The Long Way Home

Sources

The individual stories of the twelve foreign-born soldiers I follow in this book are based primarily on family interviews, letters, scrapbooks, and military records. The one exception is Sam Dreben, the Fighting Jew, whose life and adventures were recorded in a biography by Art Leibson as well as articles written by friends, comrades, and admirers.

In describing what these men did and experienced on the battlefield, I have relied whenever possible on personal accounts—family stories and memories, letters and diaries. Where personal records do not exist, I have drawn on unit histories, battle diaries, and recollections and letters written by those serving alongside “my” men. I have found these recollections and unit histories (some published in book form, others in typescript) archived at the National Archives and Records Administration (hereafter NARA) in College Park, Maryland, and the U.S. Army Military History Institute at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, and in the personal collection of Tom Gudmestad in Seattle, Washington. I have gleaned additional details from field orders and memos written during battles held at NARA in Record Group 120, as well as accounts of individual battles or moments of battle written by officers after the war and archived at NARA in Record Group 117. The holdings at NARA are often deep and detailed enough that I was able to find reports written by company captains or even platoon lieutenants who led the men I wrote about; in some cases I have located diaries of privates or noncommissioned officers serving in their platoons or fighting nearby on the same day. In creating narratives of what my soldiers went through on a given day or a given hour of combat, I have made composites of these detailed reports and battle diaries and the accounts left by my men or recounted later to their families. When I write, for example, of Meyer Epstein’s suffering in the miserable Bois de Fays in October 1918, I found the details of this misery—the cold and wet and stench of death—in a report written by one of his battalion commanders. Even though I had no documentary evidence that Meyer was equally miserable in this wretched wood, I thought it safe to proceed on that assumption since he was present at the same time and in the same place where the vivid report of the conditions was written. The detail about Meyer starving for lack of protein because of his refusal to eat meat that was not kosher came from an interview with his son.

This has been my method throughout: to weave together (and corroborate) eyewitness accounts with details taken from the memories, letters, and anecdotes passed down through families. All dialogue I quote either comes from eyewitnesses, letters, and diaries or from interviews with family members.

In the notes that follow, I indicate the most important source materials I used in each chapter. I have provided notes for quotations, statistics, and events for which I have found conflicting or improbable accounts or claims and thorny issues that have stirred up debate. These are not strict “academic” notes, but they should give the interested reader ample opportunity to pursue subjects in greater depth and the historian or scholar the references he or she needs to track down the source of crucial facts, figures, assumptions, and details.

INTRODUCTION

I learned of Tony Pierro’s war and immigrant experience in an interview conducted with him and his brother Nicholas Pierro and nephew Rick Pierro at their home in Swampscott, Massachusetts, on July 8, 2006.

xvi “Some half a million other immigrants”: Nancy Gentile Ford, Americans All! Foreign-Born Soldiers in World War I (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2001), 3. I found Ford’s book, which offers a detailed account of the drafting, training, and military experiences of immigrant soldiers, extremely useful.
xix “Our minds were becoming warped”: Joseph N. Rizzi, Joe’s War (Huntington, WV: Der Angriff, 1983), unpaginated.
xix “Combatants live only for their herd”: Chris Hedges, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (New York: Public Affairs, 2002), 38, 40.
xxi “Their service is steeped”: Patrik Jonsson, “Noncitizen Soldiers: The Quandaries of Foreign-Born Troops,” Christian Science Monitor, July 5, 2005; http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0705/p01s03-usmi.html.
xxi The largest group of immigrant soldiers: Though thousands of men of Asian, Pacific Island, South and Central American birth and ancestry served with the U.S. military in World War I, I have chosen to focus on those of European ancestry. My primary reason is that the stories of the European men fit together into a coherent narrative: theirs was the classic immigrant experience of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and even though they came from different countries, they had a great deal in common—most important, from my point of view, the fact that they were returning in military uniform to the continent from which they had recently emigrated. Many of these European immigrants had family members still living in the war zone or fighting in the armies of the European powers, which was not true for the Asians and Latinos. The men I write about represented the major immigrant groups of the period. The great waves of Asian and South and Central American immigration came later—in fact, Mexican Americans and Filipino Americans are the two largest immigrant groups serving in the U.S. Armed Forces today.

The contributions to World War I made by Mexican Americans is discussed in the excellent article by Carole E. Christian, “Joining the American Mainstream: Texas’s Mexican Americans During World War I,” in Southwestern Historical Quarterly, April 1989, pages 559–595. Christian calls the war “a crucial stage in the assimilation of Hispanics into the political and social life of Texas and of the nation” and argues that the war was even more powerful than the Great Depression in shaping the identities of Hispanics in the United States. The war “marked the first concerted effort by the American government and Anglo society to promote the involvement of Hispanics in national life,” notes Christian. Even though most Mexican American soldiers were illiterate and few spoke English, they “fought bravely, though they did not understand for what they were fighting.” Fighting in the war led “returning veterans . . . [to] spread American ideals and values as well as an awareness of being Mexican Americans, rather than Mexicans, to large segments of Texas Hispanics.” I believe—and argue throughout this book—that the same held true for all ethnic groups.

CHAPTER 1: OLD COUNTRIES

The books that I relied on most heavily in portraying the conditions that led Jews to leave the Russian Pale include: The Promised City: New York’s Jews 1870–1914, by Moses Rischin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962); Hands Across the Sea: Jewish Immigrants and World War I, by Joseph Rappaport (Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books, 2005); World of Our Fathers, by Irving Howe (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976); Shores of Refuge: A Hundred Years of Jewish Emigration, by Ronald Sanders (New York: Holt, 1988); My Future Is in America: Autobiographies of Eastern European Jewish Immigrants, edited and translated by Jocelyn Cohen and Daniel Soyer (New York: New York University Press, 2005); and The Rise of David Levinsky, by Abraham Cahan (New York: Harper, 1960).

I drew on the following books for background in describing the Italian immigrant experience: La Storia: Five Centuries of the Italian American Experience, by Jerre Mangione and Ben Morreale (New York: HarperCollins, 1992); Blood of My Blood: The Dilemma of the Italian-Americans, by Richard Gambino (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974); Unto the Sons, by Gay Talese (New York: Knopf, 1992); The Story of the Italians in America, by Michael Angelo Musmanno (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965); Passage to Liberty: The Story of Italian Immigration and the Rebirth of America, by A. Kenneth Ciongoli and Jay Parini (New York: ReganBooks, 2002); The Italian Americans, by J. Philip di Franco (New York: T. Doherty, 1988); Americans by Choice, by Angelo M. Pellegrini (New York: Macmillan, 1956); Immigrant’s Return, by Angelo M. Pellegrini (New York: Macmillan, 1951); Pascal D’Angelo: Son of Italy, by Pascal D’Angelo (New York: Macmillan, 1924); The Italian-Americans, by Luciano J. Iorizzo and Salvatore Mondello (New York: Twayne, 1971); From Immigrants to Ethnics: The Italian Americans, by Humbert S. Nelli (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983); Gli Stati Uniti d’America e L’Emigrazione Italiana, by Luigi Villari (Milano, Italy: Fratelli Treves, 1912); Christ in Concrete, by Pietro di Donato (Indianapolis, NY: Bobbs-Merrill, 1939).

The books I found most useful in understanding the experience of Polish immigrants include: The Polish Press in America, by Jan Kowalik (San Francisco: R and E Research Associates, 1978); And My Children Did Not Know Me, by John J. Bukowczyk (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987); Behold! The Polish-Americans, by Joseph A. Wytrwal (Detroit: Endurance Press, 1977); Polish Americans: An Ethnic Community, by James S. Pula (New York: Twayne, 1995).

The story of Meyer Epstein came primarily from my telephone interviews with his sons Harold, Julius, and especially my personal interview with Leonard Epstein, in Monroe Township, New Jersey, on October 22, 2006, and several subsequent telephone interviews. The story of Magnus Andreas Brattestø (later Andrew Christofferson) came primarily from interviews and letters from his daughter Nellie Neumann, and especially from our interview in Washington, D.C., on January 3, 2007. The story of Frank and Joseph Chmielewski came from my initial telephone interview with Frank’s son, John Chimelewski, on March 3, 2007, and from personal interviews with Frank’s daughter, the late Josephine Rolincik, and with Josephine’s daughter Dorothy Vancheri in Levittown, Pennsylvania, on April 27, 2007.

1 Sons as young as twelve: Details on Jews in Russian army from Louis Greenberg, The Jews in Russia, vol. 1, The Struggle for Emancipation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944–1951), 49. Greenberg calls Russian conscription a “military martyrdom on Jewish youth.”
1 To avoid the virtual death sentence: The detail about draft-age Jewish men slicing off their trigger fingers comes from my family history. My grandfather, Samuel Laskin, chopped off his own trigger finger as a young man in the Polish sector of the Russian Pale in order to avoid being drafted into the Russian army. Samuel emigrated to the United States in the 1920s and lived a long and robust life as a carpenter and as the father of four children, including my father, Meyer.
3 “Feeding the hungry”: Greenberg, The Jews in Russia, 63.
7 “We plant and we reap wheat but never do we eat white bread”: Mangione and Morreale, La Storia, 33.
7 In December 1908, a 7.5 magnitude earthquake: Details on the 1908 earthquake in Italy from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rescue/peopleevents/pandeAMEX99.html.
10 Two years later: Tony Pierro’s birth certificate says he was born February 22, 1896, though Tony maintained the date was February 15.
12 That summer: The Pierro family believed that Tony came to America in 1914, but the Ellis Island website clearly indicates that an eighteen-year-old named Antonio Pierro sailed out of Naples in the summer of 1913; see http://www.ellisisland.org (search under Antonio Pierro).
13 Magnus Andreas Brattestø was born: Nellie Neumann told me that her father was born near Haugesund, though his military papers and obituary show the town as Skjold, which is in the same region but 19 miles from the coast. Since Brattestø, the name of the large farm where his family lived, refers to a landing place, and since Andrew worked on a fishing boat as a young man, I have chosen to follow Ms. Neumann and go with the coastal town of Haugesund.
17 To the extent that the idea: Details on the Polish Catholic Church, from James Pula, Polish Americans, 20.
19 Peter Thompson, born in County Antrim: Details on Peter Thompson’s childhood from Christy Leskovar, One Night in a Bad Inn (Missoula, MT: Pictorial Histories, 2006), 146ff. Leskovar’s compelling and brilliantly researched book has been my source for all details about her grandfather Peter Thompson, with follow-up phone interviews and e-mail correspondence.
20 “I was standing in front of our house”: Samuel Goldberg’s quotes here and his quotes and stories throughout the book are from my interview with him near Providence, Rhode Island, on July 9, 2006.
21 Between 1880 and the 1920s: Immigration statistics from Nancy Foner and Richard Alba, “The Second Generation from the Last Great Wave of Immigration: Setting the Record Straight,” Migration Information Source, October 2006, http://www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?ID=439; and Maldwyn Allen Jones, American Immigration (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 179.

CHAPTER 2: JOURNEYS

24 The Affatato boys had descended: Details on the journey of Epifanio Affatato come from telephone interviews with his sons Charles, Domenick, and Edward on October 25, 2007, and a series of follow-up e-mails and conversations with Ed.
24 The long bumpy cart ride: Ed Affatato told me that his father “probably” went from Scala Coeli to Reggio di Calabria by cart and then boarded a train to Naples, though he couldn’t be sure. On a map this route appears rather circuitous.
26 “What makes the emigrant so meek”: Broughton Brandenberg, Imported Americans: The Story of the Experiences of a Disguised American and His Wife Studying the Immigration Question (New York: F. A. Stokes, 1904), 142.
29 “For such quarters”: Ibid., 176. I also consulted http://www.ohranger.com/ellis-island/immigration-journey for information on immigrant ships and the profits of the shipping companies.
31 The Cunard Line built the Lusitania: Patrick O’Sullivan, The Lusitania: Unravelling the Mysteries (Cork, Ireland: Collins Press, 1998), 37–38.
33 “Hundreds of people had vomiting fits”: Quoted in Sanders, Shores of Refuge, 67–68.
34 “What dirty little imps”: Brandenberg, Imported Americans, 192.
34 “Who can depict the feeling”: from Cahan, David Levinsky, 85.
40 “Where was I to go?”: from Mangione and Morreale, La Storia, 109.

CHAPTER 3: STREETS OF GOLD

45 “the crying evil of race prejudice”: Quote from W. E. B. DuBois, statistics on the cost of food, and information on the Wobblies are taken from Meirion Harries and Susie Harries, The Last Days of Innocence: America at War, 1917–1918 (New York: Random House, 1997), 16, 19, 20. The Last Days contains an excellent discussion of American society during the war years, as well as highly vivid and detailed descriptions of battle scenes. Additional background on American society and culture in the first decades of the twentieth century are from David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980).
46 “Through this metal wicket drips”: H. G. Wells, The Future in America: A Search After Realities (New York: Harper, 1906), 36.
46 By 1914: Harries and Harries, The Last Days of Innocence, 22.
47 “Noise is everywhere”: Mangione and Morreale, La Storia, 120.
48 “Ugly wooden houses”: Interview with Maria Valiani, “Italians in Chicago—Oral History Project,” June 10, 1980, on file with the Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota.
48 The typical immigrant left Ellis Island: Ann Novotny, Strangers at the Door: Ellis Island, Castle Garden and the Great Migration to America (Riverside, CT: Chatham Press, 1971), 76.
49 It was “a gray, stone world”: Leon Kobrin quoted in Howe, World of Our Fathers, 72.
49 “America was . . . noise”: from Cohen and Soyer, My Future Is in America, 141.
53 “Everywhere was toil”: from Gambino, Blood of My Blood, 93.
56 Tommaso Ottaviano was seventeen years old: The story of Tommaso Ottaviano and the Ottaviano family’s immigration to the United States are from a series of interviews with Pamela Rhodes and John Ricci conducted in Seattle, Washington, in 2007 and 2008 and from follow-up phone interviews.
61 “They have their own churches”: Quoted in Pula, Polish Americans, 23.
62 “My fellow workers are Polish”: Quoted ibid., 24.

CHAPTER 4: THE WEAK, THE BROKEN, AND THE MENTALLY CRIPPLED

65 One day, soon after he got to the United States: For background on anti-immigrant sentiment, I drew on John Higham’s seminal work Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860–1925 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1988). Also helpful were Hans P. Vought, The Bully Pulpit and the Melting Pot: American Presidents and the Immigrant, 1897–1933 (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2004), and Harries and Harries and Kennedy, cited above.
66 “There is no swarming”: Henry James, The American Scene (New York: Penguin Books, 1994), 100.
66 Harvard zoologist Charles Davenport: For information on Charles Davenport, see “Race—the Power of an Illusion,” Public Broadcasting System, http://www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_04-about-03-01.htm. I am indebted to Kevin Francis, a professor of the history and philosophy of science at Evergreen State College, for refining and deepening my understanding of the early twentieth century eugenics movement. Francis writes that “the trend among historians has been to view eugenics as part of the Progressive Movement aimed at social reform and increased scientific management of society. Some eugenicists were early and influential environmentalists.”
67 “the weak, the broken and mentally crippled”: quoted in Jones, American Immigration, 268. Other quotes are from Madison Grant, The Passing of the Great Race (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1916), xxxi, 91.
68 “When the test of actual battle”: Grant, The Passing of the Great Race, xxxi, 91.
69 Fair-haired, blue-eyed, strapping: Material on Matej Kocak’s youth, emigration, and early experiences in the United States is taken from a chapter in Theodore Roosevelt’s book Rank and File: True Stories of the Great War (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1928) and from Kocak’s military file, copied and given to me by Peter Kacur.
73 “Shoot de woiks”: My information on Sam Dreben comes from the following sources: a series of articles entitled “A Soldier of Fortune’s Story” written by Dreben’s fellow soldier of fortune and sometime comrade in arms Tracy Richardson that appeared in Liberty Magazine on October 10, 17, 24, 31, and November 21, 1925; Dreben’s obituary in the New York Times, March 18, 1925; “Sam Dreben—Warrior, Patriot, Hero,” an article by Hymer E. Rosen, available online at http://www.jewish-history.com/WildWest/dreben.html; “Fighting Jew—Forgotten Hero” by Gerard Meister, at the Doughboy Center website http://www.worldwar1.com/dbc/dreben.htm; “The Fighting Jew” by Rabbi Martin Zielonka, Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, no. 31 (1928): 211–217; and Art Leibson’s biography, Sam Dreben: The Fighting Jew (Tucson, AZ: Westernlore Press, 1996).
73 “He was the last man”: Richardson, “A Soldier of Fortune’s Story,” October 10, 1925.
74 While still in his teens Sam ran away: There are some minor discrepancies in facts and dates between the Leibson biography and the Rosen article—for example, Leibson asserts that Dreben left home for good at age seventeen and arrived in New York in February 1899.
75 “Do they give the uniform too?”: Rosen, “Sam Dreben—Warrior, Patriot, Hero.”
77 “Handling a machine gun”: Leibson, Sam Dreben, 44.

CHAPTER 5: THE WORLD AT WAR

79 Four and a half years later: Statistics on the numbers killed in the war vary widely by source and by how the statistician breaks down the numbers—for example, whether or not to include among civilian deaths those who died in the Armenian genocide and those who perished in the war-related influenza epidemic. Rough figures for military and civilian deaths combined, including Armenian civilians and excluding influenza victims, run from 9 million to 16 million. So the figure I give of nearly 10 million is on the conservative side.
79 But instead the ultimatum: Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August (New York: Ballantine Books, 1962), 71.
85 What Andrew found most disturbing: For a description of the rape of Belgium, see John Keegan, The First World War (New York: Knopf, 1999), 82.
86 Butte, Montana, is 237 miles west: The description of Butte in 1914 draws on Leskovar, One Night in a Bad Inn, and Clemens P. Work, Darkest Before Dawn: Sedition and Free Speech in the American West (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005), 66.
87 Maximilian Cieminski in Bessemer, Michigan: The story of Maximilian Cieminski and his family comes from a series of interviews, letters, and emails I received from his great-nephew John A. Riggs.
91 “Three elderly, frightened folk”: from Forverts, September 6, 1910, translated by Myra Mniewski.
92 “Seven million Jews are involved”: Mordecai Soltes, The Yiddish Press: An Americanizing Agency (New York: Arno Press, 1969), 193.
92 A story circulated: S. Ansky, The Enemy at His Pleasure: A Journey Through the Jewish Pale of Settlement During World War I (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2002), 31.
94 “A German victory”: Quoted in Rappaport, Hands Across the Sea, 39.
95 “No work could have been more perfectly calculated”: Pellegrini, Americans by Choice, 81.
96 The death toll all along the Western Front: Statistics on deaths in first months of war from Keegan, The First World War, 136.
97 In that same tender 1915 spring week: Information on gas attacks are from Joel Vilensky, Dew of Death: The Story of Lewisite, America’s World War I Weapon of Mass Destruction (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 2005), 13–15; James W. Hammond Jr., Poison Gas: The Myths Versus the Reality (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999), 10–11; and Keegan, The First World War, 197–198.
98 When Meyer Epstein picked up his copy: Quotes on Lusitania from Forverts, May 9, 1915, translated by Myra Mniewski.
99 The Cincinnati Volksblatt: Quoted in Carl Wittke, German-Americans and the World War (Columbus: Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, 1936), 72.
100 Some 8 million individuals: Statistics on numbers of German Americans are taken from Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States, vol. 1: Population (1910), 875. Don Heinrich Tolzmann puts the number at over 18 million, 25 percent of the population in 1900; see Tolzmann’s The German-American Experience (Amherst, New York: Humanities Books, 2000), 268. Tolzmann may be including all Americans of German ancestry, rather than only those born in Germany or the offspring of at least one German parent.
100 “We are Germans, of course”: Quoted in Wittke, German-Americans and the World War, 74.
100 In the early days of the war: Information on Germans returning to fight from Harries and Harries, The Last Days of Innocence, 30. But Chad Millman notes that relatively few German Americans actually returned to fight because German submarine attacks made it too dangerous to cross the ocean; see The Detonators: The Secret Plot to Destroy America and an Epic Hunt for Justice (New York: Little, Brown, 2006), 6–7.
102 “Each of the belligerent nations”: Harries and Harries, The Last Days of Innocence, 30.
103 In the coming months: Musmanno, Italians in America, 141.
105 By 1915, he was pulling in $3.83 a day: Information on Peter’s pay and wages in the mines is from Leskovar, One Night in a Bad Inn, 161; and Work, Darkest Before Dawn, 63.
105 “Miners with families did not make enough”: from Work, Darkest Before Dawn, 63.
107 One historian wrote: Quoted in Keegan, The First World War, 285.
108 Villa’s men opened fire: The exact numbers that died in the Villa raid are disputed.
110 When Pershing pulled out in February 1917: Mitchell Yockleson argues that the expedition was successful in displaying American power and that it “provided military training experience for the eleven thousand regular soldiers who made up the expedition” and set up Pershing to be commander of the AEF in the war; see Yockleson, “The United States Armed Forces and the Mexican Punitive Expedition,” Prologue Magazine 29, nos. 3–4 (Fall–Winter 1997).
110 Michele Valente had come to America: Background on Michael Valente comes from an interview with his grandson Ralph Madalena in Rockville Center, New York, on October 23, 2006, and from several telephone interviews with Valente’s niece, Michelina Rizzo.
113 The German press was quick to point out: See Wittke, German-Americans and the World War, 87.
113 Grimmest of all: Facts and figures on the Somme from Keegan, The First World War, 295, and Martin Gilbert, The Somme (New York: Henry Holt, 2006), xvii.
115 President Wilson dismissed the explosion: Wilson quote on Black Tom from Millman, The Detonators, 97.
120 On the last day of the debate: Kennedy, Over Here, 17–18.

CHAPTER 6: THE ARMY OF FORTY-THREE LANGUAGES

123 As one newspaper informed its readers: Leskovar, One Night in a Bad Inn, 203.
123 For all the bluster about preparedness: Statistics on the U.S. army in 1917 from Christopher M. Sterba, Good Americans: Italian and Jewish Immigrants During the First World War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 32. Sterba’s book contains much excellent material on how the war affected the Italian “colonia” in New Haven and the Jewish community of the Lower East Side. I relied heavily on Sterba’s section “Training the New Immigrant Soldier” for details and background. Another source of statistics on the army in 1917 was http://www.history.army.mil/books/Lineage/mi/ch2.htm.
123 In strength and training: Douglas V. Johnson II and Rolfe L. Hillman Jr., Soissons, 1918 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1999), 6.
125 As the New York Times reported: Sterba, Good Americans, 68.
126 “The paper I represent”: quoted ibid., 61.
126 “there is not one Irishman”: quoted in Leskovar, One Night in a Bad Inn, 202; facts on Butte during Registration Day from Leskovar, One Night in a Bad Inn, 204.
127 Most anxious of all the “foreign element”: Details on Poles on Registration Day, from Wytrwal, Behold! The Polish-Americans, 223; Pula, Polish Americans, 59.
128 “Even though glory”: Wytrwal, Behold! The Polish-Americans, 228.
128 In the surge of patriotism that swept through Polonia: Material on Selective Service Act and declarants from William Bruce White, “The Military and the Melting Pot: The American Army and Minority Groups, 1865–1924” (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, 1968), 316–317.
131 “the flower of our neighborhood”: quoted in Sterba, Good Americans, 73.
131 Fingers were also pointed at aliens: Discussion of conscientious objectors draws on Harries and Harries, The Last Days of Innocence, 96.
133 Montana men, foreign- and native-born alike: Statistics on Montana in the war from Leskovar, One Night in a Bad Inn, 223.
134 On day one, an officer called the roll: Story of officer sneezing at Camp Meade from White, Military and Melting Pot, 327.
134 “the difficulties of teaching”: quoted in Sterba, Good Americans, 15.
134 “Never in my wildest flights”: Irving Crump, Conscript 2989: Experience of a Drafted Man (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1918), 2.
135 One Camp Upton officer shuddered: Herschkowitz as “worst possible material” from Major Charles Whittlesey, quoted in Lee J. Levinger, A Jewish Chaplain in France (New York: Macmillan, 1921), 117.
135 Sizing up the abilities and prospects: Quoted in Ford, Americans All!, 67–68.
135 “Many, many” of the men: quoted in Jennifer D. Keene, Doughboys, the Great War, and the Remaking of America (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 13.
136 “A right-smart number”: from Alvin Cullum York, Sergeant York: His Own Life and War Diary, ed. Tom Skeyhill (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Doran, 1928), 180.
139 “Slovak men!”: Details on Binghamton Slovaks going off to war and farewell banquet from Imrich Mažár, A History of the Binghamton Slovaks over a Period of Forty Years, 1879–1919 (Phoenix, AZ: Via Press, 2003).
140 “Old scores from the pages of history”: quoted in Ford, Americans All!, 68.
140 Soldiers of German and Austrian ancestry passed around stories: Harries and Harries, The Last Days of Innocence, 128.
140 “They have had no chance to speak”: quoted in Ford, Americans All!, 70.
141 To its credit: Information on Camp Gordon plan from White, Military and Melting Pot, 337, and Ford, Americans All!, chap. 3.
145 Former army chief of staff: quoted in Harries and Harries, The Last Days of Innocence, 194.
145 “We made an attack one day”: Story and quote from British instructor ibid., 135.
146 “Russia,” in the words of one historian: quoted in Paul Dukes, Superpowers: A Short History (London: Routledge, 2000), 36.
146 Nine months after Wilson had declared war on Germany: Statistics on numbers of Americans in France from Harries and Harries, The Last Days of Innocence, 210.
147 “We expected to see two million cowboys”: quoted ibid.
149 Tony Pierro was not the only one: Ethnic stereotypes relies on Keene, Doughboys, 19–20.
149 Ashad G. Hawie, a Syrian Christian: Hawie wrote about his experiences as a Syrian immigrant and a Doughboy in The Rainbow Ends (New York: Theo. Gauss, 1942); this anecdote is from 83–84.
149 Lieutenant Jacob Rader Marcus: Quoted in Jennifer D. Keene, World War I (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006), 112.
150 Particularly galling was the merger: Details on the merger of the 1st and the 7th regiments and quotes are from Stephen L. Harris, Duty, Honor, Privilege: New York’s Silk Stocking Regiment and the Breaking of the Hindenburg Line (Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 2001), 73, 77–78, 87.
151 “Perhaps the difference between soldier and civilian”: Quoted in Richard Slotkin, Lost Battalions: The Great War and the Crisis of American Nationality (New York, Holt, 2005), 121.
151 “When they fired”: Quotes on training are from Harris, Duty, Honor, Privilege, 100.
152 The men were marched: Ibid., 101. Note, however, that Gerald F. Jacobson in his History of the 107th Infantry (New York: DeVinne Press, 1920) says the Glassy Rock practice was in March.
152 Mastine, who had been nicknamed “Cuckoo”: Harris, Duty, Honor, Privilege, 101–102.
153 Sam Dreben, late of Pershing’s Punitive Expedition: The various articles and books written about Dreben contain discrepant accounts of the timing of his enlistment and how or whether it related to his daughter’s birth. I have gone with the version I found most plausible.
154 “It is quite apparent”: quoted in Keene, World War I , 39.
155 “ The foreign element is taking hold”: Crump, Conscript 2989, 72.
155 Boleslaw Gutowski, a Polish immigrant: Quoted in Rose Szewc Papers, Polish American Collection, Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota.
156 Jack Herschkowitz, a Rumanian-born Jew: Quoted in Sterba, Good Americans, 128.

CHAPTER 7: I GO WHERE YOU SEND ME

158 The Americans’ turn finally came: Details on Yankee Division at Seicheprey from Sterba, Good Americans, 179, and Harries and Harries, The Last Days of Innocence, 239–240.
164 Sending these men into battle: quoted in Keene, Doughboys, 47.
169 The marines’ objective at Belleau Wood: For the fighting at Belleau Wood, see Harries and Harries, The Last Days of Innocence, 271, and “The Battle for Belleau Wood,” http://www.worldwar1.com/dbc/ct_bw.htm.
170 Even the Germans admitted: Quoted in Harries and Harries, The Last Days of Innocence, 272.

CHAPTER 8: JULY 4, 1918

I used Chapter 8 of Strangers in the Land by John Higham for background on wartime repression, the activities of the Committee on Public Information, and the oppression of German-Americans. Kennedy’s Over Here and The Last Days of Innocence by Harries and Harries were also useful.

I am indebted to Norman Hofer for the story of Jacob Wipf and the Hofer brothers. I am also indebted to Susan E. Cohn for the superlative research she has done and generously shared. Ms. Cohn secured and supplied me with a copy of the trial transcript of United States v. Recruits David J. Hofer, Michael J. Hofer etc. recorded by the War Department, dated September 30, 1918. She also gave me copies of the papers she obtained from the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri, pertaining to the case. Additional information comes from the headquarters of the 91st Infantry Division, Judge Advocate’s Office, dated June 15, 1918, Rocky Mountain Region of the National Archives and Records Administration; Daniel Hallock, “Persecution in the Land of the Free,” http://www.plough.com/articles/persecutionintheland.html; and Darrell R. Sawyer, “Anti-German Sentiment in South Dakota During World War I,” South Dakota Historical Collections 38 (1976): 440–514. I also found two books very useful: John Stahl, Hutterite CO’s in World War One, trans. Karl Peter and Franziska Peter (Hawley, MN: Spring Prairie Printing, 1996); and Gerlof D. Homan, American Mennonites and the Great War (Waterloo, ON: Herald Press, 1994).

176 On April 4, 1918, a thirty-one-year-old baker: Kennedy, Over Here, 68.
178 A German pastor was imprisoned: Work, Darkest Before Dawn, 152.
180 When Jacob Wipf and the Hofer brothers: Details on conscientious objectors from Harries and Harries, The Last Days of Innocence, 132.
181 “Part of the time they had me on my back”: Harries and Harries, The Last Days of Innocence, 133.
181 Those who refused to obey orders: Stahl, Hutterite CO’s in World War One, 93.
182 From the testimony of Jacob Wipf: United States v. Recruits David J. Hofer, Michael J. Hofer etc., September 30, 1918.
184 For over a year now: George T. Blakey, Historians on the Homefront: American Propagandists for the Great War (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1970), 57.
185 The day’s showcase event: Quotes and descriptions of Mount Vernon celebration from George Creel, How We Advertised America (New York: Arno Press, 1972), 204.
186 “When they arrived at Alcatraz”: Stahl, Hutterite CO’s in World War One, 33–34.
189 “Guards were stationed at each end”: Zenas A. Olson, Following Fighting “F”: Being an Intimate History of Company “F”, 361st Infantry of the Ninety-first Division (La Chapelle-Montligeon, France: Imprimerie de Montligeon, 1919), 33, 37, 38.
189 Now, in the frenzy to get American soldiers overseas: Statistics on soldiers shipping out from Edward M. Coffman, The War to End All Wars: The American Military Experience in World War I (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), 227.
191 Leonardo Costantino, an affable Italian immigrant: Costantino’s log was transcribed and typed by his daughter-in-law, Nancy Marzo Costantino, under the title “Daddy’s Log.” Leonardo’s granddaughter Diane Dituri Lopez gave me a copy of the log and her permission to quote from it.
192 Quote from John Dos Passos, Three Soldiers (1921; repr., New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2004), 108.

CHAPTER 9: THESE FOUGHT IN ANY CASE

196 For the first time in an American war: Information on rabbis in the army from Sterba, Good Americans, 192.
198 July 18, the jump-off set: Details on Marshal Foch’s plan and the battle of Soissons from Harries and Harries, The Last Days of Innocence, 315.
199 Kocak’s platoon arrived at the drop-off site: Details on 5th Marines at Soissons from George B. Clark, Devil Dogs: Fighting Marines of World War I (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1999); Johnson and Hillman, Soissons, 1918. Additional information comes from records of the 5th Marines at NARA, Record Groups 117 and 120.
200 Kocak realized that the only way to advance: Details on Kocak at Soissons from Roosevelt, Rank and File, 181. Additional details on this battle are from Harries and Harries, The Last Days of Innocence, 320, and Johnson and Hillman, Soissons, 1918, 87.
201 Kocak made swift precise use of his bayonet: The details on Kocak’s use of the bayonet are from Roosevelt, Rank and File, but Great War authority Tom Gudmestad questions this. From extensive reading of soldiers’ letters and firsthand accounts, Gudmestad concludes that the bayonet was little used in the field, “except to toast bread and dry socks.” In the absence of any other account of Kocak’s actions that day, I rely on Roosevelt.
204 The commander of the 2nd Division: Johnson and Hillman, Soissons, 1918, 84.
204 The 2nd Division as a whole: Harries and Harries, The Last Days of Innocence, 320.
205 Like the Senegalese fighters: Johnson and Hillman, Soissons, 1918, 66.
205 Six other American divisions were deployed: Daniel W. Strickland, Connecticut Fights: The Story of the 102nd Regiment (New Haven: Quinnipiack Press, 1930), 136
206 “Goddamn replacements”: Elton E. Mackin, Suddenly We Didn’t Want to Die (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1993), 87.
207 On both sides of the road: Dos Passos, Three Soldiers, 147.
209 As they swept through the fields: Captain Strickland’s account of the battle and quotes are from Connecticut Fights, 183, 137,185.
210 The attack began at dawn on July 22: My account of Max Cieminski’s death is necessarily speculative but I have tried to ground my speculation in as many detailed sources as I could. I drew on the account of the battle by Strickland in Connecticut Fights and compared this with three typescript accounts written by officers of the 102nd Infantry and archived at NARA, Record Group 120. I also drew on details from Max’s burial case file at NARA. In addition, I had a number of conversations with Max’s great-nephew, John Riggs, who has taken a particular interest in his ancestor’s service and death. After studying the relevant documents, Riggs has concluded that the bullet that entered the base of Max’s scull was fired by a German soldier intent on delivering a “coup de grâce” to the wounded American. In a letter of March 28, 2008, Riggs writes: “In a way it probably was murder. When a person was wounded and not picked up right away after a charge, or if wounded badly and a position overrun, the Germans would shoot you in the back of the head. They were famous for killing the seriously wounded on the battlefield this way. If Uncle Max was laying there without an arm, stomach opened up and bleeding out, they probably thought they did him a favor. . . . This would have confused my family when they got the body because he was actually wounded over 3 times then. Probably more than one piece of shrapnel hit him: his arm missing and coup de grâce to the head and other wounds among the many.”
212 “The earth booms”: Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front (1928; repr., New York: Ballantine Books, 1996), 105–106.
213 Two of those fiery steel splinters: My discussion of Max’s wounds and death is based on a book by Louis A. La Garde, Gunshot Injuries: How They Are Inflicted, Their Complications and Treatment (London: John Bale Sons and Danielsson, 1916), chaps. 2, 3, and 9; A. M. Fauntleroy, Report on the Medico-Military Aspects of the European War (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1915); and interviews and correspondence with Dr. Donald O’Neill.
218 Major George R. Rau: Major Rau’s death is a composite of typescript in NARA, Record Group 120 and Strickland, Connecticut Fights, 197.
219 “They marched in wearied silence”: Francis Patrick Duffy, Father Duffy’s Story: A Tale of Humor and Heroism, of Life and Death with the Fighting Sixty-ninth (New York: Doran, 1919), 206.

CHAPTER 10: THE JEWS AND THE WOPS AND THE DIRTY IRISH COPS

222 “Yesterday was New York ‘Old Home Day’ ”: Duffy, Father Duffy’s Story, 114–115.
223 “It is strange to see this organization performing”: Kenneth Gow, Letters of a Soldier, quoted in Harris, Duty, Honor, Privilege, 156.
223 “At first they gazed”: John F. O’Ryan, The Story of the 27th Division, vol. 1 (New York: Wynkoop Hallenbeck Crawford, 1921), 204.
224 “We have passed through a lot of citys”: quoted in Harris, Duty, Honor, Privilege, 129.
224 The few inhabited villages: Descriptions of the primitive condition of French villages is from Keene, World War I, 113.
227 Meanwhile, Peter Thompson was picking up jokes: Thompson’s summer in France and quote about “wearing the kitchen stove”: from Leskovar, One Night in a Bad Inn, 240.
229 But that’s exactly where Affatato and Valente: Description of Belgium and battle from Harris, Duty, Honor, Privilege, 139, 155–156.
230 “These buttons were a hated symbol”: Ibid., 116
230 “I can’t describe the awfulness of the war”: Ibid., 185.
231 Officially, Private Antonio Pierro: Movements of the 320th Field Artillery are from NARA, Record Group 120.
238 The big offensive: Information on the battle of St. Mihiel from Harries and Harries, The Last Days of Innocence, 340.
239 There was much weeping and embracing: French attitude toward Americans at St. Mihiel from Harries and Harries, The Last Days of Innocence, 347.

CHAPTER 11: THE ARC OF FIRE

242 “Vogliamo sperare”: Tommaso Ottaviano’s great-nephew John Ricci very kindly gave me photocopies of the letters and postcards that Tommaso wrote home to his mother and siblings during the war. The translations are my own.
244 “You love your comrade so in war”: Johan Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1954), 64.
245 “The contribution to the American military record”: O’Ryan, The Story of the 27th Division, vol. 1, 156.
245 “[Selig is] a nice chap”: Charles F. Minder, This Man’s War: The Day-by-Day Record of an American Private on the Western Front (New York: Pevensey Press, 1931), 140.
247 As the plan took shape: Statistics and background on Argonne Offensive from Edward G. Lengel, To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918 (New York: Holt, 2008), 4.
249 “There was nothing to do but sit and listen”: Ibid., 88.
249 Meyer and the couple of hundred men: Details on Company H, 58th Infantry, from NARA, Record Group 120.

CHAPTER 12: BREAKING THE LINE

256 “the hardest task imposed on any unit”: O’Ryan, The Story of the 27th Division, vol. 1, 318.
258 Company C marched through the evening: Jacobson, History of the 107th, 51.
259 “After four minutes that curtain of exploding shells”: Quoted in Harris, Duty, Honor, Privilege, 224.
261 “Our company has been honored above all other companies”: Kenneth Gow, Letters of a Soldier (New York: Herbert B. Covert, 1920), 389–390.
263 “It was a slaughter; we ran into a trap”: Quoted in Mitchell A. Yockelson, Borrowed Soldiers: American Soldiers under British Command, 1918 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008), 172.
266 Mike Valente’s moment came later: Details on Valente rampage from interview with his grandson, Ralph Madalena, and from Harris, Duty, Honor, Privilege, 252. Mr. Madalena told me that his grandfather was wounded on the right wrist, while Harris maintains it was the left arm.
267 “We feel that all this murdering”: quoted in Neil Hanson, Unknown Soldiers: The Story of the Missing of the First World War (New York: Knopf, 2006), 176.
267 “I am ashamed not only of my deeds”: Quoted in Hedges, War Is a Force, 176.
268 When the numbers were finally tallied: Statistics on Hindenburg battle from Harris, Duty, Honor, Privilege, 237, 294.
268 One of the men of the 107th: Story of Corporal Kim from Yockelson, Borrowed Soldiers, 176.
270 Sixty-two years after the battle: F. H. Doane, “To My Buddy Jim—Killed, Sept. 29, 1918; Buried, Somme: Plot A, Row 32, Grave 3,” New York Times, September 29, 1980. Doane’s slain friend Jim was Private James Spire, who entered the service from New York State.
270 In the days after the battle: The graveyard near Bony is now the Somme American Cemetery and Memorial maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission. Many of the 1,844 Americans buried here died in the breaking of the Hindenburg Line.
270 Rabbi Levinger recalled: Levinger, A Jewish Chaplain in France, 54–55, 142.

CHAPTER 13: BLANC MONT

271 “The real man of the whole crowd”: Quoted in Sterba, Good Americans, 188.
273 The word that rippled down the line: Details on marines at Blanc Mont from George Clark, Devil Dogs, 288–290; 296.
277 “In some instances officers were leading in what appeared”: NARA, Record Group 120; Clark came across the same memo and reprints it in Devil Dogs, 314.
277 “Marines never retreat”: Mackin, Suddenly We Didn’t Want to Die, 201. Other details on battle from Mackin, 184, 191, and Clark, Devil Dogs, 316.
279 The only account of Kocak’s role: Roosevelt, Rank and File, 185. Additional details from Kocak’s military record and from his burial case file at NARA.
280 “No one but those present”: Hunt’s account of Blanc Mont is at NARA, RG 117.
281 “No one had the gall”: Clark, Devil Dogs, 325.
281 Inevitably the two groups of men began trading insults: Mackin, Suddenly We Didn’t Want to Die, 211.
282 It was during those first weeks: Note that Rabbi Zielonka in his 1928 article asserts that Dreben enlisted after his baby daughter died, feeling “that all joy had been taken from his life.”
282 A new, intensely virulent strain of influenza: Details on influenza from http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol12no01/05-0979.htm.
283 If Sam Dreben had not been an actual person: There was in fact talk in the early 1940s of a Hollywood movie based on the life of the Fighting Jew, variously titled Fighting Sam and Sergeant Sam Dreben, USA. At one point John Ford was lined up to direct, but in the end the picture was never made.
286 “Great work. Keep it up”: quoted in Leibson, The Fighting Jew, 130.
292 “This is not easy to talk about”: Bob Herbert, “Sacrifice of the Few,” New York Times, October 12, 2006, A27.
295 “I walked up to the machine-gun nest”: Minder, This Man’s War, 326.

CHAPTER 14: WHY SHOULD I SHOOT THEM?

297 That new front, a bleak, dangerous place: The battle at Bois des Loges and Tommaso Ottaviano’s involvement are from interviews with Pamela Rhodes and John Ricci and Tommaso’s letters written to his mother. Additional details from NARA Record Group 117 and 120. I also relied on The 78th Division in the World War, compiled and edited by Thomas F. Meehan (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1921); History of the 307th Field Artillery, Sept. 6, 1917 to May 16, 1919 (no author, date, or publisher listed); and A History of the 310th Infantry, Seventy Eighth Division, USA, by Raymond W. Thompson (New York: Schilling Press, 1919).
298 Information on enemy artillery from “The 78th Division at the Kriemhilde Stellung, October 1918” by Rexmond C. Cochrane, U.S. Army Chemical Corps Historical Studies, Gas Warfare in World War I, U.S. Army Chemical Corps Historical Office, Army Chemical Center, Maryland, 1957 (archived at U.S. Army Military History Institute), 20.
301 At some point his eyes fell on Arnold Pratt: Peter’s heroic actions in Belgium from Leskovar, One Night in a Bad Inn, 293, 300–301.
302 Any doubt that something big was brewing: Information on massive release of poison gas, Italians singing songs and telling stories before battle, and battle details from Rock Marcone, “At Bois des Loges, Italian Immigrants in the U.S. Army’s 78th Infantry Division Proved Their Mettle,” Military History, June 2005, 18–22.
306 The retreat from the Bois des Loges: Cochrane, “The 78th Division at the Kriemhilde Stellung, October 1918,” 56.
309 During the first week of November: Note that both Leibson, in Sam Dreben, and Meister, in “Fighting Jew—Forgotten Hero,” say the regiment was marching in Alsace; but regimental histories and papers at NARA Record Group 120 indicate that the 141st was not in Alsace but rather in Lorraine. It’s quite possible the whole story is apocryphal.

CHAPTER 15: POSTWAR

312 The enormity of the killing: Statistics on war deaths and casualties are from “Statistical Summary of America’s Major Wars,” http://www.civilwarhome.com/warstats.htm, and from Keene, Doughboys, ix. Leskovar notes that twice as many American servicemen died in eighteen months of fighting in the First World War as in the decade of Vietnam; see One Night in a Bad Inn, 223.
317 When he strode into his aunt’s house: Quotes and information on Peter’s return from Leskovar, One Night in a Bad Inn, 364.
322 The division’s welcome-home parade: Details on parade of 27th Division from Harris, Duty, Honor, Privilege, 334–337.
323 In total, over 280,000 immigrant soldiers became citizens: Statistics are from Sterba, Good Americans, 200. But Lynn G. O’Neil and Omer S. Senturk in their master’s thesis, “Noncitizens in the U.S. Military” (MA thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, March 2004), give a considerably lower estimate, writing that “More than 123,000 military members were naturalized by virtue of service in World War I.” Their source is William S. Bernard, ed., American Immigration Policy: A Reappraisal (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950), 148.
325 the initials of his two American military honors: The Purple Heart was established by George Washington in 1782, but it lapsed after the American Revolution and was not resuscitated until 1932. World War I veterans who had won army wound ribbons, wound chevrons, or meritorious service citation certificates could apply to have the Purple Heart awarded retroactively. This is why Epifanio Affatato’s gravestone carries the initials PH.
328 In fact, medical studies have established: Information about gas and health effects from Denis M. Perrotta, “Long-Term Health Effects Associated with Sub-clinical Exposure to GB and Mustard,” July 18, 1996; http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/agent.html. Additional background on gas from William L. Langer, Gas and Flame in World War I (New York: Knopf, 1965); Hammond, Poison Gas, 1999; and Vilensky, Dew of Death, 2005.
328 Most chose to stay: Wytrwal, Behold! The Polish-Americans, 235.
331 American Jews were quick to point out: Statistics on Jews in the army from New York Times, February 24, 1919.
333 Ten thousand Jewish American war veterans: Sterba, Good Americans, 208–209.
333 Congress, responding to the ugly national mood: Jennifer D. Keene, The United States and the First World War (Harlow, England: Pearson Education, 2000), 49.
334 It was in this poisonous atmosphere: Details on Dreben after the war from Leibson, The Fighting Jew, 143–144.
335 “I am a loyal member of the Legion”: Ibid., 150.
335 A crowd of a hundred thousand: Details on interment of the Unknown from Hanson, Unknown Soldiers, 346–348.
339 Before he went to war: Details on Max Cieminski’s insurance and payout from interviews and correspondence with John Riggs.
342 Kocak grave site and reburial from NARA burial case file.