Ravena Coeymans Historical Society: New York’s contributions to World War I

RAVENA — On Veterans Day, the Ravena Coeymans Historical Society held its November meeting and honored the day with a presentation about World War I and New York state’s involvement.

John Bonafide, a trustee of the historical society, introduced the guest speaker, Aaron Noble, a senior historian with the New York State Museum and an expert on political and military history.

“Today marks the centennial anniversary of the end of hostilities on the Western Front in a war that began in 1914 and ended Nov. 11, 1918,” Noble told the audience. “During those four years, the war encompassed 65 million men who wore the uniform of various countries.”

The war began in Europe in 1914.

“In 1914, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, were assassinated in Sarajevo,” Noble explained. “This inaugurated a series of events in Europe that eventually brought the entire continent and all their colonial possessions into the war.”

But as Europe became embroiled in war, people in the United States never imagined their nation would eventually be drawn into it.

“Here in the United States, New Yorkers were watching these events with fascination, with interest, but an individual in Rochester noted it never occurred to anyone in Rochester that because the archduke of Austria was assassinated at Sarajevo, we ourselves would be drawn into the conflict,” Noble said. “No one in the United States believed that this was an American conflict. America had no history of being involved in European wars and no one anticipated that they would start in 1914, or shortly thereafter.”

The war was among the bloodiest, with a quick rise in a new type of fighting — trench warfare. The result, Noble said, was “cataclysmic.” In fact, in a single battle, the British army lost “more than twice the American army, in a single battle on the Western Front.”

While the U.S. did not officially become involved in the fighting for a couple of years, from the very start, the nation felt its impact.

“While America remained officially neutral, New York’s war began in 1914,” Noble said. “The New York Stock Exchange shut down between July 31 and Nov. 28, 1914. That was the longest period ever that the Stock Exchange closed.”

As the war began across the Atlantic, European countries began withdrawing their money from the U.S. in order to stockpile it, pushing the U.S. close to a recession. To prevent money from being pulled out, the Stock Exchange was temporarily shut down.

Another impact on the U.S. was that there was a rise in nationalism among different immigrant groups, from the British to the French, Czech, Dutch, Polish and more, who began “getting on ships and sailing home to defend their various countries,” according to Noble.

Early on, the British made a concerted effort to draw Americans into the British army.

“Winston Churchill commented in a meeting that the surest way to guarantee American involvement in the First World War was for American blood to be shed on the fields of France,” Noble noted. “He recognized that if Americans joined and fought and were killed, eventually that would turn public opinion against the German and Austrian armies.”

Thousands of Americans joined the war effort despite the fact that the U.S. was not yet officially involved, and American companies, such as Remington, a gun manufacturer, began building weapons for the British and French armies.

In New York City and Boston, the American Field Service was established in 1914 “to raise ambulance drivers for the French army,” Noble said. “They recruited at colleges and universities, primarily in the Northeast. By the time the United States declared war in April 1917, more than 2,000 American men were in the American Field Service, driving ambulances on the front lines for the French army, including more than 400 from here in New York state.”

Tens of thousands of Americans also fought in the Canadian army, and the American Flying Corps joined the French army to fly planes before America was officially involved in the war.

“What makes New York unique and fascinating is that New York became the center of a debate, between 1914 and 1917, over whether the United States should actually enter the war,” Noble said. “Very early on, in August 1914, there was a massive rally in Union Square [in New York City] arguing for Americans to stay out of the war.”

Some intellectual and government leaders got together to push for a pacifist movement, promoting diplomacy rather than war. But there were others on the other side of the issue as well.

“At the same time New York was in this central role in the pacifist movement, in the anti-war movement, there were other New Yorkers — most prominently former President Theodore Roosevelt — advocating for what was known as ‘preparedness,’” Noble noted. “Roosevelt, being an astute politician, knew American public opinion wasn’t ready for full-on entry into the war, so rather than calling for American entry into the war, he called for Americans to increase military spending and the size of American forces to prepare for the eventuality that the U.S. would enter the war.”

In summer 1915, in Plattsburgh the first citizen training camps were established, sponsored by the Army “but not officially government sanctioned.” Primarily wealthy young men went there and funded their own way, “where they were trained to become officers in an expanded American army.”

Even sports in New York state took note of the debate. Of particular note was a game between the New York Yankees and the New York Giants.

“In pregame warm-ups, instead of dong batting practice, [players] were carrying rifles and doing military maneuvers and drills in order to advocate and drum up support for preparedness among attendees at the game,” Noble said, adding that “preparedness became pervasive among much of American society.”

Several events pushed the U.S. closer to war, such as the introduction of poison gas by Germany, the sinking of the civilian ship Lusitania by a German submarine in 1915, and the growing belief that defeating Germany would be the most effective way of ending the war. This viewpoint was eventually promoted even by noted leaders of the pacifist movement.

New York also drew spies and saboteurs in the lead-up to the U.S. entry into the war, with a shipment blown up at New York Harbor that would have sent supplies to England and France, among other events. Spies were also arrested in New York City as they were working for Germany, and rising tensions among some ethnic groups — particularly Irish, who were opposed to England, and Jews, who opposed Russia following the various “pogroms,” or mass slaughter, of Jews in Russia and elsewhere in Eastern Europe.

Ultimately, the United States would declare war on April 6, 1917, though the vote in Congress was not unanimous.

The New York State Legislature would fund a census at the start of the war to identify men who could be drafted into the military, and women of working age who could serve as nurses and work in factories, filling jobs previously held by men.

The first-of-its-kind draft was soon implemented.

“This was the first draft the government had complete control over, and the first draft where citizens had no recourse in terms of purchasing their way out – there was no financial or economic way to escape,” Noble said. “This draft really was a universal conscription and applied to everyone equally.”

Propaganda also played a major role, for the first time, in carrying out the war. President Woodrow Wilson established the Committee for Public Information to communicate with the public about the war, using commercial artists — many based in New York — to design posters promoting the war effort. This was especially important, Noble said, as there was no natural tendency among the U.S. population to feel antipathy towards Germany. In fact, German immigrants were among the largest percentage of immigrants living in the country at the time.

New York industry also played a role in World War I. The gun manufacturer Remington began producing military weapons; Bausch and Lomb, based in Rochester, made supplies for military binoculars and telescopes; and General Electric in Buffalo produced military vehicles.

In upstate New York, most farmers still relied on horse-drawn ploughs to till their farmland in 1916, but “the state of New York let them borrow vehicles at no cost to be able to plant more crops for the war effort,” according to Noble.

Once the war was fully underway, “darker” elements of patriotism began to emerge, with prejudice against German and Austrian immigrants and descendants from those heritages. Much of the fear and paranoia was unfounded, Noble said.

“Most of these German-Americans would join the U.S. military and serve admirably throughout the war,” he added.

New York state was among the states to contribute the highest number of units to the effort. The 42nd division, based in Troy, was to be the first to travel overseas, but the government wanted representatives from across the country to be involved – not just New Yorkers – so it included soldiers from around the nation. It was nicknamed the “Rainbow Division.”

Ironically, when an African-American unit petitioned the military to let them join, they were denied.

“The War Department’s response was that black is not a color of the rainbow,” Noble said. “They were denied inclusion because of the segregated nature of the U.S. Army.”

One of Albany’s most famous veterans, however, is African-American Henry Johnson, a Medal of Honor recipient who was awarded the honor just a couple of years ago. Johnson was a soldier with the 369th Infantry Regiment, 93rd Division.

World War I was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, with millions dying on the battlefield. New York made its own sacrifices to the effort.

“Ultimately, between April 1917 and Nov. 11, 1918, 13,956 New Yorkers would be killed, including more than 200 from Albany County,” Noble said.

Meanwhile, the Ravena Coeymans Historical Society will hold its next meeting Sunday, Dec. 9, with a Holiday Open House with the theme “An Old-Fashioned Christmas,” from 1-4 p.m. The event will be held at the society’s museum, located at the rear of the Ravena Municipal Building at 15 Mountain Rd. in Ravena.