Harry S. Truman Library and Museum March 10 December 31, Teacher Packet

Transcription

1 Harry S. Truman Library and Museum March 10 December 31, 2018 Teacher Packet

2 Background information Harry Truman went to France in 1918, serving his country as the captain of Battery D of the 129 th Field Artillery in the 35 th Infantry Division, composed largely of boisterous sometimes unruly men from the greater Kansas City area. He would be the only American president to have experienced combat during The Great War.* He entered the war as a farmer and largely unsuccessful entrepreneur and businessman. He emerged hardened by combat and the challenges of leadership. On a personal level, he discovered that he could be a leader of men and that he had a natural flair for organizing and a love of fraternal camaraderie. He could persuade people to do things, in large part because he displayed the strength of character that led people to respect him. On a broader level, the lessons he learned during the war and in its immediate aftermath positioned him well for the challenges he would face later in life when the responsibility for concluding a war and forging a peace rested in his own hands. The First World War was a turning point for America, when it cast off isolationism and stepped full bore onto the world stage. The war profoundly reshaped the United States and the world. It was the seminal event for a generation of Americans, as headlines brought news from the battlefields of the world to American doorsteps on a daily basis. But it was also a very personal story for millions of American soldiers and sailors who had never been away from home, never experienced the terror of combat, never suffered long weeks in hot muddy camps and cold wet clothes, and never endured months of loneliness away from family and the familiar settings of home. For Harry Truman, too, the war was an intensely personal journey, set against the larger stage of a world in turmoil. Truman was fully aware of the great cause he was serving, but he missed home. He chronicled his journey in dozens of letters to his fiancée Bess Wallace and to his mother and sister, telling them what he could about the war but revealing many of his personal feelings as well. To mark the centennial of Harry Truman s combat experience in France, this exhibition explores his personal journey of growth, discovery, fear, friendship, and patriotism in the First World War. Wondering if we d be heroes or corpses was the thought Lieutenant Harry Truman had as his troop ship departed New York for the battlefields of France in the spring of It was the beginning of his personal journey through The Great War. This exhibition chronicles that personal journey, using Truman s own words from his many letters and his later recollections. Drawing from the Library s rich collection of Truman s handwritten letters and memoirs, as well as from the papers and oral history interviews of other members of Battery D, the exhibition follows Truman s journey through his early Missouri National Guard experience, though his response to President Wilson s war message, to his training at Camp Doniphan, through his voyage to France, to his training on the famous French 75mm field gun, and through his combat actions in the Vosges Mountains and in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. Along the way the letters and the recollections of colleagues show Truman the avid historian giving guided tours of famous French sites while waiting for his assignments.

3 Accompanying the story of Truman s own journey through the war will be biographical vignettes of other members of Battery D, some of whom Eddie Jacobson, Ted Marks, Curtis Tiernan, and Jim Pendergast, for example would become important figures in Truman s future. Another series of vignettes will feature personal highlights from the correspondence between Truman and his fiancée Bess Wallace waiting and worrying at home in Independence. In addition to the letters, oral histories, and photographs featured in the exhibition, the story will also be carried by a large collection of Harry Truman s own World War I field equipment. The Library s collection includes Truman s uniform, his McClellan saddle, his foot locker and tack box, field tent, equestrian equipment, instruments for calculating artillery trajectories, and many more artifacts. All together they present a unique picture of Harry Truman the soldier. While the exhibition will focus on the personal story of Harry Truman in World War I, the story will be set in the context of the wider war itself. To this end the show will also include a few objects of national significance. One is the Zimmerman telegram that exposed a German plan to draw Mexico into the war in exchange for the return of a large swath of American territory to Mexico following Germany s victory. Another is part of the ship s manifest from the RMS Lusitania, the British liner torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1915 with a heavy loss of British and American lives, an act that almost led to America s early entry into the war. Some highlights of the exhibition: Zimmerman telegram Ship s manifest from the RMS Lusitania Handwritten letters from Harry Truman to Bess Wallace Letters and mementoes from other soldiers of Battery D Truman s World War I equipment, including, among others, uniform, McClellan saddle, foot locker, tack box, shelter half, identity card, bed roll, instruments to calculate artillery trajectories, etc. Battle maps used by Truman Historical photographs taken in France by Truman and other Battery D members Field orders for Truman s unit A loving cup awarded to Truman by the grateful members of Battery D at the end of the war *Although both Dwight Eisenhower and Franklin D. Roosevelt held higher positions in the war effort, neither served on the front lines. Eisenhower was given command of Camp Colt in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania where he oversaw the new Army Tank Corps training center. Roosevelt was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

4 Analyzing a World War I Letter by Harry Truman Letter from Harry S. Truman to Bess Wallace, November 1, Truman Papers - Family, Business, and Personal Affairs Papers. Somewhere in France November 1, 1918 Dear Bess: I have just finished putting 1,800 shells over on the Germans in the last five hours. They don't seem to have had enough energy to come back yet. I don't think they will. One of their aviators fell right behind my Battery yesterday and sprained his ankle, busted up the machine, and got completely picked by the French and Americans in the neighborhood. They even tried to take their (there were two in the machine) coats. One of our officers, I am ashamed to say, took the boots off of the one with the sprained ankle and kept them. The French, and Americans too for that matter, are souvenir crazy. If a guard had not been placed over the machine, I don't doubt that it would have been carried away bit by bit. What I started to say was that the German lieutenant yelled "La guerre fini" as soon as he stepped from the machine. He then remarked that the war would be over in ten days. I don't know what he knew about it or what anyone else knows but I am sure that most Americans will be glad when it's over and they can get back to God's country again. It is a great thing to swell your chest out and fight for a principle but it gets almighty tiresome sometimes. I heard a Frenchman remark that Germany was fighting for territory, England for the sea, France for patriotism, and Americans for souvenirs. Yesterday made me think he was about right. I got a letter of Commendation, capital C, from the commanding general of the 35th Division. The ordnance repair department made a report to him that I had the best-conditioned guns after the drive that he had seen in France. The general wrote me a letter about it. My chief mechanic is to blame, not me. He knows more about guns than the French themselves. As usual in such cases, the C.O. gets the credit. I think I shall put an endorsement on the letter stating the ability of my chief mechanic and stick it in the files anyway. I am going to keep the original letter for my own personal and private use. It will be nice to have someday if some lowbrowed north-end politician tries to remark that I wasn't in the war when I'm running for eastern judge or something. I'll have the "papers" and can shut him up. If ever I get home from this war whole (I shall), I am going to be perfectly happy to follow a mule down a corn row the balance of my days that is, always providing such an arrangement is also a pleasure to you. I think the green pastures of Grand Old Missouri are the best looking of any that I have seen in this world yet and I've seen several brands. The outlook I have now is a rather dreary one. There are Frenchmen buried in my front yard and Huns in the back yard and both litter up the landscape as far as you can see. Every time a Boche shell hits in a field over west of here it digs up a piece of someone. It is well I'm not troubled by spooks. I walked out to the observation post the other day (yesterday) to pick an adjusting point and I found two little flowers alongside the trench blooming right in the rock. I am enclosing them. The sob sisters would say that they came from the battle-scarred field of Verdun. They were in sight and short range of Heinie and were not far from the two most famous forts of his line of defense. You can keep them or throw them away but I thought they'd be something. One's a poppy, the other is a pink or something of the kind. A real sob sister could write a volume about the struggle of these pretty little flowers under the frowning brows of Douaumont the impregnable. Please keep writing, for I look for letters eagerly even if I don't write them as often as I should. I love you Always, Harry See the letter online here:

5 Questions: 1. When was this letter written? What is the situation in the war at this time? 2. Who is Harry Truman writing this letter too? What is their relationship? How can you tell? 3. Why doesn t Harry Truman say where in France he is at the beginning of the letter? 4. What has Harry Truman been doing for the last five hours? 5. Who did the French and Americans capture? 6. Truman writes I heard a Frenchman remark that Germany was fighting for territory, England for the sea, France for patriotism, and Americans for souvenirs. What did he mean by that statement? 7. What is a Letter of Commendation and why did Harry Truman receive one? 8. Other than farming, what job did Truman think he could run for after the war was over? 9. Truman writes There are Frenchmen buried in my front yard and Huns in the back yard and both litter up the landscape as far as you can see. Every time a Boche shell hits in a field over west of here it digs up a piece of someone. Who are the Huns? What is a Boche shell? What does this paragraph tell you about the area of France Truman is fighting in? 10. What is a sob sister (yes, you can google search that one!) Extended activity. Imagine you are Bess Wallace. It is November, 1918 and by the time you receive this letter you have heard the war is over. Write a reply to Harry Truman s letter to you. Respond to the information provided to you in his letter and express your emotions to him as the war is now over.

6 Analyzing a World War I artifact Caption: Portrait of Captain Harry S. Truman, taken from his identity card for the American Expeditionary Forces. His rank is Captain, 129 Field Artillery. Captain Truman is not wearing glasses in this straight frontal, unsmiling portrait, ca Why do you think Truman is not wearing glasses in this photograph? 2. Look at the stamp in the top center, what division is Truman in? 3. What rank is Truman in this identity card? 4. What would be the purpose of an identity card? Why would they be necessary? 5. What language other than English do you see printed on this card? Why? 6. If you were to interview Captain Truman in 1917, what questions would you ask him?

7 Analyzing a World War I artifact The Zimmerman Telegram

8 Background to the Zimmerman Telegram German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann sent this encoded message to the President of Mexico on January 16, 1917, offering United States territory to Mexico in return for joining the German cause in World War I. In return for Mexican support, Germany would help Mexico regain New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona from the United States. Considering the Zimmermann Telegram s scandalous contents, the Germans used an unlikely method to transmit it abroad. Earlier in the war, the British Royal Navy had successfully severed the Germans transatlantic telegraph cables. Germany had been left with no private communications link between Berlin and North America, but in the interest of promoting peace, the neutral United States had agreed to send encrypted German messages in exchange for a promise that they only contained run-of-the-mill diplomatic instructions. With this in mind, on January 16, 1917, Zimmermann s office handed their coded telegram off to the U.S. ambassador to Germany, James Gerard. Oblivious to its content, he dutifully wired it to Copenhagen. From there, it was transmitted to London and then to the German embassy in Washington, D.C. By January 19, Eckardt had received it in Mexico City. The United States had unwittingly helped deliver a message that posed a grave threat to its own security, yet the Zimmermann Telegram didn t cross the Atlantic undetected. Unbeknownst to the Americans, British intelligence had been secretly tapping into the U.S. State Department s transatlantic cables since early in the war. When the Zimmermann Telegram was transmitted, it was easily snatched up by the Admiralty s Room 40, an office of cryptographers, mathematicians and language experts who specialized in cracking German codes. On January 17 two days before the telegram arrived in Washington a British cryptanalyst named Nigel de Grey decoded the note. Recognizing its strategic value, he immediately strode into the office of Room 40 s chief, Captain William Reginald Blinker Hall, and asked him a question: Do you want to bring America into the war? The British waited until February 24 to present the telegram and its translation to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. The American press published news of the telegram on March 1. On April 6, 1917, the United States Congress formally declared war on Germany and its allies. During his address, President Wilson cited the Zimmermann Telegram as evidence that the Germans had attempted to stir up enemies against us at our very doors. Questions/activities 1. Read the background information above. What was the Zimmerman telegram? 2. In your opinion, why was the Zimmerman Telegram considered scandalous? 3. How did President Wilson react to the telegram? 4. Look at the two political cartoons on the next page. Explain the message in each cartoon. 5. In the first cartoon, which country is represented with the knife? How can you tell? What is he doing with the knife? 6. In the second cartoon, what country do the two figures represent? What city was the second cartoon published in? Why would this make a difference to the artists point of view?

9 Analyzing a World War I artifact - Political Cartoons The 1917 Zimmermann telegram cartoon by Clifford K. Berryman This political cartoon titled The Temptation was published March 2, This political cartoon was published in a Dallas newspaper after President Wilson shared the interception of the Zimmerman note with the American public.

10 Analyzing a World War I Map Questions 1. What is the date on this map? 2. Which two countries are working together? Who are they attacking? 3. On a modern day map find some of the cities on this map. How close are they to Paris and what direction are they from Paris? How close are they to the Belgian and German borders? 4. How far is it from Chateau-Thierry to Reims? 5. What rivers can you find? What obstacles would rivers present to the attack? 6. Why do you think some arrows are thicker and longer than others? 7. What questions would you ask of the map maker?

11 Analyzing World War I Photographs Tank coming out of a trench during World War I. September 12, 1918 Questions 1. Compare the two photographs. List the similarities and differences 2. Both of these photos are from World War I. Which would be more likely to be seen again in World War II, why? 3. Why did horses become increasingly ineffective during World War I? 4. Why were tanks seen as a solution? What problems did early tanks have? 5. What other examples of technological advances can you find in World War I? Captain Truman at Camp Coetquidan in France, during World War I. July 1918.

12 The Home Front - Liberty Bonds A Liberty Bond (or liberty loan) was a war bond that was sold in the United States to support the Allied cause in World War I. Subscribing to the bonds became a symbol of patriotic duty in the United States and introduced the idea of financial securities to many citizens for the first time. To the war planners, the appeal of borrowing funds from the public was that it would be good for morale. Individuals could demonstrate their support for the war by purchasing bonds. Indeed, during the bond campaigns, purchasers were given buttons to wear and window stickers to display, thus advertising their patriotism. If bond sales were strong, if the offering was oversubscribed, that would demonstrate American resolve. Activity 1. Have students design their own Liberty loan posters, stickers and buttons for display. 2. What common elements are seen in the five examples above? 3. What position was Bess Wallace appointed to by the National Liberty Loan Committee? 4. Why do you think she took on this role? 5. What do you think were some of the tasks Bess Wallace had to do in this role?

13 Truman Word Search O Y E I E I G L H A V I T X Y V A L F C C F Z X O L H A R I B W R A I X N B B J R T N R X N M Z T S I E A S Q Z S K A H J O Z L I L U V R Y A U E K H Z N A O G L G T N F R H K G Q J H K I V Y L A J C G C O X Q D A U Y G G M E X V O N H K C I M T K E R I H R O N E V J M Z O K B E U W N T Y N R S E J L W X M K U W B S V E T S G S A R M I S T I C E N K U T U U F I Q N T E L K Q E E S Q Q B Z N A M U R T L R M P A R I S J T B Y E S L D X U O I E X S Can you find all 12 words in the word search? ARGONNE ARMISTICE ARTILLERY BELGIUM FRANCE HORSE MEUSE PARIS TANK TRENCH TRUMAN ZIMMERMAN

14 Leaders and Participants in World War I Research activity Winston Churchill Herbert Asquith David Lloyd George Georges Clemenceau Marshall Foch Franz Ferdinand Franz Josef I Douglas Haig Vladimir Lenin Nicholas II Gavrilo Princip Leon Trotsky Kaiser Wilhelm II Woodrow Wilson Harry S. Truman John Pershing Research activity Have students choose one of these people to research and present to the class. Students should explain their person s role in World War I. They should note their country, their experience in World War I, and if appropriate their role after World War I. Extended activity Students create exhibit boards or video documentaries on their individuals.