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k2kid · 6 years ago

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Confidential War Diary of 18th CANADIAN BATTALION – 2nd CANADIAN DIVISION

From 1st December, 1918 to 31th December, 1918

Volume 40 With appendices 1 – 30

Place Date Hour Summary of Events and Information Maps for reference: Marche 9, Germany 1 M, 1 L, 2 L. 1/160,000 attached. Appendix No. 27. 28. 29, and 30. Mean- 23.05.40. Marche 9 1 The Battalion moved in full marching order 08.00 Hrs. for VILLERS STE. GERTRUDE, the usual noonday halt was made for dinner. From the Noon Hour on the country became rolling, and hilly and very heavily wooded. The Battalion arrived at the destination at 15:00 Hours. Capt. T.H.C. Rayward, and batman returned from Instructor’s Course at Senior Officer’s School, Aldershot, England. 1 O.R. to hospital. 1 O.R. from leave. Appendix No. 1. Villers Ste. Gertrude. 2-G.95.35 Marche 9 2 Battalion resting in billets. 12 O.R’s on leave and 2 O.R’s returned from leave. 3 O.R’s to Hospital and 1 O.R. returned from Hospital. 3 Battalion resting in Billets awaiting move order. 2 O.R’s to hospital. 4 The Battalion moved in full marching order at 08:30 Hours and marched via GRAND MONIL to ODEIGNE. It rained practically during the entire march of the day. A noonday halt for dinner was made, the Battalion arriving at its destination at 16:00 Hours. The march to-day was stedily [sic] uphill into the heart of the Ardenne Mountains. Lieut. R.E. Rouse and 2 O.R’s from leave and 2 O.R’s to Hospital. Appendix No. 2. Odeigne 3-I 20.10 Marche 9 5 The Battalion moved off at 08:30 Hours in full marching order for COUTRIL, dropping down the latter part of the march into open country. Battalion arrived at its destination at 15:00 Hours. 2 O.R’s to Hospital. Appendix No. 3. COUTRIL 4-K 98.60 6 The Battalion moved off at 08:00 Hours in full marching order for WALL RODE, Germany, crossing the Frontier shortly after 10:00 Hours, and passing through St. Vith about 14:30 Hours, arrived at destination at 16:00 Hours. 8 O.R’s from leave and 3 O.R’s to hospital. Appendix No. 4. WALLERODE 5-C 90.35 Germany 1-M 7 The Battalion moved off at 08:30 Hours for MANDERFELD, arriving there at 15:30 Hours. The country roundabout assuming more of an agricultural aspect. 1 O.R. to Hospital and 2 O.R’s returned from Hospital. MANDERFELD 4-H 60.10 Germany 1-M 8 Battalion resting in billets. Capt. R.R. Hartry and 7 O.R. from leave. 2 O.R’s to Hospital. MANDERFELD 4-H 60.10 Germany 1-M 9 The Battalion moved off at 08:30 Hours for DAHLEM, arriving at destination at 16:00 Hours. The Battalion Headquarters being located in the Post Office. 1 O.R. from leave and 1 O.R. on Course. Appendix No. 6. DAHLEM 3-K 60.45 Germany 1-M 10 The Battalion moved off in fighting order at 08:30 Hours and marched to MUNSTEREIFEL, arriving at destination at 15:00 Hours. Lories provided by Brigade, carrying the Men’s packs. The Battalion was billeted in a Boy’s Boarding School. Appendix No. 7. MUNSTEREIFEL Germany 1-L 11 The Battalion moved at 08:30 Hours in fighting order, and marched to KUCHENHEIM, arriving at destination at 13:30 Hours. The Battalion Headquarters being located in the Burgomeister’s house. 18 O.R’s from leave 1 O.R. to hospital and 1 O.R. returned from Hospital. Appendix No. 8. KUCHENHEIM Germany 1-L 12 The Battalion moved in fighting order at 08:30 Hours and marched to DUISDORF, arriving at 12:00 Hours. 2 O.R’s from leave and 1 O.R. to Hospital. 1 C.S.M. and 11 O.R’s [to] 2nd Divisional Headquarters, Bonn, for Guard Duty. Appendix No. 9. DUISDORF Germany 2-L 7 D 35.40 13 The Battalion moved off in full marching order at 08:00 Hours and marched via Bonn, crossing the famous RIVER RHINE at that point to its final destination in the town of Hennef (Sieg). In passing through Bonn the Battalion marched with rifles at the slope and bayonets fixed and passed in review at the east end of the Bonn Bridge, before the Corps and Divisional Commanders. Lieut.-General A.W. Currie, Corps Commander, taking the salute. Maj.-Gen. H.E. Burstall, Commander of the Division, and the Divisional Staff being immediately in the rear of Lieut.-Gen. Currie on the reviewing stand. Upon the arrival of the Battalion in Hennef, 13:30 Hours, Batt’n. Hdqr’s was located in the office of a manufacturing establishment on Frankfurter Strasse, and Hdqr’s officers were billeted in a large Chateau nearby. The Men of “A”, “C” and “d” and Hdqr’s Companies were assigned to billets they were to occupy during their stay in the area. These billets being in private homes of the civilian population. “D” Company proceeded without delay to the village of Happershass, where they were to be on duty as Outpost Company. 3 O.R’s from lave. Appendix No. 10. HENNEF 6 G 90.80 Germany 2-L 14 On this second day of the stay of the Battalion in this are the Officers and men rested in their billets, recovering in a measure from the hardships of the march. Conforming with Army Orders issued to the Burgomeister and from him to the population in general, many civilians have reported to Batt’n. Hdqr’s. for the necessary Identification Passes for use in the local area. These passes being a description of the holder and having further, his or her photograph attached thereto. Several men of the Battn. having knowledge of the German Language, have been selected for Batt’n. duty as Interpreters, etc. 1 O.R. on Hand Compositors Course. 5 O.R’s from leave. 2 O.R. Canadian Corps Cyclists returned to their unit. 2 O.R’s to Hospital. 15 The Battalion formed up on parade and marched though the town to a theatre, in which nothing in the way of amusement was presented for quite some time, and in which the Battalion now held Church Service. The Padre, being in fine form, gave the Battalion an excellent sermon, which was thoroughly appreciated by all members of the Batt’n. present. 1 O.R. to Brigade Duty as Paymaster’s Clerk. Appendix No. 11 attached. 16 The Battalion carried on with training, as per syllabi attached. Between “A” and “D” Companies’ billeting areas a fine large field was located and it served as an excellent Drill Square or Parade Ground. 1 O.R. to Hospital. Appendix No. 12. 17 Battalion Headquarters Staff and Company moved today to the village of Allner, locating the Battalion Orderly Room in a magnificent large Castle, or as termed in the German tongue, Schloss. The Schloss is a huge and very fine specimen of Architectural Art of an earlier period, and is built entirely of stone. Its is surrounded by a beautiful park. When one has seen the Castle and Grounds he is immediately struck with the thought that it is emblematic of the utmost in luxury and convenience. The Batt’n. Headquarters Officers have appropriated the entire Castle and appurtenances for their quarters, having installed themselves in the Sleeping Chambers and using the Breakfast Rooms, Dining Rooms, Drawing Rooms, Billiard Rooms, etc. at their will. The Castle maintains a large staff of servants and consequently the order of the house is of the finest and our Officers are living, as is their due, in every luxury. In a large forest in the rear of the Castle Grounds Dear [sic] and small game abound and the Officers of the Battalion secure a great measure of enjoyment from their hunting and shooting expeditions. The remainder of the Battalion remain in Hennef and are continuing with their training as per syllabi attached. 6 O.R’s from leave. 1 O.R. to Hospital. Appendix No. 13. Allner 6 G 90.80 Germany 2-L 18 The Men of the Battalion have now fully recovered from the hardships of the march and are training as per Syllabi attached. The spirit of the men is superb and they are entering into the daily routine of their stay here and are carrying on their various duties with an eagerness and willingness that is proverbial with the Canadians as a whole. Clothing parades are being held almost daily and the various Company Quartermasters are as rapidly as possible fitting the men with the required new clothing so that the Battalion has now approached the appearance of smartness that is second to none in the allied Armies and in the Canadian and British Armies in particular. 1 O.R. to Hospital. Appendix No. 14. 19 The Battalion continued their training as per syllabi attached. Lieut. S.G. Stokes and 4 O.R’s on leave. Appendix No. 15. 20 “B” Company moved to-day to Brel to continue their duty as Outpost Company there. The remainder of the Battalion continuing their training per Syllabi attached. 3 O.R’s on leave. Appendix No. 16. 21 The Battalion continues training as per Syllabi attached. 4 O.R’s on leave, 1 O.R. to Hospital. Appendix No. 17. 22 The Battalion attended Church Service to-day and enjoyed an excellent sermon, the Padre being in his usual good voice. Major J.J. Richardson and 3 O.R’s on leave. 2 O.R’s attached to Battalion as interpreters. Appendix No. 18. 23 The Battalion continued training as per Syllabi attached, and are maintaining duties in control of the area in the following manner:-

Duties of Commandant and Town Major combined in towns of Hennef (North of Railway), ALLNER, Happerschloss, Heisterschloss, Brehl, Mushmuchl and Weldergoven, in the person O.C. Battalion occupying this district. Headquarters at Schloss in Allner. One H.Q. Officer has office at Hennef permanently for purpose of stamping identification cards. District Administration is carried on by the Battalion Administration through the Burgomeister. No civilians are employed.

One Railway Control Post on broad gauge Railway station at Hennef, which has phone connection to Inter-Allied Railway Commission at Cologne. On the outpost line we have two main Control posts, four subsidiary posts and tow patrols, reference map Germany 2-L.

No. 1 Post (subsidiary) at railroad bridge under V. in Weldergoven.

No. 2 Post (subsidiary) on dirt road just east of village of Weldergoven, just above N. in Weldergoven.

No. 3 Post (subsidiary) on bridge over river where Hennef road joins Allner road. Directly above W. in Weldergoven.

No. 4 Post (Main Control) on bridge in Muschnuehl road, directly below M. in Muschnuehl.

No. 5 Post (subsidiary) on foot bridge S.E. of village of Brehl halfway between l. in Brehl and T in Triesch.

No. 6 Post (Main Control) on bridge where main road Winterschield crosses river.

No. 1 Patrol covers ground between No. 4 and No. 5 Posts.

No. 2 Patrol covers ground along river from junction main Winterschield road with main Brehl-Schied Road.

Traffic with Neutral territory only through main control posts.

Subsidiary posts to guard bridges and prevent traffic to foot paths etc.

No. 377223 Pte. Bihl W. (193 Labour Co’y) and No. 3108760 Pte. Wieber J. (11th Co’y Cdn. Forestry Corps) are attached from 4th C.I.B. as interpreters at Railway Control Post. We have no F.(b) Police attached.

3 O.R’s on leave and 3 O.R’s returned from leave. 5 O.R’s attached to 2nd Divisional Train. 1 O.R. to Hospital. Appendix No. 19.

24 The Battalion continued training as per Syllabi attached. 4 O.R’s on leave and 2 O.R’s returned. Appendix No. 20. 25 “‘A MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL’. Christmas Day dawned bright and clear, with just a touch of snow upon the ground, which gave the vicinity a very “Christmas-like” appearance.

The members of the Battalion were in excellent spirit and thoroughly prepared for anything the day might bring forth. The Officers of the Battalion made every preparation for a fine Christmas Dinner and the men were awaiting it with very keen anticipation. At the appointed hour the tables in the different Company mess-rooms, especially selected for the day, were teeming with good things to eat, and they assuredly presented a most pleasant sight.

“A” Company Mess-room was located in a large hall in the Northern section of the town. “C” Company enjoyed its dinner in a very picturesque theatre in the centre of the town, while “D” Company had theirs in one of the schools the town affords. “B” Company being on duty as Outpost Company, had arranged to have dinner in one of the schools in the village of Brohl.

Each of the mess-rooms was decorated in a most pleasant and “Christmas-like” style and tended to heighten the then very high spirit of the men. The tables were loaded with Apples, Oranges, Nuts, Ginger-ale, Cakes, etc. and from the serving tables in the rear came the most appetizing odours of Turkey, meats, vegetables, Christmas Plum Pudding and other items to be served as the dinner progressed.

The men took their places at the tables in a very business-like manner, the different platoons being kept together, and then began what was their first Christmas dinner and also, in all probability their last one in German Territory.

Lt.-Col. L.E. Jones and ad Staff Officers and the Officers of the different Companies were in attendance at each of the dinners of the Companies and during the progress of the dinner Lt.-Col. Jones made a short [entered in pencil] speech of good will, wishing the members of the Battalion a “Very Merry Christmas” and every prosperity for the coming year, which as he remarked would be the one year that would never be forgotten by any one present or by the world in its entirety, being the Anniversary year of the Ending of the War. He again complimented the members of the Battalion upon their share of the conflict and expressed himself as being more than pleased with their conduct in the past and present.

At the close of his address the men express their appreciation of his remarks by rising and giving him three of the most hearty cheers and a “Tiger”.

At the close of the dinner the faces of the men showed, very glowingly, their entire satisfaction. Altogether the occasion was carried off in an excellent manner and it will be one that will never be forgotten by any of the members of this battalion.

2 O.R.s on leave and 3 O.R.s returned.

26 The Battalion continued training as per Syllabi attached. 4 O.R’s on leave and 1 O.R. returned. 1 O.R. to Hospital. Appendix No. 21. 27 The Battalion continued training as per Syllabi attached. 3 O.R’s on leave and 24 O.R’s returned. 4 O.R’s attached to Repatriated Prisoners of War Camp, Wahm. 1 O.R. attached as reinforcement. 2 O.R’s to Hospital. Appendix No. 22. 28 The Battalion continued training as per Syllabi attached. Lieut. C.D. Smith and 4 O.R’s on leave. Appendix No. 23. 29 The Battalion attended Church Service and enjoyed another of the Padre’s excellent Sermons. Capt. C.H. Boulden and Capt. W.A.S. Porter and 5 O.R’s on leave, and 1 O.R. returned. 1 O.R. to Fitters Course at Duran. 1 O.R. to Hospital. Appendix No. 24. 30 The Battalion continued training as per Syllabi attached. 1 O.R. on leave to Paris and 1 O.R. returned from leave, from United Kingdom. 1 O.R. returned from Hospital Appendix no 25. 31 The Battalion continued training as per Syllabi attached. 4 O.R’s on leave. 1 O.R. to Hospital and 1 O.R. returned from Hospital. Appendix No. 26.

War Diary

Appendices (Not Including Maps)

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War Diary of the 18th Battalion: December 1918 Confidential War Diary of 18th CANADIAN BATTALION – 2nd CANADIAN DIVISION From 1st December, 1918 to 31th December, 1918…

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today-in-wwi · 3 years ago

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The End of Today in World War I (continued)

This half will cover what became of some of the foremost personalities of the Great War after the events previously covered.

United Kingdom

King George V emerged from the war a popular leader, even if his health was not once what it was after his injury and long-term chain smoking. He died in early 1936 at the age of 70.

Asquith and Lloyd George eventually reunited their two factions of the Liberals in 1923, under Asquith’s leadership. Asquith supported a Labour minority government later that year, which backfired at the next election. He accepted a peerage in 1925 and died in 1928.

Lloyd George took over leadership of the Liberal Party after Asquith’s departure, but relinquished it after refusing to support the National Government during the Depression. He did not join the War Cabinet in World War II, and served in the Commons until he was elevated to a peerage shortly before his death in 1945.

Churchill lost his seat in Parliament in the November 1922 election, and while out of office began writing his account of the First World War, The World Crisis (which I used, with appropriate skepticism, at certain points during the war). He returned to Parliament in 1924, joined the Conservative Party, and served as the Chancellor of the Exchequer until the Labour victory in 1929. He continued as a backbencher until the outbreak of World War II, at which point he once again became First Lord of the Admiralty, then Prime Minister after the invasion of the Low Countries. His Conservatives were defeated in 1945, but he returned to power in 1951 until his resignation in 1955; he died ten years later.

Beatty helped negotiate the Washington Naval Treaty, and retired from the Navy in 1927. Jellicoe served as Governor-General of New Zealand from 1920-1924. Their partisans continued to debate their actions at Jutland throughout the 1920s. Jellicoe died in late 1935; Beatty, despite his poor health, attended and died four months later.

Admiral Reginald Hall served as a Conservative MP from 1919-1923, and 1925-1929, and died in 1943.

Field Marshal Haig left the military in 1920, and spent most of his remaining 8 years advocating for former soldiers.

General Plumer served as British High Commissioner of Palestine and Trans-Jordan from 1925-1928, and died in 1932.

General Byng, once commander of the Canadian Corps, became Governor-General of Canada in 1921. In 1926, he declined to dissolve parliament on the request of PM Mackenzie King. The resulting controversy helped spur reform of Dominion status codified in 1931. From 1928-1931, he served as the Commissioner of the Metropolitcan Police. He was promoted to Field Marshal in 1932 and died in 1935.

General Rawlinson served as the Commander in Chief in India from 1920 until his death in 1925.

Allenby remained as High Commissioner in Egypt until 1925, and died in 1936.

Sir John French resigned from the military (and as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland) in April 1921, and died in 1925.

General Gough lived until 1963, giving him plenty of time to write multiple sets of memoirs about the war. He commanded the Chelsea Home Guard early in World War II.

Sir Edward Grey served as Ambassador to the United States for a brief stint in 1919-1920, then as Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1928 until his death in 1933.

Charles Townshend was elected as a non-Coalition Conservative in a 1920 by-election, but further coverage of his troops’ fate in captivity after the surrender of Kut tarnished his reputation. He did not stand in the 1922 election, and died in 1924.

Canada

Despite only having a high school education, Arthur Currie served as vice-chancellor of McGill from 1920 until his death in 1933. In 1927 and 1928, he was involved in a bitter libel suit against a Canadian newspaper that suggested his effort to liberate Mons on the final day of the war was needlessly wasteful of lives; he won the suit but was only awarded $500 in damages.

South Africa

Jan Smuts succeeded Louis Botha as South African PM upon the latter’s death in 1919, and served until his party was defeated in a 1924 election. He once again became Prime Minister at the outset of World War II, and at the close of the war, became the only person to have signed both the United Nations Charter and the Treaty of Versailles. His party was defeated by the hardline pro-apartheid National Party in 1948, two years before his death.

France

Raymond Poincaré served as French PM for two different stretches totaling over five years in the 1920s, during the first of which he ordered the occupation of the Ruhr. He retired due to ill health in 1929, and died in 1934.

Clemenceau launched a failed bid for the presidency in 1920, then retired from politics. He died in 1929.

Pétain led the campaign to defeat Abd el-Krim in the Rif (along with the Spanish) in 1925-1926, briefly served as Minister of War in 1934, then as ambassador to Franco’s Spain in 1939. In May 1940, as Germany invaded France, he was made Deputy Prime Minister, then became Prime Minister after the fall of Paris. A second armistice of Compiègne was signed on June 22, and his government collaborated with the Germans until it was evacuated to Germany in September 1944. Sentenced to death for treason after the war, this was quickly commuted to life imprisonment due to his service in World War I. He was discharged on health grounds a few weeks before his death in 1951.

Sarrail, after spending a long time in the wilderness due to his socialism, was appointed High Commissioner of Syria in 1924. His tenure there saw the start of a multi-year revolt, and he was recalled after ordering the shelling of Damascus. He died in 1929.

Aristide Briand led the French negotiations at the Washington Naval Conference while Prime Minister, but was soon replaced by Poincaré. He returned to power for two more brief periods later in the 1920s, and even when not PM served as Foreign Minister from 1926 until his death in 1932. In 1926, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the Locarno Treaties, which normalized relations with Germany (including its accession into the League) in return for formal German recognition of its western borders. In 1928, the oft-derided Kellogg-Briand Pact committed its signatories (initially, Germany, France, and the United States) to not use war to resolve “disputes or conflicts.”

Belgium

King Albert I’s wartime service made him popular for the remainder of his reign, cut short by a mountaineering accident in the Ardennes in 1934.

Serbia

Nikola Pašić served as PM of Yugoslavia for most of the period from 1921 until his death in 1926, and was instrumental in centralizing the Yugoslav state under Serbian rule.

Japan

Katō Takaaki became Prime Minister in 1924. During his tenure, which lasted until his death in 1926, he normalized relations with the Soviet Union, withdrawing the last Japanese forces from Kamchatka and northern Sakhalin, and extended suffrage to all men over 25.

Italy

King Victor Emmanuel III abdicated in 1946, in an attempt to save the monarchy after his decades-long collaboration with Mussolini. He was unsuccessful, and died the next year.

Pietro Badoglio warmed himself to Mussolini, and was appointed Chief of Staff in 1925. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, he led a genocidal campaign to pacify Libya, and in 1935 he completed the Italian conquest of Abyssinia. He was dismissed as Chief of Staff following Italian defeats in Greece in late 1940. In 1943, the king named him Prime Minister, and a hasty armistice was negotiated with the Allies. His fascist ties eventually made his position untenable, and he left office the next year. He died in 1956.

Hashemite Kingdom of Hejaz

Hussein abdicated as King of Hejaz shortly before the Saudi conquest of the area in 1924. Feisal, after his defeat in Syria in 1920, became King of Iraq from 1921 until his death in 1933; in the final year of his reign, the British mandate ended and Iraq officially gained its independence.

TE Lawrence returned to military life in 1922, published his Seven Pillars of Wisdom about his time in the Arab Revolt in 1926, and died in a motorcycle crash in 1935.

Greece

Venizelos returned to power briefly in Greece in 1924, then again after a landslide victory in 1928. He helped normalize relationships with Italy, Yugoslavia, and Turkey, before the Great Depression led to another defeat in 1932. He left Greece in 1935 following a failed coup by his supporters, and died the next year.

United States

Woodrow Wilson remained bitter at the Treaty of Versailles’ defeat, and spent much of his last years in a delusion plan to mount a bid for a third term in 1924; he died in February 1924 before these could come to fruition.

William McAdoo again sought the Democratic nomination in 1924, and led on the first ballot, but ties to those implicated in the Teapot Dome scandal and an endorsement from the KKK doomed his chances. He served one term as a Senator from California in the 1930s, and died in 1941.

Pershing served as the US Army Chief of Staff from 1921 to 1924, and largely retreated from public life afterwards, although he did play a role in promoting aid to the United Kingdom in 1940. His rank of General of the Armies meant he still outranked the five-star generals created in World War II. He died in 1948.

Admiral Sims won a Pulitzer Prize for his 1921 book The Victory at Sea which described his experiences in the war. He retired in 1922, and died in 1936.

William Jennings Bryan moved his focus away from politics after 1920 and concentrated on religion, mounting a failed bid for Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the USA and participating in the Scopes Monkey Trial shortly before his death in 1925.

Charles Evans Hughes served as Harding’s Secretary of State, and was instrumental in the negotiation of the Washington Naval Treaty. He returned to the Supreme Court, this time as Chief Justice, in 1930, serving as Chief Justice through the New Deal era until his retirement in 1941. He died in 1948.

Germany

Kaiser Wilhelm II remained in exile in the Netherlands until his death in 1941, even after the German conquest of the country in 1940. His son, Crown Prince Wilhelm, returned to Germany in 1923 and involved himself in politics until the Night of the Long Knives in 1934. He died ten years after his father, in 1951.

Hindenburg was elected President in 1925 and served until his death in 1934; in 1933, he appointed Hitler as Chancellor.

After the Beer Hall Putsch, Ludendorff ran for President in 1925 as the Nazi candidate, receiving barely more than 1% of the vote. He fell further into conspiracy theories and was sidelined by the Nazis after their rise to power; he died in 1937.

Wilhelm Groener served as minister in several governments during the Weimar Republic, before leaving politics in 1932. He died in 1939.

Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck was forced out of the military after being involved in the Kapp Putsch, and became involved in monarchist politics later. Hitler apparently offered him the ambassadorship to the United Kingdom in 1935, but he declined. He died in Hamburg in 1964.

Mackensen became involved in far-right politics in the 1920s, even endorsing Erzberger’s murder. He and the Nazis enjoyed a tenuous relationship; they enjoyed his propaganda value, but did not like his committed monarchism. He died in late 1945.

Count Bernstoff helped to found the liberal German Democratic Party in 1921, and served in the Reichstag until 1928. He left Germany after the Nazis came to power in 1933, and died in Geneva in 1939.

Admiral Tirpitz continued his involvement in far-right politics, and served in the Reichstag for the German National People’s Party for a few years in the 1920s, before dying in 1930.

Austria-Hungary

Empress Zita lived in exile in various countries for the rest of her life, outliving her husband by 77 years, never remarrying until her death in 1989.

Admiral Horthy continued to serve as Regent of Hungary, allying with Nazi Germany during the war, until the Nazis deposed him after concluding an armistice with the Soviets in October 1944. He was freed by the Allies after the end of the war and lived in exile until his death in 1957.

Ottoman Empire

Mustafa Kemal became the first President of the new Turkish Republic from 1923 until his death in 1938, and played an outsized role in shaping modern Turkey.

Russia

Lenin continued as the effective head of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union until his death in early 1924. Trotsky lost the power struggle after his death, went into exile in 1929, and was assassinated by an agent of Stalin in Mexico City in 1940.

Kerensky lived in exile in France until 1940, and then in the United States until his death in 1970.

Romania

General Averescu served as Prime Minister twice in the 1920s; in his second government, he attempted to align himself with Mussolini’s government in Italy. He remained politically active until his death in 1938.

Finland

Mannerheim was made Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish Army upon the Soviet invasion in November 1939, and remained in place until he became President in August 1944. He concluded the war with the Soviet Union and joined the Allies. After the end of the war, he resigned as president in 1946, and died five years later.

Mexico

Pancho Villa ended his hostilities in 1920, after the assassination of President Carranza, but was himself assassinated by political enemies in 1923.

Final Words

Thanks again to all my readers, and to all those I thanked three years ago.

After seven years and one gender transition (tumblr will have its due, after all), it’s time to finally close the book here. I will not be doing a similar project for World War II, but might do something for the 150th anniversary come 2064.

#wwi #ww1 #ww1 history #ww1 centenary #world war 1 #The First World War

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alexthegamingboy · 5 years ago

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Toonami Weekly Recap 01/04/2020

My Hero Academia Shie Hassaikai Arc Season 4 EP#70 (07) - GO!!: Izuku and Mirio overcome their heavy emotions following the meeting and past revelations, as Sir Nighteye launches the mission to save Eri and the massive raid on the Shie Hassaikai's Headquarters begins.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind EP#08 - Sex Pistols Appears, Part 2: In a flashback, Mista is shown as a carefree young thug who discovered that bullets fired at him miss completely. Back on the island of Capri, Mista is hanging onto the truck travelling up a mountain and is confronted by Sale and his Stand, Kraft Work.[m] Sale’s Stand allows him to affix objects and people in place, which enables him to stop a bullet fired by Mista from penetrating his skull. Mista then uses his Sex Pistols to knock Sale off the truck, however, Sale catches up to Mista and hits him with one of his own bullets. Sale attempts to finish off Mista off with one final bullet, but Mista has the Sex Pistols take control of it and split it in two, deflecting a fragment to push the bullet Sale had previously stopped further into his skull. Mista then has the truck driver return him to the Marina where he enters the watch-house with the bleeding Sale. Unaware that Mista has returned to the port, Giorno forces the same truck driver back up the mountain to find Mista.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba EP#10 - Together Forever: As Yahaba disintegrates, he continues to attack Tanjiro, determined to kill him as he dies, forcing Tanjiro to unleash move after move to lessen the impact, leaving Tanjiro utterly exhausted. Thanks to demon-only healing serum by Tamayo, Nezuko rejoins the fight against Susamaru and her strong will sharpens her strength greatly enough to kick the temari back without getting injured. At that, Tamayo steps in, and uses her Blood Demon Art to lower Susamaru's brain functions through the scent of her blood, causing Susamaru to accidentally activate the Kibutsuji curse and is killed. After the battle, Tamayo notes that the two demons were too weak to be members of the Twelve Kizuki, as the members have their number ranks engraved on their eyeballs, but takes some of Susamaru's blood nevertheless. As day breaks, Tanjiro returns Susamaru's temari to her before she disintegrates from the sunlight. Although Urokodaki has cast a spell on Nezuko to make her view humans as family and demons as enemies, Nezuko sees Tamayo and Yushiro as humans to be protected, causing Tamayo to cry out of thankfulness. The siblings soon set off southeast on their next mission, and Tanjiro sees one of those who completed Final Selection with him, Zenitsu Agatsuma, begging a distressed woman to marry him on the street.

One-Punch Man 2 EP#11 (23) - The Varieties of Pride: Death Gatling explains their reasoning to take down Garou: to earn respect from the Hero Association, who only cares about S Class and ignores the rest of the hardworking heroes, despite the amount of effort the lower heroes put in their work. Garou takes down Chain Toad, Shooter, Gun Gun, and Wildhorn. Death Gatling starts shooting at Garou, but Garou gets close to Glasses. Glasses remembers how he was looked down upon in Fubuki's group, when he was saved by Saitama in the past. Saitama tells Glasses instead of looking at his failures, he should move forward instead. Garou quickly defeats Glasses and Stinger, leaving Death Gatling the only one still standing. Death Gatling plans to use his final move, but Garou tries telling Death Gatling that there's a kid in the shed, however Death Gatling doesn't believe Garou and uses his final move: Death Shower. Garou singlehandedly redirects all the bullets elsewhere, saving Tareo. Garou defeats Death Gatling after insulting his pride, and Tareo runs away after seeing the defeated heroes. Garou tries to find a place with water, but Genos arrives thanks to Glass' signal. King barely beats Saitama in a video game match, making Saitama stressed out. King's phone vibrates, and says that Genos is at the place where the signal is located. Remembering that Genos always gets destroyed, Saitama and King start to go the location. Garou and Genos start fighting, with Genos pinning Garou to a tree with his robot hand. Genos nearly kills Garou, but Garou manages to escape and proclaims himself as the monster that no one can defeat. Genos counters that statement, saying that Saitama will always defeat any monsters because he's strong, leading Garou to ask who Saitama is. Suddenly, a group of monsters ambush Genos, but Genos swiftly kills them all, stating that he learns from his mistakes and will be stronger. Genos is about to fire at Garou once more but Bang kicks Garou in the head. Bomb arrives with Bang and kills more monsters, requesting Genos to leave Garou to Bang. As Bang and Garou get in their stances to fight, Bang remembers his first time meeting Garou.

Dr. Stone Village Origins Arc EP#17 - A Hundred Nights and a Thousand Skies: After Byakuya deduces that the phenomenon originated in South America, Shamil, Lillian and Connie venture down to the surface, but wind up in the middle of the ocean, prompting Byakuya and the others to go down and rescue them. The six begin living together on a nearby island, forming relationships and raising children together. As the crew start to gradually die from pneumonia, however, Byakuya writes down the "Hundred Tales" to pass essential knowledge down to future generations in the hope that Senku would one day be able to use them. Back in the present, Ruri takes Senku to the village cemetery where Byakuya lies, relaying Byakuya's final message to Senku that the Hundred Tales are a scientific gift for him. Afterwards, Gen warns Senku and the others that Tsukasa and his army are coming.

Fire Force Netherworld Arc EP#20 - Wearing His Pride: Lieutenant Hinawa searches the underground tunnels for Shinra. He encounters Arrow and they immediately fire at each other. Shinra finds Licht, but a White-Clad holds a knife at his throat. Shinra uses his tiger hand sign to fire a focused blast to disable the White-Clad, calling the new technique "Shinrabansho". Meanwhile, Hinawa and Arrow use their long range weapons to attack each other. Hinawa is badly hit, but he fires one last shell which finally defeats Arrow. bystanders, Yona and Mirage, approach the wounded Hinawa to kill him, but Arthur drops down from above. Mirage creates a multitude of illusions of himself to confuse Arthur, however, he uses his new training to detect the real Mirage, ignoring attack from the duplicates. He kills Mirage who is hiding in the darkness and Yona flees for his life. Elsewhere in the tunnels, Maki finds Iris and Tamaki, while Giovanni and Lisa find Vulcan and Obi. Lisa reveals that she is a Knights of the Ashen Flame and her real name is Feeler. Giovanni praises the power and knowledge of his great leader, the Evangelist, and he orders Lisa to defend him and destroy Vulcan and Obi.

Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma Totsuki Autumn Election Arc EP#23 - The Unfolding Individual Competition: Back in Group A, contestants are struggling to score as one of the main judges, Natsume Sendawara, keeps giving out zero scores. This streak of zeros soon breaks when Ryo Kurokiba, Alice's aide, presents a lobster curry made using a cognac base, earning 93 points. Next, Ikumi presents a Dongpo pork curry, using what she had learned from her Shokugeki with Soma to impress the judges with a complete dish and earning a score of 86. Afterwards, Ryoko presents a Dal curry made with charcoal-grilled natto and soy sauce rice malt, also scoring 86, while both Marui and Ibusaki earn 88 points with their white potage curry udon and smoked curry, respectively. Then, Akira presents his dish, which turns out to be a fragrance bomb.

Black Clover: Elf Tribe Reincarnation Arc EP#99 - The Desperate Path Toward Survival: Rhya announces to Mereoleona that their target is Asta, as his Grimoire and anti-magic swords once belonged to the real Licht. Asta tries to go back to help Mereoleona but is stopped by Zora. After a short but brutal fight Mereoleona is severely injured by Rhya and decides to use her most powerful spell, Purgatory, that engulfs the room in blue flames. The effort leaves her unable to move, and while the elves are injured, they are not defeated. The elves cast a team spell to kill her but at the last moment Asta and Zora arrive. It is shown that Asta came up with a plan for Zora to intercept the five spells with a trap that doubles the destructive power, shoot it at Asta, then deflect it back at Zora to quadruple it. The result is an explosion that allows Asta and Zora to escape with Mereoleona, however, Rhya manages to grab Asta through a portal to take him to Licht. Elsewhere, Mimosa is the only human left after Yuno, Klaus and Hamon are all possessed. Mimosa is captured before she can escape, just as Rhya drops Asta into the room. Asta is horrified to learn Yuno is also possessed and is now an enemy.

#Toonami #Toonami Weekly Recap #My Hero Academia #Shie Hassaikai Arc #JoJo's Bizarre Adventure #JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind #Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba #One Punch Man #One Punch Man 2 #Dr. Stone #Village Origins Arc #Fire Force #Netherworld Arc #Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma #Totsuki Autumn Election #Black Clover #Elf Tribe Reincarnation Arc

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autodidact-adventures · 6 years ago

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World War I (Part 73): The End of the War

It was obvious that Germany was going to lose the war in the west, but Ludendorff was incapable of seeing sense. He still believed that Germany could end the war in possession of part of Belgium, and France's Longwy-Briey Basin. On August 28th, Foch said, “The man could escape even now if he would make up his mind to leave behind his baggage.”

Britain was preparing for an offensive out of Arras. Foch was demanding that America contribute divisions to it, but Pershing refused – he wanted to concentrate his troops on his own sector of front, to achieve his own objectives. Foch was indignant at this.

Pétain worked out a solution, providing French support for the offensive that Pershing was preparing at St. Mihiel. This offensive had three goals – 1) drive the Germans out of the salient; 2) cut the railway line that ran laterally behind the salient; 3) threaten Longwy-Briey. It was to begin in five days' time – the Allies were in a rush, thinking for the first time that they might be able to finish the war before winter.

The Arras offensive (with Canadians in the lead) was successful, breaking through everywhere they attacked. Ludendorff was forced to order a pullback to the Hindenburg Line, giving up all they'd gained in 1918. But it was too late for an orderly retreat – during the fortnight-long withdrawal, the Germans lost 115,000 men, 470 guns, and stores that they had no way of replacing. And that was just on the British part of the front.

After four years of fighting, the Anzac & Canadian corps were so potent that Haig repeatedly used them as a battering ram to smash the German line with, and it was the case here as well. It was likely that they were the best divisions in the whole war (on either side). John Monash and Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Currie, his Canadian counterpart, were much of the reason for this.

Like Monash, Currie's background set him apart from almost all the other BEF generals. He'd grown up on a farm in British Columbia; he wanted to be a lawyer, but after his father's death he became a teacher. After that he went into insurance, and then into real-estate speculation.

At 21yrs old, he joined the Canadian Garrison Artillery (a “weekened-warrior operation” [?]) as a gunner. He was competent and amiable, and was commissioned at 25yrs old, promoted to Captain the next year, and at 33yrs old he became a Lieutenant-Colonel, commanding a regiment.

Medical problems kept him out of the Boer War, to his disappointment, and he was eager to fight when WW1 broke out. He was as well-qualified as a Canadian soldier could be at that time, and was put in command of one of the country's four brigades.

But he was struggling financially. Early in 1914 a real estate bubble had burst, leaving him in major debt. He borrowed regimental funds to avoid bankruptcy, and if it wasn't for the intervention of friends he might have been charged with embezzlement.

However, by the end of the war he had become one of the BEF's most respected commanders. In April 1915, during the Second Battle of Ypres, his brigade held off a German attack on the village of St. Julien, preventing the battle from turning into a disaster for the British. In 1916, his Canadian First Division showed its brilliance in capturing Vimy Ridge; this led General Henry Horne to declare it “the pride and wonder of the British army.”

In June 1917, the British selected Currie to become the first Canadian commander of the Canadian Corps. But back at home, people weren't happy – politicians complained that they'd hadn't been consulted, and proposed other candidates; they also urged Currie's creditors to demand payment in full. So Currie's promotion was changed to “temporary”, and seemed likely to be revoked. Even compared to Monash he was a fish out of water among the other generals – his son would later recall, “He had a tremendous command of profanity. He didn't swear without a cause. But boy, when he cut loose he could go for about a minute without repetition.”

Two of Currie's officers advanced him $6,000, and the great respect the Canadian troops had for him made it clear that removing him would spark protests. He was also knighted. At the end of August 1918, his troops had a record of never once failing to capture an objective, never being driven out of a position that they'd had the opportunity to consolidate, and never losing a gun.

At the beginning of September, the biggest problem for the Germans was the huge mass of American troops assembling near Verdun. Ludendorff knew they were going to attack, so he ordered the entire salient (518 square km, 21km deep) to be abandoned.

Pershing had originally planned for the offensive to begin on September 7th, but he was held up by difficulties in getting French artillery into position. He wanted to destroy the defenders as well as capture the salient, and he certainly had the resources to do so – a million American troops, 110,000 French troops, 3,000 artillery pieces, complete air superiority, and essentially unlimited ammunition.

The Battle of Saint-Mihiel began on September 12th with a 4hr-long barrage. When the infantry advanced, though, they found only a rear guard shielding the escape of eight German divisions. The Americans took the salient within a day, taking 15,000 prisoners and 450 guns.

Pershing and his staff immediately began preparing for another attack, this one in an area that was bordered by the Meuse's heights and the Argonne Forest, where the Germans were waiting with a 19km-deep defensive system nearly as formidable as the Hindenburg Line. But Pershing had 820,000 troops (600,000 of them being Americans), 4,000 guns, and enough shells for the guns to fire at their maximum rate until the barrels burned out. The staff had two weeks to get everything ready.

Everywhere else, things were falling apart for the Central Powers. Franchet d'Esperey's Army of the Orient were weakened by malaria and influenza, and when they attacked the strong Bulgarian & German entrenchments outside Salonika, the defenders held their ground for several days, making it seem that this attempt to break out of Salonika would end in failure as usual. But the Bulgarians were struggling with ammo & supply shortages, and their morale was low; they attempted a limited retreat that was intended to draw the Entente forces into an ambush.

It didn't work. D'Esperey's aircraft began to attack almost as soon as the Bulgarians were out of their defences, and the retreat turned into a rout. The Bulgarian troops were exhausted, and tired of a war that had accomplished nothing; they were unhappy with their king, who had made the decision to join the Central Powers. Now they abandoned the fight, leaving the way the Hungary's interior open to the Entente advance units.

German troops were sent to salvage the situation, but it wasn't possible. Later, Ludendorff would say of the situation, “We could not answer every single cry for help. We had to insist that Bulgaria must do something for herself, for otherwise we, too, were lost.”

Bulgaria asked for an armistice on September 25th, and it was granted five days later. The Turks had been defeated in Palestine by an Allied force commanded by the British General Edmund Allenby; they were in retreat towards Damascus (Syria), and couldn't do anything about Bulgaria unless they left Constantinople unprotected. The war in the Balkans was over.

Ludendorf & Hindenburg met in their headquarters on September 28th. They abandoned their illusions, and admitted that the Balkans were lost, and so was the war in general. A few days later, Hindenburg would write that they were forced to do so largely “as a result of the collapse of our Macedonian front,” and their consequent exposure to attack from the east.

Ludendorff had no options left, and he sent his army group commanders a message, stating that there would be no more withdrawals in the west. He was still determined that every position be held, and told his staff that “pneumonic plague” had broken out in the French army – he'd heard a rumour about it, and “clung to that news like a drowning man to a straw,” as he later put it. The rumour was nonsense.

At the Hindenburg Line, Britain & France were attacking, capturing thousands of Germans and hundreds of guns. In the Meuse-Argonne, the French were attacking on a 64km-wide front. Even the Entente armies were taking huge casualties – from August 28th to September 26th the British had 108,000 casualties; the Americans had 26,000 killed and 95,000 wounded in about the same period. But this was more bearable than earlier in the war, because the Allies had the hope that an end was in sight, and the Germans couldn't possibly stand up to all of this without eventually collapsing.

A British sergeant wrote home, “I have seen prisoners coming from the Battle of the Somme, Mons and Messines and along the road to Menin. Then they had an expression of hard defiance on their faces; their eyes were saying: 'You've had the better of me; but there are many others like me still to carry on the fight, and in the end we shall crush you.' Now their soldiers are no more than a pitiful crowd. Exhaustion of the spirit which always accompanies exhaustion of the body. They are marked with the sign of the defeated.'

The best of the remaining German units, continued to resist with intense determination – but it was quite obviously a lost cause. The Allies had 6 million troops in the west, but they didn't actually need to use all of them, thanks to their artillery & tank advantage, and the fact that Monash's tactics were now widely adopted. Nearly 40% of the French army (over a million men) were assigned to artillery. While they'd had only 300 medium & heavy guns in 1914, they now had nearly 6,000.

On September 28th & 29th, the Canadians finally broke through the Hindenburg Line. This was thanks in part to their firing of nearly 944,000 artillery rounds during those two days. In early October, 12,000 tonnes of munitions were being fired every 24hrs. France's 75mm light field guns were firing 280,000 rounds a day. The Germans on & near the front were living under a constant barrage.

The Allies were regularly breaking through the German line, and with increasing regularity – on October 5th, each of Haig's four armies did so at one or more points. But none of these successes turned into a rout. The hard core of the German army was low on food & ammo, and never able to get a day's rest, but they gave up ground reluctantly and continued to take a heavy toll on the enemy; they even managed to counterattack at critical junctures. In some places, the German line was manned only by officers with machine-guns. And still the line didn't dissolve. The number of Allied troops killed in combat was higher than the Germans.

An American Marine battalion that eventually succeeded in driving the Germans off a hill in Champagne lost almost 90% of its men (killed/wounded). This region had been reduced to “blackened, branchless stumps, upthrust through the churned earth...naked, leprous chalk...a wilderness of craters, large and small, wherein no yard of earth lay untouched.”

Heavy autumn rains, the difficulty of the terrain, and the strength of the remaining German infrastructure (especially along the eastern sector, where the Americans were) slowed the Allied advance. The size of the Allied force, while an advantage in attacking, was a disadvantage in other ways – it was extremely difficult to keep it supplied and in motion, and to deploy the guns & men. In fact, Pershing was forced to suspend his offensive in the Argonne for a week in order to get things sorted out.

Admiral Paul von Hintze had been appointed Foreign Minister on July 6th, after Kühlmann's forced resignation. In the aftermath of Salonika, he met with Ludendorff, who outlined the realities of the situation, as he'd done with Hindenburg. He told him that they needed an armistice immediately. This was sensible, but he also said that he thought a ceasefire could be secured within a few days; and he wanted an agreement that would allow their armies to pull back to the German border, rest the troops and build their defences, and later resume the fight if they chose to do so! Hintze was shocked at this, and the conversation became so heated that at one point, Ludendorff collapsed to the floor in one of his rages.

They did agree, however, to approach Woodrow Wilson about an armistice based on his Fourteen Points. Hintze's goal was to save Germany and the Hohenzollern dynasty, and he suggested that they carry out a “revolution from above”: to transform Germany's political system in a way that would demonstrate that Germany was now under progressive (even democratic) leadership, and that this change had been accomplished by the kaiser (rather than in spite of him).

The “revolution” wasn't really that, though – the most radical change was giving Reichstag representatives a place in the cabinet. Because it wasn't much of a change, it was possible for Ludendorff and the kaiser to agree to it – but the conservatives considered it a shocking violation of Prussian & Hohenzollern tradition. Chancellor Hertling, who wasn't even a Prussian, resigned the chancellorship rather than agree to it.

On September 27th, the kaiser signed a proclamation of parliamentary government, in an attempt to salvage something of his inheritance. One officer noted that he was a “broken and suddenly aged man.” Wilhelm knew that all of his ancestors (except for his father) would be horrified at his actions, but the German leaders knew that the situation was desperate.

(This change, in the end, led to the liberals & socialists in the Reichstag having to take part of the blame for the disaster that was unfolding.)

Hintze insisted that he also had to resign, to demonstrate that the kaiser's proclamation wasn't just empty words; the kaiser & Ludendorff failed to dissuade him.

On September 30th, Ludendorff sent a member of his staff (only a Major) to Berlin, with orders to inform the Reichstag of what was happening on the Western Front. But the truth contradicted so much of what the public & the Reichstag deputies had been led to believe, causing great damage to the government & military's credibility.

On October 3rd, Prince Max of Baden became the new Chancellor, and was given the job or arranging a peace. Max was “the one prominent royalist liberal in the empire,” and was capable, but in poor health. He was well-known within the German establishment for reformist sympathies, so his appointment would hopefully show the Allies that there was a new kind of government in Berlin; one that the democracies could come to terms with.

But things looked quite different to the Allies – Max was a relative of the kaiser, and a member of the Baden royal house. He seemed simply more of the same.

On the 3rd, Max signed a note that Hintze had drafted, addressed to Woodrow Wilson. It asked for an immediate armistice, and accepted the peace terms that Wilson's government had been issuing during that year.

Wilson replied promptly, and in almost friendly terms. He asked the Germans to confirm their acceptance of the Fourteen Points, and their willingness to withdraw from all occupied territory. The prince's government signalled their agreement.

It was by now the second week of October, and the Allied armies were briefly stymied on the Western Front. The Americans were finally clearing the Argonne (with Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur constantly exposing himself to enemy fire), but they had taken high casualties, and were facing even stronger defences further east.

Ludendorff, moving away from the sensible attitude he'd been showing, began to talk of line-shortening measures that could enable them to hold out through the coming winter, and wear the Allies down through attrition, in order to get better peace terms.

But this was not likely to happen – even the peace terms that they were hoping to get already weren't going to happen. Wilson was under pressure: after a year and a half of propaganda, the public had become almost hysterically anti-German. Congress members responded in ways that would increase their own popularity. The president had been severely criticized for not responding strictly enough to Germany's request. The midterm elections were scheduled for November 5th, and his party had only a thin majority over the Republicans in both Congress houses. The French and British, too, were pushing him to take a harder line.

On October 10th, the steamer RMS Leinster was sailing between Ireland and England's west coast, as usual. Not long before 10am, a U-boat fired two torpedoes into her hull, and she went down with nearly 450 people killed, including 135 women & children. One of those killed was Josephine Carr, a 19yr-old shorthand typist from Cork, the first member of the WRENS (Women's Royal Naval Service) to be killed on active service.

The result of this sinking was that all the Allies toughened their peace terms, including Wilson, who sent a new note to Berlin, in an entirely new tone. He demanded an end to the submarine warfare, and referred to the “arbitrary” power of Germany's military elite and the threat it posed to the world – and any armistice terms must be settled with the Allied commanders in the field, rather than with him or even the Allied governments acting together. This got him off the hook.

Hungary had declared itself an autonomous nation, separating itself from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Emperor Karl, desperate to try and save something from the wreckage, issued a manifesto that transformed the remains of the empire into a federation in which all members would have their own national councils (even nationalities as obscure as the Ruthenians).

But no-one paid any attention to this – all the pieces of the empire were going their own ways, and the remnants of his army were breaking up as well, with various non-Austrian units marching home. Now, the road to Central Europe lay open to the Army of the Orient. This included Romania, which Germany relied upon for oil.

On October 17th, the German Council of War gathered – the kaiser, Ludendorff, Hindenburg, and all the new government's leading officials. Ludendorff was completely irrational, insisting that they would hold out through the winter (actually, that very night he would find out that the British had made a new breakthrough and were advancing again).

He also threatened to resign if the other generals were even allowed to express their opinions, and demanded that the submarine campaign continue. The kaiser agreed, and only Prince Max disagreed. He threatened to resign himself if they didn't accept Wilson's terms to the last detail. It was impossible to let this happen, as they'd attached so much importance to the creation of a “liberal” government. So Ludendorff's power was now broken.

Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria was still commanding the northern German army group. He sent a warning to Prince Max that if they didn't soon get an armistice, they wouldn't be able to prevent their country from being invaded.

General Wilhelm Gröner had begun the war as head of the German railway system, and had held other important positions since then (and had been at odds with Ludendorff along the way). Now, he reported that at least 200,000 troops were missing, many of them having deserted. In fact, it could be as many as 1.5 million, as it was no longer possible to keep track.

During October, 133,000 French troops were killed, wounded or missing. But the Allies were still attacking, and the Germans were struggling more and more. They had no replacements and hardly any reserves; meanwhile, the Allies had so many troops that they were able to pull the Anzac Corps out of the line – they were near breaking point, and Monash couldn't keep his left hand from trembling, so he tended to keep it in his pocket.

On October 22nd, Admiral Franz von Hipper (new chief of the German High Seas Fleet) tried to execute Operation 19, in which his ships were to put to sea and fight the British & Americans in a final suicidal campaign. Three dreadnought crews at Kiel heard of this plan and mutinied, running red banners of revolution up their masts; the Kiel army garrison joined in, and the revolt quickly spread. Now the German fleet wasn't even a potential fighting force.

On October 23rd, Germany received a third note from Wilson: “If the Government of the United States must deal with the military masters and monarchical autocrats of Germany...it must demand not peace negotiations but surrender.”

Provoked by this, Ludendorff wrote a harsh message to the troops, and both he and Hindenburg signed it: “Our enemies merely pay lip service to the idea of a just peace in order to deceive us and break our resistance. For us soldiers Wilson's reply can therefore only constitute a challenge to continue resisting to the limit of our strength.”

Ludendorff then travelled from his headquarters to Berlin, with the intention of ending Prince Max's dialogue with Washington. But he arrived to find that his message had created a furor – the public (who were hungry for peace), a large part of the Reichstag, Prince Max himself, and even the military were indignant. The note had to be withdrawn, because so many of the field commanders had protested. This was yet another humiliation for Ludendorff, and some Reichstag members were demanding he be removed. Some were even saying that if peace was impossible with the kaiser on the throne, then the kaiser must go too.

News of new disasters was arriving every day, almost every hour. In Italy, an Allied force of 56 divisions (including 3 British & 2 French) were attacking northwards – the Italians were trying to seize as much territory as possible before the fighting ended. The Austrians revolted instead of resisting, with 500,000 of them surrendering. Their generals sent a delegation to Trieste to beg for an armistice. (This was the Battle of Vittorio Veneto.)

Now Ludendorff began talking about something he called “soldier's honour”, in which the entire German nation would be mustered for a final fight to the death. The deputy chancellor listened to Ludendorff's rant, and replied, “I am a plain ordinary citizen. All I can see is people who are starving.”

On October 26th, Ludendorff & Hindenburg met privately with the kaiser. Ludendorff coldly offered his resignation, aware that his position was untenable. Wilhelm offered to transfer him to a field command, but Ludendorff refused & asked to be relieved. Hindenburg also asked to be relived, but the kaiser told him curtly, “You will stay,” and Hindenburg bowed in acquiescence. Ludendorff would see Hindenburg's obedience as an unforgivable betrayal for the rest of his life.

When Ludendorff's decision was announced in Berlin's movie houses, audiences cheered. Ludendorff slipped away to Sweden, as it was too dangerous for him to stay in Germany.

On October 27th, Germany sent a fourth note to Wilson, giving in. It stated that Germany “looked forward to proposals for an armistice that would usher in a peace of justice as outlined by the President.” They were now accepting that Wilson would decide the peace terms, but assumed that they would correspond to the Fourteen Points. This would not be the case.

While Germany waited, Americans captured the French city of Sedan, and severed Germany's last north-south railway line in France. Turkey & Austria surrendered, and Bavaria began to explore a separate peace. Revolution broke out in nearly every provincial capital. A republic was declared in Munich, and on November 7th Ludwig III of Bavaria (the last King of Bavaria) & his family fled from the Residenz Palace in Munich, to the Schloss Anif (near Salzburg in Austria). And Crown Prince Rupprecht now no longer had a home to return to.

The commanders-in-chief of the Allied armies met on October 28th to decide on the armistice terms, and there was a lot of disagreement. Haig suggested that Germany should withdraw from Belgium & France, and surrender Alsace-Lorraine. Pétain went further, demanding that German withdraw east of the Rhine (even north of Alsace-Lorraine), and hand over large parts of Germany itself. Pershing's preferred terms were the strictest of all.

Britain & France were now wanting to end the war as soon as possible, before the Americans became so dominant that they were able to dictate the peace terms. These weren't irrational fears – they'd started when Wilson had begun communicating with Germany without even consulting the other Entente nations.

There were major issues dividing the Allies. Lloyd George & Wilson had very different ideas on how things such as post-war trade, freedom of the seas, and the German colonies should be decided. When Wilson's Fourteen Points were introduced into the discussion, the generals had to send out for a copy, because none of them really knew what they covered.

The kaiser was asked to abdicate on November 1st. He refused, and talked about leading the armies back to Germany to put down the revolt, which was spreading. General Gröner had replaced Ludendorff as quartermaster general; he asked the most senior generals on the Western Front if their troops would obey the kaiser & take part in suppressing the population. Gröner was a capable man, and after the war he would save Germany's fledgling democracy twice (and become an enemy of Hitler for doing so); he knew what the answer was likely to be, and he was right. One said yes, 23 said no, and 14 said possibly. Wilhelm was informed of this, and Hindenburg told him that his safety could no longer be assured. The kaiser abdicated, crossing the border into the Netherlands. where Queen Wilhelmina had agreed to accept him.

On November 8th, a German delegation arrived at Allied headquarters in Compiègne. It was headed by Matthias Erzberger, head of the Catholic Centre Party. Germany was facing civil war and was afraid of a Communist takeover, and the government had ordered Erzberger to accept whatever terms were offered.

Foch made it clear that there was to be no discussion of the terms, and then presented the conditions under which the Allies would agree to a 30-day armistice. The terms included Germany's withdrawal to east of the Rhine within a fortnight; their withdrawal to the eastern borders of August 1st, 1914; the repudiation of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk; the surrender of all Germany's colonial possessions in Africa; and the handover of 5,000 artillery piece, 3,000 mortars, 30,000 machine guns, and 2,000 aircraft. Furthermore, the Allied naval blockade would continue. The delegation was given three days to decide whether or not to accept.

Eventually, however, a few minor adjustments were made, as the Allies were also worried about a Communist revolution in Germany. The number of machine guns to be surrendered was reduced, so that the German authorities could better restore order. Erzberger led his fellow delegates in signing the agreement; he would later be assassinated for his “betrayal” of the Fatherland.

The armistice went into effect at 11am on November 11th. Mangin disagreed strongly with the decisions: “We must go right into the heart of Germany. The armistice should be signed there. The Germans will not admit that they are beaten. You do not finish wars like this...It is a fatal error and France will pay for it!”

#book: a world undone #history #military history #ww1 #second battle of the somme #battle of saint-mihiel #meuse-argonne offensive #kiel mutiny #battle of vittorio veneto #ww1 armistice

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esprit-de-corps-magazine · 7 years ago

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ARTHUR CURRIE - THE MAN UNDER THE UNIFORM: Part 3: "Whence Cometh The Warrior"

Note to readers: Unexpected health complications and hospitalization necessitated a delay in publication of the third and final installment of Bob Gordon’s series linking the 38 years of General Sir Arthur Currie’s pre-war life to his success on the battlefield and ascent to the position of commander of the Canadian Corps in June of 1917. We are happy to report he is back in writing form! The final installment in the series follows.

The first Canadian-born commander of the Canadian Corps, Arthur Currie rapidly rose to the heights of military authority within the Corps and influence beyond it. Jowly and bottom heavy, alone among senior officers in the British Army to disdain a moustache, only his eyes, both placid and piercing, betrayed his intellect and fierce independence. Three years from a faltering land boom on Vancouver Island, he led the most potent fighting force on the Western Front. From the beginning, praise was unstinting. Before having even left Canada, while still at Camp Valcartier, after a meeting with the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Borden confided to his diary that he was “impressed.” On Salisbury Plain, six months later, divisional commander Lieutenant-General Edwin Alderson regarded him as “out and out the best” of his brigadiers.

Currie’s military career and accomplishments, and his dual denouement as academic administrator and subject of scurrilous rumours culminating in a very public libel trial, have all been explored frequently and thoroughly. However, his prewar life remains largely unexplored. The published sources have all relied heavily on Hugh M. Urquhart’s Arthur Currie: The Biography of a Great Canadian. The previous instalments in this series have established that it is demonstrably false and flies in the face of the documents. Simply put, current understanding of Currie’s life to 1914 is ludicrously saccharine and sanitized.

In an article in Canadian Military History about the prewar life in Edmonton of machine gun innovator Raymond Brutinel, author Cameron Pulsifer makes a point about the historiography of his subject that is equally true of Currie. “No real attempt has been made, however, to undertake the necessary research that would allow for an in-depth examination of this formative period of his life, for what it might reveal about the experiences he had that helped to shape him, and what they reveal about his developing personality and character.” The preceding articles in this series provided a preliminary survey of Currie’s 38 prewar years, based on the sources, unblinkered by Urquhart. It allows these four decades to be woven into his whole life story. Now, his relatively brief but spectacularly successful military career needs to be fit into this same life story, as one episode in a sustained narrative of a “developing personality and character.”

Currie’s story is that of a man born to the rural yeomanry of Upper Canada, who also made, and lost, his own fortune. It is that of a self-made man, accustomed to marching to his own drummer. Currie was not necessarily a leader, but he definitely was not a follower. His civilian careers demonstrate that he was an enterprising individual willing to blaze his own trail. At the same time, however, he was also risk-averse. His big gamble, his real estate speculation, wrecked him and almost killed him financially. Currie had been stung by speculation. Arguably, this shock only reinforced a trait already innate. He was not one to ‘roll the dice’ until the odds were stacked in his favour, as they were when he left school for Victoria with a grubstake and welcoming accommodations with extended family awaiting.

The shift from pedagogue to insurance salesman was the most radical career choice he made in his life. It was made during months of illness and convalescence. It can hardly be described as rashly made in the heat of the moment. Again, regardless of the fact that speculation was on the verge of destroying him financially by 1914, he was innately conservative and incremental. He made three moves in his teaching career of only five years. First to Sydney, a hamlet north of Victoria. Then back to a school in the city at the first opportunity. Finally, he finished his brief career as a teacher having moved on to the best collegiate in Victoria. Methodically, Currie followed a definite path to the pinnacle of the teaching world on Vancouver Island.

Naturally risk-averse and burned by speculation, his mindset was fertile ground for a way of war that demanded that one must bite and hold, taking small, systematic steps toward the objective. A mind that knew speculation about a shattering breakthrough was a Chimera — a fire-breathing monster with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a tail that ends in a snake’s head — and an unrealistic and never attainable myth. Patience, painstaking preparation and measured, manageable objectives characterized Currie’s prewar life and defined his approach to combat. Nowhere was this more evident than at the battle of Vimy Ridge in April 1917. The Canadian Corps was not chasing a war-ending breakthrough at Vimy. Four carefully defined objective lines were to result in Canadian control of the heights. Vimy was a methodical, incremental attempt to achieve a measured and manageable goal, nothing more and nothing less.

On another level, the battle also demonstrates that Currie remained both a fluent teacher and effective trainer, but also an avid and successful student when he was motivated to perform: A factor apparently lacking during his lacklustre performance at Strathroy Collegiate.

When the Canadian Corps was ordered to provide an officer to examine and analyze the French experience at Verdun, Lieutenant-General Sir Julian Byng selected Currie. Walking the ground and speaking to combatants, Currie was to distil the lessons learned, focusing on the successful French counterattacks in the battle’s final phases. He was then to introduce those lessons to the four divisions of the Canadian Corps. His performance as a student of the French battles at Verdun and then a teacher of those lessons to the Canadian Corps was one of his most successful, influential and important achievements.

Success at Vimy largely followed from a significant change in the Corps’ tactics. According to Mark Osborne Humphries, “for Arthur Currie, the most important lesson of Verdun was that a flexible doctrine employing self-reliant platoons could solve the riddle of the trenches.” It did and marked the ascension of the Canadian Corps to its premier role within the Imperial Army. Battlefield confusion coupled with unreliable communications led Currie to conclude that the French decision to devolve decision-making and firepower was the key to their success. Currie proposed that the Corps integrate specialists into every platoon. Previously, as specialists they had been under battalion or brigade command. Now, each platoon CO would have direct control over them. The platoon was reorganized in four sections of riflemen, bombers, rifle-grenadiers and Lewis gunners. Currie introduced this revolutionary idea and oversaw its implementation.

However, his success as a trainer can hardly be seen as surprising. Prewar school board trustees had praised his students’ orderliness and performance. Within the militia, he had progressed rapidly and his units were constant medalists based on the quality of Currie’s training regimen. The combat value of the Dandy Fifth’s militia training was not worth the powder to blow it up, but it is evident that Currie knew how to teach and to train.

Currie was open to learning these innovative lessons because, counter-intuitively, his utter lack of combat experience and instruction with modern weaponry was an advantage. He had neither tactical or technological training of relevance and, consequently, nothing to unlearn. In many senses he was a tabula rasa, with no preconceived notions of tactics he had to be disabused of. He was open-minded, willing to learn and able to impart this newfound knowledge to the Canadian Corps.

Demonstrably flexible and original, based on the creative Nanaimo operation, he was open to observe and analyze the reality of industrial warfare, and apply the lessons learned to its conduct. Currie’s willingness to see the radical solution of converting the platoon into a combined arms team, and his ability to introduce this reorganization to the Corps at large, follows logically from his prewar success as a militia officer and teacher. He was at the very heart of the revolutionary reorganization of the platoon that vastly increased its firepower and the Corps’ combat effectiveness. Currie learned the lessons of Verdun and taught them to the Canadian Corps: Hardly surprising considering his prewar success as a teacher.

Promoted to Corps commander in the wake of Vimy Ridge, his first battle at Hill 70 revealed a great deal about Currie‘s transferable, civilian skills. He possessed extraordinary geographic intelligence, not surprising from a speculator and developer, and the considerable self-assurance of an entrepreneur. The office full of maps, the ability to call to mind the details of myriad lots, the entire practice of land purchase and development refined Currie’s awareness of the lay of the land. Currie could read the maps, observe the ground and integrate his plans into its constraints. Nowhere would this be more evident then in August 1917 as the Corps advanced towards Lens.

On July 7, 1917 the First British Army ordered the Canadian Corps “to take Lens with a view to threatening an advance on Lille from the south.” Lieutenant-General Arthur Currie, the newly minted Canadian Corps commander, didn’t approve of the order. He believed that an alternative plan would divert and destroy more Germans, at less cost to the Canadians than an assault on Lens. Involved in planning his first battle as a Corps commander and a Canadian militiaman amongst professional British officers, Currie, remarkably boldly, argued for his alternative at a conference of Corps commanders on July 10. Currie proposed that the Canadian Corps capture Hill 70, a dominating point of ground immediately north of Lens. Control of Hill 70 would make retention of Lens an impossibility as troops on Hill 70 could enfilade Lens and, from its heights, direct artillery fire on the city.

Therefore, Currie continued, the Germans would be forced to counterattack to retake Hill 70 and Canadian fire would engulf them. Currie proposed to distract the Germans and destroy those that fell for the ruse. Currie carried the day. First Army issued an entirely new set of orders to the Corps that “place[d] the whole of the operations for the capture of Lens in the hands of G.O.C., Canadian Corps [Currie].” The new orders also changed the Canadian objective from Lens to “the high ground N.W. of the town [Hill 70].” Currie had converted the Battle of Lens into the Battle of Hill 70 based on his reading of maps and the ground. Independence, innovation and geographic intelligence are entirely congruent with Currie’s civilian career in Victoria. The Battle of Hill 70 epitomizes his practical experience as a developer and the mindset of an independent, self-confident entrepreneur.

His life experience as an independent entrepreneur and his position as an absolute military novice in April 1914 render entirely understandable Currie’s actions in the wake of the German gas attacks on the Ypres Salient in April 1915. The initial German gas attack broke the French forces on Currie’s left flank leaving a gaping hole in the Allied lines. Currie’s 2nd Brigade risked being isolated, faced the real possibility of German troops pouring through the gap and assuming positions behind his troops as they endured a subsequent German gas attack from the front. British troops were visible in reserve and able to protect his exposed flank, but they refused to respond to Currie’s entreaties to assume the necessary positions without orders from a senior British officer.

Currie made the unorthodox decision to leave his headquarters and venture to the headquarters of the senior British officer to explain the situation and make a personal appeal for help. His harshest critics have condemned this approach as irresponsible, even a dereliction of duty. While this was certainly not a textbook approach to the situation, it is no surprise when one is aware of his prewar civilian experience as an independent businessman. While his efforts proved ultimately unsuccessful in that he received nothing but a severe dressing down, he had left his battalion COs explicit orders as to how to proceed in his absence and was simply taking the reins in hand as any self-confident and independent businessman would in civilian life. His approach is entirely understandable when one factors in his civilian life experiences.

Moving into the realm of pure speculation, his prewar civilian life also offers fertile ground for explaining his contentious relationship with former Minister of Militia and Defence, Sam Hughes, in the years following the war. By Armistice Day, Hughes had developed an almost pathological hatred of Currie and, within the protected confines of Parliament, had no problem labelling Currie a vainglorious butcher. He was particularly offended by Currie’s disdain for his son, Garnet Hughes, and his ability (or rather lack thereof) to command in combat. Currie resisted Garnet’s appointment as CO of an active front-line division because he did not believe he was up to the task. However, Hughes seems to have regarded this as a personal slight and was enraged.

Perhaps Hughes was unable to accept the shifting dynamic between the two men. Arguably, Hughes continued to see Currie as the prewar militia officer who owed his advancement to the omnipotent but beneficent Sir Sam and expected fealty in return. For both reasons, Hughes may have been unable to see that, as his star had fallen, Currie’s had risen. All Hughes seems to have been able to see was that a prewar militiaman was no longer doing what he was told.

General Sir Arthur Currie’s time in the Canadian Expeditionary Force was not the final act in his life story. After the war, he would go on to a successful career as Principal of McGill University. However, neither was it the first chapter of his life. Understanding his success in the Canadian Corps is impossible without a clear appreciation of the 38 years he lived before he put on a regular army uniform at Camp Valcartier.

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if-you-fan-a-fire · 7 years ago

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“In the era before antibiotics, contracting tuberculosis was devastating. Victims often spent many months in a sanatorium suffering through long recoveries or painful deaths. In spite of their dire condition, the Department of Soldiers’ Civil Re-Establishment arranged a series of vocational training workshops for tuberculous veterans. The goal was to give them “the physical and mental stimulation of occupational therapy and to make ‘taking the cure’ [i.e., tuberculosis treatment] easier, while providing limited industrial re-education.” The results were encouraging. Instances of drunkenness and insubordination were nearly eliminated, while treatment completion rates rose from sixty-six to nearly one hundred percent.

During this transitional period several high-profile officials visited Speedwell. The Prince of Wales stopped by on 21 October 1919 during his visit to Guelph where, it was reported, he toured the whole hospital and shook hands wit nearly all of the veterans. In February of the following year, General Sir Arthur Currie traveled from Ottawa with the Honourable Hugh Guthrie, Minister of Militia and Guelph Member of Parliament, to make a “visit of inspection” to Speedwell Hospital. It is unclear if representatives from the Red Cross met with Guthrie during this visit, but the president of the Guelph branch, Edith Crowe, contacted Guthrie’s office the following month. Crowe wanted Guthrie to understand that conditions at Speedwell were deteriorating daily, and the hospital presented to visiting dignitaries did not represent patients’ daily experiences:

I venture to say that we women [of the Red Cross Society] know more of the seething discontent out there than any official in the place. Here is one of dozens of complaints. In the bitterest of the cold weather an order came through from Ottawa that all heat was to be turned off in the T.B. Wards. Do you know that the water froze in the stone hot water bottles, and the bottles burst in their beds, leaving ice at the men’s feet? Army blankets are heavy but there is not much warmth in them, and these poor fellows have suffered much from this cold this winter. I am not sure how far your jurisdiction extends, but I know that what you can do will be done.

Crowe’s complaint was immediately forwarded to Lougheed’s office, but there was no time to dispatch the DSCR’s medical director to investigate. In addition to notifying officials in Ottawa, Crowe alerted her superior. The Chairman of the Canadian Red Cross Society, Lieutenant-Colonel Noel G.L. Marshall, wrote Lougheed that same day regarding numerous complaints, some from “very direct sources,” received by the Red Cross about Speedwell Hospital. The chairman wanted to assure Lougheed that, despite appeals for the Red Cross to intervene, there would be no meddling in Speedwell’s affairs beyond his organization’s unconditional assistance.

The situation deteriorated further a few weeks later when Speedwell’s nursing staff walked off the job. The medical director received an urgent letter from Speedwell’s medical superintendent on 12 May 1920 regarding a bitter dispute between the dietitians and nursing staff over the preparation and delivery of special dietary meals to the patients.

Standard practice within DSCR hospitals placed all medical staff (including nurses and dietitians) under the authority of an in-house Medical Superintendent. The superintendent reported to a regional Unit Medical Director who, in turn, reported to the Director of Medical Services in Ottawa. Speedwell was different; the dietitians took orders directly from Assistant Director Black. The dietitians claimed their duty was limited to preparing special dietary meals and that responsibility for delivering those meals to the patient’s bedside rested with the nurses. The nurses argued their time was better spent on the ward with their patients rather than in the kitchen with their meals. “We realized it was not our work,” said Miss A. Hanlan, one of the nurses on strike, “[t]he dietitians are supposed to be there serving the trays, but it is bad enough for the nurses to have to serve the trays without the dietitians standing by watching them.” The nurses told the Toronto Evening Telegram that Speedwell’s chief dietitian, Miss Mabel Beatty, was Black’s sister-in-law, and that Beatty had usurped control from Speedwell’s head nurse, Miss Maud Wald, with the support of Black’s administration.

The nurses were justifiably concerned. A patient in another DSCR hospital who had underwent surgery nearly died when he ingested apple pie shortly afterwards, mistakenly delivered by an orderly while the attendant nurse was in the diet kitchen. Nevertheless, Black objected to the nurses’ demands, arguing that four assistant dietitians would need to be hired for each of Speedwell’s special diet kitchens, which the hospital could not afford. The issue went to the Director of Medical Services, Colonel E.G. Davis, who confirmed the nurses were responsible for ensuring “her patient receives the proper diet, one which has been prescribed for him; also to supervise the distribution of trays by the Orderlies on duty in her ward but the actual preparation of foods, the placing of food on trays in the diet kitchen is certainly not part of her duty.” The medical director estimated that delivering meals to patients could be done by kitchen maids under the supervision of Speedwell’s existing dietitian staff.

These conflicts indicate that the deeper issue at Speedwell was its system of dual administrative control shared between civilians and military-medical personnel within the same hospital. Colonel Davis acknowledged this in his report to the deputy minister: “the nurses and medical men [at Speedwell], rightly or wrongly, resent the fact of having a layman in charge of medical arrangements resulting in lack of co-operation and constant bickering.” Black was originally granted vast authority in 1917 as Director of Industries in order to streamline vocational training with medical treatment. After Speedwell’s transition to long-term convalescence care, however, Black’s decisions were increasingly viewed by not only veterans but also medical staff as arbitrary, unqualified, and controversial.

At least two tuberculous patients died as the nurses’ strike wore on. Thomas Quin, who served as a sapper with the Black Watch in France, came to Canada after the war to carry out his convalescence closer to his mother, who resided in Toronto. Quin passed away on 29 June 1920 at the age of nineteen. Another patient named McNamara had to plaster newspaper sheets across the seeping limestone walls of his cell in an effort to “keep the damp off him.” McNamara also died during the strike. The following week, with the support of the Great War Veterans Association, the nurses reported the scandal to the press. Black announced his resignation the same day. He accepted an offer to manage the H.H. Robertson Company of Sarnia, manufacturers of construction materials, but insisted his resignation had “nothing whatever” to do with the dismissal of eighteen nurses from his staff. Colonel E.G. Shannon, an officer who served overseas with the 50th Battalion, was Black’s successor. Shannon’s appointment suggests that DSCR officials were beginning to respond to veterans’ objections to civilian authority.

The Toronto Evening Telegram published a series of articles on the scandalous state of affairs at Speedwell based on the testimony of nurses and patients. There were reports of rusty hypodermic needles being sterilized in tin cans due to shortages of medical supplies. Others condemned the hospital’s continued use of so-called “private wards” which were half-converted prison cells. William Barden, a patient of Speedwell’s tuberculosis ward for the past fourteen months, recounted how a group of patients had approached the medical superintendent, Dr. G.N. Urie, requesting the windows be cleaned, which the Telegram described as “filthy and scarcely up to the standard expected in a military hospital.” The doctor allegedly refused the patients’ request because the cost of window washing, around $800, was considered too high. On another occasion, Dr. Urie was presented with a petition signed by 150 patients requested conditions improve immediately at Speedwell. The petition was allegedly torn up and the petitioner kicked out of Dr. Urie’s office. The medical superintendent disputed all charges. Dr. Urie’s actions were consistent, however, with a hospital administration that was constrained by inadequate funding but also indifferent to veterans’ concerns. The Ontario government released its own report in August. The bombshell report, commissioned by Major G.L. Drew, Vocational Officer for the Provincial Secretary’s Department, led Drew to conclude the situation at Speedwell “came far short of the service that I considered patients should receive at the hands of the Department.” Frustrated that his repeated allegations to DSCR officials had been ignored, Drew had ordered J.J. Bayliss, from the Mountain Sanatorium in Hamilton, to visit Guelph and investigate the Telegram’s accusations. “I attach this report,” Drew told the DSCR, “[t]he results are far from satisfactory to say the least.” In his cover letter, dated 2 August 1920, Bayliss declared that “[...] making a report on Speedwell Hospital was about the most difficult thing I ever had to do.”

Bayliss confided to Drew:

the evils of this place are so obvious, that to mention some of them would only cast a reflection on certain men who are doing their best, and might possibly let out those men who deserve blame. There is no doubt whatever, that some men at Speedwell have done their best in every way for the patients, nor is there any doubt, that others fell far short of their best, and knowingly allowed a situation to develop that has caused a great deal of anxiety and trouble for the Department.

Bayliss’s report is remarkable for its historical interrogation of the decisions that had been made during the uncertainty of wartime. “the root of the trouble is much deeper than any question of administration,” Bayliss concluded. His report did not discuss the nurses’ strike in great detail, nor did it criticize the staff.

Doing so ignored the deeper issue rooted in the initial transference of the Ontario Reformatory to the Military Hospital Commission in 1917. Bayliss recalled the remarks of a patient at Mountain Sanatorium who, when told of his impending transfer to Speedwell, had responded that “[t]he place is a prison, and you can’t change it. Surely we deserve something better than a jail.” Bayliss admitted he thought the patient was exaggerating. What he discovered was Speedwell had never fully transitioned into a proper veterans’ hospital after 1917, with many necessary improvements never materializing.

While Speedwell was initially supported by many of the leading physicians across Canada, “the spirit of their recommendations seems to have been almost ignored.” It required more than fresh paint and curtains covering Speedwell’s iron bars to make the former prison suitable for convalescent care. By failing to undertake necessary improvements, Speedwell Hospital, in the eyes of the superintendent of Mountain Sanatorium, remained a prison.

The persistence of a prison-like atmosphere had significant psychological implications for the patients at Speedwell. During previous outbreaks of tuberculosis in Canada, it was not unusual for the public to go through fits of phthisiphobia: a fear of tuberculosis and its sufferers. Demands were made for the establishment of so-called “prison colonies” to concentrate tuberculous patients during treatment. “[I]n such a colony,” claimed Bayliss, “the discipline, while not as strict as that of an ordinary prison, would still be strict enough to enforce obedience on the part of a patient for the protection of the public at large [...] Speedwell fitted the idea exactly.” Bayliss was certain the veterans bitterly resented being “imprisoned” due to an illness contracted while fighting overseas.

The former prison cells, known a private wards, were tolerable during summer months but insufferable during the winter. “The condition of a patient in a small cell with solid stone walls at such a time can be more easily imagined than described,” Bayliss reported, “especially if the window and door are closed for the sake of comfort.” Making matters worse, a few prison cells in its underground tunnel system were maintained for veterans who “acted up a little.” Bayliss concluded that Speedwell “[lacked] the many little things for the patients’ comfort which are to be found in the modern Sanatorium and without which treatment would become unbearable.” In his opinion the tubercular patients were suffering. By the time Bayliss’ report reached the desk of the DSCR’s deputy minister on 21 August 1920, the Tuberculous Board of Consultants was concluding its own investigation into Speedwell.

The fall of 1920 marked the denouement for Speedwell Hospital. Colonel Davis informed the Unit Medical Director in late August that all tuberculous patients were to be removed from Speedwell and dispersed to other sanatoria within the DSCR. On 28 September, The Globe reported that Speedwell would be closed entirely. The next day, by Order-in-Council #P.C. 2338, the DSCR was ordered to vacate the hospital and return the former Ontario Reformatory back to the province as quickly as possible. Patients were evacuated completely by 15 November 1920 and most of the administration was transferred to the new DSCR hospital in London. The remaining employees were laid off at the end of year. On 24 January 1921, after nearly five years, the Province of Ontario resumed complete control of the Ontario Reformatory at Guelph. During that five-year period, Speedwell’s administration was the subject of multiple investigations, conducted by a range of organizations, including the Provincial Secretary’s Office of Ontario, the Chief Accountant of the DSCR, the Board of Tuberculosis Consultants, the Toronto Evening Telegram, the Canadian Red Cross, and the Department of Justice.

Such was the ignominious end to the noble experiment in soldiers’ civil re-establishment that was Speedwell Hospital. What followed was a thorny and prolonged dispute between Ontario and the DSCR that dragged on for a decade. A Board of Adjustment to negotiate Speedwell’s return was convened in November 1920, when a detailed inventory of alterations and installations made to the hospital by the DSCR was submitted. It revealed that, while the nurses’ quarters remained unchanged since 1917, the superintendent’s residence where George Black lived now boasted a three-story extension, including a garage at ground level and sun rooms on the second and third floors. Despite initial progress toward a settlement, the Board was unable to reach an agreement. After two years the dispute was referred to the Department of Justice. Each party made six-figure claims against the other for unpaid expenses and resolution was further delayed. On 29 January 1931, eleven years after Speedwell’s return to the province, the DSCR’s long-serving Assistant Deputy Minister, Ernest Scammell, now Secretary of the Department of Pensions and National Health, met with the provincial secretary in Toronto, where the dispute was finally settled.

Speedwell’s greatest strengths as an institution— its farms, industries, and work shops—were little unrealized by a cost-conscious bureaucracy lacking the will to utilize them. The inmates who preceded the veterans at Speedwell received vocational training in an array of trades while building the prison and later working in its various industries. These industries, however, were obliged by the federal-provincial agreement of 1917 to remain efficient and productive in order to meet the continuing needs of the province’s customers. This obligation eventually led administrators to return Speedwell’s unprofitable industries to provincial control, or substitute vocational trainees for paid labourers, essentially ruining Speedwell’s prospect of becoming Canada’s “chief educational centre” in the soldier re-establishment program. The fact that provincial demands ultimately prevailed is perhaps unsurprising considering many of the MHC’s original decision-makers had close ties to the Provincial Secretary’s Department. In the end, inmates of the Ontario Reformatory received better vocational training than Canadian veterans.” - Brook Durham, “The place is a prison, and you can’t change it”: Rehabilitation, Retraining, and Soldiers’ Re-Establishment at Speedwell Military Hospital, Guelph, 1911-1921.” Ontario History, 109(2), fall 2017. pp. 204-211. Photo is: “Speedwell [Hospital] Convalescent Ward, [Department of Soldiers Civil Re-Establishment, c. 1918].” Credit: Peake & Whittingham / Library and Archives Canada / PA-068096.

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