The Restored Burlington Northern Depot & WWII Memorial Museum
Military related issues, on the War
and Home Fronts, 1901 thru 1920
<<<>>>
Mexican Expedition
Campaigns, 14 MAR 1916 – 07 FEB 1917
Company
M,
168th Infantry Regiment, on steps of the Post Office
in
Red Oak, Iowa, June 1916, prior to departing to
Brownsville, Texas.
<<<>>>
World War
I, from the first shots in 1914 to the Armistice in 1918,
all in a one hour video
<<<>>>
Saint
Augustine, Martin Luther, and the origins of World War I
<<<>>>
BBC 1964 documentary on
World War I
amazing yet tragic videos, and commentary upon to
reflect
each
video forty minutes
part 1 - On the
Idle Hill of Summer
part 2 - For
Such a Stupid Reason, Too
part
3 - We Must Hack Our
Way Through
part
4 - Our Hats We Doff
to General Joffre
part
5 - This business may
last a long time
part
6 - So Sleep Easy in
Your Beds
part
7 - We Await the
Heavenly Manna
part
8 - Why Don't You Come
and Help
part
9 - Please God Send Us a
Victory
part 10 - What are our Allies
doing?
part
11 - Hell
cannot be so terrible
part
12 - For Gawd's Sake
Don't Send Me
part
13 - The Devil is
coming
part 14 - All This It is Our Duty to Bear
part 15 - We are Betrayed, Sold,
Lost
part
16 - Right is more
precious than peace
part
17 - Surely We
Have Perished
part
18 - Fat Rodzianko has
sent me some nonsense
part
19 - The Hell Where
Youth and Laughter Go
part 20 - Only War,
Nothing But War
part
21 - It Was Like the
End of the World
part 22 - Damn Them, Are They
Never Coming In?
part
23 - When must the end
be?
part 24 - Allah
Made Mesopotamia and Added Flies
part
25 - The iron thrones
are falling
part
26 - And We Were Young
part 27 – Voices
and Videos from the Western Front (55 minutes)
<<<>>>
The entry
in Wikipedia about the BBC Great War series
<<<>>>
“…we shall carry
on this war to the end
as a civilized nation….”.
The OCT 1914 Manifesto by
ninety-three
German Intellectuals.
Source: The World War I Document
Archive
<<<>>>
“World War One –
The War That Will End War” (4pp,
.pdf)
The enduring consequences since the end of WWI in 1918
<<<>>>
“It is a fearful thing…but the
right is more precious than peace…”
---
President Woodrow Wilson, asking Congress
to declare war on Germany, 02 APR 1917 (1 p., .pdf)
<<<>>>
The 34th Infantry Division began forming in JUN and JUL
1917,
with National Guard units from ND, SD, MN, NE, and IA,
at Camp Cody, Deming, NM.
Officially constituted 18 JUL 1917.
Stories
and photos about training and life at Camp Cody, NM.
<<<>>>
Photograph of 34th Sandstorm
Infantry Division
Animated Unit Insignia,
at Camp Cody, Deming, NM,
18 AUG 1918.
Animated
text: Duty, Honor, 34, Country.
<<<>>>
The Big
Picture: 42nd Rainbow Division
during World War I &
II (video
0:30 hours)
<<<>>>
From
The Roots of the War - A Non-Technical History of Europe
1870 - 1914 A.D. by William Stearns Davis, PhD, 1919, 557 pp.
Available at
https://openlibrary.org/books/OL6622165M/The_roots_of_the_war
"The heir to the throne, the Crown Prince Frederick William
[until fall of the empire on 09 NOV 1918], was openly
consorting with the extreme militarist, pro-war party,
applauding violent jingoist speeches in the Reichstag,
and evidently going to the extreme limit permissible
without provoking extreme foreign disquietude.
In 1913 he wrote an introduction to a volume, 'Germany
in Arms,' in which he said, 'It is only by relying upon our
good German sword that we can hope to conquer that
place in the sun which rightly belongs to us, and which
the world does not seem willing to accord us. . . . Till the
world shall come to an end, the ultimate decision must
rest with the sword.'" pp 371-372.
<<<>>>
Flanders by Otto Dix, recipient of the Iron
Cross,
Deutsches Heer, the Great War, 28 JUL 1914
- 11 NOV 1918
<<<>>>
Extensive
resources
from the US Army Center of Military History -
images, historical audio/video, primary source documents,
maps,
order of battle
for engagements and geospatial analysis on the
Western
Front, and Italy. Encompasses
pre-war training
in the States, to post war occupation in the Rhineland.
<<<>>>
“…America
needs to know about the regular people who
served [in
WWI] and were injured and died.
So many of
them went
voluntarily, and it was such an act of kindness
to go help
the French and the Brits and the Belgians.”
--- Sandra Sinclair Pershing, the last Pershing,
The American Legion Magazine,
APR 2017 (3 pp, .pdf)
<<<>>>
2,000+
colourised WWI photos on facebook
<<<>>>
WWI Western Front in Colour
(facebook)
<<<>>>
“The legend that
[Sergeant Alvin C. York] accomplished
all this
singlehandedly – killing more than 20 Germans,
wiping out 35
machine gun nests…”.
The
American Legion Magazine, APR 2017 (5 pp., .pdf)
<<<>>>
Foundations & Legacy: General
of the Armies John J. Pershing
“…by
some spiritual quality, by a wordless, soundless
something that radiated from him, he gradually
turned the current and made it flow with him.”
<<<>>>
The Triple
Entente
<<<>>>
<<<>>>
The Central
Powers
<<<>>>
Silent
film from WWI (1:20
hours)
– the American
Expeditionary Forces in St Mihiel, Cantigny,
Château-Thierry,
and Meuse-Argonne engagements.
<<<>>>
The Great War (2 pp, .pdf)
<<<>>>
Read about Iowans
breaking the linchpin to the
Hindenburg Line,
October 1918 (4 pp, .pdf)
<<<>>>
“…the
mile of French farmland conquered by the ‘Fighting First’
at
the hilltop village of Cantigny marked not only America’s
first
steps toward the armistice but the birth of its modern Army.”
The American Legion Magazine,
APR 2017 (6 pp., .pdf)
<<<>>>
The
Record of the 168th Infantry (1
page)
Military engagements
of the 42nd Rainbow
Division, of which the
168th Infantry Regiment was an element, included:
Sector of Snipes,
Oureq, Sergy, St Mihiel Salient, Marimbois Farm, Côte
de Châtillon,
Tuilerie Farm, Baccart, Esperance-Souaine,
Champagne-Marne,
Hill 212, Aisne-Marne, Essey-Pannes, Meuse-Argonne.
The 42nd suffered a 30.6% casualty rate.
<<<>>>
Triptych by Otto Dix, recipient of the
Deutsches Heer Iron Cross,
during the Great War
<<<>>>
The Story of the 168th Infantry by John H. Tabor, 1925,
State Historical Society of Iowa
“The
Boche was shelling the road directly ahead with 150’s and
already
the acrid smoke of explosion was choking the leading
squads, so the
column was halted and the men scattered into the
the fields,
where they waited for a few minutes, shells bursting
near
them, until the bombardment ceased.” (p
106, vol 2)
Volume
1
Volume
2
<<<>>>
Armageddon in Europe, Africa, Middle East, and Asia
“How will Mankind
endure this Voyage to the
Heart of Darkness?”
Apocalypse World War One
part 1 -- Fury
part 2 -- Fear
part 3 --
Hell
part 4 --
Rage
part 5 --
Deliverance
audio-videos
in color; 50 minutes each part
<<<>>>
http://westernfrontassociation.com
videos, podcasts, newsletters, book
reviews, presentations,
articles, & rememberances, all about the WWI
Western Front.
<<<>>>
Silent US
Army video
(0:10 hours) of the May thru July, 1918,
St Mihiel and the (second) Battle of Château-Thierry.
A French major who saw the 42nd Rainbow Division
(of
which the 168th Infantry Regiment was an element)
in action wrote,
“The conduct of American troops has been
perfect
and has been greatly admired by French officers
and
men. Calm and
perfect bearing under artillery fire,
endurance
of fatigue and privations, tenacity in defense,
eagerness in counterattack, willingness to engage in
hand-to
hand fighting—such are the qualities
reported to me by all the French officers I have seen.”
---Thanks to H.W. Crocker III, and Scott Michael Rank,
PhD.
<<<>>>
11 November 1918: Memory and
War by Dr Keith Huxen (3 pp, .pdf)
<<<>>>
By Eric
Henri Kennington, 1888-1960,
official war artist for the British Armed Forces.
<<<>>>
Read about First Lieutenant
Jarvis Jenness Offutt, U.S. Army,
killed in action, while attached to the British Royal
Air Force.
<<<>>>
Memorial Day 2020: A
Tribute to the Heroes
who fell during the
Great War (18 minutes)
<<<>>>
From Catastrophe:
Europe
Goes to War in 1914
(published 2013)
by Sir Max Hastings:
"The
war had not been precipitated by popular
nationalism fervor, but by the decisions of tiny
groups of individuals in seven governments."
Hastings notes world leaders in the early 20th
Century were
"...deniers, who preferred to
persist with supremely dangerous policies and
strategies rather than accept the consequences
of
admitting the prospective implausibility,
and retrospective failure, of these."
Hastings suggests the leaders in those days
were no more ignorant, nor intelligent,
than
those in the 21st Century.
<<<>>>
“Did the
end of the Great War come too soon?” (9pp, .pdf)
<<<>>>
The Long Shadow of the
Great War
by Dr David Reynolds (50 minutes each video)
part 1
part 2
part 3
"Wilsonianism
was no more an easy answer
at the start of the 21st Century than it
had
been in
the aftermath of the Great War."
<<<>>>
"Wilson left a legacy of
paternal, interventionist
statism built on a centralized bureaucracy...
a gnostic longing for a universal and permanent
end to war, poverty, and injustice; a self-righteous
consciousness of America's mission to end the
'old order' and bring in the new; a tendency
to simplify world history into 'reactionary'
and
'progressive' forces... leading
to the
unprecedented size
and use of America's military."
From Wilsonsonian
Slaughter
by
Dr Richard
M. Gamble (3 pp, .pdf)
<<<>>>
"The
Lessons of the Versailles Treaty"
by Dr Victor Davis Hanson (4 pp, .pdf)
<<<>>>
American
Committee
for Devastated France - two videos, each
0:50 hours,
showing volunteers assisting in the caring of citizens and
rebuilding
of the Aisne region of France during and after World War One.
Subsequently, the Franco-American
Museum was founded in the
Château Blérancourt to celebrate artists from the two nations,
and
house a library and memorabilia especially relating to the
Great War.
<<<>>>
“The
Germans
almost
won the war [in the Spring of 1918].
The Americans arrive with just enough strength and just
the
right time to tip that balance.”
“We [the Allies at the
1919 Versailles Peace Conference] made
it [the Weimar Republic] almost impossible to be
successful.”
From
The Lasting Legacy
of World War I (20 minute
video)
<<<>>>
The Meuse-Argonne Offensive,
26 SEP – 11 NOV, 1918
described
in
the offensive’s six phases. 45pp, .pdf
<<<>>>
www.firstworldwar.com
photos, maps, weaponry, posters, vintage
videos, battles
<<<>>>
French Heroes Fund medal, 1918, bronze.
The Fund was established by Americans to help wounded
French soldiers,
their families, and children
orphaned by the Great War.
The reverse symbolizes Marianne Lady Liberty,
first appearing during the
French Revolution.
<<<>>>
"When
war broke out... the France of civilization, accustomed
by long years of peace to disbelieve in war; which, in conjuring
up a picture of Europe delivered over to fire and blood, could
not conceive that any human being in the world would assume
the responsibility for such an act before history....
The war which lay in wait
for these men, many of whom did
not seem made for war, was a war of which nobody had ever
seen the like.
We have heard tell of
wars of giants, of battles of nations,
but nobody had ever seen a war extending from the
Marne [France] to the Vistula [Poland], nor battle
with a front of hundreds of kilometers, lasting weeks
without respite day or night, fought by millions of men.
Never in its worst
nightmares had hallucinated imagination
conjured up the progress made in the art of mowing down
human lives."
Excerpt from the address
to the Institut français, 26 OCT 1914,
by René Doumic of École Normale and Collège Stanislas -
Paris.
The New York Times
Current History
A Monthly Magazine
The European War Volume I From the Beginning
to March, 1915, page 164. Retrieved from
www.gutenberg.org
<<<>>>
Company F, 168th Infantry Regiment,
42nd Infantry
Rainbow Division, fought on
six Western Fronts,
<<<>>>
World War One Genealogy Research
Guide
Includes 250 live hyperlinks (.pdf, 9MB, 104pp)
<<<>>>
World War I Memorial Fountain, Fountain
Square Park,
Red Oak, Iowa. Each
perimeter water spray is in honor
of a World War 1 Hero from Montgomery County, Iowa,
who gave their life in the Service of their Country,
during the Great War.
Referring to the Memorial Fountain Dedication on 01 OCT
1927,
the Red Oak Express on 03 OCT 1927 states "In all eight
150 kilowatt lamps send out amber, red, blue and
daylight
lighting in a haze of beauty and glory after sundown."
--
symbolizing the 42nd Rainbow Division in World War One.
As of the year 2020, those lamps are inoperable.
Beginning in the year
2020, Restored Burlington Depot and WWII Memorial
Museum volunteers periodically apply a (reversable) protective
coating
to the bronze plaques in Red Oak Memorial Fountain
Square Park.
Purpose is to mitigate further corrosion; approved of the City
of Red Oak
<<<>>>
MEMORIAL
FOUNTAIN
by
W. E. Wells
It is not just a pile of stone,
Not just a mason's work alone;
Its symmetry's artistic grace
Means more than architect can trace.
No hand with mortar and with rock
Can build within a man-made block
That subtle something pure and fine
Which makes of It a holy shrine.
That human attribute sublime
Which knows no law of space or time,
Freshened by sacrificial tears
Or martyred mothers, thru the years
Goes on undimmed and without pause,
Immutable as the basic laws
Of life and love and eternity ---
That wondrous thing we know as Memory.
The names of those Heroes
<<<>>>
How World War
I Changed America - 9 videos
<<<>>>
THE WOUND IN TIME
By Carol Ann
Duffy, 2018, Poet Laureate
of
Great Britain, 2009 – 2019
It
is the wound in Time. The
century’s tides,
chanting their bitter psalms, cannot heal it.
Not
the war to end all wars; death’s birthing place;
the
earth nursing its ticking metal eggs, hatching
new carnage. But how could you
know, brave
as
belief as you boarded the boats, singing?
The
end of God in the poisonous, shrapneled air.
Poetry
gargling its own blood. We
sense it was love
you
gave your world for; the town squares silent,
awaiting
their cenotaphs. What
happened next?
War. And after that? War. And now? War. War.
History
might as well be water, chastising this shore;
for
we learn nothing from your endless sacrifice.
Your faces
drowning in the pages of the sea.
<<<>>>
<<<>>>
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill wrote
about his
experiences
on 11 NOV 1918: "It was a few minutes
before
the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the
eleventh
month...waiting for Big Ben to tell that the war
over...
and then suddenly the first stroke of the chime...
the bells of London began to clash.
After fifty-two months of making burdens grievous
to be
borne
and binding them on men's backs, at last, all at once,
suddenly
and everywhere the burdens were cast down."
-- in Winston S.
Churchill, volume IV
World in Torment 1916-1922, by Sir Martin
Gilbert.
<<<>>>
St Mihiel American
Cemetery ---
WW1
Memorial to 4,153 military dead,
and 284 missing in
action.
Located near Thiaucourt,
France, 260 km east of Paris.
<<<>>>
The Restored Burlington Northern Depot
& WWII Memorial Museum
######