Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 9:35pm

Over There

 

Something for the weekend, Over There, the anthem of the American war effort in World War I.

My friend and co-blogger Darwin Catholic at The American Catholic put together the above video, which I believe is one of the best videos I have seen on World War I.  George M. Cohan of course wrote Over There, the song which became the battle hymn of the American war effort in World War I.  George M. Cohan was immortalized by James Cagney in the 1942 film biopic Yankee Doodle Dandy.  Dying on November 5, 1942 of stomach cancer, Cohan saw the film shortly before its release in a private screening.  I do not know if the ending of the film in the clip below brought tears to his eyes, but it always does mine:

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T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Saturday, April 8, AD 2017 1:48pm

“And we won’t come back ’til it’s over over there.”

General Pershing was finally able to “unify” the AEF under his command and led 1,200,000 Americans in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive (26 September to 11 November 1918) which beat up the Germans and helped seal the armistice. The objective was to cut the railways supplying the Hun at the front. Casualties were 120,000 KIA/WIA (10%). The actions were notable for dashing open-field tactics and liberal employment of the bayonet. Sergeant York made his name during this fight.

Book recommendation: The Doughboys by Laurence Stallings. Pershing was highly aggressive and he demanded the same from his officers.

Erwin
Erwin
Tuesday, April 11, AD 2017 3:29pm

What brings tears to my eyes is the fact that US involvement in World War I insured the demise of what was left of Christian Europe. That involvement also led to a profound change for the Catholic Church in the USA as Cardinal Gibbons made a point to throw the support of the Church behind Wilson and his desire for war instead of supporting the peace efforts of the Pope as Christopher Manion and others have written about elsewhere. That lockstep of Church and State has continued to the present day when many people consider the Catholic Church the Democratic Party at Prayer.

Donald Link
Donald Link
Wednesday, April 12, AD 2017 7:25pm

WW I was the most senseless, useless and in the long term, damaging war in European history. It is the root cause of everything that has gone wrong on that continent since. US involvement, while arguably necessary because of German predation on our shipping, could have been handled much differently and better. Does anyone seriously think that had Teddy Roosevelt won the election in 1912 that Germany would have dared to commit the acts of war against the US? And when we were finished joining in the destruction of Europe, we were cast aside like a used rag doll. Members of my family who stayed while the rest of the family emigrated to the US, fought on both sides of the conflict and were never heard from again. Having begun the insanity, Europe and the world would have been better served had all parties been allowed to collapse from sheer exhaustion and we could have avoided our share of responsibility for the debacle.

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