Liberty Memorial and National World War One Museum, Kansas City, MO

On November 11, 1918, after more than four years of the most brutal combat humanity had ever known, the Great War was officially ended. Relief at the war's end and shock at the news coming out of Europe hit the people of Kansas City deeply. In 1919, the desire for a permanent memorial inspired the citizens to donate $2.5 million in ten days to honor the dead and wounded. The memorial was completed by 1924 and was dedicated by President Calvin Coolidge in front of a crowd of 150,000 people.

Time took its toll on the museum and in 1994, it was closed due to questions of safety. Four years later, the people of Kansas City again banded together to raise money to restore the museum, passing a half cent sales tax for 18 months to fund the project. In the end, money from around the country was sent to the Liberty Memorial Association, totaling $102 million.

The museum was dedicated by Congress as the official World War One museum in 2004. It was opened to the general public on December 2, 2006 as the National World War One Museum at Liberty Memorial.

The Somme, 1916

German soldiers at Verdun, France, 1916






The year 1915 had been very bad for the British, French and Russians (the Allies). The Russians had nearly run out of ammunition in the east, the British had suffered nearly half of a million casualties at Gallipoli in Turkey and major attempts to push back the Germans in France had failed.

At the same time, the Germans were making steady progress towards Paris from the area in France known as Verdun. Verdun was an important part of the country in the minds of the French and they would fight hard to protect it. In May of 1916, the War Committee and the French authorities estimated their losses at around 115,000 at Verdun, but were possibly "much higher." They also feared that the German casualties were not as high as they were reporting to the public.


British soldiers at the Somme


The situation was becoming dangerous for the Allied Nations. The British and French soon realized that they needed to relieve the troops at Verdun and planned to do so by starting a new offensive near the River Somme. It was hoped that the Germans would move troops from Verdun to the Somme. The shelling of the German positions at the Somme began on June 24, intending to soften them before the attack. Over one and a half million shells were fired in that week. The bombardment went on day and night until July 1. At 7:30 that morning, the British and French troops "went over the top" and attacked the German lines.



British tank at the Somme

What had been thought to be a "decisive breakthrough" was a total failure. Little was accomplished in the first two months of fighting. The attack began again on September 15, with the first use of modern tanks in warfare history. Rains in October made the battlefield muddy and difficult to move in. By the battle's end on November 13, the British suffered 420,000 casualties, the French 195,000 and the Germans 650,000. The Allies gained 5 miles of territory. It did manage to distract the Germans from Verdun.

America and General Pershing Enter the War

The Zimmerman Telegraph, sent to the German Embassy in Mexico





America stayed out of the war for three years, despite the sinking of the Lusitania by a German submarine in 1915. The intercepted Zimmerman Telegraph in 1917, in which the Germans asked Mexico to join the Central Powers in return for territory in the United States, finally forced America into the war. On April 6, 1917, Congress formally declared war on the German Empire.

American General John Pershing arrived in Paris on June 14, 1917. He quickly came to dislike the social and political distractions of the French and moved his team 150 miles from Paris to Chaumont.

General Pershing had reviewed the British and French strategies for the American troops and decided that the old methods had been the cause of the three year old stalemate. The Allies had gotten too used to relying on grenades, artillery and machine guns. "The rifle and bayonet remain the supreme weapons of the infantry soldier," he said in October 1917.

Trench warfare had badly demoralized the European troops and Pershing wanted to regain the aggressive attitude of 1914. If the Allies wanted to win the war, they had to go on the offensive. He expected soldiers to be aggressive to the point of recklessness and to accept heavy casualties.

The Somme, 1918

The Second Battle of the Somme began at 5:00 AM on March 21, 1918. German General Ludendorff hoped that if the attack were successful, two Allied communication centers would fall at Arras and at Amiens.

The Germans fired 9,000 cannons for five hours before advancing on the British Fifth Army, forcing them to retreat. By March 25, the British had lost 150,000 men and many people were evacuating Paris. The Germans shelled Paris from 80 miles away for a week with the Big Bertha cannons.

Damage in Paris from Big Bertha shells

General Pershing was also willing to admit the severity of the situation and agreed to accelerate the arrival of American troops. In March of 1918, 60,000 Americans arrived in France; 93,000 in April; 240,000 in May and 280,000 in June. While Americans arrived in ever greater numbers, the Germans continued to advance or hold their ground. Of the six divisions Pershing had in France, only one was battle ready.

Pershing was finally able to send a few thousand American doughboys to the Somme on April 2. It was the first major engagement that American troops took part in in Europe. The battle ended two days later on April 4 but the Allies had managed to keep the Germans from taking the towns of Arras and Amiens.


Arras, 1918. A town defended by Americans.

In the end, the Allies suffered 200,000 casualties at the Second Battle of the Somme, the Germans captured 70,000 prisoners and forty square miles of French territory. However, the German Army lost nearly as many men and were very low on supplies, while the Allies were gaining new equipment and troops from the States all the time. There were 20,000 American casualties.

Bibliography

Audoin-Rouzeau, Stephane & Becker, Annette. (2002). 14-18, Understanding the Great War. New York: Hill and Wang.

Originally written in French in 2000, the 2002 translation answers why the restraints on violence were removed in 1914. War is always violent, but Audoin-Rouzeau and Becker claim that the blame cant only go to the leaders but also to the common soldiers. The desire to eradicate the enemy came as much from below as it did from above.

I cant help wondering what its like to be a soldier in such an awful battle. "14-18" not only tells about the blood lust of the soldier but also of the civilians. It also goes through the psychology of the internment camp prisoners, used on a grand scale during the war.


Eisenhower, John S.D. (2001). Yanks: The Epic Story of the American Army in World War I. New York: The Free Press.

Eisenhower tries to change the perception that the American Expeditionary Force was little more than a paper dragon that intimidated the Germans into accepting an armistice. He shows that what the Americans lacked in experience, they made up for with an excellent officers core, including Alvin York and George S. Patton.

"Yanks" was valuable in describing the often confusing military maneuvers and had many large, clear maps to aid the reader. It details the confusion of the politicians in Washington who were suddenly in the middle of a European war.

Ferrell, Robert H. (1985). Woodrow Wilson & World War One, 1917-1921. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers.

For an American president who gained re-election by campaigning on "He Kept Us Out of War," Wilson had to suddenly face the reality that staying out of the war forever was impossible. The book tells how President Wilson had to manage the task of mobilizing the United States into war.

Gavin, Lettie. (1997). American Women in World War One: They Also Served. Niwot: University Press of Colorado.

"American Women" tells the stories of the tens of thousands of women that served in the navy alone. Commonly called "Yeomanettes" these women were nurses, worked the telephone system, served as doctors and physical therapists. They did all of this despite poison gas, shells, Spanish flu, sexism, racism and long hours.

The role of women in war always seems to be short changed, despite the essential roles they played, even if they weren't carrying a rifle. This book was important in showing how women made important contributions to the American war effort.

Hart, Peter. (2008). The Somme. New York: Pegasus Books.

"The Somme" details how the British Army was badly unprepared for the slaughter to come when they planned to relieve the pressure on the French Army at Verdun. Training was poor, too many shells were duds and reliability of communications was spotty.

This book had a ton of information. It had interviews and quotes from soldiers and officers alike, often a few per page. It gave a soldiers view the battlefield, including somewhat humorous anecdotes regarding a German soldier that was saved by British artillery by luck of having been using the commode at the start of the bombardment.

Keegan, John. (1999). The First World War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, INC.

"The First World War" is a book of criticism of strategy, mainly the invasion plan of German General Schlieffen. Keegan opines that Schlieffen was over confident that Great Britain would stay out of the war and that he didn't know how to move the 200,000 troops needed to invade Paris.

For people that are interested in the fine details of military strategy, this book discusses them in length.

Lengel, Edward G. (2008). To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

"To Conquer Hell" follows General Pershing and the American Army through the final months of the First World War. It showcases Pershing's dedication to the frontal assault despite machine gun fire, a tactic that has been heavily criticized in the past. Lengel is also critical of the tactic, saying it had "all of the elan of 1914, and twice the stupidity."

"To Conquer Hell" felt more personal than the strictly "military strategy" focus that "Yanks" had. It has personal stories about American soldiers first arriving in France and the sense of despair that pervaded the French people. Cultural misunderstandings between the Americans and French left a sour taste in the mouths of both peoples.

Marshall, S.L.A. (1985). World War I. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

"World War I" follows the course of the war from the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand on June 28, 1914 to the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. It focuses on the Western front. At 483 pages, its a short read.

Neiberg, Michael S. (2005). Fighting the Great War: A Global History. New York: Harvard University.

"Fighting the Great War" shows how theoretical war met real war. As each new idea failed, each side relied more and more on attrition and incremental improvements in weapons and tactics to beat the enemy.

While "To Conquer Hell" was a "personal" book, "Fighting the Great War" was focused on weapons and technology. It would be an interesting book for gun and weapons enthusiasts.

Prior, Robin & Wilson, Trevor. (2005). The Somme. New Haven: Yale University Press.

"The Somme" focuses on the British Army on the Western Front. In the long history of the British military, the Somme was its bloodiest battle. "The Somme" tries to clear the names of the maligned divisional commanders and brigadiers, while putting more blame on the High Command and civilian War Committee.

This was a sort of British counterpart to the American focused "To Conquer Hell." It was valuable in terms of showing the ineptness of the supposed experts when it came to managing the British war effort.

Slotkin, Richard. (2005). Lost Battalions: The Great War and The Crisis of American Nationality. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

While we may simply think of American soldiers as "Americans," we forget that they weren't always treated that way in this country. This book follows two groups of New York regiments: one made up of African Americans and the other of recent immigrants. While many of them expected to be welcomed back to the U.S. with more rights and respect after the war, they were often wrong.

I thought "Lost Battalions" was interesting because it told what happened to soldiers after they came home. It also shone a light on minority troops, who fought and died just like Caucasian soldiers.

Stone, Norman. (2009). World War One: A Short History. New York: Basic Books.

"A Short History" is just that, a very concise book. The chapters are divided up by years (1914 to 1918) and information from Russia to the United States is covered all at once. While it doesn't give deep, detailed information, it does provide quick answers to questions.

This would be a good book for someone that is casually interested in the First World War. A scholar wouldn't look twice at it but for a casual reader, it would be an informative first look at a complex subject.

Stevenson, David. (2004). Cataclysm: The First World War as Political Tragedy. New York: Basic Books.

Stevenson takes a political look at the Great War, focusing on how the European leaders consciously chose to continue fighting despite terrible casualty numbers. The idea of defeat, especially to the German Empire, seemed worse than continuing the fight.

The economic rivalry between Great Britain and Germany between 1890 and 1914 helps clarify why the fight was seen as so important on both sides. Germany was a rising power and Britain didn't like the competition. This made the idea of a possibly victorious Germany after the war seem even more threatening to Britain.

Strachan, Hew. (2004). The First World War. New York: Penguin Publishing.

The continuing instability in regions like the Balkans can be traced back to the four year conflict. "The First World War" describes to us the expected subjects of such a subject but also tells us how the French treated deserters, how soldiers from African colonies had differing attitudes about the war than their colonial leaders and tries to answer the hard question: "Whose fault was it?"

I always like to get the opinions and memories of the overlooked people in a story. The colonial soldiers, made to fight for the people that controlled them, is an important part of the story.

Electronic Sources:

BBC. (2011). World Wars: Battle of the Somme: 1 July - 13 November 1916. April 6, 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/battle_somme.shtml

The BBC gives a depressing look at how the British soldiers were led to slaughter on the first day of the Somme offensive. The battle was badly planned from the start and resulted in 60,000 British casualties in one day, 20,000 of which were fatal.


Discovery Communications. (2011). Futility of Trench Warfare at the Somme. April 6, 2011. http://military.discovery.com/history/ww1/somme/somme-2.html.

The Military Channel gives explicit descriptions of how the English troops were tangled in barbed wire and killed by machine gun fire as they approached the German lines. Its not a pleasant read but does give an unflinching look at the battle.

National World War One Museum at Liberty Memorial. (2006). Mission and History. April 6, 2011. http://www.theworldwar.org/s/110/new/index.aspx?sid=110&gid=1&pgid=1114.

The "mission and history" page of the National World War One Museum at Liberty Memorial is the definitive place to go for background on the museum. It explains the history of the museum and monument themselves.


History. (2011). Second Battle of the Somme ends. April 6, 2011. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/second-battle-of-the-somme-ends

The History Channel's look at the Second Battle of the Somme is less descriptive than the Military Channel's depiction but is heavier on numbers and statistics. This gives a good look at the intensity of the German offensive.

Video/Film Source:
Berthon, S. & D'Innella, A. & Martin, J. & Nugus, P. (Producers). (2005). World War I in Color. [DVD]. Available from www.capitalent.com

Using modern computer technology, the footage of the First World War has been brought to living color. Archive footage from around the world was used for the production of the TV series, which aired in the United Kingdom in 2003.

Words and pictures can only describe the chaos of war to a point. Film is really the ideal way to show the horror of such a mass disaster.

Review Sources:
Booklist Online