World War I in Central Aroostook County Newspapers

World War I started in 1914 and lasted until November 11, 1918, but the United States only fought in it from April 1917 to November 1918. It affected almost the entire population of the world. People in the world reacted differently to the war, and Northern Maine was just as unique as everybody else. What did residents of Aroostook County know about the war? How could newspapers have helped them form opinions of the war? From its beginnings to the return home of the soldiers that had fought the war, residents of The County had--and still have--a story to tell.

Unfortunately, there are no living WWI veterans we can ask. We cannot just find a veteran of the Great War who lived in Aroostook County and ask, "How did the war affect you? Most of the people who lived through or fought in World War I have passed away. Thankfully, though, newspapers can help us find those stories!

Newspapers left behind a source that we can use to determine how the people in The County were affected by the war in Europe, and how they viewed the situation overseas. The newspapers that were used in this project include The Aroostook Times and Houlton Times from Houlton, Star Herald from Presque Isle, Fort Fairfield Review from Fort Fairfield and Mars Hill News from Mars Hill. They can all be found digitally on the Digital Maine Repository website.  Click here  to go to the website. The reason the Aroostook Republican from Caribou is not used is because it has not been digitized for this time period.

Figure 2: This newspaper article from the  August 5, 1914 edition of the Fort Fairfield Review , focuses on the war resources of the major European powers involved in the newly started World War. It shows that war news was important to the people of The County as soon as it started.

To understand the start of the war, we have to go back to the 1870s; Germany was not a unified country. The German state of Prussia began unifying all the German states under one empire. To accomplish this, they engaged in several wars with Austria and France to unite all the German states. By January 1871, the German states were united under the  Prussian state , and the German Empire was born.

Otto Von  Bismarck  knew that even though Germany had arguably the strongest army in Europe, it had enemies on all sides that surrounded it. He set out to create a triple alliance. He figured that whoever had a majority between the five leading powers in Europe (Germany, France, Russia, Austria-Hungry, and Britain) they would be able to maintain peace. This alliance structure created problems throughout Europe. Even smaller countries would be aligned with one of the major powers as its protector. This was the case with Serbia. The Serbian people were Slavic just like the Russians, and the Russians vowed to protect them from violence if war were to happen. Serbia wanted independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire which did not get along with Russia.

Figure 4: The map to the right shows the countries involved in the Triple Entente and Triple Alliance.

 By 1914, the alliance structure s throughout Europe were complex. Germany was allied with Austria-Hungary and Italy. The French, British and Russians all had alliances with each other and other smaller countries. Europe was primed for something to happen, and it would only take one spark to ignite an explosion that would singe the entire world with its flame.

On  June 28, 1914 , in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the heir to the Austrian-Hungarian throne was assassinated by extremists from Serbia. This assassination was the spark that ignited the first World War. The next day in the United States, the New York Tribune and papers from other major cities throughout the United States put the assassination on the front-page of the papers for the day. The papers in Aroostook County did not because most likely they had not received the news in time to include in their publications. Most did not even consider it newsworthy. Perhaps, the papers assumed that the people in The County had subscriptions to major newspapers. This is quite likely since the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad took people to southern Maine where they could make connections to Boston and New York.

The newspapers in Aroostook County, fail to mention the Assassination until mid-July or early August. The Mars Hill News was the first paper in the County to publish anything on the assassination, which occurred on June 28, 1914. On July 16, 1914, it published an illustration of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife with the headline  "Latest Tragedy in Austria's Royal Family."  The caption of the illustration explained the Archduke had been assassinated in Sarajevo, but nothing else. There is no mention of the tensions between the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente as a result of the assassination.

Figure 5: The image to the right is from the  Mars Hill New on July 16, 1914 . This is the first article to mention the death of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. His death sparked World War I.

On July 28, 1914, The Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on Serbia. On August 4, 1914, Britain, France and Germany were all at war. Germany sided with the Austro-Hungarian Empire and France and Britain sided with Russia and Serbia. The first mention of the war in an Aroostook County newspaper was on August 5, 1914 in the The Fort Fairfield Review. The Fort Fairfield Review published an article called  Warring Europe  with a byline about the fact that this could be the most appalling war the world had ever seen. The article also blamed the start of the war on Germany and not the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It remarked at how Germany had become a tough country to deal with since its unification in 1871.

On August 6, 1914, the Presque Isle paper, The Star-Herald, published that England declared war on Germany in the article,  "England Declares War on Germany 1914."  On August 12, 1914, the Houlton paper, The Aroostook Times, had an article titled the  "Causes and Issues of the War."  Since the war in Europe had already begun by the time these articles were written, many people already knew that the Archduke had been assassinated but were not informed about the conditions that led to the war in Europe.

On August 26, 1914, The Aroostook Times published an article called  "Secrecy in War."  In the article, the authors explain that, although Austria may have done some things to trigger the conflict in the first place, many believe Austria is just a pawn in a game being played by Germany. In other words, the article suggests that Germany is using Austria for its own gains and is, in fact, the main  antagonist  of the war. This reflects the idea of the earlier article from the Fort Fairfield Review called Warring Europe. The idea that Germany was the main instigator of the war was believed throughout the United States, Britain and France. When the war ended in 1918 and the  Treaty of Versailles  was created, Germany was forced to take the blame for the war and pay  war reparations .

When the war in Europe began, there were many American families traveling throughout Europe in spite of the tragedy of The Titanic taking place just two years before. Two of these traveling families came from the Houlton area. When they returned home, they were interviewed by the paper about their experiences in Europe during their trips.

The first to return were the Friedmans in August of 1914 after having explored Germany abroad. The article of their travels appeared in the August 26, 1914 edition of The Aroostook Times and is entitled  "Conditions Worse Than Published."  While on their trip, they heard the first rumors that war was on the horizon. They remembered it was around July 25th, while the family was visiting Vienna, Austria, that they started to feel the enclosing pinch of the oncoming war.

When the Friedmans visited the public buildings in Vienna, they were surprised to find them all closed. Imagine their surprise when they found that there were no museums, libraries or restaurants opened to the public. After a few days of touring a locked-down city, they headed for Bremen, Germany. While traveling along the North German Lloyd line, the cities they passed through seemed to have “warlike conditions” that they described as getting worse and worse the deeper into Germany they traveled.

When they finally reached Bremen, they were surprised to discover all the ships had been forcibly docked. Even the ship the Friedmans had booked to sail home to Maine had been called off and closed down. They decided to go to the “Hook of Holland” to book a ship to London and then home to Houlton. Unfortunately, they had to leave behind all their baggage and were forced to board the ship with only the items they could carry by hand.

They finally reached London on August 4th. During their travels, they claimed that they had noticed strange signs that the economy was changing, or perhaps locked up. The Friedmans observed that people they would normally assume had the means to survive without financial care were suddenly barely able to scrape together enough money to pay for the necessities, like food and a place to sleep for the night. As the war began to warm from an ember to a roasting flame, the banks began to close and this shut families off from their funds and the means they needed to travel.

Figure 6: The images to the right include parts of the 2 articles as well as a map of where both families went while in Europe at the beginning of World War I.

Two weeks later in contrast to the previous story, The Aroostook Times published a very different story about another Houlton family, the Whites, who had also been traveling in Europe as the War began to spark. Published on 9 September, 1914, the article was entitled  "Mr. and Mrs. White Return from Europe,"  a very different tone of title as compared with just two weeks earlier with a family trip story having the word "war!" in the title! The White family reported that their entire trip was a “great pleasure,” that their travel plans went off without any problems, and that nowhere during their journeys did they encounter any of the warlike conditions that the Friedman family reported.

These articles were printed just two weeks apart and seem to follow the  "American Policy of Neutrality"  of the time period. When the war was first declared in Europe, President Woodrow Wilson made a statement that the United States would remain neutral during the war in Europe, and that statement seemed to trickle down even to the White family of Aroostook County, Maine.

In 1914, many residents were concerned about how a war in Europe would affect them, and this was all over the newspaper editorials of the time. As early as mid-August 1914, The County newspapers reported how the war would affect the daily lives of people living in The County. On August 19,1914, the Aroostook Times published an article entitled  "The Effect of The War Upon Us."  It claimed that a small area like Aroostook County would not experience the same panics of foreign wars experienced by larger cities and densely populated areas. However, the article on this day seemed to have a calming effect on County residents. It explained that the American government was going to maintain strict neutrality throughout the war--just like Roosevelt said we would do.

Other articles published during this time period described how the war would benefit Americans. Because Europeans would be busy on the battlefield, their manufacturing and agriculture would decrease but the demand for goods would remain and probably increase. Soon, Europe would be forced to call on America to produce materials they needed to address the shortages. This bolstered the American workforce in the United States, and some residents of Aroostook County believed that the war was going to be beneficial and prosperous.

Figure 9: The video to the right explains Wilson's Declaration of Neutrality.

In 1914, the United States had one of the greatest  grain crops in history . This meant that many businesses in the United States wanted to keep citizens out of the war in order to keep them in the labor force, producing the crops necessary to ensure our military allies were well-fed. Farmers believed the war would not affect crop growth in the United States--and they were not wrong! In 1915, the annual crop report for Maine showed increases in  wheat,  oats, and barley.

When the United States declared that it would be entering the war, this period of abundance soon changed. On June 14, 1917, the Mars Hill View reported that the 1917 wheat crop was far below normal. The headline read  “1917 Wheat Crop Far Below Normal: Will Not Meet Needs Unless Country Practices Rigid Economy – Other Grains.”  The newspapers in The County continually talked about the status of crops throughout the war and whether or not there was enough supply to meet demands. It all depended on the weather for each year.

Figure 11: The slide to the right shows crop yields from 1914 to 1917 and discusses the importance of potash.

Farmers in Aroostook County Agriculture were also concerned about having enough fertilizer, the very stuff used to nourish the crops. Potash had been the most common type of fertilizer used. Potash came in different forms, from potassium carbonate to potassium hydroxide. It was used in making fertilizers to help yield more crop growth. In the late 19 ^th  and early 20 ^th  centuries, Germany contained the largest deposits of potash and as a result, Germany was the main supplier of potash for Aroostook County. When the British blockaded German ports and cut off the supply of potash, this put Aroostook County into a sticky situation.

In 1914, The University of Maine Experiment Station started experiments on growing potatoes without potash. In 1914 and 1915, the experiments led to lower yields of potatoes. By 1916, the University discovered that using nitrates instead of potassium as a fertilizer created a higher yield of potatoes and a replacement for potash was found.

When the Americans joined the war in 1917, however, the production of grain and potatoes dropped to below even the 1914 standards due to two factors. The first was that some farmers were still skeptical over the use of nitrates rather than potash and had not fully adopted the use of the substitute. The second was that farmers were also volunteering to serve  Uncle Sam  as soldiers overseas. This left fewer farmers in The County to farm the land. The University continued its experiments and worked with remaining farmers to help them adopt new fertilizers and farming methods to increase yields.

In addition to this, the newspapers advertised encouragements made by big companies such as the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad. In 1917, the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad encouraged farmers to grow as much wheat as possible. They did this by making it a contest.

Throughout the war, the companies and agricultural services encouraged farmers to use the latest technology and agricultural techniques on their farms. Some farmers even went into debt to buy tractors and increase the acreage they farmed at the urging of the US Government. While it is not known if this was done in Aroostook County, it was a general trend across the United States.

In addition to the Country's and The County's concern about grain crops and other economic farming issues, they worried about having enough food for themselves and the troops. Throughout the nation, including Aroostook County, people started to grow victory gardens to create enough food to support the war effort.

Figure 16: The film to the right is a brief history of Victory Gardens and the role they played in World War I.

The main impetus behind victory gardens was the land-grant state universities which were homes to each states'  Cooperative Extension Service . Like other state universities, the University of Maine sent out information about growing gardens and canning. Their information targeted women and children. The Cooperative Extension Service also ran the 4-H. As early as 1914, the Maine 4-H started having canning competitions. In 1915, the 4-H  Canning and Gardening Championship  went to The County's Crystal Waddell of Mapleton. The Cooperative Extension held canning and gardening presentations throughout the state for women and girls. They also held demonstrations for farmers on the latest ways to farm.

Newspapers and other forms of advertising encouraged women and others to take inventory of their food supplies and the way they used it. This would allow the United States to send more grains and commercial crops to American troops and its Allies. On April 25, 1917, The Houlton Times, published an article on the millions of dollars in food that was being discarded and listed 5 things that "each man, woman and child" could do to avoid this waste. The first thing was to save leftovers and not throw them away. The second and third item stated that food spoilage could be prevented by not being careless with food handling, storage and cooking. The fourth piece of advice was to make sure there was no waste in preparation. The last thing was to not take overly generous portion sizes when eating. Other County newspapers and national newspapers had advice columns like this. All of this was part of the war effort to make sure that the men serving in the US military had enough food to eat.

 While many County residents were dealing with agriculture issues, other residents were distracted by the news coverage of the European battles covered by local newspapers. Much of the fighting in Europe was centered in France. Both the Germans and the Allies had dug trenches for the defense of each other’s lines. This was the first war in which  trench warfare  would become a major obstacle to victory. It also led to the death of 9.7 million soldiers.

One of the biggest battles before US involvement in the war was the Battle of the Somme. On May 11, 1916, the Star Herald started publishing a multi-part series on  "Europe BattleFront Lessons."  The series of articles discussed the lessons being learned on the battlefields of Europe. Not only did these stories tell the residents what was happening in Europe, they also showed them some of the new and deadly tactics that were being used by both sides. Before World War I, no one could have imagined the kind of war-time atrocities that came from the industrialization of war. Wartime fighting tactics remained stuck in the 19th century, while the weapons of war became more lethal due to 20th century inventions thanks to industrialization. This is one of the biggest reasons for the large number of casualties along with 19th century based trench warfare.

Figure 19: The video to the right is actual footage from the Battle of Verdun in 1916. The Americans were not yet in the war.

In World War I, Germany and then other countries started using chemical weapons for the first time while soldiers sheltering in the trenches. In addition to the fear of being gassed, soldiers faced the futility of trench warfare. The area between the trenches of each side was called “No Man’s Land.” In order to cross this dangerous area, the troops would have to face not just gas but machine-gun fire. Thanks to the British, Americans were introduced to a new modern war machine known as the tank. Tanks were invented to cross over enemy trenches and not get stuck in the mud or destroyed by gun fire during the rapid onslaught of machine fire. Calvary, or troops on horseback, had the disadvantage of being stuck in the mud. Enemy troops would lay  caltrops  or sharp metal objects akin to the game of Jacks. When horses, stepped on them they became lame and unable to move. World War I would be the last war to use horses as tanks, airplanes and other modern types of war machines replaced them.

On May 7, 1915, German U-boats or submarines sank the RMS Lusitania. This action started when Americans questioned President Wilson's call for neutrality. American allies had hoped that the Americans would enter the war increased with the sinking of the Lusitania.

Germany had been waging submarine warfare against the United Kingdom and Ireland since the beginning of the war. But this time, this particular ship--The Lusitania--was carrying more than citizens of the United Kingdom and Ireland in its holds. It also had many American citizens on the ship's manifest.

Figure 20: The short clip called The Lusitania: The Great War talks about the sinking of the Lusitania.

Some of the first editorials against neutrality because of the sinking of the Lusitania appeared in the Star Herald on May 13, 1915 in an article called  "The Universal Loss."  The universal loss is described in poignant detail: "There is a loss of a fine type of sorts of American citizenship which, despite weight, wealth, and social opportunity can now cling to the American conditions of social democracy and help us aim higher than others. This universal loss was so rare that each person reading could be argued to be feeling a personal loss of some close, personal family member amongst the elite lost in the bombing. It was enough to inspire a retaliation."

The push for entering the war continued to be seen in newspapers. Area newspapers often picked up editorials and stories that were previously published in the New York Times and the Boston Herald. These editorials focused on the creditibility of Wilson's neutrality policy. In addition, articles picked up by these bigger papers, kept Aroostook County residents up-to-date on what was happening in Europe.

In early 1917, the German Foreign Office sent internal diplomatic communication proposing an alliance between Germany and Mexico should the United States enter the war against them. This proposal, known as the Zimmerman Telegram, was intercepted and decoded by British intelligence. Relations between the United States and Mexico were not the best at the time. In the papers from 1914 through 1915 along with the war in Europe, there were articles about American forces in Mexico. Much of the fighting that the United States was doing in Mexico was against Poncho Villa’s forces. So, when news of this telegram hit the American news, citizens once again began calling for President Wilson to end his stance of neutrality and enter the United States into the war.

The cause was further helped when the Star Herald reprinted a letter that first appeared in The New York Times. The editorial title was  "Wickersham Proposes to Severe Diplomatic Relations"  and it was written by George W. Wickersham, the former Attorney General of the United States. In it, Wickersham questioned Wilson's policy of neutrality. He called upon the president to end " all diplomatic relations with the country which has declared war upon civilization" as we know it. While we do not know how much of an impact these types of editorials would have had on The County's population, it is easy to assume that some people's ideas of neutrality were changed. Furthermore, all The County newspapers continued to run articles about the war and editorials on neutrality until the US entered the war in 1917. Most of these were again taken from the New York Times, The Boston Herald and other big city newspapers.

On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson spoke to the US Congress about officially declaring war on Germany. Four days later the United States declared war on Germany. Some politicians and others had been calling for US entry into the war since the sinking of the Lusitania.

Figure 22: The video to the right discusses the US Declaration of War on Germany.

To the credit of the state of Maine, on February 6, 1917, Governor Carl E Milliken sent a letter to the U.S. President declaring “the unswerving and loyal support which you may count upon from our entire state [of Maine].” This essentially placed Maine at the head of the line to enter the war against the Germans whenever Congress should issue the proclamation that war was to commence. You can read the entire proclamation by  clicking here .

Shortly after Governor's Milliken's letter to President Wilson, the Star Herald published an article about newly elected Maine Senator Hale's visit to the front lines in France. The February 15, 1917, article,  "Senator-Elect Hale on the British Front,"  reported what Hale experienced. The article, which came from a correspondent with the Associated Press, talked about how Hale happened to be at the front on a "lively" day of activity. Because of so much bombing by the Germans, Hale had to return from the front lines in France to London and then book passage back to America. The article ended with the fact that Hale wanted to get home as soon as possible in case an extra session of Congress was called. In other words, he wanted to be back in time to vote for the declaration of war on Germany.

Maine, it seemed, was preparing for all out war in Europe. To ensure that enough troops were mobilized, the United States instituted a draft and required all males between the ages of 21 and 30 to register for that draft. This requirement was put out as an important notice in the Mars Hill News on May 31, 1917, in an article entitled  Important!  written by Sheriff C. E. Dunn. Other local papers announced the requirement to register for draft as well.

During this time, Americans were also asked to buy liberty loans to help the United States pay for the war. These loans would ensure that no national calamity could damage the national credit while we were at war. By purchasing a Liberty Loan, the person who bought the bond received a promise from the United States to repay that bond with interest and this was used to help fund the cost of the war. Information about  Liberty Loans or Liberty Bonds  appeared in all the local newspapers. The articles emphasized that purchasing them was the patriotic thing to do. On May 24, 1917, the Mars Hill News carried an article entitled  "Big Task to Float the Liberty Loan."  The article ended with this: "they [those who sold bonds] were told that there was a need of arousing the country to the immediate necessity of subscribing to the loan that the "spirit of 17" should be awakened to match the "spirit of 76.""

If all of this was not enough to get the attention of people from The County about the necessity of their participation in the war, then the headline for the Mars Hill News on May 24, 1917, pushed them over the edge. The Mars Hill News reported that a German submarine was believed to have been spotted off the coast of Machias and another again off the coast near the mouth of the Kennebec. Here was the journalistic proof needed that German submarines had been patrolling the US coasts. It was also proof as to how close to home World War I really was to The County. To read the article, "U-Boat Sighted Off of Maine Coast,"  click here .

Newspapers throughout Aroostook County printed death notices and obituaries of the area soldiers who died during the war from 1917 through November 11, 1918. They also printed brief articles about The County soldiers who were wounded in battle. One example of this comes from the  Fort Fairfield Review  on August 1, 1917.

Figure 26: The  newspaper article  to the right is from the Fort Fairfield Review published on August 1, 1917. It talks about Mansfield Brayall of Fort Fairfield being wounded.

Local newspapers also published letters from soldiers written to their families at home. They would have had to do this with the permission of the family. Below are examples of two published letters.

More letters were published throughout the war. While they gave the people at home a small taste of the war, those on the home front would never fully understand the experiences of the soldiers in World War I and the horrors they suffered. Many came home suffering from Shell Shock or what is today known as PTSD. Back then, doctors were learning how to treat it and many veterans did not get the help that they needed.

Whether at home or at war, music helped to bring a connection between the home front and those at war. Over There became a famous song that portrayed the arrival of US Troops to the war. However, this song, in particular, glorifies the war and the patriotic duty of soldiers who went to fight in it. The reality was much different in the trenches; there was no glory.

Figure 28: The video to the right is actual World War I footage set to the lyrics of the song Over There. Listen to the lyrics and how it glorifies the US entrance into World War I. While it is okay to glorify patriotism, songs like this downplayed the horrors of war.

Other songs did not downplay the horrors of the war. One of the songs, written in 1917, by Allan J. Flynn of New York, was called "There’s a Green Hill Up in Maine." Flynn referenced Maine in this song because it was well known as a beautiful vacationland to the community of New Yorkers. By invoking an image of a crying Maine mother, weeping for her son who died in Flanders, Belgium, it made the song that much more heart-breaking. The contrast between the gentle beauty of Maine and the blood-drenched terrain of war-torn Belgium and France helped to make the song an emotional, powerful melody. You can listen to this song below.

Here are the lyrics to "There’s a Green Hill Out in Flanders":

Just another story woven round old glory, Just another mother and her lad, At her country’s calling though her tears were falling, She gave a son, the only one she had. And tonight a light at home is burning, For a lad who will not be returning.

Refrain: There’s a green hill out in Flanders, there’s a green hill up in Maine, Under one lies a son, ‘neath the sod and the dew, Sleeping where he fell for the Red, White, and Blue. On the other there’s a mother, In a little cottage waiting all in vain. So, here’s a tear for a brave heart in Flanders, And a cheer for a brave heart in Maine.

Verse: When they tell the story, why should all the glory Go to those who fight with sword and gun, Those they left behind them, back at home you’ll find them, They fight a fight as brave as any one. History only knows about the others, Where’s our hall of fame for “Soldier Mothers?” 

Since many soldiers lost their lives in Flanders where some of the heaviest fighting occurred, there is another song that mourns the loss of those lives. The lyrics to the song, In Flanders Fields was originally a poem by John McCrae. Here is the poem:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row,     That mark our place; and in the sky     The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,     Loved and were loved, and now we lie,         In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw     The torch; be yours to hold it high.     If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow         In Flanders fields.