World War I, 1914 -1918, and the Death of Joyce Kilmer

World War I, 1914 -1918 and the Death of Joyce Kilmer

I’m confident my three faithful readers know that thousands of books have been written about the First World War, which had been called The War to End all Wars and the years after was referred to as The Great War.  

Before you think I shall attempt to drag you through the deep mud of history, I assure you I will not.  My purpose is to give you a few pertinent facts that may be useful for cocktail conversation and then to plunge you into the death of the poet, Joyce Kilmer at the Second Battle of the Marne.

“Why bother?” you may well ask.  A bit over a hundred years ago!  No longer relevant. Right?

First of all, the First World War led to the Second World War.  Secondly, the war introduced an array of technology that led to killing on a scale never before seen.  Thirdly, it was the first time the United States became deeply involved in a European war. Fourthly, the First World War saw more U.S. casualties 320,518) than any war except for World War II (1,076, 245) and The Civil War (1,031,881). 

And let’s not forget the war caused the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, and the rise of Soviet Russia.

Ok.  Good facts.  But, important now?  Read on.

Another salient point is, although it is called a World War, for the most part, World War I was a European War, although the big powers’ colonies supplied some troops to the war effort and opposing colonies also fought on a smaller scale.

Lasting effect of World War i:

The Sykes-Picot agreement, between Britain and France, first begun in 1916, was directly responsible for the current hodgepodge of boundaries in today’s Middle East and the resultant troubles.

Let’s look at the belligerent in World War I:

Entente Powers: Britain, France, Russia, and later the U.S., and their allies

VS

The Central Powers: Germany, The Austro-Hungarian Empire, Turkey (Ottoman Empire), Bulgaria, and later Italy

Both sides had various smaller allies and colonies.

Note: The Austro-Hungarian Empire and Austria-Hungary were the same country and often referred to by either name.

A very simplified version of salient points:

1914: Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and his wife were assassinated by two nationalist Serbs.  The traditional tale says the assassination started the war.  In my opinion a simplistic version, at best.  The Balkans had been a powder keg for years, with Austro-Hungary in the middle of the disruptions and previous assassinations left and right.  The turmoil prior to the war is fascinating and may I recommend Why 1914?: The Causes of the Great War, by Derek Robinson (see note at the bottom to find out where to get a copy.)

1914: Germany attacked France, pretty much as they would do in the Second World War (1939-1945), only this time the French stopped them at the First Battle of the Marne.

That’s the thumbnail, but what’s fascinating is how quickly the dominoes fell! It’s as if everyone was already prepped for war and eagerly awaited the crack of the starter’s pistol!

28 June 1914 - Assassination of the duke

28 July – Austro-Hungary declares war on Serbia

1 Aug – Germany declares war on Russia

1 Aug – Germany and the Ottoman Empire (modern day Turkey) sign a secret alliance treaty

2 Aug – Germany invades neutral Luxembourg

3 Aug – Germany declares war on France and Belgium denies permission for Germany to cross its border

4 Aug – Germany invades neutral Belgium

These countries had declared their neutrality:  The Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg.

4 Aug – United States declares its neutrality

5 Aug – Montenegro declares war on Austria-Hungary

I could go on and on, but you can see the tangled spaghetti of alliances from the very beginning of World War I.

In very simple terms, when the French and British forces stopped the German advance, the war became a stalemate and quagmire into which millions of men were used as cannon fodder. 

The United States declared war on Germany and the first American troops landed on 26 June, 1917.  In total, America would send two million soldiers, of whom over 53,000 were killed in combat and another 60+ thousands died from other related causes.

The United Kingdom and France and Germany and Austria-Hungary lost even more. To give you an idea of the scope of hostilities, at the Battle of the Somme, some three million men took part, with over one million casualties. But numbers are just numbers and don’t tell the story of misery and death for four bleak years, of men’s bodies torn apart and being gassed and coughing up blood and unable to breathe.  In the trenches they died of disease and lack of medical care and something called trench fever.

On the Russian front, 4 June to 20 Sep 1916, the count of dead and wounded rose to 2,317,800

In the final offensive, 8 Aug to 11 Nov 1918, the slaughter claimed 1,855, 369 casualties. 

The slaughter went on until 11 November  1918.  The Peace Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919, after the victors worked out the details at a lengthy Paris Peace Conference.

Now let’s move to the Second Battle of the Marne and Joyce Kilmer’s death.

The Second Battle of the Marne, like the first battle of the same name that started the war, was a German offensive.  It proved to be the last major German offensive and was a decisive victory for the French, English and American forces.  It was also the battle where Joyce Kilmer was killed. The war ended about 100 days later.

Joyce Kilmer’s Death:

Kilmer enlisted in the New York National Guard and was assigned to the 69^th Infantry Regiment, better known as the “Fighting 69^th”, which later became the 165^th Infantry Regiment.  Kilmer rapidly rose to the rank of Sergeant and at first was a statistician, but wanted to be part of the action.  On 7 March 1918, 22 men of the 165^th were in a dugout when the German bombardment began and the dugout collapsed.  19 of the men never made it out alive, in spite of a determined rescue effort.  In their memory, Joyce Kilmer wrote a poem, which began:

In a wood they call the Rouge Bouquet

There is a new made grave today.

Built by never a spade nor pick,

Yet covered with earth ten metres thick.

There lie many fighting men, 

Dead in their youthful prime,

Never to laugh nor love again

Nor taste the summertime.

For death came flying through the air

And stopped his flight at the dugout stair

Touched his prey and left them there.

Kilmer’s desire for more action was realized when he was transferred to the military intelligence branch of the regiment in April 1918.  Today military intelligence is mostly a desk job, far from the front.  Not so in World War I.  Intelligence staff was often farther forward than the main body of troops, crawling forward through the mud to search out and report back about enemy troop movements. Today  we would call them forward observers. 

He wrote to his wife that his new job “promised a double dose of glory and thrills.”  On 30 July 1918, Kilmer volunteered to go with Major “Wild Bill” Donovan’s battalion, which was sent forward to lead the attack.  Sergeant Kilmer led a scouting party to find the position of of a German machine gun.  When his comrades found him later in the day, at first they thought he was asleep or just staring over the top of a small hill, where he had possibly crawled for a better view.  But, when they called to him and he didn’t answer, they went closer and found him dead of a sniper bullet to the head.  He was 31 years old.

The French government awarded him the Croix de Guerre.   He is buried at the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery and Memorial in France, just across the road and stream where he was killed.

A forest in North Carolina dedicated to Joyce Kilmer

The Oise-Aisne American Cemetery in northern France

In a final note on the importance of World War I to our modern culture, the war, with its extravagance of carnage and the horror of the trenches, where so many lived in the slop of mud and died from disease and bullets and the explosions of often days of cannon fire raining death from on high, western literature was changed forever. Besides Kilmer, any number of renowned writers and poets from every nation served their time in the trenches, watching men die amid the slaughter. No longer would the literature of warfare be charged with heroic tales, spirited by nationalism.  A comment attributed by Union General William Tecumseh Sherman in the American Civil War, “War is hell,” had become even more real.  Both victors and vanquished had killed each other on an unrelenting scale of millions. No longer did writers and poets write from a distance.  They had been there. They knew.

Unfortunately, this proved to be only a taste of the fires of hell that was yet to come.

Note:  Where to buy a fabulous read about World War I.  Why 1914 ?, by Derek Robinson, one of my favorite authors, whose flying novels of World War I I have written about previously.  www.derekrobinson.info, or write him at delrobster@gmail.com.  He is also on FaceBook.