It was a gorgeous day today and I took advantage of the spring weather to visit Green-Wood Cemetery. While there I came across this headstone for one Mary M. Aitkin. When I got home I checked Ancestry and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle but found nothing on this veteran of the First World War. Aitkin’s headstone seems to be part of the plot for the Donnelly’s. Here below is a wider view. I searched for a Mary M. Donnelly as well but found nothing. I was struck by the sandy ground, which seems to have been recently tilled. This is not uncommon in Green-Wood which is still very much a working cemetery. Still, the bronze plaque protruding from the ground seemed striking.

if one looks closely at the Donnelly headstone one notes that there are names engraved for individuals who have not yet passed on. That leads one to believe this is very much a living cemetery plot, no pun intended. Coincidentally or not there is also a Mary on the larger headstone, for an individual born in 1956. Part of the power of visiting cemeteries is wondering about the lives of those one comes across. I would love to know the story here. It is interesting to note that Ms. Aitken died forty-six years ago this week. Also, she was older than most uniformed service persons who served in the Great War. Born on 8 November 1888, she turned thirty three days prior to the Armistice.

I could not figure out what the “Y2” indicates. I am guessing she was a Yeoman in the Naval Reserve but that is my speculation. If anyone knows, please enlighten me.

Both junior officers in the First World War, Ted Roosevelt and George Patton had become generals by the time this image was taken in Sicily in 1943 during the Second.

When I attended the World War I Centennial Commission trade show in June 2014–my gosh, now almost three years ago–I remember meeting representatives from the Library of Congress among other institutions. That came back to me yesterday when I read this Washington Post article about an upcoming exhibit about George Patton’s involvement in the First World War. I must say I know less about Patton than I do Eisenhower, about whom I wrote my masters thesis, but the exhibit apparently makes the case that the Great War was Patton’s defining moment, more so than what he did later in the Second World War. I will undoubtedly see the exhibit sometime this summer. Before I do I may have to read Carlo D’Este’s Patton: A Genius for War. D’Este is quoted in the Washington Post piece; my well-thumbed copy of his Ike biography is sitting on the bookshelf here next to me a I type these words.

Things will be picking up in the coming weeks as we get closer to the 100th anniversary of America involvement in the Great War. There will be a big event in Kanas City at the National World War I Museum and Memorial. Here in New York City the 69th Infantry Regiment will be having something in Father Duffy Square that same day. I really hope to get to that, schedule permitting. If things go as planned we will be filming the third of our three film shoots tomorrow for our documentary. We are hoping to get the film finished by the first week of April. We’ll see how it goes. I came across this collection of 1917 images compiled by the Atlantic published this week in recognition of International Women’s Day. Many outlets, especially those like the Atlantic whose provenance dates back to the First World War and earlier, will be doing things to mark the occassion. To me the most moving is number 24, which captures three French women out in a field pulling a plow. It is difficult to convey in words the toll that the Great War took on Europe’s people and infrastructure.

(image/Los Angeles Times via Wikimedia Commons)

By January 1917 the Great War had been going on for 2 1/2 years. Everyone grasped the human toll after the carnage at the Marne, the Somme and Verdun. Less obvious to many was the financial cost. Estimates vary widely, which is not surprising in that most nations were hesitant to show any weakness by discussing the details. One report released the first week of January 1917 put the combined national debts of Britain, France, Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary at $49,455,000,000. The bean counters quickly acknowledged however that even that number was low, given the extent to which internal bond drives were paying for the bullets, shells and other accoutrements of war. A separate report issued a week later put the various European powers’ war debts at $62,000,000,000, or $1,169,000,000,000. in today’s dollars.

The war of course ground on for another almost two years, and even after that there was civil war and violence in numerous regions, most obviously in Russia. War debt was a huge sticking point at the negotiations at Versailles. Even more far-ranging, the groundwork for the inflation and instability of the 1920s was already being put into place.

(image/War Loans and Savings Campaign, Home Front, UK via Imperial War Museum)