Iowans carved out legacies in World War I
Note to readers: Tim Lane was born in Waterloo and graduated from the University of Northern Iowa with a history degree in 1971. A co-chair of the Iowa World War I Centennial Committee, Lane compiled this WWI timeline for the Register. Nov. 11 is the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I.
1914
James Norman Hall, of Colfax, the author who became best known for the novel "Mutiny on the Bounty," enlisted in the Royal Fusiliers.
June 28: Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Sophie in Bosnia. Gavrilo Princip, a 19-year-old Serbian, fired the shots.
July 28: Austria-Hungary ignores arbitration options and declares war on Serbia.
August 1: Germany declares war on Russia (France and Belgium mobilize).
August 3: Germany declares war on France.
August 4: Britain declares war on Germany. U.S. declares neutrality.
August: West Branch native Herbert Hoover, who later became U.S. president, begins aiding Americans fleeing Europe. He helps to provide funds for food, housing and passage. Hoover was living in London at the time. "I did not realize it at the moment, but on August 3, 1914, my career was over forever. I was on the slippery road of public life," he said. Hoover later served in the critical role of chair of the Commission of Relief for Belgium, in which he saved as many as 10 million lives in Europe during the war.
August 13: Japan declares war on Germany, thereby joining the allies.
December: Zeppelins appear over Britain.
1915
April 22: Germans deploy 150 tons of chlorine gas in first such attack, at Ypres, Belgium. Chlorine and tear gas also were used.
May 7: Lusitania sunk.
1916
July 1 to November: Battle of the Somme. 420,000 British deaths. 500,000 Germans. 60,000 British deaths on the first day of fighting.
November 28: First air raid on London
1917
German subs ordered to sink allied and neutral ships.
January 19: Zimmerman telegram proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico in the event that the United States entered World War I against Germany.
April 6: U.S. declares war on Germany
June 15: Des Moines selected as the 13th National Cantonment (Camp Dodge). 37,111 Iowans were inducted at Camp Dodge during WWI.
September 9: 168th Infantry boards trains for coast
October 15: First class of black officers, Fort Des Moines
October 24-25: Russian Revolution, perhaps the most crucial domino to topple during the conflict. (November 7-8 in the Gregorian calendar)
November 3: Merle Hay of Glidden dies in a German raid, one of three Americans to die. Others were from Indiana and Pennsylvania. Hay was the first American serviceman from Iowa to die in the war.
November: First tank attack
1918
March 5: Rainbow Division from Camp Dodge had its first combat. Captain Harrison McHenry of Des Moines killed in action, was first Iowa officer to die.
March 27: Marion Crandell, a Cedar Rapids native, a member of Les Foyers du Soldat, was the first American woman to die in the war.
May: The Babel Proclamation was issued by Iowa Gov. William L. Harding. Harding took the anti-German sentiment in the wake of World War I further than any other state, banning use of all foreign languages.
May 21: Edouard Izac of Cresco was captured by a German U-boat. He earned the Congressional Medal of Honor.
July 21: Fred Becker of Waterloo, a first-team all-America football player at the University of Iowa, died in the Battle of Soissons.
August 27: The last and most fatal wave of Spanish Flu arrived in America as two sailors arrived in Boston. By the end of the week, 150 a day were reporting to infirmary.
September: 3,000 schools have a Junior Red Cross program.
September 16: Emory J. Pike of Columbus City, Ia., earned the Congressional Medal of Honor.
September 29: Sgt. Milo Lemert of Marshalltown destroyed four enemy machine gun nests. He died as he eliminated the fourth. He also earned the Congressional Medal of Honor.
October: Deadliest month in Iowa history due to Spanish Influenza.
November 9: Kaiser abdicated.
November: Treaty signed in Redonthes.
November 11: Wayne Miner of rural Appanoose County dies on a volunteer mission, one of the last Americans to die.
By end of 1918: Camp Dodge's Rainbow Division had tallied 164 days of combat, (third most of American divisions) and had a 30.6 percent casualty rate with 2,810 killed and 11,873 wounded. That total included the 700 killed and 3,100 wounded in the 168th Infantry.
1919
April 8: Men of the 168th discharged, then board trains to French coast where they boarded the Leviathan for voyage home.
April 24: “The thirty-eighth gold star has been added to the University of Iowa service flag by the death of (U of I alum) Capt. Walter H. Fox at Semendria, Serbia. His death was caused by pneumonia contracted while working in the hospital at that place. Since his death the hospital has been named ‘Fox Hospital’ in his honor.” Captain Fox, a member of the U.S. medical corps, was assigned to the Balkan Red Cross commission in January of this year and went to Serbia to establish a hospital. He was decorated by the Serbian government for distinguished service.
May 15: Victory parade at State Capitol
May 20: After ceremonies in Des Moines, soldiers of the 168th Infantry 42nd Rainbow Division returned to homes across Iowa. In LeMars they were met by more than 6,000 people when the noon train pulled in on Sunday. The streets were decorated with flags of the national colors and bunting and the Rainbow hues were displayed in nearly every business place in LeMars.
Commission for Relief of Belgium
Between 1914 and 1919, the Commission for Relief of Belgium operated entirely with voluntary efforts and was able to feed 11,000,000 Belgians by raising the necessary money, obtaining voluntary contributions of food, shipping the food past the German submarine blockades and army-occupied areas, and controlling the food distribution in Belgium.
West Branch native Herbert Hoover served as chair of the Commission of Relief of Belgium and later was elected president of the United States.
The CRB shipped 697,116,000 pounds of flour to Belgium, and evidence indicates that sugar and grains were also sent. The flour was packaged in cotton flour sacks by American mills. The movement of these bags throughout Belgium was carefully controlled by the CRB since cotton was in great demand for the manufacture of German ammunition and also because the CRB feared that the flour sacks would be taken out of Belgium, refilled with inferior flour, and resold as relief flour. As a result, the empty flour sacks were carefully accounted for and distributed to professional schools, sewing workrooms, convents and individual artists.
Photos courtesy of the Iowa Gold Star Military Museum and State Historical Society of Iowa.
