Sheep graze on the Vimy Ridge Battlefield today.

For a brief flaming moment early in 1918, it looked as though the Germans might take Paris and grab victory from the ashes of defeat, but alas, the Spring Offensive failed them. With the cream of their army spent and fresh American troops arriving by the shipload daily, the Kaiser’s once mighty army began a long fighting but inexorable retreat towards the vaunted last defense of German home soil, the Hindenburg Line. Once even that mighty redoubt was breached, the gig was up. The army was fighting, but barely, and it was irreparably broken. Revolution began breaking out in cities across Germany. Hindenburg and Ludendoff, the two generals at the top of the military hierarchy realized the war was lost and informed Kaiser Wilhelm II of this fact. Faced with this ultimate humiliation, the Kaiser abdicated the throne of Germany on 9 November 1918 and the German High Command asked the Allies for terms of armistice. Two days later, at 11:11, 11 November 1918 — the “eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day” — the Armistice took effect and after four and a half years of unprecedented slaughter and misery, all the guns fell silent on the Western Front.

The Great War was over. The War to End All Wars had itself come to an end.

Sadly, the grim lesson of the war didn’t affect everyone. Front line commanders knew an armistice would take effect on 11 November at at least 5:00 AM local time and yet in many, many places along the line, fighting kept up and even intensified. Sadly, in the six hours between the signing of the truce to its going into affect, men kept dying — now completely needlessly — all along the front as nations in the last gasp of the war grasped for some final shreds of territory to claim. Maybe they thought another 100 yards would make the carnage mean something but who can really know?

If the Great War changed the world, the peace which followed changed it at least as much. The Hapsburgs were ousted from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. That ancient edifice, last remnant of the Holy Roman Empire of centuries before, splintered into various countries including Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and others. The Balkans, where the war began, consolidated into one country called Yugoslavia and laid the groundwork for generations of ethnic violence for decades to come. Poland, once wiped from existence, returned to nation status again and Russia started calling itself The Soviet Union.

Perhaps most affecting us today, the Middle East as we know it was created out of whole cloth as the Ottoman Empire shattered and was redistributed among the victors. France and Britain took up protectorates of the areas which now hold Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Kuwait, and all the familiar names we know from the violent news in our headlines today. The victorious powers drew national boundaries where none had existed before and split tribes in many places while combining the volatile factions of Islam into single countries in other places. The conflict in the Middle East today, bloody as it is, traces its origins to the chaotic end of World War One and the scramble for the mysterious new magical fluid — crude oil — that all the major powers now needed as if it were their own life’s blood.

For Germany, the end of the war was particularly cruel. Germany lost the heart of its industrial region — the Rhineland — to France, and was stripped of all her colonies as well as being forcibly disarmed. The monarchy was gone, replaced by the Wiemar Republic, a barely functional government that bravely but futilely tried to transition Germany from monarchy to democracy. Most grievous to German morale, Germany was forced to accept complete responsibility for the War. France and Britain both demanded heavy reparations from the broken country — payments that were draconian in both size and duration. Germany had to accept the label of “the bad guys” famously iterated in the clause in the treat which said Germany must bear sole responsibility for “all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by” Germany and her allies.

One problem developed immediately in the German psyche. Because Germany still had a capable army in the field when the war ended, many German radicals would protest that the country hadn’t actually been defeated. They claimed the military never surrendered but was instead “stabbed in the back” by the civilian government with the help of “Jews, Socialists, and Bolsheviks” who had no right to stop the war while Germany had the power to resist. This mythical “stabbed in the back” narrative would rankle in Germany for years and would find its ultimate fertile ground in the speeches and writings of a former Austrian corporal named Adolf Hitler.

The Treaty of Versailles which ended the war notoriously emasculated Germany. Her army was taken, her navy sunk en masse at Scapa Flow in Britain, her air force dismantled and forbidden to reform EVER. It was a treaty no self respecting country could ever bear up under and it was the conditions imposed by the treaty that led Field Marshall Ferdinand Foch to famously state, ““This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years”. Ironically, the Second World War began twenty years and sixty-five days from the signing of the Versailles Treaty.

Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed the past four years of Great War Wednesday posts. I originally intended for there to be one every Wednesday, but as you can tell from the archives, that didn’t happen. Still, World War One was an immeasurably important point in world history, arguably more important long term than the larger and deadlier Second World War.

In any case, love y’all, and keep your feet clean.

The Great War provided a plethora of ways a man could meet his Maker; some were even quite novel. He could take a rifle bullet to the vitals from across No Man’s Land, or even be riddled with rifle bullets from one of the new machine guns as he charged across the broken way. He could disappear into a fine red mist if an artillery shell landed in the midst of him and his buddies. A sudden gas shell attack could dissolve his lungs in his chest. Given the right terrain and weather, he could drown in sticky, soupy mud. He could even fall out of the sky, burning like a candle, in one of the new airplanes if his enemy got behind him or the ground fire was accurate enough.

Novelty is fine and all, but for sheer staggering numbers of piled up corpses, it’s hard to beat the old black horse from St. John’s Book of Revelation — Pestilence. From the dawn of time until the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, disease killed more men in war than stones, swords, and shells. That was the first war where combat caused more casualties than disease, but in 1918, a plague fell over the entire world which would try to rethrone pestilence. The great killer was the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic.

First, though, we need to clear up a little nomenclature. This outbreak has come down through history bearing the name of the “Spanish Flu.” Because of the name, many people believe the flu originated in Spain. This is patently false. The disease picked up the name of Spanish Flu because of Spain’s neutral stance in World War One. In countries where men were off at war, military censors cut, redacted, or at least downplayed the outbreak. Because Spain was neutral, her press was free to report whatever about the flu. Since most of the early reports of the disease came from Spanish media sources, people assumed Spain was the epicenter of the flu when in fact, it was a matter of reporting. Spain suffered a proportionate number of flu deaths, but no more than any other nation.

In fact, the flu first appeared in the United States in early March 1918 at a military installation called Camp Funston in Fort Reilly, Kansas. Several men reported to sick call with normal flu-like symptoms. From these humble beginnings, the pandemic exploded, especially when American troops landed in Europe to fight in the Great War.

The disease traveled across oceans and through mountain passes. India was devastated as was China. Unlike many diseases, isolation and distance did not slow this strain. Millions of cases broke out across Australia, New Zealand, and even reached remote Pacific outposts like Fiji and the Christmas Islands. It truly was a global killer. Estimates of total number of individuals infected stand at fully one-third of the world population. This exceeded even the infamous Black Death in 15th Century Europe.

Death was widespread as well. The most conservative number is 20 million fatalities, while at the other end of the spectrum, people have put forth a chilling 100 million deaths. Exact counts are difficult because of the sheer scale of the outbreak, but if the upper number is close to the truth, the Spanish Flu of 1918-1919 killed more people than both world wars combined. What scientists are still trying to figure out and debating, however, is what exactly made the Spanish Flu H1N1 strain such a killer, and so much deadlier than other previous and subsequent flus.

We know the Spanish Flu was an avian flu of the H1N1 strain. If that sounds familiar it’s because a similar H1N1 strain known as “The Bird Flu” broke out in China several years ago and threatened to break out into a pandemic that fortunately was averted. It killed the typical targets flu usually takes, the very young and the elderly, but what made this flu unique is how hard it hit the 20 – 40 year-old demographic. These are usually healthy adults whose immune systems generally shake off the flu after a few sick days.

This flu wouldn’t shake, however. It attacked the lungs with a vengeance, causing air space to fill with fluid. Deprived of oxygen, many people died and those who did more often than not developed pneumonia as a secondary infection and without even penicillin or sulfa antibiotics, those with pneumonia perished more than recovered.

The pandemic reached its peak killing capacity around December 1918. Contributing to the deaths was the sheer number of cases. Even in the most developed countries and cities, healthcare systems were overwhelmed. Hospitals pulled in people beyond their capacity. The number of deaths swamped funeral homes. At the height of the outbreak, people lost the luxury of single family funerals. Instead, many of the dead were interred in mass graves even in America.

By the spring of 1919, the Spanish Flu seemed to have shot its shot. Total number of cases tapered off and the strain on healthcare eases enough to allow for better treatment and proper quarantines. The world wide killer had passed on.

Today, we are still under threats of an outbreak of a disease like Spanish Flu. Thankfully, modern antibiotics — though not the panacea they once were — and better overall hygiene help keep outbreaks manageable, but the same flu strain that killed so many people is still out there. The CDC and a few other labs around the world have samples of flu-infected tissues taken from bodies in colder regions. The Spanish Flu lives on in captivity, but could it ever break free and ravage the world again? Only time will tell.

Love y’all and keep your feet clean!

Today marks ten years since the first post I made on this blog. It’s easy to remember the day because my first post was about Labor Day and how it’s vital to teachers. I talked about teachers in many of my posts back then. Then, the blog name was “Books, Bytes, and Grocery Store Feet” because it was aimed at my colleagues — other school librarians. I had no way of knowing at the time, but 2008 would be my last year in education. Actually, it would be the last time I was in anything. After a lifetime fighting my mind, my mind finally won so I’ve spent the last ten years on the sidelines.

Still, ten years is a long time for me to have done ANYTHING! This blog constitutes the second longest thing I’ve ever managed. Dana and I have been married 22 years. That’s the only thing I’ve done continuously for longer than I’ve written this blog. It’s longer than any other romantic relationship I’ve had by a long shot and longer than any single job I’ve ever held so I guess I have room to be thankful for this little blog anyway.

I looked up some statistics about “Granny Beads and Grocery Store Feet” that WordPress provides and I’m a little amazed by some of them. I have over 2300 followers, which is strange because I’ve never had 2300 views on a single post so apparently not everyone is keeping up to date. This blog has been viewed and read in 190 countries and territories across the world. Presently, the UN recognizes 194 sovereign countries so I’ve made a tiny ripple in a good chunk of them and since I’ll never travel to a foreign land, it makes me happy to know my ideas have at least crossed oceans.

I’ve managed to post at least one item per month for each of the last 120 months. I’m proud of that streak. It means I’ve been able to stay on top of something, even if it’s something small and inconsequential. I’ve also been featured on Freshly Pressed three times which, considering the sheer number of blogs on the WordPress platform isn’t something I take lightly. It’s one of my happier accomplishments.

I’ll be honest though, more than once I’ve thought of shutting Granny Beads and Grocery Store Feet down. One of the main reasons is I don’t get a lot of views on what I think are good or important topics. I’ve only gone over 1000 views a handful of times. The latest post that went over 1K was my tribute to my Uncle Larry. I’m happy people liked that post, but it makes me a little sad that someone had to die for me to write something a thousand people would want to read. I wish some of my other posts had managed that level of popularity.

For now though, I’ll keep writing. I’d love to have some of my readers suggest something they would like to read about and if I can be articulate on the subject, maybe I can get a post written about it. Anyway, it’s been an interesting ten years to say the least.

Love y’all and keep your feet clean.

Two scandals have blackened the eye of college football this summer. In the first, as many as thirteen University of North Carolina football players were caught selling limited edition shoes gifted to them by Nike and the school. For the egregious violation of NCAA rules and basically trying to make a little bit of money — since they don’t get PAID for putting their bodies on the line for UNC — these thirteen young men received punishments ranging from one to four game suspensions. They’ll have to sit on the sidelines for up to four games for selling their personal property.

The second scandal involved Ohio State University head football coach Urban Meyer III. A full explanation of the case involving Meyer is beyond the scope of my posting but here are the salient details. Basically, a guy named Zach Smith coached wide receivers for Ohio State. He also has a record of domestic violence towards his wife. After one episode, his wife told Meyer’s wife about the abuse and offered pictures. The upshot is Smith ended up fired from Ohio State and the question came up “what did Coach Meyer know and when did he know it?” He claimed he knew nothing about Smith’s past. An investigation by Ohio State took two weeks during which Meyer was suspended without pay. The investigation found something rotten in the state of Ohio and determined Meyer should be punished. For ignoring a man on his staff beating his wife, Meyer will be suspended for the first three games of this football season.

Let’s review. Young men in their late teens and early twenties who are football players sold their OWN stuff to a third party and some of them will be suspended FOUR games as punishment. A head football coach in his middle fifties ignored an assistant coach’s history of domestic violence and lied about it and he will be suspended THREE games as punishment.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but THREE is LESS than FOUR, I think. Math was never my best subject, but I’m pretty sure of this one. I’m also pretty sure criminal domestic violence is a more serious offense than selling one’s own property through legal channels.

In the parlance of this latest generation — WTF?

Sell your shoes and get suspended four games; ignore a man beating his wife and get suspended three games.

I’m gobsmacked by the complete failure of the system in this case, and lately, it takes A LOT to even mildly surprise me. My questions are why are the boys even being investigated and why isn’t Urban Meyer being fired as head coach?

In the name of full disclosure, let me just go on record as admitting I pretty much hate football. I went to a high school where football players were treated as demigods then I went to a college where they dropped the “demi” and just treated them like gods. It’s always turned my stomach. I don’t hate the players; I hate the game, just like the man said to do. Football players and coaches are just taking what life gives them; it’s the schools and the fans that are crazy.

Ohio State has a slogan painted on the wall of its practice facility for football. It says:

HONESTY

TREAT WOMEN WITH RESPECT

NO DRUGS NO STEALING NO WEAPONS

Is domestic violence treating women with respect? If you are the head coach of a multimillion dollar a year football team do you not have a responsibility to know what’s going on with your players AND YOUR COACHES? What good does it do to paint a slogan on the wall if, by your actions, you demean everything it stands for?

Let’s review, again. If you risk permanent physical or mental damage for your school twelve times in a year for three or four years, BUT someone else can take your place on the depth chart, you get a FOUR game suspension for selling your own shoes. On the other hand, if you get paid $38 MILLION to help your school bring in nearly $1 BILLION in sports revenue AND you’re considered the second or third greatest college football coach in the game, you can ignore your responsibility and LIE about it and you will only get suspended THREE games.

Something is broken in our country when our priorities are so distorted.

Love y’all and keep your feet clean.

PS: for much better explanations of what is going on at both schools, I’ve got three really good articles I’d suggest you read, if you can stand it. They explain things in much better detail.

Shoe Deals and Double Standards at North Carolina

Urban Meyer stays as Ohio State football coach, but he is diminished after investigation

Why Didn’t Ohio State Fire Urban Meyer?

August 1918 proved a turning point in the Great War, in this case, the final turning point. The German Spring Offensive had begun with a roar in early May, but by July had managed to peter out with a whimper. It had managed to prove the war could become mobile again, but the cost was the cream of the German Imperial Army. At this point, the Entente forces realized the time was ripe for a decisive counter attack while Germany was at her weakest and most overextended. Thus began what we now call The Hundred Days or, so a not to confuse it with the “original” Hundred Days of Napoleon Bonaparte, The Hundred Days Offensive or sometimes The Advance to Victory.

Germany’s greatest fear materialized in the middle of 1918. Even though the war was down to only the Western Front, Russia having capitulated, that one front was now loaded with men and most of them were not wearing German uniforms. The Americans had arrived in force with more arriving every day. The presence of so many new men, especially so many new men seemingly suicidally rash, invigorated the Entente forces. Even though General Pershing insisted on American troops remaining in American units instead of spreading out to replace other countries’ troops, the Americans turned the tide. Once the British and French realized the doughboys were not going to break up, they happily placed American units in the line and pretty much let them go at it pell mell. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked.

The Entente also acquired numerous troops from the Middle Eastern and Italian Fronts. Those sectors had been largely abandoned as everyone realized for good or ill this war would be decided where it had begun, on the Western Front.

The usual starting point of the Hundred Days is fixed at the Battle of Amiens. For the first time, and eerily foreshadowing future events, five hundred tanks accompanied the infantry into this battle. They managed to blow a hole in the depleted German front and the tanks poured through the gap much as the cavalry of old and attacked the rear lines. The first day saw the Entente troops gain back twelve miles of territory and, more importantly, for the first time in the war, German morale shattered and the proud Imperial Army showed its back as it began what would become the final retreat.

By mid-August, Germany had lost the entirety of the gains it had made during Operation Michel and was in a fighting retreat. British General Haig took two weeks to consolidate his position and launched the Second Battle of the Somme on 21 August 1918. Unlike the massive casualties suffered in 1916, the British had great success against what was becoming rapidly growing numbers of raw German recruits and lesser reserves. Now the painful losses of the Spring Offensive began to tell against the Germans as the new troops forced into the line were in no way capable of replacing the quality of first line troops lost in the doomed attacks. By the time the Entente troops stopped to regroup in late August, the entire German front line had collapsed. Nothing remained between the Entente and a final victory except the massive Hindenburg Line. Here, Germany would make its final stand.

Love y’all and keep your feet clean.

Larry R. Dickson, my uncle. December 22, 1951 — August 12, 2018. Rest In Peace.

I lost one of my favorite people Sunday. My Uncle Larry — my only uncle — drowned in a boat accident on his favorite lake. He’d spent the night on the lake, and Aunt Cathy spoke to him around 10:30 pm. That was the last we heard of him. His boat drifted into a cove with Dabo, the golden retriever, standing in the bow confused. A person who lived in the cove called the local police and a search began with all the bells and whistles: helicopters, boats, sonar, the works. A fisherman found his body about 7:30 yesterday morning. Cause of death was freshwater drowning.

All of us will miss him. He was one of those people who was capable of filling up a room whenever he entered one. He loved everyone. I don’t remember ever seeing him not smiling. He was always full of mischief. I told his oldest son, my cousin Zach, I didn’t believe Uncle Larry was dead until he told me he’d seen his body. We both held out hope he would show up looking bedraggled and contrite having pulled some foolish stunt to worry everyone even though he meant no harm. This time though, it wasn’t one of Uncle Larry’s pranks; he was really gone.

Sunday was Uncle Larry and Aunt Cathy’s fortieth wedding anniversary as well. As a tow-haired eight-year-old I had been the ringbearer in their wedding where I refused to walk down the aisle right before the wedding started because I learned the rings on my little satin pillow were fake. By that point, Uncle Larry had already been a part of my life for years.

I have many memories of Uncle Larry — entirely too many to list them all, but three stand out in my mind particularly strongly. One was when I was a preteen and he and one of his friends took me to Commerce, GA to the Thunder National Drag Races. Uncle Larry was a car fanatic. He was never quite as happy as when he was behind the wheel of a fast car like one of the Corvettes he drove. We went to the races in his little Dodge Omni and the day was cold and overcast; I almost froze and we went to Wendy’s on the way home. Uncle Larry let me walk around the cars and grounds to my heart’s content. I wasn’t used to such freedom. Whenever I went anywhere with an adult, I was usually chained by a stern look to her side, but then, Uncle Larry never exactly passed for an adult.

Uncle Larry also taught me to drive, which is a good thing because if I’d had to wait on Mama to teach me I’d still be riding a bicycle. The first car I ever drove on my own was his and Cathy’s 1978 Chevy Camaro which was special ordered with a more powerful engine. I remember being fourteen years old (not a legal driving age in South Carolina, by the way) driving down I-385 doing about 80 mph (not a legal speed in South Carolina, by the way), because it wasn’t a car to be driven slowly. We passed a highway patrolman in the other lane and I panicked. I asked Uncle Larry what I was supposed to do if the trooper flipped around and came after us. He smiled and said, “Take the next exit, turn right, and floor it. He can’t catch us!” Much of my driving attitude as a teenager can be chalked up to my driving instructor.

The last memory I have of Uncle Larry is also one of the earliest. It showed me more than anything what it was I loved about the man. I was six years old and we were eating dinner at Granny and Papa Wham’s house to celebrate Aunt Cathy’s birthday. Dinner was over and I was playing with my Hot Wheels in the floor near the old, nonworking stereo. Voices started raising. It was the time my parents’ marriage was disintegrating. All the adults were either yelling or crying and I just tried to concentrate on my little cars — making them go in circles.

Suddenly, two big arms scooped me up and I was on Uncle Larry’s shoulder going out the back door. He said we were going to get ice cream. I know I beamed because I loved ice cream as much then as I do now. We got in his car — this Corvette was blue — and he sat me on his lap in the driver’s seat. He let me “drive” all the way to The Community Snack Bar where he got us both a big Styrofoam cup of soft serve vanilla with Hershey’s syrup on top. We ate slowly and he let me “drive” back to Granny and Papa’s house. It was quiet when we got back. I realized once I was old enough to process it how Uncle Larry had wanted to shield me from all the anger in the house and he did it the only way he knew how, with a car and ice cream.

Now he’s gone and it is a tremendous loss.

Don’t misunderstand me, Uncle Larry was great and I loved him dearly, but he had his flaws and his demons as we all do. I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t dwell on any of them here. As it is, they don’t really matter anymore. All that matters is he was beyond a doubt one of the people I loved most on this rock and he’s also one of those people I never really imagined ever not being around, until he was gone.

I will miss him and mourn his loss for a long, long time.

Love y’all, and keep those feet clean.