WW I & Chicago Ethnic Groups-- Part 8: Pushing the Train

The tribune chronicled the story of these men, including one man, Corporal Zmrhal, a member of the Czech Legion who continued on and was in Chicago when the fighting stopped on November 11, 1918.  Jubilant crowds gathered in the Loop and the neighborhoods of what the Tribune claimed was "the world's greatest melting pot city."

Zmrhal, whose first name was not given, addressed the Czech community's celebration in Sokol Hall at Kedzie Avenue and 24th Street.  he spoke about the the hardship and hard work involved in nation-building.  One example was when the legion's train ran out of fuel in Siberia.

Zmhal said: "The men alighted and by muscular force pushed the heavy train for 16 miles until a village, where fuel was available, was reached."

Might Have Been Easier To Walk to the Village and Get the Fuel.  --DaCoot

WW I & Ethnic Chicago-- Part 7: The 50,000 Man Bohemian Army

When a Czechoslovakian independence leader visited Chicago enormous crowds of Bohemians lined the streets between the North Western Railway station and the Blackstone Hotel, where he was staying.

The Tribune reported:  "More than 200,000 cheering Bohemians turned out... to welcome... Professor Tomas Masaryk, commander in chief of the Bohemian revolutionary armies.

"In his Bohemian address, the speaker said he had left behind him in Russia a fully equipped army of 50,000 Bohemians."   This army had quite a story.  They had been conscripted by the Austrians and captured by the Russians.

They set off for Prague, but knew the Germans would block them going west so, they headed east across Siberia, fighting communists and czarists.  Upon reaching the Pacific, they sailed to Europe..

It's Total War.  --Cooter

WW I & Ethnic Chicago-- Part 6: Demonstrations and Czechs

On March 3, 1918, Chicago's Poles gathered at the Coliseum to welcome Ignace Jan Paderewski, celebrated pianist and leader of the Polish independence movement.  he reported that a newly-formed Polish army was fighting in France.  His wife said that he would not play the piano again until the war was over and Poland independent.

At demonstrations all over Chicago, flags of ancient nations about to be reborn were flown.  Some Lithuanians wanted to throw in their lot with Poland, remembering that at one time their country and Poland were in a dual kingdom.

Sometimes these demonstrations came to near rioting.

Chicago neighborhoods, such as  Pilsen and South Lawndale, were home to more Czechs and Slovaks than any other place on earth except for Prague.

--CootCzech

Magyars and Jugo-Slavs

In the last post I mentioned these two groups and was not sure who they were.

MAGYARS:  Ethnic group associated with Hungary.  Also a name used for the Hungarian language.

As of 2001, there were about 9.5 million Magyars in Hungary.

JUGO-SLAVS:  Yugoslavians   I should have picked up on this one.

--DaCootYar

WW I & Ethnic Chicago-- Part 5: Magyars and Jugo-Slavs

In fact, by now the tide of war had changed.

The German offensive had been stopped and Austria-Hungary, Germany's main ally, was on the verge of collapse.  There were wild celebrations in Chicago's Slavic neighborhoods, understand that their homelands would soon no longer be under Austrian or German rule.

A Polish nationalists asked:  "What is Austria-Hungary?  A degenerate crippled empire, ruled by Germans and Magyars against the will of the majority of its population, composed of Czechs, Jugo-Slavs, Poles, Roumanians and Italians."

--Cooter

World War I and Ethnic Chicago-- Part 4: German Books and Newspapers

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra abandoned the German names of works they performed.

Under the headline, "Hun doctrines spread by book in city library," the Tribune reported that a book was found in the Chicago Public Library that didn't  blame Germany for the war.  It was similar to books acquired while the U.S. was still neutral.

A library official thanked the man and said, "Now, of course, with our changed point of view, they should be withdrawn."

The Tribune called the Abendpost, a German-language daily, the "Chicago Hun-tongued newspaper."  It had carried dispatches saying Germans weren't starving  and had sufficient military supplies despite the British Navy's blockade of their ports.

--DaCoot

World War I and Ethnic Chicago-- Part 3: Anti-American and Anti-German Sentiment

The Tribune reported that a soldier and his brother had stopped for a drink in south suburban Crete, in Will County.  The locals, "all Germans, hooted and jeered" and called the young man, in full uniform, "a tin soldier."  The soldier and his brother were beaten badly "almost into insensibility" but they were the ones arrested and held in jail for a night.

More often, it was the Germans who were on the receiving end of hostility though.  The private Chicago Athletic Association fired 18 waiters, cooks and dishwashers "of German extraction."  Some members tried to keep Henry Bauer because he had a son in the U.S. Army.

The Chicago Music College notified staffers that they would be fired if they participated in a concert sung in German.  Women in the South Shore Country Club organized a "Use Nothing German" campaign, pledging to rid their households of anything marked "made in Germany."

Cooter

World War I and Ethnic Chicago-- Part 2: An Ethnic City

From that point on, the war was the talk of the town.  And this especially  applied to each of the belligerents as all had considerable groups living in Chicago.  The city was a checkerboard of ethnic neighborhoods.

The German community was especially targeted with almost a paranoid suspicion.  Chicago's clergy were  calling the war the biblical Armageddon.  One preacher said, "If Germany is victorious, then every Christian ideal will be destroyed and brute force will prevail."

Leaders of the German community tried to deflect the blow with a well-publicized war bond drive.  "We have shown our loyalty by sending our sons to war, "said Henry G. Zander.  "But we must overcome the feeling on the part of many Americans that we are not loyal."

But, the Tribune in a news story said:  "Will County, populated largely by Germans, is a dangerous place for a man wearing the uniform of Uncle Sam to go."

--Cooter

World War I and Ethnic Chicago-- Part 1: Doughboys To the Trenches

From the April 8, 2018, Chicago Tribune by Ron Grossman.

It is spring 1918 and now American troops were fully deployed in France, just in time to help the exhausted British and French forces as Germany was preparing a last ditch offensive.

The United States had entered the Great War, as it was then called, the previous year on April 6, 1917.

There was no commercial radio at the time so people turned to newspapers to keep up with what was going on.  On March 24, 1918, the Chicago Tribune was besieged with callers who wanted to know if the "Doughboys" (as our soldiers were often called, were gong to be tested in battle.

The answer was that American troops were now in the trenches on the Front Lines.

--DaCoot