World War I: What They Said

Sep22

Primary Source Accounts of World War I by Glenn Sherer and Marty Fletcher.

As I looked through this book and the websites to which it referred, some of the words of soldiers and civilians jumped out at me. It truly makes the time period and the Great War itself take on new meaning when you experience it through the eyes of those who were there.

Borijove Jetvic, fellow terrorist of Gavrilo Princip, the man who assassinated Archduke Ferdinand and his wife: “Princip made an appeal to the prison governor: ‘There is no need to carry me to another prison. My life is already ebbing away. I suggest that you nail me to a cross and burn me alive. My flaming body will be a torch to light my people on their way to freedom.'” SE: He thought he was a hero and had no idea of the horror that he had unleashed.

French lieutenant: “Humanity . . . must be mad to do what it is doing. What scenes of horror and carnage! . . . Hell cannot be so terrible.” SE: Yet, hell is worse, and we go there willingly and stupidly, just as men went to war thinking it would be an adventure.

American survivor of the sinking of the Lusitania, Charles Jeffrey: “There was a thunderous roar, as of the collapse of a great building on fire. Then the Lusitania disappeared, dragging hundreds of fellow creatures into the vortex. Many never rose to the surface, but the sea rapidly grew black with the figures of struggling men, women and children.”

American poet Alan Seeger who volunteered to fight with the British before America entered the war: “”If it must be, let it come in the heat of action. Why flinch? It is by far the noblest form in which death can come. It is in a sense almost a privilege. . . . If you are in this thing at all it is best to be in to the limit. And this is the supreme experience.” SE: Is there such a thing as a noble death, or is Death always and forever the enemy, to be endured perhaps stoically and even nobly, but always the enemy of the resurrection life that God has for his children? The ‘supreme experience” is not death, but rather Life.

Teddy Roosevelt in 1917 after the torpedoing of two American ships by the Germans: “There is no question about going to war! Germany is already at war with us.”

Joyce Lewis, American soldier wounded in the Battle of Belleau Wood: “The surgeons came out, finally, and seeing me, exclaimed, ‘What, ain’t you dead yet?’ Then they took me to the hospital, fixt me up as best they could, and sent me to Paris in an automobile ambulance.”

Private William Bishop, Jr.: “Pleasure around here isn’t much except reading your shirt, which means to look it over for cooties. An as for rats, they are the size of a five year old tomcat. You can’t scare them. They crawl all over your bunks, and if you knock them down they just come right back again.”

Colonel Thomas Gowenlock on the Armistice and the end of the war: “All over the world on November 11, 1918, people were celebrating, dancing in the streets, drinking champagne, hailing the armistice that meant the end of the war. But at the front there was no celebration. . . . All were bewildered by the sudden meaninglessness of their existence as soldiers. . . . What was to come next? They did not know and hardly cared. Their minds were numbed by the shock of peace.”

To read more about the Great War the book suggests the following website:

PBS: THe Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century.

Wednesday’s Word of the Week: Pavid

Sep21

My son says I’m obsessed with the game, Words With Friends (game name: SemicolonSherry). I wouldn’t put it quite that strongly, but I do have about twelve games going on my phone. My excuses are multitudinous:

I keep my brain supple and exercise those brain cells that I still have left.

I connect with people from all over the country, and that’s fun.

I learn new words, even if some of them such as “za” and “hin” and “exine” are only minimally useful.

I did learn a useful word last week: pavid means fearful or timid. Julius Caesar did not consider himself to be pavid.

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
~William Shakespeare, “Julius Caesar”, Act 2 scene 2

Betsy Bee, my twelve year old, decided to memorize this quotation from Julius Caesar for her Shakepeare passage for this month. She, too, is not pavid, although she does say that Shakespeare uses too many “weird words.”

I like “pavid” as an alternative synonym for afraid because it reminds me of pale and of quaking. Of course, I can only use some of these words in writing where people can look them up if they don’t know the meaning. To use the word pavid in conversation would be pretentious. And there’s always Words With Friends.

Reading about World War I

Sep20

Nonfiction for children and young adults:
Truce: The Day the Soldiers Stopped Fighting by Jim Murphy. World War I and the Christmas Eve, 1914 spontaneous cease-fire. Reviewed by Betsy at Fuse #8.
The War to End All Wars: World War I by Russell Freedman. Reviewed at Bookish Blather.
Primary Source Accounts of World War I by Glenn Sherer and Marty Fletcher. From a series on various American wars published by MyReportLinks.com (Enslow Publishers).
Remember the Lusitania! by Diana Preston. A children’s/young adult version of the adult nonfiction title by the same author. The books includes lots of personal anecdotes about individuals who survived the sinking of the Lusitania and stories of some of the people who did not. It’s a solid, brief (89 pages with pictures) introduction to the subject, but it felt a little rushed. I hardly had time to get to know the characters that the author spotlighted before the entire episode was over and done with.
Unraveling Freedom: The Battle for Democracy on the Home Front During World War I by Ann Bausum. Reviewed by Betsy at Fuse #8.

Adult nonfiction:
The Proud Tower: A portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914 by Barbara W. Tuchman. I’m working on this one–about halfway through. The author spent about 200 pages on the Dreyfus affair in France, and if nothing else, I feel as if I know a lot more about French modern history than I did before. Reviewed at Resolute Reader.
The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman. I started this book once but didn’t finish. I think after I get through with The Proud Tower, I’ll be ready for guns. The Guns of August won Ms. Tuchman a Pulitzer Prize for history. Reviewed at Resolute Reader.
The Zimmerman Telegram by Barbara Tuchman.
Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty by Robert K. Massie. I read this classic biography/tragedy back when I was in high school or college, and I remember it as fascinating. It’s since been updated with new discoveries made about the bodies that were found and from information found in Soviet archives.
Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea by Robert K. Massie.
Dreadnought by Robert K. Massie.
To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 by Adam Hochschild. Semicolon review here.
The Great Silence: Britain from the Shadow of the First World War to the Dawn of the Jazz Age by Juliet Nicolson. Semicolon review here.
Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy by Diana Preston.

Children’s and young adult fiction:
Fly, Cher Ami, Fly!: The Pigeon Who Saved the Lost Battalion by Robert Burleigh. Based on a true story about carrier pigeons used by the U.S. Army during World War I.
War Game: Village Green to No-Man’s Land by Michael Foreman. A longer picture book story of a soccer game during the Christmas truce of 1914.
Winnie’s War by Jenny Moss. Semicolon review here.
The Best Bad Luck I Ever had by Kristin Levine. Semicolon review here.
When Christmas Comes Again: The World War I Diary of Simone Spencer, New York City to the Western Front, 1917 by Beth Seidel Levine.
Rilla of Ingleside by L.M Montgomery.
Betsy and the Great World by Maud Hart Lovelace. Betsy travels through Europe instead of going immediately to college after high school, and she sees the arms build-up and the beginning of World War I. Reviewed at Library Hospital.
Betsy’s Wedding by Maud Hart Lovelace. Reviewed at Reading on a Rainy Day.
Kipling’s Choice by Geert Spillebeen. I read this book a couple of years ago, but never got around to reviewing it. It’s a fictional account of the death of John Kipling, son of Rudyard Kipling, near Loos, France in 1915. Here it is reviewed at Chasing Ray.
War Horse by Michael Morpurgo. Joey, the farm horse, is sold to the army and sent to the Western front. Reviewed at Another Cookie Crumbles.
Without Warning: Ellen’s Story, 1914-1918 by Dennis Hamley. Ellen Wilkins becomes a nurse to follow her brother to war.
A Time of Angels by Karen Hesse. In 1918 Boston, Hannah Gold must face her own wartime suffering as the influenza epidemic sweeps through her family and town.
Eyes Like Willy’s by Juanita Havill. A French brother and sister, Guy and Sarah Masson, and their Austrian friend Willy are separated by the war.
After the Dancing Days by Margaret Rostkowski. We read this YA novel for my English/History class at homeschool co-op last year. Annie is a thirteen year old girl living in a small town in Kansas at the end of World War I. As she begins to visit the returning soldiers at the veterans’ hospital where her father works as a doctor, Annie is at first repulsed and frightened by the severely injured men. However, she comes to be friends with them, one in particular, even though her mother is opposed to Annie’s hospital visits and wants her to forget about the war and its consequences.
My Brother’s Shadow by Monica Schroder. This YA novel is brand new, published in September by Farrar Straus Giroux, and I got an ARC from the publisher. It’s about a German boy, Moritz, towards the end of the war in 1918 and how he comes to see the war and its results differently as he grows up in its aftermath. Moritz’s brother comes home severely wounded from the front, and Moritz must choose between his loyalty to his brother and his mother’s new socialist way of seeing politics and the world. I thought the story was good, but the fact that entire books is written in present tense distracted me. I suppose the intent is a “you are there” feel, but I would have preferred the distance and objectivity of past tense.

Adult fiction:
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque.
To the Last Man: A Novel of the First World War by Jeff Shaara.
No Graves As Yet by Anne Perry is the first in her World War I mystery/suspense series. I don’t like her writing in these books as much as I did the Victorian Charlotte Pitt mysteries, but if you’re interested in the time period, they’re worth a try.

Of course, there are many, many more books about and set during World War I, but these are the ones with which I have some familiarity.

1915: Books and Literature

Sep20

Trench Literature: Reading in Word War I by Richard Davies, Udo Goellmann & Sara Melendre. What were the doughboys reading? Rudyard Kipling, H.G. Wells, John Buchan, Nat Gould, W.W. Jacobs, Captain R.. Campbell, and anything else they could get their hands on to alleviate the boredom of the trenches.

This writer thinks that the Most Influential Poem of the Twentieth Century was published in 1915. Can you guess the poem, or at least the poet, before you look?
HINT: “Do I dare disturb the universe?”

John Buchan’s spy novel The Thirty-nine Steps was published in 1915. Here it is reviewed by Woman of the House. There’s a Hitchcock movie version of this adventure story, and also a Masterpiece Theater movie adaptation that has been recommended. Has anyone here seen either one?

The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion is a 1915 novel by English novelist Ford Madox Ford. It is set just before World War I and chronicles the tragedy of Edward Ashburnham, the eponymous soldier, and his seemingly perfect marriage.

Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis was first published in 1915. The original German title was Die Verwandlung. We read this classic horror novella for our 20th century class, and Brown Bear Daughter called it the “cockroach book.” She refused to look at the cover which had a picture of a giant bug on it. I don’t blame her. Herr Kafka would have not liked the picture either since he told his publisher in a letter: “The insect itself is not to be drawn. It is not even to be seen from a distance.” I looked at Amazon, and most of the covers do have a picture of some kind of bug. This one is one of the few that I found that Kafka might have approved.

Also in 1915, W. Somerset Maugham published his most famous book, Of Human Bondage. I’ve heard of the book all my (reading) life, but I’ve not read it. Recommended or not?

Miscellaneous Links and Thinks for Sunday Salon

Sep18

The Sunday Salon.com

I suppose I could “tweet” all of these links or put them on Facebook or even Google+ them, but I sort of like gathering them together here at the old blog. Tweet or facebook or + as you like.

Water lilies in my hometown, San Angelo, Texas. I like stories about self-educated hobbyists who pursue a subject with passion and become experts.

Cindy at Ordo Amoris does Shakespeare with the family. “I always tell new students of the bard that if they do not like Shakespeare that is fine but it is the height of ignorance to conclude that it is the Bard’s fault rather than something lacking within themselves.”

All of the back issues of John Holt’s Growing Without Schooling newsletter (1977-2001) are now available to read online. I have many of the early issues of this pioneering newsletter. I probably subscribed in about 1980 or 81. And the newsletter was inspiring. Before I even had children, I knew that there were all these crazy people out there —leftover hippies, religious types, farm families, suburbanites, and city-dwellers– who were teaching their children at home. Or maybe “letting them learn” at home is a more appropriate designation. Although we ended up with a more structured homeschooling experience than many of the original GWS contributors and readers, I learned a lot from the newsletter about educational possibilities and creative thinking in relation to the way children and adults learn. Along with Melissa, I’m welcoming the appearance of Growing Without Schooling, free, on the web. Thank you to all those who made this gift possible.

Seuss, Sendak, and Silverstein: Children’s Authors Who Broke the Rules. I must admit that all three of these authors are favorites of mine, Seuss and Silverstein more than Sendak, but all three to some extent. I never got the appeal of some of Sendak’s books (In the NIght Kitchen, Outside Over There), but Max the Wild Thing is a classic character and his story is worth sharing with kids.

The Thinking Mother shares a Dystopian Literature reading list that she developed for her fourteen year old boy. Good resource for teen boys who are interested in dystopia and science fiction.

Hollywood Republican: 12 Essential Films for the Moral Formation of Boys. I would add Chariots of Fire, Gettysburg, and The Bridge on the River Kwai.

1914: The Arts and Entertainment

Sep18

'Charlie Chaplin' photo (c) 2007, Fr. Dougal McGuire - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/'Mary Pickford' photo (c) 2008, bunky's pickle - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/British-born comedian Charlie Chaplin and Canadian Mary Pickford are the stars of Hollywood’s silent pictures. Charlie Chaplin makes his first appearance as The Tramp in 1914’s Kid Auto Races at Venice.

In December 1914, cartoonist Johnny Gruelle paints a face on his daughter’s faceless rag doll and invents the Raggedy Ann doll. You can read Raggedy Ann Stories by Johnny Gruelle here at Project Gutenberg.

1914: Events and Inventions

Sep16

January 5, 1914. The Ford Motor Company announces an eight-hour workday and a minimum wage of $5.00 for a day’s labor.

March 27, 1914. Belgian surgeon Albert Hustin makes the first successful non-direct blood transfusion, using anticoagulants.

April 21, 1914. The U.S. sends troops to Vera Cruz, Mexico to interfere in Mexico’s revolution and prevent the delivery of arms from Germany to Mexican General Victoriano Huerta.

June 28, 1914. In Sarajevo, Bosnia, a Serbian nationalist assassinates Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary. Austria-Hungary blames Serbia for allowing anti-Austrian activity in their country.

July 23, 1914. Austria presented Serbia with a strongly worded ultimatum with such severe terms that Serbia would be compelled to refuse. The ultimatum demanded that the government of Serbia:
Officially condemn anti-Austrian publications and propaganda.
Suppress anti-Austrian societies.
Bar anti-Austrian teachers and books from their schools.
Dismiss any government officials that Austria might name.
Accept help from Austria in checking obnoxious propaganda.
Allow Austrian officials to assist in the investigation of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

July 25, 1914. Serbia sends a soft answer to Austria while preparing for war.

July 28, 1914. Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia, saying that Serbia’s reply to their ultimatum was “unsatisfactory.” Since Serbia is an ally of Russia, Russia mobilizes troops to fight against Austria-Hungary and her allies. The Triple Alliance —Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Italy—is drawn into war against the Triple Entente—Russia, France, and Britain.

August 15, 1914. The Panama Canal officially opens, two years ahead of schedule. A grand celebration was planned, but the eyes of the world are on Europe and the growing war there. So the celebration is muted.You can listen to an audio story presentation about the building of the canal based on the Landmark history book about the Panama Canal at The Reading Well.

A time lapse video of a cruise chip traveling through the Panama Canal from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific in May, 2003:

August-October, 1914. Germany attacks Russia in the east and France in the west. To get to France, German troops invade neutral Belgium. When Britain hears about German atrocities and the invasion of Belgium, Britain is impelled to go to war against Germany and Austria-Hungary.

September, 1914. After the Battle of the Marne, both sides reach a stalemate in northern France, and the armies face each other from trenches along a front that eventually stretches from the North Sea to the Swiss border with France.

October 29, 1914. The Ottoman Empire (Turkey) closes the Dardanelles to Allied (British, French, and Russian) shipping. This act cuts off Russian ports on the Black Sea, and the British and Russians declare war on Turkey in November.

December 24, 1914. British and German soldiers interrupt their fighting in World War I to celebrate Christmas, beginning the Christmas truce. This song by Celtic Thunder is called Christmas, 1915, but it’s about the Christmas Truce that took place in 1914.

Saturday Review of Books: September 17, 2011

Sep16

“A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.”
“Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.”
“I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.”
~Samuel Johnson, b.September 18,1709

SatReviewbuttonIf you’re not familiar with and linking to and perusing the Saturday Review of Books here at Semicolon, you’re missing out. Here’s how it usually works. Find a book review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week. The review doesn’t have to be a formal sort of thing. You can just write your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.

Then on Saturday, you post a link here at Semicolon in Mr. Linky to the specific post where you’ve written your book review. Don’t link to your main blog page because this kind of link makes it hard to find the book review, especially when people drop in later after you’ve added new content to your blog. In parentheses after your name, add the title of the book you’re reviewing. This addition will help people to find the reviews they’re most interested in reading.

After linking to your own reviews, you can spend as long as you want reading the reviews of other bloggers for the week and adding to your wishlist of books to read. That’s how my own TBR list has become completely unmanageable and the reason I can’t join any reading challenges. I have my own personal challenge that never ends.

The Attenbury Emeralds by Jill Paton Walsh

Sep15

Jill Paton Walsh has continued the story of Dorothy Sayers’ famous sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey, in her books Thrones, Dominations and A Presumption of Death. These two bring the story into the early 1940s, while Paton Walsh’s third installment, The Attenbury Emeralds, takes place after World War II with Lord Peter and his wife, the famous mystery novelist Harriet Vane, dealing with post-war changes and reminiscing about the good old days of post-World War I Britain and Peter’s very first case.

So the book happens in two time periods, both post-war. As fans know, Lord Peter was quite torn up by his part in the Great War, and he only recovered with the help and ministrations of that perfect manservant, Mervyn Bunter. As The Attenbury Emeralds begins, Lord Peter is telling Harriet the story of how he rejoined society after the war (slowly and with much trepidation) and how he blundered into his first detective case, recovering a stolen emerald for his friends, the Attenbury family.

Jill Paton Walsh isn’t Dorothy Sayers, but she’s a good writer in her own right. She’s written several good children’s and young adult books, and if anyone can presume to extend the story of Lord Peter Wimsey, Ms. Walsh has made a good claim on the right to do so with her first two volumes. (I wrote a little about Walsh and Sayers and the Lord Peter books when I first discovered Ms. Walsh’s sequels back in 2004.)

There is a big change in store for Lord Peter in his personal and his public life in this book, and I think Ms. Walsh writes about Lord Peter’s later years (he’s sixty plus by the time this story takes place) convincingly, with respect for Sayers’ creation and with some charm. This older Peter Wimsey is not quite so tortured and emotional as the youthful Lord Peter was, but he’s still just a bit vulnerable and highly attractive.

I recommend all three sequels by Jill Paton Walsh, if you’ve read the original series by Dorothy Sayers and just can’t get enough of Lord Peter Wimsey and his family and his lovely wife, Harriet. If you haven’t read Dorothy Sayers’ mysteries featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, you have a treat in store for you. Get thee to a library or bookstore and read. Here’s a chronology of the Lord Peter Wimsey stories and novels. I’d suggest that you start with the first novel, Whose Body?, and travel through the book-length stories, not worrying about the short stories unless you’re particularly fond of short stories.