tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53205263939141888992024-02-18T20:16:51.830-08:00Centennial Countdown to the Great WarDennis Crosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05167348173555324839noreply@blogger.comBlogger94125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320526393914188899.post-55212066570253281832020-04-25T11:43:00.004-07:002020-07-08T12:03:24.000-07:00Treaty of Versailles -- The Struggle for Senate Ratification<div style="text-align: left;">
Negotiations designed to bring an end to the world's most destructive war took place in Paris in the first six months of 1919. The negotiations took place, however, not between the warring sides but among the victorious nations. The result was a treaty that was presented to representatives of Germany on May 7 and signed at Versailles on June 28. President Wilson took the Treaty back home, where a protracted and bitter political fight awaited him.<br />
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Foreign Minister Brockdorff-Rantzau</div>
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Germany presented an extensive list of objections to the draft treaty on May 29. After two weeks of uncertainty and debate
among the Allies about how to respond, they decided to leave it substantially unchanged and gave
the Germans a deadline to accept or reject it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Germany's foreign minister Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau advised his government not to sign, but the German
National Assembly in Weimar decided not to follow his advice and passed a resolution agreeing to the Treaty as
written.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On June 21, as the deadline neared, most of the ships of
the German High Seas Fleet interned at Scapa Flow
were scuttled by their crews.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> The Hall of Mirrors, June 28, 1919</span></div>
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The Treaty was signed in the Hall of Mirrors of the
Palace of Versailles
on June 28, the fifth anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz
Ferdinand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Germany was represented by its new
Foreign Minister Hermann Mueller.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After
the signing, President Wilson left Paris.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Brest he
boarded the U.S.S. George Washington for his return voyage to the United States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">President Wilson Returns Hom<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><b>e</b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The President arrived back in the United States
on July 8.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The George Washington was met
at sea by the superdreadnought U.S.S. Pennsylvania carrying
members of the Cabinet and Congress and </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">leading a flotilla of battleships, destroyers and submarine chasers, accompanied by a squadron of ten seaplanes
from the Rockaway Naval Air Station and a dirigible that floated above the mast of the George Washington for more than ten miles.</span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> The President stepped ashore</span>
at Hoboken, New Jersey, where he passed between lines of waving schoolchildren to a special ferryboat that
took him across the Hudson
River to the West 23rd Street Pier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thousands of cheering people lined the streets of Manhattan as his motorcade proceeded to Carnegie Hall, where a band struck up “Over There” and "The Star Spangled
Banner."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Inside the Hall, he spoke for thirty-seven minutes, saying he
was glad to be home and joking that when his ship docked he had thought for the first time
in his life that Hoboken
was a beautiful city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He did not
specifically mention the League of Nations in his speech,
but said he hoped that when they studied the Treaty everyone would agree with him
that it was a “just peace.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He returned
to Washington
on the midnight train.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Senator Henry Cabot Lodge</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Never before in American history had a president presented a treaty to the Senate in person, but on July 10 President Wilson did so. </span>He was greeted and escorted into the Senate
Chamber by a bipartisan committee of five senators led by Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Henry Cabot Lodge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He told the
Senators that the League of Nations was the “only hope for mankind,” and that
if they
rejected the Treaty it would “break the heart of the world.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">President Taft and the League to Enforce Peace<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></b></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></b></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Former President William Howard Taft, a
supporter of the League of Nations and the
founder and president of the pro-ratification League to Enforce Peace (LEP),
proposed some reservations, as did other prominent Republicans including 1916
presidential nominee Charles Evans Hughes, former Secretary of State Elihu Root
and Republican National Committee Chairman Will Hays.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few days later, facing criticism from
League supporters, Taft supported an LEP resolution in support of unconditional
ratification, but a mixed message had been sent.</span></span></span><br />
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Senator Swanson</div>
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In the Senate, debate on the treaty began with a speech on
July 14 by Senator Claude Swanson (Dem., Va.)
in support of ratification, and President Wilson began holding meetings with
Republican senators in an effort to persuade them to support the treaty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the last day of the month, the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee began public hearings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In an August 12 speech on the Senate floor,
Senator Lodge outlined five reservations he considered essential to
ratification of the Treaty. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Similar to
reservations supported by Hughes and Root, they provided that nothing in
the League of Nations covenant would require the United States to send military
forces into combat without the consent of Congress. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shortly afterward, at Lodge’s request,
President Wilson agreed to meet with the Foreign Relations Committee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The meeting took place at the White House on
August 19, but no progress was made toward agreement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The battle lines were
inadvertently hardened the next day when resolutions introduced by Senator Key
Pittman (Dem., Nev.) in an attempt to outline mutual understandings regarding the “construction and interpretation” of the Treaty were
disavowed by the “mild reservationists” who had attended the meeting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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Senator Philander Knox</div>
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The failure to arrive at a satisfactory
compromise emboldened the “irreconcilables” opposed to League membership, and a
few days later, on August 23, the Foreign Relations Committee voted in favor of
an amendment to the Treaty that would return Shantung to China.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Committee approved three more amendments,
including one to equalize the votes of the United
States and the British Empire
in the General Assembly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In response,
the White House announced that the President would embark on a “swing around
the circle,” a cross-country speaking tour to the west coast and back, with
speeches planned in fifty cities in thirty days in support of the Treaty as written.</span> Senator Philander Knox of Pennsylvania, an influential
Republican who had served as Attorney General under Presidents McKinley and
Roosevelt and as Secretary of State under President Taft, joined the ranks of
the “irreconcilables” with a speech on August 29 in which he condemned the
treaty as “not the treaty but the truce of Versailles,” which would “kill the
goose that we expect to lay the golden eggs.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He advocated instead what came to be known as the “Knox Doctrine,” which would simply
pledge the United States to
cooperate with other nations in the event of a threat to the peace of Europe.</div>
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<![endif]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Greeting the Crowds in St.Louis</span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span></div>
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<![endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span></div>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">On September 3, President Wilson departed on his
cross-country speaking tour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span>His first stop was a luncheon address in Columbus, Ohio,
the home of Republican Senator Warren G. Harding, a member of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee and a treaty opponent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That evening the President spoke in Indianapolis, Indiana,
a state represented by two other Republican senators.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span>His next stops were in St.
Louis and Kansas City, reflecting
the fact that one of Missouri’s
senators, James A. Reed, was the most outspoken Democratic opponent of the
Treaty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Speeches, sometimes two a day,
followed at Des Moines, Omaha,
Sioux Falls, Minneapolis
and St. Paul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">William C. Bullitt</span></span><br />
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</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Secretary of State Lansing</div>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As his train crossed Montana,
Wilson learned
of the September 12 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee of William
C. Bullitt, a member of the American delegation to the peace conference who had resigned in protest when the final terms had been agreed to. In his testimony, Bullitt revealed that Secretary of State Lansing had shared many of his own concerns
about the Treaty and the League in a private conversation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Among other things, Lansing
had called the League “entirely useless” and designed to serve the interests of
England and France.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In response to press inquiries, Lansing declined comment, instead sending a telegram to Wilson that reached him several days later in Los Angeles, in which he called Bullitt's conduct
“despicable and outrageous” but stopped short of an outright denial.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Returning from the west coast, President
Wilson issued a statement challenging the Senate to hold an up or down vote on
the treaty without amendments or reservations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>After struggling through a speech in Pueblo, Colorado
on September 25, he collapsed from what was described by his physician Admiral Cary
Grayson as “nervous exhaustion.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At Wichita, his next scheduled stop, the remainder of his
speaking tour was cancelled. His train took him directly back to Washington, arriving on September 28. </span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
The Treaty Goes to the Senate<br />
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</span></span></span></span></span></div>
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On September 10, during the president’s absence from
Washington, the Foreign Relations Committee forwarded the Treaty of Versailles
to the Senate with thirty-eight amendments and four reservations, along with
hearing transcripts and a report signed by Senator Lodge on behalf of the Republican
majority stating that “the committee believes that the League as it
stands will breed wars instead of securing peace.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the amendments, called the Johnson
Amendment after its author Senator Hiram Johnson, would equalize the vote of the
United States and the
British Empire in the General Assembly. Others dealt with the Japanese
occupation of Shantung, and others with the
makeup of international commissions involving American interests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The next day the Committee’s Democratic
minority submitted its report arguing for ratification of the treaty without
amendments or reservations.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Admiral Grayson</span></div>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">On October 2, a few days after returning to
the White House, President Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Admiral Grayson continued to refuse to
provide information about the President’s condition beyond the initial
announcement that he was suffering from “nervous exhaustion.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> The President's incapacity forced
the cancellation of a reception for the visiting King and Queen of Belgium.</span></span><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Senator Moses</div>
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The following week, Senator George H. Moses (Rep., N.H.) wrote in a
letter to a constituent that the President was “a very sick man” who was “unable
to undergo any experience which requires concentration of mind.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Moses’ letter was leaked to the press,
Grayson questioned the Senator’s medical qualifications and said he “must have
information that I do not possess.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Several amendments to the Treaty were defeated in the Senate, including the amendments
to limit voting by the British Empire and to delete the provision allowing
Japanese occupation of Shantung.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meanwhile, French
President Poincare issued a declaration in Paris stating that, because Great Britain, Italy
and France had ratified the
Treaty of Versailles, France’s state of war with Germany was at an end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
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Senator Hitchcock</div>
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For much of November the Senate was occupied debating and
voting on a series of proposed amendments and reservations to the proposed
Treaty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ranking minority member of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Gilbert Hitchcock (Dem., Neb.), led the campaign for ratification. A cloture rule,
adopted after the Armed Ships Bill filibuster in 1917 but applied now for the
first time, limited each senator’s time to speak, but there was no limit to the
number of senators who could have their say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>All of the proposed amendments were defeated, as
were most of the reservations other than those proposed by the Foreign
Relations Committee. Now expanded to fourteen (possibly to match the president's fourteen points) and referred to as the “Lodge reservations,” they were:<br />
<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">1. The U.S. will be the sole judge of whether it has satisfied the conditions for withdrawal from the League</span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">2. The U.S. assumes no obligation under Article X to defend the territorial integrity of member nations or to interfere in disputes between other nations</span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">3. The U.S. will not accept any mandates except by action of Congress</span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">4. The U.S. will be the sole judge of what questions are within its domestic jurisdiction</span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">5. The U.S. will be the sole judge of the applicability and interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine </span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">6. The U.S. retains full liberty of action with respect to controversies between China and Japan regarding the province of Shantung</span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">7. The U.S. Congress will provide by law for the appointment of representatives to the League</span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">8. The reparation commission may interfere with U.S.-German trade only to the extent approved by Congress</span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">9. The U.S. is not obligated to pay League expenses without Congressional approval</span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">10. If the U.S. adopts a limitation of armaments proposed by the League, it can restore them at any time without the League's consent</span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">11. The U.S. may permit nationals of treaty-breaking states to continue their personal, financial and commercial relations with Americans</span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">12. Nothing in the Treaty infringes on any rights of American citizens</span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">13. No obligation to join future League organizations</span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">14. The U.S. will not be bound by any vote in which a member, including its colonies, has cast more than one vote</span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span>
<br />
The LEP continued to send a mixed message,
generally supporting the Treaty but voting down a resolution to oppose the
Lodge Reservations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In doing so it
followed the lead of two of its most prominent members, former President Taft
and Harvard President Lawrence Lowell, who argued that some reservations might
be necessary to get the Treaty ratified.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After two meetings with the President,
Senator Gilbert Hitchcock, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations
Committee, summarized the President’s views in a draft letter, which he gave to
Mrs. Wilson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She read it to the
President, revised it as he directed, and returned it to Senator Hitchcock, who
shared it with his fellow Democrats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Promptly leaked to the press, it said that in the President’s opinion “the
resolution [for ratification with the Lodge reservations] does not provide for
ratification, but rather for nullification of the treaty,” and that he “hope[s]
the friends and supporters of the treaty will vote against the Lodge resolution
of ratification.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The President’s firm
rejection led to the Treaty’s defeat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Three final votes on consent to the Treaty were taken on November 19, two with the
“Lodge reservations” attached and one with no reservations. All three failed to
pass, and the Senate adjourned, bringing the session to a close.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>President
Wilson declined to make any statement in response to the Senate’s action, and
refused even to see Senator Hitchcock when he called at the White House.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hitchcock and other treaty supporters
resolved to bring the treaty before the Senate again in the next session of
Congress, which (as the Constitution provided prior to to the adoption of the
Twentieth Amendment in 1933) would begin two weeks later, on the first Monday in December.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Senator Fall</span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></div>
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President Wilson delivered the annual
State of the Union message on the first day of the new session of
Congress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His physical condition making it impossible for him to appear in person, he delivered the message in writing for the first time in his
presidency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Despite its importance, he did not mention either the Treaty or the controversy over its ratification.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This, in addition to the President’s refusal
to see Senator Hitchcock a week earlier, increased concern in Congress about
his ability to perform the duties of his office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When an American citizen was
seized in Mexico,
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee appointed a subcommittee of two (Senator
Hitchcock and Republican Senator Albert Fall) to visit the White House and
discuss the matter with the President in person, with the additional unspoken goal of assessing the President's capacity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After the meeting both senators judged him
“perfectly capable of handling the situation,” a conclusion perhaps aided by
the dim light in the President’s bedroom, by the artful arrangement of the
bedclothes, and most importantly by the message that arrived during the meeting that
the American citizen had been released.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the Senate, efforts to reach an accommodation regarding acceptable
reservations continued until mid-December, when the White House issued a
statement that seemed to foreclose any hope that the President might be willing
to compromise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It said “the hope of the
Republican leaders of the Senate that the President would presently make some
move which will relieve the situation with regard to the treaty is entirely
without foundation,” and insisted that the President has “no compromise or
concession of any kind in mind,” but intends “that the Republican leaders of
the Senate shall continue to bear the undivided responsibility for the fate of
the treaty and the present condition of the world in consequence of that
fate.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still hoping to find an
acceptable formula, Senator Hitchcock said he agreed with the President that
concession or compromise is for the Senate, not the President, and that Senate
supporters of the Treaty “will continue to seek a compromise between the Lodge
reservations and those I offered last November.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Senator Lodge, the Republican leader, blocked
a proposal by Senator Oscar Underwood (Dem., Ala.) to establish a conciliation committee
of ten senators to reach a compromise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Joseph Tumulty</span><br />
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>At the end of December the President’s
secretary Joseph Tumulty met separately with the President and Senator
Hitchcock, leading to speculation that the New Year might see the President
become more involved in the ratification debate.</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
The Willard Hotel</div>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Democratic Party’s annual Jackson
Day dinner was held January 8 at two adjacent hotels, the Willard and
the Washington.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">A letter from President Wilson stating his
views on Treaty ratification was read to the attendees at both locations. He</span> repeated his insistence that the treaty must be
accepted without substantive reservations and insisted that if the Senate were to reject
the treaty the next election would be a “great and solemn referendum” on the issue. The letter
added, however, that there would be “no reasonable objection to interpretations
accompanying the act of ratification, provided they do not form a part of the
formal ratification itself.” <span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Former Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan
(alternating with former Speaker of the House Champ Clark) addressed both groups, urging acceptance of any concessions necessary to achieve
ratification.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A series of bipartisan
meetings began on January 15, but ended on January 30 when Republicans refused
to agree to any weakening of the Lodge reservations, including an amended
reservation to Article X proposed by former President Taft. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCykAdLF9Yiw0neNUBJNI5hJ2CL50ypsd3rewhEge4CDv0CMJH35qtyGlNd5nAjTHlwuyaPZbe5sEU6WhDgC4OKeS8IqH8DzLSAD3d39aaxGD8cm3bSjptDfVzLK1kJc1Day1gz9whtFA/s1600/Edward_Grey%252C_1st_Viscount_Grey_of_Fallodon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="950" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCykAdLF9Yiw0neNUBJNI5hJ2CL50ypsd3rewhEge4CDv0CMJH35qtyGlNd5nAjTHlwuyaPZbe5sEU6WhDgC4OKeS8IqH8DzLSAD3d39aaxGD8cm3bSjptDfVzLK1kJc1Day1gz9whtFA/s320/Edward_Grey%252C_1st_Viscount_Grey_of_Fallodon.jpg" width="269" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Viscount Grey</div>
<br />
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On January 31 Viscount Grey of Fallodon, the former foreign minister of
Great Britain, returned to Great Britain after a brief period in the United States as a special ambassador.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While in the United States he had met with Secretary
Lansing, Senator Lodge and others involved in the ratification debate, but his
attempts to meet with President Wilson had failed, possibly because of
comments about Mrs. Wilson that had been attributed to a member of Grey’s staff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Following his return home, Grey wrote a long letter to
the London Times, also published in the United States, in which he urged
the Allies to accept reservations necessary to achieve American participation
in the League.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWRRo2NSC6zQM5owhWamqTPMvWsOPH8MIPeiUmUqi7P384O8h4Yz8Uq2Y3AWo-LjPVnMg6C5TdcYScBqFGIfNVg8QKUPn-pGFA4dY9nc7HpWkgqOL4mRx1Mqvd6beDWHxFdPcAYdeM878/s1600/Bainbridge_Colby%252C_bw_photo_portrait%252C_1920.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1448" data-original-width="1027" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWRRo2NSC6zQM5owhWamqTPMvWsOPH8MIPeiUmUqi7P384O8h4Yz8Uq2Y3AWo-LjPVnMg6C5TdcYScBqFGIfNVg8QKUPn-pGFA4dY9nc7HpWkgqOL4mRx1Mqvd6beDWHxFdPcAYdeM878/s320/Bainbridge_Colby%252C_bw_photo_portrait%252C_1920.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Bainbridge Colby</div>
<br />
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President Wilson reacted angrily to the publication of
Viscount Grey’s letter, regarding it as foreign interference in
domestic politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On February 5 he
issued a statement that if Grey were still the ambassador “his government would
have been promptly asked to withdraw him.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Secretary of State Lansing made no public comment, but had let it be known
that he welcomed Grey’s letter as a step toward favorable Senate action on the Treaty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On February 7, Wilson
sent Lansing a
harsh letter demanding to know whether it was true that he had convened the cabinet
without his knowledge. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lansing
replied on February 13, saying he had called informal meetings of the cabinet
in an effort to keep the government running as smoothly as possible during Wilson's incapacity, and
offered to resign “if you think I have failed in my loyalty to you.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wilson immediately accepted Lansing’s
resignation, and on February 25, to the astonishment of most observers,
appointed Bainbridge Colby, a New York lawyer with no apparent qualifications for the
office, to replace him.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNi6X5tu3nCGrWMmYef6oNWQ4BXxZq9MNCDEo8FtkBo-JpihqIlbw5tYtrzNmh41KM5S9P31Bgm11d6KSYT9Y-ILKrd0GSBhPEhRXdNTPJ0SQjG1_AI1JhQf2eeYY9e1Bkzk3-6UX3INY/s1600/versaillestreatycartoon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1503" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNi6X5tu3nCGrWMmYef6oNWQ4BXxZq9MNCDEo8FtkBo-JpihqIlbw5tYtrzNmh41KM5S9P31Bgm11d6KSYT9Y-ILKrd0GSBhPEhRXdNTPJ0SQjG1_AI1JhQf2eeYY9e1Bkzk3-6UX3INY/s320/versaillestreatycartoon.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The Missing Link</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On February 9, the Senate voted to reconsider the Treaty of
Versailles, again with the Lodge reservations. Over the next few weeks debate continued and other amendments and reservations were voted down except for a single additional reservation added at the last minute in support of Irish independence. President Wilson, in a statement released to Senator Hitchcock on March 8, rejected any attempt at compromise. Specifically defending Article X, he wrote that "I could not look the soldiers of our gallant armies in the face again if I did not do everything in my power to remove every obstacle that lies in the way of this particular article of the Covenant," and said that any reservation lessening the force of Article X "cuts at the very heart and life of the Covenant itself." "Every so-called reservation," he insisted, is "in effect a nullification of the terms of the treaty itself." Several treaty supporters, including Democrats who had voted against the
Lodge reservations, were nevertheless inclined to vote for ratification with the
reservations, preferring what they regarded as an imperfect treaty to no
treaty at all (and no U.S. membership in the League of Nations).
President Wilson, however, remained adamant in his opposition, not only
to reservations but to the Treaty itself if reservations were included in the instrument of ratification. When the vote was taken on March 19, his all-or-nothing position prevailed as the Treaty went down to defeat. The vote was 49 in favor and 35 against, seven votes short of the required two-thirds majority.</div>
<br />
<br />Dennis Crosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05167348173555324839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320526393914188899.post-45006968796951332552019-11-04T12:39:00.000-08:002019-11-04T12:47:04.038-08:001919 Chronology<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
</div>
On November 1-2, 2019, the National World War I Museum and Memorial
hosted the latest in its series of annual symposiums commemorating the
centennial of the Great War. The symposiums have been held every year beginning in 2013, and every year I have had the honor of being asked to contribute a month-by month chronological narrative of the events of the year a hundred years earlier. This is my 1919 chronology, published in the program for this year's symposium.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
*****</div>
<br />
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
At the end of 1918 the world was poised between the end of
the most destructive conflict in history and the beginning of a process
designed to bring the war to an official close and lay the foundation for an
enduring peace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As national leaders and
diplomats gathered in Paris,
soldiers returned home to a changed world.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>January</u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After their triumphal visit to France
and Great Britain in
December, President and Mrs. Wilson visited Italy, where they were greeted by enthusiastic
crowds. The Peace Conference convened at the Quai d’Orsay in Paris.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After President Poincare's welcoming speech,
the conferees chose Premier Clemenceau as permanent chairman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At a preliminary meeting the heads of
government of France, Great Britain, Italy
and the United States
designated a “Supreme Council” or "Council of Ten" (the heads of
government of those nations plus Japan and their foreign ministers)
as the Conference’s principal decision-making body.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Among its first acts was to extend a formal
invitation to the warring factions in Russia
to attend a conference on the island
of Prinkipo in the Sea of Marmara in
an attempt to reach “some understanding and agreement by which Russia may work
out her own purposes, and happy, cooperative relations be established between
her people and the other peoples of the world . . . provided there is in the
meantime a truce . . .”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the United
States, former President Theodore Roosevelt died in his sleep at his home on
Long Island.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Eighteenth Amendment, forbidding
the importation, manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors, was
added to the Constitution, to become effective in a year.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>February</u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Less than a month after the Peace Conference convened,
President and Mrs. Wilson left Paris and
returned to the United States
so the President could be in Washington
for the end of the 65th Congress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before
his departure, in his capacity as chairman of the League of Nations Committee,
he submitted a preliminary draft of the League covenant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>British Prime Minister Lloyd George and
Italian Premier Orlando took advantage of the recess to visit their own
capitals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hoping to lay the groundwork
for ratification back home, Wilson
sent cablegrams to members of the Senate and House Foreign Relations Committees
inviting them to dinner at the White House and asking them to withhold comment
on the draft covenant until he had briefed them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He did not follow his own advice, however,
but immediately upon his arrival in Boston
gave a fiery speech attacking those who opposed the League as “narrow-minded
men that have no sweep beyond the day’s horizon.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The dinner at the White House took place, but
no minds were changed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the Senate, Henry
Cabot Lodge, the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, delivered
a speech in which he objected that the provisions of the proposed covenant
“seem to give a rich promise of being fertile in producing controversies and
misunderstandings” which would only delay achieving the immediate goal of
making peace with Germany.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A proposed woman suffrage amendment to the
Constitution, already passed by the House of Representatives, came to a vote in
the Senate but fell one vote short of the necessary two-thirds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Supporters vowed to resubmit it in the next
Congress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In New
York, African-American troops returning from France paraded up Fifth Avenue from Madison Square to Harlem,
cheered by thousands of spectators.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
shipyard workers strike in Seattle
rapidly expanded into a general strike, which was called off after five
days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Paris, an assassination attempt on Premier
Clemenceau failed but left him with a bullet he carried in his body for the
rest of his life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Germany, the National Assembly in Weimar elected Friedrich
Ebert, leader of the Social Democratic Party, as the nation’s “Provisional
State President.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the Russian civil
war the White forces, hopeful of victory over the Bolsheviks, rejected the Allies’
proposal for a conference at Prinkipo.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>March</u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the last day of the 65th Congress, Senator Henry Cabot
Lodge introduced a “round robin” signed by thirty-seven senators, more than
enough to defeat ratification, opposing the existing draft of the League of Nations covenant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>President Wilson left Washington
after Congress adjourned, stopping in New York
on his way back to Paris to deliver another
speech denouncing senators who criticized the League of
Nations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although Congress
had adjourned with unfinished business pending, Wilson refused to call a special session that
would have allowed debate on the treaty to continue in the now-Republican
Senate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the first time in its
history the Supreme Court addressed the question of First Amendment protections
for political speech, affirming the convictions of Charles Schenck, general
secretary of the Socialist Party, and Eugene V. Debs, the party’s former
presidential candidate, for violating the Espionage Act by printing leaflets
and making speeches urging resistance to the draft.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Writing for a unanimous Court, Justice Oliver
Wendell Holmes held that words can be prosecuted when they create a “clear and
present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress
has a right to prevent.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Paris the Peace Conference
resumed, with the original “Big Four” (Clemenceau, Lloyd George, Wilson and
Orlando) now acting as the central decision-making body.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the top of its agenda was the peace treaty
with Germany,
the principal issues of which were disarmament, territorial adjustments, and
reparations. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a further attempt to
reach an accommodation regarding Russia’s
participation, an American delegation led by William C. Bullitt traveled to Moscow, met with Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders, and
returned to Paris
with a proposal for a truce between the warring factions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Supreme Council delegated a commission to
draw the border between Hungary
and Rumania.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the commission awarded part of the
disputed territory to Rumania
and designated most of the remainder as a neutral zone, Hungarian Prime
Minister Michael Karolyi’s government fell and Béla Kun, the leader of the
Hungarian Bolsheviks, emerged from prison to take power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Italy,
claiming the right to Turkish territory under the terms of its wartime
agreements with the Allies, landed troops on the Mediterranean coast of Anatolia.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>April</u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because the United States
was not a party to the 1915 Treaty of London, which promised Italy much of the Dalmatian coast in return for
joining the war on the side of the Allies, President Wilson was able to take a
firm stand against Italy’s
claims on the ground that they violated the principle of
self-determination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He also rejected,
along with other members of the Supreme Council, Italy’s
claim to the port city of Fiume,
which was not covered by the Treaty of London, as a spoil of war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Wilson
released a statement rejecting Italy’s
claims, Prime Minister Orlando and Foreign Minister Sonnino, under intense
domestic political pressure, walked out of the Conference and returned to Italy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The question of Russia’s
participation in the conference was effectively resolved when the Allies ignored
the Bolshevik proposal Bullitt had brought back from Moscow and allowed the deadline for a
response to expire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fighting broke out
between Rumania and Hungary as a
peacemaking mission by South African Foreign Minister Jan Smuts failed and the
Rumanian Army occupied the area awarded to it by the Supreme Council and
invaded the neutral zone as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Allies reached substantial agreement among themselves on the terms of the
treaty to be presented to Germany.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Germany’s armed forces were to be
significantly reduced in size and their future expansion severely limited.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Germany
was to lose all of its colonies, which would be governed as mandates under the League of Nations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The provinces of Alsace and Lorraine were to be returned to France and a small area adjacent to the
Rhineland ceded to Belgium.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Rhineland
itself was to be demilitarized.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fate
of Schleswig-Holstein, annexed by Bismarck
in 1867, would be determined by plebiscite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Kiel Canal, built by the Kaiser in 1895, would remain in Germany, with a
provision guaranteeing free passage for other nations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The island of Heligoland,
site of the main base of the German High Seas Fleet during the war, was to remain
German but its fortifications and harbors were to be destroyed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On Germany’s
eastern border, the provinces of West Prussia,
Posen and Upper Silesia were to be severed from Germany
and added to the new nation of Poland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Danzig would become a free city to be
governed by the League of Nations, and a “corridor” along the Vistula River
was to be given to Poland
to provide access to the Baltic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
fate of southern portions of East
Prussia would be submitted to a plebiscite. The
issue of reparations would be submitted to a commission for determination.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>May</u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The final draft of the treaty, negotiated among the Allies
without input from Germany,
was presented to the Germans on May 7, “Lusitania Day.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Premier Clemenceau, presenting the treaty, made
it clear that it was non-negotiable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He told
the German representatives “It is neither the time nor the place for
superfluous words. . . .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You have asked
for peace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are ready to give you
peace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We shall present to you now a
book which contains our conditions. . . . You will find us ready to give you
any explanation you want, but we must say at the same time that this second
Treaty of Versailles has cost us too much not to take on our side all the
necessary precautions and guarantees that the peace shall be a lasting
one.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He told the Germans “no oral
discussion is to take place,” and gave them fifteen days to present a written
response.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the head of the German
delegation, Count Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau, was given the floor, he
acknowledged Germany’s
defeat and responsibility to make reparations, but rejected the assertion that Germany and its
people were the only ones responsible for the war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Such a confession in my mouth,” he said,
“would be a lie.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In its written response,
Germany objected to the
proposed treaty on the grounds, among others, that it was contrary to President
Wilson’s Fourteen Points and that the reparations being discussed were far more
than Germany
would be able to pay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Italian Premier
Orlando and Foreign Minister Sonnino, not wishing decisions to be reached
without their participation, returned to the Peace Conference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shortly afterward, Italian troops were put
ashore at Smyrna, on the Aegean coast of Turkey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the encouragement of the other members
of the Supreme Council, Greece
landed troops to contest the Italian claims.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Curtiss NC-4, a flying boat with a crew of five under the command of
Lieutenant Commander Albert Read, completed the world’s first transatlantic
flight, flying from New York to England in
twenty-three days.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>June</u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After two weeks of uncertainty and debate among the Allies
about how to reply to the Germans’ lengthy objections to the draft Treaty, they
chose to leave the Treaty substantially unchanged and gave the Germans a
deadline to accept or reject it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Brockdorff-Rantzau urged his government not to sign, but the German
National Assembly in Weimar
declined to follow his advice and passed a resolution agreeing to the Treaty as
written.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While the Treaty was under
consideration in Weimar, most of the ships of
the German High Seas Fleet interned at Scapa Flow
were scuttled by their crews.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Treaty
ending the war with Germany
was signed in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace
of Versailles on June 28, the fifth
anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Germany was represented by its new
Foreign Minister Hermann Mueller.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After
the signing, President Wilson left Paris.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Brest he boarded
the U.S.S. George Washington for his return voyage to the United States,
where he faced a hostile Congress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>British pilot John Alcock and his navigator Arthur Brown made the first
non-stop transatlantic flight, flying a Vickers Vimy bomber from St. John’s, Newfoundland
to County Galway, Ireland, in about sixteen hours. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bombs planted by anarchists exploded in cities
across the United States, including
one at the Washington, D.C. home of Attorney General A. Mitchell
Palmer.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>July</u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For the first time in history, an American president
appeared in person before the Senate to present a treaty for ratification.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>President Wilson told the Senators that the
League of Nations was the “only hope for mankind,” and that if the United States rejected
the Treaty of Versailles it would “break the heart of the world.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Former President William Howard Taft, a
supporter of the League of Nations and the founder
and president of the pro-ratification League to Enforce Peace (LEP), proposed some
reservations, as did other prominent Republicans including 1916 presidential
nominee Charles Evans Hughes, former Secretary of State Elihu Root and Republican
National Committee Chairman Will Hays.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
few days later, facing criticism from League supporters, Taft supported an LEP resolution
in support of unconditional ratification, but a mixed message had been sent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the Senate, debate on the treaty began
with a speech by Senator Claude Swanson (Dem., Va.) in support of ratification, and
President Wilson began holding meetings with Republican senators in an effort
to persuade them to support the treaty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On
the last day of the month, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee began public
hearings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Race riots broke out in
Chicago and Washington, D.C., and a rapid increase in the cost of
living led to labor unrest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Toledo, Ohio,
Jess Willard, the “great white hope” who had defeated Jack Johnson to win the
heavyweight boxing championship in 1915, lost his title to challenger Jack
Dempsey when he failed to answer the bell for the fourth round.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>August</u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In a speech on the Senate floor, Senator Lodge outlined five
reservations he considered essential to ratification of the Treaty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shortly afterward, at Lodge’s request,
President Wilson agreed to meet with the Foreign Relations Committee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The meeting took place at the White House,
but no progress was made toward agreement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The battle lines were inadvertently hardened the next day when
resolutions introduced by Senator Key Pittman (Dem., Nev.) in an attempt to outline
mutual understandings that had been reached regarding the “construction and
interpretation” of the Treaty were disavowed by the “mild reservationists” who
had attended the meeting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The failure to
arrive at a satisfactory compromise emboldened the “irreconcilables” opposed to
League membership, and a few days later the Foreign Relations Committee voted in
favor of an amendment to the Treaty that would return Shantung to China.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Committee approved three more amendments,
including one to equalize the votes of the United
States and the British Empire
in the General Assembly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In response, the
White House announced that the President would embark on a “swing around the
circle,” a cross-country speaking tour to the west coast and back, with
speeches planned in fifty cities in thirty days in support of the Treaty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Senator Philander Knox of Pennsylvania,
an influential Republican who had served as Secretary of State under President
Taft, joined the ranks of the “irreconcilables” opposing American membership in
the League of Nations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An actors strike closed plays on
Broadway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The territorial conflict between
Hungary and Rumania ended in a Rumanian victory when the Rumanian
Army occupied Budapest and Béla Kun fled to the Soviet Union.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>September</u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
President Wilson departed on his cross-country speaking tour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His first stop was a luncheon address in Columbus, Ohio,
the home of Republican Senator Warren G. Harding, a member of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee and a treaty opponent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That evening the President spoke in Indianapolis, Indiana,
a state represented by two other Republican senators.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His next stops were in St.
Louis and Kansas City, reflecting
the fact that one of Missouri’s
senators, James A. Reed, was the most outspoken Democratic opponent of the Treaty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Speeches, sometimes two a day, followed at Des Moines, Omaha, Sioux Falls, Minneapolis
and St. Paul. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As his train crossed Montana,
Wilson learned
of William Bullitt’s testimony before the Foreign Relations Committee in which
he revealed that Secretary of State Lansing had shared many of his own concerns
about the Treaty and the League in a private conversation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Among other things, Lansing
had called the League “entirely useless” and designed to serve the interests of
England and France.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In response to press inquiries, Lansing declined comment, sending a telegram to Wilson that reached him several days later in Los Angeles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He called Bullitt’s conduct “despicable and
outrageous” but stopped short of an outright denial.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Returning from the west coast, President
Wilson issued a statement challenging the Senate to hold an up or down vote on
the treaty without amendments or reservations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>After struggling through a speech in Pueblo, Colorado,
he collapsed from what was described by his physician Admiral Grayson as
“nervous exhaustion.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The remainder of
his speaking tour was cancelled, and he returned directly to Washington. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During his absence, the Foreign Relations
Committee forwarded the Treaty of Versailles to the Senate with thirty-eight
amendments and four reservations, along with hearing transcripts and a report signed
by Senator Lodge on behalf of the Republican majority, which stated that “the
committee believes that the League as it stands will breed wars instead of
securing peace.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In New York, General Pershing led the First
Division in a victory parade on Fifth
Avenue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Boston, police officers
went on strike.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mayor fired the
police commissioner, but Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge reinstated him
and mobilized the State Guard to police the city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A Steelworkers strike shut down steel mills
throughout the country.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>October</u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Shortly after returning to the White House, President Wilson
suffered a debilitating stroke that forced the cancellation of a reception for
the visiting King and Queen of Belgium.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Admiral Grayson continued to refuse to
provide information about the President’s condition beyond the initial
announcement that he was suffering from “nervous exhaustion.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Senator George Moses (Rep., N.H.) wrote in a
letter to a constituent that the President was “a very sick man” who is “unable
to undergo any experience which requires concentration of mind.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Moses’ letter was leaked to the press, Grayson
questioned the Senator’s medical qualifications and said he “must have
information that I do not possess.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
the Senate several amendments to the Treaty were defeated, including amendments
to limit voting by the British Empire and to delete the provision allowing
Japanese occupation of Shantung.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>French President Poincare issued a
declaration stating that, because Great Britain,
Italy and France had ratified the Treaty of Versailles, France’s
state of war with Germany
was at an end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Labor unrest spread
across multiple industries in the United States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A strike of east coast longshoremen paralyzed
transatlantic and coastwise shipping for a week before it was called off following
an ultimatum from the War Department.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
steel industry strike that began in September led to violent confrontations
between striking steelworkers, police and strikebreakers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Martial law was declared in Gary, Indiana
and surrounding steel cities, and Army units under the command of General
Leonard Wood were sent into the city to maintain order.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Following cabinet meetings presided over by
Treasury Secretary Carter Glass, a statement issued in the President’s name
denounced a threatened coal strike as “calculated to create a disastrous fuel
famine.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Attorney General Palmer went to
court and obtained an injunction forbidding the United Mine Workers from going
ahead with the strike, but when the strike deadline arrived at month’s end the
miners walked off the job without further direction from the union’s national officers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Volstead Act, enforcing nationwide
prohibition pursuant to the newly adopted Eighteenth Amendment, was returned to
Congress with a veto message objecting that the legislation included provisions,
no longer appropriate, to continue enforcement of wartime prohibition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Congress overrode the veto the next day. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In another First Amendment challenge to the
Espionage and Sedition Acts, the Supreme Court in a 7-2 ruling affirmed the
conviction of Russian immigrant and anarchist Jacob Abrams and several of his
comrades for distributing leaflets condemning President Wilson for sending
troops to Russia
to fight the Bolsheviks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The lasting
impact of the decision, however, was not in the majority ruling but in the
dissenting opinion of Justice Holmes, joined by Justice Louis Brandeis, in
which he included a ringing affirmation of the bedrock principle of free speech,
writing that the First Amendment is based on belief in the “free trade in ideas
– that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself
accepted in the competition of the market,” and insisting that “we should be
eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we
loathe and believe to be fraught with death, unless they so imminently threaten
immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an
immediate check is required to save the country.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Belgian King and Queen, before leaving
the United States
at the end of the month, visited the President in his bedroom at the White
House.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In baseball, the Cincinnati Redlegs
defeated the heavily favored Chicago White Sox to win the best-of-nine World
Series five games to three.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not long
afterward the “Black Sox” scandal surfaced when a grand jury charged that some
of the Chicago
players had conspired with a gambling syndicate to lose the series
intentionally. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>November</u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For much of November the Senate was occupied debating and
voting on a series of proposed amendments and reservations to the proposed
Treaty of Versailles. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A cloture rule, adopted
after the Armed Ships Bill filibuster in 1917 but applied now for the first
time, limited each senator’s time to speak, but there was no limit to the
number of senators who could have their say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>All the proposed amendments were defeated, as were most of the
reservations other than fourteen proposed by the Foreign Relations Committee,
referred to as the “Lodge reservations.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The LEP continued to send a mixed message, generally supporting the Treaty
but voting down a resolution to oppose the Lodge Reservations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In doing so it followed the lead of two of
its most prominent members, former President Taft and Harvard President
Lawrence Lowell, who argued that some reservations might be necessary to get
the Treaty ratified.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After two meetings
with the President, Senator Gilbert Hitchcock, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign
Relations Committee, summarized the President’s views in a draft letter, which he
gave to Mrs. Wilson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She read it to the
President, revised it as he directed, and returned it to Senator Hitchcock, who
shared it with his fellow Democrats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Promptly
leaked to the press, it said that in the President’s opinion “the resolution [for
ratification with the Lodge reservations] does not provide for ratification,
but rather for nullification of the treaty,” and that he “hope[s] the friends
and supporters of the treaty will vote against the Lodge resolution of
ratification.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The President’s firm
rejection led to the Treaty’s defeat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Three
final votes on consent to the Treaty were taken, two with the “Lodge reservations”
attached and one with no reservations. All three failed to pass, and the Senate
adjourned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>President Wilson declined to
make any statement in response to the Senate’s action, and refused even to see Senator
Hitchcock when he called at the White House.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Hitchcock and other treaty supporters resolved to bring the treaty
before the Senate again in the next session of Congress which (as the
Constitution provided prior to the adoption of the Twentieth Amendment in 1933)
would begin the first Monday in December.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The war on radicals continued as Attorney General Palmer, using
authority given by the Espionage Act, ordered raids on the headquarters of the
Industrial Workers of the World and the Seattle Union Record, organized labor’s
newspaper voice in the Pacific Northwest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Great Britain, Lady Astor became
the first woman elected to the House of Commons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Born Nancy Langhorne in Virginia,
she was the wife of William Waldorf Astor, a wealthy American who had moved to England where
he became a British subject and member of the House of Lords.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Prince of Wales visited the United States and Canada,
calling on President Wilson in the White House and touring New
York City and the Military
Academy at West
Point, where he was greeted by the new superintendent, Brigadier
General Douglas MacArthur.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The next week
at the Polo Grounds, the Army-Navy football rivalry resumed after a two-year
hiatus due to the war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Navy won 6-0. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>December</u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As was the custom, President Wilson delivered the annual
State of the Union message on the first day of the new session of Congress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the first time in his presidency, he
delivered the address in writing, his physical condition making it impossible
for him to appear in person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite its
importance, the message did not mention the Treaty of Versailles or the
controversy over its ratification.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This,
in addition to the President’s refusal to see Senator Hitchcock a week earlier,
increased concern in Congress about his ability to perform the duties of his
office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When an American citizen was
seized in Mexico,
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee appointed a subcommittee of two (Senator
Hitchcock and Republican Senator Albert Fall) to visit the White House and
discuss the matter with the President in person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After the meeting both senators judged him “perfectly
capable of handling the situation,” a conclusion perhaps aided by the dim light
in the President’s bedroom, by the artful arrangement of the bedclothes, and most
importantly by the announcement during the meeting that the American citizen
had been released.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the Senate, efforts
to reach an accommodation regarding acceptable reservations continued until mid-December,
when the White House issued a statement that seemed to foreclose any hope that
the President might be willing to compromise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It said “the hope of the Republican leaders of the Senate that the
President would presently make some move which will relieve the situation with
regard to the treaty is entirely without foundation,” and insisted that the
President has “no compromise or concession of any kind in mind,” but intends
“that the Republican leaders of the Senate shall continue to bear the undivided
responsibility for the fate of the treaty and the present condition of the world
in consequence of that fate.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still
hoping to find an acceptable formula, Senator Hitchcock said he agreed with the
President that concession or compromise is for the Senate, not the President,
and that Senate supporters of the Treaty “will continue to seek a compromise
between the Lodge reservations and those I offered last November.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Senator Lodge, the Republican leader, blocked
a proposal by Senator Oscar Underwood (Dem., Ala.) to establish a conciliation committee
of ten senators to reach a compromise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On
the day before Christmas the White House announced that the nation’s railroads
would be returned to private ownership on March 1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A Christmas Day parade on Fifth Avenue in support of amnesty for
political prisoners was broken up by police.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>At the end of the month the President’s secretary Joseph Tumulty met
separately with the President and Senator Hitchcock, leading to speculation
that the new year might see the President become more involved in the
ratification debate. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>General Leonard
Wood gave permission for his name to be entered in the South Dakota Republican
Presidential Primary. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Viscount French,
the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
and former commander of the British Expeditionary Force in France, escaped an assassination attempt by members
of the Irish Republican Army as he was being driven through Phoenix Park
in Dublin on
his way to the Viceregal Lodge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of
the attackers was shot dead and two policemen were injured.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Paris,
Premier Clemenceau won a strong vote of confidence after a speech outlining France’s
foreign policy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He expressed his
satisfaction with the military guarantees from Great
Britain and the United
States, predicted a solution to the disagreement with Italy about Fiume, and declared France’s firm opposition to the Soviet
government in Russia,
promising that “we will be the allies of all peoples attacked by Bolshevism.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Dennis Crosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05167348173555324839noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320526393914188899.post-65322905908951778512019-06-27T12:35:00.000-07:002019-07-01T18:25:38.816-07:00The Paris Peace Conference<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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When I discontinued my monthly blog posts in January, I promised (threatened?) to add more posts from time to time. Now we are observing another important centennial (June 28 is the centennial of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, and perhaps coincidentally the 105th anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo). So I've decided to post another installment, this one devoted entirely to the Paris Peace Conference.</div>
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<br /></div>
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As Margaret MacMillan wrote in her book about the conference, "For six months in 1919, Paris was the capital of the world . . . Paris was at once the world's government, its court of appeal and its parliament, the focus of its fears and hopes." The most destructive war in history had come to an end, and many of the world's empires lay in ruins, both physically and politically. The leaders of the victorious powers struggled to redraw the map of Europe and create a new world order, trying against all odds to reconcile the frequently conflicting goals of security, democracy, national self-determination, and colonial ambitions.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Although Germany and Russia were among the first major powers to go to war in August 1914, neither was represented in Paris. Of the "Big Four" nations that dominated the conference and made all the important decisions, only France and Great Britain had been in the war from the beginning. The most recent, the United States, had led the way in bringing about an armistice, but President Wilson's Fourteen Points proved difficult to apply in the real world of peace negotiations. In the end, he proved willing to compromise many of his principles in the interest of the goal that outweighed all others: the creation of a League of Nations and the inclusion of the League covenant in the final settlement. The Treaty of Versailles, signed on the fifth anniversary of the event that triggered the Great War, was resented in Germany, rejected in the United States, and proved a failure in its ultimate goal of establishing the foundation for a lasting peace.</div>
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***** </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj608MjQUQGDkOM7GTL0FUCWdQj2x7R5R4aw76FqgAtvQtkR3cZPrn7Jnk7D9poGp4MPt_biNrX_tMzwhEhNMojPvCelpRmw6tWIUBBkrDaLTOpq9OhuynXftC_XSZ3Xg3oxwRsk3n2p3E/s1600/big_four_versailles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1504" data-original-width="1600" height="375" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj608MjQUQGDkOM7GTL0FUCWdQj2x7R5R4aw76FqgAtvQtkR3cZPrn7Jnk7D9poGp4MPt_biNrX_tMzwhEhNMojPvCelpRmw6tWIUBBkrDaLTOpq9OhuynXftC_XSZ3Xg3oxwRsk3n2p3E/s400/big_four_versailles.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
The Big Four</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The heads of government of the victorious Allies assembled
in Paris in
January 1919.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They faced a daunting
task: to remake the world in the wake of the greatest military conflict in its history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The four principals were Georges Clemenceau,
the French Premier; Prime Minister David Lloyd-George of Great Britain; President Woodrow Wilson of the United States; and Prime Minister Vittorio
Orlando of Italy. (Of the four, only Wilson was also his nation's head of state).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Germany,
the strongest by far of the Central Powers, had been defeated on the Western
Front but had decisively prevailed against Russia in the East.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even in the West, the armistice had ended the
fighting while the German Army was still in France
and Belgium.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While the terms of the armistice were very
much in the Allies’ favor, therefore, the Germans, and particularly German
civilians who had not experienced first hand their army’s defeats in the field,
were justified in believing that their country’s surrender was less than
total.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">The "Big Four," formally organized as the Supreme War Council, met for the first time at the Quai d'Orsay on Sunday, January 12. At the urging of Great Britain, they agreed to add the Japanese prime minister to the group, which with the further addition of each nation's foreign secretary, was referred to thereafter as the Council of Ten.</span> Between mid-February and mid-March, there was a pause in the conference as
Orlando, Wilson
and Lloyd George returned to their capitals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>After the conference reconvened in March, the Council of Ten was
discontinued and all major decisions were made by the original "Big Four."<br />
<br />
The first formal meeting of the conference was held on Saturday, January 18. Its first order of business was the selection of a permanent chairman. President Wilson nominated Premier Clemenceau, who was elected unanimously.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiJiyPlTgiCT9x4vpIoecUGTwLA-FW26MvgutR_YqjYhCk8WFctC7_tv_e-apHHMutk6kOFopOVTVqFKRUxMH31i4eXWuQAe3j49nGTtVLIkha_DQpIZmCNIgJYwvfhdhxIEXA5iazyRQ/s1600/Robert_Cecil%252C_1st_Viscount_Cecil_of_Chelwood.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="220" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiJiyPlTgiCT9x4vpIoecUGTwLA-FW26MvgutR_YqjYhCk8WFctC7_tv_e-apHHMutk6kOFopOVTVqFKRUxMH31i4eXWuQAe3j49nGTtVLIkha_DQpIZmCNIgJYwvfhdhxIEXA5iazyRQ/s400/Robert_Cecil%252C_1st_Viscount_Cecil_of_Chelwood.jpg" width="270" /></a></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Lord Robert Cecil<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
On January 25 the Peace Conference created a Commission on the League of Nations, chaired by President Wilson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Originally the Commission consisted of ten
members, two from each nation represented in the Supreme Council (the United States, Great
Britain, France, Italy,
and Japan).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When smaller nations such as Belgium
objected, they were allowed to nominate four additional members, a number later
increased to nine.</div>
</div>
<br />
President Wilson named Colonel House as the second United States member of the
Commission.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lloyd George and Clemenceau
appointed neither themselves nor their foreign ministers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lloyd George selected Lord Robert Cecil and
South African Foreign Secretary Jan Smuts to represent the interests of Great Britain and the British Empire, and
Clemenceau chose former French Prime Minister Leon Bourgeois and Dean Ferdinand
Larnaude of the University Of Paris School Of Law as France’s representatives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bourgeois advocated a League with the power
to resolve disputes by compulsory arbitration enforced by economic sanctions
and, if necessary, military force.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both Britain and the United States resisted the
Bourgeois proposal, arguing that such measures were unconstitutional and would
threaten to involve member states in disputes unrelated to their national
interests.<br />
<br />
On February 14, the day before he left Paris
to return to the United States
for the end of Congress, Wilson
presented the temporary draft of the League covenant to a plenary session of
the Conference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some issues were still
unresolved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The French still hoped to
strengthen the League’s enforcement powers, and the disposition of the former
German colonies and the lands of the Ottoman Empire
had yet to be determined.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How would the
League’s powers be reconciled with the Monroe Doctrine, and would the Japanese
be entitled to adopt a similar doctrine in East Asia?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And speaking of the Japanese, how would their
proposal for racial equality be received by the representatives of the
worldwide British and French empires and the segregated United States?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That night the President left Paris to return to the United States for the final days of
the 65th Congress.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGBgpupRevasQGDTc0lTVvrAF2mJuaswNsavp2QzdDf0xtzngKlVK6hPhGZ_KUSqf8nRr3TrBLcnIlAMWKlSz9JIOQLYqR0QPmrVhlwUnFCZerwFdQdseXlN_TrAWAfn0HVdvveAvPvMc/s1600/league_of_nations_mandates.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="370" data-original-width="800" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGBgpupRevasQGDTc0lTVvrAF2mJuaswNsavp2QzdDf0xtzngKlVK6hPhGZ_KUSqf8nRr3TrBLcnIlAMWKlSz9JIOQLYqR0QPmrVhlwUnFCZerwFdQdseXlN_TrAWAfn0HVdvveAvPvMc/s640/league_of_nations_mandates.png" width="640" /></a></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
League of Nations Mandates</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
The dissolution of the Austrian, Russian and Ottoman Empires left large
amounts of the world without functioning governments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Colonization by the victorious powers was
contrary to the Fourteen Points and strongly opposed by President Wilson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The solution adopted by the Peace Conference
was the assignment of “mandates” under the supervision of the League
of Nations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mandatory
powers were given the power and responsibility to exercise governmental
functions under the supervision of the League of Nations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Three categories of mandates were eventually
agreed upon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Class A mandates were
former territories of the Ottoman Empire whose “existence as independent
nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of advice and
assistance” by the mandatory power (Great Britain
or France).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Class B mandates were former German colonies
in west and central Africa in which the mandatory power (Great Britain, France,
or Belgium)
was made “responsible for the administration of the territory.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Class C mandates were formerly German
territories in the Pacific and Southwest Africa
deemed “best administered under the laws of the Mandatory as integral portions
of its territory.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mandatory powers
for these territories were Great Britain,
Australia and New Zealand (for Pacific territories south of
the Equator), Japan (for
Pacific territories north of the Equator), and the Union of South Africa (for Southwest Africa).<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh02cyK-IGJdxUKB-1QXgoZWykCB43Tnx6ZK2Fm_Zg87J1FynC8gToWVcFYJkT2teaDSdAndPCygvGef_0gjjSIoKRba4wbSC6oRy9f35sL9h0PGEOdNj0-IehH2uFqjHv8Iyb4q8bOqi8/s1600/russian_civil_war.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="771" data-original-width="784" height="392" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh02cyK-IGJdxUKB-1QXgoZWykCB43Tnx6ZK2Fm_Zg87J1FynC8gToWVcFYJkT2teaDSdAndPCygvGef_0gjjSIoKRba4wbSC6oRy9f35sL9h0PGEOdNj0-IehH2uFqjHv8Iyb4q8bOqi8/s400/russian_civil_war.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
The Russian Civil War</div>
<br />
A major question confronting the Allies throughout the conference was what
role, if any, Russia
would have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The nation that first went
to war against Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1914 was not represented in Paris. Although it
was the largest of Germany's
enemies, and probably saved France
from defeat in the early months of the war, its withdrawal from the war at the
beginning of 1918 with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk came close to bringing about
the Allies' defeat, and was regarded by them as a betrayal. Germany was obliged by the armistice, however,
to renounce Brest-Litovsk, so Russia
was still technically one of the nations at war with Germany. On a practical
level, moreover, it was virtually impossible for the Paris
conferees to discuss a peace settlement without considering Russia.
The role of Russia in the conference was further complicated by the fact that
its control over its territory was contested by White revolutionaries, by the
fact that Allied troops occupied Vladivostok and parts of the Russian Arctic,
by the Bolsheviks' repudiation of Russia's debt to the Allies, by their
publication of the Allies' secret agreements, and perhaps most fundamentally by
uncertainty about whether the Bolshevik government even cared to participate in
the conference.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiORCVkqwwFVFrdhBznr2_SZUHjMhzVi877Rj5a5_CA11UYBQOjgu4RMlNINpYVJDFFwz7LDgLGb47GITP1rXZy6GRkjpioSScgNsLXCIPfzZ6wEGestGW23X1VANAJHYyDITSCJ_-bIAI/s1600/seaofmar.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="426" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiORCVkqwwFVFrdhBznr2_SZUHjMhzVi877Rj5a5_CA11UYBQOjgu4RMlNINpYVJDFFwz7LDgLGb47GITP1rXZy6GRkjpioSScgNsLXCIPfzZ6wEGestGW23X1VANAJHYyDITSCJ_-bIAI/s400/seaofmar.gif" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Prinkipo (Princes' Islands) in the Sea of Marmara<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
On January 22, 1919, at the urging of President Wilson and Prime Minister
Lloyd George and over the opposition of Premier Clemenceau, the Supreme Council
submitted a formal invitation to “every organized group that is now exercising
or attempting to exercise political authority or military control anywhere in
Siberia, or within the boundaries of European Russia” to send representatives to
Princes’ Islands (Prinkipo) in the Sea of Marmora, near Constantinople and the
southern entrance to the Bosporus, to confer with representatives of the associated
powers in an attempt to reach “some understanding and agreement by which Russia
may work out her own purposes, and happy, cooperative relations be established
between her people and the other peoples of the world . . . provided there is
in the meantime a truce . . .”</div>
</div>
<br />
The next day the White Russians issued statements rejecting the proposed
conference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sergei Sazonov, the former
foreign minister of the Russian Empire who was representing White Russian interests
in Paris,
issued a statement saying he “will not sit with assassins.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Former premier Georgy Lvov agreed, saying “we
never thought that the conference would begin its peace work by renewing
relations with our tyrants."<br />
<br />
The Soviet government’s reply was received on February 4. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>The Bolsheviks offered material concessions,
such as raw materials and territory, but did not comment on the stated goals of "happy, cooperative relations" and failed to respond to the precondition
of a truce.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That ambiguous response,
combined with the opposition expressed by France and the negative reaction of the White factions, caused the Allies' interest to fade.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The White Russians
sent their official rejection on February 16, two days after President Wilson had
left Paris for his return to the United States.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEGVYjHku1L9i3qHN0jkSwXdjDTkB2VjFNQCUY0GMFoPl_yjrN8Txz5HZO8jIjWEs0BO5U07lS876gKTWs-J26-ErPYLPTY0BnbS5aersYRF9FvIQaa-SVyLoH1vgQySX2mHHOUriuEkU/s1600/bullittandsteffens.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="557" data-original-width="600" height="371" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEGVYjHku1L9i3qHN0jkSwXdjDTkB2VjFNQCUY0GMFoPl_yjrN8Txz5HZO8jIjWEs0BO5U07lS876gKTWs-J26-ErPYLPTY0BnbS5aersYRF9FvIQaa-SVyLoH1vgQySX2mHHOUriuEkU/s400/bullittandsteffens.jpg" width="400" /></a></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
William C. Bullitt and Lincoln Steffens<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
Lloyd George and Wilson remained interested in trying to resolve the Russian
situation. William C. Bullitt, a junior but outspoken member of the American
delegation, urged that a mission be dispatched to Russia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Colonel House, who had been named by Wilson to lead the
delegation in his absence, asked Bullitt to lead such a mission.</div>
</div>
<br />
In early March, the Bullitt Mission (comprised of Bullitt, muckraking journalist
Lincoln Steffens, and a U.S. Army intelligence officer) traveled from Paris to Moscow,
where they held a series of meetings with Lenin and his Foreign Minister. On
March 14 Lenin submitted a proposal calling for a ceasefire throughout the
former Russian Empire and agreement to hold a peace conference in a neutral
nation. The terms proposed for discussion at the conference included allowing
all the de facto governments in Russia to retain the territory they held prior
to the armistice, disarmament of the warring factions, lifting of the Allied
blockade, withdrawal of Allied troops from Russia, and a commitment by the
Bolshevik government to honor Russia’s financial obligations to the Allies. Bullitt
returned to Paris
with the Soviet proposal accompanied by a report in which he asserted that the
violent phase of the Bolshevik Revolution was over, that the Bolsheviks enjoyed
popular support, and that Lenin was willing to compromise. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Steffens was also impressed by Lenin and the
Bolsheviks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After his return to Paris he famously reported
“I have seen the future, and it works.”<br />
<br />
When Bullitt arrived in Paris
on March 25, he faced resistance to Lenin's proposal. Lloyd
George was initially receptive, but changed his mind when news of the mission
leaked to the British press. Clemenceau had opposed the mission from the start.
Wilson, who had returned to Paris on March 14,
was focused on negotiations concerning the League of Nations and the peace
treaty with Germany. Finally, the military news from Russia seemed
favorable to the Whites, lessening the perceived need to negotiate with Lenin. The
April 10 deadline for the Allies to respond to Lenin’s offer passed without any
response. In May, after the terms of the German treaty were disclosed, Bullitt resigned
and headed for the Riviera
to, as he said, “lie on the sand and watch the world go to hell."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
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<br />
By the time the Allies began to explore the possibility of recognizing the
White governments of Admiral Kolchak in Siberia and General Denikin in the Caucasus, the military tide had turned, and the Whites
were in retreat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By 1920 the Soviets were in control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was years before diplomatic relations were established between the
Allied nations and the Soviet Union.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first American ambassador, appointed by
President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, was William C. Bullitt.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL70gOjA0PrFDHDYcEUQMK6cbQAh5kR-zzAJu9GyHxRIFMBdATjmk-nXhvhPqhrPLIZhTx6aQzA9MdQAr5kjRAikbpchyphenhyphenEtA0fpfdVJ_4QquxtePylLu0pDnfucio6dYRxVKaC0B9mUAY/s1600/yugoslavia1919.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1386" data-original-width="1500" height="368" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL70gOjA0PrFDHDYcEUQMK6cbQAh5kR-zzAJu9GyHxRIFMBdATjmk-nXhvhPqhrPLIZhTx6aQzA9MdQAr5kjRAikbpchyphenhyphenEtA0fpfdVJ_4QquxtePylLu0pDnfucio6dYRxVKaC0B9mUAY/s400/yugoslavia1919.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Formation of Yugoslavia</div>
<br />
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">A new Balkan state was represented in Paris.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Proclaimed on December 1, 1918 by Prince
Alexander of Serbia, it combined
the pre-war nations of Serbia
and Montenegro with the
former Austro-Hungarian provinces of Slovenia,
Croatia
and Bosnia-Herzegovina in a new nation called the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats
and Slovenes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Non-Serbs within its
borders preferred to call it Yugoslavia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its name, however, was the least of the
challenges for the long-term cohesion and viability of the new state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Others included the fact that Serbs, Croats and
Slovenes had fought on opposite sides of the World War, that despite their
common Slavic ethnicity they professed different religions (Roman Catholic,
Orthodox and Muslim), that they had different linguistic and cultural traditions
(the Slovenian language differed from Serbo-Croatian, and Serbs, unlike
Croatians, used the Cyrillic alphabet), and that they had conflicting
territorial ambitions (Croats and Slovenes were willing to compromise
territorial disputes with Rumania in return for Italian concessions on the Adriatic
coast; for the Serbs the reverse was true).</span> Prince Alexander appointed Nikola Pasic, Serbia's pre-war prime minister, to represent
the new nation in Paris,
accompanied by Ante Trumbic, a Croatian, as its foreign minister.<br />
<br />
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<br />
The new nation shared borders with seven other nations: Italy, Austria,
Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria,
Greece and Albania.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All but one (Greece) were included on the agenda when the Supreme Council met with the Yugoslav delegation
on February 18.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Medjumurje and
Prekomurje, regions sandwiched between Austria,
Hungary and Slovenia, were awarded to Yugoslavia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Banat, Baranya and Backa (all formerly in
Hungary) were divided between
Yugoslavia and Rumania.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those awarded to Yugoslavia were grouped together as
the Vojvodina.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the border with Bulgaria, four slivers of territory that were
populated mainly by Bulgarians but included key railroads considered essential
to the new nation’s security were awarded to Yugoslavia.<br />
<br />
Albania had gained it
independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1912, and ended the war occupied by Serbia, Greece
and Italy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was the avenue of retreat for the Serbian
Army after its 1915 defeat by Austria-Hungary,
and remained occupied by the Austro-Hungarian Army for most of the war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a result, Albania’s territorial claims at the
peace conference were weak, but the competing claims of Italy, Greece and Yugoslavia,
combined with the Wilsonian principle of self-determination, preserved
Albania’s independence and territorial integrity until 1920, when Italy
withdrew its forces and Greece and Yugoslavia dropped their demands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Albania’s only loss was the failure
of its claim to Kosovo, an area populated largely by Albanians but of great
patriotic and historical significance to the Serbs.<br />
<br />
The most serious of the disputes regarding Yugoslavia’s
borders was the one with Italy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Italy
based its claims in large part on the 1915 Treaty of London with Great Britain, France
and Russia, which brought Italy
into the war on the side of the Entente.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Among other things the treaty had promised the Istrian peninsula,
including the port of Trieste, and large portions of Austrian territory on
the Dalmatian coast to Italy
in the event of an Entente victory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Treaty of London was one of the secret treaties unearthed and publicized by the
Bolsheviks when they seized power in Russia in November 1917, and denounced
by Woodrow Wilson in his Fourteen Points address to Congress two months later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As parties to the treaty, Great Britain and
France could hardly be as adamant as Wilson, but they also opposed use of the
treaty as a basis for the post-war settlement because the territory in question
was no longer being taken from an enemy state but from the new Yugoslav nation,
the largest part of which was Serbia, the first nation in the war on the side
of the Allies.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRbXHA8PBGjCdS4LjwhMzoqBfZyBUu3T5FEXiIH4yQ3m_oZpTuCtmxiaGEZIpamDWujCfdggyDW-VqpQpv0QiP55j2GcBGMs7MSCa6vRTKMTXB0VZQFpalMyG678aDE1Wu2PkNXEOxtzs/s1600/Gabriele_D%2527Anunnzio.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="370" data-original-width="261" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRbXHA8PBGjCdS4LjwhMzoqBfZyBUu3T5FEXiIH4yQ3m_oZpTuCtmxiaGEZIpamDWujCfdggyDW-VqpQpv0QiP55j2GcBGMs7MSCa6vRTKMTXB0VZQFpalMyG678aDE1Wu2PkNXEOxtzs/s400/Gabriele_D%2527Anunnzio.png" width="281" /></a> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Gabriele D'Annunzio</span></div>
<br />
The port of Fiume
was not part of the territory promised to Italy
in the Treaty of London, but it was occupied under the terms of the armistice
by the Italian military, who claimed it as a prize of war essential to control
of the Adriatic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It had become a major political issue in Italy,
seized on by a prototypical fascist movement led by the poet, journalist and flamboyant
war hero Gabriele D’Annunzio, who anticipated the rise a few years later of
Benito Mussolini.<br />
<br />
The dispute over the border between Italy
and Yugoslavia,
like most of the other issues before the conference, was still unresolved when
the conference paused to allow the principals to return to their capitals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was only in early April that Italy was asked
to make its case before the other members of the Council of Four.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a meeting on April 3 Orlando
rejected a proposal to make Fiume a free city under the auspices of the League of Nations and refused to attend a meeting to hear
the Yugoslav position.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Yugoslavs
were insistent that their new nation include the port of Fiume
and the Dalmatian coast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Great Britain and France were willing to abide by the
Treaty of London but encouraged the Italians to compromise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>President Wilson, refusing to give
any force to the Treaty of London, took the side of the Yugoslavs and issued a
public statement on April 23 rejecting the Italian position.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Orlando and Sonnino decided to boycott the
conference and departed the next day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On
May 5, when it appeared that the conference would proceed without them, they decided to return to Paris.<br />
<br />
The territorial dispute between Italy
and Yugoslavia remained
unresolved when the Versailles treaty with Germany was finalized and signed on June 28 and
President Wilson left Paris
for the last time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By then Orlando was no longer prime minister of Italy, his
government having fallen on June 19.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
November 1920 the two countries resolved their differences in the Treaty of
Rapallo, which gave most of the Istrian
Peninsula and the city of Zara (Zadar) to Italy
and created the independent free state of Fiume.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fiume, now
called Rijeka, has been part of Croatia since Croatia
declared its independence from Yugoslavia
in 1991.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS8oYDP2aX9gQ_kiwTNsAw0G5BuOulyugSVOUr13gHn2S-qhMeIHQsIn4hrY25uyut3ENPjPce1mw7DtzO8lXdbGUI3kE2IPs85xs5jk8_p6-W0IYjcFT6WocQRr4E0XkdZsj9EceLTNI/s1600/Henry_Cabot_Lodge_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="488" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS8oYDP2aX9gQ_kiwTNsAw0G5BuOulyugSVOUr13gHn2S-qhMeIHQsIn4hrY25uyut3ENPjPce1mw7DtzO8lXdbGUI3kE2IPs85xs5jk8_p6-W0IYjcFT6WocQRr4E0XkdZsj9EceLTNI/s400/Henry_Cabot_Lodge_1.jpg" width="325" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
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The Supreme War Council was in recess from mid-February to
mid-March to allow President Wilson to return to Washington to attend to the press of
last-minute business as the 65th Congress came to an end on March 4. (The Twentieth
Amendment, added to the Constitution in 1933, changed the expiration date of
Congress every two years from March 4 to January 3.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also eliminated the mandatory “lame duck”
session that followed congressional elections every two years by changing the
date Congress must assemble every year from the first Monday in December to
January 3, the date the old Congress expires and the new one takes office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So now Congress has “lame duck” sessions only
when it chooses to have them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Twentieth Amendment also moved the expiration date of the president’s term
every four years up from March 4 to January 20).</div>
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<br /></div>
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President Wilson left Paris
on February 16 bound for Boston,
the home of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, the incoming chairman of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After
almost running aground in heavy fog off Cape Ann, the USS George Washington
arrived in Boston
on February 24.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After a motorcade
through a crowd estimated at 200,000, he lunched at the Copley Plaza Hotel and
proceeded to Mechanics Hall, where he was introduced to a capacity crowd by
Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Although he had asked members of Congress to withhold comment until he
had had a chance to brief them, he delivered a fighting speech attacking opponents
of the proposed League of Nations, accusing them of having “narrow-minded minds
that have no sweep beyond the day’s horizon” and telling his audience “I have
fighting blood in me, and it is sometimes a delight to let it have scope.”</div>
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<br /></div>
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On the morning of February 19, while President Wilson was still
at sea, Premier Clemenceau left his house in Paris to attend a meeting at the Foreign
Office with Colonel House, British Foreign Secretary Balfour, and Italian
Foreign Minister Sonnino.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Unlike Lloyd
George and Orlando, who had left their foreign ministers in charge in their
absence, Wilson had designated House as his
stand-in despite the fact that Secretary of State Lansing was with him in Paris.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Clemenceau got into his car, an anarchist
named Emile Cottin ran up and fired several shots through the window, three of
which struck the premier and one of which barely missed vital organs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was carried back into his house, and was back
at work by the end of the month.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Back in Washington,
President Wilson hosted a dinner at the White House on February 26 for the
members of the congressional foreign relations committees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After dinner he moved his guests to the East
Room and fielded questions until midnight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It does not appear that any opinions were changed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two days later Lodge delivered a long speech
on the floor of the Senate expressing concern that the articles of the proposed
League of Nations covenant “seem to give a rich promise of being fertile in
producing controversies and misunderstandings,” which would only delay the
important immediate goal of making peace with Germany.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Shortly after midnight on the last day of the 65th Congress,
Lodge introduced a resolution, signed by thirty-seven Republican senators and
senators-elect (more than enough to defeat ratification of the treaty) stating
that the existing draft of the League of Nations covenant should not be
approved and that the signing of a peace treaty should take precedence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Among their principal objections to the
proposed League covenant were that it contravened the Monroe doctrine and that it infringed on
Congress’s power under the constitution to declare war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Denied unanimous consent for immediate
consideration of his resolution, Lodge read the names of the signers and placed
it in the record as a “round robin.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Republican senators, hoping to force the President to call a
special session of the new Congress so that debate on the League
of Nations could continue, mounted a filibuster on pending revenue
bills, and the 65th Congress expired at noon without those bills being brought
to a vote.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wilson, however, made it clear he would not
call Congress into session until after his return from the peace conference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He issued a defiant statement echoing his
denunciation of the “little group of willful men” who had filibustered the
Armed Ship Bill two years earlier: “A group of men in the Senate have
deliberately chosen to embarrass the government … and to make arbitrary use
of the powers intended to be employed in the interests of the people.“ <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(The 20th Amendment made it impossible for
this to happen again; it requires that Congress assemble every year on January
3, which is the same day every two years that the newly elected Congress takes
office.)</div>
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<br /></div>
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President Wilson left Washington
that afternoon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stopping briefly in Philadelphia to visit his newborn grandson, he arrived at New York’s Pennsylvania
Station that evening and went directly to the Metropolitan Opera House, where
he was joined on stage by former President Taft.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Introduced by Governor Al Smith, Wilson told the crowd of 5,000 that senators’ criticisms
of the proposed League of Nations made no impression
on him, and expressed amazement “that there should be in some quarters such a
comprehensive ignorance of the state of the world.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Answering the argument that the peace treaty
should be considered first, the President said that “when the treaty comes
back, gentlemen on this side will find the covenant not only in it, but so many
threads of the treaty tied to the covenant, that you cannot dissect the covenant
from the treaty.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The next morning he
departed from Hoboken on the U.S.S. George
Washington for the nine-day return trip to Paris.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Germany's Territorial Losses</div>
<br />
When President Wilson got back to Paris
on March 14, Lloyd George and Orlando had already returned and Clemenceau had
largely recovered from the wounds inflicted by his would-be assassin (though he
would carry one of the bullets in his body for the rest of his life).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now the item at the top of the agenda,
despite Wilson’s continuing insistence that the
League of Nations take precedence over all other issues, was the settlement
with Germany.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
Much had changed in the four months since hostilities had ceased in
November.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The German Army had been
allowed to return home in good order and the Allied armies were melting
away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Other than the forces occupying
the Rhineland under the terms of the
armistice, no Allied troops were on German soil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Germany, however, likewise had
little if any bargaining leverage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its
army was in no condition to resume hostilities; its navy was in British custody
at Scapa Flow; the Kaiser was in exile; the
new German government was unstable; and the German population was starving as
food imports were restricted by the continuing British blockade, the scarcity
of available shipping, and disagreement about who would pay for them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was no political will on either side to
continue the war.<br />
<br />
The principal remaining issues regarding Germany were disarmament,
territorial adjustments and reparations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The first, and in many ways the most straightforward, was
disarmament.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Upon his return to France, Wilson
was frustrated to be told that the military issues had been largely resolved in
his absence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Germany
was to be limited to an army of 100,000 and a navy of 15,000 (the major part of
its fleet was interned at Scapa Flow).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was to have no air force, no dirigibles,
no tanks, heavy guns or submarines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most
of its existing stocks of weapons, and all of its fortifications in the
Rhineland and on both banks of the Rhine
itself were to be destroyed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Severe
limits were imposed on military training by schools and private
organizations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All told, the limits on Germany’s
military were, in Margaret MacMillan’s words, “like the ropes of the Lilliputians
over Gulliver.”<br />
<br />
Of the territorial questions, the easiest to resolve were the forfeiture of
German colonies and the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To the north of Alsace-Lorraine and west of
the Rhine River
lay the Rhineland, populated largely by Germans but considered by France to be essential to its security,
especially the coal-rich Saar basin to the
south.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clemenceau argued for the
creation of an independent buffer state, but the Council of Four eventually
settled on continuation of the military occupation for fifteen years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A small area on the border between Germany and Belgium
was awarded to Belgium.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Council also decided on plebiscites to
determine the fate of Schleswig-Holstein, annexed by Bismarck in 1867.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Held in February and March 1920, they resulted
in the award of Northern Schleswig to Denmark.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Kiel Canal, built by the Kaiser in 1895,
remained in Germany,
with a provision in the treaty guaranteeing free passage through the canal for
other nations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The island of Heligoland,
site of the main base of the High Seas Fleet during the war, remained German
but its fortifications and harbors were destroyed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On Germany’s
eastern border, the provinces of West Prussia,
Posen and (initially) Upper Silesia were severed from Germany
and added to the new nation of Poland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Danzig was declared a free city to be governed
by the League of Nations, and a “corridor” along the Vistula
River was given to Poland to
provide access to the Baltic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fate
of southern portions of East Prussia was
submitted to a plebiscite which, when it was held in 1920, resulted in an
overwhelming vote in favor of remaining in Germany. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>German objections to the loss of the industrial and
resource-rich region of Upper Silesia led to a 1921 plebiscite that yielded
a mixed result and laid the foundation for future strife.<br />
<br />
The issue of reparations was the most difficult.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Germany, the nation expected to pay
the lion’s share of reparations, was an economic basket case.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its foreign trade was nonexistent, and the
costs it had incurred in waging the war had been financed largely by borrowing
secured by the promise of repayment after victory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The issue of reparations, moreover, was
inseparable from the territorial issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If the treaty were to deprive Germany
of territory that included some of its most productive resources, Germany’s
ability to pay reparations would obviously be affected.<br />
<br />
The most difficult question was what to count as compensable costs when
calculating the amount of reparations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Should
they be limited to the damage done by Germany’s unlawful aggression or
should they include the costs the Allies had incurred in waging war?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>President Wilson in his Fourteen Points had
called for a peace with “no annexations, no contributions, no punitive
damages,” but even limiting reparations to compensation for measurable injury
left unanswered the question of what the elements of that injury were.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Destruction of property was most extensive on
the Western Front, most of which was in France.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Great Britain,
however, had borne the bulk of the financial burden of the war, and Belgium had suffered
occupation of almost all of its territory for four years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And apart from damage to property, what about
the cost of supporting veterans and surviving widows and orphans?<br />
<br />
However the damages were calculated, it was clear that Germany would
not be able to pay them in any foreseeable future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the end, the Supreme Council decided not
to decide, either on a total amount of reparations or on how any reparations
payments would be allocated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, it
formed a special commission on reparations to make the decision.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The final treaty presented to the Germans in
June left the total amount open.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
included a “war guilt” clause, Article 231, drafted by a young American lawyer named
John Foster Dulles (Secretary of State Lansing’s nephew and a future secretary of state), stating that Germany
bore responsibility for all the damage done by the war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1921 the commission set the total amount
of reparations at $34 billion.<br />
<br />
One issue that was discussed but never resolved was individual criminal
responsibility for waging the war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When
Lloyd George ran for reelection in December, “Hang the Kaiser” was a popular
and effective campaign slogan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the
time the conference was considering the German peace terms, however, the Kaiser
was in Holland, the Netherlands had refused to turn him
over, and the public appetite for prosecuting individuals for war crimes was
diminishing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Kaiser remained in the Netherlands until his death in 1941, just before
Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unlike the Nuremberg trials after the Second
World War, there were no war crime trials after the First World War.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdrOQlBLgj-S5Q3Lr8W-Ik6JGfPOHN75STQQLbBnXx_mO18e7DR-BxwEGgcvAMm_vTmd7KkEDckX4qgdRpu-b1ryXnsV9Xls1_zBe7uXWTlemU1O0gRpwzNRQbXvpfUXrAYC1HCgYzhIc/s1600/Curzon_line_en.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="729" data-original-width="800" height="363" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdrOQlBLgj-S5Q3Lr8W-Ik6JGfPOHN75STQQLbBnXx_mO18e7DR-BxwEGgcvAMm_vTmd7KkEDckX4qgdRpu-b1ryXnsV9Xls1_zBe7uXWTlemU1O0gRpwzNRQbXvpfUXrAYC1HCgYzhIc/s400/Curzon_line_en.svg.png" width="400" /></a> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Poland and the Curzon Line</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
The eastern border of the new Polish nation was still a work in progress
when the Treaty of Versailles was signed at the end of June.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Commission on Polish Affairs, established
by the Supreme Council in February, recommended a border between the
predominantly Polish population to the west and the mixed population of Poles,
Ukrainians, Byelorussians and Lithuanians to the east, a line extending roughly
south from the eastern boundary of East Prussia to the formerly
Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia on the Czechoslovak border.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Endorsed by acting British Foreign Secretary
Lord Curzon, it became known as the Curzon Line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Poland refused to accept the
Commission’s line as its eastern boundary, and its forces on the ground
succeeded in occupying substantial territory to the east, all of which was
conceded by the Russians in the 1921 Treaty of Riga and remained Polish until
it was reclaimed by The Soviet Union in the opening campaign of the Second
World War.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the end of the Second
World War the Curzon Line (approximately) was reestablished as the eastern
boundary of Poland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Poland,
however, gained East Prussia and an additional
swath of land to the west, both taken from Germany.</div>
</div>
<br />
To the north of the land contested between Poland
and the Soviets, the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea
was occupied by ethnic groups with their own ideas of nationhood following the
collapse of the Russian Empire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Allies recognized Estonia
and Latvia
as independent states in 1921.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
southernmost, Lithuania,
abutted Poland, which
regarded Lithuania,
or at least large parts of it, as an integral part of its territory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Conference eventually recognized the
independence of all three Baltic States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
At the southern end of the Curzon Line lay the province of Galicia,
formerly part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Western Galicia was conceded to be Polish but Eastern
Galicia was contested by Ukrainians and Czechoslovaks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The League of Nations awarded the entire
province to Poland
in 1923.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9YThG1oNxK85JP_nS_ZdI1Rs12FD9Du8NQv-iFUKwUbeH9QHzy5dCdnI36DP9D7_uofM5A9jysZMcjkDlHLx7SwMdZZPUsA_JBK76fo3CKE7SSb6rLUAmmvybXdWVxmVNKOq-5sD0izo/s1600/austriahungarydissolution.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="970" data-original-width="1568" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9YThG1oNxK85JP_nS_ZdI1Rs12FD9Du8NQv-iFUKwUbeH9QHzy5dCdnI36DP9D7_uofM5A9jysZMcjkDlHLx7SwMdZZPUsA_JBK76fo3CKE7SSb6rLUAmmvybXdWVxmVNKOq-5sD0izo/s400/austriahungarydissolution.png" width="400" /></a> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Dissolution of Austria-Hungary</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
When the Peace Conference assembled, the Austro-Hungarian Empire had
already ceased to exist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Emperor Charles had
relinquished power on the day of the armistice, and the constituent parts of
the Empire entered the conference as separate entities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Austrian regions of Bohemia,
Moravia and Silesia
and the Hungarian region of Slovakia
had already come together under the leadership of Tomas Masaryk and declared the
independence of the new nation of Czechoslovakia, and Edvard Benes
had gained recognition of the new nation as a belligerent on the side of the
Allies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Supreme Council decided that
the new nation would include the Sudetenland, which bordered Germany to the
north and west and was largely populated by Germans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On Czechoslovakia’s
northern border, a dispute with Poland
over a small but coal-rich area in western Galicia
that included the city of Teschen,
a major railway junction, was referred to a commission and eventually resolved
by a division that satisfied no one.</div>
</div>
<br />
Austria and Hungary
themselves remained in existence, but much shrunken in size.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Austria,
in addition to the territory it lost to Czechoslovakia,
lost its former territories of Galicia
to Poland, Tyrol to Italy, and Slovenia
to Yugoslavia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anschluss, or union with Germany, was
expressly forbidden.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On Austria’s southern border, a territorial dispute
with Yugoslavia was submitted
to a plebiscite and resolved in Austria’s
favor.<br />
<br />
Hungary, in addition to losing
Slovakia to Czechoslovakia, lost Croatia
to Yugoslavia and
Transylvania to Rumania.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the decision awarding Transylvania to Rumania was
announced, the government of Hungarian Prime Minister Michael Karolyi
fell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Béla Kun, a revolutionary
supported by the new Communist government in Russia,
emerged from prison, took power, and proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet
Republic, all on the same
day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He rejected the Supreme Council’s
decision, and refused further attempts to dictate Hungary’s borders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This resulted in a military conflict with Rumania, in which Hungary was defeated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By early August the Rumanian Army had occupied Budapest and Kun had fled to the Soviet
Union.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk)<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
The war ended for the Ottoman Empire on October 30, 1918, with an armistice
signed aboard the British battleship H.M.S. Agamemnon, anchored off the Island of Mudros
in the Aegean Sea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sultan Mehmed VI, motivated principally by a
desire to preserve the Sultanate and stay on the throne, was more than willing
to cooperate with Great Britain and its occupying army, which numbered over a
million men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the time the Treaty of Versailles was signed, however, the number
of British troops in the Ottoman Empire was only a little over 300,000.<br />
<br />
In March, during its boycott of the conference,
Italy landed troops on the
Mediterranean coast of Turkey,
claiming a right to Turkish territory under its wartime agreements with the
Allies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It followed up in early May with
landings at Smyrna,
a city on the Aegean coast with a large Greek population.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Allies, objecting to the Italian
incursion, encouraged Greek Prime Minister Venizelos to send troops to Smyrna to contest Italy’s claim.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They arrived and occupied the city on May 15.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
The Sultan’s cooperation with the Allies was perceived by Turkish
nationalists as threatening the loss, not only of the Arabic portions of the Empire
but of large parts of Turkey
itself: coastal enclaves such as Smyrna but also
large areas such as Armenia,
Kurdistan and the Dardanelles and Bosporus Straits connecting the Mediterranean and Black Seas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Increasing resistance to the Sultan’s rule
led British officers in Constantinople to insist
that an officer be sent to the interior to restore order.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The officer chosen was General Mustafa Kemal,
the hero of Gallipoli.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He departed on
May 9 for the Black Sea port of Samsun, where he began using the broad civil and
military powers he had been given not only to impose law and order but also, contrary to
the original intent of his mission, to organize resistance throughout central
and eastern Anatolia to the peace terms being
demanded by the Allies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the Treaty
of Versailles was signed on June 28 and President Wilson left Paris
to return to the United States,
the fate of Turkey and the Ottoman Empire remained uncertain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Ottoman Sultanate was abolished in 1922
at the conference of Lausanne.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The treaty of the same name, signed the
following year, established the national boundaries largely as they now
exist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) became
the first president of modern Turkey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Caliphate was abolished in 1924.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE0miH_vcVslYTeF_98hxasF_rWUlFV-WuYsuMyom7XGGnRG7ZRzKGGPplClWZ-HMPAQlFbppQ7-aZckC46hyfSj7h-X-j79VKQCilZW464bd-DdkvACW-SJIKJ_UxFGhZxyed_aBu9rY/s1600/FeisalPartyAtVersaillesCopy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE0miH_vcVslYTeF_98hxasF_rWUlFV-WuYsuMyom7XGGnRG7ZRzKGGPplClWZ-HMPAQlFbppQ7-aZckC46hyfSj7h-X-j79VKQCilZW464bd-DdkvACW-SJIKJ_UxFGhZxyed_aBu9rY/s400/FeisalPartyAtVersaillesCopy.jpg" width="400" /></a> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Emir Faisal at Versailles</div>
<br />
Before the Armistice of Mudros was signed, British forces under General
Allenby had captured Jerusalem and Damascus and driven the Ottoman army out of Palestine and Syria.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An Anglo-Indian army had captured Baghdad over a year before, and a British government was
installed in Mesopotamia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The disposition of the non-Turkish portions
of the Ottoman Empire was an issue to be negotiated, not with the Turks or
their neighbors but between the British and the French, with reference to the often
contradictory provisions of the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, the 1917 Balfour
Declaration, President Wilson’s 1918 Fourteen Points, and the claims of Emir Faisal bin Hussein, whose father, the Sharif of Mecca, had raised the standard
of revolt against the Ottomans during the war, and whose claim to the throne of
an independent Syria was backed by the British. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>President Wilson suggested a commission to
visit the area and ascertain the desires of the people who lived there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The British and French at first agreed but then
withdrew, leaving a commission consisting only of the American members, Henry
King and Charles Crane, who began their investigation in June 1919 as the peace
conference was nearing its end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
King-Crane Commission’s report, submitted in August 1919, was suppressed by the
Allies and played no role in the ultimate Middle East
settlement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Syria, when Faisal was forced by his fellow Arabs to assert his independence, the French
forced him to relinquish power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1921 the
British installed Faisal as king of the new nation of Iraq, which combined the Mesopotamian provinces
of Mosul, Baghdad
and Basra.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Faisal's brother Abdullah was made king of
another new nation, Transjordan, on the east bank of the Jordan
River.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The 1920 Treaty of
San Remo confirmed the British mandate over Mesopotamia and Palestine
and the French mandate over Syria.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still festering were the contradictory
British commitments to the Arabs to support their claims for self-rule and to
the Zionists to support the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people in
Palestine.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Shantung</div>
<br />
Among the most difficult of the issues the delegates had to deal with in Paris was a territorial
dispute on the other side of the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>By the end of August 1914, Japan
had joined the war on the side of the Allies. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the end of the year the Japanese had occupied Germany’s undefended island colonies as well as
the Chinese province of Shantung, including Tsingtao,
its principal city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Japan then presented a list of twenty-one
demands to the Chinese government, which were bitterly resisted by Chinese
nationalists but led in 1915 to a treaty, reaffirmed in notes exchanged near
the end of the war in 1918, in which China
granted Japan many of its
demands including control over Shantung.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Paris,
the Chinese representatives disputed the validity of those agreements, claiming
they were coerced and contrary to the principles of the Fourteen Points.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the Japanese had introduced a proposal to include a racial equality clause in the
League of Nations covenant, requiring member states to accord to nationals of
other member states “equal and just treatment in every respect, making no
distinction, either in law or in fact, on account of their race or
nationality.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The proposal was adamantly
opposed by Australia’s prime
minister, and somewhat less vigorously by the representatives of the British
Empire and the United States.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the vote was taken at the final
meeting of the League of Nations Commission on April 11, a majority voted in
favor of including it, but President Wilson as chairman ruled that it would not
be included due to the strong objections that had been raised. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the same meeting, Wilson
succeeded in adding a provision recognizing the continuing validity of the
Monroe Doctrine, implicitly rejecting Japan’s
argument that it was entitled to similar consideration in Asia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
In principle, Japan’s claim to Shantung
was hard to distinguish from Italy’s
claim to the port of Fiume in the Adriatic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both were supported by international
agreements and occupying military forces and both were flatly contrary to the
principle of self-determination enshrined in the Fourteen Points.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Japan’s threat to make an issue of
the rejection of the racial equality clause, however, changed the
calculus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Italy
had walked out of the conference over Fiume, and the threatened
defection of Japan put the
whole League of Nations project in jeopardy. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On April 28, the Council approved an agreement
whereby Japan took over Germany’s former rights in Shantung in return
for an essentially unenforceable promise by Japan
for its eventual return to China.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
This outcome sparked resentment and outrage in China,
beginning with massive demonstrations against the government in Tiananmen Square on May 4.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>China
did not sign the Versailles Treaty, but made a separate peace with Germany in
September.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the Washington Naval
Conference in 1922, Japan
agreed to return Shantung to China,
but Japan continued to cast
a covetous eye on the Chinese mainland as civil unrest grew in China with
increasing numbers of Chinese looking to Soviet Russia for a model of
governance.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
The Hall of Mirrors, June 28. 1919</div>
<br />
The final draft of the treaty with Germany was sent to the printer on
May 4.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The German representatives were
already in Versailles, having been brought there
on special trains that slowed to a crawl as they moved through the devastated
lands of the Western Front to give the Germans a good look at the damage the
war had done to France.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were summoned to the Trianon Palace
Hotel in Versailles on May 7, the fourth
anniversary of the sinking of the Lusitania,
and presented with the treaty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Premier
Clemenceau, as presiding officer, opened the session by addressing the German
representatives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said “It is neither
the time nor the place for superfluous words. . . .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You have asked for peace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are ready to give you peace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We shall present to you now a book which
contains our conditions. . . . You will find us ready to give you any
explanation you want, but we must say at the same time that this second Treaty
of Versailles has cost us too much not to take on our side all the necessary
precautions and guarantees that the peace shall be a lasting one.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He declared that “no oral discussion is to
take place,” and gave the Germans fifteen days to present a written
response.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the head of the German
delegation, Count Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau, was given the floor, he
acknowledged Germany’s
defeat and responsibility to make reparations, but rejected the assertion that Germany and its
people were the only ones guilty of the war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Such a confession in my mouth,” he said, “would be a lie.”<br />
<br />
Germany
submitted its 150-page reply on May 29.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It objected to the proposed treaty on a number of grounds, including
that it was contrary to President Wilson’s Fourteen Points, on the basis of
which Germany had agreed to
the armistice, and that the reparations demanded were far more than Germany would
be able to pay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On June 16, after two
weeks of uncertainty and controversy among the Allies about how to respond,
they left the treaty substantially unchanged and gave the Germans a three-day
deadline to sign.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Brockdorff-Rantzau urged
his government not to sign, but after requesting and receiving a short extension of the deadline the German
National Assembly in Weimar
passed a resolution on June 23 agreeing to the treaty as written.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two days earlier, most of the ships of the German
High Seas Fleet interned at Scapa Flow had been scuttled by their crews.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
The signing ceremony was held in the Hall of
Mirrors of the Palace
of Versailles, the
location of the signing some forty-eight years earlier of the treaty ending the
Franco-Prussian War.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Germany was
represented by its new foreign minister Hermann Muller, and Johannes Bell, the
Minister of Colonial Affairs.<br />
<br />
Although there had been much negotiation regarding the Treaty’s provisions,
none of it had involved Germany:
all had been done by Germany’s
enemies negotiating among themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
as we’ve seen not even all of the Entente nations were there. Germany’s original enemy, Russia, was
absent; the Bolsheviks were
consolidating their power at home, and their only interest in foreign affairs
was in spreading the Communist revolution throughout the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the United
States, opposition to the treaty was building in Congress
and bombs planted by anarchists were exploding throughout the country,
including one at the attorney general’s home in Washington, D.C.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Germany resentment was building as
people were being told that their army had not really been defeated and that
the principles of the Fourteen Points had been betrayed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the Great War was over at last, and the Treaty of
Versailles had been signed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So aside from
a few worrisome details, what could go wrong?<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
*****</div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>Sources</u>:<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
American Review of Reviews, January-July 1919</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A. Scott Berg, Wilson</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949<br />
Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World <br />
William Mulligan, The Great War for Peace </div>
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New York Times, January-June 1919 </div>
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Patricia O'Toole, The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made </div>
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David Reynolds, The Long Shadow: The Legacies of the Great War in the Twentieth Century</div>
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Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict</div>
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Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931</div>
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Dennis Crosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05167348173555324839noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320526393914188899.post-15401073971977245892019-01-31T08:24:00.000-08:002019-01-31T08:24:11.907-08:00January 1919It's January 1919. The Great War has come to an end, and the victors are assembling in Paris to decide on the terms of the peace. In the United States former President Roosevelt dies at his home in Oyster Bay. The Eighteenth Amendment is ratified making prohibition the law of the land.<br />
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As we observe the end of an era in world history and the beginning of a new one, I have decided that it is an appropriate time to end my monthly blog posts. This month-by-month review of world events (mostly from an American perspective) has been an enjoyable and educational exercise for me, as I hope it has been for my readers. All of the monthly installments, beginning with September 1911, remain available in the blog archive, and I may well add posts from time to time, just not on the rigid monthly schedule I've followed for the last seven plus years. Many thanks to all of you for your interest and feedback.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE1aRoXPdoLrh-JESympRJ8KOPmZNHv8kFotcuNNYNsuUkeFq6J-WQdCaj5yf0GgvP11uTZ9sOrk5FZwR4NhrZK08JQtLnlf8Z4f1o2KWWP-3-zZ0E3beQsfqMC-NX_8oiq87PuUNnnLM/s1600/rooseveltdeath1919.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="431" data-original-width="768" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE1aRoXPdoLrh-JESympRJ8KOPmZNHv8kFotcuNNYNsuUkeFq6J-WQdCaj5yf0GgvP11uTZ9sOrk5FZwR4NhrZK08JQtLnlf8Z4f1o2KWWP-3-zZ0E3beQsfqMC-NX_8oiq87PuUNnnLM/s400/rooseveltdeath1919.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Roosevelt at Sagamore Hill</div>
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Former President Theodore Roosevelt died in his sleep at Sagamore Hill on the morning of January 6. He had returned home on Christmas Day after a hospital stay that began on November 11 for treatment of a painful case of inflammatory rheumatism. The cause of death was a pulmonary embolism. Roosevelt was working hard as recently as the day before his death, proofreading a series of magazine articles and planning a meeting with Republican Party Chairman Will Hays to discuss a possible run for the presidency in 1920. On January 3 he had dictated an article for the Kansas City Star in which he criticized President Wilson's utterances as "still absolutely in the stage of rhetoric precisely like the 'fourteen points,'" some of which may "be construed as having a mischievous significance, a smaller number might be construed as being harmless, and one or two even as beneficial, but nobody knows what Mr. Wilson really means by them." Instead of the proposed League of Nations, Roosevelt asked whether it would not "be well to begin with the League which we already have in existence, the League of the Allies who have fought through this great war," and then "extend the privileges of the League, as rapidly as their conduct warrants it, to other nations." Finally, he asserted that "the American people do not intend to give up the Monroe Doctrine," and recommended a similar policy for the rest of the world, proposing that "civilized Europe and Asia introduce some kind of police system in the weak and disorderly countries at their thresholds."<br />
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A funeral service was held on January 8 at Christ Episcopal Church in Oyster Bay, followed by a graveside burial service. Because the grave is on a steep hill accessible only by foot, automobiles had to be parked outside the cemetery gate.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh87i5lMY_u8Z15HaPKxHQjIvZ0757J8sKA2aEcUV3taj13xePgE2aI8-2vwZRYR9LHjHvf7UV1nViYJ0WPg1v_aL5jinDoPGP1ANJNsRhvBvy-gBhHtJz4cvaEi8e8bBqEJqX0b8Los_Y/s1600/Wilson_and_KingVictorEmmanuel.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="554" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh87i5lMY_u8Z15HaPKxHQjIvZ0757J8sKA2aEcUV3taj13xePgE2aI8-2vwZRYR9LHjHvf7UV1nViYJ0WPg1v_aL5jinDoPGP1ANJNsRhvBvy-gBhHtJz4cvaEi8e8bBqEJqX0b8Los_Y/s400/Wilson_and_KingVictorEmmanuel.gif" width="400" /></a></div>
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President Wilson and King Victor Emmanuel</div>
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After their visit to Great Britain, President and Mrs. Wilson returned to France on the last day of the year, then moved on to Italy, arriving in Rome with the President's daughter Margaret on Friday, January 3. They were greeted at the station by King Victor Emmanuel and Queen Helena, local officials, and members of the Italian government. The crowds that greeted the President and his party as they were carried through the streets were, if possible, even larger and more enthusiastic than those in Paris and London. On the day of his arrival he addressed the Italian Parliament, attended a state dinner as the guest of honor, and was made an honorary citizen of Rome. The next day he was received at the Vatican by Pope Benedict XV. On his way back to Paris, he stopped at Genoa, Turin and Milan. In Turin he was notified by telegram of the death of President Roosevelt, perhaps his most outspoken political adversary, and sent a telegram of condolence to his widow.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnW8unoTCCyUbjKfgWlbS7OBl3d-O1qCDT-7uyBCDpgQD5Hj8CBb02tfs78FIK-DxiOQIBsiyRzGBlTzvrdwqMz4xVSYmoZz92bc3LGpbsJL3pZXZ2oeuJHMz0Ubi55thzpv3X33llCgg/s1600/Paris_Peace_Conference_1919_big_four.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="752" data-original-width="800" height="375" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnW8unoTCCyUbjKfgWlbS7OBl3d-O1qCDT-7uyBCDpgQD5Hj8CBb02tfs78FIK-DxiOQIBsiyRzGBlTzvrdwqMz4xVSYmoZz92bc3LGpbsJL3pZXZ2oeuJHMz0Ubi55thzpv3X33llCgg/s400/Paris_Peace_Conference_1919_big_four.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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The Supreme War Council (Left to Right: Orlando, Lloyd George, Clemenceau, Wilson)</div>
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The President arrived back in Paris on January 7. Resisting the urgent requests of President Poincare, Premier Clemenceau, Ambassador Jusserand and others, he declined to visit the devastated regions of Belgium and France. His stated reason was that he wanted the conference to proceed on schedule; privately he expressed concern that the European Allies had extended the invitation in the hope that the visit would cause him to share their hatred of Germany, and insisted he wanted to attend the conference with an open mind. On January 11 Secretary of State Lansing gave the President an outline of topics for discussion at the conference, including a skeletal version of the peace treaty. Wilson angrily rejected it, saying he did not want lawyers drafting the treaty.<br />
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The Supreme War Council (the heads of government of France, Great Britain, Italy and the United States) met at the Quai d'Orsay on January 12 for preliminary discussions. Among other things, they decided to add Japan to the group, along with each nation's foreign minister. The resulting "Council of Ten" will be the principal decision-making body of the conference. On January 18 the formal opening of the conference took place. After President Poincare's welcoming speech, the conference chose a permanent chairman. Following his nomination by President Wilson, Premier Clemenceau was elected unanimously.</div>
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William Jennings Bryan<br />
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As newly elected state legislatures convened throughout the United States, one after another passed resolutions ratifying the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which will prohibit the import, manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors. When the month began, the amendment had been ratified by only fifteen of the necessary thirty-six states; by month's end, the number was forty-four. The thirty-sixth state to ratify the amendment, on January 16, was Nebraska, the home state of former Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, a prominent advocate of prohibition who famously served grape juice at a diplomatic dinner shortly after becoming Secretary of State. The amendment became part of the Constitution at noon on January 29, when acting Secretary of State Frank L. Polk signed the formal proclamation in the reception room adjoining the Secretary's office. Among those present were Mr. Bryan, the amendment's sponsor Senator Morris Sheppard of Texas, and representatives of various temperance organizations. The amendment will take effect one year from the date of its ratification, January 16, 1920.<br />
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<u>January 1919 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading</u><br />
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<u>Contemporary Periodicals</u>:</div>
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American Review of Reviews, January and February 1919</div>
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New York
Times, January 1919</div>
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<u>Books and Articles</u>:</div>
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A. Scott Berg, Wilson</div>
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Britain at War Magazine, The Fifth Year of the Great War: 1918<br />
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918 <br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography<br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and
Theodore Roosevelt </div>
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John Dos Passos, Mr. Wilson's War</div>
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Kenneth S. Davis, FDR: The Beckoning of Destiny </div>
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David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922</div>
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Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life<br />
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History </div>
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Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933<br />
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume IV: The Stricken World 1916-1922</div>
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Ann Hagedorn, Savage Peace, Hope and Fear in America, 1919 </div>
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August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
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Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House</div>
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Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography<br />
John Keegan, The First World War<br />
David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society<br />
Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 </div>
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W. Bruce Lincoln, Passage Through Armageddon: The Russians In War and Revolution 1914-1918</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Giles MacDonogh, The Last Kaiser: The Life of Wilhelm II </span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World </span><br />
Robert K. Massie, Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea</div>
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G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918</div>
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G.J. Meyer, The World Remade: America in World War I </div>
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Ted Morgan, FDR: A Biography<br />
William Mulligan, The Great War for Peace </div>
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Michael S. Neiberg, The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America</div>
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Patricia O'Toole, The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made </div>
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Edward J. Renehan, The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War<br />
Andrew Roberts, Churchill: Walking With Destiny </div>
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Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict</div>
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David Stevenson, Cataclysm: The First World War As Political Tragedy </div>
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David Stevenson, With Our Backs to the Wall: Victory and Defeat in 1918 </div>
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J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War<br />
Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931</div>
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Geoffrey C. Ward, A First Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt </div>
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Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History</div>
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Dennis Crosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05167348173555324839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320526393914188899.post-70391203576237238202018-12-31T11:47:00.001-08:002018-12-31T11:47:03.435-08:00December 1918<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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It's December 1918 and the Great War has come to an end. As the United States Congress convenes in its “lame duck” session after the mid-term elections, President Wilson delivers his annual State of
the Union address. Explaining his decision to attend the peace conference in person, he receives a noticeably less friendly reception than in previous appearances before Congress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> The next day </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">he departs </span>for France, where his welcome is far more enthusiastic. After spending Christmas with American troops he travels to England, where he and Mrs. Wilson are guests of the King and Queen. While he is there, the results of the British Parliamentary elections are announced. The expanded British electorate, which includes women for the first time, returns Lloyd George's coalition government to power while inflicting decisive defeats on the parties that controlled Parliament when the war began. The European Allies meet in London in an effort to arrive at a common approach to issues certain to arise at the peace conference, but fail to reach agreement on many issues. Russia, nominally a victor in the war, has not been heard from. A new nation of South Slavs is proclaimed in Belgrade; combining nations on both sides of the war practicing different religions and speaking different languages, it faces an uncertain future.<br />
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President Wilson Delivering His State of the Union Address</div>
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As required by Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution, Congress convened on December 2, the first Monday in December. The Constitution also requires that the President "from time to time give to the Congress information on the State of the Union," and President Wilson has chosen throughout his presidency to do so in person. After both houses passed resolutions approving the convening of a joint session, the Senators walked through the Capitol building to the House chamber, where at 1:00 p.m. a committee of Senators escorted the President to the podium. The Congress he addressed, of course, is the outgoing one. The Congress elected in November will not take office until March, and will not convene in its regular session until December of next year.<br />
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The dominant subject
of the President's message was the recent end of the fighting in Europe. Near the end of his speech he announced his plan to attend the peace conference
in person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said he regarded it as his
duty to attend because, both sides having accepted his Fourteen Points as the
basis for peace, he should be available to give his “personal counsel in their
interpretation and application.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He asked for Congress's support: "May I not hope, gentlemen of the Congress, that in the delicate tasks I shall have to perform on the other side of the seas in my efforts truly and faithfully to interpret the principles and purposes of the country we love, I may have the encouragement and the added strength of your united support?" Unlike
the friendly reception President Wilson had received every other time he had
addressed Congress, especially last year when he asked for a declaration of war against Germany and again last month when he announced the terms of the armistice, the applause that greeted this announcement was hesitant and almost entirely limited to Democratic members of the House of
Representatives. The Justices of the Supreme Court, seated in the well in front of the first row of Senators, seemed uncertain what to do, finally standing as a show of respect but not applauding. Chief Justice White, who had led the applause on previous occasions, was absent. Most Senators kept their seats.<br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">President Wilson's trip to Europe is the first by any President while in office, and except for President Roosevelt's brief trip to the Panama Canal Zone in 1906 it is the first time any sitting president has left the country. Before the joint session convened, resolutions were introduced in both houses of Congress declaring the office of President vacant during the President's absence, and Senator Albert B. Cummins (Rep., Iowa) introduced a resolution providing for the appointment of a committee of eight Senators to attend the peace conference. Congress remains under Democratic Party control until March, however, so none of the resolutions was brought to a vote.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy6PcEn4DXSRYDUasmbu_yCM8BS9Zxa_72GdA9ELw6OJpE_D18baP134Kf0ORwJCQBEJbE8VRZsTS-G7SS3OxZweazVAqPyPeiw9kPq0LZG8uxeWNVUz7pVanJAhr6xP0BFy3CeoM3B44/s1600/rooseveltunionstationdc1918.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="457" data-original-width="558" height="326" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy6PcEn4DXSRYDUasmbu_yCM8BS9Zxa_72GdA9ELw6OJpE_D18baP134Kf0ORwJCQBEJbE8VRZsTS-G7SS3OxZweazVAqPyPeiw9kPq0LZG8uxeWNVUz7pVanJAhr6xP0BFy3CeoM3B44/s400/rooseveltunionstationdc1918.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Roosevelt in Washington, D.C. Earlier This Year</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Former President Roosevelt has been hospitalized </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">since the armistice </span></span>at Roosevelt Hospital in New York with a severe case of rheumatism. When President Wilson announced that he would lead the peace commission to Paris, Roosevelt immediately objected that in view of the recent Congressional election Wilson has "no authority whatever to speak for the American people." On December 3, the day after the President's address to Congress, Roosevelt issued a statement from his hospital bed that "President Wilson has not given the slightest explanation of what his views are or why he is going abroad. He pleads for unity, but he is himself responsible for any division among the American people." "As for the fourteen points," he said, "so far as the American people have expressed any opinion upon them, it was on November 5, when they rejected them." He insisted that America must look after its own interests, maintaining its economic independence, preserving the Monroe Doctrine and control over the Panama Canal, and otherwise avoiding interference in foreign affairs. At the Peace Conference, he said, "it is [the President's] business to stand by France, England, and our other allies and to present with them a solid front to Germany." On Christmas Day, Roosevelt left the hospital and returned to his home at Oyster Bay.</span>
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The President Departs for Europe</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">The evening following his address to Congress
President Wilson left the White House and traveled by rail to Hoboken,
New Jersey, where he boarded the U.S.S. George Washington, a former German
ocean liner seized and converted to a troop transport
during the war. The President's wife</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> accompanied him</span>, along with two of the other members of the American Peace Commission, Secretary of State Lansing and Ambassador White. </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> (Colonel House and General Bliss, the other members of the Peace Commission, were already in France).</span></span> Over one hundred others were also on board, including Admiral Grayson, the President's physician; George Creel of the Committee on Public Information; the French, Italian and Belgian ambassadors; and twenty-three members of the Inquiry, a group of experts assembled last year to advise the President on matters related to the peace (see the January 1918 installment of this blog). </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Lord Reading, t</span>he British Ambassador to the United States, is also Lord Chief Justice of England. He returned to England in August. </span><br />
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During the voyage to Europe President Wilson and his wife kept largely to themselves. Although Secretary Lansing had <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">written a memorandum to the President shortly after the armistice laying out a number of questions likely to arise at the peace conference, the President had not replied. At the suggestion of Inquiry member William C. Bullitt, the President held one meeting en route to France with selected members of the group in which he outlined in general terms his objectives for the conference. He emphasized that he would rely heavily on their advice, saying "Tell me what's right and I'll fight for it."</span><br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> The President Arrives in France</span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">The U.S.S. George Washington dropped anchor in the Brest roadstead on Friday, December 13, a date many superstitious people might consider unlucky. President Wilson, however, considers thirteen his lucky number. His name has thirteen letters, he became Princeton's thirteenth president in his thirteenth year there, and his inauguration as President of the United States took place in 1913. Add the fact that thirteen is the number of stripes on the American flag, representing the thirteen original states, and his choice of the thirteenth as the date for his arrival seems inevitable. In Brest, he made brief remarks in a crowded reception room at the pier, where Ambassador Jusserand led the applause waving his hat above his head. Automobiles then carried the President's party to the railroad station along a fifteen-minute route lined by thousands of cheering spectators, including soldiers and sailors in uniform and children dressed in Breton costumes.</span><br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Paris Welcomes President Wilson</span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">At ten o'clock the next morning the presidential train pulled slowly into the Bois de Boulogne Station in Paris with an American flag draped across the front of the locomotive. As President Wilson stepped down from the first car, he was greeted by a young woman in the peasant costume of Alsace. After brief informal greetings on the platform, Presidents Wilson and Poincare entered a carriage drawn by two horses and followed by a dozen other carriages carrying the presidents' wives, Prime Minister Clemenceau, Ambassadors Sharp and Jusserand, and other dignitaries. The procession, greeted for miles by enthusiastic crowds waving American flags, moved from the Bois de Boulogne to the Champs Elysses, across the Alexander III Bridge, then back across the river through the Place de la Concorde to the palace of Prince Murat, where President Wilson will reside during his stay in Paris. He spent two hours with Colonel House that afternoon, and met with Premier Clemenceau twice in the following days</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">. </span><br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> President and Mrs. Wilson with the King and Queen and Princess Mary</span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">President Wilson spent Christmas Day at American Army headquarters in Chaumont, where he reviewed the troops. The President and Mrs. Wilson shared Christmas dinner with </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">General Pershing and departed that evening for London. T</span>he next day </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">they were greeted </span>by the King and Queen at Charing Cross Station and taken through streets lined with cheering crowds to Buckingham Palace, where they stayed as guests until their return to France on the last day of the year.</span><br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Eamon de Valera</span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Parliamentary elections were held in Great Britain on December 14. Because it took some time to receive and tabulate the soldier vote, the results were not announced until December 28, during the President's stay in London. The newly enacted Representation of the People Act expanded the franchise significantly, giving the vote to all men over age 21 and men in military and naval service over age 19. It also included the first grant of woman suffrage, allowing women to vote who were over</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> age 30 and met certain property qualifications. </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Prime Minister Lloyd George's coalition government was returned to power by a large majority. </span>The election was a major defeat for the two parties that together had controlled the government at the beginning of the war. Herbert Asquith's Liberals saw their representation in Parliament reduced from 272 to 36, and John Dillon's Parliamentary Irish Party lost all but six of its seats to Eamon de Valera's Sinn Fein. Sinn Fein calls for Irish independence from Great Britain, and has announced that it will meet separately in Dublin and refuse to join the British Parliament in Westminster. Asquith and Dillon lost their own seats in Parliament.</span><br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">European Allies Confer in London (Front row left to right: Orlando, </span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Bonar Law, Clemenceau, Curzon, Lloyd George, Sonnino)</span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">When the month began, Premier Clemenceau was in London meeting with Prime Minister Lloyd George and representatives of the other European Allies. T</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">o allay any concern that the United States was being excluded, </span>Clemenceau met with Colonel House</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> before leaving France and</span> advised him of the meeting, assuring him that no important decisions would be made without the United States. In fact, the European Allies tried but were unable to reach agreement on common positions on several issues, including disposition of the lands of the Ottoman Empire and Italian claims to lands in the Adriatic.</span><br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Another question on which there is no consensus is what role, if any, Russia will have in the Peace Conference. The nation that first went to war against Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1914 is not represented in Paris. Although it was the largest of Germany's enemies, and probably saved France from defeat in </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">the early months of the war, its withdrawal from the war</span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> at the beginning of this year</span></span> with </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk</span></span> came close to bringing about the Allies' defeat, and is regarded by them as a betrayal. Germany was obliged by the armistice, however, to renounce Brest-Litovsk, so Russia is still technically one of the nations at war with Germany. On a practical level, moreover, it is virtually impossible for the Paris conferees to discuss a peace settlement without considering Russia. The role of Russia in the forthcoming conference is further complicated </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">by the fact that its control over its territory is contested by White revolutionaries, </span></span>by the fact that Allied troops</span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> occupy Vladivostok and parts of the Russian Arctic</span></span>, </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">by the Bolsheviks' repudiation of Russia's debt to the Allies, by their publication of the Allies' secret agreements, </span></span>and perhaps most fundamentally by uncertainty about whether the Bolshevik government even cares to participate in the conference.</span></span><br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Nikola Pasic</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">A new Balkan state declared its existence in Belgrade on December 1. Combining the pre-war nation of Serbia (now including Montenegro) and southern parts of the defunct Austro-Hungarian Empire, </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Prince Alexander of Serbia, acting as Regent for his father the King, proclaimed </span></span>the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Non-Serbs prefer to call the new nation Yugoslavia. Its name, however, is the least of the factors presenting a challenge for the long-term cohesion and viability of the new state. Others include the fact that Croats and Slovenes were on opposite sides of the recently concluded war; their different religious, linguistic </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">and cultural </span></span>identities; and their conflicting territorial ambitions. Alexander has appointed Nikola Pasic, Serbia's pre-war prime minister, to represent the new nation in Paris. He will be accompanied by</span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Ante Trumbic, </span></span>a Croatian who has been named foreign minister.</span></span><br />
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Senator Lodge<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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On December 21, while President Wilson was enjoying the adulation of Parisians, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (Rep., Mass.), who will be Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in the new Congress, gave a speech on the Senate floor in which he warned against trying to base a peace treaty on the Fourteen Points. He said it would be "a grave mistake on the part of the President to
ignore the Senate, because our ultimate responsibility in making the
peace is quite equal to his own." While he had "no fault to find with [the President] not
appointing Senators as delegates to the conference," he expressed the opinion that at least five of the Fourteen Points should be put aside until agreement is reached on the terms of the peace with Germany. He said the Points regarding secret diplomacy, freedom of the seas, economic barriers, reduction of armaments, and establishment of a League of Nations presented issues which, if interjected into the conference, would likely cause delay and "lead to division among the nations which have conquered Germany."<br />
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<u>December 1918 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading</u><br />
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<u>Contemporary Periodicals</u>:</div>
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American Review of Reviews, December 1918 and January 1919</div>
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New York
Times, December 1918</div>
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<u>Books and Articles</u>:</div>
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A. Scott Berg, Wilson</div>
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Britain at War Magazine, The Fifth Year of the Great War: 1918<br />
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918 <br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography<br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and
Theodore Roosevelt </div>
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John Dos Passos, Mr. Wilson's War</div>
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Kenneth S. Davis, FDR: The Beckoning of Destiny </div>
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David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922</div>
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Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life<br />
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History </div>
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Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933<br />
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume IV: The Stricken World 1916-1922</div>
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Ann Hagedorn, Savage Peace, Hope and Fear in America, 1919 </div>
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August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
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Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House</div>
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Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography<br />
John Keegan, The First World War<br />
David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society<br />
Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 </div>
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Anthony Lewis, Make No Law, The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment </div>
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W. Bruce Lincoln, Passage Through Armageddon: The Russians In War and Revolution 1914-1918</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Giles MacDonogh, The Last Kaiser: The Life of Wilhelm II </span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World </span><br />
Robert K. Massie, Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
G.J. Meyer, The World Remade: America in World War I </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ted Morgan, FDR: A Biography<br />
William Mulligan, The Great War for Peace </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Michael S. Neiberg, The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Patricia O'Toole, The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Edward J. Renehan, The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
David Stevenson, Cataclysm: The First World War As Political Tragedy </div>
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David Stevenson, With Our Backs to the Wall: Victory and Defeat in 1918 </div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War<br />
Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Geoffrey C. Ward, A First Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt </div>
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</div>
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</div>
Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History</div>
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The West Point Atlas of War: World War I </div>
</div>
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Dennis Crosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05167348173555324839noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320526393914188899.post-19292685399489477372018-11-30T10:20:00.001-08:002018-12-18T14:16:37.483-08:00November 1918<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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In November 1918, after fifty-two months of bloodshed, the most destructive
war in history comes to an end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> U</span>nrest among sailors in the German High Seas Fleet grows into a
fleet-wide mutiny, and then into a full-fledged revolution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the Italian Front, the dissolution of the Austria-Hungarian Empire leads to a military collapse and then to an armistice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">The new nations of Austria
and Czechoslovakia are proclaimed republics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">On the Western Front the
American Army’s Meuse-Argonne offensive reaches Sedan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Germany
is declared a republic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>
</span>Kaiser Wilhelm abdicates and flees to Holland. In a railway car in the Forest
of Compiegne, Allied and
German representatives agree on the terms of an armistice, bringing fighting on the Western Front to an end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Germany surrenders its U-boats and its High Seas Fleet to Great Britain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The German Army in East Africa surrenders. Belgian King Albert and Queen Elisabeth make
a triumphal reentry into Brussels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Americans elect a Republican Congress. President Wilson announces he will
personally lead the American Peace Commission to Paris and names the commissioners who will
accompany him, a list that includes no prominent Republicans and no senators. Alfred E. Smith is elected governor of New York.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The worst accident in the history of the New York City Subway takes 93 lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span><br />
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German Sailors in the Streets of Wilhelmshaven</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Admiral Hipper's dispersal of the High Seas Fleet's Dreadnoughts after the aborted
“death ride” against the Royal Navy failed to put an end to the unrest among the German sailors. A mutiny by sailors aboard Dreadnoughts remaining at Wilhelmshaven was put down and the mutineers arrested. When the ships transiting the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal arrived at Kiel with many of their sailors imprisoned, thousands of their fellow crewmen took to the streets to demonstrate support and demand the prisoners' release. Workers' and Sailors' Councils were formed and took control of the port on November 4. The mutiny spread to Wilhelmshaven, where more Workers' and Sailors' Councils were formed and thousands of armed sailors marched in the streets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> As word of the uprising spread, demonstrations and strikes broke out in Hamburg, Bremen, and
other major cities including Berlin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On November 9, when crewmen aboard Admiral Hipper's flagship lowered the admiral's flag and hoisted the red flag of revolution, the admiral quietly assembled his gear and went ashore. In Kiel, the Kaiser's brother Prince Henry of Prussia, the Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy, fled the city in an automobile flying a red flag.<br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Villa Giusti</span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">By the end of October, with the proclamations of independence by the constituent parts of the Empire and Emperor Karl's announcement that he was relinquishing power to direct state affairs, the </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Austro-Hungarian army units in Italy were no longer a factor and the Empire itself had effectively ceased to exist. On November 3 Austria-Hungary's participation in the war came to an official end with an armistice signed at Villa Giusti, near Padua.</span></span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj1qTTWDKaFlL3s8GslcdZDkoACosDZmZI7yE8FD1pMgH6kIzolRjzPyjy95lilVWz0pRnL8SlEfhZIrJp6N2G4yzbHFX5PWRX73eiyEbn6R2DXeHSDV_mSXxfJWtKvX1XywOMKkEtoGY/s1600/meuseargonneUS23rdInfantry37mmGunInActionFrance1918.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="622" data-original-width="800" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj1qTTWDKaFlL3s8GslcdZDkoACosDZmZI7yE8FD1pMgH6kIzolRjzPyjy95lilVWz0pRnL8SlEfhZIrJp6N2G4yzbHFX5PWRX73eiyEbn6R2DXeHSDV_mSXxfJWtKvX1XywOMKkEtoGY/s320/meuseargonneUS23rdInfantry37mmGunInActionFrance1918.gif" width="320" /></a> </div>
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American Troops in Action<br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">The military pressure on Germany continued. The public exchange of notes following Germany's appeal for an armistice in early October caused a marked reduction in German troop morale. The mutinies that had began in the fleet at Kiel quickly became a revolution, spreading to other Baltic ports, to the Rhineland, then to Berlin and other major cities. American troops pursuing the Meuse-Argonne offensive reached Sedan and prepared for a thrust toward Verdun, threatening to cut off vital lines of communication for the German Army. Germany's geographic position became more vulnerable with the exit of Austria-Hungary from the war.</span><br />
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The Kaiser Arrives in Holland</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Kaiser
Wilhelm abdicated on the afternoon of November 9. The abdication was
announced in Berlin by Chancellor Maximilian, who turned over the
chancellorship to Frederick Ebert. That night </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">the Kaiser boarded his train </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">in the early morning hours. The train left Spa headed for</span></span> Liege, but stopped at La Reid, just outside Spa, where Wilhelm and his party were transferred to automobiles for
the thirty-mile drive to the Dutch border. At the border, they waited
at the Dutch town of Eisjden while the government decided whether to
grant asylum. Asylum was granted, and the court train was sent to carry
Wilhelm and his entourage to Amerongen, where Count Godard Bentinck, a
Dutch-English nobleman, had been persuaded to provide refuge for the
former Kaiser.</span></div>
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Allied Representatives at Compiegne</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">As the diplomatic notes between the United States and Germany approached agreement on the framework for an armistice, Allied military commanders met at Senlis and </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">agreed on a recommendation
to negotiate a ceasefire under conditions strong enough to prevent
Germany from renewing hostilities. General Pershing took a
different view, arguing that the German Army was in no condition to
continue the war and that only unconditional surrender would "secure
world peace on terms that would insure its permanence." Colonel
House, the American representative meeting in Paris with Allied leaders, told Pershing that the
question of a ceasefire was a political one that would be decided by the
heads of government, and that they favored an
armistice. The Paris conference met</span> from October 29 to November 4 and decided on a coordinated Allied position that was set forth in a November 5 note from Secretary Lansing to the German government. The note stated that the Allies were willing to negotiate a peace settlement on the basis of the Fourteen Points subject to two reservations. First (addressing concerns raised by Great Britain), because the second of the Fourteen Points, freedom of the seas, "is open to various interpretations, some of which they could not accept," the Allies reserve "complete freedom on this subject" at the peace conference. Second, the tenth of the Points, that invaded territories must be "restored as well as evacuated and freed," means that "compensation will be made by Germany for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allies by the aggression of Germany by land, by sea, and from the air." Finally, the note advised that "Marshal Foch has been authorized . . . to receive properly accredited representatives of the German Government and to communicate to them the terms of an armistice."</span><br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">A German delegation led by Matthias Erzberger, the leader of the Centre Party in the Reichstag, left German Army headquarters at Spa </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">on November 7 </span>and traveled by road and rail through French-controlled territory to a siding in the Forest of Compiegne on the River Aisne. On the morning of November 9 they met in his railroad dining car with Marshal Foch and other military representatives of the Allies, who gave them the Allies' armistice terms. Agreement was reached in the early morning hours of November 11. Among other things, the Germans agreed to
evacuate France, Belgium, Luxembourg
and Alsace-Lorraine, and to withdraw from and allow the Allies to occupy Germany as far as the west bank of the Rhine, including
occupation of three Rhine bridgeheads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They also agreed to hand over thousands of
heavy weapons, rifles, railway engines and rolling stock, to withdraw behind Germany’s 1914 frontiers in the East, and to
make reparations for damage done in Belgium
and France.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Immediately after the agreement was signed at 5:00 a.m., Marshal Foch sent a message to
Allied troops directing that “Hostilities will cease on the entire front
November 11th at 11:00 French time.”</span><br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">When Admiral Beatty, Commander-in-Chief of the British Grand Fleet,
received word of the armistice that afternoon in the Firth of Forth, he issued the order
"splice the main-brace," a traditional naval signal meaning an extra
ration of rum for the sailors. American sailors were unable to take advantage of his order. Secretary of the Navy Daniels, a committed prohibitionist, has forbidden
alcoholic beverages on all Navy ships. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBazxL5csIa4hV802s9O3rVP0n4YE3LQDPFxGwONFZsUqZZEv48IKUemFIJUGBvr8DPF5802u4Gn1ZvRqXTkCvCq2_puIkDR7QTD-_Bf8anJANl-d9Fc8ohu5jNjbdAresYApypu2fOP8/s1600/Surrender_of_the_German_High_Seas_Fleet%252C_November_1918_Q19327.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="765" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBazxL5csIa4hV802s9O3rVP0n4YE3LQDPFxGwONFZsUqZZEv48IKUemFIJUGBvr8DPF5802u4Gn1ZvRqXTkCvCq2_puIkDR7QTD-_Bf8anJANl-d9Fc8ohu5jNjbdAresYApypu2fOP8/s400/Surrender_of_the_German_High_Seas_Fleet%252C_November_1918_Q19327.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> German U-Boats at Harwich</span></div>
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On November 15 at 7:00 p.m., German Rear Admiral Hugo Meurer boarded H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth in the Firth of Forth and was escorted to Admiral Beatty's quarters. In a reflection of the political turmoil in Germany, Meurer informed Beatty that members of the Sailors' and Workers' Council were aboard his ship and insisted on being allowed to come aboard the Queen Elizabeth and participate in the discussions regarding surrender of the German fleet. Beatty replied that only Meurer and his staff would be allowed. In discussions the next morning, it was agreed that the German U-boat fleet would be surrendered to Commodore Reginald Tyrwhitt, commander of the Harwich Force, and that the surface ships would be brought to the Firth of Forth and surrendered to Admiral Beatty, who would then escort them to Scapa Flow where they would be interned. The first contingent of twenty U-boats arrived at Harwich on November 20. As of month's end a total of 115 have arrived and more are on the way or yet to be accounted for.<br />
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H.M.S. Cardiff Leading German Ships Into the Firth of Forth</div>
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The surface ships of the High Seas Fleet arrived at the Firth of Forth on November 21, and the next day the first of them were under way for Scapa Flow. Destroyer flotillas went first, followed by light cruisers. The Dreadnoughts departed on November 24, and by November 27 seventy ships of the High Seas Fleet were riding at anchor in Scapa Flow. <br />
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General Lettow-Vorbeck</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">The war continued beyond November 11 in Africa. German General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck has conducted a tenacious campaign for the last four years against British, Belgian, Portuguese, Indian and South African forces in German East Africa. When he learned of the armistice on November 14, he marched his troops to Abercorn, Northern Rhodesia, where he surrendered to the British on November 23.</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Belgium's King Albert I</span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">King Albert and Queen Elisabeth </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">of Belgium </span>reentered Brussels on the morning of November 22, accompanied by Princes Leopold and Charles and Princess Marie Jose. The King and his family were on horseback, the Crown Prince dressed in khaki and his brother in a midshipman's uniform. </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Dense throngs of Belgians lined the way for miles, cheering lustily and throwing flowers in the path of the Royal Family</span> as they</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> rode through the festively decorated city</span></span> from the Porte de Flanders to the Palais de la Nation. After listening to the Parliament's welcoming address, the Royal Family reviewed a parade of Allied troops, Belgian, French, British and American, that stretched for ten miles.</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Senator Lodge</div>
<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">In the November 5 mid-term elections in the United States, voters rejected
President Wilson’s plea for a Democratic Congress, sending Republican
majorities to both the Senate and the House of Representatives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">The Senate, where Democrats have enjoyed a 51-45 </span></span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">margin</span></span></span> in the 65th Congress, will be controlled</span></span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> in the 66th</span></span></span> by a 49-47 Republican </span></span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">majority</span></span></span>. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (Rep., Mass.), </span></span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">the unofficial leader of the Senate Republicans, </span></span></span>will be Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, succeeding Gilbert Hitchcock (Dem., Neb.) who has held the position since the death of Senator William Stone (Dem., Mo.) in April. Republicans who captured Senate seats now held by Democrats include </span></span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Governor Arthur Capper of Kansas, </span></span></span></span></span></span>who defeated incumbent Democrat William H. Thompson, and Selden Spencer, who was </span></span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">elected to complete Senator Stone's term in Missouri.</span></span></span> In Michigan, </span></span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">naval officer and former Secretary of the Navy Truman Newberry prevailed over </span></span></span>industrialist Henry Ford, who ran for the Senate as a Democrat.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">In the </span></span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">outgoing Congress,</span></span></span></span></span></span> Republicans have one more member (212) than the Democrats</span></span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> (211) in the </span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">House of Representatives,</span></span></span> </span></span></span>but Democrats control the chamber with the support of three Progressives. (There are two other third-party members; one (Socialist) votes with the Democrats and the other (Prohibitionist) with the Republicans.) In the incoming Congress, Republicans will have a comfortable majority (240-192, plus one member each from the Prohibition and Farmer-Labor Parties)</span></span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">. Champ Clark (Dem., Mo.), who has been Speaker since 1910, came close to winning his party's nomination for president in 1912 (he led the balloting for thirty ballots before losing the nomination to Woodrow Wilson on the forty-sixth). He will now lose the Speaker's gavel, and he retained his Congressional seat only by a narrow margin. Another remarkable reversal took place in Kansas where, in addition to the loss of Thompson's Senate seat, four of the five Democrats in the state's</span></span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> eight-member Congressional delegation</span></span></span> lost their bids for reelection.</span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFriNLQcWl7A0J-Equ0nv5SSKDOa60h-Gv-7ZEGen2HB5so930dyTbjLUghRYrFB3VhSaj1o7skTnOOp5GUyK3ZNyETMcLLNApxj-6sxf5gL9T5b5nOhM1ZnS2xJBQseZWE_6BhR-BMg8/s1600/alsmithvoting1918.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="697" data-original-width="1024" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFriNLQcWl7A0J-Equ0nv5SSKDOa60h-Gv-7ZEGen2HB5so930dyTbjLUghRYrFB3VhSaj1o7skTnOOp5GUyK3ZNyETMcLLNApxj-6sxf5gL9T5b5nOhM1ZnS2xJBQseZWE_6BhR-BMg8/s400/alsmithvoting1918.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Al Smith Casting His Ballot</span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Bucking the nationwide trend, New Yorkers elected Democrat Alfred E. Smith as their new governor. </span>Smith, who narrowly defeated <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">the incumbent Republican </span>Charles Whitman, served in the New York State Assembly from 1904 to 1915. He was Sheriff of New York County (Manhattan) from 1916 to 1917, when he was elected to his present position, President of the New York City Board of Aldermen. In this year's gubernatorial election, Governor Whitman's lead upstate was substantial, but insufficient to overcome the large majorities Smith rolled up in his home base of New York City.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMJxo1pWILFrue3oY8W90GR0QPNAdp1fJOU0j_BJr7gWARCuzXur7C_BLVlreHoo6NA4JV-oxDiRR258hIQDoxc1FTr3vMJVEdoJiMG7f3lJjxuZYCb725aXX5RkXIvH06YhDmNpHFq9I/s1600/parispeaceconferenceuscommission.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1000" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMJxo1pWILFrue3oY8W90GR0QPNAdp1fJOU0j_BJr7gWARCuzXur7C_BLVlreHoo6NA4JV-oxDiRR258hIQDoxc1FTr3vMJVEdoJiMG7f3lJjxuZYCb725aXX5RkXIvH06YhDmNpHFq9I/s400/parispeaceconferenceuscommission.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
U.S. Peace Commission (Front Row left to right: House, Lansing, Wilson, White, Bliss)</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">The White House has released a brief statement announcing the names of the men who will represent the United States at the International Peace Conference scheduled to convene in France early next year. Although many advised against it, the President has decided to lead the delegation himself. Except for President Roosevelt's brief visit to the Panama Canal while it was under construction in 1906, it is unprecedented for a president to leave the country while in office. The other commissioners are Secretary of State Robert Lansing, Colonel Edward House, General Tasker Bliss, and the lone Republican, former Ambassador Henry White. Secretary of War Newton D. Baker will remain in the United States to address any concern that the absence of multiple cabinet members as well as the President himself might weaken the Executive Branch, particularly in light of William G. McAdoo's resignation this month as Secretary of the Treasury and Director General of Railroads. Republicans are dismayed that the Commission will not include a more prominent member of their party. They were not surprised that neither former President Roosevelt nor Senator Henry Cabot Lodge was chosen, since both have been vocal critics of President Wilson throughout the war. There are other Republicans, however, such as former President William Howard Taft, former presidential candidate Charles Evans Hughes, and former Senator and Secretary of State Elihu Root, who have generally supported the administration's war policies and any of whom would have been more acceptable to Republicans as a representative of their party. Another focus of criticism is the failure to include senators of either party, which may foreshadow future difficulties when a peace treaty is submitted to the Senate for ratification.</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> The Wreckage at Malbone Street</span></div>
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A crowded elevated train operated by the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company entered a tunnel on the Brighton Beach Line at Malbone Street in Flatbush during rush hour on the evening of November 1. Traveling at an excessive rate of speed, it was unable to negotiate a turn at the tunnel entrance. It left the tracks and crashed into the side of the tunnel, splintering its wooden cars and killing at least 93 passengers. The train was operated by a dispatcher who had little or no experience as a motorman and who had been pressed into service to compensate for a shortage of trained motormen due to a strike called by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. Nearby Ebbets Field was thrown open for treatment of the less seriously injured. The accident is by far the worst in the history of the New York City Transit System. <br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">*****</span></div>
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<u>November 1918 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading</u><br />
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<u>Contemporary Periodicals</u>:</div>
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American Review of Reviews, November and December 1918</div>
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New York
Times, November 1918</div>
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<u>Books and Articles</u>:</div>
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A. Scott Berg, Wilson</div>
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Britain at War Magazine, The Fifth Year of the Great War: 1918<br />
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918 <br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography<br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and
Theodore Roosevelt </div>
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John Dos Passos, Mr. Wilson's War</div>
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Kenneth S. Davis, FDR: The Beckoning of Destiny </div>
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David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922</div>
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Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life<br />
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History </div>
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Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933<br />
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume IV: The Stricken World 1916-1922</div>
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Ann Hagedorn, Savage Peace, Hope and Fear in America, 1919 </div>
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August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
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Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House</div>
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Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography<br />
John Keegan, The First World War<br />
David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society<br />
Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 </div>
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Anthony Lewis, Make No Law, The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment </div>
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W. Bruce Lincoln, Passage Through Armageddon: The Russians In War and Revolution 1914-1918</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Giles MacDonogh, The Last Kaiser: The Life of Wilhelm II </span><br />
Robert K. Massie, Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea</div>
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G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918</div>
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G.J. Meyer, The World Remade: America in World War I </div>
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Ted Morgan, FDR: A Biography<br />
William Mulligan, The Great War for Peace </div>
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Michael S. Neiberg, The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America</div>
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Patricia O'Toole, The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made </div>
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Edward J. Renehan, The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War </div>
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Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict</div>
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David Stevenson, Cataclysm: The First World War As Political Tragedy </div>
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David Stevenson, With Our Backs to the Wall: Victory and Defeat in 1918 </div>
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J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War<br />
Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931</div>
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Geoffrey C. Ward, A First Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt </div>
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Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History</div>
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The West Point Atlas of War: World War I </div>
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Dennis Crosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05167348173555324839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320526393914188899.post-24543142320889414432018-10-31T08:06:00.000-07:002018-11-01T12:14:49.373-07:00October 1918<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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In October 1918, under increasing military pressure on all fronts, Germany seeks an end to the fighting. The new German Chancellor, Prince Maximilian of Baden, sends
President Wilson a public note requesting peace negotiations on the basis of
the Fourteen Points and the “five particulars” set forth in his recent speech in New York. Further exchanges culminate in an American demand for submission to Allied military supremacy, cessation of "illegal and inhumane practices" such as submarine attacks on passenger ships, and regime change in Germany.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff
threaten to resign if Wilson’s
conditions are accepted, the Kaiser accepts Ludendorff’s resignation but
orders Hindenburg to remain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Allies’ general offensive on the Western Front succeeds in seizing Cambrai
and driving the Germans from the Hindenburg Line, while to the south the American Army begins the second phase of
the Meuse-Argonne offensive. The "lost battalion" is cut off by the Germans in the Argonne Forest and Corporal Alvin York earns the Medal of Honor by leading an attack on a German machine-gun emplacement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Austro-Hungarian Empire rapidly disintegrates as a republic is proclaimed in Vienna
and as Hungary, Czechoslovakia and other nations in central Europe declare their independence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the Near East,
the Egyptian Expeditionary Force captures Damascus
and Aleppo, leading to an armistice between the Ottoman Empire and Great Britain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The German High
Seas Fleet is ordered to sea for a final battle, but when crews begin to refuse orders the operation is cancelled and the
Dreadnought squadrons are dispersed. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the United States,
the proposed Woman Suffrage Amendment to the Constitution fails in the Senate. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As mid-term Congressional elections draw
near, President Wilson begs Americans to elect a Democratic Congress.<br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">*****</span></div>
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Prince Max von Baden</div>
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At the end of last month German Chancellor Georg von Hertling was forced to resign. The Kaiser appointed a new chancellor, Prince Maximilian, Margave of Baden, on October 3. Prince Max accepted the appointment on two conditions, which the Kaiser accepted: first, that Parliament would in the future have the exclusive right to declare war; and second, that the Kaiser relinquish all control over the army and navy. The new chancellor at first resisted, but finally accepted, Field Marshal Hindenburg's insistence, joined by General Ludendorff, that Germany must seek an immediate end to the war. On October 6 Prince Max sent a message to President Wilson asking him "to take in hand the restoration of peace, acquaint all the belligerent states of this request, and invite them to send plenipotentiaries for the purpose of opening negotiations." The message stated that the German government "accepts the program set forth by the President of the United States in his message to Congress on January 8, and in his later pronouncements, especially his speech of September 27, as a basis for peace negotiations." The chancellor's note requested "with a view to avoiding further bloodshed . . . the immediate conclusion of an armistice on land and water and in the air." Notes making similar requests were sent by the governments of Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire.<br />
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Secretary of State Lansing</div>
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In the United States, senators greeted the German note with demands for German surrender, disarmament and reparations as the price for any cessation of hostilities. President Wilson, however, sent a prompt reply without consulting the Senate or the Allies. Signed by Secretary of State Robert Lansing and sent through the Swiss Charge d'Affaires in Berlin, the reply sought clarification of the German proposal. It asked: "Does the Imperial Chancellor mean that the Imperial German Government accepts the terms laid down by the President in his [Fourteen Points] address . . . and in subsequent addresses, and that its object in entering into discussions would be only to agree upon the practical details of their application?" The American reply further stated that the President "would not feel at liberty to propose a cessation of arms to the [Allies] so long as the armies of [the Central] Powers are upon their soil." The Central Powers, therefore, must agree "immediately to withdraw their forces everywhere from invaded territory." Finally, the Chancellor must state whether he "is speaking merely for the constituted authorities of the Empire who have so far conducted the war." In Versailles, where they were meeting as the Supreme War Council, the prime ministers of Great Britain, France and Italy, without consulting President Wilson or the State Department, drafted their own statement prescribing harsh terms for any armistice.<br />
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Foreign Minister Solf</div>
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Germany replied to the American note on October 12. In a note signed by Wilhelm Solf, the new State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, it stated that "the German Government has accepted the terms laid down by President Wilson in his address of January 8 and in his subsequent addresses on the foundation of a permanent peace of justice" and that "its object in entering into discussion would be only to agree upon practical details of the application of these terms." It said it believes that the "powers associated with the government of the United States also take the position taken by President Wilson in his address." It agreed that Germany was "ready to comply with the proposition of the President in regard to evacuation" and suggested "the meeting of a mixed commission for making the necessary arrangements concerning the evacuation." Finally, on the subject of negotiating authority, it stated that "the present German Government . . . has been formed by conferences and in agreement with the great majority of the Reichstag" and that "the Chancellor, supported in all his actions by the will of this majority, speaks in the name of the German Government and of the German people."<br />
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Sergeant York</div>
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As diplomatic notes were being exchanged, the war on the Western Front continued. On October 4 in the Meuse-Argonne, nine companies of the American Army's 77th Division advancing through the Argonne
Forest lost contact with the units on their
flanks and were cut off
by the Germans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its survivors were finally rescued after days of fighting. On October 8, Corporal Alvin York's patrol in the Argonne was surrounded by German forces that outnumbered them ten to one. Corporal York single-handedly shot and killed some twenty-eight German soldiers and accepted the surrender of 132 more, marching them back to American lines with thirty-five captured machine guns. Upon his return he was promoted to sergeant and recommended for the Congressional Medal of Honor.<br />
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General Liggett</div>
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The American offensive in the Meuse-Argonne sector, halted temporarily by strong German defenses at the Kriemhilde Stellung and by an outbreak of influenza in the ranks, resumed on October 14. General Pershing, while retaining command of the overall American Expeditionary Force, placed General Hunter Liggett in command of the American First Army and gave it principal responsibility for conducting the offensive. Also slowed by the influenza outbreak, British, French and Belgian forces renewed their offensive in Flanders. The British Fourth Army broke through the Hindenburg Line between October 3 and 5 and Canadian elements of the British Third Army captured the town of Cambrai on October 8 and 9. After a brief pause at the River Selle, British and French forces renewed their offensive on October 14, threatening to cut off German army units on the coast. The next day General Ludendorff ordered a general withdrawal, allowing the Allies to occupy the German U-boat bases at Zeebrugge and advance to the Dutch border.<br />
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Senator Ashurst</div>
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The
German note of October 12 sparked another round of Senate debate and a
visit to the White House by Senator Henry F. Ashurst (Dem., Ariz.), who
warned the President that if he failed to demand unconditional surrender
he would be "destroyed." The President replied "So far as my being
destroyed, I am willing if I can serve my country to go into a cellar
and read poetry the remainder of my life." Ashurst told him a cellar
would be necessary "to escape the cyclone of the people's wrath." Wilson said "Senator, it would
relieve a great many people of anxiety if they did not start with the
assumption that I am a damn fool."<br />
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Colonel House</div>
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On October 14 President Wilson and Colonel House drafted a response to the German note. Signed and sent the same day by Secretary Lansing, it said the German government's "unqualified acceptance" of the principles laid down in the Fourteen Points "justifies the President in making a frank and direct statement of his decision." It stated that "no arrangement can be accepted . . . which does not provide absolutely satisfactory safeguards and guarantees of the maintenance of the present military supremacy of the armies of the United States and of the Allies in the field." Nor will any armistice be considered "so long as the armed forces of Germany continue the illegal and inhumane practices which they persist in, including both "submarine attacks on passenger ships at sea -- and not the ships alone, but the very boats in which their passengers and crew seek to make their way to safety" and the "wanton destruction" of cities and villages in France and Flanders "in direct violation of the rules and practices of civilized warfare." Finally, calling attention to President Wilson's Fourth of July speech at Mount Vernon in which he called for "the destruction of every arbitrary power anywhere that can . . . disturb the peace of the world," the note said that this describes "the power which has hitherto controlled the German nation," and that "it is within the choice of the German nation to alter it." Calling this a "condition precedent to peace," the note concluded by saying "the whole process of peace will . . . depend upon the definiteness and the satisfactory character of the guarantees which can be given in this fundamental matter." <br />
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That evening, after dining with Colonel House and Mrs. Wilson, the President wrote a letter in longhand appointing House the President's "personal representative . . . to take part as such in the conferences of the Supreme War Council and in any other conferences in which it may be serviceable for him to represent me." He gave the letter to House, who left on the midnight train to New York and sailed for Europe on October 22.<br />
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Destruction in Ypres</div>
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Foreign Minister Solf replied to the October 14 note on October 21. In it he "protest[ed] against the reproach of illegal and inhumane actions made against the German land and sea forces and thereby against the German people," saying that "for the covering of a retreat, destructions will always be necessary, and they are carried out in so far as is permitted by international law," and denying that "the German Navy in sinking ships has ever purposely destroyed lifeboats with their passengers." Regarding the conditions set forth in the American note, he said Germany "trusts that the President of the United States will approve of no demand which would be irreconcilable with the honor of the German people and with opening the way to a peace of justice." He assumed that the "procedure of [the German] evacuation and of the conditions of an armistice should be left to the judgment of the military advisers" based on "the actual standard of power on both sides in the field." The note said that "orders [have been] dispatched to all submarine commanders, precluding the torpedoing of passenger ships," but added that it cannot "guarantee that these orders will reach every single submarine at sea before its return." Finally, in response to President Wilson's insistence on the destruction of the "arbitrary power" that has "hitherto controlled the German nation," the note stated that "the first act of the new Government has been to lay before the Reichstag a bill to alter the Constitution of the Empire so that the consent of the representation of the people is required for decisions on war and peace" and that this new system is guaranteed "not only by constitutional safeguards, but also by the unshakeable determination of the German people."<br />
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Hindenburg and Ludendorff</div>
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President Wilson responded immediately, rejecting the German reply as unsatisfactory. The American note, signed by Secretary Lansing and dated October 23, said that while the President "cannot decline to take up with the Governments with which the Government of the United States is associated the question of an armistice," he repeated that "the only armistice he would feel justified in submitting for consideration would be one which would leave the United States and the Powers associated with her in a position to enforce any arrangements entered into and to make a renewal of hostilities on the part of Germany impossible." He pointed out that, "Significant and important as the Constitutional changes seem to be . . ., it does not appear that the principle of a government responsible to the German people has yet been fully worked out." Nor does it appear "that the heart of the present difficulty has been reached. It may be that future wars have been brought under the control of the German people, but the present war has not been; and it is with the present war that we are dealing." Because "the German people have no means of commanding the acquiescence of the military authorities" and "the power of the King of Prussia to control the policy of the Empire is unimpaired," the President believes that "the nations of the world do not and cannot trust the word of those who have hitherto been the masters of German policy." The note concluded with an ultimatum for regime change: "If it must deal with the military masters and the monarchical autocrats of Germany now, or if it is likely to have to deal with them later in regard to the international obligations of the German Empire, it must demand not peace negotiations but surrender."<br />
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Prince Max saw no alternative to accepting President Wilson's terms, and after a lengthy cabinet meeting the government chose to accept both the October 14 and October 23 notes. From army headquarters at Spa, Generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff, recently among the foremost voices calling for an end to the conflict, sent a telegram to army group commanders declaring the conditions demanded by the American note unacceptable and ordering a "fight to the finish." When one of the army commanders objected the telegram was withdrawn, but not before it had reached the newspapers, where it was published on October 25. Hindenburg and Ludendorff traveled to Berlin where on October 26 they confronted the Kaiser and threatened to resign if the American conditions were accepted. Unlike earlier situations of this kind, when such threats by military leaders had forced the resignation of civilian ministers, this time Prince Max threatened to resign unless the Kaiser backed the government. The Kaiser, angered by the presumption of his generals in sending the "fight to the finish" telegram, accepted Ludendorff's resignation but refused Hindenburg's.<br />
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H.M.S. Agamemnon</div>
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The Egyptian Expeditionary Force, under the command of General Sir Edmund Allenby, entered Damascus on October 1, welcomed as liberators by the city's Arab residents. A week later an Indian division entered Beirut, opening another seaport for the Allies. On October 29 Allenby's forces and Arabs under the command of Sherif Hussein arrived at the outskirts of Aleppo, the northernmost city in Syria, cutting rail communication between Constantinople and Mesopotamia. Turkish General Mustafa Kemal withdrew his forces from Aleppo and established a defensive position north of the city, approximating a boundary between the Turkish heartland and the Arab lands to the south. On October 27, negotiations for an armistice began between representatives of the Ottoman Empire and Great Britain. The negotiations took place aboard H.M.S. Agamemnon, anchored off the Aegean island of Mudros, where agreement was reached and an armistice signed on October 30. The terms of the armistice require the Ottomans to open the Dardanelles and Bosporus
to Allied warships, allow the Allies to occupy Turkish forts along the straits,
demobilize the Turkish Army, release prisoners of war, and evacuate the
Ottoman Empire’s Arab provinces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
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A Second Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia</div>
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Austria-Hungary's request for an armistice has accelerated the independence movements of nationalities within the Empire and throughout Central Europe. On October 16 Emperor Charles issued a proclamation that the Austrian portion of the Empire "is to become a federal state in which each nationality will form its own polity on the territory on which it lives." The next day Hungary and Czechoslovakia declared their independence. In a note dated October 19 President Wilson refused Austria-Hungary's request for armistice negotiations based on the Fourteen Points. In a note signed by Secretary of State Lansing, he said "events of the utmost importance" occurring since the Fourteen Points address in January "have necessarily altered the attitude and responsibility of the Government of the United States." Referring to Point Ten (the peoples of Austria-Hungary "should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous development"), the note stated that since then the United States "has recognized that a state of belligerency exists between the Czechoslovaks and the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires and that the Czechoslovak National Council is a de facto belligerent Government clothed with proper authority to direct the military and political affairs of the Czechoslovaks." For that reason, and because the United States "has also recognized in the fullest manner the justice of the national aspirations of the Jugo-Slavs for freedom," the President is "no longer at liberty to accept the mere 'autonomy' of these peoples as a basis for peace, but is obliged to insist that they, and not he, shall be the judges of what action on the part of the Austro-Hungarian Government will satisfy their aspirations and their conception of their rights and destiny as members of the family of nations." On October 26, in a sweeping assertion of freedom from imperial rule, Czech independence leader Tomas Masaryk stood at Independence
Hall in Philadelphia and read a Declaration of Independence on behalf of
the Mid-European Union, "a chain of nations lying between the Baltic,
the Adriatic and the Black Seas, comprising Czechoslovaks, Poles, Jugoslavs, Ukrainians, Uhro-Russians, Lithuanians, Rumanians, Italian Irredentists, Unredeemed Greeks, Albanians, and Zionists, wholly or partly subject to alien domination." The Declaration pledged that "we place our all -- peoples and resources -- at the disposal of our allies for use against our common enemy." Representatives of each of the nations stepped forward and signed the Declaration on the table where the American founding fathers had signed the American Declaration of Independence in 1776.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnWcSahSmycZg83DNUOhH8Hu19nbFi5h9nmC7uPp-2pCiukBoMhqIpEJBO5-9OUja1gTbUQyRXRw5JxEhvg8KNJzDxQlmAofi5nyJ13YZGz1RJ8LK2A9w2WmQA-9q72IjaDjOTi3-FWtI/s1600/vittoriavenetoMountGrappa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="982" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnWcSahSmycZg83DNUOhH8Hu19nbFi5h9nmC7uPp-2pCiukBoMhqIpEJBO5-9OUja1gTbUQyRXRw5JxEhvg8KNJzDxQlmAofi5nyJ13YZGz1RJ8LK2A9w2WmQA-9q72IjaDjOTi3-FWtI/s400/vittoriavenetoMountGrappa.jpg" width="325" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Italian Troops on Mount Grappa</div>
<br />
The rapid dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire has had its effects on the battlefield. An Allied offensive under the command of Italian General Armando Diaz began on October 24. When they learned of their country's declaration of independence, Hungarian soldiers refused to advance, and requested and received permission to return home. South Slav and Czech units followed suit, and even some German and Austrian units refused to fight as Hungarians left the battlefield. By month's end, the Allies had seized Vittorio Veneto and Sacile, the
Austrians had abandoned Monte Grappa, and an Austrian delegation had
crossed Italian lines to negotiate a surrender. Czech politicians took control of governmental affairs in Prague on October 28. On October 31 Emperor Charles relinquished power in Vienna and the imperial standard was hauled down from Government House. In both Vienna and Budapest the military authorities, apparently acting in agreement with their respective National Assemblies, have proclaimed a republic.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWGj7OxYB7dypUB0OiJk_AFiBEa4lUZozMu-xe02ZNIgTgh3YlJcQLUmRYTDOzDweJTytVBhx5bZ74jvAkYkry9uV0Xi6wKUnbLuJbXitj9Mwj2zltm2kpMUe6z8UBG9aBSiC-NgCWhdg/s1600/germandreadnoughts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="680" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWGj7OxYB7dypUB0OiJk_AFiBEa4lUZozMu-xe02ZNIgTgh3YlJcQLUmRYTDOzDweJTytVBhx5bZ74jvAkYkry9uV0Xi6wKUnbLuJbXitj9Mwj2zltm2kpMUe6z8UBG9aBSiC-NgCWhdg/s400/germandreadnoughts.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
German Dreadnoughts</div>
<br />
The dreadnoughts of the German High Seas Fleet, except for the Battle of Jutland in May 1916, have remained throughout the war in the safety of the Jade Estuary and the naval base at Heligoland Island. On October 22, foreseeing a humiliating end to the war for the German Navy, the Chief of the German Naval Staff Admiral Reinhard Scheer, without notifying or obtaining approval from the Kaiser, ordered Admiral Franz von Hipper, the commander of the High Seas Fleet, to "attack the English Fleet as soon as possible." On October 24, Hipper ordered the Fleet to sea for a final battle. As the ships began to get up steam for the sortie scheduled for dawn on October 30, German sailors, less attracted than the admirals by the prospect of glorious sacrifice, began refusing orders and abandoning their posts. After a final briefing session with his admirals and captains on the evening of October 29, Hipper cancelled the sortie. In an effort to quell the incipient mutinies and isolate the ringleaders, he ordered the fleet dispersed, sending the dreadnought squadrons to Cuxhaven, Wilhelmshaven, and through the Kiel Canal to the Baltic.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg00lk3BXb-kekls_8eHBDQFrYR4BbxIxolJ-lQCIxrHh9_-GERPVwCqG7HkxL25_kPVbUL3tCcqtyRuBdVf0I_Fqg8uA7RMGgqoVF5-FsksKPhVCDCd5zmdvUOHrKVBtPectWvim-O5EE/s1600/alice-paul-9435021-1-402.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg00lk3BXb-kekls_8eHBDQFrYR4BbxIxolJ-lQCIxrHh9_-GERPVwCqG7HkxL25_kPVbUL3tCcqtyRuBdVf0I_Fqg8uA7RMGgqoVF5-FsksKPhVCDCd5zmdvUOHrKVBtPectWvim-O5EE/s1600/alice-paul-9435021-1-402.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Alice Paul</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
In the United States, the Senate voted on the proposed woman suffrage amendment to the Constitution on October 1. The vote was 53 in favor and 41 opposed, three votes short of
the required two-thirds. Before the vote, the Senate defeated by a vote of 61-22 an amendment proposed by Senator John Sharp Williams (Dem., Miss.) to limit the suffrage to white women in order to "preserve the social status of the white women of the South." President Wilson's extraordinary visit to the Senate the day before the vote and his plea that passage was "vitally essential to the successful
prosecution of the . . . war" (see last month's blog post) failed to change a single vote, as did
letters from the President delivered to selected Democrats on the floor
as the measure was coming to a vote, as did a last-minute appeal by Senator Albert B. Cummins (Rep.,
Iowa) not to "repudiate" the President. After the vote Alice Paul, Chairman of the National Woman's Party, said "The defeat is only temporary. The votes of the Senate, we are convinced, will be reversed before this session of Congress ends. Our efforts to secure the reversal will begin at once and will continue until our victory in the House is confirmed in the Senate."<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTQyd_H4eYZMfH9LbeVSrBXjPdvJ8IvckgdNqk5BShXBq_-4gFxceRjurpEC4Du3NTCqfYUth4AG2J3Ow-ifLhG28HMBHATNc3Yp4VyPd3et0wp3jzWHFEXX3DZIa6ykBR07gq5Skyxh4/s1600/woodrowwilson1918.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="629" data-original-width="1160" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTQyd_H4eYZMfH9LbeVSrBXjPdvJ8IvckgdNqk5BShXBq_-4gFxceRjurpEC4Du3NTCqfYUth4AG2J3Ow-ifLhG28HMBHATNc3Yp4VyPd3et0wp3jzWHFEXX3DZIa6ykBR07gq5Skyxh4/s400/woodrowwilson1918.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
President Wilson </div>
<br />
While concentrating on the intense negotiations for an armistice, the President has not been unaware of the approach of the mid-term Congressional elections. On October 25, contrary to the advice of many of his advisers, he issued a public plea to American voters, asking “if you have approved
of my leadership and wish me to continue to be your unembarrassed spokesman in
affairs at home and abroad, I earnestly beg that you will express yourselves
unmistakably to that effect by returning a Democratic majority to both the
Senate and the House of Representatives.” Republicans, most of whom have been firm supporters of the war from the beginning, are irate. In a speech at Carnegie
Hall on October 28, former President Roosevelt reminded his audience that the President had told
Congress in May that “politics is adjourned” because of the war. Now, he said, he is asking the American people not
“for loyalty to the Nation” but “only for support of himself.”<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
*****</div>
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<u>October 1918 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading</u><br />
<br />
<u>Contemporary Periodicals</u>:</div>
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American Review of Reviews, October and November 1918</div>
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</div>
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New York
Times, September and October 1918</div>
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<u>Books and Articles</u>:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A. Scott Berg, Wilson</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Britain at War Magazine, The Fifth Year of the Great War: 1918<br />
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918 <br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography<br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and
Theodore Roosevelt </div>
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</div>
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John Dos Passos, Mr. Wilson's War</div>
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Kenneth S. Davis, FDR: The Beckoning of Destiny </div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life<br />
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933<br />
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume IV: The Stricken World 1916-1922</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ann Hagedorn, Savage Peace, Hope and Fear in America, 1919 </div>
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</div>
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August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
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</div>
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Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House</div>
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</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography<br />
John Keegan, The First World War<br />
David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society<br />
Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Anthony Lewis, Make No Law, The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
W. Bruce Lincoln, Passage Through Armageddon: The Russians In War and Revolution 1914-1918<br />
Robert K. Massie, Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
G.J. Meyer, The World Remade: America in World War I </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ted Morgan, FDR: A Biography<br />
William Mulligan, The Great War for Peace </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Michael S. Neiberg, The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Patricia O'Toole, The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Edward J. Renehan, The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
David Stevenson, Cataclysm: The First World War As Political Tragedy </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
David Stevenson, With Our Backs to the Wall: Victory and Defeat in 1918 </div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War<br />
Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Geoffrey C. Ward, A First Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt </div>
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</div>
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</div>
Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History<br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The West Point Atlas of War: World War I </div>
</div>
</div>
Dennis Crosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05167348173555324839noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320526393914188899.post-82875356542707401642018-09-28T06:38:00.001-07:002018-09-28T06:38:44.670-07:00September 1918<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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In September 1918 the Allies are on the offensive on every front.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>British and Belgian troops attack the Ypres salient and recapture Passchendaele.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To the south, the American Expeditionary
Force under the command of General John J. Pershing clears the St. Mihiel salient,
and then turns north to attack along the River Meuse and through the Argonne Forest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Launching the Fourth Liberty Bond drive with a speech in New York City, President Wilson calls for a “secure and
lasting peace” enforced by a League of Nations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He sets forth five “particulars” designed to
achieve that goal, representing his view of “this government’s own duty with
regard to peace.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Three days later he goes before the Senate and asks it to approve the proposed woman suffrage amendment
to the Constitution, already approved by the House of Representatives, as a
“war measure.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> British forces under General Allenby advance in Palestine. Americans join</span> French and British units
in the “Polar Bear Expedition,” designed to protect war supplies stockpiled in
the Russian Arctic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An Allied offensive in Macedonia leads to an armistice with Bulgaria. Germany
and Austria-Hungary are rocked with unrest and protests calling for an end to the war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At month's end, faced with military
defeat and loss of support in the Reichstag, German Chancellor Georg von
Hertling is forced to resign.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the United States,
the baseball season ends early because of the war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the World Series, which begins and ends in
September for the only time in its history, the Boston Red Sox defeat the
Chicago Cubs four games to two.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> The Red Sox will win their next World Series championship in 2004.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">*****</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUWUmbI_8u7Zr9gX-P96JQ4d61ePjWV02DvOF5Q3vXiSbe8HSHoBmEZwc342MzUQlaIE5OzJl33Kd5YJl-n3mlbccE3KVsGeXrtH6RBBpi7jdu-IWV9A8IiUgU-gR3fC_s2ACVV9xuZZg/s1600/Western_front_1918_allied.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="619" data-original-width="800" height="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUWUmbI_8u7Zr9gX-P96JQ4d61ePjWV02DvOF5Q3vXiSbe8HSHoBmEZwc342MzUQlaIE5OzJl33Kd5YJl-n3mlbccE3KVsGeXrtH6RBBpi7jdu-IWV9A8IiUgU-gR3fC_s2ACVV9xuZZg/s400/Western_front_1918_allied.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
The Allies Advance<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNh3NSRfXucXStBZF4bTZSAu8vZal8-B1iCxPrqLnLxIg5RJijJXdHq-DJzTRIRSyP0OXLeAb_qP-12LLA64WFksRyFfw-lMNiF5tJnZv4R6yEeziUBzGOdcjnCrC-objixPOX33LXFwE/s1600/BillyMitchell_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="542" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNh3NSRfXucXStBZF4bTZSAu8vZal8-B1iCxPrqLnLxIg5RJijJXdHq-DJzTRIRSyP0OXLeAb_qP-12LLA64WFksRyFfw-lMNiF5tJnZv4R6yEeziUBzGOdcjnCrC-objixPOX33LXFwE/s400/BillyMitchell_02.jpg" width="338" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Colonel Mitchell</div>
<br />
As the month began, Allied assaults continued all along the Western Front. Marshal Foch ordered a general advance on September 3, as the German Army began a general withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line. Evacuation of the Lys Salient was completed by September 6, and on September 8 General Ludendorff ordered the evacuation of the St. Mihiel Salient to the south. On September 12, American and French troops under General Pershing's command attacked the St. Mihiel Salient from all sides, catching the Germans in the midst of withdrawal. With the support of airplanes supplied by several Allied nations and commanded by American Army Colonel William Mitchell, the American and French troops cleared the salient and occupied St. Mihiel by September 15. On September 28 a combined force of British, French and Belgian
troops commanded by Belgium's King Albert launched a massive offensive
in the Ypres Salient, advancing eight miles the first day and recapturing most of Passchendaele Ridge. Belgian troops retook the village of Passchendaele.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR928SrY5fOahzElS-nkD6fpIMRUS-GK1C9tpcFN82A91Y6K1QXgacd0CB9hFz2m0GZtEi3tFnsO4PT00EjbqEK9AkPPfnozIVyDg-PHTI4dlixmavLko24lG9FcnBs-hZEW4j_s02MRE/s1600/Meuse-Argonne_Offensive_-_Map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="310" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR928SrY5fOahzElS-nkD6fpIMRUS-GK1C9tpcFN82A91Y6K1QXgacd0CB9hFz2m0GZtEi3tFnsO4PT00EjbqEK9AkPPfnozIVyDg-PHTI4dlixmavLko24lG9FcnBs-hZEW4j_s02MRE/s400/Meuse-Argonne_Offensive_-_Map.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The Meuse-Argonne Offensive</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Colonel Marshall with General Henry Allen, Commander of the 90th Infantry Division</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
The American Army's next assignment after St. Mihiel was to attack to the north along the Meuse and Aire River Valleys, commanded on the east by the heights of the Meuse and on the west by the tangled woods of the Argonne Forest. Thanks to exemplary staff planning led by Colonel George C. Marshall, the First Army's Operations Officer, the Americans were able to redeploy swiftly from the St. Mihiel to the Meuse-Argonne sector while concealing their movements from the Germans, and to commence their attack in the early morning hours of September 26. Resistance at first was slight, but on September 29, after the Germans had recovered from their initial surprise, General Pershing's advance was halted at the Kriemhilde Stellung, a strong defensive position that forms part of the Hindenburg Line.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoBp6dRZ0nZk1J9WxnMYAPNG2NdGtbwVDOgLIq3vHihEY2Vd6xAtM6FvBzBQGHriXTago7h2vQhapjItB-kCtyilQcnIzOLfx_RfG6kcM4JWMzSNOFIjceiLU21SjIVt6FEGhOFym10ik/s1600/Georg_von_Hertling.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="544" data-original-width="417" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoBp6dRZ0nZk1J9WxnMYAPNG2NdGtbwVDOgLIq3vHihEY2Vd6xAtM6FvBzBQGHriXTago7h2vQhapjItB-kCtyilQcnIzOLfx_RfG6kcM4JWMzSNOFIjceiLU21SjIVt6FEGhOFym10ik/s400/Georg_von_Hertling.jpg" width="306" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
German Chancellor von Hertling</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
On September 14, the Austro-Hungarian government proposed a "confidential and non-committal exchange of views" to explore the possibility of a peace settlement. President Wilson was the first to reject Austria's overture, which he did two days later, the other Allies following his lead shortly thereafter. On that day, Generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff, the military leaders of Germany, told the Kaiser that Germany was unable to continue the war. Confronted with the deteriorating military situation, Chancellor Georg von Hertling resigned on September 30.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik7hX43m7BZ3WuSA7uxI7fyOMo3TiR7h6DlptDPz42shzELHZ_32JEfWgjJAnyWhEOkzyOdY26DKGOSmwWV2Lh_jctiPi7Sa1f8qiGnTtkuLZjC-I2LA21d9rGEscGR1WECFbaaPNabs8/s1600/Franchet_d%2527Esperey_-_photo_Henri_Manuel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="313" data-original-width="220" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik7hX43m7BZ3WuSA7uxI7fyOMo3TiR7h6DlptDPz42shzELHZ_32JEfWgjJAnyWhEOkzyOdY26DKGOSmwWV2Lh_jctiPi7Sa1f8qiGnTtkuLZjC-I2LA21d9rGEscGR1WECFbaaPNabs8/s400/Franchet_d%2527Esperey_-_photo_Henri_Manuel.jpg" width="281" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
General Franchet d'Esperey</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
In Macedonia, Allied forces under the command of French General Louis Franchet d'Esperey began a major offensive on September
15. Unrest intensified in Sofia and other major cities and mutinies broke out in the Bulgarian Army as it retreated up the Vardar River Valley. Austrian divisions sent to bolster the Bulgarians failed to arrive in time to stem the Allied advance. After General Franchet rejected a Bulgarian request for a 48-hour suspension of hostilities, negotiations for an armistice began on September 28. While discussions were under way, news arrived of the fall of Skopje, and on September 29 an armistice was signed to take effect the next day. This removes Bulgaria from the war and effectively ends hostilities on the Macedonian Front. It also cuts off land communication between Germany and Austria-Hungary and their Ottoman ally and presents the possibility of a future Allied advance up the Danube.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhGk32IDqsi6bmVsQz4QbrTOt_fX5aerv4xlQh5jPUNqnNOAyrP7TDJH8e755r5RJAMLV5I0QtbeCrkDn1aWf_7YvOgewIualzlfjeXglFLxKMuD_V8Q3OkqQEWKwcl0SD1-FQ9_Bovm4/s1600/Allenby_Entering_Jerusalem.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="188" data-original-width="330" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhGk32IDqsi6bmVsQz4QbrTOt_fX5aerv4xlQh5jPUNqnNOAyrP7TDJH8e755r5RJAMLV5I0QtbeCrkDn1aWf_7YvOgewIualzlfjeXglFLxKMuD_V8Q3OkqQEWKwcl0SD1-FQ9_Bovm4/s400/Allenby_Entering_Jerusalem.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
General Allenby Entering Jerusalem Last December</div>
<br />
At dawn on September 20, after an overnight bombardment, the British Army's Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) resumed its offensive in Palestine, advancing against Turkish forces under German General Limon von Sanders arrayed in defensive lines north of Jerusalem. Within two days the British and Australians of the EEF had captured Megiddo (the biblical Armageddon) and Nazareth, taking thousands of prisoners. On September 23 they captured Haifa and Acre, and on September 25 they crossed the River Jordan and entered Amman, a stop on the Berlin-Baghdad Railway. On September 27 General Allenby's cavalry crossed the Golan Heights into Syria, and at month's end his forces were in the outskirts of Damascus. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFkqEd5wVQvxdjJLDHEWch9S6KoRFcKZFa7mMQCwnubohivtdOIc3Quq3elfnjJNpTY1b8FprbX3lLvIgCCiYFNjLW-iQ8j9r6al4SQfn5q57wHYOacaX78QcnVgnP9ObmJdUWOoiHGJ4/s1600/moiseuritsky.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="283" data-original-width="500" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFkqEd5wVQvxdjJLDHEWch9S6KoRFcKZFa7mMQCwnubohivtdOIc3Quq3elfnjJNpTY1b8FprbX3lLvIgCCiYFNjLW-iQ8j9r6al4SQfn5q57wHYOacaX78QcnVgnP9ObmJdUWOoiHGJ4/s400/moiseuritsky.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Moise Uritsky</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Oy5rEJPvdh7-z5Czeom_PV62A-8RlsZual4xIhn0zk3Qt3XJoycay_aGxdyE69U23fI3Ot5Q9zOOZPUdrTIzCqRH2Di_TdJzn6dpS0il_wqYu_GsmPG5y4smBWuZPtolsgjkI0QFxVs/s1600/British_Royal_Navy_Captain_Francis_Newton_Cromie_%25281882-1918%2529_-_Naval_Attach%25C3%25A9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="596" data-original-width="426" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Oy5rEJPvdh7-z5Czeom_PV62A-8RlsZual4xIhn0zk3Qt3XJoycay_aGxdyE69U23fI3Ot5Q9zOOZPUdrTIzCqRH2Di_TdJzn6dpS0il_wqYu_GsmPG5y4smBWuZPtolsgjkI0QFxVs/s320/British_Royal_Navy_Captain_Francis_Newton_Cromie_%25281882-1918%2529_-_Naval_Attach%25C3%25A9.jpg" width="228" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Captain Cromie</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
State-sponsored violence is on the rise in Russia. August ended with an attempt on the life of Vladimir Lenin and the almost simultaneous assassination of Cheka leader Moise Uritsky, events that led the Cheka, Lenin's secret police force, to undertake stern reprisals. British Naval Attache Captain Francis Cromie was killed in an August 31 Cheka raid on the British Embassy in Petrograd, and on September 2 the Cheka announced the institution of "Red Terror" against opponents of the regime. Fanny Kaplan, Lenin's would-be assassin, was summarily shot on September 3 after refusing to name any accomplices, and since then over 500 opponents of the Bolshevik regime have been executed in Petrograd alone.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs1IuDVXecwLzV8RZdBFOPJixx_pcDV4Dbb3KbaqYOpTf7YI4Vlfhyphenhyphen4Q_goppSGGoe6e94IG5iNsauki4uovsgmep7vJulqT9FjhGVSjVFkU-6YvSePr-Bgcc2pd8Z6TIb7p_basBTs6M/s1600/Metropolitan_opera_1905_crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="726" data-original-width="800" height="362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs1IuDVXecwLzV8RZdBFOPJixx_pcDV4Dbb3KbaqYOpTf7YI4Vlfhyphenhyphen4Q_goppSGGoe6e94IG5iNsauki4uovsgmep7vJulqT9FjhGVSjVFkU-6YvSePr-Bgcc2pd8Z6TIb7p_basBTs6M/s400/Metropolitan_opera_1905_crop.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The Metropolitan Opera House</div>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
On September 27 President Wilson opened the Fourth Liberty Loan campaign with an address to an audience of 5,000 Liberty Loan workers and others at the Metropolitan Opera House at 39th Street and Broadway in New York City. He began by boldly contradicting the announced purpose of his visit, saying "I am not here to promote the loan." It is not necessary for him to do so, he said, because that will be "ably and enthusiastically done" by those who will "present it to you and to our fellow citizens throughout the country." Instead, "it is my mission here tonight to try to make it clear once more what the war really means." He posed issues that he declared must be met and settled by the war: whether military power will continue to determine the fortunes of people over whom they have no right to rule, whether strong nations may subject weak nations to their own "purpose and interest," whether people shall be ruled by their own will and choice or by arbitrary force, whether there shall be "a common standard of right and privilege for all peoples and nations or shall the strong do as they will and the weak suffer without redress," and whether "the assertion of right [shall] be haphazard and by casual alliance or shall there be a common concert to oblige the observance of common rights." He called for a peace based on "impartial justice in every item of the settlement," enforced by the "indispensable instrumentality" of a "League of Nations," without which "peace will rest in part upon the word of outlaws."<br />
<br />
The President announced his Fourteen Points in an address to Congress in January, and elaborated with four "principles" in February. (See the January and February 1918 installments of this blog). In this month's speech he set forth five "particulars," which he said are designed to make the general terms of the proposed settlement "sound less like a thesis and more like a practical program." First, he said "the impartial justice meted out" must be "a justice that plays no favorites and knows no standard but the equal rights of the several people concerned." Second, there must be "no special interest of any single nation or group of nations . . . which is not consistent with the common interest of all." Third, "there can be no leagues or alliances or special covenants or understandings within the general and common family of the League of Nations." Fourth, "there can be no special, selfish economic combinations within the league and no employment of any economic boycott except as . . . may be vested in the League of Nations itself." Fifth, "all international agreements and treaties of every kind must be made known in their entirety to the rest of the world."<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjILH1TatWWUsZwKL-RVOS4QoONKZOjPbHKffN6uKLLuqZKvJFCBclF4DOw26SKHfwn19vgLZU2wxaJ_midef6swBBJZmtehRzgiufkFL-FV_cpIrguZ_aYrpuSRHxAc_1ZJh-8R32SRi0/s1600/The-Woman-Citizen-January-19-1918-Halt-Who-Goes-There-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1186" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjILH1TatWWUsZwKL-RVOS4QoONKZOjPbHKffN6uKLLuqZKvJFCBclF4DOw26SKHfwn19vgLZU2wxaJ_midef6swBBJZmtehRzgiufkFL-FV_cpIrguZ_aYrpuSRHxAc_1ZJh-8R32SRi0/s400/The-Woman-Citizen-January-19-1918-Halt-Who-Goes-There-1.jpg" width="295" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Women Ask for "National Suffrage"</div>
<br />
The nationwide movement for woman suffrage has gained momentum in recent years, as more and more states have granted women the right to vote. Not all efforts at the state level have succeeded, however. In 1916, New Jersey put a suffrage amendment on the ballot, but it failed. President Wilson (who votes in New Jersey) voted for it, but throughout the 1916 campaign he insisted that woman suffrage should remain a state issue. He has since changed his view, and announced his support for a Constitutional amendment. In January of this year the House of Representatives passed by a single vote (two-thirds is required) a resolution proposing a suffrage amendment (see the January 1918 installment of this blog), and now the issue is before the Senate. On September 30 President Wilson traveled to Capitol Hill and asked the Senators to pass the suffrage measure as one that is "vitally essential to the successful prosecution of the great war of humanity in which we are engaged." He said that if Americans "wish to lead democracy," they must "give justice to women." He pointed out that "women suffrage is not a party issue, both parties being explicitly pledged to equality of suffrage for the women of the country." When he left the Senate chamber, it appeared that not a single vote had been changed. Sixty-one senators (Twenty-nine Democrats and thirty-two Republicans) support the measure and thirty-four senators (twenty-two Democrats and twelve Republicans) oppose it. In the debate that followed the President's address, Senator Oscar W. Underwood (Dem., Ala.) explained why he is opposed. While it is "idle to combat the argument of the virtue and intelligence of women," he said, "it is because I believe this to be the greatest democracy in the world . . . that I oppose it. Do we want government by the mob?" He expressed concern about the effect in the South if Negro women were placed on a parity with White women. He did not mention that when it comes to voting they are on a parity now, both races of women being equally disenfranchised.<br />
<br />
The opponents of the resolution have more than the thirty-three votes they need to defeat the resolution. At the end of the debate, Senator Andrieus Jones (Dem., N.M.), the resolution's sponsor, moved for a recess in the hope that some votes might be changed overnight, but that does not appear likely.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf7YBjBnJDNhbY0JGLyOzXdJpLLiYA1O3PH4lu6UqtxdvPldmRpCxZC2yjJtHUUU8i-1GhXQa8ENPZ3jCIwYiMohchaHgg4MYiLb5HE6R0Qx3MD3RBjK11mbFsZDLK1lSJAKdJJ6ZhKhI/s1600/1918WorldSeries.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="456" data-original-width="300" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf7YBjBnJDNhbY0JGLyOzXdJpLLiYA1O3PH4lu6UqtxdvPldmRpCxZC2yjJtHUUU8i-1GhXQa8ENPZ3jCIwYiMohchaHgg4MYiLb5HE6R0Qx3MD3RBjK11mbFsZDLK1lSJAKdJJ6ZhKhI/s640/1918WorldSeries.png" width="419" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
World Series Score Card, Featuring Red Sox Owner Harry Frazee</div>
<br />
This year for the first time the World Series began and ended in the month of September. America's entry into the World War and the enactment of Selective Service legislation made it politically awkward for professional baseball teams to continue playing games while other young healthy men are fighting and risking their lives in Europe. Using powers conferred by the Overman Act that became law in May of this year, Secretary of War Baker issued a "work or fight" order on July 1 providing that all draft-eligible men not engaged in a war-related occupation are subject to compulsory service. Baseball, of course, is not war-related, but the major league teams have been allowed to complete the season after voluntarily shortening it from 154 to 140 games, ending on Labor Day. Game one of the World Series, between the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs, was played on September 5 in Chicago (in the new Comiskey Park, on loan from the White Sox for the Series), and the last (sixth) was played in Boston on September 11. The Red Sox won the last game 2-1, thereby winning the Series four games to two and maintaining their perfect record in World Series appearances. Red Sox pitcher Babe Ruth was the winning pitcher in games one and four.<br />
<br />
A high point of the Series came half way through the seventh inning of the first game when the Navy Band struck up "The Star-Spangled Banner." The spectators, who were standing up to take their customary "seventh inning stretch," stifled their yawns, bared their heads, and turned toward the flag with hands over their hearts. Some began singing, others joined, and soon the singing was universal. When the music stopped, the crowd erupted in enthusiastic applause. The anthem was played again in the later games with the same crowd reaction. It appears that a tradition has been born.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
*****</div>
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<u>September 1918 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading</u><br />
<br />
<u>Contemporary Periodicals</u>:</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
American Review of Reviews, October and November 1918</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
New York
Times, September and October 1918</div>
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<u>Books and Articles</u>:</div>
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A. Scott Berg, Wilson</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Britain at War Magazine, The Fifth Year of the Great War: 1918<br />
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918 <br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography<br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and
Theodore Roosevelt </div>
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</div>
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John Dos Passos, Mr. Wilson's War</div>
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Kenneth S. Davis, FDR: The Beckoning of Destiny </div>
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</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life<br />
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933<br />
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume IV: The Stricken World 1916-1922</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ann Hagedorn, Savage Peace, Hope and Fear in America, 1919 </div>
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</div>
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</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography<br />
John Keegan, The First World War<br />
David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society<br />
Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Anthony Lewis, Make No Law, The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
W. Bruce Lincoln, Passage Through Armageddon: The Russians In War and Revolution 1914-1918 </div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era,
1910-1917</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra<br />
Robert K. Massie, The Romanovs: The Final Chapter </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
G.J. Meyer, The World Remade: America in World War I </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ted Morgan, FDR: A Biography<br />
William Mulligan, The Great War for Peace </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Michael S. Neiberg, The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Patricia O'Toole, The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Edward J. Renehan, The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
David Stevenson, Cataclysm: The First World War As Political Tragedy </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
David Stevenson, With Our Backs to the Wall: Victory and Defeat in 1918 </div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War<br />
Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-193</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Geoffrey C. Ward, A First Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt </div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The West Point Atlas of War: World War I </div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
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Dennis Crosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05167348173555324839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320526393914188899.post-3806086369639772352018-08-31T12:27:00.000-07:002018-09-02T11:53:06.203-07:00August 1918<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
August 1918 marks the beginning of the 100 days offensive that will bring an end to the war on the Western Front. An Allied army under British command mounts a successful offensive east of Amiens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> T</span>he attack advances up to nine miles the first day, a day General Ludendorff will later
call “the black day of the German Army.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As the Allies follow up with a series of
frequent attacks at different locations along the front, the Germans
fall back to the Hindenburg Line. In a Crown Council at Spa, the leaders of the Central Powers agree that they must seek a negotiated settlement,
but only “after the next success in the west.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>On
the recommendation of his Jewish superior officer, Corporal Adolf Hitler is decorated for bravery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the United States, outspoken opponents of the draft are sentenced to long prison terms. The Bolshevik revolution in Russia is under intense pressure as British, French and
American troops land in Vladivostok on the
Pacific coast of Siberia and in Arkhangelsk and Murmansk in the Russian Arctic, and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> as British forces move north from Persia and India to secure the Baku oil fields and lines of communication in the Caucasus and Turkestan.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Lenin makes additional concessions to Germany and </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">barely survives an assassination attempt</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">.</span></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
The Battle of Amiens<br />
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Operation Michael, the first of the German offensives made possible by Russia's exit from the war, was mounted in March. It fell short of its goal of capturing the important railroad center of Amiens, and left the Germans defending a large salient east of the city. In the early morning hours of August 8 Allied forces under the command of General Sir Henry Rawlinson mounted a major attack on the salient. Preparations for the attack were undertaken with the greatest secrecy, and the Germans, who were expecting an attack
near Ypres, were taken by surprise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>British, Canadian, Australian and French
infantry left their trenches without any preliminary artillery bombardment and, following tanks and a rolling artillery barrage, advanced along the Somme battlefield of two years ago. Unlike the protracted and largely futile battle of 1916, however, this time the Allies advanced as much as nine miles the first day and took thousands of prisoners, reflecting a significant weakening of German discipline and morale. The Allied offensive was marked by the most successful use to date of combined infantry, armored, and air power, with even mounted cavalry deployed successfully to exploit breakthroughs on the relatively level, solid ground. By August 10 the Germans had recovered from the initial surprise and managed to reestablish a defensive line. Field Marshal Haig, commanding the British forces, told Marshal Foch that a pause was necessary, advice that led to a clash with Foch, who wanted the offensive to continue. After a brief pause, British and French forces renewed the offensive on August 20-21, and on August 31 Australians under the command of General John Monash crossed the Somme and captured Peronne and Mont St. Quentin. Ludendorff ordered a general withdrawal on the Somme front, pulling back to the defensive fortifications of the Hindenburg Line, and also withdrew from the Lys salient in Flanders that resulted from April's Operation Georgette.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Crown Council at Spa, August 13-14</div>
<br />
In the immediate aftermath of the initial German defeat on the Somme, Kaiser Wilhelm convened a conference of the Central Powers at Spa, the resort town in Belgium where he has established his headquarters. After a pessimistic briefing by General Ludendorff, the Kaiser responded "We are at the end of our effectiveness; the war must be ended." Ludendorff agreed, but told the Kaiser that by assuming a defensive strategy Germany might eventually force the Allies to sue for peace. Foreign Minister von Hintze argued for an immediate diplomatic initiative. Chancellor von Hertling attempted to summarize the group's conclusion by announcing that Germany must be prepared to seek peace, but only "after the next success in the west," an event no one present was willing or able to predict with confidence. When the Austro-Hungarian leaders arrived later that day, they were told that while "the possibility of a decisive blow does not exist," it was not a good time to try to open negotiations. Later in the month, however, Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister Count Burian advised Germany that his government would make a separate peace overture to the Entente.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Lieutenant Gutmann</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Corporal Hitler</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
The
Iron Cross is a German military award for valor. On August 4,
following the German retreat from Soissons following the
Blucher-Yorck Offensive, the German regimental commander presented the
Iron Cross, First Class, to Corporal Adolf Hitler, who among his other
duties had served as a messenger carrying dispatches to and from the
front lines. The award, an unusual honor for a soldier of Hitler's low
rank, was given for "personal bravery and general merit." It had been
approved on the recommendation of Lieutenant Hugo Gutman, Hitler's
Jewish company commander.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Assistant Secretary Roosevelt at Verdun</div>
<br />
Franklin D. Roosevelt, the American Assistant Secretary of the Navy, has been in Europe since July 21, when he was greeted in Portsmouth by Vice Admiral William Sims, the Commander of U.S. Naval Forces in Europe, and Rear Admiral Sir Allan Frederick Everett, the Naval Secretary to the First Lord of the Admiralty. After ten days in England, during which he was received by the King at Buckingham Palace, Roosevelt and his party were taken across the English Channel to Dunkirk aboard a British destroyer. They traveled by train to Paris, where they were received by President Poincare, Premier Clemenceau and other dignitaries. On August 4 Roosevelt embarked on a tour of the front, which included stops at Chateau-Thierry, Belleau Wood and Verdun. On August 8 he continued by rail to Rome where he conferred with Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando and Foreign Minister Baron Sonnino. Returning to France, he toured anti-submarine bases on the Atlantic coast and inspected a battery of naval guns being prepared for use in land warfare. He visited King Albert in Belgium before returning to Great Britain, where he traveled to Inverness and inspected the North Sea mine barrage and the British and American battleship squadrons in the Firth of Forth. He is scheduled to return to the United States in early September.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Judge Landis with His Wife and Son</div>
<br />
In Chicago on August 30, the largest federal criminal case in American history came to an end when Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis returned verdicts of guilty against William D. ("Big Bill") Haywood and other leaders of the International Workers of the World ("I.W.W." or "Wobblies") for urging its members and others to oppose the war and resist the draft. Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis sentenced Haywood and fourteen of his chief deputies to twenty year prison terms. Other sentences ranging from ten years to ten days were imposed on other defendants.<br />
<br />
The next day, President Wilson signed the new manpower bill into law. All men between the ages of 18 and
45 must register for the draft by September 12. The new law greatly expands the pool of potential draftees from the previous age range of 21 through 31.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
The Century Theatre</div>
<br />
Irving Berlin's musical revue "Yip Yip Yaphank" opened last month at Camp Upton, the Army recruit depot at Yaphank, Long Island that forms the backdrop for the songs in the show. On August 19 it moved for a limited run to the Century Theatre on Central Park West. To the delight of the audience, the cast, including the "chorus maidens," is made up entirely of soldiers from Camp Upton. Here Arthur Fields sings one of the most popular songs in the show, every soldier's lament, "Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning" (click to play):<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/8BWPUBOLYEI/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8BWPUBOLYEI?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
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American Soldiers En Route to Northern Russia<br />
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The Bolshevik revolution in Russia is under siege on many fronts. When the month began, Japanese troops occupied the Pacific Coast port of Vladivostok, and anti-Bolshevik Russians assisted by the Czech Legion controlled most of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. In its weakened state following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and Russia's withdrawal from the war, Lenin's government has turned increasingly to Germany for protection against domestic and foreign threats. Russia's erstwhile allies, in turn, have moved to support anti-Bolshevik forces, to protect large supplies of war materiel stockpiled in Russian ports in Siberia and the Russian Arctic, and to secure Russian oil fields and lines of communication with British India. British, French and American troops occupied the ports of Arkhangelsk and Murmansk on the White Sea on August 3 to safeguard Allied
supplies and defend against a threatened German attack on the Murmansk-Petrograd Railroad. On August 15, as Allied forces advanced up the Dvina River and Bolshevik forces withdrew from Arkhangelsk,
another Allied contingent was put ashore at Onega Bay to block their retreat.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9CPMwtiE1ZE9F_g_dYKkVSVuhNDLG-wEZKWvUNj7auCxBkbBDiPPaaV0p1ifHOBWR5alwp3GN1ubNDfByCPl7ryHMhItigxz4sGVzsXoO8mgmqlm_rP7juIREb3dM9FdHF39gcbztocs/s1600/baku1918.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="298" data-original-width="450" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9CPMwtiE1ZE9F_g_dYKkVSVuhNDLG-wEZKWvUNj7auCxBkbBDiPPaaV0p1ifHOBWR5alwp3GN1ubNDfByCPl7ryHMhItigxz4sGVzsXoO8mgmqlm_rP7juIREb3dM9FdHF39gcbztocs/s400/baku1918.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
British Soldiers in Baku </div>
<br />
On August 16 British troops stationed in Persia occupied the
port of
Baku on the Caspian Sea, the center of an important oil producing
region, with the goal of forestalling its occupation by the Ottoman
Turks and gaining control of the Trans-Caucasian Railroad. Other
British
troops moved north from India to Turkestan, where they joined forces
with anti-Bolshevik forces in central Asia. American and Japanese forces landed in Vladivostok. The American mission is to safeguard Allied war supplies, but the Japanese, under separate command, view their mission more expansively. On August 26 they joined Czech troops in attacking the Red Guard and driving them back from the Ussuri River.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Lenin and His Wife </div>
<br />
Under pressure from Germany following the assassination of the German ambassador last month, Lenin's government has agreed to a demand by Germany that German troops be allowed to guard its diplomatic posts in Russia. On August 27, conceding further German demands, Lenin entered into a Supplement to the Brest-Litovsk Treaty agreeing to give Germany control of all Russian naval assets in the Black Sea, to recognize the independence of Georgia, and to withdraw from Estonia and Livonia, thereby ceding control of the remainder of the Baltic coast to Germany. Russia also agreed to pay Germany an additional indemnity of six billion marks and to supply 25 percent of Baku's oil production to the Central Powers once the oil fields are back in Russian hands. Germany agreed that it will not attack Petrograd if Russia drives Entente forces from the country, but in a secret clause Russia agreed that if it fails to do so Germany may intervene.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHZDa67FLvHuYr1KKdhs759DnqT-kFoF-e6fpHf_78WS_vfyTSWLJqP0Yb3OOO6YiqVfJLIMzoxzE11SfT6w1p3UQZGkbLKVPoaLWJwdTHtPxs5YI5Q1zBsbld1Ja29wDuXgJrbA1FRQk/s1600/FannyKaplan.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="292" data-original-width="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHZDa67FLvHuYr1KKdhs759DnqT-kFoF-e6fpHf_78WS_vfyTSWLJqP0Yb3OOO6YiqVfJLIMzoxzE11SfT6w1p3UQZGkbLKVPoaLWJwdTHtPxs5YI5Q1zBsbld1Ja29wDuXgJrbA1FRQk/s1600/FannyKaplan.jpg" /></a> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Fanny Kaplan</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
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Domestic threats to the Bolshevik regime are not limited to factions supported by the Allies. Its most dangerous enemy might be the Left Socialist Revolutionaries (LSR), who advocate continuing the war against the Entente and bitterly oppose the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The LSR was responsible for last month's assassination of the German ambassador and its opposition grew more intense this month with the additional humiliation of the Supplementary Treaty. Its threat to the regime peaked on August 30 when an LSR member shot Lenin as he was leaving the Mekhelson Armament Works in an industrial suburb of Moscow. The Cheka, the Soviet Secret Police, arrested Fanny Kaplan, who has confessed to the crime and insisted she acted alone. Lenin was seriously wounded, and his survival is uncertain. Less uncertain is the fate of Miss Kaplan.<br />
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***** </div>
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<u>August 1918 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading</u><br />
<br />
<u>Contemporary Periodicals</u>:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
American Review of Reviews, September and October 1918</div>
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New York
Times, August and September 1918</div>
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<u>Books and Articles</u>:</div>
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A. Scott Berg, Wilson</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Britain at War Magazine, The Fifth Year of the Great War: 1918<br />
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918 <br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography<br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and
Theodore Roosevelt </div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
John Dos Passos, Mr. Wilson's War</div>
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Kenneth S. Davis, FDR: The Beckoning of Destiny </div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life<br />
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933<br />
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume IV: The Stricken World 1916-1922</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ann Hagedorn, Savage Peace, Hope and Fear in America, 1919 </div>
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</div>
August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography<br />
John Keegan, The First World War<br />
David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society<br />
Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Anthony Lewis, Make No Law, The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
W. Bruce Lincoln, Passage Through Armageddon: The Russians In War and Revolution 1914-1918 </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era,
1910-1917</div>
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Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra<br />
Robert K. Massie, The Romanovs: The Final Chapter </div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918</div>
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G.J. Meyer, The World Remade: America in World War I </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ted Morgan, FDR: A Biography<br />
William Mulligan, The Great War for Peace </div>
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Michael S. Neiberg, The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America</div>
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Patricia O'Toole, The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made </div>
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Edward J. Renehan, The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War </div>
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Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict</div>
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David Stevenson, Cataclysm: The First World War As Political Tragedy </div>
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David Stevenson, With Our Backs to the Wall: Victory and Defeat in 1918 </div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War<br />
Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-193</div>
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Geoffrey C. Ward, A First Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt </div>
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Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History</div>
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The West Point Atlas of War: World War I </div>
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Dennis Crosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05167348173555324839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320526393914188899.post-62919844792575653562018-07-31T07:13:00.000-07:002018-08-12T15:00:12.219-07:00July 1918<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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In July 1918, four years after the July Crisis that started it all, the tide of war begins to turn in favor of the Allies. Germany's last major offensive effort<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> falls short and is followed by a French and American counterattack that forces the German Army to surrender much of the ground it has gained since Russia left the war. Russia is in chaos as a civil war gains momentum: opponents of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk assassinate the German ambassador, anti-Bolshevik forces take control of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, and the Bolsheviks murder the former Tsar and his family. In the United States </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">President Wilson</span> observes the Fourth of July at Mount Vernon</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">, where he declares that there can be no compromise peace. </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Americans </span>celebrate Bastille Day as well as the Fourth of July.</span> John Purroy
Mitchel, the former mayor of New York City who joined the Army's Air Service after his defeat for reelection, dies when he falls from his aircraft during a training
flight in Louisiana.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Quentin Roosevelt, the youngest son of former
President Theodore Roosevelt, is shot down and killed in an aerial battle in France. </div>
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The Western Front, Showing the German Offensives Since March<br />
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The German Army mounted the latest of its offensive operations on the Western Front with attacks in the vicinity of Reims. The Champagne-Marne offensive (Operation "Marneschutz-Reims" or “Friedensturm”) had two goals. First, the Germans sought to expand the salient resulting from the
Blucher-Yorck offensive by capturing the important communications and railroad center of Reims, occupying the heights to the south of the city, and advancing to the Marne. Second, they hoped to draw Allied forces to the south from Flanders, facilitating another offensive thrust toward the channel ports (Operation "Hagen"). The attack began during the night of July 14-15 with a ferocious artillery bombardment. The French and Americans defending that portion of the front had good intelligence, however, and their own artillery went into action first., disrupting the German preparations. In addition, they had withdrawn to strong defenses out of German artillery range, leaving the front lines lightly defended. After the initial artillery barrage, the German attack found mostly empty trenches and faltered when it came under intense fire as it approached the heavily defended lines. The Germans briefly succeeded in establishing a bridgehead across the Marne at Epernay, but abandoned it the next day. The Germans halted their offensive on July 17 without achieving either of their objectives.<br />
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The Aisne-Marne Offensive</div>
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Following
the failed German offensive, French
and American forces under the command of French General Philippe Petain mounted a counteroffensive, attacking the western side
of the Blucher-Yorck salient between the Aisne and Marne Rivers. The attack achieved almost complete surprise, beginning with a 2,000-gun artillery bombardment in the early morning hours of July 18, followed by an infantry advance of eighteen divisions supported by some five hundred tanks and over one thousand aircraft. The Germans fell back, abandoning Chateau-Thierry on July 21. On July 27 they withdrew to the River Vesle, abandoning much of the Blucher-Yorck salient.<br />
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Count Wilhelm von Mirbach</div>
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The turmoil in Russia reached a crescendo this month. Lenin's attempt to forge a closer relationship with Germany has drawn the ire of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, who supported the revolution but opposed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and continue to resist any accommodation with Germany, which they regard as representative of the imperialist world order the revolution was meant to overthrow. At the Fourth All-Russian Congress of Soviets meeting in Moscow on July 4 and 5, the announcement of Lenin's new policy of accommodation with Germany was met with strong opposition from the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, who despite Lenin's personal plea were numerous enough to cause disruption by loudly demanding renunciation of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. They were particularly infuriated by the presence in a place of honor in the room of the new German ambassador, Count Wilhelm von Mirbach, which they saw as a symbol of Russia's subservience to Germany. The next day, Left Socialist Revolutionaries entered the German Embassy and shot the ambassador to death. Germany, in response, has demanded even more humiliating concessions from Lenin, and Lenin has adopted a policy of merciless repression against his political opponents.<br />
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The Tsar with His Family Before his Abdication . . .</div>
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In
Yekaterinburg, where they had been held since May, the former Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his family were
awakened at midnight on the night of July 16. Told that there was
unrest in the area and that it was necessary to move them for their own
safety, they were instructed to get dressed and go downstairs. Gunfire
could be heard in the distance as anti-Bolshevik forces of the White
Army reinforced by members of the Czech Legion approached the town. The
Tsar and his family were taken to a small unfurnished ground floor room
where, at the Tsar's request, two chairs were brought in for the Tsar's
wife and their young son Alexis, who suffered from a severe case of
hemophilia. The family was told to stand in a row against a wall,
ostensibly for a photograph. Instead of a photographer, however, eleven
armed men entered the room. Yakov Yurofsky, the Bolshevik in charge,
then drew a paper from his pocket and began to read: "In view of the
fact that your relatives are continuing their attack on Soviet Russia,
the Ural Executive Committee has decided to execute you." Before
Nicholas could react the men began firing, and within a few minutes the
former imperial family lay dead. On July 20 the Ural Regional Council
issued the following announcement:<br />
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"Recently
Yekaterinburg, the capital of the Red Urals, was seriously threatened by
the approach of Czechoslovak hands and a counter-revolutionary
conspiracy was discovered which had as its object the wresting of the
ex-Czar from the hands of the Council's authority. In view of this
fact, the President of the Ural Regional Council decided to shoot the
ex-Czar, and the decision was carried out on July 16. The wife and son
of Nicholas Romanoff have been sent to a place of security. Documents
concerning the conspiracy which was discovered have been forwarded to
Moscow by a special messenger. It had been recently decided to bring
the ex-Czar before a tribunal to be tried for his crimes against the
people, and only later occurrences led to delay in adopting this
course. The Presidency of the Central Executive Committee, having
discussed the circumstances which compelled the Ural Regional Council to
take its decision to shoot Nicholas Romanoff, decided as follows: The
Russian Central Executive Committee, in the person of its President,
accepts the decision of the Ural Regional Council as being regular. . .
."<br />
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The statement that only the Tsar had been shot was
false, as was the implication that the execution had been carried out on
the orders of the Regional Council which had informed Moscow only
later. In fact, the murder of the Tsar and his family had been approved
in advance by Vladimir Lenin in Moscow. White and
Czech Army forces entered and occupied Yekaterinburg on July 25, but the
bodies of the Tsar and his family had been removed.</div>
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President Wilson at Mount Vernon<br />
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President Wilson visited Mount Vernon on the Fourth of July. He traveled down the Potomac aboard the Presidential Yacht Mayflower, accompanied by Mrs. Wilson, his daughter Margaret, Secretary of State Lansing, Postmaster General Burleson, Senator Thomas Martin (Dem., Va.), the famous tenor John McCormack, and representatives of thirty-three nationalities including British Ambassador Lord Reading, who brought wreaths to lay on Washington's tomb. The crowd, which began to gather in the morning, numbered some 2,000 by noon and was much larger by the time the Mayflower dropped anchor shortly after 3:00. Intermittent outbursts of applause greeted the presidential party as it made its way along the winding paths through the estate, and American soldiers in uniform rose to their feet and saluted the commander-in-chief.<br />
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In his speech, President Wilson rejected any idea of a compromise peace, saying that the nations allied in the cause of liberty must struggle to defeat "an isolated, friendless group of governments, who speak no common purpose, but only selfish ambitions of their own, by which none can profit but themselves, and whose peoples are fuels in their hands; governments which fear their people, and yet are for the time being sovereign lords, . . . governments clothed with the strange trappings and the primitive authority of an age that is altogether alien and hostile to our own." He said "There must be but one issue. The settlement must be final. There can be no compromise. No half-way decision would be tolerable. These are the ends for which the associated peoples of the world are fighting and which must be conceded them before there can be peace." He said the war's objectives "can be put into a single sentence. What we seek is the reign of law, based upon the consent of the governed and sustained by the organized opinion of mankind."<br />
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Before the President's address, McCormack sang The Star Spangled Banner. When he reached the line "For conquer we must," he held the last ringing note and the President extended his hand. Before he began speaking, the President asked "Where is McCormack?," but he had left the stage. Later as they were returning to the Mayflower the President asked for him, shook his hand and expressed his thanks.<br />
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John McCormack sang The Star Spangled Banner in this recording made last year (click to play):</div>
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John McCormack: The Star Spangled Banner </div>
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Americans at the Statue of Joan of Arc</div>
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In recognition of their common cause with France in the World War, Americans turned out in great numbers on July 14 to celebrate Bastille Day. In New York, warships fired salutes in the harbor, flyers performed acrobatics in the air, and a crowd gathered at the statue of Joan of Arc on Riverside Drive. Formal ceremonies took place in military and naval bases and many churches held special services. A great meeting took place that evening at Madison Square Garden, where speakers including ambassadors of the Allied nations paid tribute to France and the French spirit of liberty. In his opening address Charles Evans Hughes, the chairman of the meeting, pledged "To the people of France that France shall be restored and that Alsace-Lorraine shall be returned to her." Other American speakers led by Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels spoke of Rochambeau, Lafayette, de Grasse, and the support France gave to the young American republic when it was struggling for its own liberty. Ignace Paderewski, head of the Polish National Committee in America, drew enthusiastic applause when he hailed "great and glorious France, invincible, triumphant, immortal." After paying tribute to the traditional friendship between France and Poland and noting that Poland now has its own army fighting under French supreme command, Paderewski turned to French Ambassador Jules Jusserand and said he did not speak for the Poles alone but for the Czechs, the Jugoslavs, and all oppressed nations that had ever found in France their surest friend. Jusserand in his address expressed the hope of all Frenchmen that at the war's end the "Marseillaise" would be heard again in Strasbourg, where it was composed and first sung. He noted the presence of the Russian ambassador, which he said was "a token that Russia is still alive, and we shall not forget her."<br />
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Mayor Mitchel Reviewing Troops with General Leonard Wood</div>
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Former Mayor Mitchel</div>
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John Purroy Mitchel was elected mayor of New York City in 1913 as a reform candidate on the Republican ticket. His term as mayor included a number of controversial reforms, drawing the enmity of many in the political establishment, including Tammany Hall. When war broke out in Europe he became a leader of the Preparedness movement, arguing for American support for the Allies and universal military training, and personally undergoing voluntary military training at the Plattsburg Military Training Camp in upstate New York (see the August 1915 installment of this blog). His controversial stands caught up with him last year when in his campaign for reelection he was narrowly defeated in the Republican primary. In the general election, running as an independent, he out-polled the Republican and Socialist candidates but lost decisively to Democrat John F. Hylan, Tammany Hall's candidate (see the October and November 1917 installments of this blog). When his term as mayor ended, he joined the Aviation Section of the Army Signal Corps and undertook flight training in San Diego and Lake Charles, Louisiana. On July 6, he was flying near Gerstner Field in Lake Charles when he was killed instantly after falling from his aircraft at an altitude of about 500 feet. It appears that his seat belt was unfastened. Mayor Mitchel's wife accompanied his body back to New York, where on July 11 a military funeral was held at St. Patrick's Cathedral after a procession from City Hall. Among the honorary pallbearers was former President Theodore Roosevelt.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_xqGBX7zpG0tEaJUDYkWWAnKVxxphsjW6CGsQb65BsCCHPVI9eDwW5czVh9NIalOs79uvQPGehyIQdEBUHhAmtgu8nx-mh6SUqIBr6jo9r0vlZRDn9QQS4_7zv9qPucZGtFp90pVedEc/s1600/Quentin_Roosevelt_in_Uniform_1917.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="307" data-original-width="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_xqGBX7zpG0tEaJUDYkWWAnKVxxphsjW6CGsQb65BsCCHPVI9eDwW5czVh9NIalOs79uvQPGehyIQdEBUHhAmtgu8nx-mh6SUqIBr6jo9r0vlZRDn9QQS4_7zv9qPucZGtFp90pVedEc/s1600/Quentin_Roosevelt_in_Uniform_1917.jpg" /></a></div>
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Quentin Roosevelt</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKzCsWaNseWI9tHn7oqwqBgInjjE81QnHp1NO4ZzVdPMXUcQBbRJvunrE6eiTYX7ki_9mnUt8Sg-qn1yYNEhpMVm4Y941-g76nmDr3E6N_dG-F9TRc3dbFm9147IRJof1beVGMmGyMdUM/s1600/Quentin_Roosevelt_in_Nieuport_trainer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="206" data-original-width="350" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKzCsWaNseWI9tHn7oqwqBgInjjE81QnHp1NO4ZzVdPMXUcQBbRJvunrE6eiTYX7ki_9mnUt8Sg-qn1yYNEhpMVm4Y941-g76nmDr3E6N_dG-F9TRc3dbFm9147IRJof1beVGMmGyMdUM/s400/Quentin_Roosevelt_in_Nieuport_trainer.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Lieutenant Roosevelt In His Nieuport</div>
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Less than a week after attending Mayor Mitchel's funeral, President Roosevelt was notified by General Pershing that his youngest son Quentin had been reported missing in action on July 14. Shortly it was confirmed that he had been shot down and killed near Chateau-Thierry while defending his squadron of Nieuports against an attack by the "Flying Circus," the German fighter squadron that was led before his recent death by Baron Manfred von Richthofen and was led that day by its new commander Lieutenant Hermann Goering. When he learned of his son's death, President Roosevelt issued a statement: "Quentin's mother and I are very glad that he got to the front and had a chance to render some service to his country and to show the stuff there was in him before his fate befell him."<br />
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<u>July 1918 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading</u><br />
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<u>Contemporary Periodicals</u>:</div>
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American Review of Reviews, August and September 1918</div>
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New York
Times, July and August 1918</div>
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<u>Books and Articles</u>:</div>
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A. Scott Berg, Wilson</div>
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Britain at War Magazine, The Fifth Year of the Great War: 1918<br />
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918 <br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography<br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and
Theodore Roosevelt </div>
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John Dos Passos, Mr. Wilson's War</div>
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David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922</div>
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Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life<br />
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History </div>
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Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933<br />
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume IV: The Stricken World 1916-1922</div>
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Ann Hagedorn, Savage Peace, Hope and Fear in America, 1919 </div>
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August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
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</div>
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Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography<br />
John Keegan, The First World War<br />
David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society<br />
Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 </div>
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Anthony Lewis, Make No Law, The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment </div>
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W. Bruce Lincoln, Passage Through Armageddon: The Russians In War and Revolution 1914-1918 </div>
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</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era,
1910-1917</div>
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Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra<br />
Robert K. Massie, The Romanovs: The Final Chapter </div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918</div>
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G.J. Meyer, The World Remade: America in World War I </div>
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Michael S. Neiberg, The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America</div>
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Patricia O'Toole, The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made </div>
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Edward J. Renehan, The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War </div>
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Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict</div>
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David Stevenson, Cataclysm: The First World War As Political Tragedy </div>
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David Stevenson, With Our Backs to the Wall: Victory and Defeat in 1918 </div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War<br />
Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931 </div>
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Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The West Point Atlas of War: World War I </div>
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</div>
</div>
Dennis Crosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05167348173555324839noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320526393914188899.post-43268258045132439912018-06-30T09:28:00.000-07:002018-06-30T14:46:46.967-07:00June 1918<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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It's June 1918. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Four years have passed since Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo, triggering the most destructive war the world has ever seen. This month, United States Marine Corps
and Army units expel the Germans from Belleau Wood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The German Army's spring offensive continues with an attack at the River Matz. Addressing the Reichstag in Berlin, Foreign Minister von Kuhlmann tells
the deputies they should not expect a victory by military effort alone, advice that angers the German military.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Italy, a two-pronged offensive by Austria-Hungary is turned back by Allied
forces led by the new Italian commander, General Armando Diaz.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">In the United States, Eugene V. Debs, the leader and three-time presidential nominee </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">of the Socialist Party,</span> delivers</span> a speech criticizing the war and the draft; a speech that leads to his arrest two weeks later for violating the Espionage and Sedition Acts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Supreme Court strikes down a federal law
banning interstate shipment of the products of child labor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Former Vice President
Charles W. Fairbanks dies at his home in Indianapolis.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM1ebEdbT2Gmg5DAxCt76amsyEtMlvR07CZCEzH_jQ364szzdJi00D38z6AX3fhACMCuoCH-DfuupucB8A0meSvLulDInjn8TAYg7-sbrjA_Pd2AZFFehm_wGOAbkb6I8UjjCrCDYOXpM/s1600/belleauwoodusmarines.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="329" data-original-width="486" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM1ebEdbT2Gmg5DAxCt76amsyEtMlvR07CZCEzH_jQ364szzdJi00D38z6AX3fhACMCuoCH-DfuupucB8A0meSvLulDInjn8TAYg7-sbrjA_Pd2AZFFehm_wGOAbkb6I8UjjCrCDYOXpM/s400/belleauwoodusmarines.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Marines Attacking in Belleau Wood</div>
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As the German Army pushed south in Operation Blucher-Yorck, they were halted at Chateau-Thierry at the end of May by French units reinforced by the American Third Division. Moving to the right, the Germans advanced through nearby Belleau Wood on June 3 in an attempt to reach the Marne and establish a bridgehead. When the American Second Division, which included the Fifth and Sixth Marine Regiments, arrived to halt the German advance, the French commander on the scene advised them to retreat and dig into stronger positions. An American officer replied "Retreat, hell! We just got here!" As the Germans emerged from the trees and across the adjacent grain fields on June 6, the Marine units halted their advance and launched a counterattack. Two weeks of bloody fighting later, the Marines had succeeded in driving the Germans from Belleau Wood and holding it against repeated counterattacks.<br />
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Elsewhere on the Western Front, the Germans began Operation "Gneisenau" on the river Matz with an artillery bombardment on June 9. Its objectives were to shorten the German lines by connecting the salients created by the Michael and Blucher-Yorck offensives, to draw Allied forces south from Flanders, and to occupy the road between Compiegne and Montdidier. The German attack advanced up to nine kilometers the first day, but French reinforcements were sped to the front, bridges across the River Oise were destroyed, and a French counterattack was mounted on June 11, stalling the German advance. None of the operation's objectives were achieved.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIk5R6yrNhXbVjNxW9hUtGQvwpvhgT9UuO5aITnR1aXLKkWCsucDkbbPQv6ba0bW08rgoiwN9zDqQqSpzxfKgf3wArMg68uEat632t2cCZdGjRPi2N0ijpvRu9gbWxYRXCzaWOM8f1rFA/s1600/Richard_von_K%25C3%25BChlmann.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="219" data-original-width="170" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIk5R6yrNhXbVjNxW9hUtGQvwpvhgT9UuO5aITnR1aXLKkWCsucDkbbPQv6ba0bW08rgoiwN9zDqQqSpzxfKgf3wArMg68uEat632t2cCZdGjRPi2N0ijpvRu9gbWxYRXCzaWOM8f1rFA/s320/Richard_von_K%25C3%25BChlmann.jpg" width="248" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Foreign Minister von Kuhlmann<br />
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German Foreign Secretary Richard von Kuhlmann addressed the Reichstag on June 24 on the occasion of the second reading of the budget for the Foreign Office and the Chancellorship. Reviewing the military situation and the prospects for peace, he told the deputies "the deeper we go into the causes of this war the clearer it becomes that the power which planned and desired the war was Russia; that France played the next worse role as instigator, and that England's policy has very dark pages to show." He said Germany's "roughly sketched [war] aims, the realization of which is absolutely vital and necessary for Germany," are to achieve "for the German people and our allies a free, strong, independent existence within the boundaries drawn for us by history, . . . overseas possessions corresponding to our greatness and wealth, . . . [and] the freedom of the sea, carrying our trade to all parts of the world." He added that "in view of the magnitude of this war and the number of powers, including those from overseas, that are engaged, its end can hardly be expected through purely military decisions alone and without recourse to diplomatic negotiations." He expressed the hope "that our enemies will perceive that in view of our resources the idea of victory for the Entente is a dream, an illusion, and that they will in due course find a way to approach us with peace offers which will correspond with the situation and satisfy Germany's vital needs."<br />
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German military leaders and the right-wing German press greeted von Kuhlmann's speech with contempt, denouncing the foreign minister for absolving England from principal responsibility for the war and for his apparent eagerness to negotiate a compromise settlement of the war. His assertion that an end to the war cannot be expected through "military decisions alone" is a particular focus of the military's anger, which may force his resignation.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtCrc_79Ia6v-G12HGiMHmzCXa-hMq5UmQLxVjwMmfl0VYYHfta247wM3SK6T8f-b3MkaWEuYvnlUl4YASNnBkmGqapgnZ6h34rF2Z_Z2V2lxWIQNQXIYn7F-Hrghpc_rpYCw7thORRmk/s1600/General_Armando_Diaz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="559" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtCrc_79Ia6v-G12HGiMHmzCXa-hMq5UmQLxVjwMmfl0VYYHfta247wM3SK6T8f-b3MkaWEuYvnlUl4YASNnBkmGqapgnZ6h34rF2Z_Z2V2lxWIQNQXIYn7F-Hrghpc_rpYCw7thORRmk/s400/General_Armando_Diaz.jpg" width="372" /></a></div>
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General Armando Diaz</div>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Like Germany, Austria-Hungary has been</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> freed by Russia’s
withdrawal from the war to concentrate its forces elsewhere. The closer alliance forged last month at Spa included a commitment by Emperor Charles to support the German offensive in France by attacking in Italy. The Italian Army, </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">supplemented by French and British reinforcements, is commanded by General</span> Armando Diaz, who replaced General Luigi Cadorna in the wake of the disastrous Italian defeat last fall in the Battle of Caporetto (see the October and November 1917 installments of this blog). On June 15 the Austrians mounted a two-pronged attack, one </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">from the mountains onto the Asiago
Plateau and another across the Piave
River. The attack from the mountains achieved an initial breakthrough, but the British units defending in that area were able to regain the lost ground by the next day. At the Piave the Italians, aided by excellent intelligence, blunted the force of the Austrian attack by an intensive artillery bombardment in the hours before the attack began. The Allies' successful defense in the mountains made it possible for Diaz to concentrate his reserves on the Piave, where their presence along with the swollen river and the Italians' success in destroying the bridges made it impossible for the Austrians to advance. On June 24 they withdrew.</span></span> Back in Vienna, political pressure on the Dual Monarchy
intensified as reduction of the bread ration led to strikes and riots demanding a speedy end to the war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFio_0Zsm6KMx7pAqvgH5iCB1C3TdfHizKwTxw_oQGMwo_oa1ehr-SWn4I4-wGtfl0ayw9PIJdymbFBuINFnnbPJSbmFpAdbUrv8YysQLafFxb4njK7kJ5mrg6mp9lpVRY_kaw5QkgvNA/s1600/Czech_Troops.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="353" data-original-width="700" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFio_0Zsm6KMx7pAqvgH5iCB1C3TdfHizKwTxw_oQGMwo_oa1ehr-SWn4I4-wGtfl0ayw9PIJdymbFBuINFnnbPJSbmFpAdbUrv8YysQLafFxb4njK7kJ5mrg6mp9lpVRY_kaw5QkgvNA/s400/Czech_Troops.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Czechoslovak Troops in Vladivostok</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga7iRcCFJEAJvqo_nZuJbdCQNbIprGmktWfjx8xnX2lbY8PCA2nEdXN0Yt2sDNMgpmwp-sXQwj_JTqfVAWir9k14lu0139q7CF8fSovrXT5cDR_A-WdBwoiuyLPkBhQynJo4RQYG3_BRk/s1600/Czech.pittsburghagreement.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="221" data-original-width="345" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga7iRcCFJEAJvqo_nZuJbdCQNbIprGmktWfjx8xnX2lbY8PCA2nEdXN0Yt2sDNMgpmwp-sXQwj_JTqfVAWir9k14lu0139q7CF8fSovrXT5cDR_A-WdBwoiuyLPkBhQynJo4RQYG3_BRk/s400/Czech.pittsburghagreement.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Masaryk Signs the Pittsburgh Agreement</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">On June 29, the Czech Legion reached and occupied Vladivostok, overthrowing the city's Bolshevik government. The next day </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, </span></span>the Czech leader Tomas Masaryk signed an agreement with members of the Czech and Slovak communities in which the signatories stated their intent to create an independent Czechoslovak state in which </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Slovaks </span></span>are to have an autonomous administration, their own law courts, and recognition of Slovak as their official language. In London on June 29, an article by former Russian Premier Alexander Kerensky was published</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> in the National News. He wrote</span></span> "Russia is not beaten, . . . although temporarily her powers are paralyzed by what has happened," and insisted that "the nation will never accept Germany's terms, and the people will repudiate the treaty of Brest-Litovsk." Kerensky then traveled to Paris, where he conferred at length with the Russian ambassador. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Meanwhile, former Tsar Nicholas II remains imprisoned </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">with his family </span></span> in Yekaterinburg. Repeated rumors that he has been assassinated following a trial by a revolutionary tribunal have been denied by the Russian ambassador in Berlin based on information received from the Soviet government in Moscow. Nicholas and his family are reported to be in good health.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkFUq7QkGbnSi-5YkZTvue3ALgsMU_Zb-zMqRFat3Ap6HRGhAf6VyBlYNmlzUKh6sh49LyfFwt7jcxdhg_3PLerZX-C8u5DbhDDHEfeajYD68Cx7SfKAlgzI6ZWGBGJ3C7F2PntcG_6nI/s1600/debsincantonohio.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="550" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkFUq7QkGbnSi-5YkZTvue3ALgsMU_Zb-zMqRFat3Ap6HRGhAf6VyBlYNmlzUKh6sh49LyfFwt7jcxdhg_3PLerZX-C8u5DbhDDHEfeajYD68Cx7SfKAlgzI6ZWGBGJ3C7F2PntcG_6nI/s400/debsincantonohio.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Debs Speaking in Canton, Ohio</div>
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Eugene V. Debs, the presidential candidate of the Socialist Party in 1904, 1908 and 1912, was arrested on June 30 on his way to a meeting of the Ohio State Socialist Council in Cleveland. In an indictment handed down the day before, Debs was charged with violation of the Espionage Act, a statute originally enacted last year and strengthened last month by the Sedition Act. The charges are based on a speech Debs delivered on June 16 in Canton during the Socialist Party's state convention in which he charged that the Allies are in the war for the same reason as the Central Powers -- plunder -- and that Americans are fit for something better than cannon fodder. The indictment charges Debs with ten specific violations of the Act, including making false statements with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the armed forces; attempting to obstruct recruiting or enlistment; and uttering disloyal language about the country's form of government, language intended to bring the flag or the uniform of the armed services into contempt or disrepute, and language intended to promote the cause of the nation's enemies.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjggqtiikzTVk-07t5DK7upxRD4lnS7JKko5KelMNL6bWxTMUxHH6E73gYbMDlGuMlBenKKFFMKrhPyVl3xcRhp4-45oJOWGIMEYNvB2YQ4m1gCKflBVsVSW4Ejf4srEX8KSgpOtA887Fk/s1600/childlabor1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="310" data-original-width="435" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjggqtiikzTVk-07t5DK7upxRD4lnS7JKko5KelMNL6bWxTMUxHH6E73gYbMDlGuMlBenKKFFMKrhPyVl3xcRhp4-45oJOWGIMEYNvB2YQ4m1gCKflBVsVSW4Ejf4srEX8KSgpOtA887Fk/s400/childlabor1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Children At Work</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVq9X9xd_PpYIeK94dk2Njv_Nrfsit4mIvI24qSHzNYQBcSrLa0OE49Ie10mMojU0N01ogU_P4CXOLqeZm3a_FyT9N9A6qASxl_yeHuNxluLavGg4JkKWT_2Edbr3WxdzDpgq3PLNfnZo/s1600/supreme-court-1918.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="508" data-original-width="675" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVq9X9xd_PpYIeK94dk2Njv_Nrfsit4mIvI24qSHzNYQBcSrLa0OE49Ie10mMojU0N01ogU_P4CXOLqeZm3a_FyT9N9A6qASxl_yeHuNxluLavGg4JkKWT_2Edbr3WxdzDpgq3PLNfnZo/s400/supreme-court-1918.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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The Supreme Court</div>
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Among the issues important to the progressive movement of the last several years has been federal regulation of child labor. National regulation is considered necessary because states that enact prohibitions or restrictions on child labor place themselves at a competitive disadvantage. In 1916 Congress passed by substantial majorities, and President Wilson signed, the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act, named for its sponsors, Representative Edward Keating (Dem., Colo.) and Senator Robert Owen (Dem., Okla.). The law barred goods produced by factories employing children under fourteen years of age from interstate commerce. The law was challenged by the father of boys employed by a cotton mill in North Carolina. On June 3, in Hammer v. Dagenhart, the Supreme Court handed down its decision, ruling 5-4 that Congress had exceeded its powers under the Commerce Clause. Justice William Rufus Day, writing for the Court, held that to uphold the statute would be to "sanction an invasion by the Federal power for the control of a matter purely local in its character, and over which no authority has been delegated to Congress in conferring the power to regulate commerce among the states." He distinguished between manufacture and commerce, writing that if "the mere manufacture or mining were part of interstate commerce, all manufacture intended for interstate shipment would be brought under Federal control to the practical exclusion of the authority of the States, a result certainly not contemplated by the framers of the Constitution." Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, writing for the dissenting justices, expressed surprise that the question of federal supremacy should even be an issue. Citing previous cases in which the Supreme Court had upheld the right of Congress to override state laws in the general interest of the nation, he accused the majority of allowing its personal judgment on questions of policy and morals to control over sound constitutional analysis. Even so, he wrote, "I should have thought that if we were to introduce our own moral conceptions where, in my opinion, they do not belong, this was preeminently a case for upholding the exercise of all its powers by the United States."</div>
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Charles W. Fairbanks</div>
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There is no provision in the Constitution for replacing a vice president who succeeds to the presidency. After Theodore Roosevelt became president following President McKinley's assassination in September 1901, therefore, the nation had no vice president. If the office of president had become vacant between then and the beginning of the next presidential term in March 1905, Secretary of State John Hay would have become president. In 1904 the Republican convention nominated Roosevelt by acclamation for a full term and chose Senator Charles W. Fairbanks of Indiana, also by acclamation, as his running mate. The Roosevelt-Fairbanks ticket won in a landslide that November. Fairbanks's term as vice president ended with Roosevelt's term in 1909. In 1916 he was nominated again, this time as Charles Evans Hughes's running mate. After Hughes's narrow defeat, Fairbanks left public life and returned to his home in Indianapolis. He died there on June 4.</div>
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<u>June 1918 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading</u><br />
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<u>Contemporary Periodicals</u>:</div>
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American Review of Reviews, July and August 1918</div>
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New York
Times, June and July 1918</div>
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<u>Books and Articles</u>:</div>
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A. Scott Berg, Wilson</div>
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Britain at War Magazine, The Fifth Year of the Great War: 1918<br />
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918 <br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography<br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and
Theodore Roosevelt </div>
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John Dos Passos, Mr. Wilson's War</div>
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David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922</div>
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Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life<br />
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History </div>
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Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933<br />
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume IV: The Stricken World 1916-1922</div>
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Ann Hagedorn, Savage Peace, Hope and Fear in America, 1919 </div>
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August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
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Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House</div>
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Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography<br />
John Keegan, The First World War<br />
David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society<br />
Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 </div>
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Anthony Lewis, Make No Law, The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment </div>
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W. Bruce Lincoln, Passage Through Armageddon: The Russians In War and Revolution 1914-1918 </div>
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Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era,
1910-1917</div>
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Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra</div>
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G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918</div>
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G.J. Meyer, The World Remade: America in World War I </div>
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Michael S. Neiberg, The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America</div>
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Patricia O'Toole, The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made </div>
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Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict</div>
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David Stevenson, Cataclysm: The First World War As Political Tragedy </div>
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David Stevenson, With Our Backs to the Wall: Victory and Defeat in 1918 </div>
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J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War<br />
Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931 </div>
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Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History</div>
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The West Point Atlas of War: World War I </div>
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Dennis Crosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05167348173555324839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320526393914188899.post-82320480280909461082018-05-31T10:27:00.000-07:002018-05-31T19:50:50.265-07:00May 1918<div style="text-align: left;">
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In May 1918, the Central Powers claim a victory over another of their Eastern Front enemies when they sign the Treaty
of Bucharest with Romania.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Czech Legion, trying to reach Vladivostok on the Trans-Siberian Railway, comes into open conflict with the Bolsheviks. In a conference at Spa, Kaiser Wilhelm and Emperor Charles
of Austria-Hungary agree to a long-term alliance, economic agreements, and a common high
command.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> On the Western Front, </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">the German Army mounts its third major offensive in as many months, attacking the Allied lines on the Chemin des Dames and advancing to the Marne, where the American Army's Third Division helps halt
the German advance at Chateau-Thierry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Americans conduct their first offensive operation of the war at Cantigny</span>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>
In Great Britain, the House of Commons
defeats a motion by former Prime Minister Asquith to conduct a parliamentary
inquiry into charges made against the government in a letter from a British
general.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>RMS Moldavia, a British
transport carrying American soldiers, is torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat
in the English Channel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Royal Navy tries again to block U-Boat access to the sea at Ostend, this time with more success. The United States Congress enacts the Sedition Act, forbidding
the use of disloyal or abusive language about the government in time of war,
and the Overman Act, giving the President broad authority to reorganize federal
agencies by executive action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Declaring
that “politics is adjourned,” President Wilson urges Congress to
stay in session through the campaign season.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Air mail service begins between New York City
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Signing the Treaty of Bucharest</div>
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Romania declared war on Austria-Hungary on August 27, 1916, and invaded Hungary the next day. It enjoyed some initial success advancing through the Carpathian passes, but within days Germany declared war and Bulgaria invaded from the south. By October the German Army had gained the upper hand, and by December it had occupied Bucharest (see the August, September, October and December 1916 installments of this blog). With Russian assistance, Romania was able to remain in control of much of the country including the mouth of the Danube, but last year's Bolshevik Revolution and Russia's exit from the war earlier this year has forced Romania to agree to terms largely dictated by the Central Powers. Under the terms of the Treaty of Bucharest, signed May 7, the Romanian Army is to be demobilized except for skeleton forces on the frontiers of Bessarabia and Moldavia. The provinces of Southern and Northern Dobrudja are to be separated from Romania, the former to be restored to Bulgaria and the latter to be occupied by the Central Powers. Territorial disputes between Romania and Austria-Hungary, including the Carpathian passes, are resolved in Austria-Hungary's favor. The treaty provides for free navigation of the Danube, including by warships of the Central Powers.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEDjKvm2sX23G6TkJDS7JxgjiKLuYZxAyQmMd3ttbbhv40t2MBSr3ASMd-121kC42tyla7toHdUtMdbrKxWMJ_ZVOsQi3uPELpN36Eor50_qEgir2hgZkQOi_taBQUDoxPsEDPGh2Dxj8/s1600/czechlegion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="383" data-original-width="560" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEDjKvm2sX23G6TkJDS7JxgjiKLuYZxAyQmMd3ttbbhv40t2MBSr3ASMd-121kC42tyla7toHdUtMdbrKxWMJ_ZVOsQi3uPELpN36Eor50_qEgir2hgZkQOi_taBQUDoxPsEDPGh2Dxj8/s400/czechlegion.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Czechoslovak Soldiers on a Troop Train in Siberia</div>
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As the Czech Legion struggles to reach the Pacific Coast of Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railway, it has been hindered by the limited capacity and poor condition of the tracks, with traffic congestion made worse by German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners heading west on the same tracks to be repatriated. On May 14 a confrontation at Chelyabinsk led to the storming of the railway station and occupation of the city by the Czech Legion. From there the Legion is moving east, overthrowing local Bolshevik governments and occupying key points along the railway.</div>
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General Petain</div>
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Continuing his push to win the war in the west while Germany still has a manpower advantage, General Ludendorff attacked the Allied positions on the Chemin des Dames. Beginning with a 4,000-gun artillery barrage in the early morning hours of May 27, Operation
“Blucher-Yorck” pushed the Allied forces back fifteen miles by the end of the following day. By May 29 the German Army had crossed the Aisne and Vesle Rivers and captured the railway center of Soissons, though not before the French had destroyed an important railway tunnel leading into the city. By May 30 Ludendorff's army had reached the Marne River at Chateau-Thierry, where French forces under the command of General Philippe Petain, with the help of the American Third Division, have so far succeeded in stalling the German advance.<br />
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On May 12, Kaiser Wilhelm hosted a conference at his Spa headquarters with Emperor Charles of Austria-Hungary. The emperors agreed on a long-term alliance including economic coordination and a military convention establishing a common high command and standardization of uniforms and weapons. Charles agreed to an early offensive in Italy timed to support the German campaign in France. A military and customs union of the two nations is contemplated, but the political chaos in Austria makes that impractical at present. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmCh5NHmDpXe8iPMf_U0Q83ziWZjBT-tPviwEZezU7DfudU7Y5whqezkCqiR5pnSjwL-OTKVd3zcgy0F-oVqKmVaV7ha_pOm4pax-FRygPB7EIHj4ydUlDTTqUfxRnlaE10sqwuQs4-jg/s1600/CantignyOvertheTop-e1519837047821.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="732" data-original-width="1500" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmCh5NHmDpXe8iPMf_U0Q83ziWZjBT-tPviwEZezU7DfudU7Y5whqezkCqiR5pnSjwL-OTKVd3zcgy0F-oVqKmVaV7ha_pOm4pax-FRygPB7EIHj4ydUlDTTqUfxRnlaE10sqwuQs4-jg/s400/CantignyOvertheTop-e1519837047821.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
American Soldiers Going Over the Top at Cantigny</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">While Operation Blucher-Yorck was unfolding on the Chemin des Dames, the American Army mounted its first major offensive action on the
salient created in March by Germany's Operation Michael. The village of Cantigny, strategically located on high ground on the western edge of the salient, provides a commanding view of the surrounding countryside. Units of the First Division attacked in the early morning hours of May 29 after a two-hour artillery barrage. Before the day was over they had driven the Germans from the village, and over the next two days successfully defended it against numerous German counterattacks. </span><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
General Wood</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Major General Leonard Wood is a medical doctor and career Army officer who served as Army Chief of Staff from 1910 to 1914. In the Spanish-American War he was the officer in command of the First Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, nicknamed the "Rough Riders," which attacked and occupied Kettle and San Juan Hills. Theodore Roosevelt was his second in command and rode his resulting fame to the presidency. After the outbreak of war in Europe, General Wood was a leader of the "preparedness" movement in the United State</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">s, which President Wilson resisted until political pressure forced him to endorse it in 1916</span>. After the declaration of war on Germany, General Wood was a leading candidate to command the American Expeditionary Force, but was passed over in favor of General Pershing. </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">The highest ranking officer of permanent grade in the regular Army, General Wood</span> commanded the 89th Division at Camp Funston as it trained for deployment to Europe, and in preparation for that deployment undertook a military mission to Europe to observe and inspect military operations on the Western Front</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">. On the eve of his division's planned departure, however, he received new orders to assume command of the Western Military Department in San Francisco, a purely administrative office that does not include command of any troops. His personal appeal to President Wilson</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> on May 28 </span>was unavailing. Many believe that political considerations, including General Wood's close relationship with former President Roosevelt and his prominent identification with the preparedness movement, played a part in the decision to deny him a combat command.</span><br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Major Lufbery</span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">The foremost American "ace" died in action this month. Raoul Lufbery was born in France, immigrated to the United States, and joined the United States Army. After his Army service, he returned to France, and </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">when war broke out he </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">joined the French Air Force</span></span>. When the United States declared war, he joined the United States Army Air Service, received a major's commission, and was given command of the 94th Aero Squadron. On May 19, flying a French Nieuport, he was shot down and killed in an aerial fight with a large, heavily armored German biplane over the Moselle River. Called a "flying tank," the two-engine German aircraft was manned by two machine gunners in addition to the pilot. Apparently impervious to bullets fired by the Americans, it was </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">attacked without success by six American planes in addition to Lufbery's. </span></span></span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Since the beginning of the war, i</span></span>ncluding his service with the French Air Force,</span></span> Major Lufbery is credited with seventeen victories over enemy aircraft.</span></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> General Maurice at the Allied Conference in Paris Last Year</span></div>
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In Great Britain, the Lloyd George government has survived a serious cabinet crisis. On May 6, Major General Sir Frederick Barton Maurice, until recently Director of British Military Operations, sent a letter to the editor of the Daily Chronicle in which he challenged the accuracy of several answers given in the House of Commons by Prime Minister Lloyd George and Chancellor of the Exchequer Bonar Law to questions about British Army troop levels in France and the Near East. He said his letter "is not the result of a military conspiracy. . . . the last thing I desire is to see the government of our country in the hands of soldiers," and he asked that it be published "in the hope that Parliament may see fit to order an investigation." In the House of Commons, former Prime Minister Herbert Asquith moved for the appointment of a special committee to inquire into General Maurice's statements. The government replied that Asquith's motion would be regarded as one of censure, requiring the government to resign. In presenting his motion on May 9, Asquith denied that he was seeking censure of the government. He pointed out that in the almost eighteen months since he had left office he had "given no adverse vote on any question against the government," and that if he wanted to ask the House to censure the government "I hope I should have the courage and candor to do so in a direct and unequivocal manner." In a fiery response, Lloyd George insisted that the credibility of the government was at stake and insisted that General Maurice and his office were the source of any misinformation. Apparently unwilling to undermine the government at a critical point in the war, the House defeated Asquith's motion 293-106, a margin made more comfortable by the decision of Conservative backbenchers to support the government and of Irish Nationalist members, who would likely have supported the motion, to stay in Dublin.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
RMS Moldavia</div>
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RMS Moldavia, a British troopship carrying American soldiers en route to France, was torpedoed and sunk in the English Channel on May 23. The ship was in convoy, and nearby destroyers were able to rescue most of those on board, but fifty-three lives were lost.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
HMS Vindictive Scuttled in Ostend Harbor</div>
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Last month's attempt by the Royal Navy to block U-Boat access to the English Channel and the North Sea at Ostend failed because the buoys marking the approach to the harbor had been moved, causing the blocking ships to run aground before reaching their destination. Another attempt was made on May 9 using two obsolete cruisers, HMS Sappho and HMS Vindictive, the latter a veteran of last month's raid on Zeebrugge, as blocking ships. This time the attacking force ignored the buoys, using the land for navigation. Despite a boiler explosion that forced Sappho to retreat to Denmark and artillery fire that destroyed Vindictive's bridge and killed her commanding officer, Vindictive was able to reach the harbor entrance where she was scuttled, blocking access to the sea for all but small boats.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Uncle Sam's New Powers</div>
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On May 16 President Wilson signed a "sedition bill" strengthening last year's Espionage Act (see the June 1917 installment of this blog). Among other things, the new legislation imposes severe criminal penalties for the use of "any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, contemptuous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States, or the flag of the United States, or the uniform of the Army or Navy of the United States, or any language intended to bring [any of those] into contempt, scorn, contumely, or disrepute." The new legislation passed the Senate on May 4 by a vote of 48-26 over the objection of a number of Republicans led by Henry Cabot Lodge who argued that it violated the Constitution's guarantee of free speech. It had easier going in the House, where it was approved on May 7 with only one member, Socialist Meyer London of New York, voting no. <br />
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Shortly after Senator George Chamberlain (Dem., Ore.) introduced legislation to create a "war cabinet" and a new cabinet position of Director of Munitions, President Wilson announced his strong opposition to that proposal and supported instead legislation introduced by Senator Lee Overman (Dem., N.C.) giving the President broad powers to reorganize the Executive Department by executive order. (See the February 1918 installment of this blog). The Overman Act became law on May 20.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Representative Kitchin</div>
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President Wilson made a surprise visit to Capitol Hill on May 27 to address a joint session of Congress. He urged new tax legislation to raise additional revenue for the war effort, focusing on war profits, incomes and luxuries as the principal targets. He said that taxation was preferable to borrowing to finance the war, and that the request was particularly urgent because he had just been informed that "the expected drive on the western front" had begun. "The consideration that dominates every other," he said, "is the winning of the war." He told the Congress it should remain in session through the summer and fall, rejecting the suggestion of some that revenue legislation should be postponed until after the November elections. He said "politics is adjourned. The elections will go to those who think least of it, to those who go to the constituencies without explanations or excuses, with a plain record of duty faithfully and disinterestedly performed." After the President's appearance, Representative Claude Kitchin (Dem., N.C.), the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said he would convene the Committee within the next few days. "The commander in chief has spoken," he said. "It is our plain duty to do as he asks."<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Taking Off From Washington</div>
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The first regular airplane mail service was inaugurated on May 15 between New York and Washington, D.C. Simultaneous flights in both directions were scheduled by the U.S. Army using Curtis "Jenny" biplanes. Lieutenant Torrey Webb departed Belmont Park, on Long Island just outside New York City, at 11:30 a.m with 144 pounds of mail. He arrived at 12:30 in Philadelphia, where he relayed the mail to Lieutenant J.C. Edgerton, who flew it to Washington, landing at the Polo Grounds in Potomac Park at 2:50 p.m. The flight in the other direction was less successful. Lieutenant George Boyle got lost after taking off from Potomac Park and crash landed in Maryland, twenty-five miles from Washington. The plane waiting for him in Philadelphia, piloted by Lieutenant Howard Culver, departed on schedule without the mail from Washington. It arrived at 3:37 at Belmont Park, where the mail was transferred to a special train that delivered it at 4:12 to the main Post Office at 33rd Street and Eighth Avenue.<br />
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With less fanfare the next day, the New York to Washington mail
flight took off from Belmont Park and headed toward Philadelphia. This
time it encountered fog that forced an emergency landing at the old
Bridgeton race track in New Jersey. The mail was picked up by a motor
truck and carried to the nearest railroad.<br />
<br />
The Post Office has announced that the Washington-New York air route
will be in operation every day except Sundays and when weather
conditions make flying dangerous. The 24-cent postage includes special
delivery after the letter's arrival in the destination city. <br />
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*****</div>
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<u>May 1918 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading</u><br />
<br />
<u>Contemporary Periodicals</u>:</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
American Review of Reviews, June and July 1918</div>
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New York
Times, May and June 1918</div>
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<u>Books and Articles</u>:</div>
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A. Scott Berg, Wilson</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Britain at War Magazine, The Fifth Year of the Great War: 1918<br />
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918 <br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography<br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and
Theodore Roosevelt </div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
John Dos Passos, Mr. Wilson's War</div>
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</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life<br />
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933<br />
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume IV: The Stricken World 1916-1922</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ann Hagedorn, Savage Peace, Hope and Fear in America, 1919 </div>
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</div>
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</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography<br />
John Keegan, The First World War<br />
David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society<br />
Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Anthony Lewis, Make No Law, The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
W. Bruce Lincoln, Passage Through Armageddon: The Russians In War and Revolution 1914-1918 </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era,
1910-1917</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
G.J. Meyer, The World Remade: America in World War I </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Michael S. Neiberg, The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
David Stevenson, Cataclysm: The First World War As Political Tragedy </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
David Stevenson, With Our Backs to the Wall: Victory and Defeat in 1918 </div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War<br />
Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931 </div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The West Point Atlas of War: World War I </div>
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Dennis Crosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05167348173555324839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320526393914188899.post-45553131152588422272018-04-30T13:21:00.002-07:002018-04-30T13:21:59.681-07:00April 1918<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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In April 1918, Germany
renews its offensive on the Western Front, attacking this time in Flanders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As German forces advance to and across the Lys River,
British Field Marshal Haig orders his troops, with their "backs to the wall," to “fight to the
end.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Marshal Foch is given command authority
over all Allied Armies on the Western Front.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>American troops turn back a German attack at the village of Seicheprey,
near St. Mihiel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The “Red Baron” Manfred von Richthofen, Germany’s
leading ace and commander of the “Flying Circus,” dies when his airplane is
shot down over France.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gavrilo Princip, the Bosnian Serb whose assassination of Archduke Franz
Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo in 1914 set in motion the events that led to the outbreak of war, dies of
consumption in an Austrian prison.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Revelation of an earlier unsuccessful attempt by the Emperor of Austria-Hungary to make a separate peace leads to the resignation of his Foreign Minister, Count Czernin.
</span>American President Woodrow Wilson, opening the Third Liberty Loan Campaign in Baltimore, calls for “force
to the utmost” to win the war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>British and Japanese
marines land in Vladivostok.</div>
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Operation Georgette</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Still attempting to capitalize on its temporary
manpower advantage, Germany
mounted another offensive this month on the Western Front. Originally named Georg and envisioned as a major operation to capture the railway junctions of Ypres and Hazebrouck and drive the British Army to the channel coast, it was scaled back (and renamed "Georgette") in the wake of Operation Michael.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> The initial German attack on April 9 succeeded in routing the Portuguese Army on the sector of the front defending Estaires. By the next day the Germans had captured Estaires and established a bridgehead across the River Lys. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Continuing the Georgette offensive, the Germans attacked to the northwest, </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">capturing Armentieres, </span>Ploegsteert Wood and most of Messines Ridge, and threatening the railway junctions of Ypres and Hazebrouck. As his armies were forced to retreat, British Field Marshal Haig told his troops on April 11 that “every position must be held to the
last man …. With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our
cause, each one of us must fight to the end.” </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Allied
resistance stiffened, aided by French reinforcements and a
breakdown in German discipline caused in part by looting opportunities. T</span>he German attack, initially directed toward Hazebrouck, shifted its focus to the Flanders Hills, where the Germans captured Mount Kemmel on April 25. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">They failed to follow up, however, and by </span>month's end Operation Georgette had lost its momentum. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Marshal Foch</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Last month in a conference at Doullens, the British and French agreed to give Marshal Ferdinand Foch coordinating authority over military operations on the Western Front. On April 3, in a conference at Beauvais, the British and French, joined this time by American General Tasker Bliss, went a step further, agreeing to give Marshal Foch actual command authority with the title "General-in-Chief of the Allied Armies." </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> The St. Mihiel Salient and Seicheprey</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">The American Army fought its first battle on April 20 at the village of Seicheprey, on the southern edge of the St. Mihiel salient. Until then this had been a relatively quiet sector of the front,</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> defended by the 26th Infantry Division, the "Yankee" Division, made up of National Guard units from New England</span></span></span>. German Storm Troopers mounted a surprise attack in the early hours of the morning, driving the Americans from the village. After a day of fierce hand-to-hand fighting in which the Americans suffered heavy casualties, the Germans withdrew from the village to their original lines, either forced to retreat by the Americans' vigorous defense or satisfied with having conducted a successful raid. The village was left in ruins.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Baron Manfred von Richthofen</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">The Red Baron's Last Flight</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Baron Manfred von Richthofen, the "Red Baron," was shot down and killed this month over the Somme. He took off </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">on Sunday morning, April 21,</span></span></span> to engage a squadron of Sopwith Camels on an offensive patrol. He was pursuing one of them, piloted by Lieutenant Wilfred "Wop" May, </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">at a low altitude </span></span></span>when another Camel, this one piloted by Captain Arthur "Roy" Brown, dove on him and fired a machine gun burst. Richthofen crash landed, and was dead when rescuers reached him and pulled him from his cockpit. He had been shot in the chest, possibly by Captain Brown and possibly by ground fire. Baron Richthofen was the commander of the German squadron called the "Flying Circus" because of its brightly colored aircraft (Richthofen's, of course, was red). He succeeded to the command of the squadron when the previous commander Oswald Boelke died in combat in 1916. Boelke developed many of the tactics later used by Richthofen.</span></span></span><br />
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The Entrance to Zeebrugge Harbor After the Raid</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">On St. George's Day, April 23, the Royal Navy conducted simultaneous raids on the Belgian ports of Zeebrugge and Ostend. The purpose of the raids was to block access to the North Sea from the Bruges Canal, the principal route of German destroyers, torpedo boats and U-boats to the open sea. At Zeebrugge, under cover of a smoke screen, the cruiser HMS Vindictive landed an assault force on the mole protecting the harbor while two obsolete submarines filled with explosives aimed for the viaduct connecting the mole to the shore. One of the submarines reached its objective and blew up the viaduct as the assault force attacked the guns on the mole. The main object of the operation, meanwhile, was carried out by three obsolete cruisers filled with cement. As they raced toward the canal entrance, one ran aground but the other two made it into the canal entrance and were scuttled by their crews, who escaped in dinghies. The raid succeeded in impeding traffic through the canal for a few days, but the Germans were able to dredge a new channel that enabled passage around the sunken ships at high tide. Unlike the Zeebrugge raid, which was a partial success, the raid on Ostend was a failure. The German commander, anticipating a possible nighttime attack, had moved the buoys marking the approach to the harbor, causing the cement-filled cruisers to run aground before they reached their objective.</span></span></span></div>
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Gavrilo Princip On His Way to Court in 1914</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Gavrilo Princip was the Bosnian Serb who shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, the event that triggered the Great War. (See the June 1914 installment of this blog.) Because he was only nineteen years old at the time of the assassination, he could not be sentenced to death under Austrian law. He was sentenced instead to a twenty-year prison term, and on April 28 he died of tuberculosis</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> in a prison hospital in Theresienstadt.</span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjglY4DJNEw2tmtBC-qEHUVmJm1Qx50uuFtFpcLDEl79j4qflsFEAsdbi_FqdlMzDK-80LErDSyz2GgaT4n472-9ZV-EAnmucIae8uQcnj1Df6yCL6yvKWGYahkMnLU3FsJrrX0k9_-CQg/s1600/Charles_I_of_Austria.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1150" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjglY4DJNEw2tmtBC-qEHUVmJm1Qx50uuFtFpcLDEl79j4qflsFEAsdbi_FqdlMzDK-80LErDSyz2GgaT4n472-9ZV-EAnmucIae8uQcnj1Df6yCL6yvKWGYahkMnLU3FsJrrX0k9_-CQg/s400/Charles_I_of_Austria.jpg" width="286" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Emperor Charles I</span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGrN0YwTWpKHkBcxmV3T4e96az_5Z9iMSBaewQ_p4Lyg_d_uGXZ2p1eC4N7eXZ5t_ggvGPxCvEuDEEHW_fMmYvvm6VRkgChSOSubvIvLfAUFFYKEuaml-_aqhFIz3WZTYPNXsg0ERhNr0/s1600/Czernin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="349" data-original-width="220" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGrN0YwTWpKHkBcxmV3T4e96az_5Z9iMSBaewQ_p4Lyg_d_uGXZ2p1eC4N7eXZ5t_ggvGPxCvEuDEEHW_fMmYvvm6VRkgChSOSubvIvLfAUFFYKEuaml-_aqhFIz3WZTYPNXsg0ERhNr0/s400/Czernin.jpg" width="251" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Count Czernin</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Archduke Franz Ferdinand's assassination left his nephew Charles next in line for the Austro-Hungarian throne, and Charles became emperor when his grandfather Franz Joseph died in November 1916. Shortly thereafter, Charles began efforts to bring the war to an end. Using his brother-in-law Prince Sixtus of Bourbon-Parma as an intermediary, he sent a secret letter to Premier Clemenceau of France proposing peace terms favorable to France and acceptable to Austria-Hungary but unlikely to find favor with Austria's principal ally Germany. The peace initiative, in which Austrian Foreign Minister Count Czernin was involved, went nowhere. Over a year later, in the midst of mutual charges between Austria-Hungary and France regarding responsibility for the continuation of the war, Clemenceau released the letter. The ensuing political crisis led to Count Czernin's resignation on April 14.</span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLIHQtQx3C-ioamh-b34jV8M9u2Mtf3y2wRHjuK9GwWcHf3OuwWmG0jjZlwF87YHU9GTqzueUM9luCY6TP44iHA8cZsFlPHBEOmYhShQtPT2800X8UrDXrAJfc12LGdv2pP6FWpriRqhw/s1600/douglasfairbankscharliechaplinlibertyloancampaign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="989" data-original-width="1280" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLIHQtQx3C-ioamh-b34jV8M9u2Mtf3y2wRHjuK9GwWcHf3OuwWmG0jjZlwF87YHU9GTqzueUM9luCY6TP44iHA8cZsFlPHBEOmYhShQtPT2800X8UrDXrAJfc12LGdv2pP6FWpriRqhw/s400/douglasfairbankscharliechaplinlibertyloancampaign.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Douglas Fairbanks Holds Charlie Chaplin Aloft on Wall Street</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">On Saturday, April 6, the anniversary of America's declaration of war on Germany, </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">the Third Liberty Loan Campaign began</span></span></span>. In Baltimore, President and Mrs. Wilson joined Cardinal Gibbons and others in reviewing a parade of 12,000 troops from the 79th Division of the National Army, which had marched downtown from Camp Meade</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">. The President and his party joined in the cheering that greeted several regiments of Negro soldiers as they came into view led by a Negro band. As it reached the reviewing stand, the band took up a position directly in front of the President and played "Over There" and other military and popular airs. That evening the President </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">addressed a</span></span></span> crowd of 15,000 inside the Fifth Regiment Armory. He ended his speech by declaring that America accepts Germany's challenge of force, to which there is "but one response possible from us: Force, force to the utmost, force without stint or limit, the righteous and triumphant force which shall make right the law of the world and cast every selfish dominion down in the dust."</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">On the next business day, </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">April 8, </span></span></span>hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers attended Liberty Loan meetings and demonstrations throughout the city. The biggest was on Wall Street, where motion picture stars Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin entertained a massive crowd from the steps of the Sub-Treasury Building. </span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmaTijlE6bPqNXlZuPI1NTxjlA6GlqUJQh492Z8gWaVO3CVpRcb_wG-AUasimYIkrHsouDCTmFD6ucCrQVwm01LUsdLaMF9_KW74UmSP8aMAW3g7sS-JQGXQVQnNaL3lmfuN-4VWmBTMg/s1600/japaneseinvladivostok1918.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="372" data-original-width="605" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmaTijlE6bPqNXlZuPI1NTxjlA6GlqUJQh492Z8gWaVO3CVpRcb_wG-AUasimYIkrHsouDCTmFD6ucCrQVwm01LUsdLaMF9_KW74UmSP8aMAW3g7sS-JQGXQVQnNaL3lmfuN-4VWmBTMg/s400/japaneseinvladivostok1918.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Japanese Troops in Vladivostok</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">The withdrawal of Russia from the war has stranded the Czech Legion, a force of approximately 100,000 men who joined the Russians to fight the Austro-Hungarians and advance the cause of Czech independence. An agreement by the Bolshevik government to allow safe passage of the Czech Legion out of the country has broken down, and </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">the Legion is fighting its way across the Trans-Siberian Railway to Russia's Pacific coast</span></span></span>. To secure the eastern terminus of the railway and to safeguard Allied supplies stockpiled there, British and Japanese troops landed in Vladivostok on April 5. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Japanese
detachments of three to ten men are now patrolling the Japanese section of
the city, and tents have been erected at the end of the Chinese street
and in the churchyard of the Japanese church. </span></span></span>When the Vladivostok Council of Soldiers' and Workmen's Delegates protested to the Consular Corps, the American and British Consuls consented to receive them as representatives of the Council, but the Japanese Consul agreed to deal with them only as private persons and the French Consul refused to see them at all. Meanwhile, the presence of the potentially hostile Czech Legion in central Russia has caused the Bolshevik government to remove the former Tsar Nicholas II and the rest of the imperial family from Tobolsk, where they have been imprisoned since last year, to the city of Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">*****</span></span></span></div>
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<u>April 1918 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading</u><br />
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<u>Contemporary Periodicals</u>:</div>
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American Review of Reviews, May and June 1918</div>
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New York
Times, April and May 1918</div>
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<u>Books and Articles</u>:</div>
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A. Scott Berg, Wilson</div>
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Britain at War Magazine, The Fifth Year of the Great War: 1918<br />
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918 <br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography<br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and
Theodore Roosevelt </div>
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John Dos Passos, Mr. Wilson's War</div>
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David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922</div>
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Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life<br />
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History </div>
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Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933<br />
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume IV: The Stricken World 1916-1922</div>
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Ann Hagedorn, Savage Peace, Hope and Fear in America, 1919 </div>
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August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
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Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House</div>
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Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography<br />
John Keegan, The First World War<br />
David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society<br />
Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 </div>
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W. Bruce Lincoln, Passage Through Armageddon: The Russians In War and Revolution 1914-1918 </div>
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Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era,
1910-1917</div>
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Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra</div>
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G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918</div>
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G.J. Meyer, The World Remade: America in World War I </div>
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Michael S. Neiberg, The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America</div>
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Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict</div>
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David Stevenson, Cataclysm: The First World War As Political Tragedy </div>
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David Stevenson, With Our Backs to the Wall: Victory and Defeat in 1918 </div>
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J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War<br />
Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931 </div>
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Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History</div>
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The West Point Atlas of War: World War I </div>
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Dennis Crosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05167348173555324839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320526393914188899.post-88907149739212520372018-03-31T06:38:00.001-07:002018-04-10T21:40:15.314-07:00March 1918<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
It's March 1918. The nation whose mobilization against Austria-Hungary
and Germany propelled Europe into the World War in 1914 is now the first nation out of the war. Rid of the Tsar and under a new Bolshevik government, Russia signs
without negotiating or even reading the humiliating Treaty of
Brest-Litovsk. Then, recognizing the geographical vulnerability of
Petrograd, the Bolsheviks move their capital to Moscow.
Germany, now free to
concentrate on the Western Front, mounts a major offensive in France.
The long-range "Paris Gun" begins raining destruction on the French
capital. British Minister of Munitions Winston Churchill, in France when the German offensive begins, returns
to Whitehall and joins a War Cabinet meeting,
then returns to France
and tours the front with Premier Clemenceau. As their armies are driven
back, the Allies give Marshal Foch the responsibility
of coordinating military operations on the Western Front. Great Britain and France
appeal to the United States
to speed movement of American troops to Europe
and to use them to reinforce Allied units already in the field rather than wait
for independent American units to be formed. Great
Britain encourages Japan
to send troops to Vladivostok
to safeguard Allied war supplies and secure the eastern terminus of the
Trans-Siberian Railroad. Daylight Saving Time begins in the United States.
Bernard Baruch is made Chairman of the War Industries Board with broad powers
to govern production, purchase and delivery of war supplies. A virulent strain of
influenza breaks out at Fort Riley,
Kansas.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
*****</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9gNudJJdS2TYZxXHOdt9VhDR-nP-GCvya6K0uSm9apg0VOcTKH7t_STu-mRrt6MqxKyCH4iKBsIIw3371oImKU4T34N9GdeIZp-35HOMq9mn_1FOBpV3t2tXw4ZncDOzNRUDpPmsejNg/s1600/brestlitovsktreatysigned.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="539" data-original-width="798" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9gNudJJdS2TYZxXHOdt9VhDR-nP-GCvya6K0uSm9apg0VOcTKH7t_STu-mRrt6MqxKyCH4iKBsIIw3371oImKU4T34N9GdeIZp-35HOMq9mn_1FOBpV3t2tXw4ZncDOzNRUDpPmsejNg/s400/brestlitovsktreatysigned.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The Conference at Brest-Litovsk</div>
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The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on March 3, bringing an end to the war between Russia and the Central Powers. Recognizing that it was out of military options and preferring to be perceived as the victim of cruel aggression rather than as party to a dishonorable agreement, the Bolshevik government of Russia refused even to negotiate, instructing its representatives to sign whatever was presented to them. The actual signing, therefore, was an anticlimax. Russian Foreign Minister Trotsky did not appear in Brest-Litovsk, and resigned his position on March 8. German Foreign Secretary Richard von Kuhlmann was also absent, in Bucharest negotiating the terms of Rumania's withdrawal from the war. In the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Russia surrendered vast amounts of territory, comprising her most productive agricultural and mineral resources and over one-third of her pre-war population, including Poland, White Russia, the Baltic States, Finland, and the Ukraine. She also agreed to surrender most of her naval bases on the Baltic and to disarm her Black Sea fleet. Her Bolshevik government, meanwhile, concerned about the vulnerability of Petrograd to attack, moved the capital to Moscow on March 9. On March 5, Foreign Minister Trotsky told the Associated Press that the Russian government was prepared to withdraw as far as the Ural Mountains if necessary rather than risk the defeat of the revolution.<br />
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A German "Tank" In Roye On the First Day of the Offensive</div>
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Russia's capitulation has freed Germany to concentrate its military resources on the Western Front. In addition to the soldiers and equipment now available for redeployment, Germany has large supplies of artillery pieces, machine guns and other combat equipment captured from the Russians during the recent advance. Movement of troops, weapons, ammunition and supplies from east to west has been facilitated by improvements made to the German railway system since the war began. The British and French armies have been weakened by the protracted struggles at Verdun, the Somme, and Passchendaele, and the Italians are still recovering from Caporetto. The United States has been in the war for almost a year, but at the beginning of the month had only six divisions in France. The German offensive on the Western Front began on March 21 with massive artillery bombardments followed by attacks designed to drive the British from the Somme and the French from the Aisne, positions that have remained largely unchanged since the war of movement ended in the fall of 1914. The Germans crossed the Somme on March 24, then drove the French back from the Aisne and captured Montdidier on March 27. On March 26, in a conference at Doullens, the Allies agreed to give Marshal Foch authority to coordinate the action of all the Allied armies on the Western Front. Lacking actual command authority, he urged General Gough, the commander of the British Fifth Army, to take a stand in front of Amiens, and General Petain, the commander of the French Army, to ensure that no gap opened between the French and British forces. Nevertheless the German advance continued until March 30, when British, Canadian and Australian troops halted the German advance on Amiens and mounted a successful counterattack at Moreuil Wood.<br />
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The German Long-Range Gun in Action</div>
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Beginning at eight o'clock on the morning of March 23, Paris was bombarded by 240 mm shells fired from behind German lines, over 100 kilometers (62 miles) away. Because ordnance experts believed no gun in existence was capable of delivering a 240 mm shell that far, many at first wondered whether the attack had been carried out by unseen aeroplanes or by secret gun emplacements near Paris. The possibility that the shells might have been fired from a French or British gun seized by traitors or mutineers was also considered. It now appears, however, that the Germans have developed a gun of extremely long range, capable of reaching Paris from well behind German lines. In a Swiss magazine article published March 30, a German authority says Paris is being bombarded by a gun with a barrel twenty meters long and a projectile that attains an altitude of thirty kilometers (18.6 miles) before descending like a meteor on its target about three minutes after being fired. The gun was in action again on March 29, bombarding a Paris church during Good Friday services and killing seventy-five worshipers. More bombardment on Easter
Sunday afternoon killed one Parisian and wounded another. <br />
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Churchill and Lloyd George</div>
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When the German offensive began, Winston Churchill was in France on his
fifth visit to the front since becoming Minister of Munitions last
July. He returned immediately to London and reported to Prime Minister Lloyd George on March 23, joining a meeting of the War Cabinet later that day. On March 28, at the Prime Minister's request, Churchill returned to France to assess the ability of the French to mount a vigorous counterattack to relieve pressure on British forces and prevent a German breakthrough. He went directly to Premier Georges Clemenceau in Paris, and on March 30, as British forces mounted their counterattack at Moreuil Wood, Churchill and Clemenceau visited French and British positions on the front line.<br />
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Lord Reading</div>
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On March 23, Lloyd George sent a telegram to Lord Reading, his ambassador in Washington, directing him to explain to President Wilson that the British "cannot keep our divisions supplied with drafts for more than a short time at the present rate of loss" and that Britain would be "helpless to assist our Allies if, as is very probable, the enemy turns against them later." The telegram told Reading to "appeal to President to drop all questions of interpretation of past agreements and send over infantry as fast as possible without transport or other encumbrances. . . . [I]f America delays now she may be too late." Lord Reading went at once to the White House, where the President received him and asked what he could do. Lord Reading asked him to tell General Pershing that American troops already in France should be sent as reinforcements to British and French units without waiting until they were numerous enough to form brigades or divisions of their own. Wilson replied that he had the constitutional authority to decide the question, and that he would issue the necessary orders.<br />
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On March 27 Lloyd George sent another telegram to Lord Reading, this one for public consumption. At a dinner in his honor at the Lotos Club that evening, Lord Reading read the telegram to the assembled guests. It read "We are at the crisis of the war. Attacked by an enormous superiority of German troops, our army has been forced to retire." Although "the dogged pluck of our troops has for the moment checked the ceaseless onrush of the enemy," the battle "is only just beginning." "The French and British are buoyed with the knowledge that the great Republic of the West will neglect no effort which can hasten its troops and its ships to Europe," but it is "impossible to exaggerate the importance of getting American reinforcements across the Atlantic in the shortest possible space of time." After reading the telegram, Lord Reading gave an extended speech, interrupted by frequent and enthusiastic applause, in which he saluted the United States for joining the British and French in "a war in which the very sacred principles upon which humanity is based are at stake." He said "we are as resolute as ever . . . that, come what may, we will fight on as we are fighting for liberty -- that which is dearer even than life itself," and rejoiced that "we can now walk with you in the path which all humans with great ideals would wish to tread." Lord Reading was followed by speakers who expressed their strong support for the sentiments he had expressed, including New York Governor Charles Whitman and former Governor and Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes, the 1916 Republican Party candidate for president.<br />
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Lord Robert Cecil</div>
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The
Bolshevik takeover in Russia and the ensuing withdrawal of Russia from
the war have had consequences beyond freeing Germany to
concentrate its military efforts on the Western Front. War supplies
shipped by the Allies to Russia are now stranded in Siberia and in the
Arctic regions of Russia near Finland. In addition, a force of
Czech and Slovak partisans, recruited by the Russians to fight against
Austria-Hungary in the interest of Czechoslovak independence, is
struggling to reach the Pacific coast so it can rejoin the war. On
March 8 British Minister of Blockade Lord Robert Cecil urged Japan to
take necessary steps to safeguard Allied interests on the Pacific coast
of Russia, potentially including occupation of Vladivostok, the eastern
terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. France and Italy are believed
to support the British request, but President Wilson has advised the
British and Japanese governments that the United States does not believe
conditions in Russia justify Japanese intervention.<br />
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Moving the Clocks Forward in the Capitol</div>
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On
the last Sunday of March (March 31 this year), pursuant to legislation President
Wilson signed into law on March 19, all clocks in the United
States were set forward one hour. The nation has been assured that
the "daylight saving plan," which several European countries have
already adopted, will go into effect without any disorganization or
impairment of existing conditions. Trains will run as usual, and every
other feature of daily life will remain unchanged. Americans simply
moved their clocks forward before going to bed Saturday night and should
now be able to forget about daylight saving until the last Saturday of
October, when the process will be reversed and the nation will return
to "sun" time. Among the promised benefits of daylight saving time are
conservation of coal, gas, and other sources of heat and light; improved
health due to the additional hour available for recreation every day;
and improvement in the training conditions for the fighting forces.<br />
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Bernard Baruch</div>
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While the Overman Bill expanding the President's powers to reorganize and coordinate government agencies is pending in Congress (see last month's blog post), President Wilson has decided not to wait for its passage but to do as much as possible by executive action. On March 5 he announced the reorganization of the War Industries Board under the chairmanship of Bernard N. Baruch. In a letter delivered to Mr. Baruch the day before, the President outlined the new functions of the Board, which include making the final determination of all questions of priority in production and deliveries to all agencies of the United States Government and to the Allies. As Chairman, Mr. Baruch is vested with the sole authority to determine all questions except the determination of prices, with the other members of the Board acting "in a co-operative and advisory capacity." In the determination of prices the Chairman is to be governed by the advice of a committee including other members of the Board as well as the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, the Chairman of the Tariff Commission, and the Fuel Administrator. "In brief," the letter concludes, Mr. Baruch's new responsibilities mean that he "should act as the general eye of all supply departments in the field of industry."<br />
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The Influenza Ward at Camp Funston</div>
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An Army cook at Camp Funston, Kansas was diagnosed with influenza on March 4. By month's end, hundreds more soldiers at the base, which is a major training ground for American troops on their way to Europe, have reported sick.</div>
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<u>March 1918 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading</u><br />
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<u>Contemporary Periodicals</u>:</div>
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American Review of Reviews, April and May 1918</div>
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New York
Times, March and April 1918</div>
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<u>Books and Articles</u>:</div>
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A. Scott Berg, Wilson</div>
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Britain at War Magazine, The Fourth Year of the Great War: 1917<br />
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918 <br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography<br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and
Theodore Roosevelt </div>
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John Dos Passos, Mr. Wilson's War</div>
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David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922</div>
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Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life<br />
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History </div>
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Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933<br />
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume IV: The Stricken World 1916-1922</div>
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Ann Hagedorn, Savage Peace, Hope and Fear in America, 1919 </div>
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August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
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Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House</div>
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Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography<br />
John Keegan, The First World War<br />
David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society<br />
Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 </div>
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W. Bruce Lincoln, Passage Through Armageddon: The Russians In War and Revolution 1914-1918 </div>
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Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era,
1910-1917</div>
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Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra</div>
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G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918</div>
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G.J. Meyer, The World Remade: America in World War I </div>
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Michael S. Neiberg, The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America</div>
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Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict</div>
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David Stevenson, Cataclysm: The First World War As Political Tragedy </div>
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David Stevenson, With Our Backs to the Wall: Victory and Defeat in 1918 </div>
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J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War<br />
Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931 </div>
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Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History</div>
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The West Point Atlas of War: World War I </div>
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Dennis Crosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05167348173555324839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320526393914188899.post-86262063717543840302018-02-28T08:26:00.001-08:002018-02-28T08:26:56.673-08:00February 1918In February 1918 the Bolsheviks, now in control in Russia, decide to pull out of the war at any cost rather than risk losing their revolution. Germany exploits Russian weakness by increasing its demands and sending its armies forward until Russia capitulates. In the United States, the President replies to statements made by leaders of the Central Powers in response to his "Fourteen Points," and adds four more. The British Parliament debates and defeats a pacifist's proposed response to the speech from the throne. President Wilson, facing a domestic challenge, opposes a Senate proposal to create a War Cabinet to direct the war effort, but supports his own proposal to give himself more power to do so. The workless Monday rule is suspended after less than a month. SS Tuscania, a British troop ship carrying American soldiers to Europe, is attacked by a U-boat and sunk off the coast of Ireland.<br />
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Nikolai Bukharin</div>
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The negotiations in Brest-Litovsk reached a critical stage this month. In January the Central Powers presented a series of non-negotiable demands, which included German occupation of vast swaths of territory formerly part of the Russian Empire. Having prolonged the negotiations as long as he could and faced with a hopeless military situation, Trotsky recessed the talks and returned to Petrograd to confer with Lenin. They were joined by Nikolai Bukharin, the editor of <i>Pravda</i>, the party's official newspaper, and a powerful member of the Bolshevik Central Committee. Trotsky advocated a policy of "no war, no peace," by which Russia would simply cease fighting and break off negotiations, refusing to sign any treaty or other agreement, and hope that political pressure in Germany would prevent a resumption of hostilities. Bukharin wanted to go on the offensive in support of a revolution of the proletariat, still hoping to inspire the working classes of Germany and Austria-Hungary to overthrow their governments. Lenin opposed both, arguing that in the absence of a widespread proletarian revolution offensive military operations were impossible, and that either Bukharin's offensive or Trotsky's "no war, no peace" strategy would result in a military defeat that would endanger the revolution, which he regarded as far more important than any other consideration. At a meeting of the Bolshevik Central Committee Lenin agreed to adopt Trotsky's strategy with the understanding that if it failed Trotsky would not oppose Lenin's position in favor of an immediate peace rather than a revolutionary war.<br />
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The Central Powers and Ukraine Sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk</div>
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Also in the conference at Brest-Litovsk was a delegation from the Rada, a parliamentary government that was set up in the Ukraine after the overthrow of the Tsar. After the Bolsheviks seized power and entered into negotiations with the Central Powers at Brest-Litovsk, Germany invited the Rada to send delegates to represent the Ukraine. A separate peace would result in Austria-Hungary and Germany having access to the abundant grain resources of the Ukraine, relieving the impending famine in those countries. The Bolshevik delegation, of course, does not recognize the Rada and denies its authority to speak for the Ukraine. The Bolsheviks' insistence that the Ukraine is part of Russia and subject to the authority of the Petrograd Soviet is supported by the fact that Bolshevik troops have moved into the Ukraine and now effectively control that territory. The strong hand at Brest-Litovsk, however, is held by the Germans, who are more than willing to enter into a separate agreement with the Rada, and against whom the Bolsheviks, whether in the Ukraine or elsewhere on the Eastern Front, are virtually powerless. On February 9 the Central Powers' delegations at Brest-Litovsk formally recognized the Rada delegation as the representative of Ukraine and signed a separate peace that gave Germany and Austria-Hungary the right to buy Ukraine's entire grain surplus.<br />
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On February 10, at his residence at Bad Homburg, Kaiser Wilhelm
replied to the Burgomeister of Homburg's announcement of the peace
agreement with the Ukraine. He acknowledged that the German people
"have gone through hard times" and that "the world . . . has not been on the
right path." He said that "Germans, who still have ideals, should work
to bring about better times," and that Germany will "seek in every way"
to "bring peace to the world." He said peace has now been achieved "in a
friendly manner with an enemy which, beaten by our armies, perceives no
reason for fighting longer, extends a hand to us, and receives our
hand." He warned, however, that "he who will not accept peace . . .
must be forced to have peace. We desire to live in friendship with
neighboring peoples, but the victory of German arms must first be
recognized."<br />
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German Troops Advancing Into the Ukraine<br />
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As the Kaiser was speaking, Trotsky was in Brest-Litovsk informing the Central Powers of Russia's new policy of "no war, no peace." General Hoffmann reacted with disbelief, sputtering that such a thing was "unheard of ... unheard of!", and left for Bad Homburg to confer with the Kaiser. The meeting took place on February 13 and included, in addition to General Hoffmann and the Kaiser, Chancellor von
Hertling, Foreign Minister von Kuhlmann, and General Ludendorff. Hertling and Kuhlmann argued against
resuming hostilities, preferring to concentrate Germany's military effort on the
Western Front, but the generals argued strongly for an immediate
offensive, and the Kaiser agreed. On February 18 fifty-three divisions advanced against essentially undefended Russian positions from Pskov and Petrograd in the north to the Ukraine in the south. For the Russians the only choice now was between Bukharin's revolutionary war and Lenin's insistence on saving the revolution by capitulation. At a meeting of the Bolshevik Central Committee in Petrograd, Trotsky honored his promise not to oppose Lenin if his "no war, no peace" policy failed, and a narrow majority voted with Lenin to accept Germany's terms. Lenin sent a telegram that night informing Berlin of the Committee's decision. Five days passed before an answer was received, and when it came it presented a list of additional demands, including the withdrawal of Russian troops from all of the Ukraine, Finland, Courland, Estonia and Latvia, and recognition of the Rada as the legitimate government of Ukraine. At Lenin's insistence, the Central Committee voted to accept the additional conditions without further negotiation. On February 26, when the Germans received word of the Russian acquiescence, they halted their advance on Petrograd.</div>
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The events of February have answered, or at least clarified, many of the questions that were raised by last year's revolutions in Russia and were still unanswered when the month began.
First, it is now clear that Russia's allies Great Britain, France and Italy
will have nothing to do with the Brest-Litovsk negotiations. Second, the parties to those negotiations must now recognize that
the Christmas Day declaration of
"self-determination, no annexations, and no indemnities" was a false hope from the beginning. Third, the Bolsheviks' hope for a revolution of the proletariat in Germany and Austria-Hungary has been abandoned, at
least within any time frame that would affect the negotiations. Fourth, Russia has now shown that it will do whatever it must to get out of the war, and Germany has demonstrated a determination to take full advantage of
Russia's weakness by forcing the issue militarily. Finally, Austria-Hungary, eager as it is to find a way out of the war, has decided not
to pursue a separate peace and will adhere for the time being to its alliance with Germany.<br />
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Lord Reading<br />
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In the United States, President Wilson has again traveled to Capitol Hill on short notice to address a joint session of Congress. After notifying Vice President Marshall and Speaker Clark the morning of February 11, he appeared in the House chamber at noon that day. Those present included French Ambassador Jules Jusserand and the new British Ambassador, Rufus Isaacs, Viscount Reading, Lord Chief Justice of England. Lord Reading arrived in Washington on February 10 to assume his new duties as Ambassador and High Commissioner, an assignment that includes powers greater than those of his predecessor Sir Cecil Spring Rice. He continues for the time being to hold the post of Lord Chief Justice. <br />
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The occasion for the President's visit to Congress was not Russia's "no war, no peace" policy, which was announced only that day in Brest-Litovsk, but the January 24 statements made by German Chancellor von Hertling and Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister Count Czernin in response to the President's "fourteen points" address of January 8. The President complimented Czernin, noting that his statement, which he said was "uttered in a very friendly tone," finds in the fourteen points "a sufficiently encouraging approach to the views of his own government to justify him in believing that it furnishes a basis for a more detailed discussion of purposes by the two governments." Von Hertling's statement, in contrast, is "very vague and very confusing" and "leads it is not clear where." The President accused Hertling of ignoring his own Reichstag, which passed resolutions on July 19 that "spoke of the conditions of a general peace, not of national aggrandizement or of arrangements between state and state." Mr. Wilson went on to articulate four principles that he said should be applied in any attempt to arrive at a general peace:<br />
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"First -- That each part of the final settlement must be based upon the essential justice of that particular case and upon such adjustments as are most likely to bring a peace that will be permanent,<br />
"Second -- That people and grievances are not to be bartered about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were mere chattels and pawns in a game, even the great game, now forever discredited, of the balance of power; but that,<br />
"Third -- Every territorial settlement involved in this war must be made in the interest and for the benefit of the populations concerned, and not as a part of any mere adjustment or compromise of claims among rival states; and<br />
"Fourth -- That all well-defined national aspirations shall be accorded the utmost satisfaction that can be accorded them without introducing new or perpetuating old elements of discord and antagonism that would be likely in time to break the peace of Europe, and consequently of the world."<br />
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Having stated these principles, the President placed the responsibility for continuing the war squarely on the German military. He said that until "a general peace erected upon such foundations . . . can be secured we have no choice but to go on. So far as we can judge, these principles that we regard as fundamental are already everywhere accepted as imperative except among the spokesmen of the military and annexationist party in Germany. . . . [T]his one party in Germany is apparently willing and able to send millions of men to their death to prevent what all the world now sees to be just." The President concluded his address with the assurance that "no word of what I have said is intended as a threat. . . . The power of the United States is a menace to no nation or people. It will never be used in aggression or for the aggrandizement of any selfish interest of our own. It springs out of freedom and is for the service of freedom."<br />
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In a speech in the Reichstag on February 25, Chancellor von Hertling replied. He said he "can fundamentally agree" with Wilson's four principles, with a single reservation: "These principles must not only be proposed by the President of the United States, but must also be recognized by all states and peoples." "Unfortunately," he said, "there is no trace of similar statements on the part of the leading powers of the Entente. England's war aims are still thoroughly imperialistic and she wants to impose on the world a peace according to England's good pleasure. When England talks about the people's right of self-determination, she does not think of applying the principle to Ireland, Egypt, and India." Back at the White House on February 28, President Wilson met with Secretary of State Lansing and Colonel House over a long lunch to discuss the Chancellor's speech and the German advance into Russia.<br />
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Sir Cecil Spring-Rice</div>
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Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, the British Ambassador to the United States who was recalled last month, was on his way back to Great Britain when he died in Ottawa on February 14. He was a long-time friend of Theodore Roosevelt, and officiated as best man at Roosevelt's wedding in 1886.<br />
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Foreign Secretary Balfour</div>
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The British Parliament on February 13 debated and defeated a motion to amend the response to the speech from the throne. The amendment was proposed by Richard Holt, a radical member of Parliament, who moved to insert language expressing regret that "prosecution of the military effort is to be the only immediate task of the Government." Speaking in support of his amendment, Holt asked whether President Wilson's four points set forth in his February 11 address to Congress represented the policy of the British Government and its European allies. If so, he said, the government should reassemble the War Council at Versailles or elsewhere and make an announcement to that effect. Foreign Secretary Balfour, speaking in opposition to the amendment, said that the conclusion already reached by the War Council was correct, and that nothing in the recent statements by Chancellor Hertling and Foreign Minister Czernin gave any indication of satisfying Allied war aims. Although President Wilson had detected a difference in tone between the two statements, "when you leave the tone and come to formulated definite propositions you will not find them in Count Czernin's speech, and, so far as I am aware, President Wilson did not profess to find them." Two weeks later, in a reply to von Hertling, Balfour restated his position, telling Parliament "I should be doing an injury to the cause of peace if I encouraged the idea that there is any use in beginning these verbal negotiations until something like a general agreement is apparent in the distance and until the statesmen of all the countries see their way to that broad settlement which, it is my hope, will bring peace to this sorely troubled world."<br />
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Senator Chamberlain</div>
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In Washington, Congress and President Wilson are dealing with competing proposals to assign and allocate power and responsibility for the conduct of the war. Last month Senator George Chamberlain (Dem., Ore.), the Chairman of the Senate Military Affairs Committee, introduced bills that would create a War Cabinet to direct the prosecution of the war and create a new post of Director of Munitions. Chamberlain argued in a speech to the National Security League that hearings before his Committee indicated that "the military establishment of America has broken down" because of "inefficiency in every department of the United States Government." On the day the bills were introduced, the President issued a statement attacking Chamberlain and minimizing the committee hearings as insignificant. Although Senator Chamberlain has been one of his staunchest supporters, the President pulled no punches. He said that Chamberlain's claim "was an astonishing and absolutely unjustifiable distortion of the truth," and that he was "bound to infer that that statement sprang out of opposition to the Administration's whole policy rather than out of any serious intention to reform its practices." The President gave a strong endorsement to Secretary Baker, who defended the War Department's record in testimony before Senator Chamberlain's committee. In his testimony, Secretary Baker denied the charge that the Department had no war plan, saying the plan was to assist the Allies in every way by responding to their needs as they defined them. Some Congressmen and military experts have found this unsatisfactory, arguing that a war plan should include provisions for calling up a specific number of troops and supplying them with arms, ammunition, clothing, shelter, and transportation to Europe.<br />
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On February 1 eleven Democratic senators were invited to the White House. President Wilson told the senators that he was absolutely opposed to the Chamberlain bills and would accept no compromise. He told them he was entirely satisfied with the present organization of the War Department and urged the senators to do what they could to put an end to the discussion, which he said would suggest the country was divided and create a bad impression on America's allies.<br />
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Senator Overman</div>
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Debate on the Chamberlain bills began on February 4. On February 6, Senator Lee Overman (Dem., N.C.), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, introduced legislation to give the President sweeping powers to "coordinate and consolidate" government agencies. The Overman Bill, which was drafted in the White House and has the President's full support, goes far beyond the Chamberlain bills in its proposed delegation of authority, but unlike Senator Chamberlain's proposal its principal thrust is to delegate legislative power to the President rather than assign executive power to a War Cabinet. The Overman Bill as introduced would give the President power to "make any such re-distribution of functions among executive agencies as he may deem necessary, including any functions, duties and powers hitherto conferred upon any executive department, commission, bureau, agency, office, or officer," to "co-ordinate and consolidate" functions, and to "employ by executive order any additional agency or agencies and to vest therein the performance of such functions as he may deem appropriate."<br />
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The Overman Bill was greeted with astonishment on Capitol Hill, several senators saying "we might as well abdicate." By the end of the month, however, it appeared that a modified version might be acceptable as a substitute for Senator Chamberlain's proposal, which because of the President's opposition is unlikely to become law. Among other things, the Overman Bill would expand the authority of the War Industries Board
to include some of the powers the Chamberlain bills would assign to the War Cabinet
and the Director of Munitions. <br />
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Other issues raised by Senator Chamberlain are addressed in separate legislation. The pending War Department Bill, for example, authorizes the appointment of two new assistant secretaries. One of the new positions, to be charged with overseeing all industrial work and purchasing for the Army, is expected to be filled by Edward R. Stettinius, a partner at J.P. Morgan & Co. <br />
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Director-General McAdoo</div>
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Last
month Fuel Administrator Garfield issued an order requiring industries
east of the Mississippi to suspend operations on Mondays to conserve
fuel. Mr. Garfield rescinded the order on February 13, citing a "vast
improvement" in conditions, an improvement he attributed to the imposition of
priorities for coal deliveries imposed by Treasury
Secretary McAdoo in his capacity as Director-General of Railroads. Also rescinded was the order requiring theaters, cabarets and other places
of amusement to close on Tuesdays. McAdoo issued a
statement the same day supporting the suspension, but emphasizing the continuing
need to reduce coal consumption, especially in the New England states
which are still experiencing shortages due to railroad congestion.<br />
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SS Tuscania</div>
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SS Tuscania, a Cunard luxury liner, was converted to a troop transport when the war broke out. On February 6 it was under way from Hoboken to Liverpool carrying 2,179 American troops, mostly National Guardsmen from Michigan and Wisconsin, when it was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine off the north coast of Ireland. Most of those on board were rescued and put ashore at Buncranna, about ten miles north of Londonderry, and Larne, about fifteen miles north of Belfast, but 210 passengers and crew were lost. <br />
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<u>February 1918 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading</u><br />
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<u>Contemporary Periodicals</u>:</div>
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American Review of Reviews, March and April 1918</div>
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New York
Times, February and March 1918</div>
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<u>Books and Articles</u>:</div>
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A. Scott Berg, Wilson</div>
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Britain at War Magazine, The Fourth Year of the Great War: 1917<br />
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918 <br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography<br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and
Theodore Roosevelt </div>
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</div>
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John Dos Passos, Mr. Wilson's War</div>
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David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922</div>
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Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life<br />
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History </div>
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Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933<br />
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume IV: The Stricken World 1916-1922</div>
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Ann Hagedorn, Savage Peace, Hope and Fear in America, 1919 </div>
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</div>
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</div>
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August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House</div>
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</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography<br />
John Keegan, The First World War<br />
David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society<br />
Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 </div>
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W. Bruce Lincoln, Passage Through Armageddon: The Russians In War and Revolution 1914-1918 </div>
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</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era,
1910-1917</div>
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Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra</div>
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</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918</div>
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G.J. Meyer, The World Remade: America in World War I </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Michael S. Neiberg, The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
David Stevenson, Cataclysm: The First World War As Political Tragedy </div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War<br />
Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931 </div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History</div>
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The West Point Atlas of War: World War I </div>
</div>
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Dennis Crosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05167348173555324839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320526393914188899.post-53170600847749529842018-01-31T10:25:00.000-08:002018-02-03T12:25:23.332-08:00January 1918It's January 1918. As a new year begins, President Wilson outlines his vision for a postwar world in an address to Congress. His "Fourteen Points," which follow Prime Minister Lloyd George's statement of British war aims by only three days, are based on study and analysis conducted by a group of intellectuals called the "Inquiry," a precursor of the Council on Foreign Relations. The Bolsheviks walk away from the talks at Brest-Litovsk, but the reality of Russia's military situation forces them to return. Workers demanding an end to the war go on strike in Austria-Hungary and Germany. The popularly elected Russian Constituent Assembly holds its first and only session before being shut down the next day by the Red Guards. In the Mediterranean, the Ottoman Navy loses the two German cruisers it gained in the early days of the war. In the United States, the government curtails manufacturing industries to conserve fuel. The House of Representatives approves a woman suffrage amendment to the Constitution. Americans enjoy music by Jerome Kern and George M. Cohan.<br />
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President Wilson Outlining His "Fourteen Points" to Congress </div>
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When the Senate and the House of Representatives convened Tuesday morning, January 8, they learned that Speaker Clark and Vice President Marshall had just been notified that President Wilson wished to address the two houses in a joint session at noon that day. After a resolution calling a joint session was hastily introduced and adopted, the Senators left their chamber and proceeded through the Capitol to the House wing. At noon the President entered the House chamber and mounted to the podium to deliver one of the most important statements of his presidency, setting forth America's objectives in the World War.<br />
<br />
The reason for the urgency was that the President
considered it important to make a strong warning to the new government of
Russia of the serious dangers to which Russia is exposed in the
Brest-Litovsk negotiations, and to assure the Russians of American support. The President began his address, therefore, by aligning the United States firmly behind Russia in its rejection of the Central Powers' demands. He referred to the contradictory messages from the German negotiators, saying that although "the spokesmen of the Central Empires have indicated their desire to
discuss the objects of the war and the possible basis of a general
peace," their "specific program of practical terms" presented at
Brest-Litovsk "proposed no concessions at all, either to the sovereignty
of Russia or to the preferences of the population with whose fortunes
it dealt, but meant, in a word, that the Central Empires were to keep every foot of territory their armed forces had occupied . . . as a permanent addition to their territories and their power." Therefore "the negotiations have been broken off. The Russian representatives were sincere and in earnest. They cannot entertain such proposals of conquest and domination." <br />
<br />
The President asked "for whom are the representatives of the Central Empires speaking?" Are they speaking for "the majorities of their respective parliaments" or for "that military and imperialistic minority which has so far dominated their whole policy?" Despite the contradictions in their own statements, the Central Powers "have again challenged their adversaries to say what their objects are and what sort of settlement they would deem just and satisfactory." The President said "there is no good reason why that challenge should not be responded to," although, unlike the Central Powers themselves,"there is no confusion of counsel ..., no uncertainty of principle, no vagueness of detail" among their adversaries. "No statesman who has the least conception of his responsibility," he declared, "ought for a moment to permit himself to continue this tragical and appalling outpouring of blood and treasure unless he is sure beyond a peradventure that the objects of the vital sacrifice are part and parcel of the very life of society and that the people for whom he speaks think them right and imperative as he does."<br />
<br />
The people of Russia also deserve a clear statement of war aims. "Whether their present leaders believe it or not, it is our
heartfelt desire and hope that some way may be opened whereby we may be
privileged to assist the people of Russia to attain their utmost hope of
liberty and ordered peace." The voice of the Russian people is "more thrilling and compelling than any of the many moving voices with which the troubled air of the world is filled. [They] call us to say what it is that we desire, . . . and I believe the people of the United States would wish me to respond with utter simplicity and frankness." He is able to do so, he said, because "the day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by [and] so also is the day of secret covenants." It is now "possible for every nation whose purposes are consistent with justice and the peace of the world to avow . . . the objects it has in view."<br />
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President Wilson then laid out his "program for the world's peace," which he set forth in fourteen numbered points:<br />
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"I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at . . ..<br />
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"II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas . . ..<br />
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"III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions . . ..<br />
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"IV. Adequate guarantees . . . that national armaments will reduce to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.<br />
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"V. Free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims . . . [giving equal weight to] the interests of the populations concerned . . ..<br />
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"VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world . . ..<br />
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"VII. Belgium . . . must be evacuated and restored.<br />
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"VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine . . . should be righted . . ..<br />
<br />
"IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.<br />
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"X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary . . . should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous development.<br />
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"XI. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated . . . and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.<br />
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"XII. The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured . . . an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations . . ..<br />
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"XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected . . . [with] free and secure access to the sea . . ..<br />
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"XIV. A general association of nations must be formed . . . affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike."<br />
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The President's statement, which one official described as "an outline of war aims, not a peace address," was praised by
members of both parties. The only criticism has come from some
Republicans who have expressed concern that the proposed establishment of
free trade as a basis for international commerce might commit the United States to
allowing other nations, including Germany, to dump their products in
American ports in competition with American businesses.<br />
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Dr. Sidney Mezes</div>
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Walter Lippmann</div>
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The fourteen points presented to Congress grew from work done by a group of academics and experts called the "Inquiry." The Inquiry was assembled beginning in September by Colonel House at the request of President Wilson to collect and analyze data on geographical, ethnological, historical, economic and political issues in Europe and throughout the world in preparation for the peace conference likely to follow the war. To direct the Inquiry, House chose his wife's brother-in-law Dr. Sidney Mezes, the president of the City College of New York and former president of the University of Texas. Dr. Mezes's secretary and the Inquiry's head of research is Walter Lippmann, an assistant to Secretary of War Newton Baker and co-founder of the New Republic Magazine. After Colonel House returned last month from his conference with the Allied leaders in Europe, in which he tried to persuade them to formulate an agreed statement of war aims, President Wilson decided to make his own statement and requested a memorandum from the Inquiry. Shortly before Christmas Colonel House delivered a hastily prepared memorandum, which was followed on January 4 by a revised and expanded version. That day and the next the President discussed the memorandum with House, making notes on it in shorthand; then he sat at his typewriter and condensed the principal themes into fourteen points and asked House to arrange them in the order he thought best. House placed the general terms first and ended with those dealing with specific territorial questions. Wilson agreed with one exception: he moved the "general association of nations" point to the end. On Sunday, January 6, he secluded himself in his study and used the marked-up memorandum to draft the fourteen points address, first in shorthand and then on his typewriter.<br />
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Prime Minister David Lloyd George</div>
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On Saturday, January 5, while they were reviewing the Inquiry's memorandum and preparing the President's address to Congress, President Wilson and Colonel House received word that British Prime Minister David Lloyd George had made a major speech to the Trades Union Congress at Central Hall, Westminster, in which he had laid out Britain's war aims. Those aims, he said, did not include the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but did include the achievement of a peace based on "consent of the governed," which he called "self-determination." The President was afraid Lloyd George had pre-empted what he had to say, but Colonel House persuaded him that his own speech, which was more comprehensive, would have far more impact. When he prepared the final draft of his address the next day, Wilson included an acknowledgement of the Prime Minister's statement, saying "Within the last week Mr.
Lloyd George has spoken with admirable candor and in admirable spirit
for the people and government of Great Britain."<br />
<br />
Two days after President Wilson's "fourteen points" address to Congress, British Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour gave a speech in Edinburgh in which he said Britain "never went into the war for selfish objects; we did not stay in the
war for selfish objects; and we are not going to fight the war to a
finish for selfish objects." He warned, however, that the horrors of war, tragic as they are, are nothing compared to those of a "German peace."<br />
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Central Powers Delegates at Brest-Litovsk (left to right: General Hoffman, Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister Count Czernin, Grand Vizier Talaat Pasha, German Foreign Minister von Kuhlman)</div>
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At Brest-Litovsk, the joint Christmas Day declaration in favor of a peace of "self-determination, no annexations and no indemnities" gave rise to momentary optimism on the part of the Russian negotiators that agreement could be quickly reached. Revelation of the details of the parties' understanding of those principles, however, led to a face-off that has continued into the new year. As President Wilson noted in his address to Congress on January 8, the Russian negotiators withdrew from the talks when it became apparent that the German interpretation of the declaration did not mean it was prepared to agree to a return to the pre-war status quo. The Russians did not stay away long, however. Even as President Wilson was congratulating the Russians on their firmness, their lead negotiator Leon Trotsky was returning to the negotiating table, recognizing that Russia would be unable to resist if the German Army mounted a determined offensive. On January 12, General Max Hoffmann, the leading spokesman for an aggressive German strategy, got into a political argument with Trotsky, accusing the Bolshevik regime of being "based purely on violence, ruthlessly suppressing all who think differently." Rather than deny the accusation, Trotsky embraced it, saying "The general is completely right when he says our government is founded on power. All history has known only such governments. So long as society consists of warring classes the power of the government will rest on strength and will assert its domination through force."<br />
<br />
While the military situation on the Eastern Front is encouraging for the Central Powers and dire for Russia, that is not the only incentive at work in Brest-Litovsk. Just as it is in the interest of the Allies to keep Russia in the war, it is in Germany's interest to get Russia out as quickly as possible so it can concentrate its effort on the Western Front. The political turmoil in Russia, meanwhile, has opened the door to independence movements throughout the empire. Many of the provinces of Tsarist Russia, including Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltic provinces of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, have little or no sympathy for the Bolshevik regime, and are moving toward declaring their independence and entering into separate understandings with the Central Powers.<br />
<br />
Political unrest is not confined to Russia. Austria-Hungary is on the brink of starvation. Reflecting
bitter disappointment following collapse of the hopes raised by the
Christmas Day declaration, widespread strikes swept Vienna on January
14. In Germany, strikes began in Berlin on January 28 and spread quickly to other
cities. The political pressure from civilian workers and the Reichstag majority
to achieve a peace settlement is matched by the determination of the German military to reap the benefits of their recent military success. <br />
<br />
The Bolsheviks now in control in Russia have no reason to help the Allies, but they are unwilling to sacrifice vast territory and population to German control. Russia's military situation, however, offers little in the way of leverage. Trotsky's strategy at the moment appears to be to keep the talks going while pursuing his Marxist goal of a worldwide revolution of the proletariat. The strikes in Berlin and Vienna are providing some encouragement for that strategy.<br />
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The Constituent Assembly</div>
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The Provisional Government that took power in Russia following the Tsar's abdication in March was so named because it was designed to remain in power only until elections could be held and a permanent government, to be called the Constituent Assembly, could be formed. Nationwide elections on the basis of universal suffrage were originally scheduled for September but were postponed until November 25, by which time Lenin's Bolsheviks had driven the Provisional Government from power and gained control of the government buildings and streets of Petrograd. Because of the popular support for the elections, the first in Russian history, the Bolsheviks allowed them to go ahead, but to the Bolsheviks' dismay the result was a convincing victory for the Socialist Revolutionaries, with the Bolsheviks coming in a
distant second.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Victor Chernov</div>
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When it became apparent that the Bolsheviks would not control the Constituent Assembly, Lenin denounced it as a betrayal of the revolution. Prior to its meeting on January 18, supporters of the Assembly marching toward the Tauride Palace where it was to be held were shot at and driven from the streets by armed Bolsheviks. Dozens of demonstrators were killed. During the Assembly, which began at 4:00 P.M., Red Guards trained cannons on the building and the Bolshevik minority inside the hall made raucous attempts to interrupt the proceedings as Lenin watched from the balcony. The Socialist Revolutionary majority, made up of many of the leaders of the February (O.S.) Revolution that overthrew the tsar, proceeded to conduct business, electing Victor Chernov president. The Assembly adjourned in the early morning hours after enacting an egalitarian land law and proclaiming the birth of the "Russian Democratic Republic." When the delegates returned the following afternoon, they found the doors locked and barricaded by the Bolsheviks. Russia's experiment with representative government had lasted less than twenty-four hours.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
S.M.S. Goeben Aground at the Dardanelles</div>
<br />
Shortly
after the outbreak of war between Great Britain and Germany in August
1914, the German cruisers SMS Goeben and SMS Breslau were pursued by
Royal Navy forces in the Mediterranean and escaped into the Dardanelles,
where they were taken with their officers and crews into the Turkish
Navy and renamed Jawus Sultan Selim and Midilli (see the August 1914
installment of this blog). They remained in the Black Sea until this
month, when they ventured back into the Mediterranean to support Ottoman
operations in Palestine. In the ensuing Battle of Imbros, they
attacked and sank two British monitors, but as they were attempting to
return to the Dardanelles they struck mines that sank the Midilli
(Breslau) and forced the Jawus Sultan Selim (Goeben) onto the beach.<br />
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Fuel Administrator Garfield</div>
<br />
The Federal Fuel Administration was created by executive order last August to address concerns about shortages of coal and oil caused by the unusually harsh winter, railroad congestion, and the demands of American participation in the World War. Harry A. Garfield was appointed Administrator. On January 16, with President Wilson's approval, Garfield issued an order directing all industries east of the Mississippi River to suspend operation for five days beginning Friday, January 18, and to shut down operations thereafter every Monday from January 28 to March 25. The order, issued without any advance notice or discussion, took the country by surprise. In response to widespread protests, the Senate adopted a resolution calling for the Fuel Administrator to postpone the effective date of the order<br />
<br />
In a statement issued January 18. President Wilson said he had been "of course, consulted by Mr. Garfield" and "fully agreed with him." He said "sacrifices of the sort called for by this order are infinitely less than sacrifices of life that might otherwise be involved. It is absolutely necessary to get the ships away, it is absolutely necessary to relieve the congestion at the ports and upon the railways, it is absolutely necessary to move great quantities of food, and it is absolutely necessary that our people should be warmed in their homes, if nowhere else, and halfway measures would not have accomplished the desired ends."<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Suffragists March for Woman Suffrage</div>
<br />
During his 1916 campaign for reelection, President Wilson announced his support for woman suffrage but insisted, along with most of his Southern Democrat supporters, that it was an issue to be resolved by individual states. He voted for woman suffrage in New Jersey, but disagreed with his Republican opponent, Charles Evans Hughes, who advocated a Constitutional amendment granting nationwide woman suffrage. Despite Wilson's narrow victory, the issue has not gone away, and a proposed Constitutional amendment, which supporters called "the Susan B. Anthony resolution," came up for a vote in the House of Representatives on January 10. The day before the vote the President announced that he had changed his opinion and now supported amending the Constitution. Many Democrats, however, refused to follow his lead, arguing that it violated the party's platform. After a five-hour debate, the House adopted the resolution by a vote of 274-136, meeting the two-thirds requirement with no votes to spare. Two members, Representative Thetus W. Sims (Dem., Tenn.) and the minority leader James R. Mann (Rep., Ill.), rose from sick beds to vote for the <a href="https://outlook.live.com/"></a><br />
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<a href="https://outlook.live.com/"><span dir="auto"></span></a></div>
resolution, and the vote in favor cast by Representative Joseph J. Russell (Dem., Mo.) was counted only after a hard fight led by Representative Edward W. Saunders (Dem., Va.), the leader of the opposition, to disqualify it on the ground that Russell had not been present in the chamber when the voting began. Champ Clark (Dem., Mo.) is known to favor the amendment, but as Speaker of the House did not vote. The proposed amendment now heads for the Senate, where it faces challenges at least as formidable as those it faced in the House.<br />
<br />
Well ahead of woman suffrage in the pipeline is the proposed Constitutional amendment prohibiting the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors," which was approved by Congress and submitted to the states last month. On January 8 Mississippi became the first state to ratify what will be, if adopted, the eighteenth amendment. By month's end, four more states had followed suit.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Representative Rankin</div>
<br />
During the vote on the woman suffrage amendment the galleries were filled to capacity with supporters, many of them women, whose increasing concern was palpable as one Democrat after another refused to follow their president's lead. In contrast to the galleries, only two women were on the floor of the House chamber. One was the clerk of the House Suffrage Committee, who sat next to Representative John Raker (Dem., Calif.), the committee's chairman. The other was Representative Jeannette Rankin (Rep., Mont.), the only female member of Congress, who led the fight for the Republican supporters of the amendment. When the resolution was introduced Mr. Raker was standing before the Speaker's desk ready to begin the debate when Representative Joseph Walsh (Rep., Mass.) stood and asked whether "it would seriously interfere with [Mr. Raker's] plans if Miss Rankin should open the debate." Raker stepped aside and allowed Miss Rankin to deliver what proved to be the longest and most impassioned speech of the day in favor of the resolution. She told her fellow congressmen "We are facing a question of political evolution," and although "we are mobilizing all our resources for the ideals of democracy [in the World War], . . . something is still lacking in the completeness of our national effort." She declared that "today as never before the nation needs its women -- needs the work of their hands and their hearts and their minds." Miss Rankin challenged the Congress to live up to its "protestations of democracy," asking "How can we explain if the same Congress that voted for war to make the world safe for democracy refuses to give this small measure of democracy to the women of our country?"<br />
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<br />
One of 1917's most successful Broadway shows is "Oh, Boy!," a musical comedy with music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse. It opened in February and is still being performed in the new year. The most popular song in the play is "Till the Clouds Roll By," performed by Anna Wheaton and James Harrod (click to play): <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Anna Wheaton</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Nora Bayes</div>
<br />
With America's entry into the World War, patriotic songs have enjoyed a surge of popularity. The most popular is "Over There," written by George M. Cohan and performed by several artists, including Enrico Caruso and Billy Murray. Leading the charts at year's end is this recording by Nora Bayes (click to play): <br />
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<u>January 1918 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading</u><br />
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<u>Contemporary Periodicals</u>:</div>
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American Review of Reviews, February and March 1918</div>
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New York
Times, January and February 1918</div>
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<u>Books and Articles</u>:</div>
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A. Scott Berg, Wilson</div>
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Britain at War Magazine, The Fourth Year of the Great War: 1917<br />
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918 <br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography<br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and
Theodore Roosevelt </div>
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John Dos Passos, Mr. Wilson's War</div>
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David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922</div>
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Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life<br />
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History </div>
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Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933<br />
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume IV: The Stricken World 1916-1922</div>
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Ann Hagedorn, Savage Peace, Hope and Fear in America, 1919 </div>
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August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
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Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House</div>
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Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography<br />
John Keegan, The First World War<br />
David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society<br />
Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 </div>
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Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era,
1910-1917</div>
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Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra</div>
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G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918</div>
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G.J. Meyer, The World Remade: America in World War I </div>
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Michael S. Neiberg, The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America</div>
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Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict</div>
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J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War<br />
Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931 </div>
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Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History</div>
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The West Point Atlas of War: World War I </div>
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Dennis Crosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05167348173555324839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320526393914188899.post-10423814992838435592017-12-31T09:59:00.000-08:002017-12-31T09:59:21.768-08:00December 1917<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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One of the most consequential years in world history, highlighted by the Communist revolution in Russia and the United States' entry into the World War, has come to an end. In December 1917 the Bolsheviks, having driven the Provisional Government from power, occupy Russian Army headquarters and murder the Army's former commander-in-chief. An armistice is declared on the Eastern Front and
negotiations begin for a permanent peace treaty between the new Russian government and the Central Powers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The announced goal of the talks is a peace on the
basis of no annexations and a withdrawal of occupying forces, but the difficulty of achieving that goal in
practice becomes apparent when the two sides present their proposals. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">In Palestine, a</span> British Army commanded by
General Edmund Allenby occupies Jerusalem. On the Western Front the British stall German counterattacks at Cambrai and dig into defensive positions for the winter; Italian forces, aided by British reinforcements, turn back the Austrians on the Asiago Plateau.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Ships collide in Halifax harbor, causing a fire and a massive explosion that kills thousands.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An American destroyer is torpedoed and
sunk by a German submarine. </span>The United
States declares war on Austria-Hungary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Colonel House returns from Paris where he has been meeting with the Allies. President Wilson, using his
war powers, takes control of the nation’s railroads. The House of Representatives joins the Senate in approving a prohibition amendment to the Constitution. <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
General Dukhonin</div>
<br />
Bolshevik
troops led by Ensign Nikolai Krylenko, who replaced General Nikolai
Dukhonin as commander-in-chief of the Russian Army last month, entered
Mogilev on December 1 and seized the Russian military headquarters. Two
days later, as he was attempting to depart for Petrograd, General
Dukhonin was dragged from his train and beaten to death by a mob of
Bolshevik sailors. General Lavr Kornilov, whose attempted right-wing
coup earlier this year
ended in failure, escaped Mogilev the day before the Bolsheviks took
over. A statement issued by Krylenko on December 4 announced that the Army headquarters had been occupied without fighting, and that as a result "the last
obstacle to the cause of peace" had fallen. He said he
regretted "the sad act of lynch law practiced upon the former highest
commander-in-chief, General Dukhonin," which was the result of
"popular hatred [that] surpassed the limits of reason" caused by "the
flight of General Kornilov the day before."<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTq38y-zAEPK2jumNFTH3J8g3qot-E7L4a416i0SS_51yb03I59Xh4rpbzAQ83FkYfG0zZQjDdwkMxJjvUM0jSMWj9qVtcEOOFGMFyaO0MFgMsxlbkJ9hh_m7jh8xHfEQVEMb_tI8ulv4/s1600/russiangermanarmisticedec1917.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="539" data-original-width="798" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTq38y-zAEPK2jumNFTH3J8g3qot-E7L4a416i0SS_51yb03I59Xh4rpbzAQ83FkYfG0zZQjDdwkMxJjvUM0jSMWj9qVtcEOOFGMFyaO0MFgMsxlbkJ9hh_m7jh8xHfEQVEMb_tI8ulv4/s400/russiangermanarmisticedec1917.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Representatives of Russia and the Central Powers at Brest-Litovsk</div>
<br />
Representatives of Russia's new Bolshevik government are in Brest-Litovsk, a city behind German lines at the confluence of the Bug and Mukhavetz Rivers in western Belorussia, where they are meeting with representatives of the German, Austro-Hungarian, Bulgarian and Turkish governments. On December 15 the parties agreed on an armistice extending to all the land, air and naval forces on their common fronts. The armistice will remain in effect until January 14, after which it will continue automatically unless seven days notice is given. Negotiations for a permanent peace treaty began on December 22. The negotiators have agreed on a series of important points, including liberation of war prisoners and resumption of diplomatic and commercial relations. The question of the disposition of occupied territories, however, has been more difficult. Both sides invoke the principle of no annexations, and both sides offer to withdraw from occupied territory, but their views of how that is to be accomplished differ markedly. Russia proposes to "withdraw her troops from all parts of Austria, Hungary, Turkey and Persia occupied by her, while the powers of the Quadruple Alliance will withdraw theirs from Poland." Then an opportunity will be given for "all peoples living in Russia" to decide "entirely and freely the question of their union with one or the other empire, or their formation into independent states." Invoking the same principle, Germany has made a very different proposal. She offers "as soon as peace is concluded with Russia and the demobilization of the Russian Armies has been accomplished to evacuate her present positions in occupied Russian territory" but asserts that peace can be achieved only upon the basis of "a full state of independence and separation from the Russian Empire for Poland, Lithuania, Courland, and portions of Estonia and Livonia." Russia has replied that "only such manifestation of will can be regarded as a de facto expression of the will of the people as results from a free vote taken in the districts in question, with the complete absence of foreign troops." At year's end negotiations are at an impasse.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-yhSC4CFKyw9Z4EX2bL3qRL2X45aDEp-hP885Z4b48o6741yibhN4zyTqUFjcsyq0Y8JLVjWjqPhSnAl7mefXP6dCnRq6wWgqWZ5_MCSI74aVo-gWb1l6_JWAiSEptHaFE_G47MclHMQ/s1600/Allenby_Entering_Jerusalem.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="188" data-original-width="330" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-yhSC4CFKyw9Z4EX2bL3qRL2X45aDEp-hP885Z4b48o6741yibhN4zyTqUFjcsyq0Y8JLVjWjqPhSnAl7mefXP6dCnRq6wWgqWZ5_MCSI74aVo-gWb1l6_JWAiSEptHaFE_G47MclHMQ/s400/Allenby_Entering_Jerusalem.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
General Allenby Entering Jerusalem</div>
<br />
The British Army in Palestine, after capturing Beersheba, advanced through Gaza and surrounded Jerusalem. On December 9 the Turks surrendered the city, and two days later the British commander General Edmund Allenby entered the Old City through the Jaffa Gate. In order to avoid any appearance of triumphalism, and to show respect for the City's holy places, he entered on foot rather than horseback. No Allied flags were allowed to be flown over the City, and Muslim soldiers from India were assigned to guard the Dome of the Rock.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzziXKGXynnJ3drE0ZMBfjeoIocaTDa5hdl4jOZnkcbvCC8olpqU6qo2D3khzoE2C5Iy6zFUN4rl84yewFAZdIH5Zfrqo_4oor7v9uw7UgcWAmLHAqX5dlGk4qokjk9NZ5iK9tUzzycJ0/s1600/asiagonovdec1917.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="441" data-original-width="600" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzziXKGXynnJ3drE0ZMBfjeoIocaTDa5hdl4jOZnkcbvCC8olpqU6qo2D3khzoE2C5Iy6zFUN4rl84yewFAZdIH5Zfrqo_4oor7v9uw7UgcWAmLHAqX5dlGk4qokjk9NZ5iK9tUzzycJ0/s400/asiagonovdec1917.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Asiago<br />
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On the Western Front, the British push toward Cambrai, which began last month with a successful attack spearheaded by "tanks," has bogged down. German counterattacks have regained much of the ground lost in the early days of the battle, and on December 2 Field Marshal Haig directed a withdrawal to secure defensive positions for the winter. At year's end, German counterattacks were continuing with mixed results. On the Italian Front, British troops transferred form France have aided the Italians in turning back the Austro-German advance on the Asiago Plateau.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMyvrC2nLX5s6zKJMh42sXIv_TdskPtgQ2NvEN2GS4-q62ClARHUzk_GQX3bcZGMDtGlkCc25nRKog39kpbdidynXkoMG2AVVtwbtRjHOzo7auaTX3Bvka64SrGXqeOi6SZDgqbITTPjg/s1600/Halifax_Explosion_-_harbour_view.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="152" data-original-width="239" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMyvrC2nLX5s6zKJMh42sXIv_TdskPtgQ2NvEN2GS4-q62ClARHUzk_GQX3bcZGMDtGlkCc25nRKog39kpbdidynXkoMG2AVVtwbtRjHOzo7auaTX3Bvka64SrGXqeOi6SZDgqbITTPjg/s400/Halifax_Explosion_-_harbour_view.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Halifax Harbor After the Explosion</div>
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On December 6, the SS Mont Blanc, a freighter loaded with munitions en route from New York to France, was entering the harbor at Halifax, Nova
Scotia to join a transatlantic convoy when it collided with a departing
steamship. The ensuing fire and explosion destroyed or damaged every building in the city, killed 2,000
people
and injured over 9,000. Rescue efforts were hampered by a fierce blizzard that struck Halifax the day after the explosion.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDosvm0B53ERnG4SbCxIhSFDMFbqxixJLhsEbRxeWDITv_13a8m_1b8YMIDe-18eAcKGEdo7oQTTX2VR6YbO3hZKIKnWy464FxllPO8zaJF38UYrqb5TdWuJPChd0WCgQMCr_srwWWKhg/s1600/USS_Jacob_Jones_%2528DD-61%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="171" data-original-width="300" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDosvm0B53ERnG4SbCxIhSFDMFbqxixJLhsEbRxeWDITv_13a8m_1b8YMIDe-18eAcKGEdo7oQTTX2VR6YbO3hZKIKnWy464FxllPO8zaJF38UYrqb5TdWuJPChd0WCgQMCr_srwWWKhg/s400/USS_Jacob_Jones_%2528DD-61%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
U.S.S. Jacob Jones (DD-61)<br />
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<br /></div>
</div>
For
the first time in the war, the United States Navy has lost a warship to
enemy action. On December 6, the U.S.S. Jacob Jones (DD-61) was en
route independently from Brest to Queenstown after participating in the
escort of a transatlantic convoy when she was torpedoed and sunk by a
German submarine near the Isles of Scilly. Sixty-six officers and men
of her 107-man crew were lost.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtTAortCkE_znjRJf-m43mRyZpQygwBceaNDQUDqfBo4lYYb71b-yyMjT_HUQyNH08NoXWVF1uLECGcHvR-tL-sAjUGEz61NpvHwwdujNCoEToQ7KUOgiJWcpA5rC9X5-SIkMXELufkOY/s1600/London-Meyer-1916strike.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="231" data-original-width="220" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtTAortCkE_znjRJf-m43mRyZpQygwBceaNDQUDqfBo4lYYb71b-yyMjT_HUQyNH08NoXWVF1uLECGcHvR-tL-sAjUGEz61NpvHwwdujNCoEToQ7KUOgiJWcpA5rC9X5-SIkMXELufkOY/s400/London-Meyer-1916strike.jpg" width="380" /></a></div>
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Meyer London</div>
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The 65th Congress convened on Monday, December 3 for its regular session. The next day President Wilson journeyed to the Capitol to deliver his annual State of the Union message. Many Congressmen had been calling for a declaration of war against Germany's allies Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria, but no one knew when the President began speaking what the President would ask Congress to do. For most of his address, he called for a concentrated effort in the war against Germany. He told Congress that "our immediate task is to win the war, and nothing shall turn us aside until it is accomplished" and that "those who desire to bring peace about before that purpose is
achieved I counsel to carry their advice elsewhere. We will not
entertain it." He said "we shall regard the war as won only when the German people say to us, through properly accredited representatives, that they are ready to agree to a settlement based on justice and the reparation of the wrongs their rulers have done," Among those wrongs are "a wrong to Belgium, which must be repaired," and "establish[ing] a power over other lands and peoples than their own -- over the great empire of Austria-Hungary, over hitherto free Balkan States, over Turkey, and within Asia -- which must be relinquished." The President was more than half way through his speech before he addressed the question of adding to the nation's list of enemies. In pursuing the goal of pushing "this great war of freedom and justice to its righteous conclusion," he cited "one very embarrassing obstacle that stands in our way." That is "that we are at war with Germany, but not with her allies." He therefore recommended "very earnestly" that Congress declare war against Austria-Hungary because that nation is "not her own mistress, but simply the vassal of the German government." He acknowledged that "the same logic would lead also to a declaration of war against Turkey and Bulgaria," but said that although those nations "also are the tools of Germany, . . . they are mere tools and do not yet stand in the direct path of our necessary action."<br />
<br />
The war resolution submitted to Congress, which did not include Turkey and Bulgaria, passed both houses of Congress on December 7 with only one dissenting vote. The single no vote was cast by Representative Meyer London of New York, the only Socialist member of Congress, who explained that "as a Socialist, I am pledged to vote against a declaration of war. In matters of war I am a teetotaler. I refuse to take the first intoxicating drink." Senator Robert LaFollette, who was a vocal opponent of the war with Germany in April, was absent from the chamber and later claimed he had not heard the bell announcing the roll call. Representative Jeannette Rankin, another no vote in April, voted for the resolution. She said "I still believe that war is a stupid and futile way of attempting to settle international difficulties," but "the vote that we are now to cast is not on the declaration of war. . . . This is merely a vote on a technicality in the prosecution of the war already declared. I shall vote for this, as I voted for money and men."<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikLHZYUzK8o8W7MHrU1CIbMdHjboEy31w-yV3jYHqqpqCdLQNYOPpbfJQF-NJjxPiDCrcRiI35DTxTqmpTBH0RrwtRCUaPzp2hUI8CPPOqReOOIjYJWUDwtHD7AtPDUxgRAJAYd5YvCXE/s1600/HouseandWilson.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="252" data-original-width="194" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikLHZYUzK8o8W7MHrU1CIbMdHjboEy31w-yV3jYHqqpqCdLQNYOPpbfJQF-NJjxPiDCrcRiI35DTxTqmpTBH0RrwtRCUaPzp2hUI8CPPOqReOOIjYJWUDwtHD7AtPDUxgRAJAYd5YvCXE/s400/HouseandWilson.jpg" width="307" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Colonel House With President Wilson</div>
<br />
President
Wilson's close advisor "Colonel" Edward M. House returned on December
15 from Paris, where he represented the United States at a meeting of
the Inter-Allied Supreme War Council. Upon his return he issued a
statement to the press proclaiming his mission "a great success." He
told the reporters meeting his ship that before the conference the
efforts of the Allies were "not focused," but that "they are working
together now, and the promises are that they will continue to do so."
Asked about peace prospects and war aims, he said "I didn't talk peace
with a soul in Europe. I didn't discuss war aims. ... As for peace,
perhaps what was accomplished was a great peace step, because it was a
step toward winning the war. ... Please don't let anyone get the idea
that we discussed peace." Three days later in a meeting at the White
House he was more forthcoming, telling President Wilson that he had
tried without success to persuade the Allies to join in a broad
declaration of war aims that would unite the world against Germany. The
President is now considering making such a declaration on his own.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSYmRmu4FISFQb19RV2jpNwIjWbUjFx9N_5l2EppyuEQhyPhvQ2dD43RNU0kkZg6b0OIRwRHc8SxEvmwqDprQaVZPddQpwQ43m2zsJa84ziC33VtNUwn6I74N250ozVMnBXaSrwV0xLRk/s1600/William_Gibbs_McAdoo%252C_formal_photo_portrait%252C_1914.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1082" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSYmRmu4FISFQb19RV2jpNwIjWbUjFx9N_5l2EppyuEQhyPhvQ2dD43RNU0kkZg6b0OIRwRHc8SxEvmwqDprQaVZPddQpwQ43m2zsJa84ziC33VtNUwn6I74N250ozVMnBXaSrwV0xLRk/s400/William_Gibbs_McAdoo%252C_formal_photo_portrait%252C_1914.jpg" width="270" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Secretary McAdoo<br />
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When Congress passed the Army Appropriations Act in August 1916, it included the following language: "The president, in time of war, is empowered, through the Secretary of War, to take possession and assume control of any system or systems of
transportation, or any part thereof, and to utilize the same, to the
exclusion as far as may be necessary of all other traffic thereon, for
the transfer or transportation of troops, war material, and equipment,
or for such other purposes connected with the emergency as may be useful
or desirable." Now that the United States has entered a "time of war," the President has decided to exercise that power. On December 26, using "powers ... granted me by the act of Congress of August 1916," he announced his decision to take control of the nation's railroads in an attempt to deal with the critical problem of increasing railroad congestion. As required by the legislation, the action was taken "through the Secretary of War," but the President delegated actual control of the railroads to Secretary of the Treasury William G. McAdoo. At noon on Friday, December 28, all 257,000 miles of the nation's
railroads passed into government control as McAdoo became
Director General of Railroads with authority to direct and finance the country's transportation facilities for the duration of the war. On December 29 he completed the process of unifying the railroads into a national
system of transportation when he issued an order
directing that "all transportation systems covered by [the President's December 26]
proclamation and order shall be operated as a national system of
transportation, the common and national needs being in all instances
held paramount to any actual or supposed corporate advantage. All
terminals, ports, locomotives, rolling stock, and other transportation
facilities are to be fully utilized to carry out this purpose." Among other things, the order ended the Pennsylvania Railroad's
exclusive right to the use of the huge Pennsylvania terminal station in
New York City and the tubes under the Hudson River leading into it. Those
facilities are now available to all carriers.<br />
<br />
On December 31 Secretary McAdoo addressed a critical coal shortage in the northeast by ordering that coal be given priority over passengers and freight on the nation's railroads. One of the major causes of the shortage is the back-up of unloaded coal cars at the New Jersey terminals on the Hudson River. After conferring with Fuel Administrator Harry A. Garfield, McAdoo asked New York City Mayor-elect Hylan, who will assume office on New Year's Day, to
detail as many city employees as possible to help get the cars unloaded, and he is working with Edward N. Hurley, Chairman of the Shipping Board, to increase the number of ships available to carry the coal to New England.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSWq_tTTFvXL6bbVtaGYzDklE4ALH06aGWk8KuJ51ZMgA2vQUzutdUCbjFGpMUGmDUJgDye3LtrbBpyG0snJk9pIpJCzmvA4orgL7RidRCNUYPteRZYY61Mx-mP4lHxWXscUnTUSkNbno/s1600/morrissheppard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="348" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSWq_tTTFvXL6bbVtaGYzDklE4ALH06aGWk8KuJ51ZMgA2vQUzutdUCbjFGpMUGmDUJgDye3LtrbBpyG0snJk9pIpJCzmvA4orgL7RidRCNUYPteRZYY61Mx-mP4lHxWXscUnTUSkNbno/s400/morrissheppard.jpg" width="290" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Senator Sheppard<br />
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The campaign to make America dry passed a major milestone this month. A proposed amendment to the Constitution prohibiting the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within the United States," which was passed by the Senate in August, was approved by the House of Representatives on December17. The Senate, which is dominated by rural interests, has historically been more receptive to the dry forces than the House, which represents a more urban and ethnically diverse constituency, including a number of recent immigrants from Germany, Ireland and Italy. The next day the Senate agreed to minor changes made by the House and the proposed amendment was submitted to the states for ratification. It includes a provision, never before included in proposed amendments to the Constitution, that it will be inoperative unless it is ratified by the necessary three-fourths of the states within seven years.</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Representative Hobson</div>
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In 1914 an earlier version of the prohibition amendment was passed by the Senate but fell short in the House. That vote, however, was encouraging to the dry forces because for the first time a majority (though less than the necessary two-thirds) of representatives had voted for the amendment. The sponsor of the amendment that year was Representative Richmond P. Hobson (Dem., Ala.). His advocacy for prohibition was popular in his home state, but his racial views found less favor, especially outside his Birmingham congressional district. A former naval officer, he had introduced legislation to allow residents of Porto Rico and the Philippines to apply for admission to West Point and Annapolis, and other legislation to make it unlawful to discriminate against Negro soldiers and sailors in uniform in the District of Columbia. Also undermining his support among the white voters of Alabama was his criticism of President Roosevelt's dishonorable discharges of Negro
soldiers following racial unrest in Brownsville, Texas in 1906. In 1914, he left his House seat to run for an open Senate seat, but lost the Democratic primary (the only competitive race in Alabama) to Representative Oscar W. Underwood, the House majority leader. With Hobson's departure from Congress, leadership of the dry forces passed to Senator Sheppard.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
*****</div>
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<u>December 1917 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading</u><br />
<br />
<u>Contemporary Periodicals</u>:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
American Review of Reviews, January and February 1918</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
New York
Times, December 1917 and January 1918</div>
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<u>Books and Articles</u>:</div>
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<br />
A. Scott Berg, Wilson</div>
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Britain at War Magazine, The Fourth Year of the Great War: 1917<br />
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918 <br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography<br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and
Theodore Roosevelt </div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
John Dos Passos, Mr. Wilson's War</div>
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</div>
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David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922</div>
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Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life<br />
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933<br />
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume IV: The Stricken World 1916-1922</div>
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Ann Hagedorn, Savage Peace, Hope and Fear in America, 1919 </div>
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</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
<br />
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House</div>
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</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography<br />
John Keegan, The First World War<br />
David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society<br />
Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era,
1910-1917</div>
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Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918</div>
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G.J. Meyer, The World Remade: America in World War I </div>
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Michael S. Neiberg, The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America</div>
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Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict<br />
</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War<br />
Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931 </div>
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Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History</div>
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The West Point Atlas of War: World War I </div>
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Dennis Crosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05167348173555324839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320526393914188899.post-88442407488683284992017-11-30T09:53:00.000-08:002017-11-30T19:51:40.237-08:00November 1917<div class="MsoNormal">
In November 1917 British
Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour issues a declaration stating the British
Government’s support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish
people.” The Bolsheviks seize power in Russia and proclaim to the world that the new government intends to negotiate an
“immediate democratic peace.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prime
Minister Kerensky escapes Petrograd and rallies
the Army in an attempt to retake control, but is defeated and goes into hiding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trotsky publishes the text of confidential
diplomatic communications and secret treaties with foreign governments
discovered in the Russian Foreign Office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Armistice negotiations between Russia and Germany begin. On the Western
Front, the battle of Passchendaele comes to an end after weeks of intense
combat and high casualties on both sides.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The British Army launches a surprise tank attack at Cambrai; initial
gains are lost in German counterattacks. Allied leaders meet in Rapallo to coordinate strategy. French
Prime Minister Painleve is forced to resign after losing a
vote of confidence; former Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau assumes leadership of a new government.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An American delegation led by Colonel House arrives in Paris for the inaugural conference of the Inter-Allied Supreme War Council. In Great Britain,
the Marquess of Lansdowne, a former Foreign Secretary, sends a letter to the Daily
Telegraph urging the Government to seek a negotiated peace with Germany.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In an agreement finalized in Washington, the United States agrees that Japan has "special interests" in China and Japan agrees to the "principle" of the "open door" policy; China is not consulted. President Wilson tells the annual convention of the American Federation of Labor in Buffalo that the way to a permanent peace is through victory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>American forces achieve their first victories and suffer their first casualties of the war. Woman suffrage, still making slow but steady
gains state by state, is approved in New York
but rejected in Ohio.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York City's reform mayor John Purroy Mitchel loses his
bid for reelection to Tammany Hall’s candidate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">The Espionage Act survives a First Amendment challenge.</span><br />
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Arthur Balfour and His Declaration</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
Zionism
is a movement established in the 1890's to promote the establishment of
a Jewish homeland in the historic land of Israel in Ottoman Palestine.
It was begun by Theodor Herzl and continued after Herzl's death by
Chaim Weizmann. The movement gained momentum with the outbreak of the
World War and the Ottoman Empire's decision to join the war on the side
of the Central Powers. In last year's Sykes-Picot Agreement, in which
Great Britain, France and Russia agreed to the division of large parts
of the Ottoman Empire into spheres of influence, the future of that
territory, including Jerusalem and its surroundings, was left for future
determination. On November 2, motivated at least in part by a desire
to appeal to the Jews of Russia, most of whom are believed to support the Zionist cause, the
British Government issued a declaration signed by Foreign Minister
Arthur Balfour. The brief declaration states "His Majesty's government
view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for
the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the
achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing
will be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of
existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and
political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country." </div>
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Lenin in Petrograd </div>
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In the aftermath of the Kornilov Affair (see the September 1917 installment of this blog), Russian public opinion, at least in the streets of Petrograd, moved decisively in favor of the Bolsheviks. On November 4, reacting to reports that Russian soldiers on the Baltic front were throwing down their arms and fraternizing with the Germans, the Provisional Government ordered the Petrograd garrison to the front. The only result of Kerensky's order was to cause the Bolsheviks to accelerate their plan to overthrow the government. On November 6 (October 24 on the Russian calendar) the Bolsheviks seized control of telephone exchanges, post offices, banks, bridges, railway stations and other key locations in Petrograd. Then they issued an ultimatum to the Provisional Government and surrounded the Winter Palace, where the members of the Provisional Government were in residence. The Bolsheviks, who greatly outnumbered the forces loyal to the government, were further reinforced by naval forces arriving from the Baltic, including a cruiser that anchored in the Neva River and trained its guns on the Winter Palace. The government surrendered the next day without bloodshed, and the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet promptly issued a statement that it had "deposed the government of Kerensky, which rose against the revolution and the people." It called on Russian soldiers to "watch closely the conduct of the men in command" and ensure that "officers who do not join the accomplished revolution immediately and openly [are] arrested at once as enemies." It outlined a four-point program: "First -- the offer of an immediate democratic peace. Second -- the immediate handing over of large proprietorial lands to the peasants. Third -- the transmission of all authority to the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates. Fourth -- the honest convocation of a Constitutional Assembly."<br />
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As the Bolsheviks stormed the Winter Palace, Premier Kerensky managed to escape in an automobile borrowed from the American Embassy. He drove to Pskov, where he rallied the troops in an attempt to come to the government's defense. His troops succeeded in capturing Tsarskoe Selo, but were turned back at Pulkovo. Kerensky is now in hiding, and the Bolsheviks are firmly in control of Petrograd, and apparently of the Russian army and government.<br />
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Leon Trotsky</div>
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On November 24 Leon Trotsky, the Foreign Minister of the new Bolshevik government, began releasing the text of secret diplomatic communications and treaties found in the Russian archives. Among the material disclosed was last year's Sykes-Picot Agreement, dividing post-war spheres of influence in the Ottoman Empire between France and Great Britain (see the April 1916 installment of this blog). The documents, Trotsky said in a statement, are those of the "Czaristic bourgeois and coalition governments" from which "the Russian nation and all nations in the world must learn the truth of the plans secretly made by financiers and traders through their parliamentary and diplomatic agents." He said that while German and Austrian politicians might try to take advantage of the release to the detriment of Russian interests, he is confident that when the German proletariat, by means of a revolution, gain access to their nations' chancelleries they will find documents that show those governments in no better light.<br />
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Nikolai Krylenko</div>
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The new Russian government has moved quickly to redeem its pledge to get the country out of the war. Lenin has hedged slightly, saying his party has already fulfilled its promises by releasing the secret treaties and making "an immediate proposal for peace." He states that "the revolutionary struggle for peace" will now begin. When General Nikolai Dukhonin, named commander-in-chief of the Russian Army by Premier Kerensky in August, refused Lenin's order to open armistice talks, he was dismissed and replaced by Ensign Nikolai Krylenko, who despite his modest military title is a "People's Commissar" and a member of the inner circle of the new government. Krylenko sent three representatives to the German commander at the front with instructions to inquire whether immediate negotiations for an armistice might be commenced. The Russian delegates crossed the German lines on November 27 and began negotiations with the German military authorities with the goal of beginning comprehensive negotiations for an armistice.<br />
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Chancellor von Hertling</div>
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Germany has a new Chancellor, Georg von Hertling, who came to power on November 1. In a speech in the Reichstag on November 29, he responded to the Russian overture by announcing that Germany is prepared to enter into peace negotiations with the new Russian government as soon as it is able to send representatives with full powers to Berlin. Negotiations are now scheduled to begin on December 2. The French and American military missions in Petrograd responded to these developments by sending letters to the Russian government formally protesting any separate armistice or peace by Russia. On November 30 their letters drew a sharp response from Foreign Minister Trotsky, who insisted that Russia "cannot permit allied military and diplomatic agents to interfere in the internal affairs of our country and attempt to excite civil war." <br />
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Ground Won by the Canadians at Passchendaele</div>
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The
British offensive on the Ypres Salient came to an end this month, short
of its original goal of the railway junction at Roulers. Since it
began on the last day of July, the offensive gained four and a half
miles of muddy ground at the cost of 62,000 British, Canadian and Anzac
soldiers killed and 164,000 wounded. The village of Passchendaele was
captured on November 6 and the ridge beyond on November 10. The final
attack, like most of the offensive, was hindered by a steady rain that
turned the battlefield into a swamp.<br />
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A British Tank at the Battle of Cambrai<br />
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After
securing Passchendaele Ridge and the little that was left of the
village of Passchendaele, Field Marshal Haig turned his attention to the
town of Cambrai, an important supply center for the Germans about six
miles behind the Hindenburg Line. At 6:20 a.m. on November 20, without
any advance artillery preparation or other indication that an attack was
imminent, the British began an intense artillery barrage coordinated
with a simultaneous attack by a mass formation of 324 Mark IV "tanks."
Compared to the area around the Ypres Salient, the terrain was dry and
solid, ideal for tanks, which rolled effortlessly over the multiple
lines of barbed wire the Germans had deployed. Caught by surprise, the
Germans found the tanks on top of them before they could react and the
British were able to make substantial gains. Bells of celebration were
rung in London when news of the advance arrived on November 23, but on
the 27th the British were forced to break off the action short of the
town of Cambrai, and in a counterattack begun the next day the Germans
regained much of the lost ground. </div>
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German Troops in Vittorio Veneto</div>
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The
Italian Army has been in retreat since the Austro-German offensive
began last month at Caporetto. Unable to prevent the crossing of the
Tagliamento on November 6, the Italian Army fell back to the Piave, the
last river between the Austrians and Venice and sixty miles from
Caporetto where the attack began. With help from British troops
transferred from the Western Front, the Italians have been successful in
preventing a crossing of the Piave, and on November 19 they mounted a
counteroffensive on the Asiago Plateau. <br />
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General Cadorna</div>
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Political and military leader of Italy, France and Great Britain met at Rapallo, a small town near Rome, on November 5 to discuss military strategy in the midst of the severe setbacks suffered by the Italian Army in the Caporetto offensive. The delegations were led by the prime ministers: David Lloyd George
for Great Britain, Paul Painleve for France, and Vittorio Orlando for
Italy. The conference promised aid to the struggling Italian forces and established a Supreme War Council to coordinate the Allies' future military strategy. At the insistence of Britain and France, General Luigi Cadorna, the architect of Italy's failed campaign on the Isonzo, was dismissed as chief of the Italian General Staff and replaced by General Armando Diaz. The conferees agreed to a meeting of the Allied Supreme War Council on November 15 in Paris.<br />
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Georges Clemenceau</div>
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When
French Prime Minister Paul Painleve returned to Paris from the
conference at Rapallo, he immediately confronted a political
crisis. On November 13, an extended debate in the Chamber of Deputies
on the question of the new Allied War Council led to a narrow vote in
the government's favor, but it was followed by interpellations (formal
questions interrupting the regular order in parliamentary procedure)
seeking an explanation of accusations in the press of a royalist plot
and against former Minister of the Interior Louis-Jean Malvy. Painleve
demanded postponement of those questions until after the conclusion of
the inter-allied conference, and made that question one of confidence.
On the ensuing vote of confidence the Socialists refused to support the government, and the government lost by a vote of 277-186. Painleve and
his cabinet immediately submitted their resignations to President
Poincare. The new Prime Minister, who will now represent France on the
Supreme Allied War Council, is newspaper editor and former Prime
Minister Georges Clemenceau, who will also serve as Minister of War. <br />
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American Mission to the Inter-Allied Supreme War Council</div>
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(on the sofa: Admiral Benson, "Colonel" House, General Bliss)</div>
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Last month an American mission was sent to Paris to obtain information regarding the existing conditions of the Allied nations prosecuting the war against Germany and to determine the most effective contribution the United States could make as an Associated Power. The mission arrived in London on November 7, the same day the Allies in Rapallo created the Supreme Allied War Council and the Bolsheviks overthrew the Kerensky government in Russia. The American mission is led by President Wilson's advisor "Colonel" Edward M. House. He is accompanied by Army Chief of Staff General Tasker H. Bliss and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral William S. Benson, as the military and naval representatives. On November 17 the United States formally adhered to the Supreme War Council and designated Colonel House and General Bliss as its civilian and military representatives. The next day, President Wilson sent a cable to Colonel House asking him to attend the first meeting of the Council and emphasizing that "unity of plan and control" between the Allies and the United States is essential to achieving a just and permanent peace. The Council is now scheduled to meet in Paris on December 1.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGlirsBEQvH9hZ4KHiV2X4rPtg2N5y5YsiHMoic00_ByqdfHWCdcZ7hIKqyEfZUqoSv2LqcfAovdXqS8B1qHyAzkAXgyWxrnyuXy4aIbwZA1L_vuvXVG217eeeeOc2c5hEtXikill4d24/s1600/Ishii-Lansing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="572" data-original-width="800" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGlirsBEQvH9hZ4KHiV2X4rPtg2N5y5YsiHMoic00_ByqdfHWCdcZ7hIKqyEfZUqoSv2LqcfAovdXqS8B1qHyAzkAXgyWxrnyuXy4aIbwZA1L_vuvXVG217eeeeOc2c5hEtXikill4d24/s400/Ishii-Lansing.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Viscount Ishii Kikujiro and Secretary of State Robert Lansing<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Secretary of State Robert Lansing and Viscount Ishii Kikujiro, special ambassador from Japan, entered into an agreement on November 2 in which the United States "recognizes that Japan has special interests in China." The same agreement, however, states that the two governments "will always adhere to the principle of the so-called 'open door,' or equal opportunity for commerce and industry in China." Ten days later, the Chinese government formally protested, stating that it does not consider itself bound by agreements entered into by other nations. By declaring war on Germany in August, China aligned itself, at least formally, with Japan in the World War. The Lansing-Ishii Agreement, however, highlights the continuing adversarial relationship between the two countries.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEissPXqjK-lR_wyRKWHvdLU4aSMWkwhBOaWATs2GkPMm0JZ4mmxq1rlJhMCj4QWdLKEnHPCMF3SGhj8jVR6UjlYJVxaE6A9EAUDWKlDoRbfjxcu9meE8_10uIW4WVjsuGoArJm-tEDCWD8/s1600/marquessoflansdowne.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="373" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEissPXqjK-lR_wyRKWHvdLU4aSMWkwhBOaWATs2GkPMm0JZ4mmxq1rlJhMCj4QWdLKEnHPCMF3SGhj8jVR6UjlYJVxaE6A9EAUDWKlDoRbfjxcu9meE8_10uIW4WVjsuGoArJm-tEDCWD8/s320/marquessoflansdowne.jpg" width="264" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
The Marquis of Lansdowne</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
Henry Charles Keith Petty-Fitzmaurice, Fifth Marquis of Lansdowne and former Governor-general of Canada, Viceroy of India and Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, has written a letter to the Daily Telegraph which was published on November 29. In his letter Lord Lansdowne called for immediate negotiations to bring an end to the World War, the prolongation of which, he said, "will spell ruin to the civilized world, and an infinite addition to the load of human suffering which already weighs upon it." Lord Lansdowne's letter has been widely denounced in the press and disavowed by British politicians of all parties. Lord Northcliffe's Evening News called the Marquis of Lansdowne the "Marquis of Hands Up."<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp6Pcd1DRzeKz1syVn3YNKpVKwR3ADhL7Q6Fy2uedAL6x-pFQ9HwYA5zCfK6smLqpKjVLM6AW6H_m_Lm2zUqui76ihQlj5dpfM_cv9kZ7ayPqgaJQ7xProccMeySpwMzC25eMqbJiWnBM/s1600/wilsoninbuffalonovember1917.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1030" data-original-width="1600" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp6Pcd1DRzeKz1syVn3YNKpVKwR3ADhL7Q6Fy2uedAL6x-pFQ9HwYA5zCfK6smLqpKjVLM6AW6H_m_Lm2zUqui76ihQlj5dpfM_cv9kZ7ayPqgaJQ7xProccMeySpwMzC25eMqbJiWnBM/s400/wilsoninbuffalonovember1917.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
President Wilson in Buffalo</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPHQUHZvb3QzmKl7x-AKwv8l7MzzbQabwZzZKq94-WSdovFkHizcEZI2H6EECelJ2YhnQ6Gn0lPaBJLqT231fK_w7R-QjavSJahGFLt9NfZP6smIcyhf66Q1tJDeKiPLfj4ZQs6jIzj3c/s1600/gompers2wilsons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="438" data-original-width="504" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPHQUHZvb3QzmKl7x-AKwv8l7MzzbQabwZzZKq94-WSdovFkHizcEZI2H6EECelJ2YhnQ6Gn0lPaBJLqT231fK_w7R-QjavSJahGFLt9NfZP6smIcyhf66Q1tJDeKiPLfj4ZQs6jIzj3c/s320/gompers2wilsons.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
President Wilson with Samuel Gompers (Center) and Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson Last Year at the Dedication of the AFL's New Headquarters in Washington</div>
</div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
In a speech on November 12 to the annual convention of the American Federation of Labor in Buffalo, New York, President Wilson warned against a premature peace with Germany. He appealed to American labor for its full cooperation in achieving victory in the World War. He brought the crowd to its feet cheering when he dismissed the pacifists, saying "I want peace, but I know how to get it and they do not." The President said he had sent Colonel House abroad to confer with the other nations that are at war with Germany to arrive at a strategy for victory, "and he knows, as I know, that that is the way to get peace if you want it for more than a few minutes." He paid tribute to Samuel Gompers, the President of the Federation, saluting Gompers as a man of "patriotic courage, large vision, and a statesmanlike sense of what is to be done." The President addressed indirectly a rumored revolt of pacifists and Socialists against Gompers' leadership when he said "I like to lay my mind alongside a mind that knows how to pull in harness. The horses that kick over the traces will have to be put in a corral."<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEpVQzohi7fPMJiL82mp3KmnS2dA5mb3yIYcPUhV7ngrX0OJfn0yyJXcbn_pW2k_5wUZ4TB7piwOOSnKMZgxjQropyFvFTtntBEGzNbLMn9hpgAg3sYA11ddPb5bNOs8B43qfaCXYnV5c/s1600/USS_Fanning_%2528DD-37%2529%252C_in_port%252C_probably_at_Queenstown%252C_Ireland.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="214" data-original-width="300" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEpVQzohi7fPMJiL82mp3KmnS2dA5mb3yIYcPUhV7ngrX0OJfn0yyJXcbn_pW2k_5wUZ4TB7piwOOSnKMZgxjQropyFvFTtntBEGzNbLMn9hpgAg3sYA11ddPb5bNOs8B43qfaCXYnV5c/s400/USS_Fanning_%2528DD-37%2529%252C_in_port%252C_probably_at_Queenstown%252C_Ireland.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
U.S.S. Fanning in Port After Its Battle With a German U-boat </div>
<br />
This month saw the first combat by American forces, on land and sea. On November 17, the Navy claimed its first
victory of the war. Two destroyers, U.S.S.
Fanning (DD-37) and U.S.S. Nicholson (DD-52), were escorting a convoy in
the North Atlantic when an alert lookout on the Fanning sighted a small
periscope that was visible for only a few seconds. Fanning
immediately headed for the spot and dropped a depth charge about three
minutes after the sighting. It was joined by Nicholson, which
dropped another depth charge, forcing the U-boat to the surface.
The destroyers gave chase, firing their bow guns, and after the third
shot the submarine hove to and the crew came on deck with their hands in the air. The entire engagement lasted about ten minutes. An
attempt was made to take the U-boat in tow, but it began to sink and the
German sailors jumped into the water and swam to the Fanning. Most of
them were rescued and taken prisoner.<br />
<br />
Fighting on the Western
Front has claimed the lives of three
Americans. On November 16, Corporal James Gresham and Privates Merle D.
Hay and Thomas F. Enright became the first American soldiers reported killed in action in the World War. They were mentioned in the dispatches of the French
General commanding the sector, who reported that they "died bravely in
hand-to-hand fighting with the enemy, who had penetrated the first
line."<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrhZhGNoKu-788Z88OUtr0PVNQGV9504KUrbkaLJRS7xsWx2imeXmlLqAY_0gjkvXDHs_xhtM2Tu_xuCAUEjaOX5wiw-ieVqteUD6lp8ivwH81d2-g7Bec3_B4xqVun_ObPwebStiC6WA/s1600/Suffragists_Parade_Down_Fifth_Avenue%252C_1917.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="800" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrhZhGNoKu-788Z88OUtr0PVNQGV9504KUrbkaLJRS7xsWx2imeXmlLqAY_0gjkvXDHs_xhtM2Tu_xuCAUEjaOX5wiw-ieVqteUD6lp8ivwH81d2-g7Bec3_B4xqVun_ObPwebStiC6WA/s400/Suffragists_Parade_Down_Fifth_Avenue%252C_1917.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Suffragists on Fifth Avenue</div>
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A Women's Suffrage Amendment to the New York Constitution was overwhelmingly approved on November 6. On the same day a similar proposal was defeated in Ohio. This is the third time the voters of Ohio have rejected Women's Suffrage proposals. All the voters in both states, of course, were male. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQo_qTkENjLHzehDKTsle1ljFWLk8RztnPGboOR_xSkWiqJNdZ_oduYfD8vxHxGlc6XynTf8FuJyL8QBFN1hVDl5S0XaqH8Twx5tDkeFjW5hnu5zvpwhIqkQowR2Wl2iV5_Tmx9r4nZeg/s1600/hylan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="236" data-original-width="184" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQo_qTkENjLHzehDKTsle1ljFWLk8RztnPGboOR_xSkWiqJNdZ_oduYfD8vxHxGlc6XynTf8FuJyL8QBFN1hVDl5S0XaqH8Twx5tDkeFjW5hnu5zvpwhIqkQowR2Wl2iV5_Tmx9r4nZeg/s320/hylan.jpg" width="248" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
John F. Hylan</div>
</div>
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Tammany Hall swept the November 6 municipal elections in New York City. The Tammany candidate for mayor, John F. Hylan, easily defeated both the incumbent mayor, John Purroy Mitchel, who ran as an independent, and William Bennett, the man who defeated Mitchel in the Republican primary. Mitchel came in second. Morris Hillquit, the Socialist candidate, came in third, barely behind Mitchel and well ahead of Bennett, who finished a distant fourth. In a statement after the election, Hillquit noted the "tremendous Socialist gains" over the previous mayoral election. Alfred E. Smith, the Sheriff of New York County, was elected President of the Board of Aldermen. Conceding defeat, Mayor Mitchel called for unity, saying "with our nation at war, there is no room for division at home." Charles Murphy, the Boss of Tammany Hall, is considered the real victor. He said "there was no issue of Americanism or loyalty as far as I am concerned" and "I am as good an American as any man." Bennett blamed Mayor Mitchel for "turning the city over to Tammany." <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU2kvwaMtauA4watpjiVoGO7EiU7REvFM3oqomD3zk1zQgIrNsXUIs91cDeP3Ba3KkpTlvOaNhcRPtnb3qPC55N-OkwdeZPYmg0dRBsH2w1fBC63gcATWtKttSgwaXmQZa_qZIY3HUXjs/s1600/massesmagazine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="773" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU2kvwaMtauA4watpjiVoGO7EiU7REvFM3oqomD3zk1zQgIrNsXUIs91cDeP3Ba3KkpTlvOaNhcRPtnb3qPC55N-OkwdeZPYmg0dRBsH2w1fBC63gcATWtKttSgwaXmQZa_qZIY3HUXjs/s320/massesmagazine.jpg" width="248" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
September Issue of The Masses</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCAWoHpKWnCb0y0pnOhZJkk6c_yTM9NqEIdlJth0bBUgAy5IaJ4r0AlmINdT_UPbTU0WcMdF-5TTWI-bfJhlOtgKynwxRzqRc6NcWnzxdl74qSB5oaHDzXbOISqWxFuO33xcG0B7uz-2o/s1600/learned-hand-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="300" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCAWoHpKWnCb0y0pnOhZJkk6c_yTM9NqEIdlJth0bBUgAy5IaJ4r0AlmINdT_UPbTU0WcMdF-5TTWI-bfJhlOtgKynwxRzqRc6NcWnzxdl74qSB5oaHDzXbOISqWxFuO33xcG0B7uz-2o/s320/learned-hand-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Judge Learned Hand</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
The Espionage Act, which became law on June 15, makes it unlawful to "interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces" or "incite insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty" or "obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service" or "utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous or abusive language about the form of government of the United States" or "advocate, teach, defend, or suggest" any of those things. In addition to substantial criminal penalties, the Act empowers the Postmaster General to bar publications that violate the Act from the mail. Shortly after the Act became law, Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson ordered the August 1917 issue of the Socialist magazine "The Masses" excluded from the mails, citing articles and cartoons criticizing the war and the draft. On July 24, in a case challenging Burleson's order, United States District Court Judge Learned Hand enjoined the Post Office from refusing to deliver the magazine. He wrote that although articles and cartoons in The Masses might fall within the language of the statute, "they fall within the scope of that right to criticize ... which is normally the privilege of the individual in countries dependent upon the free expression of opinion as the ultimate source of authority," and were thus protected by the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech and the press. The government appealed, and on November 2 a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Judge Hand's order and reinstated the ban. In an opinion written by Judge Henry W. Rogers, the Court of Appeals held that the Espionage Act was constitutional and that "to obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service within the meaning of the statute it is not necessary that there should be a physical obstruction. Anything which impedes, hinders, retards, restrains, or puts an obstacle in the way of recruiting is sufficient." The Court concluded that "considering the natural and reasonable effect of the publication, it was intended to wilfully obstruct recruiting."<br />
<br />
Thirteen copies of the September issue of The Masses have been held up at the Post Office for insufficient postage. Postmaster General Burleson has determined that, because the August issue was not mailed, the magazine is no longer eligible for mailing as a periodical. Other methods of circulation may also be foreclosed. The Trading with the Enemy Act, which became law on October 6, forbids any person to "carry, transport, publish, or distribute" any publication that is unmailable under the Espionage Act.</div>
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*****</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
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<u>November 1917 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading</u><br />
<br />
<u>Contemporary Periodicals</u>:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
American Review of Reviews, December 1917 and January 1918</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
New York
Times, November and December 1917</div>
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<br />
<u>Books and Articles</u>:</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
John Barrett, Latin America and the War<br />
A. Scott Berg, Wilson<br />
Tasker H. Bliss, Report of the Military Representative on the Supreme War Council to the Secretary of State, U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1914-20v02/d147</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Britain at War Magazine, The Fourth Year of the Great War: 1917<br />
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918 <br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography<br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and
Theodore Roosevelt </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
John Dos Passos, Mr. Wilson's War</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life<br />
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933<br />
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume IV: The Stricken World 1916-1922</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ann Hagedorn, Savage Peace, Hope and Fear in America, 1919 </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography<br />
John Keegan, The First World War<br />
David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society<br />
Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Anthony Lewis, Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Arthur S. Link, Wilson: Confusions and Crises, 1915-1916 </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era,
1910-1917</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
G.J. Meyer, The World Remade: America in World War I </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Michael S. Neiberg, The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America<br />
Edward J. Renehan Jr., The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict<br />
Richard Sutch, Liberty Bonds, April 1917-September 1918, Federal Reserve
History, https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/liberty_bonds</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War<br />
Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931 </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The West Point Atlas of War: World War I </div>
</div>
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<br /></div>
</div>
Dennis Crosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05167348173555324839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320526393914188899.post-66041139125499315202017-10-31T06:36:00.001-07:002017-11-01T07:30:26.948-07:00October 1917<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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In October 1917 the Allied offensive
in Flanders bogs down in mud and heavy rains
near Passchendaele.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Austro-Hungarian Army, aided by German reinforcements,
breaks through the Italian Army’s lines at Caporetto, sending the Italians into
a headlong retreat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>French Army forces
commanded by General Petain attack German Army positions on the Chemin des
Dames, forcing them to withdraw.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In Palestine, the British Army captures Beersheba.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first American troops arrive in the
trenches. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Great
Britain declares an absolute embargo on shipments to the
Northern Neutrals (Sweden, Norway, Denmark
and the Netherlands) to
prevent them from supplying Germany
with food, ammunition and other war materiel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reacting to sinkings of its merchant ships by
German U-boats, Brazil
declares war on Germany<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">.</b> Mata Hari is executed for espionage. In the United States, the Trading with the
Enemy Act gives the president broad powers to control trade with enemy countries
in time of war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Using powers conferred
by the new law, President Wilson appoints A. Mitchell Palmer to the post of
Alien Property Custodian.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Palmer
promptly seizes money and property belonging to or owed to German subjects and
uses the money to buy Liberty Bonds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mayor Mitchel of New York City, having lost his party's primary, is running as an Independent. The
second Liberty Bond campaign is a success.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The special session of Congress, called earlier this year to declare war against Germany, comes to an end. Columbia University terminates two professors for
suspected disloyalty, causing Charles A. Beard, a prominent political science
professor, to resign from the faculty in protest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Chicago White Sox (including several future Black Sox) win the World Series,
defeating the New York Giants four games to two.<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">*****</b></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Australian Soldiers at Passchendaele</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The Anglo-French offensive in Flanders, dubbed the Third Battle of Ypres, has been under way since the end of July. British Armies under the overall command of Field Marshal Haig continued the "bite and hold" tactic they employed last month at the Menin Road Ridge and Polygon Wood. On October 4, under a steady rain that had begun the previous day, British armies under the command of Generals Gough and Plumer, mostly Australians and New Zealanders, moved forward about one thousand yards and dug in after occupying Broodseinde Ridge. By then, the rain had become torrential, filling shell holes and turning the ground into an impassable swamp. Both generals recommended halting the offensive, but they were overruled by Haig, who insisted that the attack continue with the objective of capturing Passchendaele Ridge. The offensive continued as scheduled on October 9, but the weather and ground conditions caused the attack to bog down. At month's end, further attacks by Canadian troops have thus far failed to capture Passchendaele Ridge.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
The French Offensive at La Malmaison</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
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<div style="text-align: left;">
As the British and Canadians were fighting their way toward Passchendaele to the north, French troops under General Henri Petain, in a renewal of last spring's offensive under General Nivelle, attacked German positions along the high ground of the Chemin des Dames and the fort of La Malmaison. At the end of the month, the French had driven the Germans back to the north bank of the Ailette River and the Oise-Aisne Canal.</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando</div>
<br />
The two offensives launched on the Isonzo River earlier this year by Italian Commander-in-Chief General Luigi Cadorna resulted in over 280,000 Italian casualties but no appreciable gains. Responding to the urgent appeal of Austrian Emperor Karl, Kaiser Wilhelm ordered that German reinforcements be sent to aid in an Austrian offensive. On October 24, led by German divisions under the command of General Otto von Below, the
combined armies attacked at Caporetto. After a short but intense artillery bombardment, the leading units advanced rapidly, using poison gas effectively and bypassing Italian strong points. By month's end, the Italian Army was in full retreat and attempting to establish defensive positions along the Tagliamento River. The defeat caused the fall of the government of Italian Prime Minister Paolo Boselli, who was replaced on October 30 by Minister of the Interior Vittorio Orlando.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
General Allenby</div>
<br />
The British have failed in two previous attempts to drive the Turks from Gaza, the most direct route from Cairo to Palestine. General Edmund Allenby, the new commander of British Army forces who assumed command of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in July, has had more success. After a campaign of deception and a feint toward Gaza that convinced the Turks that Gaza was again the primary target, Allenby instead attacked the crossroads town of Beersheba, located on the southern edge of the Negev Desert. The attack began the morning of October 31 and ended with a cavalry charge by the Australian Fourth Light Horse Brigade which forced the surrender of the last of the Turkish defenders. With the British occupation of Beersheba, the Turkish position in Gaza has become untenable.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
American Troops Ashore in France, June 1917</div>
<br />
The first Americans have arrived in the trenches. On October 21 American troops were assigned to French units in the Luneville sector, a relatively quiet part of the Western Front. Two days later artillery fire inflicted the first American combat injuries; all the injured soldiers were treated and returned to duty. A few days later the Americans captured their first prisoner, a German orderly who had wandered into the American lines by mistake.<br />
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With the United States in the war and enforcing its own embargo (imposed in July) on exports to the northern neutrals (Sweden, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands), Great Britain no longer has to worry about offending American interests by cutting off neutral trade. On October 2, the London Gazette printed a royal proclamation imposing a sweeping embargo on all trade with the northern neutrals. Under the new embargo, the exportation to those countries of all articles except printed matter and personal effects accompanied by their owners is prohibited.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
President Bras Signing the Proclamation of War</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
The United States is not the only nation whose neutrality has been threatened by Germany's resumption of submarine warfare against merchant shipping Several Brazilian ships have been attacked with the loss of lives and valuable cargo. On October 26 the Brazilian legislature declared war on the Central Powers. The vote was 149 to 1 in the Chamber of Deputies and unanimous in the Senate. President Venceslau Bras signed the proclamation the same day. Brazilian torpedo boat destroyers have been ordered to Bahia to take possession of the German gunboat Eber, which is interned there. <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Mata Hari</div>
<br />
Margarethe
Zelle, the Dutch entertainer and courtesan who performed under the name
Mata Hari, was arrested in Paris in February and charged with spying
for the Germans. At her trial in July, the French prosecutors accused
her of revealing details of the Allies' new weapon, the "tank," causing
the Germans to rush work on a special gas to be used against it. The
evidence indicated that she had traveled to the English town where the
first "tanks" were being manufactured and that she was subsequently seen
in Spain where she aroused suspicion by associating with a man
suspected by the French Secret Service. She was arrested in Paris after
being seen there with a young British officer attached to the "tank"
service. She was convicted of espionage, and on October 15 she was
taken by automobile from St. Lazaire Prison to the parade ground at
Vincennes where she was executed by a firing squad. <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
A. Mitchell Palmer</div>
<br />
The
Trading with the Enemy Act, which became law on October 6, creates the
post of Custodian of Enemy Property. On October 22, former Pennsylvania
Congressman A. Mitchell Palmer assumed the position and opened offices
at 920 F Street, N.W. He found waiting for him hundreds of letters from
American corporations and others offering to turn over large amounts of
money in the form of dividends from German-owned corporations in the
United States as well as amounts due in settlement of estates and bills
owed to German businesses. In addition to money, Palmer will begin
seizing metals and other materials owned by Germans that are useful for
war purposes, including millions of bales of cotton. The value of the
money and property subject to confiscation is estimated at one billion
dollars. All proceeds will be used to buy Liberty Bonds.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Mayor Mitchel</div>
<br />
New York City's reform mayor, John Purroy Mitchel, was elected as a Republican in 1913. Since then his popularity has diminished dramatically, and this year he narrowly lost the Republican primary to a relatively unknown former state senator. He continues to believe, however, that his nonpartisan message of patriotism and reform will carry the day against Democrat John F. Hylan, Tammany Hall's candidate. On October 1 Mitchel stood on the steps of City Hall and addressed a crowd that filled City Hall Park from Park Row to Broadway. With him were former President Theodore Roosevelt, last year's Republican presidential nominee Charles Evans Hughes, and numerous other dignitaries including former ambassador to the Ottoman Empire Henry Morgenthau and Oscar Straus, former candidate for governor and chairman of the Public Service Commission. A letter of support from former President Taft was read. Replying to speakers who offered him a "popular nomination" to run for reelection as an Independent, he accepted, promising "to make the fight one against Hearst, Hylan and the Hollenzollerns." In a tumultuous meeting on October 4 the New York Republican County Committee voted down a resolution to endorse William M. Bennett, the winner of the Republican primary. Republican leaders are lining up behind Mitchel's Independent candidacy, but this may not be enough to defeat Tammany Hall.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Liberty Bond Poster</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
A second Liberty Loan drive began on October 1 with a goal of 10 million subscribers for a face value of $3 billion dollars worth of bonds. Reflecting the increase in market interest rates since the first Liberty Bond issue in April at three and a half percent, the interest on this issue is four percent. Holders of bonds purchased in the first drive are allowed to exchange them for the new bonds. After a slow start, it appears that this issue, like the first one, will be oversubscribed. An important element in the success of Liberty Loan drives has been the appeal to patriotism and the mobilization of public opinion through the Committee on Public Information. On October 24, proclaimed "Liberty Day" by the President, volunteer women stationed at factory gates passed out seven million fliers. The mail order houses of Montgomery Ward and Sears-Roebuck mailed fliers
to farm women, and librarians inserted Liberty Loan reminder cards in
public library books.<br />
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
Vice President Marshall</div>
<br /></div>
The special session of Congress that convened on April 2 to hear President Wilson's war message came to an end on October 6. As required by Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution, Congress will convene in its regular session on the first Monday in December. In the 188 days it was in session, in addition to declaring war on Germany, Congress enacted important war measures including compulsory military service and legislation authorizing billions of dollars in borrowing and expenditures, as well as.the Espionage Act, prohibiting interference with military operations and recruitment, and the Trading With the Enemy Act. In the last few hours of its session the Senate confirmed the nominations of several senior military officers, including the promotions of Major Generals John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces in France, and Tasker H. Bliss, chief of the Army General Staff, to the rank of General, which they will hold for the duration of their present assignments. Before adjournment both houses were read a message from President Wilson thanking the Congress for "the work of this remarkable session" which has "been done thoroughly" and "with the utmost dispatch possible in the circumstances or consistent with a full consideration of the exceedingly critical matters dealt with," leaving "no doubt as to the spirit and determination of the country." Speaker Clark and Vice President Marshall then addressed the House and the Senate, respectively. Known for his wit and his self-deprecating sense of humor, Marshall thanked the senators for "the patience and forbearance with which they have dealt at many times with my irascible conduct." Describing himself as a presiding officer who was "not one perhaps they wanted, but one that an ignorant electorate has thrust upon them," he reminded the senators that "the unfortunate thing in public life is that those who know nothing are placed in the seats of the mighty. The wise men remain at home, and discuss public questions on the ends of street cars and around barber shops."<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqyaI9GQud4ttRWXmu26t-Yv5Qe2yA_dM04L2K10yvgxDcg8ZWIBidYmS-J06cMJX27DoHUxkpSRYudncqK0jnb2JT-eQ0NTd_SLa0qzhWo8WqfHrxyIllEue0A9YD-OmzLzzYIxXeubI/s1600/Robert_M._La_Follette%252C_Sr._.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="236" data-original-width="170" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqyaI9GQud4ttRWXmu26t-Yv5Qe2yA_dM04L2K10yvgxDcg8ZWIBidYmS-J06cMJX27DoHUxkpSRYudncqK0jnb2JT-eQ0NTd_SLa0qzhWo8WqfHrxyIllEue0A9YD-OmzLzzYIxXeubI/s400/Robert_M._La_Follette%252C_Sr._.jpg" width="288" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Senator LaFollette</div>
<br />
A flood of telegrams and letters have poured into the Capitol in recent weeks demanding the expulsion of Senators Lafollette, Gronna, and Stone, all of whom opposed the declaration of war, on grounds of disloyalty. The Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections asked Senator LaFollette to answer specific questions about statements he had made in an address in St. Paul, and he responded with a two-hour speech on the Senate floor as the session drew to a close. He based his defense on the argument that he has a right to free speech, and told the Senate he will continue to oppose the war and call for the administration to state its war aims. Three of his fellow senators attacked the speech, Senator Joseph T. Robinson (Dem., Ark.) telling him "you can't run for president on a platform of disloyalty."<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV-oWX0VWcsB96rEwYkIEkVUwK-hzJ7c_AAdbW_rT7HccWI_I0uZoLjhLq8OZJTtcLiUy5kSnP2TZaRkC9Io73pQ4ST8JM937slZNKT0vG6tS8XdGx6G5gXzfvPWqT3y0UY2hj3qF2y8A/s1600/Charles_Austin_Beard_in_1917.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="701" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV-oWX0VWcsB96rEwYkIEkVUwK-hzJ7c_AAdbW_rT7HccWI_I0uZoLjhLq8OZJTtcLiUy5kSnP2TZaRkC9Io73pQ4ST8JM937slZNKT0vG6tS8XdGx6G5gXzfvPWqT3y0UY2hj3qF2y8A/s400/Charles_Austin_Beard_in_1917.jpg" width="273" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Professor Beard</div>
<br />
In
a meeting held October 1, the Board of Trustees of Columbia University
expelled two professors from the faculty. Professor James McKeen
Cattell of the Department of Psychology and Assistant Professor Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow Dana were ousted on charges that they had
disseminated doctrines tending to encourage a spirit of disloyalty to
the United States Government. Professor Cattell had written letters to
members of Congress urging them to vote against sending drafted soldiers
to Europe, and Professor Dana had joined and become active in the
People's Council despite a warning from Columbia President Nicholas
Murray Butler not to do so because it was engaged in weakening the
government's prosecution of the war. The statement issued by the
University stated that it was "the judgment of the university Faculties,
in which the Trustees concurred, that both Professor Cattell and
Professor Dana had done grave injury to the university by their public
agitation against the conduct of the war." A week later, Professor
Charles A. Beard, a
distinguished and well-known professor of political science, resigned
from the faculty in protest. While repeating his often-expressed
support for the war, he objected to the university's control by "a small
and active group of trustees who have no standing in the world of
education, who are reactionary and visionless in politics, and narrow
and mediaeval in religion." He states that in light of the trustees'
action he can "no longer do my humble part in sustaining public opinion
in support of the just war on the German Empire or take a position of
independence in the days of reconstruction that are to follow."<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Heine Zimmerman Leaping Over a Scoring Eddie Collins</div>
<br />
The Chicago White Sox defeated the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds on October 15 to win the World Series four games to two. The decisive inning was the fourth, which featured three unearned runs. The game was scoreless when the inning began with Chicago second baseman Eddie Collins coming to the plate as the lead-off hitter. He hit a grounder to third baseman Heine Zimmerman, whose errant throw to first bounced off the ground and out of the infield, allowing Collins to advance to second. Left fielder Shoeless Joe Jackson then hit an easy fly ball to right fielder Dave Robertson, which Robertson dropped, putting Jackson on first and sending Collins to third. The next batter, center fielder Happy Felsch, hit a ground ball to pitcher Rube Benton, who chased Collins back toward third, then tossed the ball to Zimmerman. As he did so, Collins wheeled and sped toward home. Giants catcher Bill Rariden moved up the third base line ready to begin a rundown, but Zimmerman, ignoring shouted advice from fans and teammates to "throw the ball!," chased Collins all the way to the plate in an attempt to tag him from behind. Collins won the race. Felsch and Jackson advanced to second and third on the play, and the next batter, first baseman Chick Gandil, drove them in, giving the White Sox a 3-0 lead. Giants second baseman Buck Herzog hit a two-run triple in the fifth, but that was all the New Yorkers could muster. The White Sox went on to win the game 4-2.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
*****</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>October 1917 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading</u><br />
<br />
<u>Contemporary Periodicals</u>:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
American Review of Reviews, November and December 1917</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
New York
Times, October 1917</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<u>Books and Articles</u>:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
John Barrett, Latin America and the War<br />
A. Scott Berg, Wilson</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Britain at War Magazine, The Fourth Year of the Great War: 1917<br />
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918 <br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography<br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and
Theodore Roosevelt </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
John Dos Passos, Mr. Wilson's War</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life<br />
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933<br />
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume IV: The Stricken World 1916-1922</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ann Hagedorn, Savage Peace, Hope and Fear in America, 1919 </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography<br />
John Keegan, The First World War<br />
David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society<br />
Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Arthur S. Link, Wilson: Confusions and Crises, 1915-1916 </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era,
1910-1917</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
G.J. Meyer, The World Remade: America in World War I </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Michael S. Neiberg, The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America<br />
Edward J. Renehan Jr., The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict<br />
Richard Sutch, Liberty Bonds, April 1917-September 1918, Federal Reserve
History, https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/liberty_bonds</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War<br />
Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931 </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The West Point Atlas of War: World War I </div>
</div>
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
Dennis Crosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05167348173555324839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320526393914188899.post-59330121627572286172017-09-30T18:56:00.000-07:002017-09-30T18:56:17.295-07:00September 1917<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
In September 1917, the Central Powers reply to Pope Benedict’s peace
initiative, saying they welcome it as a basis for negotiation but not agreeing to any
specific concessions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a supplemental
message delivered to the Papal Nuncio at Munich,
the German government says it would consider evacuating Belgium and contributing to reparations for war
damages in return for certain guarantees from Belgium, an offer the Allies
consider unacceptable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Russia, following General
Kornilov’s failed coup, Prime Minister Kerensky assumes personal
command of the armed forces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is another change of government in France as
Prime Minister Alexandre Ribot is replaced by War Minister Paul Painleve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the United
States, parades honoring draftees are held in Washington and New
York.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Washington parade, which
takes two hours to pass the reviewing stand, is led by President Wilson and
includes members of Congress and Cabinet members leading contingents
of draftees from their respective departments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>On the Western Front the British offensive on the Ypres
salient continues with attacks on the Menin
Road Ridge and Polygon Wood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Italian offensive against the
Austro-Hungarians at the Isonzo
River achieves modest
gains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Argentina
comes close to declaring war against Germany
when American Secretary of State Lansing releases intercepted and decoded messages sent from
the German Charge d’Affaires in Buenos Aires to his government suggesting that two Argentine
ships en route to France
should be “sunk without a trace.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
*****</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHpW0TLkblXjgrA0DKef3YBsBKxQKbXcyRdJy2lsOBS0NBLHLu7Oy5LmDSMctzMIj74Ux8k-Li6uL9Bj7sOqSPyKPtWpoXCgiIsiUTv111muJucHCvOZ8S6rvfMC7HhuL1-5fXrawTtQw/s1600/Charles_I_of_Austria.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1150" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHpW0TLkblXjgrA0DKef3YBsBKxQKbXcyRdJy2lsOBS0NBLHLu7Oy5LmDSMctzMIj74Ux8k-Li6uL9Bj7sOqSPyKPtWpoXCgiIsiUTv111muJucHCvOZ8S6rvfMC7HhuL1-5fXrawTtQw/s400/Charles_I_of_Austria.jpg" width="286" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Emperor Charles I</div>
<br />
Last month President Wilson, in a reply adopted by the other nations at war with Germany, rejected Pope Benedict's peace initiative, saying no peace was possible as long as Germany is ruled by its present government. Germany and Austria-Hungary have now submitted separate replies to the Pontiff's proposal. The Austrian note was delivered to the Papal Nuncio in Vienna on September 20, and the texts of both notes were made public in Amsterdam the next day. The Austrian note was addressed directly to the Pope by Emperor Charles I. It welcomed "this fresh gift of fatherly care which you, Holy Father, always bestow on all peoples without distinction," and embraced "the leading idea of your Holiness that the future arrangement of the world must be based on the elimination of armed forces and on the moral force of right and on the rule of international justice and legality." It supported "your Holiness's view that the negotiations between the belligerents should and could lead to an understanding by which, with the creation of appropriate guarantees, armaments on land and sea and in the air might be reduced simultaneously, reciprocally and gradually . . . and whereby the high seas, which rightly belong to all the nations of the earth, may be freed from domination . . . and be opened equally for the use of all."<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRYG8KGqRx-RNxMY8OFab-Bd1s-jKiLFAwIOywSME0A7k_JksOSUtb_SLVLD8X2Cmx7D2Z3Il3bEe5tiYwFiUPAU5iuOE5Thcu7_MkoA74538JWWgDZ38sxdJjPUt9pAdQiUlAYaX0koU/s1600/georgmichaelis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="293" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRYG8KGqRx-RNxMY8OFab-Bd1s-jKiLFAwIOywSME0A7k_JksOSUtb_SLVLD8X2Cmx7D2Z3Il3bEe5tiYwFiUPAU5iuOE5Thcu7_MkoA74538JWWgDZ38sxdJjPUt9pAdQiUlAYaX0koU/s400/georgmichaelis.jpg" width="260" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Chancellor Michaelis</div>
<br />
Germany, like France, Italy and the United States, has no diplomatic
relations with the Vatican. Its reply, sent by mail, arrived in Rome on
September 26. The Pope's note had been sent to Kaiser Wilhelm with a letter from the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Gasparri. Chancellor Michaelis replied to Gasparri on behalf of "the Kaiser and King, my most gracious master," who has "deigned to acquaint me with your Eminence's letter and to entrust the reply to me." He says the Kaiser "has been following for a considerable time and high respect his Holiness's efforts, in a spirit of true impartiality, to alleviate as far as possible the sufferings of the war and to hasten the end of hostilities" and asserts that the Kaiser has kept his promise never to "cut short the benefits of peace unless war were a necessity." He says that "in the crisis which led up to the present world conflagration his Majesty's efforts were up to the last moment directed toward settling the conflict by peaceful means" but that a "disastrous concatenation of events in the year 1914 absolutely broke off all hopeful course of development and transformed Europe into a bloody battle arena."<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCvI_Gg1XSBT4EaViC0bDAWbp5gs-EzTha-iuvnGSfiWoE2RPvnMKnHKCKRyYIOBItAhhVpGjR9a2JmDnGRROitFCHXAbj_u8cesrZJIPmFyAQbX_0tc4iUAlQPY759t3QZTTZK6Ym1Hk/s1600/Richard_von_K%25C3%25BChlmann.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="219" data-original-width="170" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCvI_Gg1XSBT4EaViC0bDAWbp5gs-EzTha-iuvnGSfiWoE2RPvnMKnHKCKRyYIOBItAhhVpGjR9a2JmDnGRROitFCHXAbj_u8cesrZJIPmFyAQbX_0tc4iUAlQPY759t3QZTTZK6Ym1Hk/s400/Richard_von_K%25C3%25BChlmann.jpg" width="310" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
German Foreign Minister von Kuhlmann </div>
<br />
According to a German official statement released on September 26, Foreign Minister Richard von Kuhlmann delivered a supplemental verbal note to the Papal Nuncio in Munich in response to the Pope's peace initiative. The statement says that Germany would agree to evacuate Belgium and contribute to compensation for war damages under certain conditions, among which are unspecified Belgian guarantees against "any such menace as that which threatened Germany in 1914." In equally general terms, Germany says it wants to be free to develop its economic enterprises freely in Belgium and to have free access to the port of Antwerp. Finally, in accordance with its own interests as well as those of the Belgian people, it wants Belgium to maintain separate administrative districts for the Flanders and Walloon areas of the country. The Allies regard these conditions as unacceptable.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
The Petrograd Soviet in Session</div>
<br />
Events are moving fast in Russia. The Army suffered a major defeat on September 3 when a German attack drove the Russians from the important Baltic port of Riga. In Petrograd, General Kornilov's attempt to take over the government has failed, due in large part to Prime Minister Kerensky's decision to rearm the left-wing Petrograd Soviet and seek its support. By strengthening the Soviet, Kerensky has greatly increased the threat to the Provisional Government from the left. The Soviet, and in particular the Bolsheviks, who were marginalized in the aftermath of the "July Days" (see the July and August 1917 installments of this blog), are now in a position to control events. Leon Trotsky, arrested during the July Days, has been released from prison, and Vladimir Lenin, who fled to Finland, has returned to Russia. In an attempt to maintain control, Kerensky assumed personal command of the Russian Army on September 12, and on September 14 he established a directorate of five men, himself included, to run the government. The next day he dissolved the Duma and proclaimed Russia a republic. The Bolsheviks, meanwhile, have lived up to their name by gaining majority control of the Petrograd Soviet, and have adopted a program favoring exclusion of all property-owning classes from power.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif1bF2UyZN9D2cmFLx0oLYXkCdBuObKQVdBTvD8TVw78zsYdVrDC1ag6kGx5TuPYwFojUN_MuvgvdKpBWoK02ZNwVfWSVmeBUL3-EVZ96Grd6ZuyNRKwFqWmRfYESWpq0T_1_Cb57MDRA/s1600/Paul_Painlev%25C3%25A9_in_1915.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="306" data-original-width="220" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif1bF2UyZN9D2cmFLx0oLYXkCdBuObKQVdBTvD8TVw78zsYdVrDC1ag6kGx5TuPYwFojUN_MuvgvdKpBWoK02ZNwVfWSVmeBUL3-EVZ96Grd6ZuyNRKwFqWmRfYESWpq0T_1_Cb57MDRA/s400/Paul_Painlev%25C3%25A9_in_1915.jpg" width="287" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Paul Painleve</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
France has a new Prime Minister. Alexandre Ribot, who became Prime Minister in March, resigned on September 12. He was succeeded by Minister of War Paul Painleve. Ribot remains in the cabinet as Minister of Foreign Affairs.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrruA9it42gnZOnoWhy3_YOkjSIwC8H0SrFtNTANGslecdelIvDVQy9KGe6J6Hb2ZVtQc5K7Z4BQ-mQnASbhvX9IokEJC-SVsE9_H2UmV94c5fd0jTY9hwyZgp-SWECVf83jncWY8eCdI/s1600/wilsonleadsdraftparade.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="714" data-original-width="960" height="475" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrruA9it42gnZOnoWhy3_YOkjSIwC8H0SrFtNTANGslecdelIvDVQy9KGe6J6Hb2ZVtQc5K7Z4BQ-mQnASbhvX9IokEJC-SVsE9_H2UmV94c5fd0jTY9hwyZgp-SWECVf83jncWY8eCdI/s640/wilsonleadsdraftparade.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
President Wilson Leading the Draft Parade<br />
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In Washington on September 4, young men from the District of Columbia chosen for the new national army through the Selective Service draft were honored in a parade. Numbering some 26,000 marchers including 1,400 draftees, the parade began at the Peace Monument at the foot of Capitol Hill and proceeded up Pennsylvania Avenue to Eighteenth Street, two blocks past the White House. It was led by President Wilson, who strode up Pennsylvania Avenue at a vigorous pace, flanked by a committee of citizens dressed in formal frock coats and silk hats. The President himself, carrying a large American flag, stood out for the simplicity of his
attire: a short blue jacket, white flannel trousers, white canvas shoes,
and a straw hat with stiff brim. He was followed by seventy members of the Senate, in the front rank of which were Senate leaders including John Bankhead of Alabama,
who wore the uniform of a confederate soldier, and Knute Nelson
of Minnesota in the uniform of the Grand Army of the Republic. Also marching was Senator Thomas Martin of Virginia, who in 1864 was among the
cadets at the Virginia Military Institute who were called out to battle
Northern troops at the Battle of New Market. After the Senate came a Boy Scout band followed by most of the Members of the House of Representatives. Draftees who are civil servants marched in contingents led by the Secretaries of their respective Departments. Tens of thousands of spectators lined Pennsylvania Avenue waving American flags as the marchers, most of them also carrying flags, passed by. <br />
<br />
At the White House the President left the procession and ascended to a reviewing stand erected in front of the White House grounds, where he remained for two hours as the parade passed in review. He was accompanied on the reviewing stand by Secretary of State Lansing, Speaker of the House Clark, and the ambassadors of Great Britain, France, Belgium, Italy and Japan. Mrs. Wilson sat nearby with the wives of Cabinet officers.</div>
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Most of the marchers were white, but several hundred Negro draftees also marched. The spectators' steady ovations gave way to cheers as they saw the large banner they were carrying, which read "Selected by the Nation to Assist in Upbuilding World Democracy." The cheering was interspersed with laughter when some of them broke into cake-walk steps as they passed the reviewing stand.</div>
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New York City staged its own draft parade the same day. Beginning at Washington Square and proceeding up Fifth Avenue to Fiftieth Street, it was reviewed by a distinguished array of present and former officials, including former President Theodore Roosevelt, his Democratic opponent in the 1904 presidential race Judge Alton B. Parker, former New York Governor and Supreme Court Justice and 1916 Republican Presidential Nominee Charles Evans Hughes; and New York City Mayor John Purroy Mitchel. When the parade disbanded, several thousand marchers continued to the Polo Grounds to watch the game between the New York Giants and the Boston Braves. All the draftees had been given brassards with the legend "N.A." for National Army, which served as tickets of admission. Unfortunately for the New Yorkers, the Braves won the game 3-1. By month's end, however, the Giants had clinched the National League pennant. They will face the Chicago White Sox in the World Series.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe7KVoGryNzUoAzILedfPqcLZPlW7-eO0X4FNugRLtcgQXhmsgfyTSMY4v9q2soYJwWbQ7p3fzkEbTuRkVGiTnKSUgxJSYpZAvPWtqN3SK9bi4JJCy6N1F6V2l6eMQdbizH1BdP4GVqC0/s1600/Passchendaele%252C_July-november_1917_Q6002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="625" data-original-width="800" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe7KVoGryNzUoAzILedfPqcLZPlW7-eO0X4FNugRLtcgQXhmsgfyTSMY4v9q2soYJwWbQ7p3fzkEbTuRkVGiTnKSUgxJSYpZAvPWtqN3SK9bi4JJCy6N1F6V2l6eMQdbizH1BdP4GVqC0/s400/Passchendaele%252C_July-november_1917_Q6002.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Welsh Fusiliers at Polygon Wood</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
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<div style="text-align: left;">
The Third Battle of Ypres continued this month with attacks on the Menin Road Ridge and Polygon Wood. Earlier offensive operations on the Ypres Salient had been frustrated by the Germans' strategy of defense in depth, in which the German front line was lightly defended but backed up by strong points that were effective in disrupting further Allied advances and setting the stage for counterattacks mounted by troops kept to the rear out of artillery range. In attacking the Menin Road Ridge, the Allies tried a new tactic, called "bite and hold." Attacking and occupying the lightly defended ground, the Allied troops consolidated their defensive positions, moved up their artillery, and began preparations for another modest advance. In this way they remained prepared for any counterattack and minimized the risk of being caught in the midst of a disorganized advance. The new tactic, which was successful in taking and holding the Menin Road Ridge on September 20-25, was repeated, again with apparent success, at Polygon Wood in a battle that began on September 26.<br />
<br />
On the Italian Front, the Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo came to an inconclusive end on September 12 when the Italian Army's offensive, after initial gains, proved unable to make further advances. The Austro-Hungarians, also exhausted, were unable to mount a counterattack.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoDJK0OzHE3dQWsVo02o2mRQUDkn8Q0IxaQZ_I1MKKgIV6zI9xIWza5KPvl3p9mXgbrb3WcfTY-XbZTv1bybCO7TwcpHCCpmlanv8-_HDuMXinF_c2bIaAsk3aYAjg9me7gJUE1WyihdI/s1600/Charge+d%2527Affairs+Karl_Ludwig_Graf_von_Luxburg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1279" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoDJK0OzHE3dQWsVo02o2mRQUDkn8Q0IxaQZ_I1MKKgIV6zI9xIWza5KPvl3p9mXgbrb3WcfTY-XbZTv1bybCO7TwcpHCCpmlanv8-_HDuMXinF_c2bIaAsk3aYAjg9me7gJUE1WyihdI/s400/Charge+d%2527Affairs+Karl_Ludwig_Graf_von_Luxburg.jpg" width="250" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Count Karl von Luxburg</div>
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Argentina came close to breaking diplomatic relations, and perhaps going to war, with Germany this month. Relations between the two countries have been strained since April, when a German U-boat torpedoed and sank the Argentine sailing ship Monte Protegido near the Sorlingas Islands (Isles of Scilly) en route to Rotterdam with a cargo of linen. Other submarine attacks resulted in the loss of another sailing ship, Oriana, on June 6 and the steamship Toro on June 22, both in the Mediterranean en route to Genoa. The Argentine government filed a protest on July 4, threatening to sever diplomatic relations if the reply was unsatisfactory, and the German government promised no further occurrences. There matters stood until September 9 when American Secretary of State Robert Lansing released transcripts of
intercepted and decoded telegrams that had been sent by the German Charge d'Affaires in Buenos Aires,
Count Karl von Luxburg, to the German Foreign Office in Berlin
notifying his superiors of the departure of two Argentine ships bound
for Bordeaux. The telegrams had been sent through Stockholm by way of
the Swedish Embassy. Luxburg reported that "in view of the settlement of the Monte [Protegido] case there has been a great change in public feeling" in Argentina, and recommended that the ships nearing Bordeaux "be spared if possible or else sunk without a trace being left ('spurlous versenckt')."<br />
<br />
The "sunk without a trace" advice caused a political firestorm in Argentina. On September 12 Argentina sent a note to Germany declaring Count Luxburg
persona non grata and demanding an official apology and disavowal of Luxburg's
statements. On September 19 the Argentine Senate passed a resolution with only one dissenting vote demanding the immediate
severance of diplomatic relations with Germany. On September 23 the German
government sent a note disapproving Luxburg's statements and dismissing
him from his post in Buenos Aires. Unsatisfied, on September 25 the Argentine Chamber of Deputies
followed the Senate's lead, demanding the breaking off of diplomatic relations by a vote of 53-18. The President, however, has decided
to accept Germany's apology and take no further action.<br />
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*****</div>
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<u>September 1917 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading</u><br />
<br />
<u>Contemporary Periodicals</u>:</div>
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American Review of Reviews, September and October and November 1917</div>
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New York
Times, September 1917</div>
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<u>Books and Articles</u>:</div>
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<br />
John Barrett, Latin America and the War<br />
A. Scott Berg, Wilson</div>
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Britain at War Magazine, The Fourth Year of the Great War: 1917<br />
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918 <br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography<br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and
Theodore Roosevelt </div>
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John Dos Passos, Mr. Wilson's War</div>
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David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life<br />
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933<br />
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume IV: The Stricken World 1916-1922</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ann Hagedorn, Savage Peace, Hope and Fear in America, 1919 </div>
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August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography<br />
John Keegan, The First World War<br />
David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society<br />
Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 <br />
Nicholas A. Lambert, Planning Armageddon: British Economic Warfare and the First World War</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Arthur S. Link, Wilson: Confusions and Crises, 1915-1916 </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era,
1910-1917</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
G.J. Meyer, The World Remade: America in World War I </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Michael S. Neiberg, The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America<br />
Daniel Okrent, Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition <br />
Edward J. Renehan Jr., The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War </div>
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Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict </div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War<br />
Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931 </div>
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</div>
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Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The West Point Atlas of War: World War I </div>
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Dennis Crosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05167348173555324839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320526393914188899.post-69462149312455395962017-08-31T13:36:00.000-07:002017-09-22T14:24:50.241-07:00August 1917<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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It's August 1917. As the World War enters its fourth year, there's no end in sight. Pope Benedict XV makes a peace proposal, which President Wilson rejects after conferring with the other nations at war with Germany.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
Former Secretary of State Elihu Root returns from a mission to Russia designed to keep Russia in the war. </span>An attempted coup by the commander-in-chief of the Russian Army fails, but the Provisional Government is weakened and the Bolsheviks are strengthened. Recently arrived American troops parade in London.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Allied
offensive on the Western Front, after initial success, bogs down in the mud of Flanders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Italy attacks Austria-Hungary again at the Isonzo River.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> On the Eastern Front, t</span>he German Army advances in Romania to the south and moves against the Baltic port of Riga to the north.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the United States,
racial tensions flare as African-American troops are based in segregated southern cities and a deadly race riot breaks out in Houston. The Senate passes a proposed Constitutional Amendment prohibiting the
manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquor.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs5aOcVuA02VZfUP_UDfvOQdvB0IC-9QwroAqOqjHQYON9SN342t7rK7-6H-1Xy7YI7MEENbyriIMbMP0RulV12HxdXKpdBRXl64vZKpC-i4HirqMvEevdoaeZ66o6m8mGr0T5BlDBmGU/s1600/Pope-Benedict-XV-1914.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="824" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs5aOcVuA02VZfUP_UDfvOQdvB0IC-9QwroAqOqjHQYON9SN342t7rK7-6H-1Xy7YI7MEENbyriIMbMP0RulV12HxdXKpdBRXl64vZKpC-i4HirqMvEevdoaeZ66o6m8mGr0T5BlDBmGU/s400/Pope-Benedict-XV-1914.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Pope Benedict XV</div>
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Pope Benedict XV, who ascended to the Papacy as the World War broke out in Europe three years ago, has made a peace proposal to the warring nations. In a letter dated August 1 and addressed to the King of England, the Pope offered a seven-point plan for peace: (1) that "moral force . . . be substituted for material force of arms," (2) "simultaneous and reciprocal diminution of armaments," (3) establishment of a mechanism for international arbitration, (4) recognition of "liberty and common rights over the sea," (5) "renunciation of war indemnities," (6) evacuation of occupied territories, and (7) arbitration of rival claims regarding Alsace-Lorraine, Poland, Trieste
and the Trentino. The Papal Secretary delivered the proposal to the British government with the request that it be transmitted to the governments of France, Italy and the United States, all of which lack diplomatic relations with the Vatican. The proposal was received in the United States on August 16, and after conferring with the Allies President Wilson politely but firmly rejected it. In a reply expected to
be substantially adopted by the other nations at war with Germany,
he said that "every heart that has not been blinded and hardened by this terrible war must be touched by this moving appeal," but that the object of the war is
to free the people of the world from the power of the German government, “the
ruthless master of the German people,” and that no possibility of peace exists as long as the present German government is in power. In an interview with the Associated Press on August 31, British Minister of Blockade Lord Robert Cecil expressed satisfaction with President Wilson's reply, indicating that no further reply from Great Britain would be necessary. At the Vatican, Pope Benedict expressed his admiration of the "lofty sentiments" of the President's note but made no attempt to conceal his disappointment that his effort to bring about an end to the war had apparently failed to bear fruit.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Elihu Root</div>
<br />
Former
American Secretary of State Elihu Root, returning from his mission to Russia,
addressed a welcoming luncheon in Seattle on August 4. Ending what he
termed "a long and fatiguing journey to a new sister republic," he said
he could not talk about what the mission had learned until it had
submitted its report to the Department of State, but he expressed "the
greatest sympathy and the greatest admiration for that young democracy,
now struggling to solve problems within a few months that this country
has been struggling to solve for 140 years -- and has not solved." Upon
its return to the east coast, the Commission submitted its report to the State Department. It stated
"the unanimous opinion of the mission that the Russian people
have the qualities of character which
will make it possible to
restore discipline, and coherent and
intelligently directed action,
both in military and in civil life, notwithstanding the temporary distressing conditions . . . which
are not the result
of weakness or fault in the Russian
people but are the natural and
inevitable results of the conditions
under which the people were
held before the revolution, the
misgovernment of the bureaucracy,
and the astounding suddenness with which
the country was deprived of
its accustomed government." The report urges continued support of the Provisional Government and
encouragement that it continue the war, stating that this is "the only course by which the
opportunity for Russia to work out the conditions of her own freedom
could be preserved from destruction by German domination." It
recommends "substantial aid to Russia . . . both in supplies and in
credits," and asserts that "the benefit of keeping Russia in the war,
and its army in the field will be so enormous that the risk involved in
rendering the aid required should not be seriously considered."<br />
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Prime Minister Kerensky</div>
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Alexander Kerensky, the new Premier of Russia, formed a new cabinet on August 6. Kerensky will continue as Minister of Defense and Mikhail Tereshchenko remains Foreign Minister. From August 25 to 28 (August 12-15 on the Russian calendar), Kerensky convened a national conference in Moscow. In an attempt to represent all shades of opinion, he invited representatives of a wide variety of organizations and social bodies, all of whom were given free rein to express their views. Kerensky told the conference that Russia is
“passing through a period of mortal danger,”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> in which it c</span>onfronted threats from both left and right. He warned
that any attempt to bring down the Provisional Government would be repressed
“by blood and iron.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> General Kornilov</span></div>
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General Lavr Kornilov, who began the month as the new commander-in-chief of the Russian Army, ended it as the leader of a failed coup. Convinced that the Petrograd Soviet was the most dangerous threat to the Provisional Government and that the government itself was too weak to counter the threat, he moved troops into Petrograd at the end of August and demanded the Soviet's dissolution with the apparent intention of establishing a military dictatorship. The effect of his attempted takeover, however, appears to be the opposite of what he intended. Although Prime Minister Kerensky was quick to put down the leftist disturbances in Petrograd last month, he continues to consider the workers and soldiers of the Soviet an important part of his coalition. Thus in an equally swift response to Kornilov's threat from the right, he denounced Kornilov as a traitor and permitted the Petrograd Soviet to be rearmed. It now appears that the Kornilov threat has been defeated, but at the cost of strengthening the position of the Soviet and of the Bolshevik faction within the Soviet.</div>
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Hauling a Field Gun Through the Mud at Langemarck</div>
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In Flanders, the major Anglo-French offensive that began July 31 at the Ypres Salient succeeded in driving the Germans from Pilckem Ridge, but came to a halt on August 2 due to flooded streams and waterlogged ground, aggravated by years of artillery bombardment that had destroyed what little natural drainage existed in the lowlands of Flanders. After ten rainless days, the decision was made to continue the offensive. As the attack began on August 16 the heavy rains resumed, requiring duckboards to be laid across the flooded fields. Two days later, when the attack was called off due to the condition of the ground and the continued bad weather, the village of Langemarck had been captured. Meanwhile on the North Sea coast, the crews of the
battleships aboard the German High Seas Fleet at Wilhelmshaven are becoming restless. It has been over a year since
the Battle of Jutland, the last time the fleet was at sea, and boredom
is setting in, aggravated by poor rations, stern naval discipline and extended shipboard confinement. On August 2, four hundred sailors from the <i>Prinzregent Luitpold</i>
marched through the streets of Wilhelmshaven calling for an end to the
war. There was no violence and the sailors were persuaded to return to
their ship. Their leaders have been arrested.<br />
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The war continued without respite on the Russian and Italian fronts. On the Isonzo River, the Italian Army mounted another offensive against Austria-Hungary on August 18. It occupied the Austrian stronghold of Monte Santo and beat back an Austrian counterattack on August 28. The Italians gained six miles of mountainous terrain but are experiencing a growing number of desertions. On the Eastern Front, the Russian offensive ordered last month by Kerensky has already turned into a major defeat for the
Russian Army. On August 8 the Russians were able to halt an
Austro-Hungarian advance and stage a counterattack at Kowel, the site of the Russian breakthrough
last year under General Brusilov. This
time, however, the Russian attack failed to gain any ground. To the south in Romania, a counterattack by the German Ninth Army under General Mackensen gained five miles and took 18,000 prisoners. In fighting beginning August 6 at Marasesti, however, the Romanian Army has halted any further German advance.<br />
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American Troops in London</div>
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The Americans are now arriving in Europe in substantial numbers. On August 15 a contingent of American troops interrupted their training to parade through Westminster, in the heart of London. From the Horse Guards Parade to Trafalgar Square, to Piccadilly, to Grosvenor Gardens, to Buckingham Palace and the Mall, to Westminster Bridge, millions of Londoners turned out to cheer the new arrivals. For security reasons, no advance announcement of the parade was made until the night before, so the enthusiastic turnout was truly spontaneous. As the parade approached Whitehall, Prime Minister Lloyd George adjourned a meeting of the Cabinet and went with his colleagues to the War Office. There, accompanied by Foreign Secretary Balfour, Chancellor of the Exchequer Bonar Law, Minister of Munitions Churchill, First Sea Lord Admiral Jellicoe and other dignitaries, they greeted the Americans from the War Office windows. At Buckingham Palace King George, joined by Queen Mary, Queen Mother Alexandra, and Commander of the Home Forces Sir John French, stood at the gate and saluted the passing Americans. After the parade the American soldiers retired to Green Park, where hundreds of tables were covered with white tablecloths and hundreds of waitresses served lunch as Londoners looked on through the iron railings around the park and from windows in nearby clubs and residences.<br />
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Camp Logan</div>
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The recently instituted draft and accompanying nationwide mobilization has had the unintended but perhaps predictable effect of increasing racial tensions, especially in the South where cities are strictly segregated and many new Army bases are being constructed. One such base is Camp Logan, the mobilization camp for the Illinois National Guard, which is under construction on the outskirts of Houston, Texas. A Negro battalion of the 24th Infantry Division was sent last month from its base in Columbus, New Mexico to guard the construction site. Tensions rose between the soldiers, who were unaccustomed to strictly enforced racial segregation, and white construction workers and other white citizens of Houston as the Negro troops encountered segregated streetcars, water fountains, and other facilities. Violence broke out on the afternoon of August 23, resulting in seventeen deaths. Houston has been placed under martial law and the Negro battalion has been sent back to its base in New Mexico. <br />
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The next day, in an attempt to retain custody and assert state jurisdiction, the Harris County District Attorney filed murder charges against thirty-four of the soldiers. A resolution was introduced in the Texas legislature asking the Texas congressional delegation to attempt to have Negro soldiers removed from the state. In Washington, without waiting for the resolution, Senator Morris Sheppard called on Secretary of War Baker and made the request in person. On August 25 he and Charles Culberson, the other Texas Senator, presented a petition to the President and the Secretary of War signed by all Texas congressmen. The petition reads "In view of the appalling tragedies involving the destruction of life and property which the presence of negro troops in Texas has caused and is causing, and in view of the imminence of further outbreaks involving possibilities too terrible to mention, we, the Texas delegation in the national House and Senate, earnestly urge that the negro troops be taken out of Texas and kept out permanently." Many other Southerners in Congress, most of whom refrained from raising the issue when the draft law was enacted to avoid embarrassing their fellow Democrat in the White House, are now voicing the same concern.<br />
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Senator Sheppard</div>
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Senator Sheppard's other cause this month was prohibition. He is the author and principal sponsor of a proposed amendment to the Constitution banning the sale of alcoholic beverages. On August 1 the Senate adopted the Sheppard Resolution by a vote of 65 to 20, more than the necessary two-thirds. It will become part of the Constitution if it gets a two-thirds vote in the House of Representatives and is then ratified by three-quarters of the state legislatures. The proposed amendment would prohibit "the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors
within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from
the United States and all territories subject to the jurisdiction
thereof, for beverage purposes." In order to ease its passage through the Senate and the House, Senator Sheppard added a provision that the proposed amendment will be "inoperative unless it shall have been ratified within six years of the date of the submission thereof to the States by the Congress."</div>
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<u>August 1917 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading</u><br />
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<u>Contemporary Periodicals</u>:</div>
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American Review of Reviews, September and October 1917</div>
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New York
Times, August 1917</div>
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<u>Books and Articles</u>:</div>
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A. Scott Berg, Wilson</div>
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Britain at War Magazine, The Fourth Year of the Great War: 1917<br />
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918 <br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography<br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and
Theodore Roosevelt </div>
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John Dos Passos, Mr. Wilson's War</div>
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David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922</div>
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Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life<br />
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History </div>
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Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933<br />
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume IV: The Stricken World 1916-1922</div>
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Ann Hagedorn, Savage Peace, Hope and Fear in America, 1919 </div>
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August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
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Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House</div>
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Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography<br />
John Keegan, The First World War<br />
David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society<br />
Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 <br />
Nicholas A. Lambert, Planning Armageddon: British Economic Warfare and the First World War</div>
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Arthur S. Link, Wilson: Confusions and Crises, 1915-1916 </div>
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Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era,
1910-1917</div>
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Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra</div>
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G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918</div>
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G.J. Meyer, The World Remade: America in World War I </div>
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Michael S. Neiberg, The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America<br />
Daniel Okrent, Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition <br />
Edward J. Renehan Jr., The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War </div>
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Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict </div>
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J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War<br />
Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931 </div>
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United States Department of State, Report of the Special Diplomatic
Mission to Russia to the Secretary of State, August 1917,
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1918Russiav01/d108</div>
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Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History</div>
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The West Point Atlas of War: World War I </div>
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Woodrow Wilson, Letter of Reply to the Pope, August 27, 1917, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=65401<br />
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Dennis Crosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05167348173555324839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320526393914188899.post-37660004021587037032017-07-31T11:10:00.000-07:002017-08-01T08:37:00.310-07:00July 1917It's July 1917, three years since another July spun the world into global war. A major Russian offensive ends in defeat, retreat, and massive demonstrations in the streets of Petrograd, forcing a change in the revolutionary government. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A political upheaval in Germany leads to the resignation of Chancellor
Bethmann-Hollweg and Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>King George V visits the British Army on the Western Front. While he is there German bombers attack London; when he returns he changes the name of the Royal Family. In the Near East, Arab tribes led by Lawrence of Arabia capture the important Red Sea port of Aqaba.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Winston Churchill rejoins the British Cabinet as Minister of Munitions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The British Army begins another major offensive at Ypres. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">An American Army battalion marches through Paris and visits Lafayette's tomb. A large convoy of American troops arrives safely in France after a crossing contested by German U-boats. </span>An accidental explosion sinks a dreadnought at Scapa
Flow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the United States the Secretary of
War sets up a system of press censorship, then backs down in the face of fierce criticism. General Pershing says he wants a three million man Army by 1919.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Compulsory military service begins as the first numbers are drawn in the draft lottery. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Exports are prohibited without a license. Race riots explode in East St. Louis.</span><br />
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Government Troops Firing on Demonstrators on the Nevsky Prospect</div>
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The month began with a major offensive by the Russian Army in Galicia
which, after initial success, was driven back by German counterattacks.
As the Army's morale collapsed and its retreat became a rout, unrest in
Petrograd and other major cities intensified. In spontaneous demonstrations, later joined by the Bolsheviks, workers
and soldiers poured into the streets on July 16 (July 3 on the Russian calendar) to protest the the Provisional Government and its continuation of the war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two days later<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>General <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Brusilov was relieved as Commander-in-Chief of the
Army</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">, replaced by </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">General Lavr Kornilov</span></span>, Commander of the Petrograd garrison. </span>On July 21, Prince Lvov was replaced as Prime Minister by Alexander Kerensky, who continued as Minister of War. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Two days later the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates voted to give Kerensky unlimited powers for the reestablishment of public order. </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Kerensky has appealed for public support, sending troops to put down the uprising, which he claims is the work of German agents. In a statement to the press he said he will "save Russia and Russian unity by blood and iron, if argument and reason, honor and conscience, are not sufficient." </span></span>In the ensuing crackdown the Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky has been imprisoned and Vladimir Lenin has fled to Finland.<br />
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Matthias Erzberger</div>
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Germany has a new government. On July 6, Matthias Erzberger, the leader of the Center Party, rose in the Reichstag and made a controversial peace proposal. Outlining the country's military weakness, he argued that Germany should attempt to make peace on the basis of a renunciation of all territorial ambitions and a return to the pre-war status quo. When a peace resolution incorporating Erzberger's proposals passed the Reichstag on July 19, Generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff threatened to resign, forcing the resignation of Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg and Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann. The new Chancellor, Georg Michaelis, has refused to consider any peace initiative, saying "I do not consider that a body like the German Reichstag is a fit one to decide about peace and war on its own initiative during the war." There is little doubt that Hindenburg and Ludendorff are now firmly in control of German war policy.<br />
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The King on the Western Front<br />
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From July 3 to 14, King George V,
accompanied by the Prince of Wales, visited British troops on the western front. Accompanied by General Sir Herbert Plumer, he explored the battlefields where his Army had struggled a year earlier in its offensive on the River Somme. Then he climbed the heights of Messines Ridge and Vimy Ridge, recently occupied by British forces..<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiXdQZWQsl1YcXEPboyIGhj2wEJO0ohYyl4LPZ4dYhLujrDpk12GtfBivvm_ux1X7odldGkL_mIRnRe-V-vhWAzd4E-VIiLFqIklM-xMeHd0U7Mb018Xg7F-TPW_B78_wAqcC9q-Fo8vw/s1600/royalfamilywartime.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="402" data-original-width="478" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiXdQZWQsl1YcXEPboyIGhj2wEJO0ohYyl4LPZ4dYhLujrDpk12GtfBivvm_ux1X7odldGkL_mIRnRe-V-vhWAzd4E-VIiLFqIklM-xMeHd0U7Mb018Xg7F-TPW_B78_wAqcC9q-Fo8vw/s400/royalfamilywartime.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
The Royal Family </div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Anti-German sentiment has been building in Great Britain for some time,
and the Royal Family's German name, Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, has become
something of an embarrassment. Making matters worse, Gotha bombers began
attacking London earlier this year, </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">and while the King was in France the largest raid of the year killed thirty-seven Londoners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>On July 17, shortly after his return to England, the King issued a Royal Proclamation announcing that "We, out of our Royal Will and Authority, do hereby declare and announce that as from the date of this Our Royal Proclamation Our House and Family shall be styled and known as the House and Family of Windsor." The new name is widely popular. When the change was announced, the <i>Times</i> stated approvingly that "the King could not have chosen a more appropriate name for his Royal House than that of Windsor, which . . . has been associated longer than any other Royal residence with the fortunes and the lives of the Kings and Queens of England." At the same time, the King revoked the British titles held by members of the Royal Family who are fighting for Germany.<br />
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Major Lawrence in Cairo<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHGJdPN9U3fdtmRq6_FiLCnEeXonPfkC7DzWV3dJ-ED0TlELvquBzshi6-fs5u1Z_i2UGXpCOaqeteOwqfLPkRxi09EqB7wMX-AEHoX69jTERlFjPhVHXpnq3iJysHPHh7jBQfRbpeOZg/s1600/telawrence%2526princefaisal1917.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="613" data-original-width="736" height="331" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHGJdPN9U3fdtmRq6_FiLCnEeXonPfkC7DzWV3dJ-ED0TlELvquBzshi6-fs5u1Z_i2UGXpCOaqeteOwqfLPkRxi09EqB7wMX-AEHoX69jTERlFjPhVHXpnq3iJysHPHh7jBQfRbpeOZg/s400/telawrence%2526princefaisal1917.jpg" width="400" /></a> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Prince Faisal with Lawrence after the Capture of Aqaba</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
Since October of last year British
Army Major T. E. Lawrence has been in the Hejaz, encouraging and advising Arab tribes loyal to Prince Faisal who are in rebellion against Ottoman rule. On July 6, Arab forces accompanied by Lawrence attacked and seized the Red Sea port of Aqaba, a Turkish stronghold at the northern end of the Gulf of Aqaba, which marks the eastern boundary of the Sinai Peninsula. Lawrence then journeyed across the Sinai desert to the Suez Canal and on to the headquarters of the British Egyptian Expeditionary Force in Cairo. There he informed General Edmund Allenby in person of the capture of Aqaba and gained commitments for additional British support for the rebelling Arab tribes. The capture of Aqaba provides the British with a valuable supply port and base of operations in support of Prince Faisal's rebel forces operating against the Turks.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
H.M.S. Vanguard</div>
<br />
On the night of July 9 in the Royal Navy's anchorage in Scapa flow, a mysterious explosion destroyed the dreadnought battleship H.M.S. Vanguard, a veteran of the Battle of Jutland. The ship sank almost instantly, killing over 800 British sailors.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Churchill Speaking at Chelmsford Last September</div>
<br />
Winston Churchill, the former First Lord of the Admiralty, was
excluded from the coalition government formed by Prime Minister Asquith in May 1915
as the failure of the Dardanelles campaign was becoming apparent. Churchill served in the minor Cabinet position of Chancellor of the
Duchy of Lancaster until November 1915, when he resigned from the Cabinet to join the
Army on the Western Front. He commanded a battalion of the Royal Scots
Fusiliers near Ploegsteert until March 1916, when he returned to Westminster and resumed his seat in Parliament as an opposition back-bencher while defending his conduct of the Dardanelles campaign and participating in the proceedings of the Dardanelles Committee of Enquiry. The new Prime Minister David Lloyd George is an admirer of
Churchill's, and on July 17 of this year, despite the opposition of several other members of the Government, he brought Churchill into the Cabinet as Minister of
Munitions, the post formerly held by Lloyd George himself. As British constitutional practice requires when a member of Parliament joins the cabinet, Churchill returned to his constituency to seek reelection, and on July 29 the electors of Dundee returned him to Parliament. He will take his seat on the Government bench on August 1. As part of the same Cabinet reorganization, Sir Eric Campbell Geddes will replace Sir Edward Carson as First Lord of the Admiralty and Edwin Samuel Montagu will become Secretary of State for India, the post held until recently by Austen Chamberlain.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
General Gough</div>
<br />
On the last day of July, following a two-week artillery barrage that surpassed in intensity even the one that preceded last year's Somme offensive, an Allied army under the command of British General Sir Hubert Gough launched another offensive in the Ypres Salient. The objective is the capture of the important railway junction at Roulers. The attack, strongly advocated by General Sir Douglas Haig, was finally approved by the British War Policy Committee despite opposition from French Generals Foch and Petain and serious reservations voiced by the Prime Minister and shared by the new Minister of Munitions, Winston Churchill.</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Pershing at Lafayette's Tomb</div>
<br />
The first American troops to arrive in Europe are about to commence training. A battalion was in Paris on July 4, and all Paris turned out to greet them in an Independence Day parade celebrating American entry into the war. American flags flew from public buildings, hotels, residences, taxicabs and carts, and American flag pins decorated horses' bridles and pedestrians' lapels. The Republican Guard Band executed a field reveille beneath General Pershing's windows at 8:00 a.m. and accompanied him through throngs of spectators to the Invalides, where American troops were drawn up with a detachment of French Territorials at the Court of Honor. In the chapel before the tomb of Napoleon President Poincare presented Pershing with American flags and banners. The Americans then passed in review before Poincare, Marshal Joffre and other dignitaries to the strains of "The Star Spangled Banner" and the "Marseillaise" and shouts of "Vive les Americains! Vive Pershing! and Vivent les Etats Unis!" The parade continued across the Alexander III Bridge to the Place de la Concorde, then down the Rue de Rivoli past the Tuileries Gardens to the tomb of the Marquis de Lafayette at Picpus Cemetery, near the Place de la Nation. In a brief ceremony Lt. Col. Charles E. Stanton of the General's staff delivered a speech that ended as he turned to the tomb and announced "Lafayette, we are here!"<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Secretary Daniels</div>
<br />
On
July 3 Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels announced "with the joy
of a great relief . . . the safe arrival in France of every fighting man
and every fighting ship." He revealed that the transports carrying American troops and supplies had been twice attacked by German submarines, which had
been beaten off by the U.S. Naval escorts. One of the U-boats was
reported sunk and the other damaged and possibly destroyed.<br />
<br />
In a proclamation dated July 9, exercising powers granted under the
Espionage Act, President Wilson forbade all exports of food, fuel and
war supplies without a license issued by the Exports Council, the agency he created
last month by executive order. The proclamation took effect July 15. <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Secretary of War Baker</div>
<br />
On the Fourth of July, news organizations in the United States learned of an order of Secretary of War Newton D. Baker that all dispatches from correspondents in France to news organizations in the United States were to be diverted to the War Department before being delivered to their addressees. The Associated Press was informed that a dispatch sent from France was in the possession of the Committee on Public Information, of which George Creel is the Chairman, and that the Associated Press could have it if it sent for it. Upon further inquiry, it was learned that any cable addressed to an American newspaper would be sent to the War Department and turned over to the Creel Committee which would have men on duty capable of promptly reviewing and censoring the dispatch. Remarkably, the War Department assumed this authority despite the decision of Congress in considering the Espionage Act to deny the President the censorship power he had requested on the ground that it would violate the Constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press. The reaction to the War Department's order in Congress and the press was immediate. A three-column headline at the top of the front page of the next day's New York Times read "Baker Seizes News Dispatches, Ignoring Congress and Constitution." That day Mr. Creel presided over a meeting of the Committee on Public Information at which Secretary Baker, Secretary of the Navy Daniels and Secretary of State Robert Lansing were also present. After the meeting it was announced that the emergency on account of which the order had been issued (presumably the arrival of American troops in France) having passed, the order would be revoked. <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Secretary Baker Draws the First Draft Number</div>
<br />
General Pershing has estimated that the American war effort will require a one million man Army by 1918 and three million by 1919. The new selective service law is the principal means of achieving those goals. The draft began on July 20 with a ceremonial drawing of the first numbers in the Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill. The lottery was organized and supervised by Provost Marshal General Enoch Crowder and Adjutant General Henry P. McCain. At 9:32 a.m. Secretary of War Baker gave a brief speech, then after being blindfolded inserted his hand into a glass bowl filled with numbers written on slips of paper. He drew number 258, meaning that registrants assigned that number in each of the 4,557 Selective Service Registration Districts will be among the first to be notified to report for duty. Other dignitaries followed, and the drawing of numbers continued until the early morning hours. In all over ten thousand numbers were drawn.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
An East St. Louis Mob Stopping a Streetcar</div>
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Race riots broke out in East St. Louis, Illinois on July 2, fueled mainly by white residents' anger about importation of Negro laborers from the South, who are believed to be taking jobs away from white workers, sometimes as strikebreakers. Thousands of white men rampaged through the Negro sections of the city, dragging passengers off streetcars, setting buildings afire and shooting or hanging residents as they tried to flee. Hundreds of Negroes were given refuge at City Hall and the Police Station, and hundreds of the ringleaders were arrested and detained. The state militia was called out and military rule was proclaimed that evening. Before the riots were brought under control, dozens of men, mostly Negroes, had been killed and many more injured. The federal government played no role in restoring order. Although staff lawyers in the Department of Justice concluded that there was sufficient basis for federal intervention under the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Federal Penal Code, Attorney General Gregory told President Wilson on July 27 that "no facts have been presented to us that would justify" any federal action.<br />
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*****</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
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<u>July 1917 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading</u><br />
<br />
<u>Contemporary Periodicals</u>:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
American Review of Reviews, August and September 1917</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
New York
Times, July 1917</div>
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<u>Books and Articles</u>:</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A. Scott Berg, Wilson</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Britain at War Magazine, The Fourth Year of the Great War: 1917<br />
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918 <br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography<br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and
Theodore Roosevelt </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
John Dos Passos, Mr. Wilson's War</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life<br />
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933<br />
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume IV: The Stricken World 1916-1922</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ann Hagedorn, Savage Peace, Hope and Fear in America, 1919 </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography<br />
John Keegan, The First World War<br />
David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society<br />
Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 <br />
Nicholas A. Lambert, Planning Armageddon: British Economic Warfare and the First World War</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Arthur S. Link, Wilson: Confusions and Crises, 1915-1916 </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era,
1910-1917</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
G.J. Meyer, The World Remade: America in World War I </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Michael S. Neiberg, The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America<br />
Edward J. Renehan Jr., The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War<br />
Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931 </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The West Point Atlas of War: World War I </div>
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Dennis Crosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05167348173555324839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320526393914188899.post-10238694737671160782017-06-30T20:24:00.001-07:002017-06-30T20:24:34.241-07:00June 1917<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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In June 1917, the United States is coming to grips with its new status as a belligerent power. President Wilson signs the Espionage Act, which makes it unlawful to interfere with military or naval operations and gives
the Postmaster General broad authority to refuse to deliver material he judges to be in violation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The President issues
an order creating an Export Council with power to control all exports from the United States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mandatory registration for
the draft begins.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>General Pershing arrives in Europe, where he confers with his counterparts in London and Paris; shortly thereafter the first American Army units arrive in France.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The first issue of
Liberty Bonds sells out quickly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">A commission headed by former Secretary of State Elihu Root arrives i</span>n
Russia as anarchists march
in the streets of Petrograd and Lenin calls for an end to the war. The
provisional government, responding to an overture from the Central Powers,
states that it will not enter into a separate peace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Former President Roosevelt announces that two
of his four sons have gone to France and that the others will follow shortly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The British Army in Flanders
attacks and occupies Messines Ridge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gotha bombers attack London. King Constantine of Greece abdicates, clearing the way for Greece to enter
the war on the side of the Allies.</div>
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The Espionage Act -- An Opposing View</div>
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President Wilson signed the Espionage Act into law on June 15. A provision authorizing the President to impose press censorship was strongly supported by the President but was removed from the bill in conference. The legislation as passed still imposes unprecedented restrictions on civil liberties. It is now unlawful to "willfully make or convey false reports or false statements with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces of the United States, or to promote the success of its enemies" or to "incite insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States," or to "willfully obstruct . . . the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States," or to "utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States," to "display the flag of any foreign enemy," or to "urge, incite, or advocate any curtailment of production." Nor may Americans "advocate, teach, defend, or suggest the doing of any of [those] acts or things" or "by word or act support or favor the cause of any country with which the United States is at war," or "oppose the cause of the United States therein." In addition to imposing criminal penalties for violations, the Act authorizes the Postmaster General to refuse to mail any publication he judges to violate any provision of the Act or to advocate treason, insurrection or forcible resistance to any American law.<br />
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Secretary of Commerce William C. Redfield</div>
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Using authority conferred by the Espionage Act, President Wilson signed an executive order on June 22 creating an Exports Council comprised of the Secretaries of State, Agriculture and Commerce to "formulate, for the consideration and approval of the president,
policies and make recommendations necessary to carry out the purposes of
the Act" and authorizing the Secretary of Commerce to grant or refuse export licenses
in accordance with instructions issued by the President. The
order provides that the Council will also include the Food Administrator, although the legislation creating the Food Administration is still pending in Congress. Herbert C. Hoover, who since the outbreak of war has organized and administered the distribution of vast quantities of food to occupied Belgium and northern France, is expected to fill the new position and is already attending Council meetings.<br />
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Registering for the Draft in New York</div>
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The Manpower Bill passed last month imposed the first draft law since the Civil War. On June 5, pursuant to a proclamation issued by President Wilson, some 10 million men between the ages of 21 and 30 registered at their local post offices for what is termed "selective service." From that number, it is estimated that approximately 600,000 will be inducted into the armed forces. The President's proclamation, like the law upon which it was based, avoids the term "draft," emphasizing that "the whole nation must be a team, in which each man must play the part for which he is best fitted." Therefore "each man shall be classified for service in the place to which it shall best serve the general good to call him. . . . It is in no sense a conscription of the unwilling; it is, rather, selection from a nation which has volunteered in mass."<br />
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The proclamation makes clear, however, that registration is anything but optional. It states that "the day here named is the time upon which all <i>shall</i> present themselves for assignment to their tasks" and is to be observed as "a great day of patriotic devotion and <i>obligation</i>, when the <i>duty</i> shall lie upon every man . . . to see to it that the name of <i>every</i> male person of the designated ages is written on these lists of honor." Mandatory or voluntary, every effort is being made to marshal the support and cooperation of the public. The Committee on Public Information has seen to it that newspapers are provided with stories emphasizing the patriotic nature of universal registration. Despite initial resistance from some southerners, the new law will be applied without regard to race, though Negro soldiers will continue to be assigned to separate units. The nationwide obligation to register is also being hailed as a symbol of sectional reunification as the Civil War recedes in the nation's memory. On Registration Day President Wilson sounded that theme in an address to a group of Confederate veterans, calling it "a day of reunion, a day of noble memories, a day of dedication, a day of renewal of the spirit which has made America great among the peoples of the world."<br />
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A Liberty Bond</div>
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The subscription for the first issue of Liberty Bonds closed on June 15. Exceeding the government's most optimistic forecasts, the $2 billion issue was oversubscribed by approximately $800,000. That afternoon Secretary of the Treasury William Gibbs McAdoo issued a statement calling the success of the issue "a genuine triumph for democracy"and "the unmistakable expression of America's determination to carry this war for the protection of American rights and the re-establishment of peace and liberty throughout the world to a swift and successful conclusion."<br />
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General Pershing and the Duke of Connaught (left) in Liverpool</div>
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General Pershing arrived in Great Britain aboard the steamship <i>Baltic</i> on June 8. He was greeted at Liverpool by Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, King George V's uncle, who until last year served as Governor-General of Canada. The next day, General Pershing was received by the King at Buckingham Palace, where the King declared that it has been the dream of his life to see the two great English-speaking nations more closely united. The same day, Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour arrived back in London after his visit to the United States. He told waiting newspaper correspondents that "we had an entirely successful trip and enjoyed every minute of it. I was never more royally treated in my life." Due to the increasing danger of submarine attacks since Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare in February, the transatlantic journeys of both General Pershing and Mr. Balfour were shrouded in secrecy. There was no news of either until both men were safely ashore in the United Kingdom. During the eleven days it took General Pershing to cross the Atlantic, German U-boats sank fifteen ships in the waters around Great Britain.<br />
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General Pershing at Boulogne</div>
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At ten o'clock on the morning of June 13, General Pershing stepped ashore at the French port of Boulogne after a short ferry ride across the English Channel. As the New York Times reported, "It was the first time in history that an American soldier had landed on the European continent with sword in hand for the purpose of using it against an enemy." Among the officials waiting on the pier was French General Jean-Baptiste Dumas, commander of the northern region, whose first words were "I salute the United States of America, which has now become united to the United States of Europe." After a drive through Boulogne, General Pershing and his staff boarded a special train for Paris. Speaking to French newspaper correspondents in his private car, Pershing said the reception "has impressed us greatly. It means that from the present moment our aims are the same." Talking separately with American reporters, he said the arrival of the advance guard of the American Army "makes us realize the full importance of American participation. America has entered the war with the fullest intention of doing her share, no matter how great or how small that share may be. Our allies can depend on that."<br />
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Towns along the route to Paris had been advised of the Americans'
arrival, and the station platforms were lined with cheering crowds. In
Paris, French troops were deployed on the platforms of the Gare du Nord. Among those greeting the Americans were Marshal Joffre, former Prime Minister Viviani, Minister of War Painleve, General Foch, and U.S. Ambassador William G. Sharp. Tens of thousands of Parisians waving American flags and crying "Vive l'Amerique!" cheered the Americans as they rode through Paris to the Hotel Crillon, where Pershing and his staff will
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Two weeks after General Pershing's arrival, the first contingents of the U.S. Army arrived in France. Some 14,000 infantry troops landed at St. Nazaire on the Atlantic coast of Brittany on June 26 and 27 after passing unscathed through the submarine zone. The first American arrivals are all seasoned Regular Army troops, coming from service on the Mexican border, Haiti and Santo Domingo. They will be assigned to the newly organized First Expeditionary Division under the command of Major General William Sibert.<br />
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The Root Mission to Russia</div>
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As the mission led by former Secretary of State Elihu Root was on en route to Russia, President Wilson laid the groundwork with a personal message to the provisional government. In a message sent June 9, he outlined the objectives and ideals of the United States in the war and firmly opposed any suggestion of a separate peace. He told the Russians "We are fighting for the liberty, the self-government and the undictated development of all peoples, and every feature of the settlement that concludes this war must be conceived and executed for that purpose." "The day has come," he said, "to conquer or submit. If the forces of
autocracy can divide us, they can overcome us; if we stand together,
victory is certain and the liberty which victory will secure."<br />
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The Root Commission at the Council of Ministers</div>
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The Root Commission reached Vladivostok on the Pacific coast of Russia on June 3, then sped across Russia by rail, arriving in Petrograd on June 13. Two days later they attended the Council of Ministers, where Root told the Russians "news of Russia's new-found freedom brought to America universal
satisfaction and joy." He said that "from all the land sympathy and hope went
out to the new sister in the circle of democracies." He told the Council that in Russia America sees "no party, no class, but great Russia as a whole, one mighty striving, aspiring democracy." He assured them that the people of the United States "are going to fight and have already begun to fight for your freedom equally with our own," and asked them "to fight for our freedom equally with yours." Replying to Root's address, Minister of Foreign Affairs Mikhail Tereshchenko said: "The Russian people consider the war inevitable, and will continue it. The Russians have no imperialistic wishes. We know that you have none. We shall fight together to secure liberty, freedom, and happiness for all the world."<br />
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Opposition to the war is mounting in the streets of Petrograd. At a June 17 meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, the Socialist Radical Nikolai Lenin delivered a long and impassioned speech attacking the Provisional Government. He denounced the proposal of Minister of War Kerensky, recently approved by the Duma, for a renewed offensive, calling it a betrayal of the interests of international socialism. In his reply, Kerensky said Lenin had misinterpreted Marxism and that his position was one that would be embraced by the German General Staff. Kerensky concluded his speech with an account of his recent visit to the front and a defense of his actions in office that was greeted with prolonged applause from everyone present except Lenin and his followers.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8K2v7AYUTni1WbEhnusy1oZZZG5oUCcGvG7Hu9Dsf4EeGi4MG5TktNvrLS6Mhnr6uc5Li4oWnMNs-3h2IFg9AYTBEK7CCnpKzngA6vaJ_cHUWrGfGMLvvTxCFxLeyRwGoTzd-rJjB6L8/s1600/trjrandarchie.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="765" data-original-width="590" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8K2v7AYUTni1WbEhnusy1oZZZG5oUCcGvG7Hu9Dsf4EeGi4MG5TktNvrLS6Mhnr6uc5Li4oWnMNs-3h2IFg9AYTBEK7CCnpKzngA6vaJ_cHUWrGfGMLvvTxCFxLeyRwGoTzd-rJjB6L8/s400/trjrandarchie.jpg" width="307" /></a> </div>
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Theodore Jr. and Archie Roosevelt</div>
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In a speech delivered at a Red Cross event in Oyster Bay on June 24, former
President Theodore Roosevelt told the crowd that two of his sons had
already gone to France and that "the others are to follow." The two who
have gone are Major Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., his eldest son, and
Captain Archibald Roosevelt, his third. Both left New York on
June 20 aboard the French steamship <i>Chicago </i>and will be attached
to General Pershing's headquarters. Both of them were members of the original
Plattsburg training camp in 1915, and both have been active in the
National Guard. Roosevelt's second son Kermit, doubtful that
American troops will see combat soon, is seeking a commission in the
British armed service. Quentin, his youngest son, is in flight
training for the Air Service in Mineola, New York.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaOhcMgM-O253DC5zrGFtPsGldivQtS-fHFbcYuJd_s-5FXbxmm4LUMhxRHG_qPC-KYr31bjlVDimNv1rF2NT5Bsa6MlVo12s_vg2P04UTuqF2vKNiN4SJ35PYZyIIulpJNGhakGPYPiQ/s1600/Battle_of_Messines_-_Map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="434" data-original-width="604" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaOhcMgM-O253DC5zrGFtPsGldivQtS-fHFbcYuJd_s-5FXbxmm4LUMhxRHG_qPC-KYr31bjlVDimNv1rF2NT5Bsa6MlVo12s_vg2P04UTuqF2vKNiN4SJ35PYZyIIulpJNGhakGPYPiQ/s400/Battle_of_Messines_-_Map.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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The Battle of Messines Ridge</div>
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Messines Ridge, on the southern edge of the Ypres salient, commands a panoramic view of the surrounding countryside, and until this month was occupied by German troops. For months British troops under the command of General Sir Herbert Plumer have been digging tunnels up to half a mile in length extending under the German positions on the Ridge and packing them with explosives. On May 7 the mines were detonated, creating an enormous explosion that was felt as far away as southern England. A massive artillery barrage followed by an infantry advance resulted in thousands of German soldiers killed or taken prisoner. The British gained possession of the ridge, but failed to fully exploit their breakthrough. On June 19 the British commander General Sir Douglas Haig traveled to Westminster where after several days of contentious meetings he obtained cabinet approval of his plan for a major offensive beginning the end of July.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzBWq-NTsM83XUJLuj8a9fKutZRPtEQP957XNt8jyQKpxgKHKhq_oSrYR2uIhU6tojwTZmtoOg_croLsUKUq3G7oEDAu_axfYmHqzkhGhlhWDxRLc_a-HhEQ1vNUp5FgSiG-m9qf-lqFY/s1600/gothabomber.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="277" data-original-width="450" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzBWq-NTsM83XUJLuj8a9fKutZRPtEQP957XNt8jyQKpxgKHKhq_oSrYR2uIhU6tojwTZmtoOg_croLsUKUq3G7oEDAu_axfYmHqzkhGhlhWDxRLc_a-HhEQ1vNUp5FgSiG-m9qf-lqFY/s400/gothabomber.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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A Gotha Bomber on the Ground </div>
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The most destructive air raid of the war on London, the fourth within three weeks, was conducted by German Gotha bombers on June 13, resulting in hundreds of civilian deaths and serious injuries. Eighteen children were among the dead when a bomb struck a primary school in the East End.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivFiosyXsNLAWCP_LaShugdCEyqLTBHMRJokmlEGHRw6IIIa1LONH1buzd-abTHQqxUVMNfSsB3T7vbXR5aar8ZHAuwIjBxw2RMjUDjaVMnBNbIgC3SWhCO6DN4IBVFGBk13IrI43OmZE/s1600/King_Alexander_of_Greece.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="347" data-original-width="263" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivFiosyXsNLAWCP_LaShugdCEyqLTBHMRJokmlEGHRw6IIIa1LONH1buzd-abTHQqxUVMNfSsB3T7vbXR5aar8ZHAuwIjBxw2RMjUDjaVMnBNbIgC3SWhCO6DN4IBVFGBk13IrI43OmZE/s320/King_Alexander_of_Greece.jpg" width="242" /></a></div>
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The New King of Greece</div>
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King Constantine of Greece, who has steadfastly resisted the pro-Entente advice of his prime minister Eleftherios Venizelos, finally yielded to the demands of the Prime Minister and the Entente nations on June 12, abdicating in favor of his second son Prince Alexander. The demand that he relinquish the throne included the demand that his eldest son Prince George, who shares his father's political views, also be excluded from power. King Constantine and Prince George have left Greece for Switzerland; it is expected that King Alexander will adopt the pro-Entente stance of the Prime Minister.<br />
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*****</div>
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<u>June 1917 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading</u><br />
<br />
<u>Contemporary Periodicals</u>:</div>
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American Review of Reviews, July and August 1917</div>
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New York
Times, June 1917</div>
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<u>Books and Articles</u>:</div>
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A. Scott Berg, Wilson</div>
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Britain at War Magazine, The Fourth Year of the Great War: 1917<br />
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918 <br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography<br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and
Theodore Roosevelt </div>
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John Dos Passos, Mr. Wilson's War</div>
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David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922</div>
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Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life<br />
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History </div>
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Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933<br />
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume IV: The Stricken World 1916-1922</div>
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Ann Hagedorn, Savage Peace, Hope and Fear in America, 1919 </div>
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August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House</div>
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</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography<br />
John Keegan, The First World War<br />
David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society<br />
Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 <br />
Nicholas A. Lambert, Planning Armageddon: British Economic Warfare and the First World War</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Arthur S. Link, Wilson: Confusions and Crises, 1915-1916 </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era,
1910-1917</div>
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Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918</div>
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G.J. Meyer, The World Remade: America in World War I </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Michael S. Neiberg, The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America<br />
Edward J. Renehan Jr., The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War </div>
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Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict </div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War<br />
Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931 </div>
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</div>
Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The West Point Atlas of War: World War I </div>
</div>
</div>
Dennis Crosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05167348173555324839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320526393914188899.post-87646729266091790152017-05-31T08:14:00.000-07:002017-05-31T08:14:03.378-07:00May 1917<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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It's May 1917, and the United States has just entered the Great War. Visiting Allied war leaders ask President Wilson for an immediate commitment
of American troops.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>General Pershing is named commander of the American
Expeditionary Force and departs for Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The United States enacts the first draft law
since the Civil War.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Included is a provision authorizing the president to
organize volunteer divisions such as the one former President Roosevelt wants to lead, but the President says he will not exercise that
authority.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Americans are asked to
subscribe to a “Liberty Loan” to finance the war effort.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>President Wilson urges press censorship, but
a bill giving the president censorship authority fails to pass Congress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Allies confront the Central Powers in the Balkans; Italy launches another attack against Austro-Hungarian forces on the
Isonzo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>United States Navy warships arrive in Great Britain to
assist the British with convoy escort and other duties.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLJ03mojx6s4umCflgRXBCmqL6adbxRNDlPf4RFLH_qz0FWBxCU8GREk3T1Vw9ILfCD_YEU6JjZ2ooIQaDweZ3icjkpNi0s2f0SSMTx84ftZH8_ai5It_BrMJYDFg525Q3xbD7VQYSbYY/s1600/Balfour-Viviani-Joffre.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLJ03mojx6s4umCflgRXBCmqL6adbxRNDlPf4RFLH_qz0FWBxCU8GREk3T1Vw9ILfCD_YEU6JjZ2ooIQaDweZ3icjkpNi0s2f0SSMTx84ftZH8_ai5It_BrMJYDFg525Q3xbD7VQYSbYY/s400/Balfour-Viviani-Joffre.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Lansing (left) with Viviani, Balfour and Joffre at Mount Vernon</div>
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High-level delegations from France and Great Britain arrived in the United States last month. After touring Mount Vernon together and laying a wreath at the tomb of President George Washington, they embarked separately on a round of visits dinners, parades, and visits to other cities. On May 1 the French emissaries, accompanied by Ambassador Jules Jusserand, visited the Senate. After Vice Premier Viviani's brief address, Marshal Joffre explained apologetically that "I do not speak English," but added, in French, "Vivent les Etats-Unis!" and gave a military salute, inspiring a prolonged ovation. The next day the French visitors joined President Wilson for luncheon at the White House, and the following day they visited the House of Representatives. After M. Viviani concluded his remarks, Speaker Clark took Marshal Joffre by the arm as the Marshal stood at attention and saluted. When the applause subsided, he said, in English, "Thank you." Then he added "Vive l'Amerique," and the thunderous ovation resumed with shouts of "Vive la France!" </div>
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The French delegation then boarded a train that took them to Chicago, Kansas City, St. Louis, and Springfield, Illinois, where on May 7 they laid a wreath at the tomb of President Abraham Lincoln. They arrived in New York City on May 9 and were greeted at the Battery by Joseph H. Choate, the chairman of the Mayor's Committee. They were driven by automobile to City Hall, where they were welcomed by Mayor Mitchel and other dignitaries in speeches that recalled America's debt to France in the Revolution and expressed admiration for France's role in the World War. The next day they were given a tour of the City that extended from Prospect Park in Brooklyn, to luncheon at the Hotel Astor, to Columbia University where they were awarded honorary degrees, to Grant's Tomb on the shore of the Hudson River. Thereafter they retired to the Fifth Avenue residence of Henry C. Frick, their host during their stay in New York, for a small private dinner (fewer than fifty guests). On May 11, Marshal Joffre and the other military members of the delegation visited the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, while the civilians stayed in the City to greet Mr. Balfour and the British delegation arriving from Washington. That evening, rejoined by Marshal Joffre and his entourage, the combined French and British delegations dined at the Waldorf-Astoria. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNCpDVIKY1Siac_pObGQ1C4Z5tmr2i9KLdKJmbzJkIli4mX0B08chBUE7y7-fxJR8BGYguHUW2jsCmjYenyQqLSNx8plqWp_2_OMVVFMQpGnQgnj5EkvBEIbIKRGaG4TKouUC5YhZIc-M/s1600/Balfour_in_N.Y.%252C_5-11-17%252C_Hugh_Gibson_%2528LOC%2529_%252817781406750%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNCpDVIKY1Siac_pObGQ1C4Z5tmr2i9KLdKJmbzJkIli4mX0B08chBUE7y7-fxJR8BGYguHUW2jsCmjYenyQqLSNx8plqWp_2_OMVVFMQpGnQgnj5EkvBEIbIKRGaG4TKouUC5YhZIc-M/s400/Balfour_in_N.Y.%252C_5-11-17%252C_Hugh_Gibson_%2528LOC%2529_%252817781406750%2529.jpg" width="273" /></a></div>
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Balfour Arriving in New York</div>
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British Foreign Minister Balfour and his commission arrived in Washington last month three days before the French commissioners. The day after their arrival Mr. Balfour had a long meeting with President Wilson in the White House, followed by a dinner hosted by the President and Mrs. Wilson for the principal members of the British mission. After M. Viviani and Marshal Joffre had made their visits to Congress and departed Washington for their journey through the Midwest, Mr. Balfour took his turn on Capitol Hill, visiting the House of Representatives on May 5 and the Senate on May 8. The British delegation then traveled to New York, arriving the afternoon of May 11. </div>
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New York City's welcome rivaled that given the French commissioners two days earlier. Debarking from their train in Jersey City, the British commissioners boarded a police boat that carried them to the Battery. (It was noted that they landed at the very spot where the last British soldier had left New York in 1783). Following the same route as the French, the British visitors rode up Broadway between cheering crowds and buildings flying the Union Jack to City Hall, where they were welcomed by Mayor Mitchel, Mr. Choate and other dignitaries including J.P. Morgan, Cleveland Dodge, Dudley Field Malone and Bernard Baruch. That evening they attended the Mayor's Committee's dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria. Attendees included former Presidents Roosevelt and Taft and two former candidates for the presidency, Alton B. Parker and Charles E. Hughes. When Colonel Roosevelt, who is fluent in French, was seen in earnest conversation with Marshal Joffre, no one doubted that he was making the case for leading American troops to France. Enthusiastic cheers erupted when Mr. Choate, calling for immediate and vigorous aid to the Allies, cried "Let Teddy go!" </div>
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The next day, Mr. Balfour addressed more than a thousand members and guests of the Chamber of Commerce, telling them that the common cause of Great Britain and the United States represents the fulfillment of his life-long dream that the "English-speaking, freedom-loving branches of the human race should be drawn far closer than in the past." On Sunday, May 13, Balfour had lunch with Colonel House at his New York City residence, then went to Sagamore Hill where he joined Colonel Roosevelt for high tea. After returning to Washington, the British mission cancelled plans to visit Chicago in order to spend its remaining time in discussions with American officials regarding shipping and other issues. On May 18 Balfour held a private meeting with President Wilson, at which it is believed he shared the text of secret treaties between Great Britain and other countries involved in the war including Russia, Italy and Japan. The following Monday, May 21, President Wilson and Mr. Balfour held a lengthy meeting at the British mission. Three days later Balfour addressed the National Press Club and paid a farewell call on President Wilson at the White House. He left the next day for Toronto.</div>
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During their visit, both the French and the British commissioners impressed on their American hosts the immediate need of the Allies, not only for financial and logistical support, but for American troops in large numbers as soon as they can be supplied. Last month's failure of the French offensive at the Chemin des Dames and the initial success of Germany's new policy of unrestricted submarine warfare have placed the Allied cause in jeopardy. As Marshal Joffre said, "We want men, men, men."</div>
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Joseph H. Choate (1832-1917)</div>
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Joseph H. Choate, the Chairman of the Mayor's Committee that organized and conducted New York City's welcome to the British and French delegations this month, was the United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James from 1899 to 1905. A prominent member of the New York legal community, he participated in several notorious cases and was instrumental in breaking up the Tweed Ring in the 1870's. Since retiring from diplomatic service he has continued to be active in civic affairs, and followed a strenuous schedule before and during this month's celebrations. On May 14 he suffered an apparent heart attack at his home on East 63rd Street and died at 11:30 that evening. Two days earlier, in his last public appearance, he had attended Sunday services with Mr. Balfour at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
The Former President at Home</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
Mr. Choate's plea at the May 11 dinner to "Let Teddy go!" was echoed in Congressional speeches and in the manpower bill passed this month and signed into law by the President on May 18. The final version of the bill, however, while it authorized the recruitment of a division of volunteers, did not require it, and when President Wilson signed the bill he issued a statement saying "I shall not avail myself, at any rate at the present stage of the war, of the authorization conferred by the act to organize volunteer divisions."<br />
<br />
Former French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, the influential French newspaper owner and journalist who served as prime minister from 1906 to 1909, also wants to see Roosevelt in France. In an open letter to President Wilson in the May 27 edition of his newspaper L'Homme Enchaine, he tells the president "there is in France one name that sums up the beauty of American intervention. It is the name Roosevelt." Speaking for the French soldiers, Clemenceau says their hearts beat with joy at the arrival of the Americans, but that "more than one of our 'poilus' asked his comrade 'But where is Roosevelt? I don't see him.'" He pleads with Wilson, for "the cause of humanity, which is also your cause," to "send them Roosevelt."<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Major MacArthur as a Captain in Veracruz, 1914</div>
<br />
The manpower bill requires all men between the ages of 21 and 30 to register for the draft beginning June 5. Registration is expected to require about five days and to result in a potential pool of draftees of about ten million. The draft army will be known as the National Army to distinguish it from the Regular Army and the National Guard Army. Some Regular Army troops are to be sent to Europe without delay. With the enactment of the draft legislation, Major Douglas MacArthur of the General Staff delivered an announcement to newspapermen at the War Department stating that an expeditionary force of approximately one division of Regular Army troops under the command of Major General John J. Pershing would be sent to France as soon as possible. The first American combat troops arrived in France on May 26. On May 28 General Pershing and his staff sailed secretly for Europe aboard the
White Star liner Baltic. The French high command wants to use American troops to augment Allied units on the front lines, but it appears likely that American entry into combat will take place only after their organization and training as American Army units under the American flag.<br />
<br />
Support for the draft, while less than unanimous, is widespread, as reflected in the popularity of a new song. The Peerless Quartet, which in 1915 sang "I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be a Soldier," now sings "America, Here's My Boy" (click to play):<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
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<div style="text-align: center;">
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<div style="text-align: center;">
*****<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
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<div style="text-align: center;">
4 Minute Men</div>
<br />
The Senate-House Conference Committee considering an Espionage Bill added, at the urging of President Wilson, a section giving the President authority to censor the press. The proposal has encountered resistance in Congress on the ground that it infringes freedom of speech and the press, and is opposed by most newspapers and news organizations. On May 31 the House of Representatives voted on the censorship section separately and defeated it by a vote of 184-144. The bill has been returned to the Conference Committee with instructions to eliminate that section. Censorship or no censorship, on May 27 the Committee on Public Information released proposed "regulations for the periodical press of the United States during the war." The Committee has also initiated a program of "four minute men," volunteers who will give brief speeches at motion picture theaters during the four minutes required to change reels. The topics will be chosen by the Committee and will address patriotic themes in support of the war effort.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisgv7O2z65nxkmj2fyJ9nIl92kAMiYEGdAYz-70HpZvliMTMvttTMvd38vboV2W3YEzAOvpGrAuf2zYbsryLcyQ6-3FHOThOELB7C6K9JFFQoSlfxmaMbz0gA4p6ur3bAhniBFdf60jdY/s1600/libertybondposter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisgv7O2z65nxkmj2fyJ9nIl92kAMiYEGdAYz-70HpZvliMTMvttTMvd38vboV2W3YEzAOvpGrAuf2zYbsryLcyQ6-3FHOThOELB7C6K9JFFQoSlfxmaMbz0gA4p6ur3bAhniBFdf60jdY/s400/libertybondposter.jpg" width="262" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Buy Liberty Bonds!</div>
<br />
In his war message, President Wilson said he wanted the United States war effort to be financed by "adequate credits" sustained by "well conceived taxation." His proposed tax increases have encountered some resistance, but Congress has not been reluctant to authorize borrowing. U.S. Government bonds, called Liberty Bonds, are now on sale and are being promoted by four minute men as well as celebrities such as Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and the evangelist Billy Sunday. Large banks and wealthy
individuals such as John D. Rockefeller have made large and well-publicized purchases. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBQTWTKZHBAp0SI2jaJ5uUhb-A-5ayGDUyZ9KuQGVZ461KBIPqAy_IwezCdVoflLwniqhGWaVLSrl5JDN0IWv5WKJY76tUudAhehBZ3uMSh4XPreWxhcGIfnI_5VuP8BP30OdlrF45Vok/s1600/Gotha_RG_im_Flug.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="623" data-original-width="799" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBQTWTKZHBAp0SI2jaJ5uUhb-A-5ayGDUyZ9KuQGVZ461KBIPqAy_IwezCdVoflLwniqhGWaVLSrl5JDN0IWv5WKJY76tUudAhehBZ3uMSh4XPreWxhcGIfnI_5VuP8BP30OdlrF45Vok/s400/Gotha_RG_im_Flug.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
A Gotha Bomber in Flight</div>
<br />
In the Balkans, British, French, Serbian and Italian forces in Salonika faced Bulgarian, German and Austrian troops across the River Struma. An Allied offensive beginning on May 8 was turned back by heavy artillery fire. The tenth battle of the Isonzo began with an Italian artillery bombardment on May 10. By month's end, the Italian Army had made modest advances and captured over 20,000 Austrian prisoners. German Gotha bombers based in Belgium struck Great Britain on May 25, killing 95 civilians and injuring 192.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4viKk0FDU8ry0tWoTb7YGQ3yaDs4rK-qTP_fp7SE5GQeH71HBlo0QAqqzOghas_FY4pzrmvv2Y4Cap4XQKCBl5jksQkTozBk6HnceyFsmbZ8dntndqj0Vz28zXvekHIveWQetl_cK45A/s1600/Pavel_Miliukov3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="340" data-original-width="248" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4viKk0FDU8ry0tWoTb7YGQ3yaDs4rK-qTP_fp7SE5GQeH71HBlo0QAqqzOghas_FY4pzrmvv2Y4Cap4XQKCBl5jksQkTozBk6HnceyFsmbZ8dntndqj0Vz28zXvekHIveWQetl_cK45A/s400/Pavel_Miliukov3.jpg" width="291" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Foreign Minister Miliukov</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Russia is in turmoil in the wake of the Tsar's abdication as the
provisional government struggles to maintain control. On May 1 (April
18 on the Russian calendar), Foreign Minister Pavel Miliukov sent a
diplomatic note to the
Allied governments promising that Russia would continue vigorous
prosecution of the war. News of the Miliukov note led to violence
in the streets of Petrograd and gave impetus to the Bolshevik campaign
against the Provisional Government. On May 9 Chairman Mikhail Rodzianko
addressed the
Duma, pledging that
Russia would "make every sacrifice to bring this war, in concert with
our allies, to a complete victory." Premier Lvov followed with a
tribute to the revolution, which he said "every day strengthens our
confidence in the creative forces of the Russian people and the
greatness of its future." Minister of War Alexander Guchkov,
however, adopted a more pessimistic tone, warning that the military
might have been weakened by "duality of power, polyarchy, and anarchy"
and that the country was "on the edge of an abyss." On May 13 General Lavr Kornilov, commander of the Petrograd
garrison, resigned rather than comply with an order of the Petrograd Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies, also known as the Petrograd Soviet, that he submit his orders to the Council's executive
committee for approval. <br />
<br />
In Berlin on May 15, German Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg extended an olive branch to Russia, announcing during a debate on war aims that "if Russia wants to prevent further bloodshed and renounces all violent plans of conquest for herself, if she wishes to restore durable relations side by side with us, then surely . . . an agreement aiming exclusively at a mutual understanding could be attained which excludes every thought of oppression and which would leave behind no sting and no discord." His approach was different to Germany's "western enemies." While he disavowed "a program of conquest," he refused to give "an assurance which will enable them to continue the war indefinitely without danger of losses to themselves."<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Mikhail Tereshchenko</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
A new
coalition government was announced in Petrograd on May 16. Foreign Minister Miliukov and Minister of War Guchkov have left the cabinet. Mikhail Tereshchenko is the new foreign minister and Alexander
Kerensky is the new minister of war. The Provisional Government, which
now includes representatives of the Petrograd Soviet, issued a statement on May 19 pledging that Russia will "energetically carry into effect the ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity, beneath the standards by which the great Russian revolution came to birth." The new government is apparently unimpressed by Bethmann-Hollweg's peace offer in the Reichstag a few days earlier. Its statement firmly rejects "all thought of a separate peace" and "adopts openly as its aim the re-establishment of a general peace . . . without annexation or indemnities and based on the right of nations to decide their own affairs."</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Trotsky Arriving in Petrograd</div>
<br />
Completing his long journey from New York interrupted by a month-long detention in Halifax, Leon Trotsky arrived at Petrograd's Finland Station on May 17. He has not formally joined forces with Vladimir Lenin's Bolsheviks, but his speeches and statements since his arrival have been generally in line with the positions advocated by Lenin in last month's address to the Conference of Soviets (see the April 1917 installment of this blog).<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Elihu Root</div>
<br />
The United States government announced on May 11 that a
special mission led by former Senator and Secretary of
State Elihu Root will be sent to Russia. Root has been given broad authority to do whatever is
necessary to persuade the Russian government and people to continue to prosecute Russia's
war against Germany.<br />
<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Admiral Sims</div>
<br />
It will take several months at least before an American army large enough to make a difference on the battlefields of France can be drafted, trained, equipped, and sent to Europe. The United States Navy, however, can begin making important contributions much sooner. Last month Vice Admiral William Sims established a mission in Great Britain to coordinate naval operations between the United States and Great Britain. The first American warships arrived on May 4, and will assist the Royal Navy in conducting patrols in the North Sea and English Channel. In addition, the two navies have begun forming convoys of merchant ships with naval escorts in an attempt to minimize losses to submarine attacks. Since the Germans' resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare on February 1, Allied shipping has suffered unsustainable losses, over 800 Allied ships having been sunk on their way to
great Britain. Overcoming initial resistance by the British Admiralty, a trial convoy was formed on May 10 at Gibraltar and arrived without loss at the Downs on May 24. Also on May 24, the first transatlantic convoy departed Hampton Roads bound for Great Britain.<br />
<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
*****</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>May 1917 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading</u><br />
<br />
<u>Contemporary Periodicals</u>:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
American Review of Reviews, June and July 1917</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
New York
Times, May 1917</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<u>Books and Articles</u>:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A. Scott Berg, Wilson</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Britain at War Magazine, The Fourth Year of the Great War: 1917<br />
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918 <br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography<br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and
Theodore Roosevelt </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Patrick Devlin, Too Proud to Fight: Woodrow Wilson's
Neutrality</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
John Dos Passos, Mr. Wilson's War</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life<br />
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933<br />
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume IV: The Stricken World 1916-1922</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Richard F. Hamilton and Holger H. Herwig, Decisions for War, 1914-1917</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography<br />
John Keegan, The First World War<br />
David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society<br />
Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 <br />
Nicholas A. Lambert, Planning Armageddon: British Economic Warfare and the First World War</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Arthur S. Link, Wilson: Confusions and Crises, 1915-1916 </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era,
1910-1917</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
G.J. Meyer, The World Remade: America in World War I </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Michael S. Neiberg, The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War<br />
Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931 </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
Barbara W. Tuchman, The Zimmermann Telegram<br />
United States World War One Centennial Commission, The U.S. Navy Arrives in Europe, http://www.worldwar1centennial.org/index.php/communicate/press-media/wwi-centennial-news/2376-remembering-world-war-i-the-u-s-navy-arrives-in-europe.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery<br />
Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The West Point Atlas of War: World War I </div>
</div>
</div>
Dennis Crosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05167348173555324839noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320526393914188899.post-62485173839789361222017-04-30T09:29:00.000-07:002017-09-02T13:51:17.050-07:00April 1917<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Two events in April 1917 foreshadow the superpower alignment of the remainder of the Twentieth Century: the United States enters the Great War, meaning to make the world safe for democracy, and Lenin returns to
Russia, intent on leading a Bolshevik revolution. In Washington, the President's request for a declaration of war is the first order of business for the newly elected 65th Congress. War is declared, the Navy is mobilized,
German ships in American ports are seized, and suspected German spies are detained.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Congress authorizes a $7 billion war loan, most of the proceeds marked for
the nations already fighting Germany.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The president issues a
proclamation to the American people, telling them they must “speak, act and serve
together” in support of the war effort.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>British and French emissaries visit the United States to participate in an International
War Council.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both houses of Congress enact draft legislation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>On the Western Front, an Anglo-French offensive is launched under the
command of General Robert Nivelle, the new Commander-in-Chief of the French Army.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Canadians capture Vimy Ridge, but the
offensive as a whole is a costly failure, ending with mutinies in the French
Army and the replacement of Nivelle by General Philippe Petain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> I</span>n a journey facilitated by the
German government, Lenin travels from Zurich to Petrograd's Finland Station.
Upon arrival, in what would become known as the April Theses, he calls for the overthrow of Russia's new Provisional Government.<br />
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President Wilson Asks Congress to Declare War Against Germany</div>
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Shortly after 8:30 p.m. on April 2, President Woodrow Wilson strode into the chamber of the House of Representatives and addressed a joint session of the newly elected Congress. The President had asked for the special session almost two weeks earlier and Congress had convened that morning, but the narrowly divided House of Representatives (215 Republicans, 213 Democrats, three Progressives and one Socialist) had taken all day to organize itself, finally electing the Democratic Leader, Champ Clark of Missouri, to another term as speaker. </div>
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The President, after reviewing the history of Germany's submarine warfare and its recent removal of restrictions on submarine attacks on passenger and merchant shipping, accused the German government of "throwing to the wind all scruples of humanity [and] of respect for the understandings that were supposed to underlie the intercourse of the world." He said he was thinking not of the destruction of property, "immense and serious as that is," but of "the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of noncombatants, men, women, and children, engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modern history, been deemed innocent and legitimate." For that reason, he said, "[t]he present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind." Therefore, "there is one choice we cannot make. We will not choose the path of submission . . ." At this point, as reported by the New York Times, Supreme Court Chief Justice Edward White, a Confederate veteran of the Civil War, "with an expression of joy and thankfulness on his face, dropped the big soft hat he had been holding, raised his hands high in the air, and brought them together with a heartfelt bang; and House, Senate and galleries followed him with a roar like a storm." The President then continued: ". . . and suffer the most sacred rights of our people to be ignored."</div>
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Declaring that "armed neutrality, it now appears, is impracticable," President Wilson asked Congress to declare war: "With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be nothing less than war against the Government and people of the United States . . . " Again the Chief Justice was on his feet vigorously bringing his hands together over his head. Behind him, the cheers were led by the President's fellow Democrats, including Kentucky Senator Ollie James, who last year roused the Democratic Convention to comparable heights of passion with his speech praising President Wilson for keeping the country out of war (see the June 1916 installment of this blog). When the cheering subsided, the President continued: ". . . that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it; and that it take immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thorough state of defense, but also to exert all its power and employ all its resources to bring the Government of the German Empire to terms and end the war." </div>
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The President then turned to the practical necessities of the nation's new belligerent status. It "will involve the utmost practicable co-operation in counsel and action with the Governments now at war with Germany" and "the extension to those Governments of the most liberal financial credits." And more than financial support would be required: he called for "the immediate addition to the armed forces of the United States . . . of at least 500,000 men [to] be chosen upon the principle of universal liability to service" as well as "adequate credits" to be sustained by "well conceived taxation."</div>
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Emphasizing that "we have no quarrel with the German people," the President sought to place the nation's entry into the war upon grounds of humanity and high principle:</div>
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"We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretense about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German people included; for the rights of nations, great and small, and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience.</div>
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"The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them."</div>
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The address ended with a stirring plea for unity: </div>
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"It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great, peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance.</div>
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"But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things that we have always held nearest our hearts -- for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.</div>
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"To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured.</div>
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"God helping her, she can do no other." </div>
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Senator Hitchcock</div>
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The Senate went first. Senator William Stone of Missouri is Chairman of the Foreign
Relations Committee, but because he opposed the war resolution
the Committee entrusted its management on the Senate
floor to the second ranking Democrat, Senator Gilbert Hitchcock of
Nebraska. Senator Hitchcock is a recent and reluctant convert to the pro-war position. He was considered a pacifist until recently when he decided, near the end of the last Congress, to support the President's armed neutrality legislation.</div>
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After the President's address, many senators were eager to vote immediately to show Congress's unhesitating support for the President's action, but to do so would have required a suspension of Senate rules by unanimous consent. Senator LaFollette objected, requiring that debate on the resolution be postponed twenty-four hours. The Democratic leadership then moved to adjourn until 10:00 a.m. April 4 and announced that when it reconvened the Senate would remain in session and consider no other business until the war resolution was voted on. The debate that began the morning of April 4 lasted into the evening and occasionally turned rancorous (Senator George Norris of Nebraska charged that the war was being fought to
protect bankers and millionaires and that "we are about to put the
dollar sign on the American flag"; Senator James Reed of Missouri
replied that Norris's comments were "almost treason"), but at 11:11 p.m. the Senate finally passed the war resolution by a vote of 82 to 6. The six no votes were cast by three Republicans (Senators LaFollette and Norris and Senator Asle Gronna of North Dakota) and three Democrats (Senator Stone and Senators James Vardaman of Mississippi and Harry Lane of Oregon), all six of whom were members of the "little group of willful men" denounced last month by President Wilson. </div>
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Representative Rankin</div>
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The House of Representatives began debate on the war resolution at 10:00 a.m. Thursday, April 5. Again debate continued all day and into the night. The roll call began at 2:45 Friday morning and concluded at 3:12. The resolution passed by a vote of 373-50. There was never any doubt about the outcome; the only drama was provided by Jeannette Rankin, a Republican from Montana and the first woman ever to sit in Congress. Miss Rankin was elected last fall as one of two representatives from her state, which gave women the right to vote in 1914. When President Wilson addressed Congress on April 2, therefore, the moment was historic for two reasons: Congress was asked to join the World War, and it was the first meeting of Congress ever to include a woman (the President nevertheless addressed his audience as the "Gentlemen of the Congress"). The first time the roll was called for a vote on the war resolution, Miss Rankin remained silent. After the roll call ended, her name was called again and after a pause she stood and responded "I want to stand by my country, but I cannot vote for war. I vote no."</div>
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President Wilson Signing the War Proclamation</div>
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On the morning of Friday, April 6, the resolution declaring war on Germany was returned to the Senate with the approval of the House of Representatives. The Senate reconvened at noon, and Vice-president Marshall signed the war resolution as President of the Senate at 12:14. It was taken directly to the White House, where the President was having lunch with Mrs. Wilson and his cousin Miss Helen Woodrow Bones. They interrupted their lunch and went to the usher's room where President Wilson sat at a small table and signed the declaration at 1:18 pm. Immediately afterward, he signed a Proclamation, prepared in advance and signed by Secretary of State Lansing, notifying the nation and the world that the United States was at war with Germany. Rudolph Forster, the executive clerk to the President, then went to the executive offices where he announced the signing to the waiting reporters. The message was flashed by semaphore to the Navy Department across the street and from there by wireless to Naval stations and ships around the world. At the same time, the War Department notified Army post commanders in the United States and insular possessions by telegraph. German ships in American harbors have been seized and suspected German spies placed under arrest. A seven billion dollar war loan has been authorized by Congress, about five billion dollars of which will go to the Entente nations that have been at war with Germany for years and are in immediate need of financial support. Following the President's advice to rely as much as possible on taxation rather than borrowing, House and Senate leaders have tentatively agreed to raise fifty percent of the war's expenses in the new fiscal year beginning July 1 by imposing new taxes and increasing existing ones. To address the nation's vastly increased manpower needs, an Army Bill supported by the White House was introduced on April 9 that included a provision imposing the first compulsory military service since the Civil War. </div>
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The compulsory service provision met initial resistance in Congress. On April 10, the day after the Army Bill was introduced, former President Theodore Roosevelt
called on President Wilson at the White House, offering to lend his
support to the Army Bill and requesting that he be authorized to recruit and
lead a division of volunteers. Later that day he made the same case in
meetings with Secretary Baker and the chairmen of the House and Senate
Military Affairs Committees. On April 13 Baker responded in a letter in
which he declined Roosevelt's offer, saying he could not consent to
sending American troops to Europe without "the most thorough training"
under "the most professional and experienced officers available."
Whatever "sentimental value would attach" to his presence in France,
Baker thought there were "doubtless other ways in which that value could
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Inevitably, this has become an issue in the Congressional consideration of the Army Bill. On April 23, Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio offered an amendment to the Senate Bill providing for the enlistment of four
divisions of volunteers, with the stated intention of providing a means
for Roosevelt to realize his ambition of
leading American troops to Europe. Hiram Johnson, newly elected to the Senate from California, made an impassioned speech on the Senate floor on April 28 in which he hailed Roosevelt as "the clarion voice that first demanded preparedness in this land" and implored Wilson to "send this man of dynamic force, of ability, of virility, and of red-blooded courage, typifying the American nation, over to France, there to bear aloft the American flag for world democracy." Harding's amendment was included in the Senate version of the Army Bill, which will now be considered by a conference committee.</div>
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The United States is at war against Germany only. In his address to Congress, President Wilson explained that he had "said nothing of the Governments allied with the Imperial
Government of Germany because they have not made war upon us or
challenged us to defend our right and our honor." On April 8, in response to the declaration of war against its ally, Austria-Hungary severed diplomatic relations with the United States. The Ottoman Empire followed suit on April 20.</div>
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General Funston in San Francisco</div>
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Major General Frederick Funston, who made his reputation in the Philippine insurrection that followed the Spanish-American War and as commander of the Presidio at the time of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, was commanding officer of the Army's Southern Department during the punitive expedition in Mexico that began last year and ended in January. He was tentatively slated to lead the American Expeditionary Force to Europe if the United States entered the war, but in February he died suddenly of a heart attack in San Antonio. It now appears that Major General John J. Pershing, Funston's subordinate who led the punitive expedition, will get the assignment.</div>
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George Creel</div>
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Attorney
General Gregory has drafted and submitted to Congress a proposed
Espionage Bill, which among other things would impose censorship on the
press. The Bill has the strong support of President Wilson,
but is meeting resistance in Congress, where members of both parties are
criticizing the censorship provision as an unconstitutional
infringement on freedom of the press. In addition to blocking unfavorable publicity, the President is interested
in promoting the government's side of the news. On April 13 he signed an
executive order establishing the Committee on Public Information. The
order appointed George Creel, a journalist who assisted in the President's 1916 reelection campaign, as the Committee's civilian chairman and authorized the Secretaries of State, War and Navy to
detail officers to work with the Committee. On April 15 the President issued a statement telling
Americans "the things we must do, and do well, besides fighting -- the
things without which mere fighting would be useless." Telling Americans they must "speak, act and serve together," he urged increased production
of everything from ships to backyard gardens. </div>
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In his war message to Congress, President Wilson spoke of "the millions of men and women of German birth and native sympathy who live among us and share our life," most of whom are "as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other fealty or allegiance." Nevertheless, "if there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression." On April 16 he issued a proclamation quoting the legal definition of treason and specifying acts that have been held to be treasonous. The proclamation emphasizes that the laws against treason apply equally to citizens and resident aliens, and that any such person who has knowledge of the commission of treasonous activity and fails to report it is guilty of misprision of treason. The President further "proclaims and warns" that all persons committing such acts will be "vigorously prosecuted." </div>
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Balfour at Union Station, Greeted by Spring-Rice (left) and Lansing</div>
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High
Commissioners from Great Britain and France have arrived in the United
States to confer in an International War Council with American military
and political leaders. Arthur Balfour, a former British Prime Minister and First Lord of
the Admiralty, replaced Sir Edward Grey as Foreign
Minister in December. He arrived at Washington, D.C.'s Union Station shortly after 3:00 p.m. on April 22, where he was greeted by Secretary of State Robert Lansing and British Ambassador Sir Cecil Arthur Spring-Rice. His journey took him from
Great Britain by way of Canada; his route and itinerary were secret, but alert observers in New York had noticed an unscheduled train pass through the Pennsylvania Station at 8:45 that morning. Despite the lack of publicity, his arrival in Washington
was greeted by cheering throngs as his motor car carried him from Union
Station along Massachusetts Avenue to Sixteenth Street and north to the
Franklin MacVeagh residence where he and his delegation will reside
while in Washington. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUK_swlB_kYtuORuWj9j0JRJPzBnv7y5tQghgNwWU7QvPF8kQHVLu1ls6w8Vgj0jHrFibPRINWPyh1a2Bb4g2VTzy862IfxMGWyHjb7S4tGPNVLxmhMahQ1KQO6RiDyi1na7cW4WvVeCU/s1600/Joffre_USA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUK_swlB_kYtuORuWj9j0JRJPzBnv7y5tQghgNwWU7QvPF8kQHVLu1ls6w8Vgj0jHrFibPRINWPyh1a2Bb4g2VTzy862IfxMGWyHjb7S4tGPNVLxmhMahQ1KQO6RiDyi1na7cW4WvVeCU/s400/Joffre_USA.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Joffre at the French Embassy</div>
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Two days later, a former passenger liner commanded by a French admiral and carrying the French High Commissioners arrived in the United States. The liner was greeted off the East Coast by a flotilla of U.S Navy destroyers and escorted into Hampton Roads, where its passengers were transferred to the Presidential Yacht Mayflower for a journey up
the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River to Washington. The delegation was led by Rene Viviani, the former Premier and
now Vice Premier and Minister of Justice, and
Marshal Joseph Joffre, until recently the Commander in Chief of the
French Armies. The Mayflower arrived shortly after noon April 25 at the Washington Navy Yard, where the visitors were greeted by Secretary of State Lansing and the Marine Band. As they left the Navy Yard and motored toward the French Embassy, they were cheered by crowds at least as enthusiastic as
those that had greeted the arrival of the British delegation three days earlier. Among the most visible greeters was the tall Mr. Balfour, who stood in his motor car on Sixteenth Street and exchanged bows and salutes with the French delegates as they passed by. </div>
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*****</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh38j8L2BaEZUx_sK25VcxMPPNKbA1gGRJUX0ybhjoz4uIqVVyTTwM5PpSqCvHxR8TaEsdZ_2xZan7YUpb_iFz4ZJi3meiOWn8YcJKwwmN29LVJMyr8wMu14Qv5js7zdQYfCLt7ZTp8kJY/s1600/GeneralRobertNivelle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh38j8L2BaEZUx_sK25VcxMPPNKbA1gGRJUX0ybhjoz4uIqVVyTTwM5PpSqCvHxR8TaEsdZ_2xZan7YUpb_iFz4ZJi3meiOWn8YcJKwwmN29LVJMyr8wMu14Qv5js7zdQYfCLt7ZTp8kJY/s400/GeneralRobertNivelle.jpg" width="253" /></a></div>
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General Nivelle</div>
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On the day America declared war, French President Raymond Poincare was meeting in his railroad car in the forest of Compiegne with Paul Painleve, the new Minister of War, and General Robert Nivelle, the new Commander in Chief of the French Armies who had replaced General (now Field Marshal) Joffre in December. At the meeting, Nivelle insisted on final approval of a major offensive he had planned to drive the Germans from the Chemin des Dames. As the offensive was being planned, German forces withdrew to shorter and better fortified lines and brought in reinforcements in anticipation of the attack. For that reason and others, including the United States' anticipated involvement in the war, Painleve argued that the offensive should be cancelled or postponed, but Nivelle insisted on going ahead and threatened to resign if his plan was not approved. Nivelle's resignation threatened to bring down the government, so President Poincare, who had the final decision, authorized Nivelle to proceed with the offensive. </div>
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The Western Front and the Battle of Arras</div>
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The offensive began three days later, on Easter Monday (April 9), with an attack by British forces on Arras, on the left of the Allied line, designed in part to draw German forces away from the forthcoming French attack on the Chemin des Dames. After three days of hard fighting, the Canadian Corps succeeded in driving the Germans from Vimy Ridge, on the north end of the battle line. The British units to the south succeeded in advancing only as far as the Hindenburg Line, newly occupied by the German Army after last month's strategic withdrawal.</div>
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General Petain </div>
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On April 16, the French began their attack on the Chemin des Dames. The plan required the French to attack from (sometimes across) the River Aisne and uphill
through woods to high ground occupied by German forces dug into strong positions. Most of the German fortifications were on the reverse slope, increasing the difficulty of both artillery and infantry attack. Three days later, no gains having been achieved, Painleve urged Nivelle
to suspend further attacks. Although Nivelle had promised to call off
the offensive if a breakthrough was not achieved within forty-eight
hours, he insisted on continuing. Munitions were running low and the French Army's morale was severely weakened, leading to the outbreak of mutinies. Finally, President Poincare on April 25 ordered Nivelle to cease the attacks, and on April 28 he removed Nivelle as commander in chief. His replacement is General Philippe Petain. </div>
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Lenin Addressing the Conference of Soviets</div>
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On April 9, having secured the German Government's cooperation, Russian Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin left Zurich, Switzerland on a train bound for the Baltic coast, where he boarded a ferry to Sweden. After a journey by rail across Sweden and Finland around the Gulf of Bothnia, he arrived on April 16 at Petrograd's Finland Station where he was greeted by an enthusiastic crowd. The next day, in an address to the All-Russian Conference of Soviets, he called for the overthrow of the Provisional Government, the abolition of the police, army and bureaucracy, and an immediate end to the war. Although their name suggests otherwise, the Bolsheviks actually account for a minority even of the Soviet, which in turn is a minority in the Provisional Government, most of which is made up of liberal members of the Duma. Even among the Bolsheviks, moreover, Lenin appears to speak for only a few, and his April 17 speech to the Conference of Soviets was not well received.</div>
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The Provisional Government is not particularly concerned. On April 19, in a speech to British and French workingmen in Petrograd, Foreign Minister Miliukov said Russia's allies need have no fear that she will desert the alliance or weaken her resistance to their common enemies. He asked them to "announce to your countrymen that free Russia has become doubly strong through democratization, and that she will overlook all sufferings which war entails; that despite the revolution . . . Russia will continue the crusade for annihilation of German militarism with the greatest intensity." </div>
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In another development of potential importance to the ongoing Russian revolution, Leon Trotsky's detention in Halifax ended on April 29 after Foreign Minister Miliukov requested that Canada release him. Trotsky has resumed his journey across the Atlantic to Russia.</div>
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<u>April 1917 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading</u><br />
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<u>Contemporary Periodicals</u>:</div>
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American Review of Reviews, May and June 1917</div>
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New York
Times, April 1917<br />
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<u>Historical Archive</u>:<br />
Wilson's War Message to Congress, 2 April 1917, https://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Wilson%27s_War_Message_to_Congress</div>
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<u>Books and Articles</u>:</div>
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A. Scott Berg, Wilson</div>
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Britain at War Magazine, The Fourth Year of the Great War: 1917<br />
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918 <br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography<br />
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and
Theodore Roosevelt </div>
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Patrick Devlin, Too Proud to Fight: Woodrow Wilson's
Neutrality</div>
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John Dos Passos, Mr. Wilson's War</div>
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David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922</div>
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Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life<br />
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History </div>
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Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933<br />
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume IV: The Stricken World 1916-1922</div>
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Richard F. Hamilton and Holger H. Herwig, Decisions for War, 1914-1917</div>
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August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
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Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House</div>
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Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography<br />
John Keegan, The First World War<br />
David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society<br />
Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 <br />
Nicholas A. Lambert, Planning Armageddon: British Economic Warfare and the First World War</div>
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Arthur S. Link, Wilson: Confusions and Crises, 1915-1916 </div>
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Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era,
1910-1917</div>
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Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra</div>
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G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918</div>
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G.J. Meyer, The World Remade: America in World War I </div>
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Michael S. Neiberg, The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America</div>
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Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict </div>
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J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War<br />
Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931 </div>
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Barbara W. Tuchman, The Zimmermann Telegram
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Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History</div>
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The West Point Atlas of War: World War I </div>
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Dennis Crosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05167348173555324839noreply@blogger.com0