To Win the Awful Fight: the Manhood of an American Doughboy

Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Graduate Theses and Dissertations Dissertations

2021

To win the awful fight: The manhood of an American doughboy.

John James Rochford Iowa State University

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Recommended Citation Rochford, John James, "To win the awful fight: The manhood of an American doughboy." (2021). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 18600. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/18600

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To win the awful fight: The manhood of an American doughboy.

John James Rochford

A thesis submitted to the graduate faculty

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Major: History

Program of Study Committee: Timothy Wolters, Major Professor Lawrence McDonnell Kathleen Hilliard

The student author, whose presentation of the scholarship herein was approved by the program of study committee, is solely responsible for the content of this thesis. The Graduate College will ensure this thesis is globally accessible and will not permit alterations after a degree is conferred.

Iowa State University

Ames, Iowa

2021

TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... iii ABSTRACT ...... iv CHAPTER 1—NO, LET THEM HAVE IT ...... 1 CHAPTER 2—YOUR CHANCE WILL COME: INITIAL MOTIVATION...... 8 CHAPTER 3—TALENTS TO BE CULTIVATED: SUSTAINING MOTIVATION ...... 17 CHAPTER 4—C’EST LA GUERRE: SUSTAINING MOTIVATION ...... 21 CHAPTER 5—WORSE THAN USELESS: COMBAT MOTIVATION ...... 28 CHAPTER 6—THE GREATNESS OF MEN CAN BE SAFELY GAUGED BY THEIR SYMPATHIES: COMBAT MOTIVATION ...... 35 CHAPTER 7—THE DOUGHBOY’S BIT ...... 38 CHAPTER 8—I WILL DO NOTHING HALF-HEARTEDLY ...... 39 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 42 APPENDIX ...... 44

iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my committee chair Professor Timothy Wolters, along with committee members Professors Lawerence McDonnell and Kathleen Hilliard, for their intellectual guidance and many insights in the development of this thesis. Michael Vogt and the staff at the Gold Star

Museum deserve no less high thanks, for without them allowing me to conduct research in the museum archives during the museum’s closure due to the pandemic, this thesis would not have been possible in the most literal way.

I would also like to thank my friends, family, and graduate student cohort for their support and assistance in providing edits and intellectual questions for me to consider. A special thank is in order to my fiancé Deanna Lensing for her patience, support, and willingness to read my many drafts. Without her, arriving at this point of thesis submission would have been immensely more difficult.

ABSTRACT

Every major American conflict includes studies examining the experience of the common soldier. Within those many experiences, notions of manhood often provided the impetus for a soldier to enlist, fight, and continue to endure the brutal realities of combat and war.

Additionally, the primary documents left behind from the soldiers themselves in the form of letters, diaries, memoirs, and regimental histories offer historians and the general public glimpses into both the wartime experiences and the important but often nebulous centrality of manhood within those individual experiences. Using the incredible document-rich source-base of World

War One soldier Corporal Francis Webster, housed in the Gold Star Museum in Johnston, Iowa, this thesis seeks to distill the dynamics of a soldier’s understanding of his own manhood and masculinity from the larger collective experiences of men in war. Since the Francis Webster papers are so extensive, and the man himself a candid documenter and highly introspective,

Webster’s struggle to define his masculinity and manhood are fully apparent and seemingly resolved during his wartime service. More importantly, however, Webster also clearly recorded his manly struggles in the years before he put on the uniform. The results of such documentation allow this thesis to narratively explore Webster the man first, and the soldier second. Ultimately, the Webster story provides readers a stronger sense of how manhood and masculinity related to a soldier’s motivations during war, while also shedding light on the ubiquitous “testing”of mahood that war offered those soldiers who fought.

CHAPTER 1—NO, LET THEM HAVE IT

As dawn broke on October 14, the moment of h-hour drew nearer. The weather was again cold, as a steady rain chilled the weary soldiers of the 42nd “Rainbow” Division and churned the ground into a muddy sludge. Despite the conditions, these men had an important role to play in the coming battle. The division’s objective was to seize the heights to their front and breach the

Kriemhilde Stellung, the German defensive line long thought to be impenetrable. There was good reason to believe in the strength of the line. Four years of war had devastated the Argonne

Forest, adding to an already challenging terrain now composed of thick woods, tangled underbrush, flattened trees, deep ravines, and gaping craters. The Germans took advantage of the landscape, buttressing the natural defense with skillfully designed trench systems, barbed wire, pillboxes, and machine-gun nests. Artillery and mortars on the high ground's crest stood ready to wreak havoc on those who would try to conquer the strong position. As battle often presented, the task before the division would be a monumental test of American mettle.1

One of the many Rainbows, Corporal Francis Hiram Webster, had already many times faced the crucible of battle and withstood the gruesome test. He was a soldier in the 168th Infantry, a regiment composed mainly of Iowans, and served in the Machine Gun Company. As the dampened and freezing men looked ahead on the rainy morning, their objective was to storm the hills to their front; first, a steep climb up the fortified slope of Hill 288, and then another, the

Côte De Châtillon. With every passing minute, the tension mounted. In the main line, the infantrymen gripped their rifles tightly, hearts thumping as they peered through the misty air

1 John H. Taber, The Story of the 168th Iowa Infantry, volume 2 (Iowa City: The State Historical Society of Iowa, 1925), 160.; Edward Lengel, To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918 (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2008), 58.

2 toward their hidden enemy, waiting for the moment. Webster and his fellow machine-gunners set up to support the impending charge.2

At 7:30 a.m., American mortars launched a small pre-assault bombardment. Shortly after, the whistles blew, and the Iowa doughboys went over the top with a furious yell, the pent-up strain finally released by the flush of action. The concealed Teutons immediately replied with the crack-crack-cracking of machine-guns, rifles, and the thunderous roar of artillery. Missiles found their targets, smacking body and bone with grisly “thwacks,” sending many of the attacking Iowans stumbling back dead or wounded as they struggled up the hill. Webster and his gunners could not see the Germans, but from a valley at the foot of the hill, they fired up into the forest, urgently providing cover for their comrades’ painstaking advance up the tangled, wooded slope.

The Iowa gunners reeled off a rapid-fire for ten minutes, but somehow, the Boche shells falling on the hill began to crash among the Machine Gun Company. Through the smoke,

Webster could see enemy “flyers” gliding through the air. The enemy pilots had spotted the annoying American machine-gunners and signaled their position to the German artillery. The concentrated barrage became too much to stand. The 168th’s machine gunners fell back to their protective fox pits that they had constructed the night before.

Webster and two of his friends, William Kelso Jr. and Sergeant Frank Bonder, grabbed their machine gun and quickly sped through the barrage, making their way back to their fox pits.

Arriving at their protections, the veteran men found their holes curiously occupied by green replacements. Whether from ignorance or neglect, the replacements carelessly ignored the

2 The number designation represents the elevation of the hill, measured in feet. The 168th Infantry federalized from the old 3rd Iowa Infantry. The 168th Infantry was a part of the 84th brigade, 42nd Division.

3 previous night’s orders to dig their own shelters. Now, with a deadly and disorienting cacophony of fire swirling in every direction, the neglectful greens, new to combat, took the first shelter they could find.

As shells impacted the ground, streaming dirt and debris skyward like earthy black geysers, and bullets whizzed past the ear, Bonder suggested a simple solution; he shouted to Webster through the roaring din that they should order the replacements out and reclaim their rightful protections. Bonder’s plan seemed the obvious one, but Webster’s reply, given the violent circumstances, was perhaps wholly irrational to the self-preserving nature of the human condition. As death and disfigurement hovered dangerously near, the young corporal replied,

“No, let them have it.” There was no further debate; that was that. The three companions relinquished their fox pits to the replacements and would move to seek shelter somewhere else.3

Studies investigating the motives that drive men’s behavior in the environment of war are not new. One such study authored by John Lynn examines the motivations of the French

Revolutionary armies' soldiers. Through his work, Lynn provides military historians with a useful framework to ascertain soldiers' driving forces: initial, sustaining, and combat motivation.4

Every major American conflict maintains at least one volume detailing the average soldier’s experience. As it relates to Lynn’s framework across these many studies, there exist several continuities, and none more evident than war as a masculine proving ground. James McPherson notes soldiers of the Civil War often voiced a desire to prove their manhood and that through

3 Reverend F.H. Webster (father) to Brother Viets, 3 September 1921, folder 202, box 7, Papers of Francis Webster (ms 2005.107), [hereafter citied PFW], Gold Star Museum Archives, Johnston, Iowa [Hereby cited GSM).; F.H. Webster to Rev. Howland Hanson, 10 September 1921, folder 202, box 7, PFW, GSM. 4John A. Lynn, The Bayonets of the Republic: Motivation and Tactics in the Army of Revolutionary France, 1791- 1794 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1996).

4 combat and the hardships of war, “there could be no sterner test.”5 In a recent study of the

American doughboy in World War One, Richard Faulker arrives at a similar conclusion, writing that the call of manhood, honor, and comrades convinced many men to enlist. The author also contends that the doughboys’ assumption of manliness carried an expectation that real men would show courage in combat. Those soldiers in the American Expeditionary Forces who were not at the front or enlisted too late to experience battle often felt lacking for having missed an opportunity to test their manhood.6 Although historians are careful to remember that “no single generalization holds true” when evaluating why men donned the uniform and how they behaved thereafter, notions of masculinity often appear to explain many of their actions.7

Many well-known published memoirs, diaries, and letters of American combatants commonly begin their story already well within their wartime service, at the moment of enlistment, or shortly before. Few edited collections of common soldiers describe the man behind the uniform.

The same is true for this article’s subject, Francis Webster. In 2016, Darrek Orwig published that doughboy’s selected letters, diary entries, and artwork. Orwig provides a well-researched

5 There are many volumes concerning the experience of the Civil War soldier that examine similar questions and find similar conclusions, most notably in Bell Irvin Wiley’s works portraying both sides’ combatants. Bell I. Wiley, The Life of Billy Yank: The Common Soldier of the Union (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1952); Bell Irvin Wiley, The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1943).Gerald Linderman’s study also examines the notion of courage and manliness but separates the two ideas and subordinates manliness to courage as a motivator. Gerald F. Linderman, Embattled Courage: The Experience of Combat in the American Civil War (New York: The Free Press, 1987). Another examination of martial manhood by author Kristen L Hoganson arrives at similar answers in her book set during the Spanish- American and Philippine-American Wars, although her work is more of a top-down approach, as she argues similar masculine notions among politicos sparked a desire for conflict. Kristin L. Hoganson, Fighting For American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998); James McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 25. 6 Richard Faulkner, Pershing’s Crusaders: The American Soldier in World War 1 (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2017), 23, 603. My emphasis. 7 Gabriel Filine, “In Time of War,” in American Man, ed. Elizabeth H. Pleck and Joseph H. Pleck (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall Inc, 1980), 321-333. Important to note is that this article explores the motivation of a citizen who enlists in a time of war as a volunteer citizen-soldier. There are often major motivational discontinuities between regular soldiers, enlistees, and draftees. Nonetheless, broad themes of manhood tend to play a leading role across time, place, and circumstance.

5 commentary along with admirable contextual evidence that presents Webster’s papers as a vehicle for understanding the American soldier's typical experience in the trenches of France.

Still, like many other edited works, Orwig’s interest rests with the soldier’s experience rather than that of the man.8

Undoubtedly, there is tremendous value in understanding the soldiers’ experience. Much of the evidence used to typify ordinary soldiers, especially when motivation is a focal interest, derives from those letters, diaries, and memoirs. That narrow focus continues to veil the manly origin behind the soldier. Biographies detailing prominent historical figures tend to relate a more holistic perspective of their subject (often because their extensive source-bases allow such a study). Webster’s prolific and rich papers enable the crafting of such a narrative for a common soldier.9

Francis Webster’s own masculine ideals drove him as a civilian and soldier. Gender and military historians will not be surprised by that fact. More uniquely, however, is the considerable scale of the Webster papers housed inside the Gold Star Museum archives.

Webster left much more than his wartime papers. The pre-war diaries and letters, beginning years before he ever contemplated himself in uniform, provides a much deeper window into his motivations—and convictions.

8 Francis Webster, Somewhere Over There: The Letters, Diary, and Artwork of a World War I Corporal, ed. Darrek Orwig (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2016). 9 Perhaps the most famous World War One memoir remains Ernst Junger’s Storm of Steel, but notable American works include Hugh S. Thompson’s serialized story from his time in the Rainbow Division; Arthur Empey’s wartime memoir, Chester E. Baker’s WWI diary, and a plethora of other memoirs and edited volumes of letters, diaries, and papers across many eras and conflicts in American history.; Hugh S. Thompson, Trench Knives and Mustard Gas: With the 42nd Rainbow Division in France, ed. with introduction by Robert H. Ferrell (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004).; Arthur Guy Empey, Over the Top (New York: the Knickerbocker Press, 1917).; Chester E. Baker, Doughboy’s Diary (Shippensburg: Burd Street Press, 1998).

This article explores Webster the man first and the Webster soldier second. His motivations and subsequent military performance are inextricably linked to his self-conception of manhood, which originated long before U.S. entry into World War One. By detailing Webster and his masculine principles, his actions' seeming irrationality becomes entirely clear and sensible.

For four years, beginning in 1914, Francis Webster faced a personal crisis of manhood and worked tirelessly to respond to the ensuing challenges. To Webster, the war would indeed be his chance to prove his character. War’s formidable test would lead the young corporal to perceive his masculine worth in ways he never had before. Those reasons for his changing perception will be familiar to historians who have patterned soldiers' human behavior in war. But the man remains the most critical aspect. There existed two astonishingly different versions of Francis

Webster: one generally understood by his college peers as timid, weak, boyish, and feeble, and another who his eventual brothers-in-arms came to see as confident, useful, courageous, and staunch. In short, the outwardly simple, yet often bewildering questions ask: how and why did someone like him (Webster) end up doing something like that (the war)?

By relaying Webster’s virile crisis from its origins, historians may better understand the nature of the relationship between men, manhood, and war. The breadth of Webster’s sources allows for a comprehensive examination of the man, the soldier, and the crisis. The following historical narrative, contrived from those rich sources, reconstructs precisely what one might expect: a biographical account relating one common soldier’s experiences, motives, and actions.

Though the man supersedes the soldier in this telling, Webster’s wartime involvement and reactions to the many deadly situations he participated in are vital to comprehending his masculine beliefs. The objective is similar to the late John Keegan’s landmark study, The Face of Battle, which argues the importance of demonstrating “as exactly as possible, what the

7 warfare…was (and is like)” in an effort “to catch a glimpse of the face of battle.”10

Understanding Webster’s conduct in war is striking when compared to his pre-war behavior.

Ignoring the depictions of his war experiences and how he reacted under fire risks diminishing and at worst disregarding, the powerfully emotive forces of a self-orchestrated masculine ideology that carried Francis Webster through immensely destructive events. This study would not be possible without the traditional methods and the new perspectives that have blossomed in military history. In the context of war, understanding the face of manhood is impossible without considering the face of battle.

10 John Keegan, The Face of Battle (New York: The Viking Press, 1976), 78. Keegan adamantly and often reminded his readers that he had never experienced combat. Still, he found value in trying to relate the experience of battle and reform the battle narrative as a way in which to understand the men on the ground. I share that author’s sentiments, and admit that like Keegan, I have never experienced combat in any way, and how I illustrate combat cannot compare to the realities of battle.

CHAPTER 2—YOUR CHANCE WILL COME: INITIAL MOTIVATION

Francis Hiram Webster was born July 11, 1896, in Shelton, Washington. After moving between Washington, California, and Nevada in his early youth, the Webster family had since

1907 called Iowa home. The younger Webster was the son of a Baptist minister, and his father’s calling required the clan to frequently relocate from parsonage to parsonage. In 1914, the seventeen-year-old Webster left his family to attend Des Moines College, where he would prove not only a sharp intellect but also a supremely talented cartoonist, artist, singer, and musician.11

Webster’s more creative talents, however, seem to have left him unsatisfied. Standing about five-foot, eight-inches tall, and weighing about one hundred and forty pounds, his stature seems average for the period. But he had a gentle, boyish face, and combined with a slight frame,

Webster would appear considerably younger than his age. The slender undergraduate was also prone to frequent health problems, often leaving him ill. The young student’s awareness of his physical weaknesses played a significant role in his personality, as Webster often described feeling “lonesome,” while others pointed out his persistent melancholy. One of Webster’s best friends, Chester Darrow, though proclaiming Webster a genius, admitted that he “was a flower too beautiful and frail to endure very long.” Darrow’s assessment was far from a resounding endorsement of Webster’s physical prowess, especially in an era where moral and bodily strength were crucial prerequisites for exceptional manhood. There is little surprise that

Webster’s 1914 New Year’s resolution included a desire to develop a splendid physique. 12

11 For a more complete look at Webster’s fascinating artwork and cartoons, see Darrek Orwig’s Somewhere Over There. 12 Francis Webster Diary, 1 January 1914, folder 5, box 4, PFW, GSM.; Chester Darrow to Webster’s Parents, 7 December 1918, folder 199, box 5, PFW, GSM. Both Muscular Christianity and the Strenuous Life doctrine, as purported by Theodore Roosevelt, intended to “defeminize” a generation of males thought to have lost their ambition and ability to employ a strenuous masculinity. American manhood’s supposed troubling “life of ease” and

Webster was aware of others’ perceptions of him, and like many men before and since, struggled in his early adulthood to compartmentalize those judgments. The young Webster struggled to make sense of who he was as a man. “I’ve been mixing with a bunch of ruf-nex,”

Webster wrote, describing his kitchen workmates at a local restaurant. “They’d have a fit if they knew I was on a gospel team once at college and am a preacher’s son. I’m with the toughs all day without intermission except sleep time.” Though Webster admitted that he sometimes felt like cutting loose and living as the Romans lived, he preferred to remain on the “straight and narrow,” refusing to give in to the rufs’ hounding to smoke cigarettes and guzzle booze.

Webster could not help but feel rougher, rotten, and frustrated, sheepishly clinging to his morals, as he constantly experienced that frustrating push and pull.

If the struggle of living up to his principles was not enough, a subsequent “financial failure” followed by his father’s advice to move back with the family during summer break capped off a disappointing first year of independence. “No ambish [ambition],” Webster recorded. The vexing state of affairs left the besieged student grappling with how to establish his life’s course.13

To an overwhelming extent, Webster’s self-conception hinged on the feelings of one young woman: Betty “Ione” Zellhoefer. For their entire college life, the two sometimes-lovers dated periodically. Whether good or bad times, Webster never wavered in his love for Zellhoefoer.

For over three years, the love-struck Webster recorded no subject more regularly in his diaries

shrinking “from the hard contests where men must win at hazards of their lives and at risk of all they hold dear” would lead to a bolder and stronger society primed to dominate the world. Influential men such as Roosevelt also perceived the closing of the Western frontier and the rapid industrialization as threats to manliness due to a growth in sedentary wage labor and relative peace following the Civil War that left subsequent generations of men far removed from the unquestionably manly final cohorts of pioneers, fighters, and war veterans. Theodore Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (New York: The Century Co., 1903), 20.; Michael Kimmel, Manhood in America: A Cultural History, Fourth Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 151-156. 13 Francis Webster Diary, 31 May 1914, folder 5, box 4, PFW, GSM.; Francis Webster Diary, 15 July 1914, folder 6, box 4, PFW, GSM.; Francis Webster Diary, 18 July 1914, folder 6, box 4, PFW, GSM.; Francis Webster Diary, 11 August 1914, folder 6, box 4, PFW, GSM.

10 than on the state of their relationship. “She’s the best girl in the world,” Webster often affectionally pronounced. Importantly too, Zellhoefer was the person Webster relied upon most during his many moody streaks. If hooligans like the “ruf nex” tried to hound Webster into vice,

Zellhoefer was the one he leaned on most to keep him straight.14

Unfortunately, Zellhoefer did not share Webster’s unquestioned devotion. For as many delightful moments as the young couple might have while sharing a dance, walking together through Douglass Park under the moonlight, or whispering sweet words, there were equal periods of doubt.15 Sometimes, Zellhoefer was physically far away, creating a symbolic distancing between the two, “Betty [Ione] wrote. First letter I’ve gotten from her for 25 days,”

Webster anguished while the two were apart during the summer of 1915. Other times, she outright questioned whether Webster was man enough in her eyes and was unafraid to tell him that she was unsure whether she cared all that much about their romantic relationship.16

During their back and forth relationship, Zellhoefer was not shy in acknowledging Webster’s shortcomings. His lack of self-confidence and pessimistic demeanor was a significant factor in her uncertainty. Webster felt unworthy, definitely “not good enough for a girl like Betty,” which sank his ego deeper into despair.17 Zellhoefer admitted that those persistent streaks of melancholy and his insecurities troubled her. She told the gloomy Webster that she feared he

14 Francis Webster Diary, 22 May 1915, folder 7, box 4, PFW, GSM.; Francis Webster Diary, 9 June 1915, folder 7, box 4, PFW, GSM. 15 Francis Webster Diary, 13 February 1916, folder 9, box 4, PFW, GSM.; Francis Webster Diary, 2 September 1915, folder 6, box 4, PFW, GSM. 16 Francis Webster Diary, 7 September 1915, folder 8, box 4, PFW, GSM.; Francis Webster Diary, 18 February 1916, folder 9, box 4, PFW, GSM. 17 Francis Webster Diary, 19 August 1914, folder 6, box 4, PFW, GSM.

11 would not have nerve enough to get along in the world, which fueled her hesitancy to continue being together.18

Zellhoefer explained to Webster the key qualities she expected from an ideal man, and the characteristics made no small list. Webster recorded over thirty traits she revealed to him, tallying “x” next to attributes he felt lacking, notably in cheerfulness, “not a bookworm,” straightforward, “moderately aggressive,” and self-control. The picky Zellhoefer also demanded continued moral straightness and would never tolerate a man who drank alcohol or smoked tobacco.19

No matter how Zellhoefer felt about Webster or their romance, Webster would never give up.

When her warmth drifted away, Webster continued to maintain his abiding love for her and promised an even stronger effort to come. Though rejection took its emotional toll, he would never wish his pain on Zellhoefer, “I hope she never has to feel this way. God help me to endure,” Webster somberly penned.20 Yet he would keep trying.

To simply endure the pain, however, would not be enough. Webster began directing his energies toward channeling character. All Webster felt he needed to do was “buck up and be somebody” while striving toward an ambitious goal worthy of Zellhoefer.21 “I’ll be master of myself,” Webster announced near the end of his second year in college. But what constituted master? During a rainy spring afternoon under an awning in Chautauqua Park, Webster and

Zellhoefer conversed, and he revealed to her his answer: mastery meant becoming president of

18 Francis Webster Diary, 29 January 1916, folder 8, box 4, PFW, GSM.; Francis Webster Diary, 27 February 1916, folder 9, box 4, PFW, GSM. 19 Francis Webster Diary, 12 March 1916, folder 9, box 4, PFW, GSM. 20 Francis Webster Diary, 28 January 1916, folder 8, box 4, PFW, GSM. 21 Francis Webster Diary, 8 August 1915, folder 7, box 4, PFW, GSM.; Francis Webster Diary, 15 September 1914, folder 6, box 4, PFW, GSM.

12 the United States. That goal was indeed ambitious. “It will mean,” Webster wrote later, “that I can’t loaf—dissipate, or putter.”22 Come summer, the rejuvenated sophomore thoroughly announced aims:

…I have discovered the things that I must do if I am to win in the awful fight...I must live up to my principles…and before the God that gave me my over-mastering all-conquering tremendous ambition to be the greatest man of my time I promise that I will not abuse or waste any of the vital energies…in me…I shall…until I die do…what is right…I will be true to Ione and hold her sacred in my heart…and she will be…happy when she comes back and sees me again. I am going to be president of the United States of America—a leader, a keen thinker, a great orator…and a true lover and NO DEVIL IN HELL CAN MAKE ME SWERVE ONE INCH FROM THE COURSE THAT…I AM GOING TO FOLLOW. If Zellhoefer was skeptical about Webster’s presidential prospects, she most certainly agreed with his character-seeking aspirations, telling Webster that if he was to win and keep her, he must indeed become masterful.23 Luckily, Zellhoefer often left her tormented lover with hope.

“She wants me to win altho [sic] it will be a hard fight…I am going to be a great man and…good to Ione…she wants me to put up a ‘winning fight’ and I’ll do it,” he wrote.24 Though the romantic pendulum often swung unfavorably, Webster did continue the fight and declared, “I’m going to make her to like me… I’m going to be a man.”25

Webster dubbed his battle for mastery “48,” named after the year he planned to cap his climb to the White House side by side with Zellhoefer. To arrive at that lofty end demanded immediate self-mastery. The motivated great-man-to-be pledged to study prominent men that he felt characterized model manhood.26 Webster avidly scoured literature describing any towering historical men. Some of the men the avid reader admired were Abraham Lincoln, Stephen

22 Francis Webster Diary, 20 May 1915, folder 7, box 4, PFW, GSM.; Francis Webster Diary, 23 May 1915, folder 7, box 4, PFW, GSM. 23 Francis Webster Diary, 27 February 1916, folder 9, box 4, PFW, GSM. 24 Francis Webster Diary, 24 October 1915, folder 8, box 4, PFW, GSM. 25 Francis Webster Diary, 9 July 1915, folder 7, box 4, PFW, GSM. 26 Francis Webster Diary, 23 May 1915, folder 7, box 4, PFW, GSM.

Douglass, Daniel Webster, Louis XVI, and Napoleon Bonaparte. He revered others too, and he eagerly moved to identify the manly qualities he found alluring in them all.27 Of the considerable number of men he mentions, the Great Emancipator seems to have been who

Webster most appreciated, swearing to “have more to do with making American than any other man since Abraham Lincoln,” in one of his many diary entries looking forward toward 48.28

Webster also studied powerful men in action. In the winter of 1916, the eager student was one of a cheering crowd of many who listened to an address given by the president of the United

States, Woodrow Wilson, while he was visiting Des Moines. “Wilson is a great man, with a ruddy face, smile, and vigorous,” Webster observed, “all of his being seems to be under his control. He is master of himself.” Wilson’s strong impression on Webster left the young college student so inspired that following the president’s speech, Webster prayed outside his dormitory for a successful conclusion to his own presidential visions of grandeur.29

Webster was equally mindful of the need to place himself on a practical path toward political life. He joined his college debate team, practiced orating to portraits of great men, and disclosed to his college professor a new idea of becoming a lawyer.30 Like many others, to Webster’s chagrin, his professor told him the venture would be a losing one because a lawyer’s demeanor required a man to be either half a cheat or to possess a predominately strong personality, which

Webster, apparently, did not have. “I am going to have a predominantly strong personality,” the legal aspirant steamed. Fortunately, Webster was able to take solace in the actions of a friend,

Albert Jensen. That same day, Jensen gave Webster a photo of himself with a message deeming

27 Webster also read the Lincoln/Douglass Debates, and he was enamored with Napoleon Bonaparte’s “great personal courage” and a few of that famous general’s maxims of warfare. 28 Francis Webster Diary, 23 May 1915, folder 7, box 4, PFW, GSM. 29 Francis Webster Diary, 1 February 1916, folder 8, box 4, PFW, GSM. 30 Francis Webster Diary, 13 December 1916, folder 8, box 4, PFW, GSM.

14 his pal the most square and loyal friend he ever knew. “That makes up for what Fogdall [his professor] thinks about my personality,” Webster wrote. At least loyalty was a trait the faithful

Webster could rally his weakened confidence around.31

By summer’s end in 1916, Webster graduated from Des Moines College, but his pursuit for mastery remained firmly in his psyche.32 In August, Webster finally developed his master plan after sorting through the main elements of manhood he had worked to identify. In an exceptionally unique fashion, Webster explicitly laid out those elements by crafting a chart and a series of schedules that he hoped would lead to a greatness embodied in the realization of 48 and winning Zellhoefer’s committed love (see figure 4). Spaced across the top of a diary page,

Webster titled the three columns of the chart Mind, Body, and Soul. Running horizontally through all three columns appear the primary rows encompassing Webster’s catch-words:

Masterful and Great. Below his catch-words, Webster positioned thirty additional characteristics, some residing under Body, others under Mind, and more under Soul. Often, the characteristics crossed into some combination of the three. Those were the traits Webster had settled on, and those traits, he believed, would lead to the self-mastery and ambitions he desired.

Next, Webster designed a calendar from which he would demonstrate one or two traits each day (see figure 5). The young pragmatist wanted to perform self-reliance, practice cheerfulness, exude fearlessness, and develop physical strength.33 Mere words were shallow; he needed a stage.

31 Francis Webster Diary, 21 February 1916, folder 8, box 4, PFW, GSM. 32 Webster graduated a year early. His father advised him to try everything the young Webster could do to finish early, probably for financial reasons. 33 Francis Webster Diary, July and August (undefined dates) 1916, folder 11, box 4, PFW, GSM; Webster Diary, folder 20, box 2, PFW, GSM. The traits Webster listed included: quiet, kindly, industrious, fearless, self-reliant, determined, confident, gentle, adventurous, energetic, cheerful, systematic, loyal, military, sincere, thoughtful,

Webster additionally pledged to cultivate the talents he already possessed. He continued to write, orate, study politics, and work. Though not a lawyer, Webster earned a respectable (albeit indefinite) employment as a superintendent and high school teacher in a small-town Iowa school at the end of August.34 There, the new educator taught ten pupils and became increasingly involved in the community. Webster’s continued commitment to his self-mastery agenda eventually attracted him to the fledgling organization of The Boy Scouts of America, and he joined the organization as an assistant scoutmaster. Given the Scout Code, a scoutmaster position provided Webster the opportunity to partly act out his recorded manhood.35

By September of 1916, Webster’s efforts seemed to have paid off. The relationship between

Webster and Zellhoefer was in an “on-again” phase, and the unrelenting romantic took a chance by proposing marriage to Zellhoefoer. Though the young couple would not be able to marry for some time (Webster taught in Deloit and Zellhoefer in Monticello), she nodded her head yes and kissed Webster on a train, finally committing to him. “I must be a real man if I am to be worthy of her,” Webster wrote joyously, now more determined than ever to keep up the momentum.36

Though the future looked brighter than it had two years earlier, there was still a restlessness in the twenty-year-old Webster. Though he now had a budding career and his girl’s promise to be his, he had yet to achieve his full ambition. In October, Webster decorated a new diary adorned

honest, straightforward, accurate, picturesque, patient, calm, self-control, physical strength, concentration, moderation, originality, poise, gentleness, and sincerity. 34 Francis Webster Diary, 12 August 1916, folder 12, box 4, PFW, GSM. Webster was superintendent and taught at Deloit High School. His failure to become a lawyer, though not stated in the record, was probably because of his need for financial security. 35 Francis Webster to Parents, 28 March 1917, folder 198, box 5, PFW, GSM. The Boy Scouts of America came into existence in 1910. The Scout code reads: To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight. Webster’s masculine ideology heavily mirrors the Scout’s, and it is no surprise Webster was attracted to the organization. Jeffrey P. Hantover, “The Boy Scouts and the Validation of Masculinity,”Journal of Social Issues 34, no. 1 (1978): 190. 36 Francis Webster Diary, 1 September 1916, folder 12, box 4, PFW, GSM.

16 with a red shield containing a 48 inside its protective barrier, along with a cutout of The Thinker

Statue glued beneath; he had clearly not forgotten his goals. The still-ambitious Webster renewed his declaration, promising to continue to live his manly traits.37 However, the young superintendent was aware of his metaphorical and real distance from the White House. Webster had not become a lawyer or politician, and though he may be a scoutmaster, he was not a leader of men. In the case of his fiancé, he had yet to achieve the mastery and greatness he believed he needed to win and keep her. While his ambitions were seemingly adrift in an endless ocean, he remained patient. Another cutout glued inside his diary depicts Abraham Lincoln calmly reading a book. The words included in the image read, “Abraham Lincoln said: ‘I will study and get ready and maybe my chance will come.’ YOUR Chance Will Come.”38 Webster remained committed; he only needed to seize the right moment. That chance arrived in April 1917 after the United States declared war on Germany. Warfare might be his path to greatness. If a young man like Webster wished to follow in the enormous footsteps of The Great Emancipator, how could he afford to miss out on a great war?

37 Francis Webster Diary, 1 October 1916, folder 20, box 2, PFW, GSM. Webster’s latest declaration read, "For the purposes of strengthening my personality, developing my physical body, harnessing my brain, cultivating what talents I have, winning in the long fight toward 48, and being, as nearly as I can be, worthy of the best little sweetheart that ever lived, I do, this first morning in October 1916 adopt the following rules for living from this morning on thru my life, with whatever modifications may seem right in the future-Francis Webster.” 38 Francis Webster Diary, 18 October 1916, folder 20, box 2, PFW, GSM. Emphasis is original to document.

CHAPTER 3—TALENTS TO BE CULTIVATED: SUSTAINING MOTIVATION

Given Webster’s aspirations, there is little surprise he rushed to apply for a spot in the

Reserve Officers’ Corps.39 Those plans, however, failed to materialize. Webster’s family was preparing to move from Grinnell to Central City, as the clan’s patriarch prepared to lead that city’s Baptist congregation. The move would be costly, and feeling guilty if he abandoned them for the army at this moment, Webster decided to continue teaching at Deloit, offering to provide whatever assistance he could for his family. The considerate son promised he would not apply for any military position until the family enjoyed better financial days.40

Instead, Francis Webster finished out his agreement as superintendent of Deloit High School, and by then, the Webster family’s financial situation must have improved. Around the end of

May, young Francis Webster decided to enlist in the Iowa National Guard. Though hailed by the

Deloit community and offered a lucrative contract renewal by the school board, the former educator bid farewell to civilian life. Webster’s commitment to his ambitions had never been some fleeting passion. The newly minted guardsman’s determination to “make good for her sake” and 48 was firmly on track.41

Webster enlisted in the 3rd Iowa Infantry’s Machine Gun Company and became that unit’s bugler. Perhaps because of his noticeable intelligence, Webster was responsible for learning and

39 Webster to Parents, 20 April, 1917, folder 198, box 5, PFW, GSM. The training camp Webster wanted to apply to was located at Fort Snelling (Minnesota). 40 Webster to Parents, 24 April, 1917, folder 198, box 5, PFW, GSM. 41 Francis Webster Diary, 29 August 1916, folder 12, box 4, PFW, GSM.; Francis Webster Diary, 20 February 1916, folder 9, box 4, PFW, GSM.

18 practicing semaphore signals.42 Early on in his service, Webster had the chance to foster his natural talents.

From the time of his arrival at Camp Dodge, Webster enjoyed army life. Though short on uniforms and equipment, the guardsmen tramped along, marching, drilling, and fraternizing. To his delight, Webster found substantial validation for his innate artistic abilities among his fellow soldiers, including the company’s commanding officer, Captain Edward O. Fleur. Fleur discovered his bugler’s artistic capabilities and recognized the skills as valuable tools for military service. The captain began by instructing Webster to draw the regiment’s various companies as situated during a church service.43 Next, Fleur provided a more difficult task, ordering his gifted artist to produce scaled maps of the training camp, charting all buildings, trees, roads, and bridges within the area. The company’s captain continued to challenge Webster by directing him to help diagram a deep two-hundred-yard stretch inside a neighboring coal mine. Captain Fleur was so impressed with his soldier’s work that he brought Webster before the regiment’s commanding officer, Colonel Ernest R. Bennet. Webster wrote excitedly of the meeting, reporting home that the colonel “told us that we were possessed of great talent!”44 The proud guardsman’s confidence soared as his usefulness became more evident in the new environs of soldierly life.

Because of Webster’s rare skills, he served as his captain’s part-time orderly in the

Headquarters Platoon. There, the pair grew a close mentee to mentor relationship. Fleur, a veteran of the late war with Spain and the more recent Mexican Border conflict, provided

42Webster to Parents, 3 July 1917, folder 222, box 3, PFW, GSM. 43 Webster to Parents, 8 July 1917, folder 222, box 3, PFW, GSM. 44 Webster to Parents, 7 August 1917, folder 222, box 3, PFW, GSM.; Webster to Parents, 13 August 1917, folder 222, box 3, PFW, GSM.

Webster with sagacious insights. When the ever-ambitious infantryman asked Fleur what his chances were at receiving a commission at Fort Riley’s (Kansas) officer training camp, the wise- veteran responded that Webster’s odds were slim. Besides, Fleur explained, the training camp idea was proving to be a failure. The army was sending ill-prepared officers into the field, some utterly bereft of sufficient preparation.45 The captain advised Webster that he should first gain more practical experience and try for a commission later if the opportunity arose. “I believe I’ll stick right here and work hard at this job,” decided Webster, appreciating his superior’s honest, practical guidance.46 He remained a useful guardsman.

As September neared, the 3rd Iowa was federalized, mustering into the 168th U.S. Infantry.

For the first time, the regiment assembled as a whole, gathered on the State Fair Grounds, now a tented cantonment sea of massed military splendor. The officers organized the guardsmen by platoon, preparing for a review that spelled the start of the Iowan soldiers' journey eastward.

Webster and his fellow Midwestern warriors found themselves parading through the cheers and shouts of an immense throng of enthusiastic citizens gathered from across the state. By

September 9, the regiment boarded trains bound to Camp Albert L. Mills near New York City, where the Iowans would rendezvous with their division’s sister regiments.47

The Iowa guardsmen would spend nearly a month and a half drilling and preparing for the trenches of France. Arriving at Camp Mills, the Midwesterners marveled at the Big Apple's distant skyline and at new technological wonders—airplanes-—as they hummed and soared

45 Faulkner, Pershing’s Crusaders, 262. As WWI historians such as Richard Faulkner explain, American officer training camps suffered from the same problems that the United States Army often endured from the country’s founding through the early 20th century: equipment shortages, lack-luster and unrealistic instruction, obsolete tactical training, and shortages of experienced instructors. Faulkner points out that these factors led to “the blind leading the blind” as far as officer candidates were concerned. 46 Webster to Parents, 9 July 1917, folder 222, box 3, PFW, GSM. An experienced soldier, Captain Fleur’s advice to Webster was certainly prescient and astute. 47 Taber, The Story of the 168th Infantry, 1:5-6.

20 above the ground-bound infantry.48 The sight of the division’s 28,000 Rainbow soldiers was equally impressive. The men had never before seen such an assembly of the nation’s fighting strength.

The soldiers drilled from dawn until dusk with only a Sunday’s respite. Here, officers instructed, disciplined, and developed their men’s martial ability and physical fitness.49 Webster not only continued to display his talents, he also received payment and recognition for his extra work. Fellow soldiers paid the industrious guardsman for portraits, and a Des Moines newspaper, the Des Moines Capital, offered compensation for any cartoons he drew and sent to them.

Webster also gave religious chalk-talks in the regimental chapel, and his growing popularity helped to win him a successful campaign to serve as his platoon barrack’s “judge,” where the soldier-magistrate levied sentences against his convicted bunkmates’ petty “crimes.”50

In Francis Webster’s short time in the army, he had embraced soldiering’s physical demands and became an increasingly confident and undeniably useful person. He donned the uniform, and thus far had performed as well as any of the other men had. By late November, the Rainbow

Division crossed the Atlantic, ready to embark on the stern test of war waiting “over there.”

48 Webster to Parents, 14 September 1917, folder 222, box 3, PFW, GSM. 49 James Cooke, The Rainbow Division in the Great War: 1917-1919 (Westport: Praeger Publishers, 1994), 13-14. 50 Webster to Parents, 12 November 1917, folder 222, box 3, PFW, GSM.; Webster to Parents, 20 November 1917, folder 222, box 3, PFW, GSM. Webster convicted a sergeant for swindling a girl out of a tip at a New York restaurant, and punished a corporal for being a disturber of the peace. “The punishments were severe enough to keep everybody interested,” Webster wrote.

CHAPTER 4—C’EST LA GUERRE: SUSTAINING MOTIVATION

Seasickness and submarine threats notwithstanding, the ordinarily landbound Webster and his comrades safely crossed the Atlantic. By mid-December, the Americans stepped foot on French soil for the first time. After two weeks of hard marching exposed to severe winter conditions,

Webster and the 168th settled in at St. Geosmes, billeting in the local barns. Shortly after,

Webster quit bugling. Appreciating the young artist’s value as a military mapmaker, Captain

Fleur promoted Webster to corporal and assigned him tasks as a company clerk.51

Active preparation for the frontlines continued to take up much of the new clerk’s time.

Webster’s duty as a corporal afforded him the chance to lead a squad. Learning to soldier was no easy feat, and the young squad leader described his men’s hard work, which involved

“digging trenches and chopping up wood” when not engaging in strenuous tactical drills.52 The harsh French winter’s blistering cold only added to the hardship. Much of the time, the soldiers were subjected to freezing rain and snow. “This is supposed to be Sunny France,” Webster acidly remarked.

At January’s end, Webster and his Machine Gun Company attended a week-long school directed by French instructors in the use of their Hotchkiss machine guns.53 Around the same time, the Iowa doughboys finally received their final pieces of soldierly necessities. “I wish you could see me in my new helmet and gasmask,” Webster told his parents between drilling and

51 Webster to Parents, 18 December 1917, folder 223, box 3, PFW, GSM. Veterans of that December march remembered the experience as the “Valley Forge Hike.” The temperature was routinely below zero degrees, and due to logistical shortcomings, many of the men lacked the proper footwear and clothing necessary to protect them from vicious winter conditions. Some men were forced to wrap their unshod feet. Bloody footprints and freezing men were not uncommon sights. 52 Webster to Parents, 6 January 1918, folder 223, box 3, PFW, GSM. 53 Webster to Parents, 30 January 1918, folder 223, box 3, PFW, GSM.

22 practice on the machine gun.54 The Rainbows were feeling more like soldiers with each new day.

Though physically and mentally draining, the young doughboy’s early experience as a soldier overseas was, thus far, positive. The army gave Webster the ability to develop and employ his skills and test his character. “Keep it all to yourself,” Webster instructed his parents regarding the payout of his war-risk insurance in the event of his death. “But I am expecting to come back allright, [sic] and I am learning how to take care of myself allright.”55 Webster began to understand self-reliance, especially emotional self-reliance, as critical to a soldier's temperament.

The saliency between his masculine preconceptions and conduct in the army began to emerge as he became more active and familiar with his service duties.

Shortly after his company’s machine gun school, Webster suffered his first setback in the army. In two separate letters, the young corporal received word from his fiancé that she decided to end their engagement. Though stating she felt only a platonic fondness for her former husband-to-be, Zellhoefer assured Webster that she answered honestly when she promised him marriage. “I thought I loved you enough,” she wrote. Now realizing otherwise, she would remain “just as honest.” Webster’s ex-fiancé continued, admitting that waiting until his departure overseas to tell him of her decision was “inhumane.”56 The news must have perplexed the doughboy-corporal. In October, Zellhoefer had written a letter (which Webster read in

December) rife with flirtatious expressions. She had even addressed Webster with the moniker

54 Webster to Parents, 3 February 1918, folder 223, box 3, PFW, GSM. 55 Webster to Parents, 30 July 1918, folder 223, box 3, PFW, GSM. 56 Ione “Betty” Zellhoefer to Webster, 25 November 1917, folder 225, box 3, PFW, GSM. Zellhoefer’s reasons for ending the engagement included: being unsatisfied with herself, being continually unsure if she cared enough about Webster, and not wanting to be tied down in marriage.

“my soldier sweetheart” sealed with the figurative kisses of six “x” marks.57 Now during their most serious breakup, Zellhoefer claimed her romantic feelings for Webster had been mostly an act.58 “God bless you dear boy, you have done much for me,” Zellhoefer continued in her second letter. Far from her formerly affection-laden missives, Zellhoefer signed, “Your old pal,

Betty.”59

On February 20, 1918, fifteen days after receiving what must have been heart-rendering news of their broken engagement, the Iowa soldier began his wartime diary. But unlike his days as a

Des Moines College student, Webster did not reveal his private reaction to Zellhoefer’s latest change of heart. In fact, the doughboy-corporal mentions nothing of the failed engagement in his diary or several letters to his parents and others. Why such a marked change? For the normally unguarded diarist, his novel silence was remarkably conspicuous.

Instead, Webster began recording the stirring activity in the 42nd Division. During the chill of late February’s night, the division packed tightly into the cramped “40 and 8” train cars destined to relieve exhausted French troops and the frontline’s trials.60

The Iowa soldiers passed through scenes of war’s devastation, complete with French villages reduced to brick and rubble along the way. The Rainbow Division disembarked their trains, trekked through dense forest, and finally entered the mucky trenches outside Luneville. In between the lines, No Man's Land's desolate, barb-wired fields ominously told the cruel tale of

57 Zellhoefer to Webster, 31 October 1917, folder 225, box 3, PFW, GSM. 58 Zellhoefer to Webster, 25 November 1917, folder 225, box 3, PFW, GSM. 59 Zellhoefer to Webster, 8 December 1917, folder 142, box 4, PFW, GSM. 60 Webster to Parents, 24 February 1918, folder 223, box 3, PFW, GSM. The train cars were tightly packed, designed to carry 40 men or 8 horses, hence the moniker “40 and 8.”

24 previous battles. Looking out across the field, for the first time, the doughboys could see their

German foe.

Webster’s chief duty remained mapmaking for Captain Fleur back at headquarters, which frequently kept the young corporal outside the filthy trenches. He continued utilizing his artist’s skill, sketching detailed fields of fire for the company’s machine guns.61

His artistry-duties did not stop Webster from missing all the action. German artillery regularly sent shells bellowing into the Americans, and sometimes, the doughboys invited Boche ire. The overzealous American soldiers were itching for a fight, ignoring the informal truce that had developed between the battle-weary French and Germans, both rivals tacitly agreeing to engage only during formal combat. Though, for the excited doughboys, if a German helmet peaked above the trench line, the fresh American riflemen eagerly took their pot-shots. On

March 5, the tired but angry Germans had suffered enough from the treacherous Americans and launched a major raid in retaliation for what they thought was a broken quasi-peace. Webster navigated through the attack during the ensuing skirmish, hauling sandbags to the company’s machine-gun stations. The aftermath left the young corporal having finally seen the elephant— and the crimson-stained bodies of the dead.62

By April, Webster moved back into the trenches, again heading a squad. Although the conditions inside the deep ditches were cold, muddy, varmint-infested, and hazardous, the young

61 Webster to Parents, 12 March 1918, folder 223, box 3, PFW, GSM. Webster, though a talented artist, was not a professional surveyor. In Andrea Siotto’s recent article examining the development of mapmaking in the First World War, his most important claim argues that historians must rethink the concept of military mapmaker and place more emphasis on soldiers at all levels who gathered and mapped information. Andrea Siotto, “Mapping the First World War: The Empowering Development of Mapmaking during the First World War in the British Army,” Journal of Military History 82, no. 1 (2018): 46. 62 Francis Webster Diary, 5 March 1918, folder 139, box 4, PFW, GSM.

25 doughboy preferred the front to the more comfortable headquarters and was eager to share in the camaraderie he and his companions had established and the privations they mutually endured.63

Near the end of May, Webster’s determination was severely tested. Since the beginning of spring, the German high command had begun launching a massive offensive across the Western

Front in a last-ditch effort to break the protracted stalemate before American mobilization reached its full potential, pushing the numerical scale toward the Allies. The action across the

Front steadily intensified, and the horrific magnitude of industrialized warfare reared its devastating head. Between May 1 and 22, the Germans fired approximately 800-1,500 high explosive shells daily into the Rainbow lines.64

As Webster prepared to serve as corporal of the guard an hour after midnight on May 27, the

Germans opened another fierce barrage. As the shells hammered the earth outside, Webster saw a strange brown cloud seeping through his dugout’s entrance. Only seconds later, he instinctively realized the danger of the floating substance. The Germans had launched a massive gas attack. The young corporal shouted the alarm to wake his sleeping men and ordered them to quickly put on their gas masks. With “shells flying all around,” Webster led his soldiers outside through a gauntlet of high explosive shells to escape the deadly fumes and find shelter. The brave doughboy was left uninjured as the bombardment subsided, but gassed lungs sent several other Iowans to the rear. Tragically, Captain Edward Fleur, Webster’s mentor, and friend was among the gassed and died en route to the hospital.65 The grieving soldier had little time to mourn. Forty-eight hours later, another bombing lit up the night “like a thousand sky rockets,” and hundreds more German gas shells fell into the American trenches. This time, Webster

63 Webster to Parents, 4 April 1918, folder 223, box 3, PFW, GSM. 64 Cooke, The Rainbow Division, 87. 65 Francis Webster Diary, 27 May 1918, folder 139, box 4, PFW, GSM.

26 received a mouthful of the poisonous fumes, and with severely burned lungs, an ambulance drove the wounded doughboy to far-off hospitals.66 There, Webster convalesced for six weeks in the safety of the rear.

The wounded doughboy impatiently recuperated, eager to return to his company.67 “I can’t honestly say that I don’t like the army,” Webster wrote home to Central City, “especially our co[mpany]…I like them better even than the fellows at college.” His company, the young corporal continued, contained a colorful assortment of men with differing personalities and varied backgrounds. Still, he noted, all of them did their duty admirably; their distinctiveness mattered less in the army. “I couldn’t ask for a better bunch,” Webster praised.68

Herein lies the answer to the mysterious absence of the dejected Webster. On the first anniversary of America’s war declaration, the veteran-corporal recorded a seemingly inconsequential entry into his diary. The passage reads, “A year ago today this morning I was in

Des Moines with Betty and war was declared with Germany at 2 a.m. This morning, I am here in the dugout with my little brown pipe in the candle-light. C’est la guerre.”69 C’est la guerre-“it’s the war,” a phrase articulated as if resigning oneself to the inescapable forces of war.70 For

Webster, no other slogan carried more contradictory meaning. Though undeniable that the

66 Francis Webster Diary, 29 May 1918, folder 139, box 4, PFW, GSM. Not counting high explosive shells, the Germans fired over 900 canisters of gas into the 168th’s position on May 27. On May 29, an additional six hundred phosgene canisters fell on the Iowans. Phosgene was especially frighting because the gas was almost entirely odorless, leaving soldiers unaware of its presence until it was too late.; Rexmond C. Cochrane, The 42nd Division Before Landres-et St. Georges (Maryland: U.S. Army Chemical Corps Historical Office, Office of the Chief Chemical Officer, Army Chemical Center, 1959), 13-15. 67 Webster to Parents, 29 June 1918, folder 223, box 3, PFW, GSM. 68 Webster to Parents, 10 July 1918, folder 223, box 3, PFW, GSM. 69 Francis Webster Diary, 6 April 1918, folder 139, box 4, PFW, GSM. 70 “History of the Phrase ‘C’est la Guerre’ (‘It Can’t Be Helped),” Word Histories, accessed 24 October 2020, https://wordhistories.net/2019/12/05/cest-la-guerre/. C’est la guerre, literally “it is the war,” expresses acceptance of, or resignation at, the situation engendered by war. One might also think of the definition as “It cannot be helped.”

27 conditions of the war and Webster’s place within it remained largely out of his control, his initial motivational thrust had led him to the doorstep of war’s manly judgment. In the war, Webster discovered he was a competent soldier. Through that realization, he ably cultivated steady male relationships by proving his worth through sharing the harrowing realities of campaigning and combat. Most importantly, he did so without tailoring a separate set of core values.

The man made the soldier. The young corporal was no more brawny, no less arty, and his soldierly virtue mirrored his earlier charted masculinity. His actions spoke volumes. In the prior years during the former couple’s turbulent courtship, Zellhoefer had insisted a worthwhile man would never smoke tobacco. Yet, one year later, Webster was reminiscing with a tobacco pipe in hand; his manhood no longer “leaned” on Zellhoefer. The only validation Webster needed was from his companions in the ranks. He could smoke if he wanted, and he could embrace himself fully, because his worth and value fit squarely within war’s hypermasculine arena.

There could be no arguing his virility now.

Soldiers respected their peers who stood firm and aided the common cause, regardless of their many individual differences.71 Integrity and a bonding “esprit de corps” were the linchpins, and those stable, reciprocal relationships provided Webster the knowledge of his unquestioned manhood. Webster, the man, had not transformed. Instead, the war removed his manly doubts from his body, mind, and soul. There is no wonder why Webster intently counted the days to when he might abandon the relative comforts of the rear for the perils of the front.

71 Elizabeth Stice connects similar idea of esprit de corps in the attitudes British and French soldiers held for the colonial soldiers of their respective empires. Using European depictions of colonial soldiers in trench newspapers, she argues that in the context of the First World War, the war challenged European racial assumptions of their colonial auxiliaries. Through common service and a national cause, European soldiers gained a new view of their colonial peers as worthy soldiers and men. Elizabeth Stice, “Men on the Margins: Representations of Colonial Troops in British and French Trench Newspapers of the Great War,” Journal of Military History 83, no. 2 (2019): 435-454.

CHAPTER 5—WORSE THAN USELESS: COMBAT MOTIVATION

Webster recovered and returned to his regiment in early July. He rejoined the Headquarters

Company and continued to sketch maps for the regimental officers. Though not yet back in the trenches, Webster would nevertheless face the coming Teutonic onslaught on the Champagne

Front.

General Erich Ludendorff, commanding the German forces on the Western Front, maintained a slight but rapidly dwindling manpower reserve and material advantage. The General prepared what he considered the necessary final knockout blow against the steadily reinforcing Allies.72

On July 15, across a forty-two-mile front, Boche artillery set the night sky ablaze with a massive barrage of high explosive and gas shells.73 In shelter fifty feet beneath the chalky soil, Webster reported that the ground trembled under the crushing blows plummeting from above, the ferocity of the battle “one long nightmare.”74 Fortunately, several ensuing infantry assaults by the Kaiser’s infantry failed to crack the deeply entrenched Allied defenses. Though costly for both sides, the German war effort would forever lose the initiative.75 For the doughboys and their poilu allies, the time had arrived to abandon the trenches for an aggressive counterstrike.

Webster and the rest of the veteran Rainbows geared up for the big push across the region of

Chateau Thierry.

On the afternoon of July 26, open warfare proceeded in earnest. The 168th’s objectives were to secure the heavily defended stone Croix Rouge farmstead and the roads, woods, and villages

72 Geoffrey Wawro, Sons of Freedom: The Forgotten American Soldiers Who Defeated Germany in World War 1 (New York: Basic Books, 2018), 183-184. 73 Cooke, The Rainbow Division, 105. 74 Webster to Parents, 19 July 1918, folder 223, box 3, PFW, GSM. 75 Wawro, Sons of Freedom, 197. The Germans lost an irreplaceable 50-60,000 soldiers as a result of the action on July 15.

29 beyond. The work would be unnerving—vast open fields of wheat painted the landscape around

Croix Rouge. Only small stone houses broke the flowing golden fields.

The doughboys were to advance through the sea of wheat for over a mile, all while the concealed Boche rifles, machine guns, and artillery waited to greet the Allies’ every step. More challenging still, “Sunny France” was again a rainy and muddy morass, further complicating an aggressive advance.76

Though the battle promised a deathly encounter, Webster refused to miss the action. The young corporal quit his headquarters duties that day and took command of the Machine Gun

Company’s third squad.77

After some delays, the American charge emerged through the woods at 4:50 p.m. A familiar battle cry rang out across the battlefield. The 168th’s sister regiment, the 167th, consisting mostly of Alabamians, made their distinctive presence known. Fifty years since the ancestors of

Northern and Southern soldiers fought one another on American fields, those sons of the former

Confederacy had invoked their blood-curling rebel yell, joining the Iowans against a common foreign adversary.

The Germans responded, pouring a murderous fire into the waves of Yankee attackers.78

Webster’s squad advanced through the timber, crouching low as they encountered Boche projectiles and flying fragments. The machine-gunners provided support for the Americans’ main thrust, and from his position, Webster could witness the tremendous offensive effort unfolding in his front. The Germans too often found their mark, and many doughboys fell victim

76 Taber, The Story of the 168th Infantry 1:328. 77 Francis Webster Diary, 26 July 1918, folder 139, box 4, PFW, GSM. 78 Taber, The Story of 168th Infantry, 2:331.

30 to the shrieking shells and cracking bullets. Still, the Allied infantry methodically pressed forward through the wheat. An hour later, they successfully captured their targets as the

Germans fell back. The battle was costly. The Rainbows suffered over one thousand casualties.

That night, the fight’s aftermath proved a gruesome scene as the unscathed troops listened to the groans of wounded men who laid stranded on the field. But there was little anyone could do.

The survivors and wounded alike suffered a night drenched by a bucketing rain and exposed to the spraying balls of shrapnel shells.79 The spectacle was one of complete despair, and there was more bad news. “No chow,” Webster scribbled after the fight. The starved soldiers had accomplished their bloody work on empty stomachs, ration-less for over twenty-four hours.80

The next day, the offensive temporarily ground to a halt as the defenders held off Allied attempts to cross the shallow Ourcq River. By the early morning of July 28, the doughboys and poilu fought their way through the river and secured a crossing. Open warfare resumed as the

Allies sought to capture the far heights beyond the Ourcq. The terrain was similar to that in the battle’s opening salvo: fields of wheat. This time, Webster and his machine-gunners joined the advance. Enemy aircraft emerged from the clouds, peppering the American ground pounders.

The air was thick with deadly missiles, forcing the attackers to lie prone and wait for a break in the firing before they could continue forward. The young corporal was exceedingly lucky. A piece of shrapnel flew so close that it tore a hole in his breeches.81

Yet, through the trying ordeal of open combat, Webster would display no fear. While the

German bullets continued to “spit-whizz” dangerously near, and the advancing soldiers dropped

79 Cooke, The Rainbow Division, 121-122. 80 Francis Webster Diary, 26 July 1918, folder 139, box 4, PFW, GSM. 81 Webster to Parents, 3 August 1918, folder 223, box 3, PFW, GSM.

31 to a prone halt, the hungry doughboy calmly feasted on the wheat kernels around him.82

Displaying fear was unacceptable for manly soldiers. “The shells and bullets have been landing all around us but my heart refuses to beat any faster,” Webster explained. “The other boys, nearly all of them, are the same way. It is very seldom that one of them acts excited or turns pale in battle. An officer or soldier who is not cool-headed in battle is worse than useless because he bothers the calm ones.”83 Again, integrity was the soldiers’ cornerstone. Webster would not allow himself to be labeled worthless. Fear of fear and shame surpassed the dread of enemy steel. Charles Wilson, a British veteran of the Great War trenches interested in the concept of courage, echoed Webster’s sentiments, “He has accepted war,” Wilson declared, “He must allow no mood, think nothing, do nothing, that may weaken his own purpose or the purpose of his fellows.”84

The machine-gunners moved ahead, setting up on top the contested Hill 212. On the opposite hillside was the village of Sergy, and a back and forth fight for the hamlet erupted. Later in the afternoon, the Germans launched a final concerted effort to retake their former ground.

“Pappageorge and I were on the gun,” Webster reported. “We drove back 2 attacks—1 after dark.”85 Webster and his squad victoriously stemmed the day's final German challenge.

82 Webster to Parents, 10 August 1918, folder 223, box 3, PFW, GSM. 83 Webster to Parents, 2 September 1918, folder 223, box 3, PFW, GSM. 84 Charles Wilson (Lord Moran), Anatomy of Courage: The Classic WWI Account of the Psychological Effects of War (London: Constable & Robinson Ltd, 1945; New York: Carrol and Graf Publishers, 2007), 42, 45. Though likely that soldiers literally felt some level of fear before battle, Wilson stated that men found salvation in action, believing that actively engaging an enemy to be easier than suffering a barrage while entrenched and unable to fight back. 85 Francis Webster Diary, 28 July 1918, folder 139, box 4, PFW, GSM.

Open warfare gave Webster the chance to observe and judge German manhood more closely.

As they moved through areas formally occupied by the enemy, he commented angrily on their unmanly tactics:

The Germans are contemptible in their methods of fighting in the open, and they stoop to do every crooked trick their clever brains conceive. They carry machine guns on Red Cross stretchers out into No Man’s Land and go down into a shell hole and fire on us, they carry guns on their ambulance and bring them up that way to the front. We never fire on anything marked with the Red Cross. They bomb our evacuation hospitals even tho [sic] every hospital has a big red cross painted on its roof. After the war, the Germans who were against the Allies will have a pretty low place in the esteem of anyone who has been over here…They are beginning to pay for it and they will have to pay a big bill.86 Those despicable Germans lacked the moral straightness Webster recognized as essential to both great soldiers and great men. All the easier to call the enemy “Huns” and easier still to take up arms against “lesser” men.

The battle continued to rage through month’s end. On July 29, the desperate Germans kept up their barrages, throwing shells of all kinds to stop the Allies' forward movement. The 168th dropped to their bellies, waiting for a chance to slowly inch ahead. Enduring a barrage in the open was a trying reality. Lying right beside Webster, a shell tore off one soldier’s leg, leaving a bloody stump.87 All the exposed Rainbows could do was wait and hope they were not next to share a similar fate.

Fate held other plans for Webster the next day. Another cloud of German gas overcame him for a second time. Though eyes swollen and temporarily blinded by the fumes, Webster refused to abandon the front. He rebuffed his comrades’ urgings for him to find help in the rear, and the

86 Webster to Parents, 28 August 1918, folder 223, box 3, PFW, GSM. 87 Francis Webster Diary, 29 July 1918, folder 139, box 4, PFW, GSM.

33 stubborn doughboy did not leave until an officer gave him strict orders to report to the aid- station.88

Webster returned to the less strenuous life in the hospital, but he was as anxious as ever to return to the front, “I want to be with the company whenever they do any more fighting,”

Webster proclaimed. “The life at the front is much harder than it is back here, but we never are contented when we are back away from the fight.”89 The uncontented doughboy waited nearly two months before he made his return to his company, but he did not have to worry. There was plenty more fighting for him and his comrades ahead.

Absent from a majority of the Allied drive through St. Mihiel, Webster returned in mid-

September, and he wasted no time in demonstrating his unwavering convictions. When the

Germans launched another large raid, the courageous corporal wove through the blasts to make sure the men at the guns had everything they needed and were holding out okay.90

The hard months of combat had taken a severe toll on the 42nd. The division’s regiments needed more and more replacements to keep up fighting strength—that loss of experienced soldiers affected the division’s quality. Many of the replacements had less than a month’s training. Others received hardly any instruction at all, some even ignorant in the use of their weapons.91 Still, the division would need every man it could muster. AEF commanders opted to pull the Rainbow Division from their brief rest period to relieve the exhausted First American

Division battling in the Meuse-Argonne sector.

88 Frank Bonder to Webster’s Parents, 21 December 1919, folder 199, box 7, PFW, GSM. The gas that Webster fell victim to was mustard gas. 89 Webster to Parents, 28 August 1918, folder 223, box 3, PFW, GSM 90 Ibid. 91 Taber, The Story of the 168th Infantry, 2:59.

On the final day of September, the Rainbows packed up and marched through shattered villages and forests littered with the bones of half-buried dead from four years of unremitting war. A sign pointed the way, “vers Verdun.”92 Another intense struggle awaited in the foreboding darkness of the Argonne Forest against an obstinate adversary fiercely determined to hold their last formidable defensive line: the Kriemhilde Stellung.

92 Cooke, The Rainbow Division, 166. Translation: “Toward Verdun.”

CHAPTER 6—THE GREATNESS OF MEN CAN BE SAFELY GAUGED BY THEIR SYMPATHIES: COMBAT MOTIVATION

On October 10, the division marched through the Argonne toward the familiar booming of distant cannons. Webster was feeling a shade of guilt. His younger sister’s birthday was the next day, but he wrote home that there was nothing in the wilderness around him he could send as a gift, but hoped they would all be together the following year.93 For now, celebrations would have to wait.

Ahead sat the AEF objectives: Landres-et St. George. In between the Americans, the heavily entrenched Germans prepared a stout resistance. For the soldiers in the 168th, their mission would be to storm and break the part of the enemy line resting atop Hill 288 and the Cote de

Chatillon. Division commanders slated the attack for dawn on October 14.

The morning of the 14th was cold and wet, and the now-infamous conditions left sticky mud caked to the doughboys’ boots and uniforms. As they nervously gripped their rifles, the climatic anticipation for h-hour reached its apex. Webster and the Machine Gun Company advanced out of their fox pits, built the night before, to set up their guns and support the main thrust. Shortly after, the whistles blew, the shouts went up, and the whirlwind of battle began anew.

A concentrated German barrage quickly sent the Machine Gun Company seeking their protections. But upon arriving, Webster and his companions faced the conundrum of the stolen pits. As is true of all Webster’s wartime actions, understanding what happened next requires turning back to the days when his explicit pursuit toward discovering his manhood was well underway.

93 Webster to Parents, 10 October 1918, folder 223, box 3, PFW, GSM.

In the spring of 1916, there was one manly trait that never appeared on Webster’s masculinity diagram, but nonetheless, he paid close attention to the characteristic: sympathy. The young diarist focused his attention on two quotes from American writer and philosopher Elbert

Hubbard, whose notions of sympathy resonated with Webster. The two lines he recorded from the philosopher include, “The greatness of men can be safely gaged [sic] by their sympathies” and “The saviors of the world have simply been men with wonderous sympathy.”94 Hubbard’s words in full context more clearly define sympathy’s virtue:

No man is great who does not have Sympathy plus, and the greatness of men can be safely gauged by their sympathies. Sympathy and imagination are twin sisters. Your heart must go out to all men, the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the learned, the unlearned, the good, the bad, the wise and the foolish—it is necessary to be one with them all, else you can never comprehend them. Sympathy!—it is the touchstone to every secret, the key to all knowledge, the open sesame of all hearts. Put yourself in the other man’s place and then you will know why he thinks certain things and does certain deeds. Put yourself in his place and your blame will dissolve itself into pity and your tears will wipe out the record of his misdeeds. The saviors of the world have simply been men with wondrous sympathy.95 Webster was resolute in his masculine ideals, and he had always vowed to live up to his principles. If the greatest of men must sympathize with the lowliest, then a confrontation with neglectful, or even conceivably “useless,” replacements would be no different. Webster could see what was right, and no devil in hell could swerve him one inch from his course. He would be masterful; he would win the awful fight; he would be a man.

94 Elbert Hubbard was killed on the Lusitania. Francis Webster Diary, 18 April 1916, folder 10, box 4, PFW, GSM. 95 Elbert Hubbard, “Sympathy, Knowledge and Poise,” in Love, Life and Work: Being a Book of Opinions Reasonably Good-Natured Concerning How to Attain the Highest Happiness for One’s Self with the Least Possible Harm to Others (East Aurora: The Roycrofters, 1906), 104.; a near verbatim passage appears in a 1913 Cosmopolitan article authored by Hubbard. In that piece, he states, “The world is being made over by the Master Man…no person is great who does not possess sympathy.” Elbert Hubbard, “The Master Man,” Cosmopolitan Magazine vol. LV, no. 2, (1913): 146.

“No, let them have it,” Webster told Bonder as the battle raged around them. The young corporal could see the terror and confusion on the greens’ faces. He let the frightened replacements keep the pits.

The sympathetic corporal hurried to a shallow depression in the ground and laid down with his friends, hoping to ride out the storm of steel in the meager shelter. Suddenly, only two minutes later, Webster lurched upward, feeling a forceful blow to his torso. “Frank, I am hit!” the corporal cried. Shrapnel from a high explosive shell had struck him, passing through his chest and tumbling out his back. He crumpled backward, briefly falling unconscious. Bonder and Kelso tore off his uniform and tried to administer what assistance they could. When he came to, the wounded doughboy managed to reach out and grab ahold of Bonder’s hand, gasping as he struggled to catch his breath.

The corporal’s companions called for help. Stretcher-bearers soon arrived, and one of them recognized the gravely wounded soldier, and as they placed him on the stretcher, the bearer frantically labored to keep Webster’s mind alert, “Francis, we're going to send you home. Don’t you want to go home?” Webster was unable to answer, choking with any attempt to form words.

He simply nodded, smiled, and closed his eyes. The men began to carry Webster through the battle’s maelstrom, but as they looked down moments later, there was no longer a need for an aid-station. Life had ceased flowing through their brave friend. In the blink of an eye, Francis

Webster was dead.96

96 Bonder to Webster’s Parents, 29 December 1918, folder 54, box 2, PFW, GSM.; Reverend F.H. Webster (father) to Brother Viets, 3 September 1921, folder 202, box 7, PFW, GSM.; F. H. Webster (father) to Reverend Howland Hanson, 16 September 1921, folder 199, box 7, PFW, GSM. Bonder never mentioned the replacement men story, and Webster’s parent never had knowledge of it until verbally told by William Kelso. The 1921 letters to Viets, along with Hanson’s, are the first mentions relating the full nature of Webster’s death. There is a slightly different account Webster’s father writes to Viets and Hanson. To Hanson, Webster’s father mentions only one replacement man, while to Viets, he mentions two replacement men. This might be due to Webster’s father writing specifically

CHAPTER 7—THE DOUGHBOY’S BIT

The historian and former member of the 168th Infantry, John Taber, immortalized the men lost conquering Hill 288, writing, “Of the hundreds of instances of individual heroism in that brave advance, few will ever be known—many a tale of self-sacrifice died with its author, and as many remain locked in the modest memory of living heroes.”97 This article is not only an attempt to restore Francis Webster’s remarkable tale, but to relay the origins of a motivational drive that led to his self-sacrifice. Though many readers today have never heard of the obscure Iowan, he was on his way to becoming one of the most popular men in his regiment and back home. Taber acknowledged his death in the 168th’s history, detailing Webster’s well-known masterly interpretation of the war and army life through his cartoons and artwork.98 Another witness,

Winfred Robb, the chaplain of the regiment, remembered Webster as “one of the most popular members of the company and [he] had many friends throughout the regiment.”99 Even the small town of Central City, where his family was not native, nor would they long remain, claimed

Webster, enshrining him forever a member of the Linn County Honor Roll.100

about Webster’s protections in one letter, where only one replacement man could have occupied his space, and another where replacement men occupied both Webster and one of his friend’s pits. 97 Taber, The Story of the 168th Infantry, 2:170-171. 98 Ibid, 177. 99 Winfred Robb, The Price of Our Heritage (Des Moines: American Lithographing and Printing Co. 1919), 338. 100 I accessed the following book from the Central City Historical Society Museum. Honor Roll of Linn County Iowa: An Illustrated Biography Compiled from Private Authentic Records, ed. A.F. Dotson (Cedar Rapids: The Torch Press, n.d.), 438.

CHAPTER 8—I WILL DO NOTHING HALF-HEARTEDLY

In Darrek Orwig’s edited selection of Webster’s letters, diaries, and artwork, he notes, “In the summer of 1916, Webster wrote in his diary, ‘I will do nothing half-heartedly.’ It is a statement that rings true not only from Webster’s time as a school superintendent but also during his service in WWI.”101 Orwig correctly points out Webster’s sincerity, but what Orwig omits is similar to other edited presentations of soldiers’ words: an examination of the man behind the soldier. This version of Webster’s account has aimed to relate his masculine origins and subsequent motivations. Who was Francis Webster, and what forces were behind his “nothing- half-heartedly” vow? Those answers, hopefully, have been satisfied.

A military historian will not be surprised that conceptions of manhood fueled Webster’s initial, sustaining, and combat motivations. However, the uniqueness rests within the rich collection of sources Webster left behind. The source-base itself is a testament to Webster’s genuine masculine convictions; writing, recording, and introspection were, after all, building blocks toward his former aspirations. What he leaves us is a vast, clear, and linear record of a male in crisis and why that crisis eventually resolved.

How could an individual thought of as boyish, depressed, weak-willed, and soft eventually become a confident, competent, courageous, and staunch soldier in the famous Rainbow

Division during one of the most destructive conflicts in human history? The answer is that

Webster came to see a different perspective on manhood. In la guerre, his physical appearance never changed, he did not forsake his talents, nor did he redefine his core values. On the contrary, he never was more self-assured than during his wartime service, and his pre-war

101Orwig, Somewhere Over There, 232-233.

40 masculine ideology never appeared more salient than during his war years. Like many men of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Webster sensed a crisis in himself. But Webster had seized his moment, placed his manliness against the test of war, performed his duties admirably alongside his fellow soldiers, and thus validated his original manly ideals.

Webster received little comparable validation before the war, especially from Zellhoefer. He leaned on his sometimes-lover for proof of his manliness, but they were hopelessly incompatible, resulting in a masculine dead end. Take one of her many requirements, namely, for a man not to be a bookworm. She was direct with Webster on that point. How did he resolve the issue? By reading as much as he could about some of history’s most prominent men. Nothing he could have done would have fashioned a different outcome, and that drove Webster into his many downward spirals of melancholy and depression.

What Webster came to appreciate in soldiering was that the centrality of his person mattered much less in terms of manly validation. As both Charles Wilson and Webster adroitly noted, an individual soldier's essential obligation was to do nothing that might weaken the collective cause.

No frail flower could stand the hardships of war and the dangers of combat, and Webster came out of both experiences with proof to himself and his peers that the true nature of his manhood was anything but fragile. Nor could his commitment come under question; he had died as a consequence of that dedication. The strong, stable, brotherly bonds created and reciprocated help explain the two different versions of Francis Webster.

What about 48? Was Webster still committed to his fight for greatness by becoming president? Like his reaction to Zellhoefer’s “dear John” letters, he never again mentioned his once-ubiquitous ambition. There is a chance Webster might have remained dedicated had he survived. But more likely, the perspective that the war provided unveiled the absurd grandiosity

41 behind a theory that only through a presidential bid could he attain greatness and real manhood.

Such idealistic notions were probably quickly discarded after his first encounter with the enemy.

What he came to see was that his moral commitment and soldierly integrity were great.

Webster’s story and his unshakeable commitment to his ideals are equally as commendable.

Perhaps, as Webster laid dying, hand in hand with his brother-in-arms, and a faint smile across his face, he truly had arrived at complete peace. “Sir if I could say I did as well as your son did in the Worlds war, I would be proud of myself,” Bonder wrote home to Webster’s father after Francis’s death.102 That was the type of masculine recognition Webster had sought after for so long. That was enough.

102 Frank Bonder to Webster’s Parents, 21 December 1919, folder 199, box 7, PFW, GSM.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources Baker, Chester E. Doughboy’s Diary. Shippensburg: Burd Street Press, 1998. Empey, Arthur Guy. Over the Top. New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1917. Honor Roll of Linn County Iowa: An Illustrated Biography Compiled from Private Authentic Records. Edited by A.F. Dotson. Cedar Rapids: The Torch Press, n.d. Hubbard, Elbert. “The Master Man.” Cosmopolitan Magazine 55, no. 2 (1913): 146-147, Hubbard, Elbert. “Sympathy, Knowledge and Poise.” In Love, Life and Work: Being a Book of Opinions Reasonably Good-Natured Concerning How to Attain the Highest Happiness for One’s Self with the Least Possible Harm to Others, 104-107. East Aurora: The Roycrofters, 1906. Robb, Winfred. The Price of Our Heritage. Des Moines: American Lithographing and Printing Company, 1919. Roosevelt, Theodore. The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses. New York: The Century Company, 1903. Taber, John H. The Story of the 168th Iowa Infantry, volume 1. Iowa City: The State Historical Society of Iowa, 1925. Taber, John H. The Story of the 168th Iowa Infantry, volume 2. Iowa City: The State Historical Society of Iowa, 1925. Thompson, Hugh S. Trench Knives and Mustard Gas: With the 42nd Rainbow Division in France. Edited with introduction by Robert H. Ferrell. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004. Webster, Francis. Papers. Gold Star Museum Archives, Johnston, IA. Wilson, Charles. (Lord Moran). Anatomy of Courage: The Classic WWI Account of the Psychological Effects of War. London: Constable & Robinson Ltd, 1945; New York: Carrol and Graf Publishers, 2007.

Secondary Sources Cochrane, Rexmond C. The 42nd Division Before Landres-et St. Georges. Maryland: U.S. Army Chemical Corps Historical Office, Office of the Chief Chemical Officer, Army Chemical Center, 1959. Cooke, James. The Rainbow Division in the Great War: 1917-1919. Westport: Praeger Publishers, 1994. Faulkner, Richard. Pershing’s Crusaders: The American Soldier in World War 1. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2017.

Filine, Gabriel. “In Time of War.” In American Man. Edited by Elizabeth H. Pleck and Joseph H. Pleck. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall Inc, 1980. Hantover, Jeffrey P. “The Boy Scouts and the Validation of Masculinity.” Journal of Social Issues 34, no. 1 (1978): 184-194. “History of the Phrase ‘C’est la Guerre’ (It Can’t Be Helped).” Word Histories. Accessed 24 October 2020. https://wordhistories.net/2019/12/05/cest-la-guerre/. Hoganson, Kristin L. Fighting For American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. Keegan, John. The Face of Battle. New York: The Viking Press, 1976. Kimmel, Michael. Manhood in America: A Cultural History, Fourth Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. Lengel, Edward. To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2008. Linderman, Gerald F. Embattled Courage: The Experience of Combat in the American Civil War. New York: The Free Press, 1987. Lynn, John A. The Bayonets of the Republic: Motivation and Tactics in the Army of Revolutionary France, 1791-1794. Boulder: Westview Press, 1996. McPherson, James. For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Siotto, Andrea. “Mapping the First World War: The Empowering Development of Mapmaking during the First World War in the British Army.” Journal of Military History 82, no. 1 (2018): 45-66. Stice, Elizabeth. “Men on the Margins: Representations of Colonial Troops in British and French Trench Newspapers of the Great War.” Journal of Military History 83, no. 2 (2019): 435-454. Wawro, Geoffrey. Sons of Freedom: The Forgotten American Soldiers Who Defeated Germany in World War 1. New York: Basic Books, 2018. Webster, Francis. Somewhere Over There: The Letters, Diary, and Artwork of a World War I Corporal. Edited by Darrek Orwig. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2016.

Wiley, Bell I. The Life of Billy Yank: The Common Soldier of the Union. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1952. Wiley, Bell I. The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1943.

APPENDIX

Figure 1-Francis Webster at college in Des Moines, Iowa (located in folder 29, box 1, PFW, GSM).

Figure 2-Francis Webster’s graduation photo (located in folder 29, box 1, PFW, GSM).

Figure 3-Betty “Ione” Zellhoefer as a student at Des Moines (located in folder 46, box 4, PFW, GSM).

Figure 4-Francis Webster’s masculine personality chart, crafted in the summer of 1916 (located in Francis Webster Diary, July 1916, folder 11, box 4, PFW, GSM).

Figure 5-Webster’s systematic chart to practice his manly ideals (located in Francis Webster Diary, folder 20, box 2, PFW, GSM).

Figure 6-Betty and Francis at the Des Moines Fairgrounds before Webster left for Camp Mills (located in folder 46, box 4, PFW, GSM).

Figure 7-One of the many images of “48.” Webster firmly believed in his dream of becoming president during his pre-war years (located in Francis Webster Diary, folder 20, box 2, PFW, GSM).

Figure 8-Franics Webster on the way to Camp Mills, New York (located in folder 144, box 4, PFW, GSM).

Figure 9-Webster sent this picture to his mother while recovering from his second gassing (located in Webster to Parents, 3 August 1918, folder 223, box 3, PFW, GSM).

Figure 10-One of Webster’s many wartime cartoons. His drawings often depicted his own experiences soldiering. (located in folder 30, box 1, PFW, GSM).

Figure 11-Webster’s “The Life of a solider in 5 Acts” drawn during his second stay in the hospital due to gassing (located in folder 13, box 2, PFW, GSM).

Figure 12-A machine gun squad in action with their Hotchkiss machine gun. This picture displays the very work Webster would have engaged in. (from The Honor Roll of Linn County Iowa, 14).

Figure 13-The American view of attack looking northeast across former wheatfields toward what was the German line in the distant woodlot at Croix Rouge Farm (courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration, accessed from http://batmarn2.free.fr/167IR_Alabama_42usdi.htm).

Figure 14-A map Webster drew showing the Machine Gun Company’s fields of fire (located in folder 52, box 2, PFW, GSM).

Figure 15-Another example of a map Webster drew for headquarters (located in folder 52, box 2, PFW, GSM).

Figure 16-An aerial view of a gas attack on a trench (from The Honor Roll of Linn County Iowa, 20).

Figure 17-The piece of artillery shell that killed Francis Webster. Frank Bonder kept the shrapnel, promising Webster’s father he would bring it to him after the war (located in box 6, PFW, GSM).

Figure 18-The Red Cross photograph sent to Webster’s parents informing them of the location of Webster’s body in a battlefield cemetery in France (located in folder 214, box 8, PFW, GSM).

Figure 19-Francis Webster Sr. visiting his son’s grave in Des Moines after his body was returned to the United States (located in folder 107, box 4, PFW, GSM).

Figure 20-Francis Webster’s grave as it appears today in the Gold Star Memorial lot of Woodland Cemetery in Des Moines, Iowa (author’s collection).

Figure 11-Webster’s own depiction of the part played by those doughboys who lost their lives (from Taber, The Story of 168th Infantry, 2:280).