Make the Kaiser Dance: Living Memories of a Forgotten War: The American Experience in World War I

by Henry Berry

Genres: History, War, World War I

455 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1978

Reviews

[Marie Silk · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those books that I feel an enormous amount of gratitude to the author for taking on the project. These are first-hand accounts about what it was really like physically, mentally, and everything else during WWI. If this book was started a decade later, it would have been too late, and the stories lost forever. One of the more amusing observations is that the average person does not know much about WWI, who was in it, and why. Well, now you can read everything you never knew about The Great War from the people who were actually in it. I love that this book exists and I read the stories with interest. You can flip to any chapter basically and start reading a new perspective from a different WWI vet. Excellent, brilliant, important military history book!

[Jake Nihart · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an illuminating compilation of interviews with aging combat veterans of the American Expeditionary Force during World War 1. The stories are fascinating and insightful; must-reads for anyone wishing to gain a greater appreciation for WW1.

Several consistent themes and takeaways emerge from the interviews:

1.) An "eagerness to fight" prevalent in young Americans which "died on the fields of France." Even in WW2, this level of eagerness wasn't matched. Was it naivety (old world mentality meets modern war)? Or the fact Americans hadn't had a really big fight in 50 years? Who knows.

2.) Intensity of combat in the summer/fall of 1918 against adept German machine gun and artillery employment. High tempo offense across open areas. Hundreds of miles of movement. Horrendous casualty rates. Yikes. Could that have been the worst combat Americans have ever faced?

3.) Timeless sense of humor amongst young men at war. Some things never change. Plenty of anecdotes in these pages that'll make you laugh.

4.) Sheer scale of the AEF. 2 million Americans went to France. 320k wounded and more killed than in Vietnam (and this was only 16 months of fighting). Doesn't include the Americans fighting with the French prior to 1917.

5.) Combat "etiquette" between Germans and Americans. Duality of man? They'd cut each other to pieces but communications, POW conduct, and surrender terms were always gentlemanly.

6.) The stories of Americans flying for the French escadrilles were wild.

7.) The officers were nearly exclusively sourced from top colleges and universities across the U.S. as volunteers. Many of these graduates couldn't wait until 1917 and went over in 1915 to serve as ambulance drivers or pilots. Times have definitely changed.

[Dave Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Veterans of the Great War interviewed in the 70’s by a good writer, so what’s not to like. This is an excellent synthesis of many wonderful, succinct and personally focused stories with a very modest sprinkling of general historical commentary by the author and some of the interviewed, or at least enough for context. There is far too much here to say, and the men are candid, clever and often gently sarcastic “ so why not let them speak? “We had no real communications with headquarters-just those damn German guns” Jeremiah Evarts (1st division) is just one of many and a window into their collective minds. Many stories that seem familiar yet out of time like Lemuel Shepherd’s (5th Marines) tale of the old Sergeant so angry about the men sneaking into the new latrine he had had dug solely for inspections he grenading them out (thankfully they knew he was coming and ran) or John Madden (89th Division) “we weren’t used to hiking with the (gas) masks on, the slobbering could drive you nuts” that at least hasn’t changed in a century. Two observations from veterans of both WWI & WWII about the difference they saw, first Arnold Whitridge (of WWII) “the eagerness was gone” and Enos Curtin “After what this country found out about modern war in 1918…the kids of 1943 could find nothing to sing about” are both telling. I’ll leave you with Merritt Cutler (27th division) speaking on a topic we have heard a lot about today like somebody recently discovered it “Most of the shell shock victims of World War I weren’t what we’d call today battle fatigue. Real shell shock was the actual scrambling of a man’s brain by concussion”

[Wayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first got this book in about 1980 or ‘81. The edges of the pages were splattered with purple ink, and marked down to $1.00. It was fascinating to read the first hand accounts of those who were “over there.” The jerky, scratched black and white silent movies came to life. It make me seek out veterans of the “Great War” in my city and interview them. Some were the past movers and shakers who now quietly pulled the strings behind the curtain. It is a wonderful book.