THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA THE COLLECTION OF NORTH CAROLINIANA FROM THE LIBRARY OF Mrs. B. E. Parham C970.9 H91h c.2 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://archive.org/details/historyofgreatwoOOoxford 7/Kpi/Sorvod fo /coop the/fafton 'fivmt/iiS' dedicated to the SMemory of the SMen from Cjran-vllle County Who Made the Supreme Sacrifice qAoq/onorCRott 1917 — 1918- 1919 oA Grayer That Was oAnswered May it please (ioil that this sore-stricken, heart- broken, blood-soaked world may hear a voice divine, whispering, "You hare tried the gun, the dagger, the bombshell, the submarine, the tin mint/ gas; why not try self-sacrifice, forgiveness and lore ?" Surch/ a forty-two centimetre gun, or even a gun that can shell a church filled with women anil children seventy-two miles away, is no! (he last word in deniza- tion. It cannot be that the angel's song of "Peace on Earth," is In be forever superseded by the shriek of ex- ploding shells and the cries of wounded anil dying humanity. fo ^^xQC ))ooo: o PUBLISHED BY E. G. HULSE OXFORD, N. C. COLOR SECTIONS COPYRIGHT BY BUREAU OF ENGRAVING. INC.. MINNEAPOLIS &J SIDNEY W. MINOR Durham, N. C. Colonel, 120th Infantry, 30th Division. Born in Granville County November 24, 1873. Son of Capt. Richard V. Minor. Promoted to rank of Colonel, 3rd Infantry, N. C. N. G., September 28, 1914. Entered service for World War at Camp Sevier, S. C, July 25, 1917, and given same rank as held in N. C. N. G. Overseas one year. Honorably discharged April 23, 1919. A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WORLD WAR A Chronological Record of every Event and En- gagement, and the Causes that Led up to the Greatest Struggle the World has ever Known ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHIC REPRODUCTIONS OF THE MEN FROM GRANVILLE COUNTY WHO TOOK PART IN THIS UNPARALLELED CONFLICT NOTE: A number of mail routes from adjoining counties run into Granville and the men on these routes, who entered the service under the direction of the Granville County Local Board, are entitled to a place in this volume. —^/7-iL, PRESS OF OXFORD ORPHANAGE 1920 ; ; ! ; AMERICA My country 'tis of thee. Sweet land of liberty, Of thee we sing Land where my fathers died, Land of the pilgrims' pride From every mountain side Let freedom ring! My native country, thee, Land of the noble free, Thy name I love I love thy rocks and rills, Thy woods and templed hills My heart with rapture thrills Like that above. Our fathers' God to Thee, Author of liberty. To Thee we sing; Long may our land be bright With freedom's holy light; Protect us by Thy might, Great God, our King! ! A Shot in the Balkans Set the World Aflame N JUNE 28, 1914, the Archduke military and judicial commissions to carry Francis Ferdinand, heir-apparent out Austrian demands. w to the throne of Austria-Hungary, Press, public meetings, education, mili- visited the city of Sarajevo, capi- tary service and the administration of jus- tal of Bosnia, to take part in a public cere- tice in Serbia must all be turned over to mony. As he was driving through the Austrian dictation. And Serbia must ac- town a Bosnian named Cabrinovicz threw cept these terms within 48 hours two bombs at his automobile. Both fell Serbia accepted ! The terrified little na- short. Despite this warning and the sup- tion quibbled on only two of the demands, posed excellence of the Austrian police sys- conceding the others unreservedly, and con- tem, that same afternoon a young Bosnian cluded with an offer to refer any point not named Gabrilio Prinzip succeeded in reach- satisfactorily answered to The Hague tri- ing the steps of his automobile and fired bunal or to the powers. two shots from an automatic pistol. His And then, on July 28th, Austria declared aim was only too good. Both the Arch- war, and on July 29th the great world war duke and his wife, a Czech countess whom was begun by the shelling of Belgrade. he had married morganatically, were The alliance between Germany and Aus- killed. tria was defensive only, as Italy, the third Prinzip was seized, but was later given member of the league, later showed. Even the comparative immunity of a prison sen- had it been otherwise, disregard of its ob- tence, while several political leaders of the ligations for the purpose of preserving pro-Serbian faction were held as the real peace could have presented no moral dif- principals and three of them were execut- ficulties to a nation which was soon to vio- ed. The Serbian government immediate- late equally-binding treaties in order to ly expressed its horror, and was assured carry out her plans of war. The slightest that the affair would not disturb the rela- word from Germany would have compelled tions between Austria and Serbia. The Austria-Hungary to settle her quarrel. As world in general assumed that the incident a matter of fact, the Austrian government would end where it had begun—in Bosnia. was at one time on the point of yielding to Nearly a month passed. Then on July 23d, reason, but Germany compelled it to go on. to the amazement and consternation of all The assassination of the Archduke was to Europe, Austria-Hungary sent to Serbia be made the pretext for carrying out plans the most startling ultimatum ever address- of military aggression which the German ed by one free nation to another. It de- imperial leaders had long been preparing. manded : These plans contemplated nothing less than Prohibition of publication hostile to the conquest of a large part of Europe, if Austria-Hungary; suppression of societies not of the world. engaged in propaganda against Austria- Evidence of this accumulated during the Hungary; elimination from the schools of progress of the war. teaching opposed to Austria-Hungary; re- August Thyssen, a leading German steel moval from the Serbian military service manufacturer, published in 1917 a pam- of officers whom Austria-Hungary should phlet telling about several meetings of Ger- thereafter name; acceptance of Austrian man business men between 1912 and 1914 GRANVILLE COUNTY IN THE WORLD WAR at which the Emperor promised them great troops to keep ten miles inside the French financial rewards for supporting him in border. Nevertheless, cavalry skirmishes the projected war. Thyssen was "person- occurred on both the French and Russian ally promised 30,000 acres in Australia." frontiers on the following day, August 2d, Other firms were to have "special" trading and on the same day German troops enter- facilities in India, which was to be conquer- ed the neutral duchy of Luxemburg, which ed by Germany, be it noted, by the end of could only protest. The formal declara- 1915. "A syndicate was formed for the tion of war on France was made on Au- exploitation of Canada." gust 3d. Prince Lichnowsky, who was German The first and greatest horrors of war, ambassador to Great Britian when the war however, were to fall, not on Serbia or Rus- began, wrote for his family archives in sia or France, but on a nation which was ab- 1916 a record, which later gained publica- solutely inoffensive and unconcerned in the tion, in which he said that Serbia had ac- quarrel. On July 31st, before any declara- cepted almost the whole ultimatum "under tion of war except that of Austria had oc- Russian and British pressure" and that curred, three German army troops started "Count Berchtold was even prepared to for the Belgian border, and on August 2d satisfy himself with the Serbian reply." the amazed and frightened government of Lichnowsky added that he had to support Belgium received an ultimatum demanding in London a policy, "the heresy of which the right of passage for the German army I recognized" and suggested that the Ger- through Belgian territory. The particular man people were dominated by "the spirit wickedness of this note lay in the conclud- of Treitschke and of Bernhardi, which glo- ing paragraph, which read : "Should Bel- rifies war as an end in itself." gium oppose the German troops, and par- The United States army intelligence ser- ticularly should she throw difficulties in vice learned from German agents, arrested the way of their march by a resistance of in this country, that on July 10, 1914, a the fortresses on the Meuse, or by corps of German propagandists had been destroying railways, roads, tunnels, or sent to neutral countries to develop senti- other similar works, Germany will, to her ment for Germany in the war which was regret, be compelled to consider Belgium about to begin. as an enemy." Henry Morgenthau, United States am- Germany was not content to ask the priv- bassador to Turkey, was told, a few weeks ilege of sending troops through Belgium after the war started, by both the Aus- and to offer alliance and protection against trian and the German ambassadors at Con- invasion by France, which she professed to stantinople, that war had been decided on believe was threatened, though France had at a conference in Berlin early in July. just given the most positive assurance to This was why when Russia called her the contrary. She was not even satisfied reserves to the colors on the day following to announce her purpose to move through Austria's declaration of war on Serbia, Belgium and leave the question of Bel- Germany immediately began to mobilize gium's attitude for the future.