Category Archives: WW1

Hagedorn’s ‘Challenge’

10 Friday Mar 2017

Posted by in Theodore Roosevelt Jr (President), WW1

≈ Comments Off on Hagedorn’s ‘Challenge’

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 10 March 1917

One hundred years ago the Brooklyn Daily Eagle published a number of readers’ poems related to the escalating war situation. As it turns out one of the submissions was by none other than Hermann Hagedorn. When Theodore Roosevelt died two years later Hagedorn became the secretary of the Roosevelt Memorial Association. He later became the director, a position he held until 1957. For more check out this post I did in 2014 on the 50th anniversary of Hagedorn’s death.

Hagedorn was a longtime acquaintance of Roosevelt. As the son of a German immigrant he was helpful in Roosevelt’s campaign against “hyphenated Americanism” in the lead-up to American involvement in the Great War. It is important to remember that Roosevelt himself had had a strong attachment to Germany prior to the war; for starters he had traveled through the country with his family as a youth, and while he was president his daughter Alice christened the kaiser’s yacht. Hagedorn believed passionately that Americans of German origin should embrace their new nation. Still, the relationship between the two was more than that. Like Roosevelt Hagedorn was a man of letters who appreciated the written word. It is safe to guess that “Challenge’ did not win any literary awards, but the poem is a fascinating look at that moment just before the United States became involved in the First World War.

Wilson’s second term begins

05 Sunday Mar 2017

Posted by in New York City, Woodrow Wilson, WW1

≈ Comments Off on Wilson’s second term begins

This grainy image captures the cold and grim mood in Washington as President Wilson (top hat, in carriage) attends the ceremony for his second inaugural on 5 March 1917.

This grainy image captures the cold and grim mood in Washington as President Wilson (top hat, in carriage) attends the ceremony for his second inaugural on 5 March 1917.

Woodrow Wilson’s second inaugural was one hundred years ago today. As then stipulated by the Constitution he had actually taken the oath the day before, Sunday 4 March, in a small ceremony in the Capitol building observed by his wife Edith, a few cabinet members, and some close friends. It was the fourth time in American history that the inaugural had fallen on a Sunday with public ceremonies thus moved to the following day. In a strange parallel to the 2017 inaugural there was a woman’s march taking place a well, with suffragists coming from around the country to press their cause as Wilson was to begin his second term. The final week of Wilson’s first term had been a tense one. It was ironic that Wilson was taking the oath there and then in that small chamber just after the noon hour on 4 March; when Wilson had arrived at the Capitol earlier that morning, Senator Robert M. La Follette was still successfully filibustering the Armed Ship Bill that would have given President Wilson the authority to arm merchant vessels in defense against German u-boat attacks. When the Sixty-Fourth Congress officially came to an end at the noon hour, so did the hopes for passage of the Armed Ship Bill.

New York City mayor John Purroy Mitchel reached out to President Wilson as the president began his second term.

New York City mayor John Purroy Mitchel reached out to President Wilson as the president began his second term.

It had been a trying final week for Wilson On 1 March the Zimmerman Telegram had been made public to the American people. The German secret communiqué to Mexico with its offers of potentially reclaiming lands lost during the Mexican-American War fell on sympathetic ears, especially after the turmoil of the Mexican Revolution, subsequent occupation of Veracruz, and border skirmishes with Pancho Villa. The international scene was a tinderbox, and Wilson’s inaugural was understandably a grim one. Surprisingly he got a little help from an unexpected source, Mayor John Purroy Mitchel of New York City. Mitchel had been active in the Preparedness Movement with Leonard Wood, Theodore Roosevelt and other for some time and thus not a natural ally of Wilson’s. Still Mayor Mitchel reached out to the president on the day of the inaugural offering the administration the use of New York City’s civilian piers as well as full cooperation for use of the Brooklyn Navy Yard and other maritime facilities. Securing New York’s hundreds of miles of water and shorelines was of paramount importance.

(images/top, Library of Congress; bottom, the Brown Brothers for The World’s Work.)

3 February 1917: a turning point

03 Friday Feb 2017

Posted by in Great War centennial, Theodore Roosevelt Jr (President), Woodrow Wilson, WW1

≈ 2 Comments

President Wilson speaks to Congress on 3 February 1917 announcing the severing of relations with Germany

President Wilson speaks to Congress on 3 February 1917 announcing the severing of relations with Germany

The Great War reached a major turning point in the first week of February 1917. To the horror of German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, on January 31 Kaiser Wilhelm II allowed his military leadership to resume unrestricted submarine warfare against the Allies and their supporters. It was not quite the final straw for the United States; the pacifist sentiment among a majority of Americans was still too great. The New York Peace Party, for one, implored President Wilson to explore every measure for avoiding entrance into the war. Wilson was caught in the middle of several competing military and political forces, domestically and abroad. One hundred years ago today at 2:00 pm President Wilson addressed a joint session of Congress announcing the severing of diplomatic relations with Imperial Germany.

For all the talk among Preparedness advocates–not least Theodore Roosevelt–that Wilson was doing too little, the sitting president had been increasing America’s military readiness for much of the past year, especially with the appointment of Newton Baker as Secretary of War the previous March. It would take a few sinkings and the Zimmerman Telegram to finally bring America fully into the war. No one knew it at the time of course, but Wilson would address Congress asking for a declaration of war less than two months later on April 2.

(image/Library of Congress)

Taking stock of the war’s financial bill

15 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by in WW1

≈ Comments Off on Taking stock of the war’s financial bill

Great War bonds poster via Imperial War MuseumBy 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)

Frederick W. Whitridge, 1852-1916

02 Monday Jan 2017

Posted by in Theodore Roosevelt Jr (President), Theodore Roosevelt Sr (Father), Those we remember, WW1

≈ 2 Comments

The funeral of Frederick W. Whitridge was in Manhattan's Grace Church one hundred years ago today.

The funeral of Frederick W. Whitridge was in Manhattan’s Grace Church one hundred years ago today.

Theodore Roosevelt was in Manhattan on 2 January 1917 for the funeral of his friend Frederick W. Whitridge. Whitridge had been the long serving president of the Third Avenue Elevated Line and had died on 30 December. The funeral was at Grace Church on Broadway and 10th Street. Colonel Roosevelt was a pallbearer along with Joseph H. Choate, J.P. Morgan, British diplomat Cecil Spring-Rice and others. It was fitting that Ambassador Spring-Rice was there; Whitridge, an American, was the son-in-law of British poet Matthew Arnold.

The Third Avenue El was part of New York life for decades.

The Third Avenue El was part of New York life for decades.

One can say this of anyone in any era but Whitridge’s funeral signaled an interesting before-and-after moment. Decades earlier Whitridge had been a supporter of Theodore Roosevelt Sr., coming to his aide after the powerful New York senator Roscoe Conkling blocked his appointment to the New York Custom House during the Hayes Administration. In the 1880s Whitridge was a Civil Service reformer, which is presumably where he came into Roosevelt’s orbit. As mentioned Whitridge was the president of the Third Avenue Elevated Line, one of the four commuter rails that took New Yorkers about their daily lives until being torn down after the Second World War. As leader he was charged with the thankless tasks of negotiating stock portfolios and handling worker strikes. This was no small thing: the elevated lines were part of the daily fabric of New York life and any disruption was duly noted by the public.

One person who missed the funeral was Frederick’s son, Captain Arnold Whitridge, who had been serving with the British Royal Field Artillery since 1915. Arnold was actually an American, a 1913 graduate of Yale, who was attending Oxford when the Great War broke out in summer 1914. With his father’s death he was back in the United States though not for long. When the U.S. entered the war in April 1917 he joined the A.E.F. and soon found himself in France once more.

(top image, Library of Congress; bottom NYPL)

Happy New Year

01 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by in New York City, WW1

≈ 4 Comments

American newspapers captured the mood of early January 1917.

American newspapers captured the mood of early January 1917.

I have a candle going and am sitting here with my New Years Day coffee.

It was such a help when the Brooklyn Public Library digitized and published the first half of the BDE morgue’s run about 10-12 years ago. When they completed the second half of that project a few years later, things because even better. I always knew that the Eagle was Brooklyn’s paper of record from 1841-1955, but I don’t think I truly realized how authoritative the periodical was until earlier this past year when I began co-teaching my course and using it so heavily in the classroom. New York with its dozen or so dailies was always a newspaper town–the newspaper town–until the papers began consolidating in the 1950s. By the 80s and 90s only three were left. I suppose I always thought of the Eagle as separate from New York’s newspaper culture because Brooklyn until fairly recently was markedly distinct from Manhattan. The answer is probably not that difficult to earn, I don’t even know if they sold the Eagle in Manhattan.

In its 3 January 1917 edition the Eagle published a series of cartoons that other papers had printed in the days around the turn of the year. The one above in particular caught my attention. It may seem that 2016 with its crazy election season and so many other things was the worst of times, but for perspective  remember that a century earlier was the year of Verdun and Somme. When the new year came in 1917 there was still no end in sight for what this cartoon pointedly calls the European War. The Americans did not enter the conflict until April.

Happy New Year. Enjoy your day.

(image/Brooklyn Daily Eagle)

 

Looking forward at the end of the year

30 Friday Dec 2016

Posted by in New York City, WW1

≈ Comments Off on Looking forward at the end of the year

In doing the research for the posts this past week on the USS New York and the fleet review of December 1918 I came across sobering articles about a riot involving African-American troops from the Bush Terminal in late 1918. Really it was just one in a number of racial and other disturbances throughout the city, indeed throughout the country, during and immediately after the war. This one involved some men denied service at a saloon on DeKalb Avenue and quickly escalated into a scene with 2000 lookers-on and 150 military and civilian police. Shots were fired but no one was killed or injured. Incidents like these are part of why the Great War plays a smaller role in the imaginations of most Americans than other of our conflicts. Expectations so high in America and around the world in those heady days after the Armistice soon became mired in complexity and dashed hopes.

Brooklyn's Bush Army Terminal was integral to the war effort.

Brooklyn’s Bush Terminal was integral to the war effort.

Troops began coming home in that final week of 1918, a process that would continue in February and March of 1919. The end of our own year right now has me reflective on what happened in this heady months just after the Armistice. Temperance and suffragism were two goals of the Progressive Movement that came to fruition after the fighting stopped. What eventually came to be called the New Negro Movement was also coalescing. Scholars like W.E.B. DuBois believed that African-American soldiers returning from the Great War would comprise a vanguard that would end Jim Crow. That came partially true in cultural movements such as the Harlem Renaissance. In the meantime there were incidents like the bloody Red Summer of 1919. The relatively minor incident at a bar in Brooklyn was just a precursor. These are all topics to be explored as the Great War Centennial continues.

(image/Library of Congress)