CPL. Francis Webster

Progressive Era Idealism and the National Guard during World War I

By Matthew J. Margis

Article published on: April 1, 2025 in the Army History Spring 2025 issue

Read Time: < 46 mins

A sketch by Francis Webster Iowa Gold Star Military Museum

Francis Webster welcomed the opportunity to fight for his country when he disembarked the RMS Baltic in late November 1917. A few months later, he and the rest of his regiment saw their first taste of combat when German forces launched poisonous gas into the American lines before storming across no-man’s-land. Webster’s machine gun crew cut down the charging Germans, as other elements in his regiment waited to face the enemy.¹ Over the next eight months, Webster and the other national guardsmen in the 42d Division faced off against German forces almost daily. During the First World War, the National Guard played a key role in the American war effort, but its importance went beyond its operational capabilities. As a part-time force, the Guard embodied the citizen-soldier ideal and appealed to an new middle-class conceptualizations of patriotism, tradition, and civic virtue.

Webster was just one soldier in the National Guard, but he personified the Guard’s connection to Progressive Era idealism. As the nineteenth century ended, an emergent middle class began reshaping society in its image. American historians refer to the period that spanned the decades between the end of the Civil War and the turn of the twentieth century as the Gilded Age. Dominated by powerful, unethical industrialists known as robber barons along with an expansive elite class, the nation expanded both economically and geographically, but was rocked by multiple economic recessions and depressions, as well as increased labor strife and urban poverty. Americans who operated in an economic middle between the laboring class and the elites had prided themselves on self-discipline and selfdenial, but they found themselves tempted by the self-indulgent conspicuous consumption of the individualistic upper class. They further believed they were witnessing an erosion of the values that made the United States a virtuous republic.

Francis Webster Iowa Gold Star Military Museum

Beginning in the 1890s, this middle class—composed of managers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and other professionals— sought to reshape society. Some focused on social issues pertaining to poverty and civil rights. Others focused more on managerial processes and increasing professional standards and efficiency. These middle-class progressives came from varied backgrounds and held diverse political beliefs, but they found common ground in the desire to redefine the boundaries between the individual and the state as well as between men and women. At the heart of this desire was a perceived commitment to upholding republican virtue and idealism.² Francis Webster was not a well-known figure, nor was he a leading reformer or political leader. However, his background placed him firmly within the emergent middle class, and his National Guard service was an outpouring of the middle class’s idealistic leanings.

The National Guard at the Onset of the Progressive Era

The National Guard was one of three components in the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF), along with the Regular Army and National Army (drafted troops). Tracing its lineage to the colonial militia system, the Guard harkened to the minuteman tradition, but it shared little resemblance to its colonial forebearer. In the decades following the Civil War, the American militia system struggled to keep pace with military and social developments. States increasingly used the militia to restore and maintain order during labor disputes, worker strikes, and race riots. Unfortunately, the lack of a uniformed training system and meager federal allocations meant that some states fielded well-trained, well-funded, and well-organized militias, and others did not.³ During the Spanish-American War, an antiquated mobilization process that required militiamen (or militia units) to volunteer for federal service limited the nation’s ability to mobilize a large force in a timely manner.⁴ As the nineteenth century drew to a close, questions regarding militia’s effectiveness prompted Congress and military theorists to reassess the statebased force structure.⁵

Congress addressed many of these issues by replacing the militia with the modern National Guard in the early twentieth century. The Militia Act of 1903— commonly known as the Dick Act after its proponent, Ohio politician and National Guard member Charles W. F. Dick—was the first step in this process. A series of amendments to the act in 1908 extended the term of service and expanded the federal government’s authority in Guard matters, particularly concerning funding and standardization.⁶ Congress altered the law twice more in 1910 and 1914 before passing the National Defense Act of 1916 which established the National Guard as the Army's main reserve component, and allowed the president or Congress to mobilize the National Guard in any national emergency, including overseas service. Each piece of legislation centralized the federal government’s authority over the National Guard, and standardized training, equipment, and uniforms. Congressional leaders hoped these efforts would help professionalize the Guard and allow for a type of expert rule.

Representative Dick Library of Congress

These efforts coincided with larger movements in the American military as well as in society. Throughout the final three decades of the nineteenth century, middle-class professionals established organizations to advance their causes and increase their authority in a specific arena. The American Medical Association, the American Bar Association, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the American Nurses Association standardized practices in their respective fields and established a sense of authority based on one’s credentials. In a similar fashion, middle-class social reformers formed civic organizations such as the Shriners Club and religious groups like the Knights of Columbus to help advance their agendas.⁷ Not surprisingly then, militia officers—most of whom were middle-class men—formed the National Guard Association (NGA) in 1878 to establish a sense of professionalism within the militia officer corps.⁸ The NGA lobbied Congress for increased funding and worked to ensure officers in various states followed uniform practices with high standards of military proficiency and effectiveness.

Despite the NGA’s efforts, the militia suffered from poor public opinion. Since the 1870s, militias often had been known more for their lavish uniforms and extravagant parades than for their military purpose, and so many considered the militia little more than a social club for married men to escape their homes for a weekend or for young single men to impress potential mates.⁹ Furthermore, though the militia and National Guard’s participation in strike suppression was rare, this role created animosity among America’s working class. By the First World War’s onset, this impression was engrained in the public mind. However, the Guard was far from its ineffective militia predecessor. Increased standards, professionalization of the officer corps, and a prolonged training deployment along the Mexican border in 1916 helped the National Guard become a critical military asset as the nation joined the fray in World War I.

Interestingly, despite the perception of the National Guard as a strikebreaker, the Guard attracted many working-class men to its ranks. At a time when mechanization and consolidation threatened masculine identity, service in the Guard provided wage-earning men with an arena to display their manliness through military service—particularly marksmanship. Newly arrived immigrants used militia and Guard service as a way of assimilating into American culture, and racial minorities served to achieve a sense of citizenship during a period associated with Jim Crow segregation.¹⁰ By 1917, the National Guard was a unique organization in the United States, as middle-class professionals and social elites served side-by-side with the working-class. As an institution, the Guard represented a cross-section of American society, and it reflected the social complexities of the era.

Generally, historians have placed the National Guard somewhere outside of society’s developments during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. This approach has created a lack of understanding concerning Guard service, which at best describes the Guard as an undertrained and undermanned home defense force. At worst, these misperceptions cast the Guard as a homogenous group of antilabor strikebreakers who fulfilled the wills of state and corporate enterprises. For example, Alan Trachtenberg’s work, The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in the Gilded Age (Hill and Wang, 1982), outlines numerous American social shifts and describes the emergence of industrial capitalism in the country, but barely mentions the militia or the National Guard.¹¹ For Trachtenberg—who focuses on the coalescence of big business and social structures—the militia played only an occasional role as strikebreakers.

Heather Cox Richardson’s West from Appomattox: The Reconstruction of America after the Civil War (Yale University Press, 2007) details the realignment of American society between 1865 and 1901, arguing that “a new definition of what it meant to be an American developed from a heated debate over the proper relationship of the government to its citizens.”¹² Richardson discusses how politicians used the militia in the American South during Reconstruction, but barely mentions the militia after 1877. Both Trachtenberg and Richardson offer compelling explanations of American social and cultural shifts following the Civil War, but only include the militia as tools of big business and politicians. This limited explanation of the militia’s societal role ignores the fact that the militia was an institution of volunteers who came from varying political and social backgrounds. A more nuanced examination of the National Guard will lead to a better understanding of America’s social structure and concepts of patriotism and civic virtue.

The National Guard in the First World War

Similarly, most World War I scholarship glosses over the Guard’s wartime contributions. A few works make brief mention of the Guard’s level of preparedness when the United States declared war in 1917, but rarely distinguish between the Guard and Regular Army when discussing combat operations.¹³ In The War to End All Wars: The American Military Experience in World War I (Oxford University Press, 1968), Edward M. Coffman separates the Guard, Regular Army, and National Army (NA) when discussing mobilization, but he blends the three elements together when examining combat operations.¹⁴ This is understandable. When the federal government drafted the National Guard into service, it became part of the U.S. Army and lost its state designation. However, this approach overlooks the Guard’s unique identity as citizensoldiers and compares the Guard to the NA because of their temporary soldier status. The distinction between the Guard and NA is important because unlike the conscripts in the NA, guardsmen volunteered and signed a multiyear service contract.

Works that focus on the Guard during World War I often paint a bleak picture of its performance. Robert Zieger, in his book America’s Great War: World War I and the American Experience (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000),r mentions the Guard’s border service before entering the First World War but points out that its performance was “particularly discouraging.” He goes so far as to say that the Guard was “a less ready reserve than a grumbling and weakly coordinated patchwork of disparate state units.”¹⁵ This conclusion ignores the Guard’s extensive border training as well as the Guard’s growth in competency over the previous decade. Robert H. Ferrell’s Collapse at Meuse-Argonne: The Failure of the Missouri-Kansas Division (University of Missouri Press, 2004) focuses on a notable National Guard unit, the 35th Division (which included future president Harry S. Truman). Collapse at Meuse-Argonne offers various explanations for the 35th’s combat shortcomings, but Ferrell’s reasoning ultimately centers around poor training. Ferrell argues that the Guard was less prepared for war than their Regular Army counterparts.¹⁶ Such was not the case. Ferrell’s explanation overlooks other Guard divisions who received the same training as the 35th, but did not “fail” in combat. In fact, by war’s end, National Guard divisions comprised two-thirds of the entire AEF, and the 42d and 26th Divisions accrued more combat days than every other division except the Regular Army’s 1st Division.

Although training played a role in the Guard’s performance, an individual unit’s level of readiness depended on multiple variables. When President Woodrow Wilson drafted the National Guard into federal service in April 1917, a large portion of the Guard recently had returned from the Mexican border where they had drilled in weapons tactics and acclimated themselves to military life.¹⁷ Owing to a variety of legal factors, many soldiers left the Guard when the border duty concluded. State governments needed to recruit large numbers of guardsmen to reach full strength throughout 1917 and 1918, and the Army reorganized existing Guard elements. Therefore, some units, such as the 35th, entered wartime service with roughly the same level of preparation as fresh volunteers and drafted troops, and so their military shortcomings should not be blamed on their Guard origins. In other instances, Guard divisions like the 42d compiled an impressive service record on par with their Regular Army counterparts. Describing the entire National Guard as being militarily deficient because of a few instances of combat ineffectiveness obscures the complexities of American service in the Great War.

Though the National Guard served in a similar capacity to the Regular Army during the war, its more lasting influence derives from the Guard’s nature as a civilian military force. Samuel P. Huntington’s The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (Harvard University Press, 1957) offers a theoretical framework regarding civil-military relations, and argues that, “Civil-military relations is the principal institutional component of military security policy.”¹⁸ Huntington set the military and civilian-controlled government agencies on opposite ends of a spectrum that professional officers and politicians crossed to manage military affairs. Here, the “principal focus of civil-military relations is the relation of the officer corps to the state,” and these two elements represent the relationship between the military and the state.¹⁹ However, guardsmen served as both civilians and soldiers and bridged the gap between these two factions. Although the civil sphere and military sphere often were separated on the governmental level, numerous political leaders—including Charles Dick, the architect of the 1903 Militia Act—served in the Guard’s ranks. Unlike with the Regular Army then, the National Guard was not kept in a separate military sphere but was tied to civic affairs and civilian concerns.

Individual guardsmen, such as Francis Webster, can serve as lenses through which to view larger trends. Webster’s wartime experiences, though, are reflective of the war’s typical narrative. Additionally, Webster’s story differs little from those found in wartime memoirs—including Hugh Thompson’s and John Taber’s—who served as officers in Webster’s regiment.²⁰ So, why study Webster? One element that makes Webster’s experience worthy of recounting is that his story bridges the gap between the small unit and the larger context of the First World War. Eric T. Dean noted that focusing on individual soldiers makes all war seem futile because, “the greater purpose and flow of the war is rarely evident; to the common soldier in all eras, war has seemed a chaotic and terrifying business.”²¹

Library of Congress

Webster, though, is an exception to this rule. A Des Moines, Iowa, newspaper contracted with Webster to serve as something of a World War I version of a wartime correspondent. Webster’s writings often included insights into what life was like in the trenches, as well as how those experiences fit into the larger political and military contexts of the war. Darrek Orwig published an edited version of Webster’s diary, artwork, and letters in Somewhere Over There: The Letters, Diary, and Artwork of a World War I Corporal (University of Oklahoma Press, 2016). Orwig recounts many of Webster’s experiences, but he avoids discussing Webster’s motivations or middle-class background. Although Webster was not representative of the whole of American society, he personified the middle class’s idealism concerning social reform and a desire to reconnect with traditional values.

Additionally, Webster’s middle-class status aligned with the composition of the AEF, which included a disproportionate number of educated Americans. So, although Webster did not lead a life seemingly worthy of advanced historical study, his “ordinariness” is what makes him interesting, and combining his writings with those of other soldiers clarifies the wartime contributions of National Guard troops. Webster maintained a strong understanding of political and social issues, as well as overall military strategy.²² Historians can gain a great deal of understanding of the human experience of warfare within the context of the greater purpose of the war by examining the National Guard because the organization functioned at the intersection of civil-military affairs. In this way, Francis Webster’s story is more than just a soldier’s story; it is the National Guard’s, and America’s wartime story.

Francis Webster in World War I

Francis Webster was born in Shelton, Washington, on 11 July 1896. Webster’s father was a Baptist minister, and after a pair of short-term moves to California and Nevada, the family settled near Des Moines, Iowa, in 1907. Webster’s family’s social status allowed him to focus on his studies, and just before his sixteenth birthday he graduated from Maquoketa High School and went on to Des Moines College. For a brief period, Webster took time off of school to travel and earn some extra money. To finance his wanderlust, he took up a series of odd jobs, including one with a local newspaper. This shortterm job became an important element in Webster’s life, as the Des Moines Capital contracted with Webster to provide artwork and reports while he served in the trenches. Eventually, Webster returned to Des Moines College, where he excelled in his studies and graduated with a liberal arts degree at the age of 20. He intended to pursue a career in education, but war changed that. After serving as superintendent of the Deloit School District in Iowa for one year, Webster refused reelection and enlisted as a bugler in the machine gun company of the Third Iowa Infantry regiment in early May 1917.²³ Webster’s decision to enlist in the National Guard over the Regular Army is telling. To sell the American people on entering the war—less than six months after winning an election on the promise of keeping the nation out of the war— President Wilson framed the war as a Progressive endeavor. He declared that the United States must “make the world safe for democracy,” and his message took hold. John Dewey, the famous educator and writer, argued that this was a malleable time in human history, and true peace and pacifism could only be achieved if the United States and its allies defeated Germany militarily.²⁴ Capt. Irving Goff McCann of the Illinois National Guard reflected these Progressive sentiments in his memoirs, with an emphasis on Christian-based struggles for justice and equality. Captain McCann declared that Jesus’s death “gave impetus to his teachings,” and “So will it be in this baptism of blood.”²⁵ McCann went on to say that:

The earlier motives that may have brought on this colossal struggle, commercial and political jealousy and greed, have been entirely swallowed up in a larger issue, the liberty and freedom of mankind. It is now a war of democracy against tyranny, of right against wrong, and America must do everything in her power (which means men as well as money) to crush forever the ideas that are now held to and fought for by the Central Allies. When a world struggle is being waged for freedom and humanity, the Stars and Stripes should and must be flung to the battle’s front.²⁶

As with McCann, Christianity played a prominent role in Webster’s life. Though raised in a Baptist household, Webster often attended Methodist and Latter-day Saint services in Deloit as a means of expanding his community involvement and recognition. In the spring of 1917, Webster encouraged area residents to support possible American involvement in the First World War, and he worked with a local physician to drum up support in a largely German community.²⁷

Webster (right) and his brother Hiram Iowa Gold Star Military Museum

The National Guard’s symbolic ties to tradition and its real ties to local communities attracted middle-class Progressives like Webster. Beginning in the late 1870s, high-profile labor strikes, industrialization, and the rise of urban slums prompted an emerging middle class to believe that society was on the brink of collapse. Seeking a sense of order, the middle class looked to America’s traditional institutions for guidance. They believed that an emphasis on republican virtue could realign the nation’s values and usher in an era of prosperity and increased equality. Service in the National Guard reflected the high ideals of the virtuous minuteman who volunteered to answer the call to arms in the defense of liberty. When his younger brother, Hiram, enlisted in June 1918, Webster wrote that he was proud that Hiram “enlisted before [he] even had to register. [He] could have dodged the draft if [he] had cared to, probably, but [he isn’t] a slacker and never will be.” Webster boasted that “the two stars in the service flag that the folks have at home in the window both stand for volunteers.”²⁸ Hiram Webster never made it to Europe; the war ended before he shipped out, and he was mustered out of service early in 1919.²⁹

The National Guard’s demographic breakdown was indicative of trends in the AEF, where most volunteers came from educated backgrounds. This stood in stark contrast to the National Army, where upward of 30 percent of draftees could not read or write.³⁰ Additionally, the Guard carried close ties to one’s community. Like the “pals battalions” in the British army, the Guard allowed men an opportunity to serve alongside others from their own neighborhoods and towns.³¹ The majority of Webster’s comrades in his machine gun company lived in Des Moines or the surrounding area, and though they came from diverse backgrounds, their desire to fulfil a sense of civic duty superseded class consciousness. In a letter to his parents, Webster spoke about the other men in his company, and said, “I like them better even than the fellows at college.” Webster went on to say that some of the men “with excellent educations and money behind them are content to do details as buck privates.”³²

The Organization of the National Guard

Although Webster was a raw recruit in 1917, the National Guard was fresh off active duty. A year before Webster’s enlistment, President Wilson called the National Guard into active service after a failed expedition to capture Mexican revolutionary leader Francisco “Pancho” Villa. Guardsmen from around the United States spent anywhere from three to seven months along the Mexican border.³³ When the United States declared war in April, many guardsmen were anxious to prove their worth on European battlefields and show that they were more than just strikebreakers. Some guardsmen were more reluctant. Believing they enlisted in a state force, some soldiers refused to take a new federal oath required under the National Defense Act of 1916. Because of discharges related to the oath as well as a new Dependent Relative Order that automatically discharged soldiers who served as their family’s sole source of income, many states struggled to field enough soldiers to fit the Army’s new divisional outline.³⁴

These divisions held a numerical identifier based on affiliation and region. Divisions 1 through 25 were reserved for the Regular Army, 26 through 75 were National Guard divisions (though in practice these only went through 42), and all divisions above 76 went to the National Army. The Guard’s breakdown held a regional element moving from east to west, so the New England Guard coalesced into the 26th Division, with the New York Guard comprising the 27th Division. Moving westward, the division numbers increased, with guardsmen from the Pacific Northwest serving in the 41st Division.³⁵ Each of these square divisions maintained two infantry brigades with two regiments each. Each regiment contained infantry companies, machine gun companies, artillery batteries, engineering companies, and other support units.

Unlike in previous mobilizations though, the War Department required Guard units to fit into these divisions based on need rather than population. Therefore, many Guard elements blended together into new regiments. Some field-grade Guard officers lost their commands and others found themselves in command of units outside of their military specialty. This practice created a sense of resentment within the Guard, as it broke down the regional and provincial perspective that was historically central to the Guard’s identity.³⁶ In many ways, this reorganization became another step in the Guard’s overall transformation from the old militia system. By dividing the Guard regiments to fit the Army’s organizational breakdown, the federal government removed any state control from the Guard’s mobilization process. Interestingly, this practice rejected the middle-class emphasis on tradition, but upheld the mainstream Progressive emphasis on centralized authority and control. Nonetheless, by the middle of 1917, only New York’s and Pennsylvania’s National Guards were at full divisional strength.

The War Department had already decided that the first unit to travel overseas would be the 1st Division but debated which Guard units would travel overseas first. Some supported simply sending the complete divisions, but others believed this would lead to charges of favoritism. Secretary of War Newton D. Baker was open to suggestions. According to Baker, Brig. Gen. Douglas MacArthur suggested “the possibility of our being able to form a division out of the surplus units from many states, the major part of whose National Guard organizations were in multi-state divisions.” Chief of the Militia Division Maj. Gen. William Abram Mann agreed with General MacArthur, and they decided to include Guard elements from twenty-six states into a new composite division. Upon its creation, MacArthur declared that this 42d Division would “stretch over the whole country like a rainbow.”³⁷

Secretary Baker and General Mann review troops of the 42d Division at Camp Mills, Long Island, New York. Library of Congress

To meet the new guidelines, Iowa’s adjutant general blended the First and Second Iowa Infantry regiments into the “orphaned” Third Iowa, which became one of the four regiments in the 42d Division. The rest of the Iowa Guard became part of the 34th Division. In August 1917, the Army dropped any state insignia or references from Guard units as a means of minimizing prejudice and creating unity within the larger force.³⁸ Guard units removed the “N.G.” insignia from their collars and replaced it with the universal “U.S.” pin, and state units removed any state-oriented regimental designations. Francis Webster’s Third Iowa became the 168th U.S. Infantry Regiment. This process fully integrated the mobilized Guard units into the AEF and solidified the Army’s control over its subordinate elements.

Heading Overseas

Following their mobilization, Webster and the 168th spent two months at Camp Logan, Iowa, where they underwent daily training exercises and said goodbye to their families and friends. They traveled by rail to Camp Mills, New York, early in September 1917, and continued their wartime preparation. This training period came to an end on 18 October when the troops boarded the USS Grant bound for England, but after only three days at sea, engine trouble forced the ship to return to port in New York.³⁹ In late November, after nearly six months of drilling in military tactics, Francis Webster and the rest of his regiment sailed to Europe onboard three converted British passenger liners of the White Star Line. The 1st Battalion traveled on the RMS Aurania, and the 3d Battalion journeyed on the RMS Celtic. Francis Webster’s machine gun company, along with the 2d Battalion, were the last to leave on the RMS Baltic. The trip to England lasted two weeks, and included a short security stop at Halifax, Nova Scotia.⁴⁰

RMS Baltic National Museums Northern Ireland

For most soldiers in the AEF, life on the transport ships was far from comfortable. The troops traveled on cramped ships and slept in small bunk areas containing rows of bunks stacked three high. Prolonged bouts of seasickness made the journey all the less enjoyable.⁴¹ However, the Grant’s engine trouble worked in the 168th’s favor. First Lt. John H. Taber stated in his 1925 memoirs that, “These vessels [the Celtic, Aurania, and Baltic] were far superior to the Grant in every respect. The men were not packed in like sardines, they were allowed freedom of the decks, and they had all the fresh air they wanted.”⁴² Webster slept in a small stateroom with only three other men, and he remarked to his parents that his journey had been “very pleasant,” and his accommodations were “much better than we expected this time,” though he did still suffer from a short period of seasickness.⁴³

Lieutenant Taber United States World War One Centennial Commission

Upon their arrival in England, the 168th paraded through Winchester and South Hampton.⁴⁴ Webster described the English landscape to his former fiancée, Ione “Betty” Zelenhofer, as “cloudy, foggy, and rainy.”⁴⁵ Despite the foul weather, most soldiers enjoyed their brief time in England, and the troops received a motivational letter from King George V, who offered them his support and thanks.⁴⁶ However, this stay in England lasted only five days, and the Iowans began joining the rest of the Rainbow Division in Le Havre, France, throughout December 1917. After two days in a rest camp that Pvt. Cecil Clark described as a “Hell hole,” the regiment moved toward Rimaucourt, Haute-Marne, where they remained for the next two months.⁴⁷ The troopers spent most of this time drilling and trying to keep warm in their leisure time. However, this stay had its high points. Francis Webster received a promotion to corporal in mid-December, and the troops enjoyed a turkey dinner on Christmas day, complete with mashed potatoes, figs, cake, biscuits, and coffee. They spent Christmas evening in a cathedral where French soldiers put on a lengthy musical performance, topped off with a rendition of “La Marseillaise.” Eight Americans, including Webster, finished the show by singing the “Star- Spangled Banner” to resounding cheers from the audience.⁴⁸

Although Webster’s regiment trained near Rimaucourt, American high command remained locked in an ongoing debate with their French and British counterparts regarding the AEF’s role on the front lines. French and British calls for amalgamation required the Americans to serve as replacement troops and fall under their control. Both the American commander, General John J. Pershing, and President Wilson refused to accept this plan, as they intended to maintain an independent command and serve alongside the French and British, not under them. General Pershing believed amalgamation would weaken the American wartime position and alienate the American populace and the troops themselves, who wished to fight for their own interests. Furthermore, if the Americans did not have an independent command, General Pershing’s strategic goal of an all-out American assault against the German main force would never come to fruition. Pershing’s persistence paid off, and the American troops went to the front as independent units under American commanders. As a compromise, General Pershing sent the 93d Division (composed mostly of African American National Guard units) to serve under the French for the duration of the war. Other divisions, such as the 42d, would serve in French lines under American commanders until the rest of the AEF arrived.⁴⁹

American troopers seemed to support General Pershing. Francis Webster told his parents that “Politically, we all think that without doubt Pershing will be the next president.”⁵⁰ French soldiers, however, grew impatient with the United States’ slow buildup. According to Webster, “The French soldiers with whom I’ve talked are very unreasonably impatient because we have not already got several millions of men in the field. We try to make them realize the difficulties which our country is facing. From what I read, the ship problem is the biggest, and so I hope they give Schwab a free hand.”⁵¹ Here, Webster referenced Charles M. Schwab, whom President Wilson placed in charge of shipbuilding. Ultimately, logistical struggles limited the United States’ ability to bring the entire AEF into the field quickly. Even though the Rainbow Division had been in the trenches for more than a month by the time of this letter, the majority of the AEF remained in the United States. For the first half of 1918, Webster’s division was one of only four substantial American forces in the field, and while allied commanders debated strategy and command structures, the American troops were about to receive a trial by fire.

Webster on the Front

In February, the 168th began its move toward the front. Throughout the first two weeks of the month, the troops marched from station to station and town to town before settling in Baccarat, France. On 18 February, the regiment marched 9 miles through a snowstorm before they set up camp. The troops bunked in whatever shelter they could find: empty homes, cellars, shacks, or barns. Francis Webster—along with forty others—slept in an abandoned hay loft.⁵² On 1 March 1918, Webster’s machine gun company moved to the forward trenches in relief of French companies on the front lines. Four days later, Webster awoke to the sound of a heavy bombardment and gas calls.⁵³ He and the rest of his company hastily donned their gas masks, scurried out of their dugouts, and took up their positions along the trench, but this was not the prelude to an attack. Although one Iowa corporal died during the barrage, it was simply a prolonged bombardment on Webster’s section of trench.

In other sections though, German forces did advance against other elements in the Rainbow Division, including parts of the 168th. According to an Iowa captain, “The enemy attacked at 4:30 AM by barrage, followed by a heavy bombardment until 6:00 AM. The enemy’s attack failed, only three men entering the front line trenches without capturing any of our men. The rest were driven off by our rifle and machine gun fire.”⁵⁴ However, this attack did result in “quite a few killed,” as the regiment suffered twenty-two dead and another nineteen wounded.⁵⁵ Sgt. Charles Kosek perceived and resented a certain level of hypocrisy on the part of American commanders. According to Sergeant Kosek, division command awarded war crosses to Company B, even though they were a mile in the rear of the trenches. Conversely, “We ran out and repulsed the Hun attack as soon as the barrage lifted; we got nothing. B Co. waited till they were sure it was all over and when they came out the Huns were in their trench and they had to run them out, result they got three medals.”⁵⁶ Members of Company B probably remembered this event differently. In any event, these awards came from a generally positive American performance, and although the attacks of early March were minor compared to later offensives, French commanders congratulated the Rainbow Division on their ability to repulse the German raids.

In the next few months, the fighting continued for the troops, and wartime routines began to take shape, as the 168th moved from the front to the rear in regular intervals and spent most of their time soldiering.⁵⁷ On 21 March 1918, German forces advanced against the allied front in the first of five major offensives codenamed Operation Michael. Although British and French forces felt the brunt of this offensive, American troops were not immune from raids and bombardments. Over the next few months, American forces continued to engage with German forces, but no major American offensive took place. Most the AEF was still en route to the front, and General Pershing was not yet ready to make a push. The 168th remained in the trenches and held their ground against small but persistent German attacks.

In late May, Francis Webster received a minor wound and suffered some effects of poisonous gas. He told a family friend that “I wasn’t hurt very badly, but they put me in an ambulance and sent me back to an evacuation hospital where I was kept on a liquid diet and cootieless bed for two days.”⁵⁸ Webster reassured his family that the medical staff “have taken fine care of me,” and he spent the next few days at base hospital in a former luxury hotel in the “most beautiful little city in all of France.”⁵⁹ Webster and the other convalescent soldiers wore “castoff civilian clothes” as uniforms, took time to write home, strolled through the gardens, and watched the short film The Barefoot Boy (1914).⁶⁰ Minor wounds such as Webster’s drew mixed messages from home. His parents voiced their concerns to their son in letters, whereas Hiram Webster, who was in training at a field artillery remount depot in South Carolina, praised his brother for his selfless sacrifice. Hiram opened a letter by saying, “Got a letter from the folks a couple days ago telling that you got wounded in action. Atta boy!” Only after his cheerful encouragement did Hiram say, “I hope it isn’t too serious.”⁶¹

Francis Webster received a more serious wound two weeks after his twentysecond birthday. As his machine gun company advanced across a wheat field, his gun crew set up in an artillery crater to provide cover for the infantry. After repulsing two German attacks with heavy fire, the American infantry charged, but the Germans held their ground. The following day, German artillery unleashed a heavy bombardment. While they hunkered down, a shell exploded near Webster’s team, killing Sgt. Emmett E. Collins, and severing the leg of a private sitting directly beside Webster. Shortly after, mustard gas debilitated Sgt. Donald Anthony, and Webster became acting sergeant. Francis Webster performed his new duty well, as his gun crew held their ground during the impending German advance, and Webster’s commander placed him in charge of the guard the next day. Unfortunately for Corporal Webster, another gas attack followed, and he failed to reach his mask in time. He left for the hospital on 27 July with nine others.⁶²

Webster’s experience with hospital life offered a stark contrast to the typical wartime narrative found in works such as Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel All Quiet on the Western Front.⁶³ The novel’s main character, Paul, discussed the gruesome wounds incurred by soldiers and the broken bodies in hospital wards, and he declared, “A hospital alone shows what war is.”⁶⁴ Francis Webster described hospitals much differently. During his first hospital stay, he ended a letter to a friend by saying, “The Red Cross is certainly a splendid organization.”⁶⁵ Throughout Webster’s convalescence, the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) provided free movies for wounded soldiers, and those well enough to move around took in occasional baseball games between hospital staffs.⁶⁶ Also during his first hospital stay, Webster worked on his French language skills by taking lessons from a local woman, Madame Paris, who ran a postcard shop, and by attempting to speak to wounded French soldiers.⁶⁷ During his recovery from the second gas attack, Webster wrote to his parents that, “I’ve eaten so much that I now weigh 154 pounds which is a record for me so far.”⁶⁸ Webster spent eighteen days at a large hospital camp before moving to a convalescent camp for twenty-six days, where he spent his nights in a tent with one other soldier.⁶⁹

In August, Webster rejoined his unit. Just before leaving the hospital, he wrote, “The life of the front is much harder than it is back here, but we never are content when we are back away from the fight.”⁷⁰ Excited as Francis Webster might have been to return to the front, life in the trenches remained squalid. Filth and disease were commonplace, and Webster noted in his journal that, “The lice or ‘cooties’ are very thick in all our dugouts. I have had them continuously for several weeks. We get rid of them for a day or two, and then a new batch will crawl onto us.”⁷¹ But lice were not the only repulsive critter in the trenches. Troops of all nations reported problems with trench rats, which allegedly grew as large as cats. Ironically, the only respite from the lice and rats often came in the aftermath of gas attacks, when the pests would disappear for a few days. The conditions in the trenches were worsened by the lack of opportunities for hygiene. A trooper could find a bath only when his unit moved to the rear, away from the trenches, and even this was not a guarantee. Some troops went as long as seven weeks without a hot bath.⁷² Other troops broke the rules of trench etiquette by washing and shaving while on the front lines, which were actions generally performed in rear positions.⁷³

When Webster returned to his company, though, the AEF was in a much different position than it had been in when he left. Now that it had arrived in France in force, it was poised for a massive assault. General Pershing finally could put his strategy into action in the form of open warfare. The overall plan called for numerous medium- and large-scale advances across open ground with heavy artillery support. Rather than moving between trenches, the Americans hoped to move swiftly into and through enemy territory. Pershing used a simple concept when he devised his campaign objectives. Instead of bleeding the enemy through attrition, his plan called for a grand attack at an isolated position intended to overwhelm German forces and bring the war to a quick end.⁷⁴ Pershing held to the notion that a mass, concentrated attack of fresh American troops would breach the German positions and deliver a final knockout blow.

Pershing’s strategy offered an opportunity, but it left the Americans exposed to enemy counterattacks. Webster declared, “The open warfare is much more exciting, but there are many advantages to being in the trenches. It is hard to get food and water up to the front lines in open fighting, and the men have less protection.”⁷⁵ The lack of protection and limited artillery ranges were the factors that led European commanders to abandon similar tactics much earlier in the war. However, although the trench provided protection and a stable source of supplies, Webster believed “if we stayed in the ditch the war might last for twenty years longer without decisive result.”⁷⁶ On 11 November 1918, the fighting ended, but American losses were high, despite less than one year of official action on the front. In all, the United States lost 53,400 soldiers in battle (another 60,000 died of disease), and suffered more than 320,000 casualties.⁷⁷ Of these numbers, nearly two-thirds of all American casualties came from the Guard’s ranks. Once again, Francis Webster’s experience reflected this sad reality.

A Soldier’s Ending

On 14 October 1918, Webster’s machine gun company moved toward the front lines. Webster received orders to set up his gun crew on a small hill with a good line of sight to provide cover for the infantry. German artillery spotted the Americans, and began shelling their position. Webster’s friend, Pvt. John W. Kelso Jr., remembered “we had been there but a short time when the German artillery located us, and harassed the hill with their fire. We immediately went out of action and jumped into any little hole for a little protection.”⁷⁸ Corporal Webster refused to take cover until all his troops were dug in, and a piece of shrapnel struck him on the right side of his chest and exited his body near his neck. Webster fell into Sgt. Frank M. Bondor’s arms and “asked me [Bondor] to hold his hand and kept saying that he could not get his breath.” Sergeant Bondor called for medical service and implemented first aid, but Webster died before he reached the aid station.⁷⁹ Francis Webster was one of twenty soldiers in the 168th killed that day.⁸⁰ Four days earlier, Webster told his parents that he was “in good health” despite the German artillery, which “keeps booming.”⁸¹

Webster’s family, like so many others, needed to cope with the loss of their son. Before Francis’s death, his father, Frank, hoped to join his son in France as a volunteer for the YMCA. The elder Webster knew he most likely would not see his son overseas, but he thought being in the same country would ease the tensions associated with his son’s wartime absence. Like other American families, the Websters followed the news and believed the war’s end was imminent. On 2 November, Frank Webster wrote in a letter that “the war is looking more and more hopeful.”⁸² Though Mr. Webster did not want to be overly optimistic, he described numerous newspaper reports of a coming peace. Frank Webster did not know that his son had died two weeks before his hopeful letter. When news reached Hiram Webster of his brother’s death, his commanding officer initially refused to grant him a furlough home, though Hiram Webster threatened to “come anyway.”⁸³ The younger Webster brother penned a letter to his parents where he lamented that “Francis should have met his fate just two weeks before the war quit,” but he went on to express pride because “he died fighting for the freedom of men— not because he was drafted and compelled to fight.”⁸⁴

The Army buried Francis Webster in a soldiers’ cemetery in France. Sergeant Bondor took the liberty of sending Mr. and Mrs. Webster their son’s personal effects, including the piece of shrapnel that took Francis’s life. After the war, Bondor returned to civilian life and attended Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (currently Iowa State University), but he maintained a lasting correspondence with the Websters and always spoke highly of Francis.⁸⁵ Nearly two years after the war, the Webster family, with Bondor’s aid, petitioned the Army to return their son’s body. In August 1921, Francis Webster returned home, and his family, with Frank Bondor in attendance, buried their son in the Gold Star Cemetery in Des Moines, Iowa.⁸⁶

Corporal Webster Iowa Gold Star Military Museum

A Legacy

Seemingly, Francis Webster was an average young American without any extraordinary accomplishments. Yet, his service during the Great War reflects nearly every aspect of the greater American experience. He enlisted in the Army National Guard at the onset of American belligerency during the First World War, and along with 3,600 others, he became part of the 168th U.S. Infantry in the 42d Division. Webster found himself in the trenches of the Western Front, and bore all its realities; he suffered two wounds from gas attacks, and he endured two stints in army hospitals. With the advent of General Pershing’s open warfare strategy, Webster advanced with the rest of his division. He hunkered down in dugouts during artillery bombardments and grew accustomed to this life. Francis’s own words sum up his growth, “I haven’t yet been afraid except for the night when we first went into the trenches. I was alone on a dark street in a ruined town. One of our own cannons fired a shot from a nearby building, and I nearly died of shell-shock. Since that time we’ve been in many tight squeezes and the shells and bullets have been landing all around us, but my heart refuses to beat any faster, and I never feel like worrying.”⁸⁷

On the surface, Francis Webster’s story was a tragic one. However, his death was not meaningless, as his story connects the soldier experience to the larger American contribution on the battlefields in France. Webster is representative of the greater role the National Guard played in the war. Guardsmen served in the same capacity as their Regular Army counterparts, and contrary to emphases in general literature on the war, the National Guard was not a peripheral force. Webster’s story also demonstrates the extent to which many guardsmen understood larger political, social, and military concepts because of their nature as citizen-soldiers. Middle-class soldiers, such as Webster, enlisted to fight to make the “world safe for democracy,” and the National Guard offered the ideal avenue through which to serve. The Guard maintained an appeal to tradition and virtue, while simultaneously modernizing amid Progressive Era reforms. Francis Webster’s story encapsulates these aspects of the Guard’s story during the First World War.

Available from AUSA

www.ausa.org/the-birth-of-the-us-army

Notes