Tag: Armistice

On a Selfless Resignation

In 1916, the United States held a presidential election. In Europe at that time, World War 1 had been raging for two years. Millions of people had been killed and millions more had their lives and homes completely destroyed. The US had not entered the conflict because, in part, up until that time, the American tradition was to not get involved in European conflicts and affairs.

The Americans thought of themselves as being above being tainted by the “old world” and their issues. However, the war was having a major negative impact on the US economy. Trade was restricted. Investment money was not being used. And, in the minds of many Americans, the threat of what they believed was an aggressive Imperial Germany to the democracies of Britain and France seemed to possibly threaten the US as well.

And so the election that year revolved around the idea of whether or not the US should get involved in a war that had clearly become a meatgrinder, a veritable slaughterhouse, for the troops involved on both sides. The incumbent, President Woodrow Wilson, the Democrat, campaigned on the issue that, “He kept us out of the war.” His opponent, US Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes, the Republican, was for the entry into the war on the side of the Allied Powers (Britain, France, Italy, and Russia), but he, too, urged caution.

Wilson’s victory in 1912 had been something of a fluke. He was only the second Democrat elected since the Civil War (Grover Cleveland was the other), and it took the splitting of the Republican Party to make him president (Teddy Roosevelt ran against his former VP, William Howard Taft, as a third party candidate in 1912). So, it seemed a foregone conclusion that Wilson would probably lose to whomever the GOP candidate would be. And, so, realizing that the Republicans would probably win the election, Wilson hatched a plan that seems like something out of a movie rather than real life.

Now, I am not now nor have I ever been a Woodrow Wilson fan. He had a messiah complex as big as Texas, and he was an incurable racist. His stubbornness may have even led to the rise of Hitler 13 years after he left office and then, of course, World War 2. But in regards to the election of 1916, Wilson’s plan to make sure America and American interests would be safe in case of a Republican victory , Woodrow Wilson did an incredibly valiant and self-less thing: He planned to resign the presidency.

You see, at that time and until 1937, the incoming president wasn’t sworn in until the March following the election the previous November unlike today when the new president is sworn in only two months later. That original plan called for four months of lame duck-ness that, in times of great national crisis like the war in Europe or later, the Great Depression, can be an extremely long and costly time. So, here was Wilson’s plan. It was actually suggested to him by one of his close advisors. When Hughes won, Wilson would immediately ask for the resignation of both the vice-president and the Secretary of State. He would appoint Hughes to head the State Department, and then he himself would resign. Hughes would be then raised to the presidency as the next in line of succession immediately, thus bypassing the crucial four month waiting period.

But that didn’t have to happen. Wilson surged in the polls in the last few weeks of the campaign. Hughes, thinking that California was his for the taking, really didn’t campaign there much. But it was California that gave the extremely narrow victory to Wilson.

In fact, so confident was Hughes in his electoral victory that he went to bed on election night thinking that he was the next President of the United States. The next morning, when the phone rang in his house, one of his children answered. A reporter asked to speak to Hughes. The child is supposed to have said, “The president is sleeping.” The reporter’s reply was, “Well, wake him and tell him he lost.”

On Veterans Day

Six hours can make a world of difference. Ask Henry Gunther about how important six hours can be.

Henry was an American soldier during World War 1, a part of the American Expeditionary Force, led by General John “Black Jack” Pershing. Henry, along with the other hundreds of thousands of Yanks, entered the conflict in 1918. Their arrival in France provided the boost the Allied side in the war needed. Henry and his fellow Americans ended up making the difference in the war and brought it to a successful conclusion for the Allies over 100 years ago, on November 11, 1918.

Henry was from Baltimore, and, interestingly, was from German ancestry. Maryland is still largely a Catholic state, and Henry was a good Catholic. He was a member of the Knights of Columbus in Baltimore, and he worked as a bank clerk and teller. The last day of the war found him, at age 23, in somewhat of a pickle. You see, Henry had been promoted to supply sergeant for his regiment, the 313th, known as Baltimore’s Own. His clerking experience helped him organize the unit’s supply, and he was good at it. He was responsible for making sure that the regiment had proper clothing. The US Army in France certainly had no supply shortage of equipment, and Henry was the go-to guy for his regiment.

The conditions in which the war was fought are difficult for us to imagine. The front lines were so horrendous with the constant bombardments, the lack of sanitation, mud that came up to your knees, the unburied bodies that were feasted on by rats the size of house cats…you begin to get the idea. For a good Catholic boy from Baltimore, even the conditions behind the lines were horrifying. The war had devastated north-eastern France, leaving huge scars on the land that are still visible today. Henry wrote a good friend back home in Baltimore; he told him about the miserable conditions in the war and gave the friend some sage advice: Avoid the draft at all costs.

Well, you can imagine what happened. A censor got a hold of Henry’s letter, and it certainly seemed like his advice as telling the friend to break the law. It was a poor choice at best and possibly treason at worst. As a result of the letter, Henry was busted back down to private. And, if he thought conditions were bad behind the lines, well, welcome to the front lines, Henry Gunther.

French Marshal Foch, the supreme commander of the Allies, and the representatives of the German Army had actually signed the Armistice effectively ending all hostilities at 5:00am on November 11. Messages were sent to all warring factions notifying them of the war’s end. Foch wanted a symbolic time, a poetic end, that the entire continent could point to as a fitting end to the war. He asked that the message say that all firing would cease at 11am, thus giving the war’s end a memorable 11:00am on the 11th day of the 11th month. We call it Veteran’s Day in the United States now. Originally, it was known as Armistice Day.

Henry had brooded over the demotion. He wasn’t a traitor. He loved his city and his nation. He was a proud soldier. That morning, knowing that the war was going to end before noon, Henry Gunther knew the time to show his true patriotism was running out. Perhaps he felt that he must redeem himself with his fellow soldiers and, more importantly, with himself. So, with mere minutes left before 11am, Henry fixed his bayonet and charged a German machine gun emplacement at a roadblock near Meuse, France. The Germans, to their credit, yelled at him to go back. They knew the war was almost over. But Henry would not be deterred, by God. It wasn’t 11am yet. For him, the war was still on.

Sadly, 3,000 men died in those six “poetic” hours between the signing of the Armistice and the silencing of the guns. A short burst from a reluctant German machine gunner made sure Henry Gunther was the last solider to die in World War I.

Happy Veterans Day.