The Beginning of World War I

 

July 28 marks the 110th anniversary of the beginning of World War I.

​Some historians refer to early twentieth century Europe as a militaristic powderkeg, ready to go off at the merest suggestion of a spark. European nations at that time were eager for war so that they could prove their superiority over other nations. They had growing militaries and had joined together to form opposing military alliances, pledging to support their partner nations in case of war.

The spark that set off World War I was no mere suggestion. On June 28, 1914, a young Serbian patriot shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the city of Sarajevo. One month later, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Within a month, each side’s allies had joined the fray and World War I was underway.

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The United States managed to stay out of the fight until three years into the war. On April 2, 1917, when President Woodrow Wilson finally requested the Congress to declare war on Germany, he gave two reasons why America should go to war.

President Wilson asking Congress to declare war on Germany, April 2, 1917 public domain photo

The first reason was that Germany had broken its earlier promise to suspend its unrestricted submarine warfare in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The Hague Convention of 1907 prohibited sinking of merchant ships without warning. Ships had to be stopped and their crews and passengers placed in a safe place before the ship was sunk. The provision of a safe place for crews and passengers did not include lifeboats unless the ship was close to shore. Neutrals could only be sunk if they had been searched, and contraband had been found. However, Germans did not adhere to the rules of the Hague Convention. On May 7, 1915, one of its U-boats sank the Lusitania. a British ship that was carrying contraband. The passengers and crew had been given no warning of the attack and no opportunity to abandon ship or evacuate. 1,195 civilians were killed., including 123 Americans. The American steamer Housatonic was sunk by U-53 on February 3, 1917. Three weeks later, two American civilians died when the British liner Laconia was sunk. The sinking of other American ships, the Lyman M Law, the Algonquin, the City of Memphis, the Illinois, the Vigilancia and the Aztec, followed. It was clear that the Germans had no interest in holding to international law.  Its attacks on Allied and neutral merchant and passenger ships were going to lead to the loss of more American lives and jeopardized American sea trade.

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The second reason Wilson urged Congress to declare war on Germany was that Germany was encouraging Mexico to attack the U.S. On January 19, 1917, British naval intelligence intercepted a telegram sent by German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to the German Ambassador in Mexico. This telegram, known as the Zimmerman telegram, was written in code. When decoded, it showed that in exchange for supporting Germany, the Mexican Government would regain territory lost during the Mexican-American War. This meant that Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona would be returned to Mexico. Coming so soon after Pancho Villa’s raid on Columbus, New Mexico, the threat of war on the border seemed very real.  Intelligence sources shared the Zimmerman telegram with President Wilson on February 24. The American press published the story a couple of days later. This, and the German’s use of unrestricted submarine warfare pushed U.S. public opinion to support entering the war.

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Four days after Wilson’s appearance before Congress, the U.S. declared war on Germany and declared themselves an "Associated Power" of the Allies. Within a year, our Army grew. While there were just 300,000 soldiers stationed in the U.S., by the end of the war in November 1918 there were around 2 million American soldiers in Europe alone. The United States of America had become a global power.

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Jennifer Bohnhoff is a former educator, and the writer of historical fiction for middle grade through adult readers. Her adult novel, A Blaze of Poppies, is set in the time of the Pancho Villa Raid and follows two New Mexican characters into the trenches of World War I. 

This Year's WWA Middle Grade Spur Award Winners

 

 

Western Writers of America is an organization that promotes Western literature, nonfiction, movies and music. Since 1953, it has honored the best in Western literature with the annual Spur Awards. Selected by panels of judges, awards are given for works whose inspiration, image and literary excellence best represent the reality and spirit of the American West in a number of different categories. The category of Juvenile Novel is where works for middle grade readers are represented. This year, the category awarded one winner and two finalists, that will be presented during  WWA’s convention June 19-22 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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There are many books about settlers on the great plains living a harsh life in a sod dugout while trying to make a new life for themselves. Think Little House on the Prairie, and you've got the idea. A Sky Full of Song is one of these books, but it covers this experience through the lens of Judaism. It is 1905, and eleven-year-old Shoshana accompanies her mother and sisters on a voyage across the Atlantic to join her father and brother in North Dakota. They are escaping the pogroms and persecutions of Ukraine, which at this point in time was part of the Russian Empire. Shoshana finds the northern plains to be beautiful and full of promise, but she comes to realize that the prejudice she had hoped to escape lies within many of the other homesteaders, and she is now culturally isolated. Desperate to fit in, she tries to hide her Jewish identity but a series of dangerous events, some human created and some natural, make her rethink this. Susan Lynn Meyer has painted a beautiful and sometimes harsh story with such hope that it brought me to tears more than once. There's no question in my mind that this novel, which won the Spur Award this year, should win multiple more awards and become a classroom classic. 

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​What a fun romp!

Christmas is coming, and when Buffalo Bill Cody needs help protecting the gifts he's bought for his special Christmas performance for a Tulsa orphanage, he calls on Marshal Tom Mix for help. Despite his best efforts, Mix gets buffaloed and the presents disappear. Can Cody and Mix solve the mystery in time for the Wild West Show to go on? This is a madcap adventure with lots of well delineated characters and the kind of twists and turns that will remind the reader of the fun, old time B grade movies of the 40s and 50s and of dime store western novels. I laughed out loud at the sometimes snarky dialog and the clever turns of phrase. My only concern: for a book targeting younger readers, there's a whole lot of drinking and cussing that might offend some modern sensibilities. This is book #9 in a series that intends to follow the whole career of Tom Mix from young cowboy to Hollywood superstar. It was a finalist for the Spur Award this year.  

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Two boys. One battle. A life-changing encounter.
Jemmy Martin left his Texas farm and followed Confederate General Sibley's Army into New Mexico to keep his mules safe. Now after the Battle of Valverde he's protecting Willie, an orphaned drummer boy with a broken arm. Cian Lochlann is an Irish orphan who gave up gold prospecting to join the Union Army. All he wants is a full belly and a strong man to lead him into an unknown future. Both are pulled toward a distant mountain pass in New Mexico territory where the decisive battle of Gen. Sibley's New Mexico campaign will be fought. Called the "Gettysburg of the West" the Battle of Glorieta Pass will test both boys as they face their worst enemy. The Worst Enemy. Book 2 in Rebels Along the Rio Grande, a trilogy of historical fiction novels set in New Mexico during the Civil War, was a finalist for the Spur Award this year. 

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Book 1, Where Duty Calls, was a finalist last year. In it, Jemmy first leaves Texas and encounters Raul Atencio. The nephew of a prosperous Socorro, New Mexico merchant, Raul wants to become rich and powerful like his uncle. While at Fort Craig to deliver supplies and help build defenses, the Confederates arrive, and Raul becomes an unwilling participant in the defense of the Fort.

Upon the banks of the Rio Grande the two armies face off in the Battle of Valverde, and both Jemmy and Raul must struggle to keep themselves, and their dreams, alive.


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I have a signed copy of each of these four books that I'd love to give away to eager readers. In the comments below, tell me which one you'd like to read and why, and I will choose a winner for each.

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Jennifer Bohnhoff is the author of a dozen titles for middle grade and adult readers. Book three of Rebels Along the Rio Grande, her series of middle school novels set in New Mexico during the Civil War, is titled The Famished Country and will be released by Kinkajou Press, a division of Artemesia Publishing, in October 2024.

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Mamie Phipps Clark: Champion for Children

 

When Mamie Phipps Clarks was just four years old, she was frightened to hear of the lynching of Gilbert Harris in her community of Hot Springs, Arkansas.  Mamie realized that the world was not as open and caring as her family and close community. The injustice, discrimination, and unfair treatment that her community faced needed addressing. She began to ask herself what she could do to help Black children faced with such negativity.  Mamie Phipps Clark: Champion for Children is a graphic novel that is part biography, part self-help activist awareness manual. In it, Lynnette Mawhinney tells the story of an extraordinary woman who, after being the  first Black woman to graduate from Columbia University with a doctorate degree in psychology, began research on the development of self-image in Black children. Her conclusions, that racial segregations resulted in negative outcomes for Black childhood development, became pivotal in the fight to end segregation of U.S. schools. The fight wasn't easy: Clark had a hard time balancing her public and private life. Raising a family while developing a career and fighting a political system is hard work, and Mawhinney doesn't sugar coat the stress.  Neil Evans' illustrations are clear and compelling and make this graphic novel an interesting read. Mamie Phipps Clark, Champion for Children goes beyond just being a biography of an inspiring woman. It gives middle-grade readers a lot to think about regarding race, identity, and advocacy. Each chapter ends with a brief history lesson that helps set the scene for Clark's life, and then a section called Try This that gives readers a chance to extend the lessons of the past into today through thought-provoking activities. A timeline and glossary at the end of the book will help readers understand our nation's struggle for equality and be able to voice their concerns as they carry on Mamie’s legacy and become champions for themselves and others in their community. ​ The author of this book is the no less impressive and inspiring Lynnette Mawhinney, an award-winning writer, creator, and long time educator who taught high school English in Philadelphia before she transitioned into teacher education. A Professor of Urban Education and Senior Associate Dean for Strategic Academic initiatives at Rutgers University-Newark, she had conducted teacher trainings throughout the world, including Vietnam, South Africa, Bahrain, and Egypt. She is the author of five academic books and books for children, and is the founder and President of Gaen Knowledge, a consultancy firm that performs equity audits.  ​I am grateful that Magination Press provided me with an ARC of this hard cover graphic novel, which is the third book in the American Psychological Association's Extraordinary Women in Psychology series. If you'd like me to send you my copy, please comment below. Jennifer Bohnhoff is a former educator who now concentrates on writing historical and contemporary fiction for middle grade through adult readers. Her next book, The Famished Country, is book three in Rebels Along the Rio Grande, a trilogy of middle grade novels set in New Mexico during the Civil War, and is due out from Kinkajou Press in October 2024

Recognizing the 80th Anniversary of D-Day

 

 

Eighty years ago, the Allied Forces began the largest amphibious military invasion in human history. On June 6, 1944, more than 130 battleships, cruisers, and destroyers bombarded the French coast while 277 minesweepers cleared the water. Behind them, about 7,000 vessels, packed with nearly 200,000 soldiers from eight Allied nations, crossed the channel, ready to storm the beaches of Normandy. Overhead, over 1,200 aircraft delivered paratroopers behind enemy lines. It was feat the size and scope of had never been seen. It still remains singularly large and impressive today.

More than 2 million Allied personnel took part in Operation Overlord, the code name for the Battle of Normandy that began with the D-Day invasion and continued on through August. During the Trident Conference in Washington in May 1943, the Allies appointed U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower to command the Expeditionary Force and put British General Bernard Montgomery in charge of the 21st Army Group, which comprised all the land forces. The allies chose the Normandy coast for the landings, assigning Americans the sectors codenamed Utah and Omaha, while the British were to land at Sword and Gold, and the Canadians were to land at Juno. 

By Harrison (Sgt), No 5 Army Film & Photographic Unit - http://media.iwm.org.uk/iwm/mediaLib//8/media-8246/large.jpg This photograph BU 1024 comes from the collections of the Imperial War Museums., Public Domain

The Allies needed to develop special technology to meet the conditions expected on the Normandy beachhead. They invented artificial ports, called Mulberry harbors, to provide deep water jetties and places where the invasion force could download reinforcements and supplies before major French ports were recaptured from the Germans and their damage repaired. Two Mulberry harbors were created:  Mulberry "A" at Omaha Beach and Mulberry "B" at Gold Beach. The harbor at Omaha Beach was damaged by a violent storm before it was ever completed, and the Americans abandoned it, landing their men and material over the open beaches. However, the harbor at Gold Beach was a great success. Over 2.5 million men, 500,000 vehicles, and 4 million tons of supplies used Mulberry “B” during the 10 months it was in use. 

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Another technology developed for the D-Day landings were the Hobart's Funnies,a group of specialized armoured fighting vehicles based on the British Churchill tank, and American M4 Sherman, but equipped with bulldozers, flamethrowers, demolition charges, reels of canvas that could be unrolled to form paths for other vehicles, assault bridges, ramps, and other modifications to help take the beach and destroy German fortifications. Hobart's Funnies were named for Major-General Sir Percy Cleghorn Stanley Hobart, a British Engineer.

Train damaged by resistance sabateurs https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205206871

All the while that Allied forces were developing their plans and technologies, Resistance groups were active throughout German-occupied France. Their contributions to the invasion of Normandy included the gathering of intelligence on German defences and the carrying out of sabotage missions to disrupt the German war effort, including the destruction of rail lines and train engines and the cutting of telegraph and telephone lines. Because there were many different Resistance organizations that operated independently and often had different goals, coordinating them with the Allied forces was difficult. Many, however, listened to the secret messages from the Free French that were broadcast over the BBC. On the first of May, and again on June 1, such messages warned that the invasion would be soon and encouraged Allied secret agents and resistance fighters to carry out their acts of sabotage as soon as possible. 

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​Although the Allies failed to accomplish their objectives for the first day of the invasion, they were able to gain a tenuous foothold on the land that Germany had held since taking France. They captured the port at Cherbourg on June 26, and the city of Caen on July 21. By August 25, the Allies had liberated Paris. Five days later, the Germans retreated east across the Seine marking the close of Operation Overlord and the beginning of the end for the Nazi regime. 

Few of the veterans of D-Day are still alive, but we remember them and honor them for their bravery. 

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Code: Elephants on the Moon is author Jennifer Bohnhoff's novel about Eponine Lambaol, a girl who senses that strange things are going on in her Nazi-held village in Normandy. As D-Day nears, she joins with others to resist the Germans and prepare for the Allied invasion. Written for middle school readers, adults have also found this an informative and entertaining read.