Armistice Day 1918

Earlier posts on this blog have outlined the stories of the first-generation 'Lithuanian Anzacs', men of various ethnicities who had been born in czarist Russia within the borders of present-day Lithuania in the late 19th century and who served with the First AIF (Australian Imperial Force) during World War I. As we approach the centenary of the end of that war, I thought it would be interesting to look back at where some of them were on Armistice Day 1918.

By the end of the European summer in 1918 it was becoming clear that the Great War was coming to an end and that the Central Powers were near defeat. An armistice with Bulgaria came into effect on 30 September 1918, followed by Turkey a month later, then Austria-Hungary on 3 November and finally Germany on 11 November. Nevertheless, the fighting continued on the Western Front right up until the 11th of November. Reports from the field record an abrupt end to the bombardment at 11am and an eerie sense of numbness, exhaustion and quiet on the front lines. In contrast, celebrations had started earlier in the day in many towns and cities across the world, later followed by bonfires and fireworks near some of the front lines that evening.

Martin Place, Sydney, 11 November 1918

 Lithuanian Anzacs on 11 November 1918

At least 40 'Lithuanian Anzacs' served overseas during World War I and nearly half this number were still in Europe at the end of the war.  Many of their stories have been outlined previously (click on their names below). A summary was also posted earlier [click here].

The longest-serving were Stanislaw Urniarz (Stasys Urniežius) and Militan Schatkowski (also known as Militan Oldham) who had both enlisted four years earlier, in November 1914. On Armistice Day 1918 Private Urniarz was still in the field in northern France, working at the 2nd Australian General Hospital; soon after he was permitted to proceed on furlough to the UK. Private Schatkowski/Oldham had already been in the UK since early 1917 and was working for the Australian Red Cross in London on Armistice Day.

Several of the Lithuanian Anzacs had been wounded on the Western Front and transferred to England by November 1918. Private William Frank Jaks was severely wounded in September and invalided to England; he met Armistice Day at the Reading War Hospital. Private Gerard Skugar, wounded in August, was at the Devonport Military Hospital (Plymouth). Private Leo Gordon was wounded in action for the second time in October and was at the 1st Auxillary Hospital at Harefield on Armistice Day. Private Paul Finn, wounded in action for the third time in August, was in medical repatriation in England. Others in England for medical reasons included privates Harry Cooper, Joe Caplan, Anthony Januski and sapper Ishai Belkind.

Some had suffered wounds but were still active combatants in the field as Armistice Day dawned, including Private Heyman Wolfson (enlisted in 1915, wounded in 1916).

A few were fortunate to meet Armistice Day in the field and to have survived the war without apparent major injury, including: Corporal Emerick Schimkovitch (enlisted in January 1916, in the field in France from October 1916); Private William Kalinowsky/Kalin/Kalinauskas (enlisted September 1916, in the field from December 1917); Driver Joe Ipp (enlisted February 1917, in the field from November 1917); Private Stanley Zygas/Stasys Žygas (enlisted September 1917, in the field from April 1918).

Still others had enlisted late in the war and had been sent overseas but not yet entered the field of battle. David Wishman enlisted in May 1918, disembarked at London at the end of September as a private with the 34th Bn and and was still in the UK on Armistice Day. 


And lastly, there were those who did not survive the war and could not return home. Six men were killed in action or died from wounds received in action:

• Charles Oscar Zander (died 22 August 1916 during the Battle of the Somme, France, no known grave, commemorated at Villers-Bretonneux);
• John Brenka/Brenke (died 23 August 1916 in the Battle of the Somme, France, buried at Boulogne East Cemetery);
• Anthony Puris (died 10 May 1917 in the Somme, France, buried in the vicinity of Noreuil, no known grave, commemorated at Villers-Bretonneux); 
• John Lovriaen (died 20 September 1917 in the Ypres campaign, Belgium, place of burial unknown);
• Franc Matzonas; (died 11 November 1917 in the battles for Beersheba, Palestine, buried at Beersheba War Cemetery (Israel)); and
• David Minor (died 11 May 1918 in northern France, buried at Meteren Military Cemetery).

https://www.awm.gov.au/commemoration/armistice/62000-Poppies-Display
Handcrafted red poppy flowers on the Australian War Memorial's grounds representing the almost 62,000 Australians who lost their lives during the First World War.

  





  

Lithuanian ANZACS - summary

Immigrants in the AIF

Over 420,000 men enlisted in the First Australian Imperial Force (1st AIF) during the First World War, of whom around 332,000 were sent abroad.  Almost a quarter (22 per cent) of those who embarked for service overseas were not born in Australia, with a range of minorities represented amongst the English-born majority.  These minority groups are currently receiving some renewed attention:

• German Anzacs and the First World War (John F Williams, UNSW Press, 2003) looked at men of German origin and their war-time experiences, including internment in Australia.  Williams speculated that there may have been as many as 18,000 young men of German origin (not necessarily born overseas) who served abroad with the AIF;
• Anzacs and Ireland (Jeff Kildea, UNSW Press, 2007) focused on Irish-born members of the AIF.  Subsequently the UNSW's Irish Anzacs project has established a database of almost 6000 Irish-born Anzacs who served in the AIF;
• Next of Kin Untraceable; Foreign Born in Australia's First AIF was the title of a paper presented by Karen Agutter at 'The First World War - local, global and Imperial perspectives', The University of Newcastle, 25-27 March 2015 [this paper has not been sighted - JM]; 
• Elena Govor, author of Russian Anzacs in Australian History (UNSW Press 2005) has identified 1036 men born in the former Russian Empire who served in the AIF.  Of these, 241 were born in the then Baltic provinces of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania  - see http://russiananzacs.net/statistics/.  These figures do not include Slavs or Jews from those provinces; Govor has aggregated them separately.

Previous posts on this blog have looked at 40 Lithuanian-born men who served in the 1st AIF.  The following seeks to summarise the findings so far (keeping in mind that not all personal particulars supplied at enlistment - on the attestation papers - were necessarily accurate and ideally should be corroborated through other sources).

Origins

The first feature that soon becomes obvious when looking at Govor's statistics is that there were many fewer Lithuanian-born men in the AIF than Latvian- or Estonian-born; http://russiananzacs.net/ lists 100 ethnic Estonians, 130 ethnic Latvians and 14 ethnic Lithuanians. This suggests differences in migration flows which could be worth exploring.

The attestation papers held by the National Archives of Australia suggest that the Lithuanian-born men in the AIF were broadly representative of the various regions of the country; they were not exclusively from any one part of Lithuania.  About half of these men gave a specific town or village as their place of birth.  The others gave either Kaunas or Vilnius in almost equal measure; in the absence of other information this could be taken to mean either the cities of Kaunas and Vilnius or the surrounding provinces (gubernia) administered through them. They were also broadly representative of the various ethnicities living in that region: ethnic Lithuanians, Lithuanian Jews (Litvaks), Slavs (Poles, Russians, Belorussians), and Germans.

Their dates of birth ranged from 1870 to the late 1890s, with the most common years being 1892 and 1894 (4 each) and 1886, 1889, and 1891 (3 each).  By the time they came to enlist, they were mostly in their 20s, although a few saw active service overseas in their 40s.

They were mostly single men, although 6 were married.

Their dates of arrival in Australia also spanned a few decades: while Reuben Rosenfield reached Australia in 1888, Adolph Cantor in 1902, Stanislaus Urniarz in 1904 and Leo Gordon in 1908, all the others arrived in the second decade of the twentieth century (5 in 1914, 4 each in 1910, 1911, and 1912, 3 in 1913, 3 in 1915, 1 in 1916 and 1 in 1917, suggesting a fairly constant rate of arrivals in the first half of that decade).

The most common occupations shown on their attestation papers were seaman (12), labourer (6), salesman (4) and tailor or clothing cutter (3).


Enlistment

None of the 40 men appear to have enlisted together, and their enlistment dates span a period of 3 years.  The earliest enlistment was that of Charles Oscar Zander (August 1914) and the latest was that of Antonio Samson (November 1917).  In all, 6 men enlisted in 1914, followed by 12 in 1915, then 19 in 1916, and 3 in 1917.

Over a third of the men enlisted in the state of  New South Wales (15), followed by Victoria (10); South Australia (5), Western Australia (5), and Queensland (4).

Their discharge dates also spanned several years, from 1915 to 1920.


Service

Over half of these men served in the various AIF infantry battalions; the others saw service in pioneer or engineering battalions, machine gun companies, light horse regiments, and the medical corps. Most served as privates, only a few had the opportunity to serve as corporals.  Dr Rosenfield, engaged as a specialist surgeon on contract, was the only one on this list who was appointed as an officer.

34 men were sent overseas:

• most served on the Western Front;
• 6 saw action at Gallipoli;
• 4 served in Egypt/Sinai.

Twelve men were wounded in action (not counting those who were subsequently killed):

• Harry Cooper;
• Paul Elias Isaac Finn;
• Leo Gordon;
• William Frank Jaks;
• Anthony Januski;
• Joseph Josephson;
• Arthur Levy;
• Adolph Ignatieff Mishkinis;
• Sigismund Romaszkiewicz;
• Gerard Martyn Skugar;
• Kazys Waliukevic;
• Nathan Watchman; and
• Heyman Wolfson.

Six men were killed in action or died from wounds received in action:

• John Brenka;
• John Lovriaen;
• Franc Matzonas;
• David Minor;
• Anthony Puris; and
• Charles Oscar Zander

Litvak Anzacs on the Western Front

The Jews who had settled in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania generally called themselves Litvaks. Several thousand made their way to Australia during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; Elena Govor (Russian Anzacs, p 55) notes that 'Of all the groups arriving in Australia from the Russian Empire, Jews were the most numerous."

Earlier posts have briefly looked at a few Litvaks who served for the AIF in the First World War.  This post deals with some of those who served on the Western Front; again I have drawn heavily on the NAA`s records (click on each name for the service record) and on the Russian Anzacs project (http://russiananzacs.net).

Ishai BELKIND.  Born in 1885 in Vilnius, he arrived in Australia around 1913 and lived in Perth, Western Australia, before enlisting in Kalgoorlie in December 1915.  His occupation was a gardener/orchardist; initially his next of kin (father's) address was given as Vilnius, but by 1918 the father seems to have moved to Palestine.  Ishai served as a sapper (private) in the 7th Field Company Engineers in France during 1917, returning to Australia in early 1919.  In June 1919 he appears to have travelled to Palestine, but was back in Western Australia in 1921 and registered there as an Egyptian alien;

• a somewhat different interpretation is that he was actually born in Palestine (then a part of the Ottoman Empire) "so it is probable that Ishai concealed his birthplace in an effort not to be associated with the enemy" (Steve Murphy, Lithuanian ANZACs: research continues, Lithuanian Papers No 27/2013, Lithuanian Studies Society at the University of Tasmania, p 12) 

Samuel BRITAIN.  Born in Vilnius in 1896, he arrived in Melbourne on the Demosthenes in February 1912 and worked as a clothing cutter and designer, possibly for his uncle Joseph Britain who operated a clothing factory in Flinders Lane, Melbourne.  He enlisted in June 1916 and served with the 12th Machine Gun Company and 11th Machine Gun Company in France in 1917, but was returned to Australia and discharged in December 1917 due to health issues.  Samuel remained in Melbourne, marrying and having a daughter, later establishing himself as a clothing manufacturer.  He died in Melbourne in 1950.

Joe CAPLAN.  Born in Kaunas in 1892, he left home for Manchester at the age of 14 and was employed in the cap manufacturing trade there.  He arrived in Sydney in 1912 where he had a cousin, and was working as a waiter before enlisting in June 1916.  Joe served as a private and corporal in the 19th Battalion and the 3rd Battalion in France and England before returning to Australia in early 1920.  His later history is not known; the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages records the death of a Joseph Caplan in 1953.

Harry COOPER.  Born in 1892 in Kaunas, he was working as a commercial traveller in Melbourne before enlisting in July 1915.  At that time he listed his next of kin as his father who was resident in South Africa.  Harry served with the 3rd Battalion and Administrative HQ in Europe and was wounded in action in France in early 1918.  He remained in London, was demobilised and discharged at the end of the war, married Lena Heller, and departed for Cape Town from England in 1919.  

Paul Elias Isaac FINN.  Born in 1887 near Vilnius, he left home in 1907 for Scotland and London, arriving in Melbourne in 1913 aboard the Beltana.  He was working as a motor car driver (railway employee) before enlisting at Newcastle in February 1916 and proceeding overseas to serve as a private with the 35th Battalion.  Paul was wounded in action three times during 1917 and 1918 in France and returned to Australia in early 1919.  He remained in the Newcastle area, was naturalised in 1919, married in 1936, and died in 1956.

Leo GORDON.  Born in the region of Kaunas in 1886, he arrived at Adelaide aboard the Ortonia from England in 1908.  Having worked in Adelaide, Broken Hill and Sydney as a storekeeper and clerk, he enlisted at Sydney in July 1916.  Leo served as a private in the 18th Battalion, was wounded in action in 1917 and again in 1918, and returned to Australia at the end of 1918.  His later history is not known.
[Note: There was another Leo Gordon from Kaunas who came to Australia; he was born in 1879 and lived in Broken Hill from 1911 where he ran a small business.]


Sources: NAA and Russian Anzacs.