Soldiers who were swept up in the First World War faced a shocking level of interpersonal violence. How did LDS Soldiers deal with fear? What was it like for them, living under the shadow of death, violence, and suffering? And how did they deal with the troubling prospect that their duty as soldiers may require them to kill their fellow Latter-day Saints? We will explore these questions and more on this episode of Latter-day Saints – Fighting in the Great War.
This episode draws on the experiences of Archibald Bennett (Alberta) Hugh B. Brown (Canada), Billy Sibley ( Canada ), Leslie Bigelow (Canada); Alonso Stanton (Utah), George Balif (Utah); Sterling Russell (Utah); Rosel Jensen (Utah), Chaplain Herbert Maw (Utah), Harold McKnight (UK), Isaac Humphrey (UT); Wilhelm Stoll (Germany), Wilhelm Kessler (Germany); William Barth (Germany).
To learn more about the information in this episode, please check out the following (excellent!) sources:
Robert Freeman & Andrew Skinner, Saints at War: World War I (2018), available at https://www.amazon.com/Saints-Andrew-Skinner-Robert-Freeman/dp/1462122329. A true labor of love, Dr. Freeman and Dr. Skinner have compiled many first-hand accounts from Latter-day Saint veterans of World War I from many different nations.
James Perry, British Latter-day Saints in the Great War, 1914-1918, 44 J. of Mormon Hist. 70 (July 2018).
James L. Mangum, The Influence of the First World War on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, BYU Thesus (23 Jan. 2007), https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1839&context=etd.
Arthur Guy Empey, "Over the Top:" by an American Soldier Who Went, Together with Tommy's Dictionary of the Trenches (1917).
G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War 1914-1918 (2006).
Jeffrey L. Anderson, Mormons and Germany, 1914-1933: A History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Germany and its Relationship Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Germany and its Relationship With the German Governments from World War I to the Rise of With the German Governments from World War I to the Rise of Hitler, BYU Thesis and Dissertation (1991), https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5475&context=etd.