AUGUST 2014: CENTURY DOWNSTREAM

One hundred years ago this month, the world changed.  The conflagration was called The Great War.  It retained that name for 21 years until the next round received a Roman numeral Two.

On June 28, 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian nationalist, supported by five conspirators, murdered the Austro-Hungarian archduke and his wife during a state visit to Sarajevo.  The Austro-Hungarians pressed Serbia with demands that would never be met.  Austria invaded Serbia; Russia mobilized in support of the Serbs; Germany naturally supported Austria; France’s treaty with Russia drew in the British.  Overlapping alliances tumbled the world into global conflict spreading to Africa and Asia.

Six young men destroyed the world.  Princip was barely 19; four others also were under 20.

To a large extent the Great War was an immense family feud.  King George of England and Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany were grandchildren of Queen Victoria, who had died in 1901. The Czarina, Empress Alexandra, was Victoria’s grand-daughter yet George V and Nicholas II might have been twins.  As nations and empires mobilized, the Kaiser and the Czar exchanged eerily friendly telegrams: “Dear Nicky” and “Dear Willie.”  All to no effect.

Perhaps almost impossible to grasp today was the enormous enthusiasm for war in every country.  The French seethed under thirty years of humiliation after Prussia’s victory in 1871, seeking to reclaim lost territory.  Recruiters did a booming business everywhere.  Every nation expected quick victory—“the troops will be home by Christmas.”  But by fall of 1914 the morass had settled into a stalemate, especially in the west with trenches running from the English Channel to the Swiss border.

Technologically, the Great War was a landmark event.  It involved large-scale operations by modern warships, submarines, aircraft of all types, and debut of the tank.  The advantage quickly passed to the defense.  The combination of barbed wire, machine guns, and rapid-fire artillery kept the Allies and Germans facing each other across No Man’s Land for years.  One result was the end of cavalry after millennia on global battlefields.

We can never know how many people died in the Great War but the figure appears to run around ten million military personnel.  More specifically, the toll involves five to six million military deaths and three million civilian among the Allies with three to four million military and three and a half million civilians among the Central powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey).  Call it 8.2 million to 11 million military deaths and 7 million civilian to all causes.  Fifteen to eighteen million total dead from combat and war related causes.  Nothing remotely comparable had happened in Western history.

The foregoing does not count victims of the related Spanish Flu pandemic that circled the earth and claimed at least 50 million in 1918-1919, maybe twice as many.

America’s role in the GW remains simplistically seen at best in the public’s mind.  Maybe the best treatment is Thomas Fleming’s Illusion of Victory (2004) which focused attention on Woodrow Wilson’s “neutrality” while supporting the genuine “merchants of death”—not arms makers but financiers with a vital interest in recouping their loans to Britain and France.  Yet Wilson was re-elected in 1916 on the basis that “He kept us out of the war.”  We never learn: five decades later Lyndon Johnson was elected as the peace candidate.

The U.S. lost about 117,000 people, mostly in the last six months.  That’s because we did not officially enter the war until April 1917, two years after one presumed reason, a U-boat sinking the British liner Lusitania with 128 American deaths.  Widely overlooked was the fact that they had ignored the published risk of German submarines, and unknown was the ship’s illegal cargo of munitions for Britain.

Another stated reason for America’s declaration of war was the notorious Zimmermann telegram, an absurd suggestion by Berlin’s foreign minister that invited Mexico to invade the American southwest and recover Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona with German support.  In early 1917 the Mexican government studied the prospects and rejected them as unworkable.  Meanwhile, the Brits deciphered the message and leaked it to Washington. 

The weight of American manpower did not come to bear until the summer of 1918, and then it was substantial.  But America’s entry may have done more harm than good.  Allegedly Winston Churchill said in retrospect that absent a U.S. declaration of war, there would have been a cease-fire in 1917.  By then the French army was wracked with mutiny; Russia was toppling to the Bolsheviks; Britain was out of reserves; and Germany was feeling the effect of the naval blockade plus massive losses.  The Austrians made a habit of drubbing the Italians to little gain, suffering the heaviest proportional losses of the war.

When the Western allies forced an armistice upon Germany in November 1918, the stage was set for Round Two.  The Versailles Treaty sought to punish Germany for “starting the war,” ensuring that two generations of Germans lived under crushing debt until a former Bavarian corporal rose to power in Berlin.

Practically unknown today is the fact that the U.S. and British navies maintained a blockade of German ports for eight months after the armistice, leading to thousands of deaths that winter.  The starvation eased after Germany’s new government agreed to more Allied demands in 1919.

Small wonder, then, that a seething resentment brewed up, yielding Adolf Hitler.  At the same time, the horrors of the Great War produced a generation of pacifists in Europe who naively (or stupidly) felt that no war was worth fighting.

Might the Great War have been prevented?  Probably yes, although it was so convoluted a situation that hardly anyone could have foreseen it.  Germany might have tried harder to rein in Austria, and Britain might have declined to participate, which certainly would have affected France.  But given the boiling ambition of Russia and France; Germany’s perceived need to support Austria; and the general enthusiasm for war throughout Europe, the entire cauldron was bound to boil over.

Among the absurd slogans of the Great War was that it Made The World Safe For Democracy.  At its core, the war was a clash of empires, and most of them survived, many undemocratically.  The British Empire remained intact as far off as India.  France’s colonial outposts stood fast, and even Belgium retained its holdings in Africa.  Perhaps pegging the irony meter was Japan, which sided with the Allies and gained former German holdings in the Pacific.

Concludes historian Eric Margolis, “Even today, British historians continue to distort history and blame Germany for a war that was everyone’s fault.”

Could there be another Great War in Europe?  Probably not.  Aside from the mellowing effect of a globalized economy, war is far too expensive today for sustained, large-scale combat.  If you cannot afford to buy large numbers of extremely expensive ships or aircraft, and must rely upon a volunteer military, the options are limited.

But then nobody seriously expected a world war in August of 1914.  Perhaps that’s a chilling lesson, as we humans continue to insist organizing ourselves into nation-states.

For a whimsical explanation of the entire mess, I recommend this treatment, unfortunately by an anonymously talented author.

 “If World War I Was A Bar Fight.”

http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2014/07/sunday-funnies.html

MEETING THE LUFTWAFFE

In writing over 40 nonfiction books and some 600 articles I’ve interviewed a few hundred WW II veterans from at least seven nations.  Naturally, the huge majority have been Americans but I also got to know Allied airmen from Britain, Canada, Australia, and Poland, and fliers from Germany and Japan.

Only one or two of the Japanese fliers spoke passable English but fortunately translators were available.  However, all the former Luftwaffe pilots I met were fluent in English, and most of them in other languages as well.  In prewar Germany most students learned at least two and sometimes three foreign languages. 

In the 1980s I worked for my friend Doug Champlin running the publishing arm of his aircraft museum in Mesa, Arizona.  Through mutual contacts we met Adolf Galland who was interested in printing updated editions of two books: his classic The First and the Last, and A Pilot’s Life.  By then of course “Dolfo” was extremely well known; his 1954 memoir was an immediate classic published in a dozen languages.

Dolfo’s combat career began in Spain in 1937 and ended in 1945, hence the First to Last title.  In 1940 he became one of the Luftwaffe’s leading aces and in late 1941 rose to command the day fighters as Germany’s youngest general.  However, his blunt demeanor and mission-oriented attitude inevitably clashed with Hermann Goering, who preferred sycophants.  In mid 1944 Goering accused the fighter arm of cowardice, a charge that outraged Galland whose command was losing 25 percent aircrews and 40 percent aircraft per month.  If nothing else, Dolfo Galland was a leader who stood up for the troops—a serious risk in the chilling environment of Nazi Germany.  Very few American admirals or generals have matched his standard, even facing vastly lesser consequences.

Fired from his cormmand, Galland formed a small unit of Me 262 jets and ran his total tally to 104 victories before being wounded.  After the war he worked where he could, emigrating to Argentina for awhile before returning to Germany.  He easily made friends among former enemies in Britain and America.  He died in 1996, age 83.

Perhaps the most impressive man I ever met was General Johannes Steinhoff.  A prewar pilot, he fought from 1939 to 1945 scoring 176 victories over Europe, Africa, and Russia.  He ended the war in a hospital, grievously burned in the crash of an Me 262, but he recovered not only to fly but to resume his career.  He served as head of the new Bundesluftwaffe and retired as chairman of the NATO military committee in 1974.

Steinhoff received numerous plastic surgeries, including replacement eyelids.  From our first discussion it was obvious that behind that ruined face was an active, alert, and inquiring mind.  He spoke flawless idiomatic English, barely accented, far better than most young Americans.  His interests ran from history (he wrote two memoirs) to painting, and he enjoyed visiting his daughter Ursula and son in law in the U.S.

But to my mind, “Macki” Steinhoff’s greatest legacy is principled leadership.  He stood with Galland in opposing Goering’s corruption and incompetence, and was banished to “the squadron of experts” with the minimal compensation of flying the world’s first jet fighter.  Widely respected, he died at 80 in 1994.

The world’s third-ranking fighter ace was Gunther Rall, credited with 275 victories against the Western Allies and the Soviets.  His combat career was marked by sensational scoring sprees at expense of the Russians as well as severe injuries. In 1941 he broke his back in a crash landing, and three years later he was wounded by P-47s, spending most of the duration recovering.

Like Johannes Steinhoff, Rall joined the postwar Luftwaffe and rose to high rank. His role in the German F-104 project brought him to Luke AFB in the 1960s, and he mastered American aviation slang.

I worked with Gunther on three occasions and came to enjoy his non-Teutonic sense of humor.  During one session he was asked how a mission began in the Luftwaffe.  I was going to dismiss the question when Gunther’s baby blues twinkled.  He said, “I would start my motor and when it warmed up I held up two thumbs.  The mechanics would pull the chocks, I would close the cabin and take off.  But after (Col. Hubert) Zemke’s people shot off my left thumb, I would raise my right thumb, the men would pull the right chock and I would go around in circles to the left!”

Gunther departed the pattern in 2009, age 91.

Many Germans emigrated to North America after the war, including two I got to know fairly well.  Airshow fans may recall Oskar Boesch’s sailplane aerobatics performed to classical music and narration of John Gillespie Magee’s lyric poem High Flight. He flew in some 600 airshows across North America, gaining an appreciative following.

But Oskar was fortunate to survive his run of the odds.  In 1944-45 he joined aSturmstaffel, flying heavily armed and armored FW-190s against American bombers.  His unit suffered 200% losses in the last year of the war, and I asked how the pilots coped with such attrition.  He grinned.  “You are 20 years old and you think you are rough and tough.  You can fly all day and drink all night and please the girls.  Then you climb into your 190, turn the oxygen up to 100 percent, and when you take off to engage 1,000 Viermots, you are immediately sober!”

Oskar died in 2012.

Another naturalized Canadian was Franz Stigler who became known in 1990 when a B-17 pilot tracked him down to express heartfelt gratitude for sparing the shot-up Fortress over the North Sea in 1943.  The American pilot, Charlie Brown, arranged a “reunion” where Stigler met other crewmen of Ye Olde Pub.  They introduced their erstwhile enemy to the 25 children who were born due to Franz’s chivalry.

I met Franz at Northwest airshows in the 1970s where his Messerschmitt 108 shared ramp space with our N3N Navy trainer.  He was a popular figure, and his wife Haya was at least as well known.  In hangar parties she would dance with any aviator bold enough to polka with her.

A mutual friend, a P-51 ace, asked Franz what he did on the last day of the war. Franz replied, “Vell, I tell you.  I dit vat any American fighter pilot vould have done.  I got on my motorcycle with my girlfriend und I vent home!”

Franz died in Canada in 2008, age 92, mourned by friends and their descendants alike.

The Luftwaffe veterans I was fortunate to know confirmed a suspicion: the main difference among fighter pilots is merely the paint on their airplanes.

HISTORY WANTS YOUR EMAILS

We researchers and writers are necessarily hoarders.  We wind up with hundreds of reference volumes and file cabinets full of old manuscripts and back issues of long-forgotten publications.  If we give it much thought at all, we assume that our heirs will donate (possibly sell) the material to a deserving archive or library—or at least allow interested people to cherry-pick what’s most useful to them.

But what about emails?

I've been cataloging aviation, naval, and generic history emails since the late 90s, knowing that I'm unlikely to look at many/most of them again but they might be available for whomever winds up with access to my computer(s).  It's a subject I've raised once or twice with other practitioners.  Our emails contain an enormous amount of info that likely has never been published—and may never appear in print.  But my computer files already contain irreplaceable first-hand accounts of historic events, often sent by participants now long deceased.  So do the computers of nearly every colleague I know.

When I say I'm cataloging emails, mainly that means I'm retitling them for greater relevance.  You know the internet: Who Killed The Red Baron can morph into alligator wrestling with astonishing speed.  So I try to consolidate specific subjects into a single email rather than have multi messages with relevant passages in each.  I don't always get it done but hey, I'm trying to make a living here...

Meanwhile, what to do?

Suggestion: leave written instructions granting permission for specific people to access your email account, updated with current passwords.  (Yes, we know about the Good Buddy's Last Request to purge your computer files before next of kin start looking at them!)  At some point your email account will go flatline,  or become inaccessible.  So it’s critical to make arrangements for preserving your messages before the account is cancelled.

Maybe an option is to copy groups of emails to external storage: CDs or thumb drives, thus avoiding the problem of accessing a decedent's email account.  But remember: BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP.  One of my oft-used thumb drives recently died, taking a couple of books and many articles with it.  Fortunately I believe in BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP.  The Time Machine external drive linked to my iMac has an enormous amount of storage—I may never fill it up solely with text.

Besides emails, I keep text files of my articles, arranged by general subject.  At some point those also would be helpful to later researchers, with the added benefit of being searchable.  That leaves the door open to plagiarism but if it's posthumous, that seems less a concern though presumably anyone's heirs would be entitled to compensation.  Just another aspect of the brave new cyberworld.

Thinking downstream: one aspect that might pose problems is that inevitably emails focusing on one subject often contain, um, controversial, nay, scandalous comments, some irrelevant to the immediate topic.  I doubt that many  folks would scrub hundreds of egrams to delete such things before releasing the material to “the cloud,” or whatever.  Of course, there should be no legal or other concerns if released posthumously but by then the procedure for retaining and disseminating the material could pose greater (practical) problems.

Finally, I'll note that I maintain a master file that lists all my published articles, some 650 so far, dating from 1965.  That’s important since I wrote my first six books and about 100 articles on a Royal Standard that was older than I was.  The list makes it possible to find pre-computer texts both for reference and for transcribing if an article is to be reprinted.  My personal best is three reprints of one article, and if I hadn't kept those long-ago magazines it would not have been possible.  Later researchers could benefit from that kind of info.  (My bride took some convincing on that score, but eventually she accepted the rationale.  She did not accept the rationale that for a bachelor author, floor space = shelf space.)

Remember: for a researcher there’s no such thing as too much information.  But there is such a thing as too little.  Your email files could go a long way in helping preserve history far into the 21st century.