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The Struggle of the Homeless August 28, 2015

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As one of the guarantors – alongside France and Germany – of the 1839 Treaty of London, the British promised to come to the aid of Belgium in the event of invasion and, good to their word, Britain not only recognized but was determined to protect Belgium’s independence and neutrality on the eve of World War One. Hence, when German forces were smashing their way across the Belgian countryside, Britain declared war on Germany on August 4, 1914.

The next day, on their way to attack France, as the heavily-armed and well-supported German invasion force advanced on its first military obstacle, the ring of forts around Liège, civilians were being executed en masse . Believing they were under attack from snipers, German commanders had their troops round up local inhabitants from surrounding villages, selected their victims and shot them; any left alive were killed at the point of the bayonet.

Soon after, cities were bombed and set aflame and hundreds of captured civilians were being similarly murdered. While hundreds of thousands of terrified Belgians fled, ‘the rape of Belgium’, as it became known, invoked the sympathy of the world. Newspapers across Britain supported their government’s decision to defend the honour of their ally and send troops and quickly popularized the negative image of ‘the Hun’ rampaging through ‘gallant Little Belgium’.

Although many millions of both soldiers and unarmed civilians were subsequently killed during the Great War, what is often overlooked is the impact on the families who were caught in the middle of vicious fighting, forced from their homes, fleeing from invading armies intent on killing anyone in their path. Current estimates among historians today suggest over 10 million people were displaced, sent running, losing all their possessions and considered refugees during the war.

A Belgian refugee summed up his feelings in 1914: “One was always a refugee – that’s the name one was given, a sort of nickname. One was left with nothing, ruined, and that’s how people carried on talking about ‘the refugee’. We weren’t real people any more”.

After the summer invasion, over 400,000 Belgians had arrived in Holland, and half that many crossed the border into France joining 150,000 French nationals at risk who also sought shelter and freedom elsewhere and a year later, with trenches hastily built from the English Channel to Switzerland, that number had reached nearly a million.

Initially, the Dutch Government decided to locate the Belgians in camps on the outskirts of towns such as Gouda, Nunspeet and Bergen op Zoom, although preferring to call them “Belgian villages” (in order to avoid the negative association with the “concentration camps” of the Boer War), where the emphasis of temporary housing was on health and hygiene.

Once the urgent needs of food and shelter had been assessed, other issues needed to be addressed: children were desperate to find their parents, and likewise adults sought their lost children. Refugees asked questions about their status and entitlements to relief, and many wanted the opportunity to work, while children needed to continue their schooling. Food, sanitary needs, and fresh clothing had to be found.

Emergency accommodation was found in railway stations, schools, empty factories, breweries, hotels, bathhouses, army barracks, monasteries, synagogues, theatres, cinemas, cafes, and even prisons. Local authorities, diocesan committees and other associations helped to provide underwear, shoes, linen, soap and other items.

In France, on the grounds that they were deserving “victims of war,” refugees received financial and other assistance from the government, as well as assistance from charitable organisations and from parish priests, and the organisations refugees themselves created, such as the Committee for Refugees of the Departement du Nord. Although many volunteer agencies were organized to assist the growing populations being displaced across continental Europe, the impact was nothing short of disastrous on local economies.

In its long history as a safe haven for refugees, Britain had given a home to French Protestant Huguenots in the 17th century and Russian Jews in the 19th century, and during the Great War would open its doors to its largest single influx of refugees and became home to 250,000 Belgians. They were initially welcomed and the government used their plight to encouraged anti-German sentiment and foment public support for the war effort.

In some purpose-built villages they had their own schools, newspapers, shops, hospitals, churches, prisons and police. These areas were considered Belgian territory and run by the Belgian government. They even used the Belgian currency. Elisabethville was one such sovereign Belgian enclave in Birtley, Tyne and Wear, named after the Belgian queen.

However, as soon as the war ended, both British and Belgian governments appealed for the refugees to return home. As early as 1914, the Belgian Repatriation Fund had been created and in 1917 the British government set up a repatriation committee to expedite their return. Many Belgians had their employment contracts terminated, leaving them with little option but to go home. The government offered free one-way tickets back to Belgium, to get them to leave the country as quickly as possible.

Within a year of the war ending more than 90% had returned home. They left as quickly as they came, leaving little time to establish any significant legacy, with two notable exceptions: Hercule Poirot, subsequently created by Agatha Christie, and a single monument in London’s Victoria Embankment Gardens given in thanks by the Belgian Government. “It was the largest influx of refugees in British history but it’s a story that is almost totally ignored,” says Tony Kushner, professor of modern history at the University of Southampton.

In Britain, sympathy for Belgian refugees derived from a belief that they had suffered unspeakable torment at the hands of German troops. “Brave little Belgium” was a term commonly used in the UK, where “King Albert’s Book” allowed British dignitaries to pay “tribute to the Belgian King and people.” By 1916, 2,500 local refugee committees had been established and the secretary of the War Refugees Committee publicly applauded the efforts of local committees and Belgian refugees to find work.

Yet concern about the burden on the British taxpayer, the sacrifices made by British conscripts overseas, and anxieties about the “disreputable” sexual conduct of Belgian women, help explain why public sympathy began to diminish by 1916. Alternate plans drawn up in the UK to resettle Belgian refugees in Chile and South Africa came to naught in fact because the Belgian authorities insisted that refugees should contribute to national reconstruction in Belgium after the war.

After four years of fighting along the Western Front most Belgian refugees had returned by the end of 1919 to find countless cities and towns reduced to rubble: houses, shops, churches and temples, schools, office buildings, factories, warehouses, police and fire stations, simply were gone.

The French government had made no preparations for refugees before the outbreak of war. When Germany invaded, administrators attempted to disperse Belgian and French refugees to the interior of France and avoid overcrowding areas near the front. But refugees wished to stay as close as possible to their homes in the hope that they might return before Christmas.

As the war dragged on, and prior to the US declaration of war in 1917, the momentum increased in favour of the German forces and as they advanced towards Amiens and then Champagne in France, the number of refugees rose rapidly from 1.32 million in February to 1.82 million in July.

Keeping in mind it was a Serb national who had originally shot the Austro-Hungarian Archduke and his wife in 1914, rather than face imprisonment in Austria, Hungary or Bulgaria, many Serbs also fled to seek safe haven in France, and its colonies North Africa, and it is estimated at least 140,000 died while trying to cross into Albania.

In the first phase of the war, around 40,000 refugees of Italian extraction sought exile in Italy rather than remaining under Austrian rule. However, the greatest catastrophe occurred in November 1917 following the defeat of Italian forces at Caporetto, which resulted in some 400,000 Italian civilians fleeing to the south.

Some of the largest atrocities committed during and after World War I were directed at the Armenians. The population of 2 million was decimated by what was later recognised as the first genocide of the 20th century. Systematic persecution under the Ottoman empire meant that half of that population were dead by 1918 and hundreds of thousands were homeless and stateless refugees.

In 1915, Ottoman officials and military commanders turned on entire Armenian communities and forced men, women and children to trek across the desert in the most arduous conditions. Up to 250,000 Armenians evaded the deportations by crossing the Russian border in August 1915, although one in five died en route. More than 105,000 ex-Ottoman Armenians sought refuge in Russian-administered Erevan, quadrupling its size. They were the lucky ones. Women and children who survived the deportations and remained in Armenia were protected or abducted (depending on one’s point of view) by Turkish and Kurdish men.

Around 200,000 Jewish refugees fled Galicia and Bukovina in the first year of fighting (this figure does not include those who were either resettled within the region or dispatched to the Russian interior). They settled in Vienna and parts of Bohemia and Moravia. According to the Austrian Ministry of the Interior, by the end of 1915 some 386,000 refugees were living in Austria, two-fifths of them Jews.

Generally speaking the language used to characterize the refugee movement in Russia and Eastern Europe reinforced the widely-shared sense of calamity. Some witnesses believed that the “boundless ocean” of refugees could never properly be navigated. More typically, contemporary observers in the Russian interior used language that was directly reminiscent of a disaster like a river bank being broken. Thus “flood”, “wave”, “deluge”, “avalanche” and volcanic ‘lava’.

The refugee crisis provided opportunities for professionals to carry out important relief work. Some of the nurses who were attached to the Scottish Women’s Hospitals and American Women’s Hospitals remained in the field. AWH nurses were employed in Macedonia until the 1930s, for example. Quaker relief workers stayed on in Russia and Poland to assist with famine and typhus relief.

Edith Pye and Hilda Clark, a midwife and obstetrician, respectively, established the Friends War Victims Relief Committee in France in 1914. They worked extensively with refugees in northern France and afterward moved to Vienna to assist malnourished children. Clark then devoted herself to various relief and reconstruction projects in Poland, Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Turkey. Both women also assisted child refugees from Spain after 1936.

Likewise Francesca Wilson travelled from France to Corsica, to assist Serbian refugees, and Yugoslavia, before joining Pye and Clark in Vienna. She too became involved in relief work in Spain.

Impressive and ever-lasting careers were thus forged in the crucible of the Great War, despite the atrocities that continue today. Lest we forget.

The Struggle for Financing August 22, 2015

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Wars not only cost lives, they cost money. French nationalists, after losing the Franco-Prussian War and subjected to (and obligated to pay) war reparations totaling five billion gold francs, took their pound of flesh in return at the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 forcing Germany to pay 132 billion gold marks to the victors. Although suspended by Adolf Hitler prior to the outbreak of WWII, and which was reduced after the war in 1953, Germany actually paid the last of the debt in 2010.

As a sidebar, it is interesting to note after the Second World War German leaders agreed not only to a policy of pastoralization but to pay the Allies in machinery and manufacturing plants, whereby factories were actually dismantled and sent to France and Britain, while the United States harvested its technologies and patents, as well as scientists and researchers. Also, in addition to cash paid, millions of prisoners and civilians were forced to work in European and Russian plants for years.

It has been calculated that the Great War in total cost the Allied Powers, from 1914 to 1918, over 125 billion dollars, whereas it cost the Central Powers over $60 billion. In retrospect, the war directly led to the Great Depression, World War II and the Holocaust, and the Cold War, impacting the lives of many more millions of people around the world, including immigration and emigration, as the various empires collapsed and better opportunities were sought for children across oceans.

In the United States, World War I led to prohibition, women’s suffrage and eventually civil liberties. The war not only led to the collapse of the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, German and Russian (and some would add the British) empires, but sparked colonial revolts in the Middle East and Vietnam. In Canada, both conscription and income taxes were introduced (temporarily) during the war; in fact, a lack of income tax was provided as an incentive to attract immigrants before the war.

After the war, independent republics were formed in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, and Turkey. The latter had controlled most Arab lands which subsequently came under the control of Britain and France, specifically their oil companies. Sadly, the mass murder of Armenians in Turkey was a consequence of the war, as was the influenza epidemic that killed over 25 million people worldwide, more than the war itself.

Nonetheless, there were some positive advancements made during the war, such as those related to hospitalization, medical care and treatments in general for the wounded, sick and infected, at home and on both the Western and Eastern fronts, as well as battles fought at sea and in the air, and in African nations, Italy, Greece, the Balkans, the Middle East and the Falkland Islands.

Quite a few innovations were to emanate from the war:  sanitary napkins, facial tissues, the sun lamp, daylight saving time, tea bags, the wrist watch, the zipper, stainless steel and vegetarian sausages.

It has been well documented that many companies benefited financially from their inventions and contributions to the war effort, on both sides of the conflict and for various reasons, balanced between patriotism and profit. As we understand it today, prior to 1914 nations simply did not have military-industrial dependencies in place to finance research, develop infrastructure and indeed manufacture and distribute the various disparate materials necessary to win a modern war.

Gillette made and sent to the front millions of razors which were needed and eagerly used by unshaven soldiers, especially those who had suffered and died enduring a poison gas attack while fumbling to put on a rubber mask atop their (lice-filled) beards. It is no secret millions of pens made their way to the front in kits for soldiers needing in a moment of solace to put their thoughts to paper and send quiet reflections back home to friends and family members.

One such note was a poem written by a Canadian doctor during the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915, titled In Flanders Fields; it was used in advertisements by the British and Canadian governments to raise funds from the public by helping to sell war bonds at home, which ultimately made John McCrae famous, but he died of an infection on the Western Front before the war ended. These much-needed funds were to offset the millions already being borrowed from the financiers of the day.

In 1918, over 4,000 soldiers of Britain’s Army Postal Service were delivering twelve and a half million letters a week to the front. During the Great War the fountain pen was not an insignificant weapon, as these letters were known to be a morale booster for their armed forces.

Stateside, a Christmas-season Parker ad shows a firm-chinned, mustached army officer and a boyish, smiling aviator wearing a leather helmet and goggles, who emerge from the leaves of a holly wreath, framing a popular wartime catch-phrase: “Keep the home fires burning,” while the Sheaffer Pen Company assured customers its lever filler was the pen “for Uncle Sam’s Fighting Boys” and was “The Gift of Gifts for Soldiers and Sailors” to boost sales.

At the outset of the First World War, many countries were ill-prepared to finance their initial efforts, not to mention maintain and increase operations on a global level for the next four years. In 1913, following the passing of the Federal Reserve Act, US Congressman Charles Lindbergh stated: “The Act establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President signs this Bill, the invisible government of the monetary power will be legalized. The greatest crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking and currency bill.” The Federal Reserve is in fact a private company.

In Europe, in 1914, the Rothschild family loaned money to the Germans, British and French, while also controlling three of the leading European news agencies: Wolff in Germany, Reuters in England and Havas in France through which public interest in these respective countries was manipulated.

Mayer Amschel Rothschild founded in the late 18th century an extensive banking dynasty by sending four of his sons to major European cities with instructions to remain loyal to the family at any cost (the fifth son remained behind to manage the family business in Prussia) whereupon they bankrolled various kinds of national infrastructure projects. They were family bankers indeed, but the families with which they did business were the royal houses of Europe.

Despite its neutrality, the US was not immune to the pressures of its financiers. “The war should be a tremendous opportunity for America,” wrote J.P. Morgan in a letter to President Woodrow Wilson on September 4, 1914 immediately after the outbreak of hostilities along the Western Front.

Twenty years later the US Senate would conduct an investigation into the causes of WWI and, specifically, why the United States had entered it. Called the Nye Committee, it was headed by Senator Gerald Nye (R-North Dakota). Their investigation focused primarily on the munitions industry and its influence on the federal government, but also on the Wall Street banks.

After nearly two years of investigation the committee found that between 1915 and January 1917, before entering the war, the United States had lent Germany 27 million dollars, while at the same time lending Britain, France and their allies $2.3 billion!

When the Russian government began to topple after the February Revolution in 1917, Wall Street pressured Wilson’s government to come to the aid of their allies, and their outstanding loans. Within months the United States was at war. Due to Nye’s investigation, it is known the profits that Wall Street banks made from these war loans were enormous.

Before the war had begun, the French firm of Rothschild Freres had cabled Morgan and Company in New York asking for $100 million. From that point going forward, J.P. Morgan became the main point of contact in the United States for allied war effort borrowing.

After surveying the U.S. mobilization and financing for the war, the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Hugh Rockoff stated that perhaps the greatest impact of World War I was a shift in the landscape of ideas and the proper role of government in economic activities.  When the war began, the U.S. economy was in recession. But a 44-month economic boom ensued from 1914 to 1918, as Europeans began purchasing U.S. goods and later as the United States itself joined the war.

In 1914, the United States was a net debtor in international capital markets, but following the war began investing large amounts internationally, particularly in Latin America, thus “taking on the role traditionally played by Britain and other European capital exporters.” With Britain weakened after the war, New York emerged “as London’s equal if not her superior in the contest to be the world’s leading financial center.”

Rockoff concluded that the scope and subsequent speed of government expansion were likely due to the emergence new economic and political leaders, who in turn inspired future generations of reformers with a new view of the world and its order.

 

The Struggle for Early Victories August 6, 2015

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Planning for a short war in the early part of the Twentieth Century, leaders of the German army had hoped to sweep, uncontested, through Belgium and into France, seeking merely the quick capitulation of an their enemy who they had recently fought and beaten in the Franco-Prussian War, acquiring the territory of Alsace-Lorraine as part of their settlement, which was then re-acquired by the French after the Great War at the Treaty of Versailles. However, the Franco-Prussian War had lasted only several months, from July 15, 1870 to February 1, 1871.

During the Napoleonic wars Napoleon Bonaparte and his army had smashed through the German states with ease on their way to Russia. A generation later, roles would be reversed and the Franco-Prussian War changed European history. The rapid and overwhelming victory of the German states under the leadership of Prussia in this 19th Century conflict directly led to the creation of a unified Germany and brought down Napoleon III’s empire, which was replaced by the Third Republic. Exiled, Napoleon III died in London in 1873.

Their impressive land forces ensured Imperial Germany was recognized and appreciated across Europe as a dominant military power and, aided by a modernized Navy, their guns assured their role as a global superpower as their acquisitions mounted. Prior to the ascension of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Germany had been divided primarily by religion, with the Protestants in the North and the Catholics in the South. Under Otto Von Bismarck, and his quick and successful wars, Germans were united in their hatred of France, who had conscripted 250,000 men into Napoleon’s armies.

Under Bismarck’s leadership, the German army trained and maintained formidable reserves, which led to victories against both Denmark and Austria, as well as subsequently France. Since its defeat by Wellington’s combined armies at Waterloo in 1815, France had become a subordinate power in Europe. Napoleon III, hoping to defeat Prussia, sought to recover the Rhine frontier lost after the defeat of Bonaparte. Many French military leaders were shocked by the Prussian defeat of the Austrians an Koniggratz in 1866 and urged immediate military reforms.

Yet in 1869 a pretext for war presented itself when the Spanish parliament offered the throne of Spain to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, nephew of King Wilhelm I of Prussia. The throne was vacant after a revolution in 1868 had deposed the Bourbons. If he could place Prince Leopold on the Spanish throne, Bismarck hoped to provoke war with France. Upon Bismarck’s insistence, Leopold accepted the offer and on July 2, 1870, the Spanish informed the French ambassador of their choice.

Two weeks later, rejecting Britain’s offer to mediate, the French Chamber declared war on Prussia, as expected. The German states, seeing France as the aggressor, came to Prussia’s support. The Germans, with a national army organized under universal military service, and an efficient use of new railroads, mobilized their forces, who quickly proved their superiority and won a decisive battle at Sedan in September, where Napoleon III was captured.

Following a three-month siege, Paris surrendered in January, and the Treaty of Frankfurt was signed on May 10, 1871, ending their war, crowning their aspirations. Previously, on Jan 18, at Versailles, the new German military headquarters, Wilhelm I was proclaimed Kaiser. France not only ceded Alsace and Lorraine to Germany but also agreed a German army could occupy northern France until an indemnity of five billion Francs was paid.

Under the new constitution the southern German states were annexed by the North German Federation. There were 25 states in the new unified Reich: 4 kingdoms (Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony and Württemberg), 6 grand duchies, 5 duchies, 7 principalities and 3 free cities, certainly upsetting the delicate balance of power that had been created with the Congress of Vienna in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars.

French anger at the Germans over the loss of Alsace and Lorraine, not to mention the large indemnity, would lead to a permanent state of crises between the two states and trigger events which would launch World War II . The First World War also influenced Italian history and its struggle for unification. With the outbreak of war, Napoleon withdrew his garrison from Rome. With this garrison gone, the Italian national army was able to overtake the Papal State of Rome in 1870.

In France, growing discontent after the Franco-Prussian War led to the establishment of the Paris Commune from March 18 to May 28, 1871, which the National Assembly’s army crushed and proceeded with summary executions that numbered 20,000 in one week.

However, by 1914 the French Army had 47 divisions (777,000 French and 46,000 colonial troops), with attached cavalry and field-artillery units. Most these troops were deployed inside France with the bulk stationed along the eastern frontier as part of Plan 17. A further 2.9 million men were mobilized during the summer of 1914, and heavy losses during the first months of the war forced the French government to conscript men up to the age of 45.

The development of the railroad networks in Western Europe, allowed each army to be deployed, reinforced and supplied with unprecedented speed, yet neither to gain a territorial advantage. Once deposited on the battlefield, armies could maneuver no faster than those of the Roman Empire. Although their 20th Century weapons delivered unprecedented casualties, men were trained to fight a 19th Century battle, which led to “digging in” and the arrival of trench warfare.

By the end of 1918, a total of 8,317,000 men, including 475,000 colonial troops, had been called up to fight in the French Army. France suffered 4.2 million casualties, including 1.3 million dead in the Great War. The deaths of their soldiers created 700,000 widows and more than 1,000,000 orphans. At the Battle of Charleroi on August 22, 1914, 27,000 French soldiers were killed alone. In fact 1914 was the bloodiest year for the French Army suffering an average of 2,200 deaths per day.

The Battle and Siege of Liège, which lasted two weeks from August 4 to the 16th, was the first battle action on the Western Front, fought between the German Imperial Army and the Belgian Army. The Belgian city, located on high ground on the banks of the River Meuse, was surrounded by fortresses. Twelve main forts encircled the city, built as defenses to protect an important route into Belgium between the Dutch border and the Ardennes forests.

Six brigades from the German Second Army were sent to Liège to capture the forts on August 4. One German brigade succeeded in breaking through the line of forts. The Germans occupied the city on 7th August after attacks by a Zeppelin airship and artillery fire. From August 12th – 16th shells from 11 huge howitzers, these being two German “Dicke Bertha” (Big Bertha”) guns made by Krupp and nine Austrian “Schlanke Emma” (Skinny Emma”) guns made by Skoda, smashed the forts.

Following the capitulation of the city, German Imperial troops marched to the equally fortified city of Namur. Meanwhile, on August 7 the French had crossed the border into German-occupied Alsace, attempting to capture Mulhouse and liberate the province from German occupation. At the Battle of Mulhouse, which lasted until the 25th of August, this important industrial city on the Rhine river was entered and occupied twice by the French, but both times the German Seventh Army retook it.

The Battles of the Frontiers (August 14th – 25th) took place along the French-German border in Alsace-Lorraine and the French-Belgian border. As the seven Imperial German Armies advanced westwards, according to a carefully timetabled, meticulously programmed plan for their invasion of France, they came up against proud and defiant Belgian and French troops intent on defending every inch of their national soil; commanded to do so.

The situation in the Belgian area of the Sambre-Meuse rivers became critical following the capture of Liège, as the German Second and Third Armies pushed along the Meuse. Namur lay at the junction of the Sambre and the Meuse rivers, but it too could not hold out against the destructive might of the huge German and Austrian howitzers. With support from only one regiment of French troops being able to reach the city, the defending Belgian forces were compelled to leave and by August 25th Namur was occupied by German troops.

The Battle of Mons was one of the major battles in the Battles of the Frontiers and was the first encounter between British and German forces on the Western Front. The British Expeditionary Force comprised four infantry divisions and one cavalry division of the British First Army. The British had advanced through northern France and Belgium to support the French Fifth Army’s left flank on the Sambre river. Having reached the area of Mons on August 22nd they encountered German patrols at Soignies, which were advancing ahead of the German First Army.

The next day, commanded by General von Kluck, the German First Army launched an attack. The British managed to hold the Germans, but realizing their smaller British force was up against a much greater force in terms of German manpower and artillery, leaders ordered a retreat.

By the end of August the French and the German Armies had sustained some 300,000 casualties, including wounded or killed, on both sides. The German advance had successfully penetrated the French border in several places and was pressing its advance, following the withdrawing French and British forces.

Advancing towards Paris, the German Armies stretched along a line from Verdun to Amiens. By the end of August 1914, the German First Army was within 30 miles of the French capital. In early September the British had crossed the Marne river in a retreat to the south and held a position east of Paris between the French Sixth and French Fifth Armies. However, the commander of the German First Army made a fateful change to the original directive of The Schlieffen Plan, making an assumption that the Allies were not in a position to hold out against an attack on Paris from the east.

The original Schlieffen Plan directive had been for German forces to attack Paris from the north in an encircling manoeuvre. Nonetheless, launching an attack east of Paris, the German First Army made progress in a southerly direction. This change to the plan exposed the right flank of the German attacking force, so the French and British armies carried out counter-attacks from Compiègne east of Paris to Verdun.

On September 9, the war a month old, the German First Army pulled back as the British First Army moved in on its left flank. All the German forces in the Marne river region retreated in a northerly direction, crossing the Aisne to the high ground of the Chemin des Dames ridge. The First Battle of the Marne was a victory for the Allied Forces, and marked a decisive turn of events in the war. Germany’s Schlieffen Plan was stopped in its tracks. Stalemate.

This bitter deadlock lasted four years.

The Struggle for The Truth August 4, 2015

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One hundred and one years ago, in 1914, citizens of the world found themselves at war. On August 4, Germany invaded (neutral) Belgium and Britain subsequently declared war on Germany. By doing so, Britain also plunged its Commonwealth allies into the costly fray. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and South Africa were automatically committed to delivering men and women to the front and those not enlisting were expected to pay for the troops’ training, transportation, equipment and munitions, and hospitalization, as well as food and lodging along the way.

Newspaper editorials were relied on to ensure readers were aware why their sons, brothers, fathers and husbands had volunteered to fight, and possibly to pay the supreme sacrifice in battle. The Austro-Hungarian army was sent to war after the assassination of its empire’s heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, to halt radical separatists in the Balkans. Leaders in Russia condemned the aggressive actions of the Germanic states and mobilized its army in defense of Serbia.

Russia’s army quickly invaded East Prussia but were defeated at Tannenberg, and in September Germany’s likewise advance into France was halted at the Marne and with the war merely a month old the Western Front was a stalemate and would remain a killing zone until the United States declared war on Germany in 1917, ending its policy of neutrality stated by President Woodrow Wilson at the outset of hostilities, similarly at the Eastern Front until the Bolsheviks came to power.

It is believed today, and at the time, that the unprovoked and thus widely publicized sinking of the Lusitania was the reason America reversed its position and began to mobilize its troops. In addition to eventually selling a lot of razors and pens to soldiers heading overseas, the war in general was a boon to corporations, whose owners circling Washington would’ve certainly lent their vocal support. The Lusitania’s cargo included over six million rounds of ammunition (courtesy J.P. Morgan) destined for British and French soldiers, augmenting the 1,200 lives lost off Ireland.

The international finance community was giddy at the prospect of war. On August 3, according to then-US Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, the French firm of Rothschild Freres cabled to Morgan and Company in New York suggesting the flotation of a loan of $100,000,000 to pay for French purchases of American goods.

On May 27, 1916, President Wilson spoke to the League of Nations and argued that to prevent the recurrence of a similar war a world government was needed. To make the world safe for democracy, nearly a year later, on April 2, 1917, the President asked Congress for a Declaration of War, which was granted on April 6. The United States was now in the war to end war.

It is now known many American families profited from the decision, including the Rockefellers, who were apparently quite eager for the United States to enter World War I, and made far more than $200,000,000 during the conflict.

Major General Smedley Butler, USMC, criticized war profiteering during World War I in his book, War Is a Racket, stating some companies and corporations increased their earnings and profits by up to 1700% and many willingly sold equipment and supplies to the U.S that had no relevant use in the war effort. “It has been estimated by statisticians and economists and researchers,” Butler added, “that the war cost your Uncle Sam $52,000,000,000. Of this sum, $39,000,000,000 was expended in the actual war period. This expenditure yielded $16,000,000,000 in profits.”

War was upon the world and its citizens needed to act accordingly. Men went to the front lines and women to the assembly lines. Newspapers were publishing propaganda as fact and greatly influencing opinion. Notwithstanding the Defense of the Realm Act, introduced a mere four days after war broke out, which restricted criticism of the war effort, to maintain high levels of morale across Britain, editors simply began to demonize Germans in their daily papers, embellishing stories and alleged atrocities, bordering on the hysterical.

With censorship, British blunders went unreported as did German victories. Nonetheless, some journalists sought to report the truth, whether the shortage of shells or useless (Ross) rifles. The Daily Chronicle’s Philip Gibbs and the Daily Mail’s Basil Clarke risked the wrath of Lord Kitchener by defying his ban to report from the front line. Gibbs was arrested, warned that if he was caught again he would be shot, and sent back to England, and Clarke, after reporting on the devastation in Ypres, was returned home with a similar warning.

Even the bloodiest defeat in British history went largely unreported. At the Somme in 1916 – in which Allied troop casualties numbered 600,000 – the battle’s disastrous first day was reported as a victory.

Still at the front, Gibbs defended his actions, claiming that he was attempting to “spare the feelings of men and women, who have sons and husbands fighting in France”. He claimed that the truth was reported about the Somme… “apart from the naked realism of horrors and losses, and criticism of the facts.” Only later did the public learn of the high casualty toll and the horrific nature of trench warfare, such as the use of poison gas and the effects of shell shock.

With these appalling conditions in mind, it was no wonder that UK Prime Minister Lloyd George confided to CP Scott, editor of the Manchester Guardian in December 1917: “If people really knew [the truth], the war would be stopped tomorrow. But of course they don’t know, and can’t know.”

The Struggle for Hearts and Minds August 3, 2015

Posted by civilizedgraeme in History, Marketing, Media, Struggle.
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When the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne was shot and killed in Sarajevo in the summer of 1914, igniting a powderkeg that sent shockwaves around the world, industrialized nations across Europe were suddenly galvanized and armies mobilized within days. Led by competitive and idealistic monarchs, leaders among these empires were equally determined to maintain their control of natural and human resources to fuel factories and expand markets globally.

In addition to cars and trucks replacing horses and buggies, there were many other quiet changes occurring at the outset of the twentieth century impacting an ever-growing disposable income afforded the legions of new factories workers and administrators. Soon enough, watches strapped to wrists, popular among officers of the British Army – convenient and critical for timely coordination of efforts on the battlefield – replaced pocket watches.

With horses no longer polluting city streets, and human refuse being swept away into sewage systems, urban planners began to incorporate open spaces for the benefit of citizens, from sidewalks to parklands, while others recognizing people had both time and money on and in their hands began planning to acquire their wealth; publishers of newspapers, magazines and books flourished, and, with the advent of moving pictures, soon enough people were flocking to cinemas.

People were happy to spend their money. Assembly lines and mass production led to mass marketing. When Ford introduced their Model T in 1908, individual tastes and preferences were irrelevant, as each buyer had the option of simply purchasing a vehicle painted black. The way nations did business was changed forever with the introduction of national advertising, department stores and mail-order, as well as advertising agencies, public relations and brands.

In order to reach consumers and influences purchase decisions, leaders of ad agencies relied not only on newspapers but also posters and billboards, and direct distribution of handbills. In America, for example, a range of new products were competitively promoted to consumers from Levi Strauss’s denim pants and King Gillette’s disposable razor to cameras, chewing gum, bicycles, telephones, electric lighting, numerous household appliances and barbed wire.

Capitalism was enjoying its infancy, though balanced by democratic notions of freedom and liberty for all, including safety and security. Convenience and comfort were certainly available to those who could afford these now-common luxuries. After all, the majority of these burgeoning populations required warm homes, safe streets, schools and jobs for their children. An educated and mobile workforce enabled growth on many levels and, admittedly, times were good.

Until, on June 28, 1914, a young Serb leapt from his cafe seat and seized the opportunity to kill Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, which he did with lethal efficiency using only two bullets. Five years later, with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, a global conflict was officially ended, having effectively caused over 36 million human casualties – 16 million dead and 20 million wounded. During the war, 6 million people alone had died from either disease or starvation.

Military deaths on the battlefield were no longer due to the typical loss of blood from a bullet or several, a stab wound or several, or caused by the shocking effects of a nearby explosion or losing a limb to a passing cannon ball, infection or drowning at sea. In the Great War, soldiers might be blown to mist, crushed by a tank, suffocated by poison gas, burned alive by a flamethrower, suffer a heart attack while falling from a plane, or cut in half by rapid firing machine guns.

One hundred and one years ago, with declarations of war formalizing battle lines and intentions of empires cementing the fate of their people, Britain had a relatively small army compared to the continental armies swiftly mobilized and deployed across Europe. The mobilization of an army was tantamount to a declaration of war, and Britain in 1914 was the only Great Power to not have conscription, unlike France, Russia, Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary.

In addition to soldiers, horses were mobilized. The British had 165,000 horses prepared for cavalry duty, the Austrians 600,000, the Germans 715,000, and the Russians over a million. Expected to fight alongside the British, when Britain entered the war on August 4 – defending Belgium’s right to neutrality – so too did Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and South Africa. Britain sought hundreds of thousands of new soldiers, and the appeal was met with an enthusiastic response.

The recruitment of volunteers involved the design and distribution of posters on one hand to foster nationalistic patriotism, expecting men to respond to a need, to proudly fight an imposing enemy, to maintain the honour and glory of The British Empire, and on the other to learn a new trade or skill, to become better artisans and craftsmen while serving King and Country, ensuring a worthwhile job at home after returning from the front.

In 1914, Canada’s militia numbered roughly 3,000 and thus an advertising campaign was launched to secure the Canadian Expeditionary Force, and volunteers were encouraged to join a local battalion. This encouragement was quite passive and, to be successful, which initially it was, it relied on the pride of men, to help the cause, to win. As the war progressed and casualties increased, the art of recruitment became more aggressive and also targeted women to persuade men to serve.

Those who did not enlist were deemed cowards. Mass produced posters appealed to men and women of all backgrounds: French and English, Irish and Scottish, young and old, skilled and unskilled, poor and rich alike, each were expected to contribute and leave behind their well-earned conveniences and comforts. Posters were placed in shop windows, on streetcars, alongside vans and upon walls. Combined with speeches, newspaper editorials and lectures at church, the effects of this campaign were staggering: 25,000 men were anticipated, yet 33,000 volunteered to fight.

By the end of 1914, the government of Canada had increased its commitment to Britain to 50,000 and by the following summer again to 150,000 men, but facing pressure of a daunting war with no end in sight, Prime Minister Borden in 1916 pledged a force of 500,000 men. At the time, the population of Canada was merely 8 million.

At the Second Battle of Ypres, which lasted from April 22 to May 25, 1915, the Germans attacked using chlorine gas for the first time. The French Algerian Division fled the yellow-green cloud but the Canadians repulsed numerous assaults. Upon inhaling chlorine gas the effect on lungs is severe: within seconds, its vapour destroys the organs, bringing on immediate and fatal choking attacks. For their valiant efforts, four Canadians won the Victoria Cross.

The war to end war, as US President Wilson said, was a becoming war of attrition. Given the numbers being lost on the front, however, the campaign at home in Canada continued and intensified, and throughout 1916 appealed to Asians and Africans, but even these volunteers were not enough to fill rapidly emptying trenches in Europe. Conscription became reality for Canadians in 1917.

When war began, Europe ruled most of the world. The British Empire covered a fourth of the earth’s surface, the Russian Empire a sixth. The French Empire spread from North Africa to Indochina, Germany’s from Africa to Samoa. Austria-Hungary was geographically the second-largest country in Europe. None of these empires survived the war, nor did Austria-Hungary.

The United States entered the war in 1917. Although Wilson had been re-elected in 1916 with a promise to the people for the country to remain neutral, five months later he had convinced Congress to declare war against the Central Powers. Convincing the American people required some additional expertise and in this respect within days he authorized the creation of the Committee on Public Information, or CPI, to help spread the virtues of democracy the world over.

Incredibly, by 1918 nearly 100,000 very bright people – a small army unto itself – had been retained and created Uncle Sam, and other famous images to assist volunteerism, and published millions of press releases, bulletins and iconic posters. Not only did Americans eagerly volunteer to fight but they also volunteered their money, giving millions to the Liberty Loan program. CPI was a propaganda machine hell-bent on appealing to the hearts and minds of Americans.

They delivered posters that decried the atrocities of German soldiers that never happened and played to the fears of people, fearing the loss of conveniences and comforts, that by all accounts were wildly exaggerated. Interestingly, as an output of this activity, one young member deeply influenced by CPI was Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, who in fact worked on their campaigns.

He noted how many people could be converted or diverted due to their passions, acting upon images and symbols, not necessarily their intellect, and how these decisions could after the war be used by the corporations of America to sell just about anything through well planned and executed public relations, augmenting advertising campaigns. Indeed, he was successful.

Bernays was hired by the American Tobacco Company who wanted American women to feel comfortable about smoking in public. He concluded that women needed to see cigarettes as “torches of freedom” that would help emancipate them from the social taboos imposed on them by men. And, after arranging for several young women to walk down New York’s 5th Avenue during the Easter parade, smoking, the rest is history, as the story made front page news across the country.

The Struggle Among Family August 1, 2015

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In 1865, after four bloody confusing years, the northern forces of the Union defeated the southern forces of the Confederacy, ending a so-called civil war that had pitted brother against brother and, with the states finally united, expansion westward was soon a matter of American policy. Recognizing the opportunities on many levels provided by a growing nation and a productive people, businesses in this ruthless era swallowed their competitors and politicians astutely noted the benefit of continued geographic expansion, whether by force or negotiation.

In March 1867, Queen Victoria provided Royal Assent to the British North America Act and several months later the Dominion of Canada was created, and many Europeans bought tickets to find refuge in a vast and civil country – notwithstanding the issue of land ownership still in dispute across the western provinces. So, nearly two decades later in 1885, to control their fertile prairies, to feed their growing empire, British soldiers quashed angry rebels in Saskatchewan and, to solidify its authority, the new Government of Canada then hanged opposing Metis and Native leaders.

Prosperity assured and the last spike driven, a decade would pass before Canadians would be sought to fight against Dutch and African farmers during the Second Boer War in 1899, following the discovery of gold in the Transvaal. A year prior, in 1898 patriotic American armies had defeated Spain in a series of battles to acquire sugar-rich Cuba and Puerto Rico, as well as the islands of Guam and Philippines. A war that ended the Spanish Empire effectively launched a new empire and American forces would soon be needed to protect expanding economic interests abroad.

In the hundred years following the defeat of Napoleon, numerous empires ruled by regal and noble families fought each other for colonies and the resources they provided. Competing for land, to forge their empires, were the armies of Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, France, Britain and the Ottomans, supported at home by a wildly nationalistic newspapers and magazines constantly feeding the appetites of naturally competitive humans, always hungry for more and prepared to fight, equally proud of their rulers’ stance and each proclaimed victory in the field.

The bubble burst in 1914. In the month that followed the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife while traveling in a motorcade along a narrow Sarajevo street, battle lines were quickly drawn as were allies for the war to come. Nationalism fomented by imperialism, aided by militarism and fueled by capitalism, had launched the First World War. Indeed it was a global conflict fought on many lands, and many lives were lost, many millions in fact as empires collapsed. Recovery would take decades, and yet again the world was plunged into another war.

Queen Victoria had married Prince Albert, son of Ernst, Duke of Saxe-Coburg & Gotha in 1840, and remained a member of the House of Hanover. King Edward VII was the only British monarch of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and he reigned for nine years at the beginning of the twentieth century, and was succeeded by King George V who replaced the German-sounding name with that of Windsor during The Great War. However, the title survived in other European monarchies, including the Belgian Royal Family and the former monarchies of Portugal and Bulgaria.

At the outbreak of war, the royal rulers of three empires were cousins: King George V of Britain, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. In fact, all three were equal descendants of King George II of Britain. The struggle among them proved personal as George would deny Nicholas asylum after the Russian Revolution in 1917. After being captured by the Bolsheviks, Nicholas and his family would be subsequently executed by firing squad.

Despite mobilizing its army against them – on behalf of Serbia – Russia did not declare war with either Germany or Austria-Hungary; whereas Germany declared war with Russia, France, Belgium and Portugal in August 1914 but not any other country, and Britain declared war with both Germany and Austria-Hungary, as well as Turkey and Bulgaria. It is estimated that 10 million military personnel died during the war (7 to 8 million due to combat and 2 to 3 million due to accidents, disease and while held captive), and there were nearly 7 million un-armed civilian deaths.

The Struggle a Century Ago August 1, 2015

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A hundred years ago Britain ruled the waves and, with military precision, the world’s resources landed at its doorstep. Acquiring raw material by the boatload and financing these daily shipments was one matter, but marketing the finished goods to qualified buyers was quite another. To facilitate supply and demand, professionals were needed across this spectrum of economic activity to manage the limited capacity of their ports.

Nelson had won at Trafalgar and Wellington at Waterloo a century before, and during the reign of Queen Victoria her armed forces went on to assert control of an empire spanning the globe. Shortly after her death in 1901 and a victory in sunny southern Africa a year later, expert administrators of the British Empire viewed global domination as common sense, as there was no one better to effectively maximize their procurements more efficiently.

For Britain, having done so for centuries, taking by force was one tried and true method of acquisition, yet it was found the integrated process of buying and selling was much more civil, and in fact left behind a consumer with money in hand. However, in a rapidly emerging industrialized world, there were sleeping giants among them and change was afoot. Acquiring consumers was the reason nations would soon go to war, not necessarily protecting trade routes.

Unbeknownst to the Old World, oil-powered motor cars would soon enough upset the apple cart, as would certainly electricity. Profits were paramount on a global level, and American industrialists knew Britain could not afford to keep their shipping lanes open.

In 1914, Britain needed to destroy two empires in order to foster commonwealth trade: The Ottoman Empire and The Austro-Hungarian Empire. Facing these two obstacles, among her colonies fervent men were readily trained in the art of modern war, to obey British commands, to bravely stand and fight and assure the safe passage of resources and goods across the world.

By 1918 millions had died.