Abstract - aedhgsa.caaedhgsa.ca/docs/Strata/Volume_7/STRATA_vol7_KARINE_LANDRY.pdf · Strata Karine Landry 41 FAR AND NEAR: THE REPATRIATION AND OVERSEAS BURIALS OF AMERICAN SOLDIERS

Strata Karine Landry

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FAR AND NEAR: THE REPATRIATION AND OVERSEAS BURIALS

OF AMERICAN SOLDIERS AFTER WORLD WAR I

KARINE LANDRY MA Student, University of Ottawa

Abstract

This article explores burial and repatriation policies of the World War I for American soldiers. With approximately 125,500 American soldiers killed during the war, American families were given the option of having the remains of their loved ones returned home at government cost, or having them buried in cemeteries overseas. This policy was unique to the United States, as the other allied nations did not offer repatriation to their citizens. I will argue that the American government favoured overseas burials since it best represented their postwar foreign policy of wanting to establish itself as a major international power. Conversely, repatriation was the option that best embodied the American foreign policy of 1914 and the domestic pressures of 1918. Analyzing this seemingly sympathetic option for families reveals the political angle behind the American burial practices at a time when the United States was becoming increasingly influential on the world stage.

Résumé

Cet article explore les politiques funéraires et de rapatriement des dépouilles des soldats américains durant la Première Guerre mondiale. Avec un total approximatif de 125 500 soldats américains tués durant la guerre, l’option fut donnée aux familles américaines de rapatrier les dépouilles de leurs proches aux frais du gouvernement ou encore de les enterrer dans des cimetières outre-mer. Cette politique était unique aux États-Unis, puisque les autres nations alliées n’offraient pas le rapatriement des soldats tombés au front. Dans cet article, je démontrerai que le gouvernement américain favorisait les enterrements outre-mer puisque cela s’accordait mieux avec la politique étrangère de l’après-guerre qui visait à établir le pays comme un pouvoir international majeur. Inversement, le rapatriement était une option qui représentait plutôt la politique étrangère américaine de 1914 et les pressions nationales de 1918. L’analyse de cette option en apparence compatissante pour les familles révèle un aspect politique sous-jacent aux pratiques funéraires à une époque où les États-Unis devenaient progressivement une puissance mondiale.

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When the World War I broke out in Europe in 1914, the United States’ domestic affairs and foreign policy primarily concerned issues in Latin America. Most Americans did not believe that their country should become involved in the “Great War.” On August 19, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson issued a statement pleading for neutrality from the citizens of his country. In this proclamation, Wilson appealed to the diverse European backgrounds of Americans: “The people of the United States are drawn from many nations, and chiefly from the nations now at war.”1 However, he also reminded them of their love for their own nation, the United States, and called upon them to remain neutral towards the belligerents: “We must be impartial in thought as well as in action, must put a curb upon our sentiments as well as upon every transaction that might be construed as a preference of one party to the struggle before another.”2 Nevertheless, President Wilson soon demonstrated his own bias towards one side of the war. By 1917, after several attempts at impartial peace negotiations, the policy of neutrality was dropped altogether as the United States entered the war alongside Great Britain and France. By the time of the armistice, the United States’ position on the world stage had also drastically been altered; it had become a world power and as such, extended its sphere of influence far past Latin America.

By war’s end in November 1918, approximately 125,500 American soldiers were dead.3 The conversation surrounding what to do with the bodies of those fallen soldiers was not a simple one. Two main options were considered: the repatriation of remains to the United States, or overseas burials in large cemeteries. In the end, the decision rested with the grieving families who could opt to have the remains of their loved ones returned home at government cost. More than half were repatriated because their families indicated that this was their wish, while the rest remained in Europe.

Foreign policy had an influence on this dual option offered by the government for fallen soldiers after the war. This article will argue that the government favoured overseas burials since it best represented their foreign policy by 1918. The United States wished to assert itself as a world power by 1 Woodrow Wilson, “The Messages and Papers of Woodrow Wilson: Volume 1,” 1924, 217-219, accessed 26 October 2015, http://www.heinonline.org.proxy.bib.uottawa.ca/HOL/Page?handle=hein.hoil/mespawoo0001&id=1&collection=hoil&index=hoil. 2 Ibid, 219. 3 Steven Trout, On the Battlefield of Memory: The First World War and American Remembrance, 1919-1941 (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2010), 31.


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creating large cemeteries on foreign lands as such a policy would ensure that the countries defended never forgot the sacrifices of the American soldiers had made for their freedom. Conversely, repatriation was the option that best embodied the American foreign policy of 1914 and the domestic policy of 1918. At the war’s outbreak, the non-interventionist stance shaped public opinion into thinking that the World War I was not America’s war to fight. By the end of the war, that stance had changed to one of greater involvement and action in the foreign policy sphere but public opinion had not shifted in the same ways. The public — especially grieving families — still felt strongly by 1918 that the United States should not have been involved in this war and therefore that their sons should not rest forever in countries they had unnecessarily defended. To appease this sentiment, the government was compelled to promise the repatriation of bodies to any families that desired it. With this, the Wilson government was mitigating the damage caused to its domestic policy after very quickly shifting from neutrality to large-scale involvement in the war.

American war graves, memorials and memory have been a topic of much academic debate and research in the last century. Particularly relevant to the topic at hand, Lisa M. Budreau’s Bodies of War: World War I and the Politics of Commemoration in America, 1919-1933 explores the politicization of memory in the United States. As well, Michael Sledge’s Soldier Dead: How We Recover, Identify, Bury, and Honor Our Military Fallen offers a history of military burial practices from the American Civil War to the occupation of Iraq and studies some of the diplomatic and political discussions surrounding burials. Lastly, the argumentation that post-war foreign policy played a role in the decision to bury American soldiers overseas stemmed from Ron Robin’s 1995 article in the Journal of American Studies titled “‘A Foothold in Europe’: The Aesthetics and Politics of American War Cemeteries in Western Europe,” which outlines the symbolism and power overseas burials had in establishing the United States as a world power.

The argumentation of the link between foreign policy and burial practices after World War I will begin with repatriation and will show how this promise reflected 1914 foreign policies and 1918 domestic policies. Second, it will be demonstrated that overseas burials were used as a direct tool by which post-war American foreign policy was establishing itself as a major player on the world stage and as a key determinant in the peace negotiations. When discussing these topics, the background diplomatic conversations necessary to


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ensuring repatriation or burials on foreign soil will be explored as well as the arduous logistical process that each option involved. Yet, before the details can be thoroughly examined, the background of American foreign policy must be defined.

The Monroe Doctrine, in effect since 1823, had pointedly distinguished European and American areas of intervention: the United States would not tolerate European intervention in the Americas, seeing it as a threat to American hemispheric hegemony. The subsequent 1904 Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which specified that the United States would intervene to protect the nations of Latin America from their own financial malpractice, risked European intervention, but represented a further step towards a foreign policy of continental expansion.4

President Woodrow Wilson, elected in 1912, was inexperienced in foreign affairs and hoped to focus his term on domestic issues.5 His chief focus for foreign affairs was eliminating his predecessor President William Howard Taft’s policy of “dollar diplomacy.”6 Yet, despite trying to treat Latin American nations as equal, Wilson nonetheless intervened more in their affairs than any other President before him, with actions taken in Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Panama, and Haiti. Though the pretext may have been to protect the imperiled nations’ economic interests or to ensure the spread of democracy, the priority was always the protection of American national interests and, more specifically, the Panama Canal.

Nonetheless, when the World War I broke out in August 1914, isolationist sentiment was strong amongst Americans. This commitment to isolationism based on non-intervention opposed that of the Monroe Doctrine: those who adhered to it felt that the United States should not intervene anywhere, not even in Latin America unless American interests were directly threatened. Many felt that the United States had been wrong to intervene in Panama and that it should cease to intervene in the affairs of independent nations. Therefore, regardless of whether they were proponents of the Monroe

4 Thomas H. Buckley and Edwin B. Strong, American Foreign and National Security Policies, 1914-1945 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987), 7; Richard D. Challener, Admirals, Generals, and American Foreign Policy, 1898-1914 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1973), 81. 5 Ryan M. Floyd, Abandoning American Neutrality: Woodrow Wilson and the Beginning of the Great War, August 1914 – December 1915 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 2. 6 Challener, Admirals, Generals, and American Foreign Policy, 379.


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Doctrine or the isolationist stance, Americans did not want to intervene in Europe in 1914. The supporters of the former argued that the war had not reached the Americas while advocates of the latter policy did not feel that they should become entangled in a chiefly European war.

Upon declaring themselves neutral at the war’s outset, the United States wanted to ensure their rights as a neutral state were protected. On October 24, 1914, the Department of State issued the following statement to their Ambassadors in Germany and Austria-Hungary:

This Government will … insist that the rights and duties of the Government and citizens of the United Sates in the present war be defined by existing rules of international law and the treaties of the United States without regard to the provisions of the declaration and that the Government of the United States reserves to itself the right to enter a protest or demand in every case in which the rights and duties so defined are violated or their free exercise interfered with by the authorities of the belligerent governments.7

This message’s aim was to withdraw the propositions to modify the code of naval warfare and to revert back to a previously established code, ensuring uniformity and respect of American rights by all belligerents.

Wilson, in addition to guaranteeing the protection of American rights as a neutral nation, needed to ensure that the public also abided by the policy of neutrality. As stated earlier, he issued a proclamation on August 19, 1914 with this goal at the forefront. During this address, Wilson warned the nation:

against that deepest, most subtle, most essential breach of neutrality which may spring out of partisanship, out of passionately taking sides. The United States must be neutral in fact as well as in name during these days that are to try men’s souls.8

Opinions amongst Americans were not unanimous, however. Some felt an attachment to Europe due to historical ties and urged the government to choose a side and perhaps even intervene.9 As mentioned earlier, President Wilson was aware of these citizens’ European ties, but strove to refocus their attention under a united American front during his neutrality declaration, drawing upon their love, honour and loyalty for their country.10 Attempting to navigate this divide, the Wilson administration wanted to maintain a foreign 7 Wilson Woodrow, The Messages and Papers of Woodrow Wilson: Volume 1, 217. 8 Ibid, 219. 9 Floyd, Abandoning American Neutrality, 5. 10 Wilson Woodrow, The Messages and Papers of Woodrow Wilson: Volume 1, 218.


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policy based on independence and neutrality. If the conflict did not affect American interests, the United States did not need to get involved in European affairs.11 Instead, the priority at war’s outbreak for the United States was the safe evacuation of American citizens from war zones.12

As the war continued, Wilson’s resolve to remain neutral faded. He began to clearly favour Britain and its military alliance with the Triple Entente, as the more democratic of the two sides. Wilson affirmed to Edward House, his key advisor on European politics and diplomacy during the war, that “he had never been sure that we ought not take part in the conflict and if it seemed evident that Germany and her militaristic ideas were to win, the obligation upon us was greater than ever.”13 The Americans had maintained commercial relations with all belligerents during the war. But due to British naval blockades, sales to the Central Powers were limited. As of 1915, the United States also began to provide loans to Great Britain, as the British had run out of money to pay for the goods they needed.14 Still, the official shift away from neutrality could not occur without the public’s approval.

Following the loss of over 100 American civilians with the sinking of the Lusitania on May 7, 1915 and the Arabic on August 19, 1915 by German submarines, the public pressure to react against Germany grew. These events were not the first transgressions of American neutral rights. The British had also been infringing on these rights, but Wilson reacted more strongly to Germany’s disrespect of neutral rights than Great Britain’s because submarines were a much more threatening weapon: they had the potential to disrupt crucial American interests. The United States had also been warned by Germany that its citizens travelled at their own risk since any enemy ship in a war zone could be sunk without notice.15 Additionally, Germany was vilified as militaristic and undemocratic, making the march to war to defend democracy rational and moralistic for the United States. The loss of American lives was a significant factor in fostering the support of some groups towards the possibility of participating in the war, which was the backing that Wilson needed before intervening alongside the Allied Powers.

11 Buckley and Strong, American Foreign and National Security Policies, 2-3. 12 Challener, Admirals, Generals, and American Foreign Policy, 397. 13 Floyd, Abandoning American Neutrality, 176. 14 Buckley and Strong, American Foreign and National Security Policies, 29. 15 Ibid, 33.


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To ensure his role as a key player in mediating the peace settlement, the Wilson administration reached an agreement with Great Britain. The House-Grey memorandum of February 22, 1916 consisted of an arrangement between Edwin House and Sir Edward Grey, the British Foreign Minister. The memorandum stated that if France and Great Britain announced they wanted mediation, the United States would call a conference and if the Allies agreed but Germany refused this option, “the United States would probably enter the war against Germany … and if such conference failed to secure peace the United States would probably leave the conference as a belligerent on the side of the Allies.”16 This statement erased any doubt that might remain regarding the United States’ neutrality in the conflict. Though not a declaration of war, it was essentially a guarantee of imminent participation by the United States, revolving around the peace negotiations.

The Germans, realizing that they would never achieve the war aims they wished for through mediation, decided to reject the American proposal. Instead, they launched another submarine campaign beginning in February 1917, warning the United States that they would sink on sight any ship in a designated war zone.17 This bold decision reflected Germany’s understanding that war with the United States was imminent. The impending arrival of fresh American troops on the battlefield probably could not be avoided, but in the interim, Germany would not hold back on its submarine warfare in an attempt to potentially deplete the Americans before they even had boots on the ground, and perhaps scare Britain into submission.

One more factor stands out amongst the rest as particularly important to the turning of the tide in American foreign policy leading to involvement in the war: The Zimmerman telegram. This internal German diplomatic message, issued in January 1917, was intercepted by the United States. The decoded version announced their plan to begin unrestricted submarine warfare while maintaining American neutrality. The telegram read that:

in the event of this not succeeding, we make Mexico a proposal of alliance on the following basis: make war together, make peace together, generous financial support and an understanding on our

16 Ibid, 38. 17 Ibid, 40.


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part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.18

There was now proof that the World War I threatened American interests and people directly. Should Mexico agree to an alliance with Germany, the war would come to the United States.

Coupled with the disrespect of their rights as neutrals and the renewed submarine warfare, the United States decided it needed to declare war to protect its national interests. Therefore, the Secretary of State Robert Lansing declared by telegram to diplomatic representatives around the world “on April 6 Congress declared and President proclaimed that a state of war exists between the United Sates and the Imperial German Government.”19 Within less than two years of fighting, the United States incurred heavy losses with 125,500 soldiers dead.20 The losses elsewhere were even more colossal: Russia lost 1.7 million soldiers; Germany lost 1.8 million soldiers; Great Britain lost almost 1 million and France incurred 1.4 million deaths.21 Countless more were injured, physically or psychologically. The damage caused to the land was colossal and unprecedented, bringing about the loss of transportation networks, communication lines and infrastructure at large.

It was also in this context that Americans began to see themselves as a newly established world power. Though the war had cost thousands of Americans lives, the United States had also benefited economically by being a crucial trading partner and creditor of other major powers. Woodrow Wilson was also seen as a possible leader for the peace negotiations with the Fourteen Points program he announced to Congress on January 8, 1918. Though the Allies did not agree with all the points laid out by Wilson, the program offered a starting point for negotiations and ensured the United States would have a seat at the negotiating table. This new position as world leader at the closure

18 National Archives, “Zimmerman Telegram,” accessed 15 November 2015, http://www.archives.gov/global-pages/larger-image.html?i=/education/lessons/zimmermann/images/decoded-message-l.jpg&c=/education/lessons/zimmermann/images/decoded-message.caption.html. 19 United States, Dept. of State, “Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1917. Supplement 2, The World War,” Foreign Relations of the United States, 1917, 11, accessed 1 November 2015. http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=goto&id=FRUS.FRUS1917Supp02v01&isize=M&submit=Go+to+page&page=11. 20 Trout, On the Battlefield of Memory, 31. 21 Michael Sledge, Soldier Dead: How We Recover, Identify, Bury, and Honor Our Military Fallen (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 8.


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of the war and the foreign policy shift that accompanied it had great influence on the burial policies developed after the war. On the other hand, America’s ideological commitment to isolationism was not forgotten, and this too would impact the United States’ decisions regarding its war dead.

In the aftermath of the war, the policies mandating the treatment of American war dead overseas were established. In 1919, Secretary of War Newton D. Baker announced that:

The War Department wishes to reiterate its pledge to parents and relatives, that no body will remain abroad which is desired in this country and that no effort will be spared to accord fitting and tender care to those which, by request of the families concerned, will remain overseas.22

This promise gave many families comfort and reassurance. The decision for repatriation or overseas burials would rest with the families and their wishes would be respected. The next of kin of all identified soldiers, generally the soldier’s widow, would be contacted by the War Department who sent out thousands of cards to families after the war where they could mark their preference. In the absence of a widow, the succession for identifying next of kin was as follows: his children, beginning with the eldest son; then the father; the mother; brothers, eldest first; sisters, eldest first; uncles, and finally aunts.23

The question of why the American government felt the need to promise repatriation and to cover the costs, transportation and planning of this endeavour is one that needs to be analyzed further. Though it may be common practice today to return soldiers home with full military honours, to do so on such a large scale with such elementary technology as existed in the 1920s was quite another story and entailed a massive commitment from a country whose resources were focused on recovering from the war’s effects. The commitment to do so was a reflection of pre-war foreign policy in that at the outbreak, the United States felt no attachment, duty or responsibility to intervene in this foreign war. Therefore, the administration was hard pressed to convince the American population that within four years of expressing this belief, the thousands of fallen soldiers would lie in those foreign nations in perpetuity. The pledge to repatriate was also a way to placate post-war domestic pressures:

22 Sledge, Soldier Dead, 136. 23 Ibid, 141.


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the government could hardly ignore what a majority of grieving families desired.

Of the 74,770 cards sent to families, approximately 69% of those who responded chose the repatriation option.24 Similar statistics were reported in a newspaper on November 11, 1920, two years after the armistice: “Nearly 60 per cent of all the bodies of American officers and enlisted men buried in French soil will be returned to the United States, according to recent estimates.”25 By then, almost 9,000 bodies had already been returned and more were ready to be shipped.26 Repatriation was effectuated at government cost. On March 4, 1921, Congress passed a law — Public Law No. 389 — awarding funds for the repatriation of soldiers.27 With the cost of each return at $396.04, the total cost by the end of 1922 for 45,588 soldiers was over $18 million.28 As will be further explained below, the government, though having assured families that repatriation would be an available option, favoured overseas burial. Baker’s announcement to the public and the assertion that the government would cover the huge cost of repatriation helps to explain how much public opinion influenced the repatriation process and the policies that governed it.

Not all families were satisfied with government assurance of repatriation. Some families were convinced that the government would not come through with its promise. Others mistakenly believed that dead American soldiers were under the care or supervision of French authorities. Still others feared that the resting places of those who would remain in France would be abandoned eventually or receive almost no care.29 Therefore, some families having the means — whether monetary or influential contacts — took matters into their own hands and secured the remains of their fallen soldiers for return to American soil without government aid.30

24 Ibid, 150. 25 “9,000 Soldiers’ Bodies Shipped to America,” Bennington Evening Banner (Bennington, VT), 11 November 1920, accessed 28 October 2015, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn95066012/1920-11-11/ed-1/seq-2/. 26 Ibid. 27 Sledge, Soldier Dead, 136. 28 Ibid, 176. 29 United States, War Dept., “A Report to the Secretary of War on American Military Dead Overseas,” Govt. Print. Off, 1920, 11. 30 Sledge, Soldier Dead, 173.


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The establishment of a default policy of returning the bodies of war dead back to the United States dated from the turn of the century. Following the Spanish-American War and the Philippine Insurrection, the United States repatriated some 1,800 soldiers.31 At the time, the Philippines had demonstrated little resistance to the disinterment of bodies from its soil. After World War I, the French authorities were not so compliant with American demands. No European country made such requests, and France did not understand American insistence for the right to repatriate.32 In looking at what other countries opted to do, it is evident that the United States was quite unique in its decision to not only repatriate soldiers after World War I, but also to maintain a dual option with final say resting with families.

For example, Great Britain did not allow repatriation. With its almost 1 million dead soldiers after the war, it was much closer geographically to the battlefields where those bodies lay. However, Great Britain was determined that the bodies must remain as close as possible to where they fell. These bodies included the fallen of its colonies — Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc. — that, though bound to defend the Empire, had fought, like the United States, despite their own territories not being threatened. In 1919, Sir Sam Hughes, Canada’s Minister of Militia, spoke in the House of Commons against the British policy:

I wish to draw the attention of the minister to the report that the United States authorities are bringing back the bodies of the United States soldiers who fell in France. I would ask him to give this matter consideration in regard to the bodies of Canadians who fell. I know that it would be a very heavy job, but the United States authorities are said to be doing it and a great many Canadians are urging that it be done here.33

But Canada had to follow the British decision as it had when the war broke out. Therefore, though the Commonwealth opted for a different policy than the American dual practice, this issue was debated in several countries.

American repatriation had important advocates. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, Walter McCoy, expressed his support for grieving families concerning their wish for repatriation in a letter 31 Ibid, 135 & 143. 32 Ibid, 143 & 144. 33 Canadian Parliamentary Historical Resources, “House of Commons Debates, 13th Parliament, 2nd session,” vol 1, 332, accessed 1 November 2015, http://parl.canadiana.ca/view/oop.debates_HOC1302_01/344?r=0&s=1.


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addressed to the editor of The Star in response to an article published a few days earlier. McCoy stated:

It is difficult to comprehend why anyone should be interested to oppose the desires of the relatives of the dead soldiers. It is not a matter of the head to be met by argument, but of the heart. … It seems awful after all we have done and all the great sacrifices we have made and now have to try so hard to get the War Department to keep their faith with us.34

Another article was published in a magazine for undertakers called The Casket, where repatriation was endorsed, as it would ensure more business for American undertakers. A Bring Home the Dead League was created, with the aim of convincing the government to respect the families’ wishes to return soldiers to the United States.35 The government, after Secretary of State Baker’s promise, was duty-bound to acquiesce to such wishes.

Though the conversation regarding repatriation of those soldiers whose families expressed a wish for their return began during the war, the actual movement of bodies only commenced in 1921. Immediate priorities following the war were to take care of the living. In addition, peace treaties had to be negotiated and the balance of the power on the international stage had shifted considerably in favour of the United States. By March 1920, negotiations could begin between the United States and France regarding the process of returning soldiers home. The French and Belgian authorities were initially reluctant to allow and assist them in repatriation of American soldiers. France stated that the United States could only begin the process of repatriation on September 15, 1920. To sanction repatriation before that time would give the appearance that France was favouring American efforts over its own since many French bodies still lay in zones of battle.36 In September 1919, a bill, applying to French soldiers’ bodies, had been introduced in the French Chamber of Deputies “forbidding the removal of bodies for three years because of means of transportation were lacking.”37 It would therefore have been unfair for American bodies to be prioritized over fallen French soldiers.

34 Walter I. McCoy, “Plea for Return of Dead Endorsed,” Evening star (Washington, D.C.), 7 January 1920, accessed 28 October 2015. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1920-01-07/ed-1/seq-4/. 35 Sledge, Soldier Dead, 136. 36 Ibid, 144. 37 Associated Press, “French Won’t Permit Own Soldiers’ Bodies Removal,” Richmond Times-Dispatch (Richmond, VA), Sept 21, 1919, accessed 28 October 2015.


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French authorities had good reason to consider transportation as a major obstacle to this American initiative. The damage from over four years of war was extensive: approximately 500 miles of canals destroyed and 1,400 miles of railways ruined, in addition to the damage to the roads.38 In a May 1920 report to the Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, Ralph Hayes, the Assistant to the Secretary of War, stated that advocates of overseas burials urged that, in France, “every effort should be centred on using such track and transport as is available for the supply of food and shelter and working materials to the returning inhabitants of the devastated areas.”39 France feared that monopolizing the transportation system for the movement of the dead might “so derange the reconstruction as to endanger the rights of the living.”40 With almost three million refugees attempting to use this same broken transportation system to return to their shattered homes, France’s priority was not to appease American demands.41

Nonetheless, not all Americans were willing to recognize the enormity of the feat, and many continued to press the French for the right for immediate repatriation. They rationalized the debate by asserting that French families could visit their war dead easily whereas Americans could not easily make a pilgrimage across the Atlantic. The similarity of their situation with that of Australia, Canada or India seemed not to matter.42 Americans had been promised repatriation, and the administration would come through on that promise by testing out its newly established international influence. This reflects the administration’s inclination to appease domestic pressures after the war by concentrating on repatriation.

Apart from transportation, French authorities were concerned with the sanitation of disinterring thousands of bodies and transferring them to the United States by boat.43 They were particularly worried about disease-spreading flies. It is also important to remember that concurrent events would

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/search/pages/results/?state=&date1=1919&date2=1919&proxtext=French+won%27t+permit+own+soldiers&x=13&y=17&dateFilterType=yearRange&rows=20&searchType=basic. 38 Lisa M. Budreau, Bodies of War: World War I and the Politics of Commemoration in America, 1919-1933 (New York and London: New York University Press, 2010), 46-47. 39 United States, War Dept., “A Report to the Secretary of War,” 13. 40 Sledge, Soldier Dead, 144. 41 Budreau, Bodies of War, 46-47. 42 Ibid, 47. 43 Sledge, Soldier Dead, 144.


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have had a large influence on this fear as the Spanish influenza epidemic was ravaging Europe and the rest of the world at this time, causing 20 million deaths.44 In addition to the sanitation issue with disinterring bodies in Europe, once bodies arrived in the United States, a new problem presented itself. Families, eager for the closure they expected to receive from seeing their dead one’s bodies one last time, were opening caskets upon their arrival. But authorities knew that the body would be unrecognizable and would likely prolong the families’ grief. Customarily, bodies had been buried in wooden caskets or blankets, though metal caskets were used for the transportation to the United States. The initial burials, therefore, did not ensure the remains were in good condition. This raised the sanitation issue on the American side of the process as well. The War Department received a flood of requests for guidelines from undertakers for dealing with this delicate issue.45

With Great Britain, the diplomatic negotiations were less problematic. Still, one difficulty involved Americans living in Great Britain who asked to have bodies returned to them there. British authorities asked the Americans to follow their standard policy of not displaying any type of military flag and not dispatching soldiers to help transport the caskets. They feared that otherwise, the press might take notice and a movement could start to allow the repatriation of British soldiers out of France. In terms of disinterring Americans from British soil, the process began in February 1920. The task, however, required a licence for each disinterment, and the bodies of soldiers who had died from an infectious disease were subject to even more regulations.46 Germany, on the other hand, initially did not permit disinterment of American soldiers from its soil. When the United States guaranteed that they would cover all expenses, Germany conceded.47

Though American foreign policies had shifted significantly between 1914 and 1918, the importance the public placed on repatriation demonstrated that public opinion had not altered quite so drastically. As previously stated, in 1914 the United States did not intervene in the World War I because doing so would have gone against their policy of isolation. The public supported this, as the

44 Canadian War Museum, “Influenza, 1918-1919,” accessed 3 November 2015, http://www.warmuseum.ca/firstworldwar/history/life-at-home-during-the-war/wartime-tragedies/influenza-1918-1919/. 45 Budreau, Bodies of War, 48. 46 Sledge, Soldier Dead, 145 & 147. 47 Ibid, 146.


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majority didn’t feel responsibility for the events occurring in Europe. The World War I was not America’s war to fight. That is, until unrestricted submarine warfare, civilian death and the threat of Mexico’s alliance with Germany forced the United States to take notice. Some Americans supported the decision to intervene, but not all agreed that sending troops to their deaths was the best option. Therefore, when the war ended, the need to have the assurance that bodies would be returned where they belonged — in the United States — was strong. The American government may not have agreed — and certainly not all Americans did as is seen by those who selected overseas burials on the cards they received from the government — but repatriation fit into the 1914 foreign policy and the 1918 domestic policy narratives. Administrations have, after all, a duty towards the population they represent and ignoring their wishes could have had disastrous consequences.

The option of repatriation may have had strong support from influential people like the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia and the Bring Home the Dead League, but the faction dedicated to overseas burials of American war dead was equally (if not more) impressive. It included the military, many veterans’ groups, and members of the federal government.48 Some families looked to former President Theodore Roosevelt for guidance in their decision-making; he asked that his son, Quentin, be buried in Fields of Honor.49 These fields would be large American cemeteries in Europe, maintained by the United States and designed in a way to offer peace and comfort to visiting families and pilgrims. Secretary Baker appealed to families to consider the “wiser and better course to leave those bodies” in overseas cemeteries.50 Major General James G. Harbord, the Service of Supply Commander, wrote to the chief of staff “It would be better to concentrate the bodies of American dead in central cemeteries in France than to undertake to remove them to the United States.”51 Colonel Charles C. Pierce, Chief of the Quartermaster Graves Registration Service created in 1917, thought that it was “only right that the bodies of our heroes should remain in the vicinity of the

48 Ron Robin, “’A Foothold in Europe’: The Aesthetics and Politics of American War Cemeteries in Western Europe, “Journal of American Studies 29, no. 1 (1995): 56. 49 Sledge, Soldier Dead, 136. 50 Budreau, Bodies of War, 48. 51 Ibid, 46.


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place where their lives were sacrificed for the United States.”52 The majority of GHQ chaplains also felt that overseas burials were preferable.53

In addition to the advocacy for overseas burials based on principle, it was important for the administration to defend this option for the proper burial of unidentified soldiers whose next of kin were unknown as well as for the remains of those whose families never responded to the cards sent by the government. A total of eight cemeteries were established in Western Europe for American soldiers’ burials, numbering 30,922 gravesites.54 This was not the first instance of American overseas burials. About 750 unidentified American soldiers were buried in Mexico City in a cemetery established in 1851 following the end of the Mexican-American war.55

The Graves Registration Service undertook the extensive work required to consolidate graves into larger plots. This organization was a combination of smaller groups, created in February 1918, by order of General Headquarters American Expeditionary Force (AEF). It included a dozen units (about 50 men each) of Graves Registration advance groups sent overseas; about five similarly sized units with the AEF; and Red Cross personnel who photographed individual graves. In 1923, the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) was created by congressional legislation, and today, they are responsible for all overseas burials for American soldiers.56

As oftentimes soldiers themselves buried their comrades in arms, the Graves Registrations Service was necessary for proper burial, marking and identification when possible.57 The U.S. Quartermaster explained the problem:

Temporary burials were sometimes marked by a rifle, by a rude improvised cross, by a stick in the ground, with the identity indicated as well as possible at the time … so it was the duty of the Graves Registration Service to follow these temporary inhumations as they were reported and, as conditions made it possible to approach these areas, to re-mark the grave with a wooden “V” shaped peg on which

52 Sledge, Soldier Dead, 136. 53 Budreau, Bodies of War, 46. 54 American Battle Monuments Commission, “History,” accessed 5 November 2015. https://www.abmc.gov/about-us/history. 55 Robin, “A Foothold in Europe,” 56; Sledge, Soldier Dead, 200. 56 “History.” 57 United States, War Dept., “A Report to the Secretary of War,” 31.


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was a stamped metal plate indicating the soldier’s identity, and to improve the situation of the grave when necessary.58

The result of their initial work was to have American soldiers buried in almost 2,000 locations. To avoid these gravesites becoming unkempt and isolated, they were eventually disinterred and relocated in less remote areas, at the end of the hostilities.59

Some felt that disinterment of remains was disrespectful of the sanctity of the original burial site. Though the option of not disturbing the body of a fallen soldier was never officially offered to the next of kin, several families requested it. The Graves Registration Service, frustrated and trying to convince families to allow the bodies to be moved to a large cemetery, threatened not to take responsibility for the maintenance of isolated graves.60 If these remains were in Great Britain, the British were willing to maintain the gravesites. But in France, the government required that the family purchase the land, maintain the site, and seek approval from the commune’s mayor. About 161 families opted for this “Do Not Disturb” unofficial option. In an effort to remain respectful towards the fallen that were to be disinterred, military escorts were supplied for any transportation of remains and storage facilities were appropriately decorated.61

Negotiations with France also had to take place for burials, as they had for repatriation. The French were eager to retrieve their land and begin cultivating again. Nevertheless, a French Law of December 29, 1915, ensured burial rights in perpetuity for Allies. Due to the legislation, plus a similar law in Belgium, some land had to be expropriated by the government if the owner was unwilling to sell. French citizens were further reluctant to give up their private land since traditionally, they viewed the appropriate resting place for soldiers as an ossuary. They felt that this was a preferable option as it was more cost and space effective. The latter reason was in their best interest as they were attempting to ensure the retrieval of their private land. 62

The advocates of overseas burials had varied motives for wanting their preference to be obeyed. One justification that was appealing for the

58 Sledge, Soldier Dead, 183. 59 United States, War Dept., “A Report to the Secretary of War,” 35. 60 Budreau, Bodies of War, 117. 61 Sledge, Soldier Dead, 193. 62 Budreau, Bodies of War, 117-118.


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administration in the United States was the knowledge that American influence and strength would be impressed overseas.63 As author Ron Robin wrote:

An important reason for government support for overseas monuments and cemeteries was the desire to control and guide symbolic representations of America abroad, which, in the absence of a firm governmental policy, had established an eclectic appearance in Europe in the immediate aftermath of the Great War.64

The international community was aware, as American citizens were, of the United States’ relatively sudden reversal in policy towards intervention in the war. As such, the administration was inclined to insist upon concrete evidence of their participation, which would remain on European soil in perpetuity. In using the Fields of Honor to showcase the large role the Americans played in the Allied victory and to remind Europeans of American sacrifice, the government was essentially using the fallen soldiers and continuing their service. Soldiers repatriated to home soil would have little impact on America’s image in Europe. Though the government had the intention of honouring their promise to allow and fund repatriation when desired, overseas burials was very plainly its preference.

The design of the American gravestones and sites in Europe reflected the administration’s goal to appear as a united nation. Whereas repatriated soldiers, some of whom were reinterred in the Arlington National Cemetery, were segregated by race, those in the Fields of Honor were not.65 Americans buried in Europe were given a uniform marker, making no distinction of rank or race for burial location.66 No personalized epitaphs were permitted, which differed from the British policy, which allowed families to personalize their messages, as long as they remained within a fixed letter count.67 Celebrations of a soldier’s personalized achievements were also not permitted. The uniform gravesites made the war effort seem perhaps more honourable and sacred than the true aims had been. The standard marker was a Latin Cross (or in some cases the Star of David), placed on a slender support to give the impression of more space between each gravesite, in an effort to highlight individual sacrifice through identical markers.68

63 Ibid, 48. 64 Robin, “A Foothold in Europe,” 57. 65 Ibid, 60. 66 Sledge, Soldier Dead, 204. 67 Robin, “A Foothold in Europe,” 59. 68 Ibid, 59-64.


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The cemeteries’ layouts themselves were created with the purpose of echoing American foreign policy of the time. The ABMC chose “pseudo-medieval” and other classical designs, as a reflection of the United States’ previous ties to Europe. “Greek simplicity” was employed to mirror the nations’ colonial past and symbolized humanism and democratic traditions, according to the supervising architect. Other elements in the cemeteries were of medieval style in an attempt to draw a parallel between the Crusades and American actions in World War I. This elevated the status of cemeteries to a virtually sacred and holy level. In these cemeteries, a visitor, after wandering through identical gravesites, would find themselves guided by the pathways to the chapel. In these intentionally understated buildings, the government’s history of the American war effort would be outlined, which “assured that due homage would be paid to the role of government in coordinating, perhaps dictating, the will of the people.”69 The importance placed on the intricacies in the design of cemeteries gives insight as to the important roles the government hoped these sites could serve.

Though one of the main goals for overseas burials, at least from the government’s point of view, was to demonstrate its new role as a superpower, this position would not be accepted by other nations simply by the sight of thousands of American gravesites in Europe. The United States had to prove its worth as an influential player in international affairs at the post-war negotiating table. The Fourteen Points suggested by Wilson in January 1918 had resonated with many: the Central Powers’ willingness to fight had been diminished and oppressed people looked to the statements on self-determination with hope. The Allies, who had their own war aims, were not pleased with this program set out by the United States, an associate power and not officially part of the Allies. When the armistice was signed on November 11, 1918, the Germans agreed to peace based on the Fourteen Points program. That the Americans had suggested the terms that made peace attainable raised President Wilson’s status to that of a world saviour.70

Within a short time, major points in Wilson’s plan would be rejected on the home front, and the program would be so modified by the resentful Allies as to seemingly lose its original purpose. Wilson’s failure to be the leader of the peace negotiations was occurring simultaneously to the debates over what

69 Ibid, 60-64. 70 Buckley and Strong, American Foreign and National Security Policies, 48.


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to do with the remains of American soldiers. At home, these failures were born from the rejection by the American Senate of the League of Nations, one of the main points in Wilson’s peace program. The League was to be an association of nations in which members would come together against any member nations that committed acts of hostility towards another. The reasoning was that such an association, had it existed in 1914, could have prevented the war by giving the belligerents a forum in which to discuss the problems they faced.71 The hope was that it would prevent any future war. On ideological grounds, the U.S. Senate rejected this commitment, owing more to the internal conflict between Republicans and Democrats and not because it doubted the plausibility of the League of Nations.72 By not receiving the approval from his own government, Wilson risked much of his prestige being rebuffed. The fear of losing the newly minted superpower status was embodied by the insistence to maintain a presence in Europe by way of the war dead.

The Allies’ changes to the peace plan also discredited Wilson as naïve and ideological. In Wilson’s Fourteen Points, no country would claim reparations for the cost of war. Wilson feared this vengeful demand, thinking it would make Germany more vulnerable economically and therefore more likely to turn to Bolshevism as a result.73 He had also stated the importance of permitting self-determination, a principle that resonated strongly with the American ideology of rights and freedom of people to govern themselves. Yet, the final agreement with Germany — the Treaty of Versailles — included harsh reparations, after France insisted the clause be included. France had also requested Alsace-Lorraine to be restored to them, after the territory was lost to Germany during the Franco-Prussian war. Other territorial changes imposed by the Allies and specifically Germany’s loss of territory went against the principle of self-determination. That Wilson had not perceived these concessions as essential to the Allies when he drew up the terms of the Fourteen Points plan indicated his lack of understanding for the underlying historical causes for the World War I and the context in which it was fought and won in. Peace without victory was a failure.

World War I was thought to be the war that would end all wars. Today we know that to be false. Many decisions made in the aftermath of that tragic

71 Ibid, 55 & 60. 72 Frank Costigliola, Awkward Dominion: American Political, Economic, and Cultural Relations with Europe, 1919-1933 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1984), 30. 73 Ibid, 28.


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conflict were based on the hope that the world would never again be so devastated. The League of Nations, intended to prevent any future aggression, failed in its purpose. In fact, the tensions caused by the peace treaties signed following the war, with their harsh terms for defeated nations, might have been resolved by discussions between affected states, had the League been functional. Instead, these strains created circumstances which eventually allowed for the World War II to begin.74 The League’s failures reached beyond the lacking American membership; it would be an oversimplification to state that the United States’ involvement would have been sufficient to repair the immense diplomatic damage caused by World War I. Nevertheless, as one of the most powerful nations at the end of the war, its participation in the League would have been very influential.

The United States’ intervention in the war had a decisive impact on the course of the war for the Allies — whether due to the momentum caused by the knowledge of fresh troops arriving imminently, because of the addition of thousands of Americans into action, or due to the increased funding, is not the subject of the discussion at hand. However, it is still debated amongst historians why the United States declared war when it did. Perhaps it was to protect its rights as a neutral state as Wilson so passionately proclaimed at the outbreak of the war. Or perhaps it was out of retaliation for the loss of American lives suffered after the sinking of ships such as the Lusitania and the Arabic. Maybe it was because they felt the threat had become more substantial after the Zimmerman telegram. Or perhaps Wilson was looking into the future and wished to guarantee the United States a seat at the negotiating table at the armistice. On the other hand, maybe it was all an idealistic pursuit to defend democracy. The answer is as ambiguous as it is complex. Perhaps this is why so many Americans felt conflicted about participation in World War I once it was announced and particularly when the number of casualties it would entail started becoming clear.

Decisions surrounding how to take care of thousands of soldiers’ remains often revolved around logistical problems or as has been discussed, policy angles. The process was important for a variety of reasons: sanitation, morale for the surviving troops, or even at times to investigate the possibility of foul play (for example, in the case of Prisoners of War).75 It is too easy to forget

74 Ibid, 29. 75 Sledge, Soldier Dead, 8-27.


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that those bodies belonged to people, with families, for whom the political angle did not matter.

The U.S. government’s decision to allow families to decide the fate of the soldiers’ remains was a unique and important policy. It allowed those families to feel comfort and to grieve as they saw fit. The true underlying reasoning for the government’s dual approach in its burial policies is perhaps less poignant. Allowing families to choose placated a public who, by 1918, had pushed aside any enthusiasm for war they may have expressed the previous year. With domestic policy in turmoil over the peace treaty, the League of Nations and the presidential election imminent, this policy, though costly to the government, awarded the administration more respect from the population. Their penchant was, nonetheless, clear: overseas burials were preferable as the permanent sight of soldiers lying in the fields of France and Belgium would have a lasting impact on European people, and more importantly, their governments. Fields of Honor were designed, and assurances given to families who opted not to repatriate that the remains would be well taken care of. In this, the government was trying to counter the fear of an unhinged world, where Bolshevism might flourish, by showing the force and stability of the United States abroad. The burial practices after World War I, influenced by the foreign policies of 1914 to 1918, would set a precedent for the next global war, where the casualty count would be much higher.


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Documents

Abstract - aedhgsa.caaedhgsa.ca/docs/Strata/Volume_7/STRATA_vol7_KARINE_LANDRY.pdf · Strata Karine Landry 41 FAR AND NEAR: THE REPATRIATION AND OVERSEAS BURIALS OF AMERICAN SOLDIERS