by Richard van Pelt, WWI Correspondent

The headlines from the Capital Journal:

STORY OF BATTLE WRITTEN ON FIELD BY ONE WHO SAW IT
As Advancing Lines Thin Out One Cannot Understand It Is Death
DEAD NOT PILED UP JUST ACRES OF THEM
Among These Were Squirming, Writhing Forms of the Wounded

ANTWERP WRECKED YIELDS TO ENEMY
City in Ruins and Burning in Many Places Hoists White Flag

CAPTURED ATWERP BUT ARMY ESCAPED, NO CHANGE AT FRONT

A’s in dugout at Shibe Field. Photo Source: Library of Congress.

The major headline, though, had nothing to do with war (unless you lived in Philadelphia):

BOSTON IS WINNER OF SECOND BATTLE BY SCORE OF 1 TO 0

A full page, two columns, carried over to page two. Not just the box score, but play by play:

Second Inning

Boston: Gowdy up, strike one called, ball one, ball two, ball three, Gowdy walked. He patiently looked over Plank’s assortment of stuff and refused to bite at the wide teasers . . .

The Boston rooters cheered wildly and the band played “Tessie” while McInnes and Strunk were doing the whirling dervish act.

From the German side of the eastern front, Karl Von Wiegand wrote:

As I write this in the glare of a screened automobile head light, several yards from the German trenches, I can catch the occasional high notes of a soldiers’ chorus. For four days the singers have lain in cramped attitudes, unable to move or stretch themselves except under cover of darkness. And still they sing.

I believe they are on the eve of a great victory.

I reached the battlefield of Wirballen before daylight, armed with a paper issued by the general staff and accompanied by three officers who were assigned to “chaperon” me and furnish me with technical information.

****

Today I saw a wave of Russian flesh and blood dash against a wall of German steel. The wall stood. Rivulets of blood trickled slowly back from it.

Tonight I know why correspondents are not wanted on the battle lines. Descriptions and details of battles fought in the year of our Lord 1914 do not make nice reading.

We struck the firing line at a point near the extreme right of the German position shortly before daylight and breakfasted with the officers commanding a field battery. Supplies of ammunition brought up during the night were being stowed in the caissons. An artilleryman with a shovel went about throwing loose soil over certain dark, slippery spots by one of the guns. I saw shovels similar employed several times during the day.

Daylight revealed guns on the reverse side of the hill, their muzzles apparently pointing directly up the ascending slope.

Suddenly there was a weird, tooth-edging, spine-chilling, whistling screech overhead. The shell passed 500 to 1,000 feet above us and did not end its flight less than 2,000 feet beyond where we stood but this did not prevent me from ducking, which gave my “officer-chaperons” a chance to laugh. Many shells passed before I lost my almost irresistible desire to hug the ground.

. . . The dead were everywhere. They were not piled up but they were strewn over acres. There were squirming, writhing, tossing figures, too. They were the wounded. All who were able to stumble or crawl were working their way back toward their own lines. Apparently hundreds were denied this hope, and were doomed to lie, instead, in the open, with wounds undressed until night permitted the hospital corps to rescue them.

In 1914, as today in 2014, the fear of disease entering the United States from abroad was concern. In 2014 it is Ebola. In 1914 it was cholera:

PRECAUTIONS AGAINST CHOLERA

The wise and timely activity of the health officer of the port of New York, exemplified in his order requiring minute and special inspection of passengers from all steamships coming here from ports on the Adriatic, Ionian, Aegean and Mediterranean seas, east of Italy, for evidence of cholera infection, furnishes no cause for alarm or excuse for excitement. On the contrary the procedure should be a source of satisfaction and taken as good warrant from immunity from an infection that is, naturally, dreaded.

It is easy to understand that the sanitary forces of those nations engaged in war have become weakened, the most dependable health officials having, of necessity, been sent to the front. Because of this, cholera has obtained a somewhat serious foothold in Vienna and Budapest and also in Servia. The chances of spread of disease by travel from these infected localities are, of course, numerous and considerable.

New York, however, need have no fear, although, because of its being the largest port of entry in the western hemisphere, there is strong probability that many infected persons will be brought to this harbor. These will all be promptly turned back and none will under any circumstances be allowed to land.

In Europe, the last of the Antwerp forts surrendered to the Germans. Germany would, within days, occupy Lille, as forces on both sides maneuvered into position and concentrated their forces for what would be the Battle of Ypres. The battle would bring together 4,400,000 French, British, and Belgian troops in opposition to 5,400,000 Germans. The allies would suffer 163,000 casualties as opposed to nearly 47,000 German casualties in what would be a very costly allied victory.