. Thunder in the Argonne: A New History of America’s Greatest Battle. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2018.

McKeogh, Arthur. The Victorious 77th Division (New York’s Own) in the Argonne Fight. New York: John H. Eggers Co, Inc., 1919.

Nelson, James Carl. The Remains of Company D: A Story of the Great War. St. Martin’s Press, 2009.

Stamas, Christ K. The Road to St. Mihiel. New York: Comet Free Press, 1957.

Yockelson, Mitchell. Forty-Seven Days How Pershing’s Warriors Came of Age to Defeat the German Army in World War I. New Amer Library, 2017.

A Short Reflection

My favorite photo. I was lucky to capture the evening light beaming down on those Doughboys.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Leftenant Colonel John McRae

November 30, 1872 – January 28, 1918

Hey Folks, welcome to the Battles of the First World War Podcast Stand Alone Episode 8: Armistice Day 2018.

So, the latest episode opened with what is likely the most famous poem to come out of the carnage of the Great War, Leftenant Colonel McRae’s “In Flanders Fields.” It is likely also not very surprising that you would choose to open a reflection of the centenary of the end of World War One with with this poem.

I’ve read this poem many times, but it hasn’t been until the last few days that I’ve really tried to read it deeply and grasp its meaning. With the 100th anniversary of the end of the war, this poem takes on new meaning for me.

100 years now since the guns stopped in France and Belgium. 100 years since a new and uncomfortable silence spread across the Western Front at 11am, where just seconds before the shriek and hammering of shells had rent the tortured earth from Flanders to the Vosges Mountains.

100 years since PVT George Ellison of the British Army fell at Mons, Belgium. 100 years since Soldat de Premiere Classe Augustin Trébuchon fell in the Ardennes at 1045am. 100 years since Canadian CPL George Lawrence Price fell at 1058am, also in the Mons area, and 100 years since American PVT Henry Gunther fell at 1059am in a field near Chaumont-devant-Damvillers in the Meuse Valley. And 100 years since countless others fell as well.

A lot has changed in those last 100 years, from geopolitical to social and technological revolutions of which the men and women of the Great War likely would never have dreamed. In the hustle and bustle of life today, it’s easy to gloss over a day like Armistice Day without thinking of the millions of the fallen.

This one of course, is different. As I’ve read and reread “In Flanders Fields” these past several days, I’ve come to think often on LTC McRae’s request:

To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high!

How can we hold it high? How can we honor the millions of the dead, who short days ago loved and were loved, just like we are today? How do we keep from breaking their faith with us?

Perhaps one way we can hold that torch high against the darkness is by remembering these men and women who served their country a century ago. They may no longer be with us, but they are not out of living memory.

So, on Armistice Day–or Veterans’ Day, if you prefer–take a moment to remember them. Remember the Doughboys and the Hello Girls of the American Expeditionary Forces. Remember their allies on the battlefield as well. Remember too, their enemies. They were all human beings. Remember them for a quiet moment.

In November 1918, Moina Michael–the great woman and teacher who first used the red poppy as the symbol of remembrance–penned a response to Leftenant Colonel McRae’s poem. Titled, “We Shall Keep the Faith,” it tells the dead that we will not let them down. For such a poignant day as this one, I think Ms. Michael’s poem may be a good way to close this episode.

We Shall Keep the Faith

Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,

Sleep sweet – to rise anew!

We caught the torch you threw

And holding high, we keep the Faith

With All who died.

We cherish, too, the poppy red

That grows on fields where valor led;

It seems to signal to the skies

That blood of heroes never dies,

But lends a lustre to the red

Of the flower that blooms above the dead

In Flanders Fields.

And now the Torch and Poppy Red

We wear in honor of our dead.

Fear not that ye have died for naught;

We’ll teach the lesson that ye wrought

In Flanders Fields.

The endless crosses at the American Meuse-Argonne Cemetery in Romagne-sous-Montfaucon, France.

These photos were taken in the late evening. In France during the summer, the sun is up until eight or nine at night.

Episode SA8: Armistice Day 2018

A short reflection on Armistice Day, 2018.

The BFWWP is on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BattlesoftheFirstWorldWarPodcast.

Any questions, comments or concerns please contact me through the website, www.firstworldwarpodcast.com or the Battles of the First World War Podcast page on FaceBook. Follow us on Twitter at @WW1podcast, and on Instagram at @WW1battlecast. Not into social media? Email me directly at verdunpodcast@gmail.com. Please consider reviewing the Battles of the First World War Podcast on iTunes.

Check out this episode!

100 Years Ago Today: Wilfred Owen

Not everyone felt the same way Wilfred Owen did during the Great War; some men felt the war was their duty to do. They did it and that was it.

For others however, Wilfred Owen captured the war in all its horror and pity–in his own words, “the poetry is in the pity.” Today marks 100 years since this 25-year-old man was killed in action in the last days of battle on the Western Front, though no one at the time was quite sure of that. He was not the only young man to die that day. Yet we remember him as one of the voices that tried to convey what it was like to live through this devastating Great War.

A century since his death. A century since a rising voice in British and world literature was extinguished far too early, along with thousands of others like him.

Below is the poem called “The Sentry,” which was used for the last episode of the Somme podcast episodes. For several years now, thanks to an audiobook titled “In Flanders Field ad Other Poems About War,” that poem has haunted me for its intense setting and visual language. It is the poem I’d like to highlight on the centenary of Wilfred Owen’s death.

The Sentry

We’d found an old Boche dug-out, and he knew,

And gave us hell, for shell on frantic shell

Hammered on top, but never quite burst through.

Rain, guttering down in waterfalls of slime

Kept slush waist high, that rising hour by hour,

Choked up the steps too thick with clay to climb.

What murk of air remained stank old, and sour

With fumes of whizz-bangs, and the smell of men

Who’d lived there years, and left their curse in the den,

If not their corpses. . . .

There we herded from the blast

Of whizz-bangs, but one found our door at last.

Buffeting eyes and breath, snuffing the candles.

And thud! flump! thud! down the steep steps came thumping

And splashing in the flood, deluging muck —

The sentry’s body; then his rifle, handles

Of old Boche bombs, and mud in ruck on ruck.

We dredged him up, for killed, until he whined

“O sir, my eyes — I’m blind — I’m blind, I’m blind!”

Coaxing, I held a flame against his lids

And said if he could see the least blurred light

He was not blind; in time he’d get all right.

“I can’t,” he sobbed. Eyeballs, huge-bulged like squids

Watch my dreams still; but I forgot him there

In posting next for duty, and sending a scout

To beg a stretcher somewhere, and floundering about

To other posts under the shrieking air.

Those other wretches, how they bled and spewed,

And one who would have drowned himself for good, —

I try not to remember these things now.

Let dread hark back for one word only: how

Half-listening to that sentry’s moans and jumps,

And the wild chattering of his broken teeth,

Renewed most horribly whenever crumps

Pummelled the roof and slogged the air beneath —

Through the dense din, I say, we heard him shout

“I see your lights!” But ours had long died out.

Wilfred Owen, 1893-1918.
Lest We Forget.
Photo courtesy of Imperial War Museum.

More Photos from the St. Mihiel Salient — August 2018

In the trenches of the Gobessart Woods near Aprémont-la-Forêt.

The following photos are largely from the German and French front line trenches that still snake their way through the Gobessart Woods near the D907 road in Aprémont-la-Forêt. Aprémont-la-Forêt was a scene of vicious fighting between French and German troops in the early years of the war, and later between American Doughboys and their more experienced German adversaries.

Shining a light into a German dugout. The dugout was some 15-25 feet underground.

Inside the dugout. The light at the other end was my stepson Lee of the Viking Age Podcast.

Here’s what it’s like going through a dark dugout. Listen for my stepson’s “Don’t tell Mom” at the end. 🙂

Moving through the German trenches 100 years after the war, it was moving to see just how well-preserved they still were.

The German Front Line

My man Lee, walking through those German trenches like a boss!

German Front Line Trenches in Gobessart Woods
Collapsed dugout entrance, now blocked off for safety.
Firing position made of concrete. Still solid after 100 years.
Dueling Photographers. My buddy Chuck and I. He was better armed than me.
Looking towards French lines from a German machine gun position.

Possible German machine gun storage hole in a front line position.

“In Treue Fest”
— “In Faith”

Entrance to a German bunker. “In Treue Fest” means “In Faith.”

Tangles of barbed wire left here after the war.
Per the French-made marker: “German firing position with observation post.”
Firing parapet with munitions storage, and grenade storage with slots.
Nature is finally making some headway against these concrete positions.
Entrance to a dugout.

French Trenches in the St. Mihiel Salient

Entering the French trenches. These were just a grenade toss away from the German trenches we had just come out of.
Tangles of barbed wire here, too.

Episode 50: Meuse Argonne – The Battle of St. Mihiel

On the 12th of September 1918, well over a half million American Doughboys of the AEF First Army went on the attack with their French allies. Less than forty-eight hours later the St. Mihiel Salient–long a painful thorn in the French Army’s side–had been completely destroyed.

St. Mihiel was the first independent offensive carried out by the American Expeditionary Force of World War One, and it was a solid success.

The BFWWP is now on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BattlesoftheFirstWorldWarPodcast.

Check out this episode!

Episode 49: Meuse Argonne – An Interview with Robert J. Laplander

On the centenary of the story of the Lost Battalion, we have a very special guest who will talk to us about this epic tale of American heroism, leadership, grit, and a stubborn will to resist in the First World War.

Robert J. Laplander is the author of “Finding the Lost Battalion: Beyond the Rumors, Myths and Legends of America’s Famous WW1 Epic.” An enthusiast of the Great War for decades, Mr. Laplander has amassed a vast collection of documentation and paraphernalia related to the story of the men of the US 77th Division who were surrounded by the Germans in the Charlevaux Ravine from the 2nd through the 7th of October, 1918. This collection has helped inform the definitive history he has written of the men of the 306th Machine Gun Battalion, and the 307th and 308th Infantry Regts and their epic five days in the Argonne.

Mr. Laplander is considered an authority on the subject of the Lost Battalion, and has appeared in numerous radio and television interviews, including PBS’ 2017 3-part documentary named “American in the Great War.”

For more information on the Lost Battalion, Mr. Laplander’s work, and Doughboy MIA (Remember, $10 for them), please see the following links:

http://www.findingthelostbattalion.com/

https://www.worldwar1centennial.org/index.php/doughboy-mia-home.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/great-war/

The BFWWP is now on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BattlesoftheFirstWorldWarPodcast.

Check out this episode!

Episode 48: Meuse Argonne – Allies on the Attack

In the summer of 1918 the Germans were spent, and the Allies began rolling them back. Supreme Allied Commander Marshal Ferdinand Foch had a plan to smash the enemy back and potentially end the war that year.

GEN John J “Blackjack” Pershing and his American Expeditionary Force were to play a major role in Foch’s plan, but to Pershing only as an independent force under his command. The story of the plans for the Meuse-Argonne Offensive is one of two very strong personalities coming together after a long, bumpy road.

The BFWWP is now on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BattlesoftheFirstWorldWarPodcast.

Check out this episode!

Hawthorn Ridge Crater Association – A Minor Correction and Some Videos

Hey Folks, it’s been a little bit, hasn’t it?

The last two weeks have seen the beginning of the new school year here in the US, and as always these first days are busy for teachers. This year was no exception, although it was smoother.

So, here are the videos I took during our visit to the Hawthorn Ridge Crater. They feature battlefield archeologist Mr. Colin Winn talking to us about the explosives used in the mine below, the explosion itself, and how it shaped the crater. Later videos feature Mr. Winn discussing the creation of the second crater, and of other evidence found inside the two massive blast holes.

There are also a few corrections to be made to the interview episode with Mr. Winn, and these errors have been fixed thanks to an Englishman who is very passionate about WW1 and who is connected to the Hawthorn Ridge Crater Association (HRCA).

Well, it turns out that it’s not two brothers who were part owners of the crater who weren’t speaking. This is too bad, really, from the standpoint that I had hoped through a shared historical connection we could see a family dispute ended and brothers reunited–it’d make a hell of a story!

Alas, the two ornery owners are apparently two local village council members. Word is that any village council meeting where one speaks to the other ends in an argument, which confirms to us that hey, people are the same the world over.

In other information, the Hawthorn Crater is owned by the village of Beaumont-Hamel, and the village has leased the crater to the HRCA for the next 99 years. The pathway up to the crater has been cleaned up, widened, and covered with mulch to ease foot traffic on the slope. The Association’s goals are to eventually build up the area for tourists to come and reflect, and they hope to install panoramic information panels near the crater that will explain the history of the immediate area during the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

So, here are the videos:

2nd Video Clip