On the morning of 7 December 1941, at 7.48am local time, 177 aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the United States Naval base at Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. Their intention was to destroy and damage as much of the US Pacific Fleet as possible, before it could respond to Japanese operations taking place on the same day against British, Dutch and US territories in southeast Asia.

This first attack wave began bombing the hangars and parked aircraft of the island’s airfields while at the same time launching torpedoes against the US warships moored in the harbour. In the first five minutes of the attack, four battleships were hit, including the USS Oklahoma and the USS Arizona. Minutes later, the Arizona exploded after a bomb hit its gunpowder stores, sinking the ship and killing 1,177 of its crew.

This devastating attack was followed an hour later by a second wave of 163 Japanese aircraft. Within two hours, 21 US warships had been sunk or damaged, 188 aircraft destroyed and 2,403 American servicemen and women killed. Many of these ships were repaired and fought in later battles, and, crucially all three of the Pacific Fleet’s aircraft carriers were not at Pearl Harbor during the attack and so escaped damage. They were to prove vital in the coming Pacific Campaign.

Although the attack was a complete surprise, many American servicemen were able to fight back. Doris ‘Dorie’ Miller, a Messman Third Class, was on board the USS West Virginia when it was hit by torpedoes. He rushed to report for duty. Miller helped move the wounded Captain to safety and then operated a Browning .50 caliber anti-aircraft machine gun, which he fired until out of ammunition. As the ship sank Miller also helped move wounded sailors to the upper deck, saving countless lives. In May of the following year, he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Navy’s third highest award for gallantry.

Some US airmen were even able to get their aircraft into the sky while their runways were under attack. 2nd Lieutenants Kenneth M. Taylor and George Welch had been sleeping after a late-night Christmas party when they heard the sounds of explosions and machine gun fire. Still wearing their tuxedoes from the night before, they raced to their waiting aircraft. Together they shot down seven Japanese aircraft and were both awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest award for gallantry in the US Army Air Corps at the time.

Before the attack on Pearl Harbour the United States had been supporting Allied forces with weapons and supplies, under the Lend-Lease Agreement, but many in the country were reluctant to enter the war. The day after the attack, President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered a speech to the United States Congress urging for a formal declaration of war against Japan. War was declared an hour later, bringing the United States into the Second World War and unifying the country behind the war effort.
 

Further to my blog I have been invited to view a three year old cat called Honey. Honey appears to haven the attributes I seek, in that she enjoys being cuddled and stroked. wish me luck!

I did a excursion to the cat shelter the other day, only to be introduced to a cat called gizmo. Unfortunately, poor Gizmo has behaviour problems, appearing not to like being cuddled or stroked. Furthermore, he has a heart problem, even though he is only 1.5 years old. It was a shame, but best all round for all us. Further updates coming

The total number of military and civilian casualties in World War I was about 40 million: estimates range from around 15 to 22 million deaths and about 23 million wounded military personnel, ranking it among the deadliest conflicts in human history.

The total number of deaths includes from 9 to 11 million military personnel. The civilian death toll was about 6 to 13 million. The Triple Entente (also known as the Allies) lost about 6 million military personnel while the Central Powers lost about 4 million. At least 2 million died from diseases and 6 million went missing, presumed dead. This article lists the casualties of the belligerent powers based on official published sources.

About two-thirds of military deaths in World War I were in battle, unlike the conflicts that took place in the 19th century when the majority of deaths were due to disease. Nevertheless, disease, including the 1918 flu pandemic and deaths while held as prisoners of war, still caused about one third of total military deaths for all belligerents.

Classification of casualty statistics

Casualty statistics for World War I vary to a great extent; estimates of total deaths range from 9 million to over 15 million.^[3] Military casualties reported in official sources list deaths due to all causes, including an estimated 7 to 8 million combat related deaths (killed or died of wounds) and another two to three million military deaths caused by accidents, disease and deaths while prisoners of war. Official government reports listing casualty statistics were published by the United States and Great Britain. These secondary sources published during the 1920s, are the source of the statistics in reference works listing casualties in World War I. This article summarizes the casualty statistics published in the official government reports of the United States and Great Britain as well as France, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Austria and Russia. More recently the research of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) has revised the military casualty statistics of the UK and its allies; they include in their listing of military war dead personnel outside of combat theaters and civilians recruited from Africa, the Middle East and China who provided logistical and service support in combat theaters. The casualties of these support personnel recruited outside of Europe were previously not included with British war dead, however the casualties of the Labour Corps recruited from the British Isles were included in the rolls of British war dead published in 1921. The methodology used by each nation to record and classify casualties was not uniform, a general caveat regarding casualty figures is that they cannot be considered comparable in all cases. First World War civilian deaths are “hazardous to estimate” according to Micheal Clodfelter who maintains that “the generally accepted figure of noncombatant deaths is 6.5 million.”

The first trenches of the Western Front were dug along the Chemin des Dames and from there they would eventually stretch across Europe from the Swiss border to the North Sea.

The Battle of the Aisne was fought in September 1914. 13,541 British soldiers lost their lives in futile attempts to break through the German lines of shallow trenches dug along the Chemin des Dames ridge, located north of the River Aisne. Opposed by machine gun fire and heavy howitzers, they were unable to penetrate the German positions on the heights north of the river and the war would descend rapidly into stalemate, where neither side could advance. Weapons of modern industrialised warfare would inflict horrendous casualties on an unprecedented scale. A hail of machine gun bullets and a torrent of shell fire would stop the mobile war at the Battle of the Aisne. Unable to make a breakthrough, the opposing sides began to consolidate their ground by digging trenches. 

Small arms

The German Army was conscripted and amounted to an awesome 9.9 million men. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) of 100,000 men was an army of volunteers. The armies used different rifles. The British Tommy was armed with the Short Magazine Lee–Enfield Rifle. Each magazine carried ten rounds and it was named after the American inventor James Lee and the Royal Small Arms Factory located at Enfield in north London. Regarded as an effective service weapon even in the Second World War, British infantrymen were trained to fire it at 15 rounds per minute and hit their target at an effective range of 550 yards. German soldiers used the Mauser Gewehr 98 rifle, which had been in service since 1898. Its bolt action prevented rapid fire. The British Lee–Enfield Rifle and the German Mauser Gewehr 98 rifle eventually became the primary weapons used by snipers on the Western Front. Bullets fired from these rifles would travel at twice the speed of sound and the unfortunate soul hit by the shot would not have heard the sound of the bullet until after it had hit home.

Machine guns would come to dominate the battlefield and instigate the stalemate of trench warfare. This formidable weapon was developed by Hiram Maxim, an American inventor. First produced in 1884, it demonstrated its deadly capability to stop waves of advancing infantry during the Battle of the Aisne. The British Army placed an order for three machine guns to test during 1887, and surprisingly, despite living up to all requirements, the British never adopted the Maxim.

The German Army placed orders for the Maxim machine gun in 1887 and after testing, Kaiser Wilhelm II realised the potential of the machine gun and placed further orders. As early as 1901 the Germans had established a machine gun branch. When war broke out the German Army had 12,500 Maxim machine guns in operation. The Maschinen Gewehr 08 was fixed on a tripod, belt fed, water-cooled and fully automatic. One disadvantage was that these water-cooled machine guns would emit steam, which meant that British soldiers could detect a German machine gun position as the steam rose. The British would then target the barrel jacket and the crew operating the machine gun would be extremely vulnerable. The Maschinen Gewehr 08 was able to fire 7.92 mm rounds at targets at a rate of 600 rounds per minute at a distance of 4,000 yards, but was deadly at 2,200 yards and could tear a soldier in two. The bullets travelled at three times the speed of sound. Their crews were specially selected and were regarded as an elite force.

The British Army was late in realising the potential of the machine gun. When war broke out there were only two Vickers machine guns allotted to each infantry battalion. The Vickers was an advanced version of the Maxim; it had improved mechanisms and was lighter. British soldiers did not, however, receive adequate training in how to operate the Vickers. The Vickers used .303 ammunition and could fire 450 rounds a minute, but with few of these guns in supply and with those that were being operated by inexperienced soldiers, they did not make any impact during the early stages of the war; and especially at the Aisne. If a Vickers machine gun was fired continually for an hour the barrel would be worn out and had to be replaced. It took a well-trained and skilful soldier to change a barrel in the heat of battle. It was not until October 1915 that the British Army realised the potential of the machine gun and established the Machine Gun Corps.

Artillery

Modern artillery would of course have an enormous impact on the course and conduct of the war. All European Armies had field artillery. These field artillery guns were flat trajectory and their purpose was to subdue enemy assaults and to support their own infantry advances at short range. The British Army used the 18 pounder, first produced in 1904. They were developed from lessons learned during the Boer War and would become the standard field gun operated by the British. By August 1914 the British Army had 1,226 in service. They were used throughout the conflict and by the end of the war 9,424 were in operation. The 18 pounder had a calibre of 3.3 inches; it could fire shells weighing between 4.6kg and 8.4 kg and had a range of 6,525 yards. It had a rate of fire of 8 rounds per minute.

The German Army used the 77-mm (3-inch) field gun and could fire high explosives with a range of 11,250 yards. However they also possessed more formidable examples of artillery in the form of howitzers that could project heavy shells and create enormous craters. German artillery used the 10.5cm (4 inch) Feldhaubitze 98/09 during the Battle of the Aisne, which could fire the Feldhaubitzgranate 98, a 15.8-kilogram high explosive shell or the Feldhaubitzschrapnel 98, a 12.8-kilogram shrapnel shell. German artillery also used the German 21cm Langer Morser (long mortar) with a calibre of 8.3 inches and range up to 11,000 yards. Its barrel could be fired at a high angle of elevation, which meant that it could be positioned behind hills and ridges and fire on the enemy positions on the other side. The German howitzer designed for siege warfare fired various types of shell during the Battle of the Aisne including high explosive shrapnel, small, high velocity shells, known as “whizz-bangs” or “Jack Johnsons”. The HE shell fired by German 21cm howitzers emitted black smoke and would cause the most devastation. They could blow a crater 20 feet wide and 10 feet deep. Such explosions destroyed villages, levelled trees and vaporised men.

Aisne

The BEF arrived at the southern banks of the Aisne on 12 September 1914 after marching approximately 160 miles for three weeks. They endured their baptism of fire at Mons on 23 August and fought rearguard actions as they retreated south towards the banks of the Marne, where between 5 and 10 September they assisted the French armies in inflicting a defeat upon the German forces. Compelled to withdraw to the River Aisne, the German forces went north across the river and established a defensive position along the wooded heights of the Chemin des Dames, approximately 60 miles north-east of Paris. It was an arduous trek for the British, who were demoralised and suffering from exhaustion and hunger by the time they reached the banks of the Aisne. Some soldiers were suffering so badly that they wrapped their puttees around their bleeding feet in an attempt to alleviate the pain.

As the BEF advanced towards the Chemin des Dames, German engineers attempted to destroy the bridges across the river. They only caused partial damage to the bridge at Venizel and it was here that Brigadier-General Hunter Weston led the 11th Infantry Brigade across during the night of 12/13 September. Remarkably, these soldiers in their exhausted state crossed this swollen river in full darkness, with only a single lamp to guide them from the north bank. One wrong step could result in these weary soldiers falling into the river and drowning. At daylight German artillery bombarded the River Aisne and those still crossing were further destabilised by fountains of water being thrown into the air around them. By the following morning the 11th Infantry Brigade had established a bridgehead on the northern bank of the river and had consolidated a position along the ridge above Bucy-le-Long. When the rest of the BEF arrived, the majority of bridges had been destroyed or partially damaged by German engineers with explosives, so it was a massive engineering challenge for the Royal Engineers sappers either to repair the damaged bridges or build pontoons, which they did under enemy shellfire.

By the morning of the 14th, General Sir Douglas Haig’s I Corps and General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien’s II Corps had successfully crossed the River Aisne. It was an enormous gamble for Field Marshal Sir John French, commander of the BEF, to push his soldiers beyond the limits of physical endurance to cross and establish a bridgehead. French did not know whether General von Kluck’s First German Army was going to continue to withdraw northwards or establish a defensive line and hold the ground.

The first trenches

Unbeknown to French, he was sending his exhausted troops into a battle where the enemy were dug in in shallow trenches on the high ground, supported by heavy howitzers and in many cases concealed by woodland. This would be the first time that British soldiers would experience high-calibre German artillery. The calibres of these guns ranged from 15cm to 21cm or 6 inches to 8 inches. The British could only deploy old pattern 6-inch howitzers, which were inferior to the German howitzer and were flat trajectory, which meant that they could not reach the German artillery positioned behind the ridges. The inferior British artillery response arrived on 23 September. Neither British nor French artillery could match the enemy’s firepower.

Waves of British soldiers advanced uphill through muddy beet fields, as heavy rain blew in their faces and shell fire of an unprecedented magnitude was brought to bear upon them. The Battle of the Aisne began on 14 September and would last until the end of the month. Much blood was shed on the first day in the battle for the sugar factory at Cerny, north of Vendresse. During the struggle men of the 2nd Infantry Brigade were pulverised by German shellfire from the howitzers. The morning fog meant that the advancing infantry, labouring uphill, could only see 200 yards ahead.

Some elements of the 2nd Royal Sussex Regiment were positioned in a nearby wood along the Vendresse Ridge. Many casualties were inflicted by shells exploding when they hit the tree trunks around them. Private Harland was one of the casualties:

“We’d got quite used to them and we lay there talking and telling each other when a shell was coming. One great 90-pounder shell went over us. If it hadn’t hit anything it wouldn’t have mattered for those shells do not explode unless they hit something. This shell hit a tree just behind me. It exploded. That shell killed three men and wounded seven, of whom I was one. A piece of shrapnel went right into my foot. I thought at the time that my leg was gone. There was a chap lying next to me – I think he was one of the men at a Brighton brewery. He lay quite still. A piece of the shell had gone through his head and killed him.” (Brighton Herald, 26^th September 1914).

The 2nd Royal Sussex Regiment and the 1st Loyal North Lancashire Regiment were sent forward to support the 2nd King’s Royal Rifle Corps to launch a further attack towards the sugar factory. They too suffered heavy casualties. An anonymous 2nd Lieutenant from the battalion recalled:

“Had only gone about a hundred yards under a perfect hail of bullets when I heard a singing sound on my right. Two 8-inch shells had pitched 20 yards to my left and blew sky high a few of my platoon. The shells emitted a tall cloud of black dust and smoke. Truly terrible missiles. We go on forward, but as yet I can see nothing. At least we reach the firing line. How anyone reached it is beyond comprehending. And such a line. All manner of regiments are there, and the dead and wounded are lying round in scores.” (National Archives: WO95/1270: 1st Loyal North Lancashire Regiment War Diary.)

Lieutenant-Colonel Walter Lloyd and his adjutant Captain Richard Howard-Vyse led from the front with the 1st Loyal North Lancashire Regiment and were killed by machine gun fire. The assault upon the sugar factory was a savage and costly effort. An estimated 50% of the assault force became casualties as a consequence. They stood no chance.

Those that miraculously reached the factory, remnants of the 2^nd Royal Sussex Regiment, 1st Loyal North Lancashire Regiment and 2nd King’s Royal Rifle Corps, cleared the enemy with the bayonet. They charged through the German artillery batteries that were positioned close to the factory and a struggle inside the two-storey factory ensued. They eventually overwhelmed the German defenders.

The 2nd Infantry Brigade suffered heavily. Brigadier-General Bulfin lost two out of his four battalion commanders. The 1st Loyal North Lancashire Regiment was decimated. As well as losing CO Lieutenant-Colonel Walter Lloyd, seven officers were killed, six wounded, together with 500 men listed as casualties. Many of the casualties came from B Company: three out of five officers, 175 out of 200 ranks. The scale of such losses was almost bewildering.

The 2nd Royal Sussex Regiment had 6 officers killed, including the CO Lieutenant-Colonel Ernest Montresor, along with 11 other ranks killed and 114 missing. They also suffered 3 officers and 79 men wounded. Despite their losses, they were able to capture 250 German soldiers that managed to get into a nearby sunken lane to evade the bullets. They were rounded up and escorted to the rear. The 2nd Royal Sussex dug into positions and held on under heavy bombardment until relieved on 19 September.

The 2nd King’s Royal Rifle Corps suffered 306 casualties from the ranks, seven officers wounded and eight officers killed. The 1st Northamptonshire Regiment lost two officers killed, four officers and 102 men wounded. 

The 1918 flu pandemic, also known as the Great Influenza epidemic or by the common misnomer of the Spanish flu, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was March 1918 in the state of Kansas in the United States, with further cases recorded in France, Germany and the United Kingdom in April. Two years later, nearly a third of the global population, or an estimated 500 million people, had been infected in four successive waves. Estimates of deaths range from 17 million to 50 million, and possibly as high as 100 million, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in history.

The pandemic broke out near the end of World War I, when wartime censors in the belligerent countries suppressed bad news to maintain morale, but newspapers freely reported the outbreak in neutral Spain, creating a false impression of Spain as the epicenter and leading to the “Spanish flu” misnomer.^[8] Limited historical epidemiological data make the pandemic’s geographic origin indeterminate, with competing hypotheses on the initial spread.

Most influenza outbreaks disproportionately kill the young and old, with a higher survival rate in-between, but this pandemic had unusually high mortality for young adults. Scientists offer several explanations for the high mortality, including a six-year climate anomaly affecting migration of disease vectors with increased likelihood of spread through bodies of water.The virus was particularly deadly because it triggered a cytokine storm, ravaging the stronger immune system of young adults, although the viral infection was apparently no more aggressive than previous influenza strains. Malnourishment, overcrowded medical camps and hospitals, and poor hygiene, exacerbated by the war, promoted bacterial superinfection, killing most of the victims after a typically prolonged death bed.

The 1918 Spanish flu was the first of three flu pandemics caused by H1N1 influenza A virus; the most recent one was the 2009 swine flu pandemic.The 1977 Russian flu was also caused by H1N1 virus.

Etymologies

This pandemic was known by many different names—some old, some new—depending on place, time, and context. The etymology of alternative names historicises the scourge and its effects on people who would only learn years later that invisible viruses caused influenza. This lack of scientific answers led the Sierra Leone Weekly News (Freetown) to suggest a biblical framing in July 1918, using an interrogative from Exodus 16 in ancient Hebrew: “One thing is for certain—the doctors are at present flabbergasted; and we suggest that rather than calling the disease influenza they should for the present until they have it in hand, say Man hu—’What is it?'”

Descriptive names

Outbreaks of influenza-like illness were documented in 1916–17 at British military hospitals in Étaples, France, and just across the English Channel at Aldershot, England. Clinical indications in common with the 1918 pandemic included rapid symptom progression to a “dusky” heliotrope cyanosis of the face. This characteristic blue-violet cyanosis in expiring patients led to the name ‘purple death’.

The Aldershot physicians later wrote in The Lancet, “the influenza pneumococcal purulent bronchitis we and others described in 1916 and 1917 is fundamentally the same condition as the influenza of this present pandemic.” This “purulent bronchitis” is not yet linked to the same A/H1N1 virus, but it may be a precursor.

In 1918, ‘epidemic influenza‘ (Italian: influenza, influence), also known at the time as ‘the grip’ (French: la grippe, grasp),appeared in Kansas in the U.S. during late spring, and early reports from Spain began appearing on 21 May. Reports from both places called it ‘three-day fever’

Today I am feeling a little down in the dumps following the demise of my elderly cat, Poppy. He had been one of two cats in my family over the years and is, therefore, greatly missed by myself and my brother. Here in a photo of him on the last time I was with him at the vet. RIP Poppy

On the upside I am applying to the rescue centre for a cat called Gizmo.

This blog was created by Simon Schofield

This is the view from our balcony outside our Hotel Room at Lanzarote last week we had a really good view of the swimming pool. The food was very nice to and I really enjoyed going down to The Beach and going in The Sea to the name of The Hotel we stayed in was called Cay Beach Sun. It was really nice the room we had was just right next door to where me and Dan stayed last year in November just last year when we stayed. The Restaurants down the road at The Town were really nice to and I enjoyed the food and beer in Lanzarote. I thought it was very nice I also enjoyed sitting on the sun bed by the pool and sitting outside on the balcony in our Hotel room sometimes to.

By the First World War (1914-18), Army food was basic, but filling. Each soldier could expect around 4,000 calories a day, with tinned rations and hard biscuits staples once again. But their diet also included vegetables, bread and jam, and boiled plum puddings. This was all washed down by copious amounts of tea.

The First World War not only overwhelmed societies, it also revolutionised the diet of European and North American countries. In 1918, 75 million soldiers of the Entente and the Central Powers had to be fed daily, an unprecedented challenge for armies. On the home front, hundreds of millions of civilians, indispensable to the war effort, had to be fed despite shortages. Food was an essential issue in this total war, as food production and distribution were areas where states intervened massively to provide the food essential to the survival of populations. Cutting off the enemy’s food supplies was one of the objectives of economic warfare fought on a global scale. In 1918, the defeat of the Central Powers, strangled by the food shortages, was also rooted in their approach to wartime supplies and the failures of the policies put in place.

This article examines the civil and military issues of food and nutrition within the Entente and the Central Powers during the Great War in the context of longer-term developments in global food issues, with a particular focus on the countries of Europe and North America. However, the current state of research does not allow us to study the Central Powers as thoroughly as the Entente countries. Over the last ten years, studies on economic warfare, logistics, the feeding of soldiers and food aid have contributed a great deal to our knowledge of food and nutrition issues in different countries at war. But much remains to be done, for example concerning the rural world, food markets or the phenomena of food acculturation. Combining global approaches and local case studies would make it possible to move away from the national approaches that still dominate the field.

Starvation as a Weapon↑

Starving the Enemy↑

By 1914, the economies of Western countries were already largely globalised to different degrees. Nearly two-thirds of the British calories were imported from all over the world, while France and Germany produced most of their food, but bought some from abroad. In 1914, Germany imported about 30 percent of its food, including half of its meat, fertilizers and almost all of its vegetable fats. In Belgium, dependence on foreign foodstuffs rose to 80 percent. Some states, being self-sufficient in basic foodstuffs, had to resort to imports from time to time. Others had great regional disparities, such as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where the Hungarian agrarian periphery supplied a large proportion of Austria’s food. This interdependence was also evident at the local level in many countries, where city dwellers obtained their food from the nearby suburbs, from increasingly specialized agricultural regions, or from abroad. In the 1910s, food security in Western countries depended on a complex logistical system, combining maritime, rail, river and road transport, whose networks were very diversely developed. The United Kingdom’s economy was already oriented toward the world. Two thirds of Germany’s imports were transported by ship, including grain from Russia, the world’s leading exporter of grain prior to 1914, where the transport network, designed for export, would prove unsuitable to deliver food to domestic markets during the war. The Ottoman Empire was still facing regular food crises before 1914, and lacked road and rail infrastructure. The powers that entered the war in 1914 therefore had very different food situations, with more or less marked dependence on exporting countries, some of which were now in the opposite camp.

Even before 1914, starving the enemy became an explicit strategic objective in the context of economic warfare.Winston Churchill (1874-1965), one of its architects and first lord of the admiralty, wrote after the conflict that the shared aim was to “to starve the whole population – men, women, and children, old and young, wounded and sound – into submission”. The outbreak of war in 1914 immediately disrupted traditional supply channels, which were now aligned with military alliances. Only neutral countries, such as Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, or the United States (U.S.) until 1917, continued to supply both sides before the Allies put in place a concerted strategy to starve the Central Powers: firms suspected of trading with the enemy were blacklisted. The Netherlands and Switzerland gradually reduced their trade with Germany. Access to the Allied market was also a means of pressure in negotiations with the neutrals; the French, for example, having committed themselves to buy part of the production of Italian citrus fruits in exchange for its entry into the war alongside the Entente. The strategy of isolating the Central Powers contributed to intensified mobilisation and to the crystallization of the food crisis in these countries from the winter of 1916-1917. On the contrary, France and Great Britain could count on the enormous resources of their empires, while the Allies as a whole surpassed the Central Powers in their ability to mobilise and transport food on a global scale. The deployment of food globalisation to a previously unknown degree was therefore mainly for the benefit of the Allies and was a central element of the extensive mobilisation characteristic of these countries.

As early as the summer of 1914, British naval power put itself at the service of the blockade led by the Allies, the German naval blockade being unable to compete in the long term. The German cruisers were too few in number and subject to too many constraints in terms of coal supplies to succeed in preventing Allied maritime traffic in the long term. The hundreds of thousands of tons of goods sunk by the Germans – more than 500,000 tons per month from 1917 during unrestricted submarine warfare – were not enough to widen the gap with the Allies’ concerted strategy to eliminate German and Austrian ships from the seas. The Allied Maritime Transport Council (AMTC), set up in early 1918, coordinated resources and effectively compensated for port congestion and ship shortages. By the summer of 1918, the Allies were fully benefiting from the entry of the United States into the war and were able to compensate for the tonnage of sunken ships. They also introduced highly efficient convoy shipping to protect the fleet. Thus, while shipping was very much affected by the military context, the advantage turned in 1918 in favour of the Allies, as they decided to maintain the blockade until the end of the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.

The Politics of Hunger: Welfare and Warfare↑

The First World War threatened the food security of populations at war on an unknown scale. The capacity of states to supply both soldiers and civilians was a central issue, posing particular problems for states – such as the Ottoman Empire – that entered the war in 1914 lacking the capacity to feed their populations, and without having anticipated the food constraints and needs of a large-scale conflict. Access to food resources was immediately marked by increasing inequalities on local and national scales, deepening during the conflict and persisting until the 1920s in some countries. The extension of the war beyond the winter of 1914-1915 imposed new constraints on the societies at war as shortages and logistical issues threatened the victory of their own side. Powers operating on large and mobile fronts and lacking transportation networks adapted to the war effort, such as Russia or the Ottoman Empire, faced massive shortages. The ability of states to supply their populations was therefore put to the test in terms of forecasting and regulating food supply and distribution.

Food was therefore a crucial area of intervention for the belligerent states, which implemented supply regulation through requisitioning, price controls, and rationing targeting basic necessities. In most countries, measures were taken to increase production and decrease food consumption. The design of these regulations, however, followed very different logic on the side of the Entente forces and the Central Powers. Among the Entente powers, particularly in France and Great Britain, an integrated economy was set up which, based on principles of equity, did not sacrifice the needs of civilians to satisfy those of soldiers. This testifies to a better understanding of what was at stake in a total war where victory depended on the global mobilisation of societies. In these countries, avoiding food shortages was one of the explicit objectives of increased and early state intervention in the economy. Feeding civilians, the productive force of the nation, was not neglected and the Allies considered food as an essential factor in maintaining social peace and the Union sacrée.

Most countries set up dedicated committees (food boards) to approach the question of provisioning in a global way and adapt to the challenges of an increasingly total war. Much had to be done to compensate for the deterioration of crops (shortage of male workers, farm animals, fertilizers, machinery) and the disruption of food import networks. In France, a Provisioning Department was created within the Ministry of Trade as early as September 1914 before a dedicated ministry was created in December 1916 (Ministère des Travaux publics, des Transports et du Ravitaillement). The U.S. Food Administration, directed by Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), was one of the most important agencies established by the Wilson administration during World War I. In August 1917, the Lever Food and Fuel Act aimed to ensure adequate production, and control the price and supply of food and agricultural feed in the U.S. during the war. It ensured a major extension of federal authority. The effectiveness of such boards, although imperfect, contrasted nevertheless with the agencies set up within the Central Powers. The Habsburg Monarchy failed to establish a supra-national agency for food distribution with adequate executive power. The Joint Food Committee (Gemeinsamer Ernährungsausschuss), formed in early 1917 to ensure coordination between the two parts of the empire was largely powerless. In Germany, the Kriegsernährungsamt (War Food Office) was created in May 1916, later becoming the Reichsernährungsamt (Reich Food Office). But by 1917, the food allocation aimed only to cover about half the daily calories needed by an adult.

The effectiveness of the Allies was particularly noticeable in price control and more broadly in food distribution, allowing their populations – apart from in Italy – to escape the massive black market faced by the Germans and Austrians. Lacking the resources of extra-European empires and foreign capital, Germany and Austria-Hungary had to rely on intensive mobilisation.^[11] The food situation deteriorated more rapidly in these countries and rationing affected essential food items earlier. In Germany, the Imperial Grain Authority issued ration cards for bread as early as January 1915. By the time of the “turnip winter” of 1916-1917, both rations and price controls had been implemented for virtually all food items in Germany, as well as for coal and other fuels. But the rations were often so minimal that it wasn’t even worth picking them up. In comparison, the ration card for bread was only introduced in France in 1918 and it was not until 25 February 1918 that rationing was introduced throughout Britain. The measures implemented by the Supreme Army Command in Germany favoured army supplies to the detriment of civilians.

The pressure of economic warfare, the establishment of a segmented economy, and the lack of anticipation and coordination in supply made the measures ineffective, discouraging producers who sold a large part of their production on the black market. One of the signs of the ineffectiveness of these public policies was the number of parcels sent by German soldiers to their families when they had food to share before 1918. The last two years of the war were also characterized, in Germany, by numerous cases of fraud by merchants or theft by the starving population.On the Allied side, food concerns were the subject of joint discussions and measures. The French Wheat Executive set up in November 1916 rapidly served as a model for the many Allied food committees. An Allied maritime transport pool was established in the spring of 1917, which transported 10 million tons of food from July 1917 to July 1918. Despite their imperfections, these structures supported much higher supply capacities than those of the Central Powers. In the context of increased scarcity due to the economic warfare of the Entente, the economic organisation of the Central Powers was unable to cope with the needs of total war and was already overwhelmed at the very moment when Germany relaunched the war of movement on the Western Front in spring 1918. This offensive required resources, coordination, and logistical performance that Germany was no longer in a position to provide by summer 1918.

The adoption of economic interventionism in the Allied countries was accompanied by a reactivation of the moral economy of the early modern age, which proved effective in mobilising people in the long-running war. Coercion through regulation and volunteerism combined on the Allied side to mobilise the population for the food effort. However, it was often achieved under the banner of volunteerism rather than coercion. The call for civic mobilisation took many forms, with an emphasis on patriotism. In the United States, under Herbert Hoover, control of the food supply depended mostly on food conservation as opposed to direct rationing. Saving food through “wheatless days” and pledge cards signed by consumers, the U.S. government used the same method to conserve food as it did to sell war bonds, and both proved successful. By contrast, the German system was a combination of liberalism through the black market, the most powerful instrument of procurement, and control over consumers. The development of the black market in German and Austrian cities thus highlighted the extreme inequality of access to food and fuelled public anger and public demand for urgent action by the state.

Populations at Risk of Famine and Food Aid↑

The situation of certain groups exemplifies the two extremes of food provision during the First World War: the establishment of food aid structures for some, while other groups were deliberately abandoned by the state or even targeted by intentional starvation.

Food shortages had particularly dramatic consequences for the occupied populations. In the combat zones, agricultural land was devastated and unfit for cultivation. France lost one fifth of its cereal production and more than half of its beet production located in the combat zone on the Western Front. The occupied populations were very exposed to food shortages, as the occupied regions were plundered by the enemy, such as in Galicia (by Russians), Romania (by Austrians) or Ukraine (by Austrians and Germans). The French also faced criticism for their food requisitions of cereals from the Greeks, who saw the Allied presence as an occupation. Belgium, occupied since August 1914, was subjected by the Germans to looting and concerted requisitions, for example of livestock. Isolated by the Allied blockade, 9 million Belgians and people of northern France escaped famine only thanks to the intervention of neutral countries within the framework of the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB). The commission operated through international purchases, shipping to Europe and control of distribution by local committees. In Belgium, printed cotton sacks of the CRB’s flour were often turned into everyday items or kept as souvenirs of this difficult period, during which people went hungry and survived on food aid and soup kitchens. After mid-1919, the lifting of the blockade and food aid provided by Germany’s former enemies ameliorated German hunger and is credited with the relatively swift recovery of the most severely affected of German children.

The Ottoman Empire was not able to efficiently supply the populations of its huge territory before 1914 and risked starvation by entering the war in October 1914. In addition to the pressure of the British sea blockade, Mount Lebanon was also subject to a land blockade imposed by the Ottoman governor Ahmet Jamal Pasha (1872-1922), which prohibited the province from obtaining supplies from outside. Between 1915 and 1918, a combination of military requisitions, a locust invasion and blockades caused a famine that killed between 120,000 and 200,000 people, a third of the population. Rare photographs taken secretly in 1915 by Ibrahim Naoum Kanaan (1887-1984), director of Mount Lebanon assistance, testified to the horror of the famine.

The deliberate starvation of civilian populations has also been used in genocidal policies targeting particular groups, as in the genocide of Armenians perpetrated by the Turkish authorities from 1915 to 1923. Deprivation of food and water, whether in concentration camps or during death marches in the desert, was central to the genocide which claimed almost 1.5 million victims.

Food aid initiatives set up during the war, in the form of soup kitchens or direct food distribution, helped the most vulnerable populations – children, refugees, forcibly displaced persons, victims of mass violence – for whom it was sometimes the only chance of survival. It persisted after 1919 in Central and Eastern Europe through the now privately funded American Relief Administration European Children’s Fund (ARAECF). Following the tradition of the American humanitarian commitment during the war, it was now also part of the will to fight against the advance of communism.

Feeding 75 Million Soldiers↑

Providing the Calories↑

In 1914, the armies at war had to feed more than 20 million soldiers. In 1918, this figure had risen to 75 million soldiers who had to be fed on a daily basis. The armies, which had not expected to fight a war on such a scale, faced a tremendous challenge, as past experience showed that the management of food was a crucial factor for a victorious campaign. Both the French and the German armies had learned from the Franco-Prussian War in 1870-1871, when the siege of Paris had been a factor in the Prussian victory over the French. Many armies had also used military campaigns and training since the end of the 19^th century to define the best rations suitable for soldiers or to test new equipment. The French, British and German armies had settled for rations providing around 3,200 calories a day, up to 4,000 to 4,400 calories in winter or when soldiers were fighting. These were known as field rations or ration forte. But, while medical studies and military archives define the ideal rations due to the soldiers, it is almost impossible to know what they were actually given, as consumption differed according to rank, local supply conditions on the various fronts, the number of parcels sent by families, and the proximity of a civilian market or military cooperatives. One of the main challenges for the current research in this area is to get closer to what the soldiers actually received in their tins, as soldiers’ food was much more diversified than what was provided by the military rations alone.

Field kitchens are an example of the different approaches to food by the armies in 1914. Their use was considered in the German army in the 19^th century, but it was the Russian army that was the first to equip itself with them after 1860. The reports made in the 1900s showed their many advantages: an increase of 20 to 30 percent in the endurance of troops on the march was expected after a hot meal, and a significant decrease in the rates of dysentery. “Go and ask men who have been fighting all day or have walked 30 km with 25 kg of luggage to cook their dinner as well! They will eat half raw vegetables, they don’t care, they want to sleep”, complained a French commander before the war. The benefit of field kitchens was recognized by most armies apart from the French, who were not equipped with one in 1914. German field kitchens would thus be sought after war trophies for the French until they were provided with their own in 1915. Their multiple models illustrated the adaptation of military catering to the constraints of the terrain, and how essential services were brought closer to the front line during the war.

Supplies had to cover one of the soldier’s most basic needs, food, and to support morale in a war whose length had not been anticipated. Soup remained the basic element of military rations, along with bread and drink. In all the armies it was recognised that it was the restorative power of these rations that allowed soldiers to bear the fatigue of their job. In the Entente armies, the soup contained a significant amount of meat, up to 500 grams a day, animal proteins being considered an essential fortifier of the soldiers’ constitution. By contrast, the average meat consumption in European civilian societies before 1914 was 150 grams a day, and up to 210 grams in the United States. Military rations lacked fresh produce such as vegetables, fruit and eggs, leading soldiers to buy them from civilians. Water remained the ordinary drink of the soldiers, even if the consumption of wine or beer had the advantage of protecting them from the epidemiological risk attached to dirty water. Often, water supply was a logistical challenge: transported by camel in Egypt, desalinated in ships on the Gallipoli front, and transformed into mineral water on the Argonne front by the Germans. Low-alcohol fermented drinks which accorded to national pre-war consumption were included in the rations, with beer for the German and British troops and wine for the French. The rations also included spirits such as rum, schnapps or eau-de-vie in small quantities. Both forms of alcohol were recognised for their effect on the endurance and morale of the troops and were either distributed as part of the rations (low alcohol content), as “Dutch courage” before going over the top, or as a reward after the fighting, thus promoting discipline and morale.

The war accelerated the shift in consumption away from traditional products to processed food, as the 19^th century food industry had already seen the development of the canning industry, concentrated broths or broths in tablets. Herds were impossible to keep near the front, and meat that was already prepared, boned, refrigerated, or canned was better suited to army logistics. The loading of one ship with frozen meat was then equivalent to the loading of ten ships with live cattle. Canned food and frozen cows, sheep, rabbits, and pigs were imported from the United States, Argentina, Australia, and New Zealand, opening up the European market, and particularly the French, to products that were still expensive or not very widespread. The largest supplier of food to the British armed forces during the First World War was the Aberdeen Machonochie Company, manufacturing the “Meat & Veg” tins. They helped to balance the soldiers’ diet and prevent scurvy, providing an alternative to the ubiquitous “bully beef” rations. The introduction of processed foods into soldiers’ diets was thus an important factor in the change in European consumption habits during and after the war. The war thus led to a significant – albeit temporary – increase in the consumption of meat by soldiers from working-class backgrounds.

The needs of armies in the field, on land or at sea have been major vectors of food innovation. Since the 19^th century, technical progress had favoured the diversification of military rations, which were essential to the morale of soldiers fighting far from home. However, it was not until the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) that the French army adopted canned food, invented as early as 1795. Another example of the innovations promoted by military needs was the Soyer stove, a light field cooker which accompanied the British armies in the First World War. Light, resilient, and easy to clean, it could heat up to 45 litres of soup, cook bread or roast meat. Versatile, it could use coal, wood or camel dung as fuel. The headquarters of the British Royal Logistics Corps still bears the name “Soyer’s house” in memory of his action to improve the soldier’s ordinary life.

To cope with emergencies – disruption of supply lines, distance from logistical bases – soldiers were provided with reserve food, such as canned food, war biscuits, and water flasks. Compact and light, with a long shelf life, hence its nickname “hard tack”, the war biscuit (or war bread) met the practical requirements of field supply. Hundreds of millions of units were produced during the First World War, for example by the London firm Huntley & Palmers for the British Army. Such provisions did not always prevent failures, such as in Mesopotamia, where the local climatic conditions combined with a logistical disaster created a breakdown in the quantity and quality of food supplied to the soldiers. As the British Army failed to provide fresh food, many sepoys suffered from deficiency diseases, such as scurvy. During the siege of Kut-el-Amara from December 1915 to April 1916, the logistical base was 400 kilometres south and both the British and the sepoys were depending on iron rations, made of biscuit and bully beef or mutton. Cases of deficiency diseases rose, exacerbated by the fact that the British had been scrimping on the sepoys’ rations, which represented four times less than those of British soldiers. In six months, 11,000 Indian soldiers, exhausted by deprivation, fell victim to scurvy in Kut-el-Amara. In The Lord of the Rings, the Lembas Elven bread that saved Frodo and Sam from hunger during their trip to Mordor is reminiscent of the role played by war biscuits in the survival of thousands of soldiers during the Great War, as J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973) experienced himself.

Army cooks capable of improving the regular diet by cooking rations, especially canned meat, were valuable assets for the units’ morale. Some mastered the use of wild plants or finding rare products. Exchanging recipes, on-the-job training and even cookery competitions allowed many of them to improve their skills as the conflict progressed. Combatants’ testimonies (memoirs, trench newspapers) praised or taunted this figure of front-line food culture, as in the French trench newspaper Rigolboche in February 1917: