Category Archives: World War One

AMERICA REMEMBERED ON ISLAY, TORPEDOED VICTIMS OF THE GREAT WAR

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America standing high on the cliffs of Islay.

The Setting

High above the cold, wind-driven waves of the Irish Sea, sitting atop rocky vertical cliffs on a southern peninsula with the odd name of the Mull of Oa on the Scottish island of Islay, a forgotten stone monument fashioned in the shape of a lighthouse.  The American Red Cross erected the monument in 1920 to honor the memory of those who died in two separate troopship sinkings – the Tuscania and the Otranto – off the coast of Islay.  Designed by a Glasgow architect as a monumental cairn recognizing the importance of those dead in the cold waters off Islay. Most who see the monument see a lighthouse peering into the dark and icy seas. America intertwined with Islay.

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FROM ITALIA IRRENDENTA TO ANTIFASCISM IN ONE BOOK – EMILIO LUSSU

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Emilio Lussu as an officer with the 151st Italian Infantry Regiment of the Brigatta Sassari

ITALIAN OFFICER, POLITICIAN AND WRITER OF THE GREAT WAR AND BEYOND

A UNIQUE WORK

Perhaps the best novel written about the Italian Great War front – not in English is The Sardinian Brigade by Emilio Lussu.  The book’s title in Italian Un anno sull’altipiano which translates to A Year on the High Plateau with other English editions are titled A Soldier on the Southern Front.

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ASTORIA’S DOUGHBOY – UNIONTOWN’S MONUMENT TO LOCAL SOLDIERS OF THE GREAT WAR

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The Astoria Soldiers Monument

DOUGHBOYS REMEMBERED

Drive on US 30 as the highway meets US 101 underneath the Oregon side of the Astoria-Megler bridge over the Columbia River and you pass a small statue of a World War I soldier.  The monument is “the Doughboy” or Astoria’s Doughboy. Doughboy refers to the nickname given to American infantrymen during the Great War. The nickname continued to refer to American soldiers until the Second World War nickname “G.I.”.

World War 1 was a major event in the country’s history. The war pushed a somewhat unwilling nation onto the international stage.  Not since the American Civil War had something like World War 1 transfixed the US. During that war, some 10% of the population of the Union served in the Federal Army.  By 1918, with 4.8 million serving in the armed forces, 4.7% of the population had served.

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ERNEST PSICHARI – AN ENDING TO THE BEGINNING

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Ernest Psichari before Rossignol.

A MONK SOLDIER

If the war had come just a little later, Ernest Psichari might have avoided his fate at Rossignol entirely by already not being a part of this world but cloistered as a monk in the next. Psichari was one of the up-and-coming French writers who fell early in the war.

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