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.

  





  

Victoria

The 1933 Australian Census recorded 37 males and 22 females in the state of Victoria who stated that their birthplace was Lithuania. As noted in previous posts and comments, given the changing jurisdictions in that region during and after the First World War, others born there may have recorded their birthplace as Russia, Germany, or Poland.

As with the other states, the early Victorian migrants included a mix of pre-World War One arrivals and those who arrived in the 1920s and 1930s. The earliest arrivals to Victoria were probably Lithuanian Jews (Litvaks) fleeing persecution in czarist Russia in the 1880s.  Some of their stories are well documented elsewhere, for example:

• the PHILLIPS (FIVOVSOVITCH) family from Salantai and Skuodas; see  http://www.judelmanfamily.com/forum_detail.aspx?ID=7; and

• the OBERMAN family from Kedainiai; see http://www.oberman.org.au/lithuania.htm

An economic depression hit Victoria in the 1890s and may have temporarily put a brake on further migration, but in the early twentieth century a steady stream of mainly single men - Litvaks, ethnic Lithuanians, and others born in the region of Lithuania - started arriving and settling in Victoria. Many of them enlisted in the 1st AIF and served at Gallipoli, Egypt or the Western Front during the First World War and have been described in previous posts:

• Samuel BRITAIN from Vilnius (see my post of 7 May 2015);
• Harry COOPER from Kaunas (7 May);
• Joe IPP from Kaunas (14 May);
• Adolph MISHKINIS from Zarasai (30 April);
• Reuben ROSENFIELD from Raseiniai (2 April);
• Emerick SCHIMKOVITCH from Zarasai (21 May); and
• Nathan WATCHMAN from Navarėnai (19 March).

In the 1920s and 1930s a new generation of migrants arrived, for example:

Jonas JAKOVLEVAS, born in Kaunas in 1897.  Naturalisation records at the Australian National Archives state that his father was Russian and Jonas had spent his youth in Russia, serving as a pilot in the Russian airforce in World War One before returning to Lithuania in 1921. He married a Lithuanian girl from Telšiai in 1924 and a son Alex (Aliekseij) was born in 1927. Jonas arrived in Australia alone at the end of 1929 and his wife and son followed 3 years later. By the mid 1930s Jonas was operating his own photographic business 'Ivan Studios' at 190 Bourke Street, Melbourne.

Kazys ZAKAS, born at Lygumai, Šiauliai county, on 8 November 1898.  His Lithuanian passport shows that he was an agricultural worker, single and was issued a visa for Australia by the British consulate in Kaunas in May 1930. He arrived by the Oronsay in June 1930; his naturalisation records state that by the mid 1930s he was operating his own business as a 'knitting manufacturer' in Melbourne. Kazys had married in Australia but died suddenly in Melbourne in 1950.

Metraštis No.1 (1961) records that when the first ship carrying World War Two DPs (Displaced Persons) arrived in Melbourne in 1947 the Lithuanians on board were greeted by two early migrants; Jonas Jakovlevas and a man identified only by his surname, Paliokas, who had been born in Ventė and lived in Australia since 1928 (p.10). That publication also records a story by one of the first DPs (Kazys Mieldažys) that that they were visited on the ship by Paliokas and also by Mr and Mrs Jakovlevas who subsequently sent parcels to some of the Lithuanians when they were at the Bonegilla migrant camp and later allowed them to use their apartment in Melbourne for music and song rehearsals as well as helping the newcomers in many other ways (p 24).

More Litvak Anzacs on the Western Front

This post continues the list of Lithuanian Jews (Litvaks) who served on the Western Front during World War One.  Again, I have drawn heavily on records held by the National Archives of Australia (click on each name for the relevant service record) and on Elena Govor's Russian Anzacs project (http://russiananzacs.net).


Joe IPP was born in 1897 in Kaunas (the service record has it as 'Counow' which is not dissimilar to 'Kovno' as it was known at the time) and had lived in South Africa for a few years before arriving in Melbourne in 1914.  He worked there as a salesman before enlisting in February 1917 (the service record shows that he was only slightly over 5 feet tall and weighted only 120 pounds; at the start of the war the minimum height requirement had been 5 feet 6 inches).  Joe served in France and Belgium as a private (gunner and driver) with the 13th Light Horse Regiment and 1st Field Artillery Brigade and was discharged in England in August 1919.  He returned to Australia in 1921, married in 1923 and settled in Melbourne.


Joseph JOSEPHSON was born in 1886 in Vilnius and had lived in Sweden for 7 years and England for a short while before arriving in Western Australia in 1912.  He worked at Geraldton and Perth before going into business for himself as a storekeeper and then enlisting in Sydney in August 1916 (his occupation was shown as draper and window dresser).  He served as a private with the 1st Battalion on the Western Front and was wounded at Bullecourt and at again at Passchendaele in 1917.  In 1918 Joseph was court marshalled for refusing to fight but the sentence was soon suspended and he was returned to Australia in December 1918.  He settled in Sydney and was operating a small business as a draper and mercer at Waterloo when naturalised as a British subject in 1922.


Arthur LEVY was born in 1877 in Kaunas.  We don't know when he arrived in Australia but he was already a naturalised British subject when enlisting in December 1915 at Liverpool NSW as a single man aged 35, occupation salesman and traveller.  He served as a private in the 13th Battalion but was wounded in action in February 1917, subsequently was returned to Australia and invalided out in August 1917.  He settled in Sydney and died there in 1964.

Source: Australian War
Memorial's collection

David MINOR was born in 1894 in Vilnius and probably left for the USA in 1912: Hamburg passenger lists and New York arrival records on Ancestry.com show a David Minar (age 17) from Vilnius crossing the Atlantic with his mother? Chane (age 51) on the President Lincoln in January 1912.  D. Minor is further recorded as an able seaman on the SS Inga from New Zealand to Sydney in December 1915 and the Mallina from Newcastle to Sydney in January 1916.  He enlisted at Sydney in March 1916 (occupation seaman) and served as a private with the 1st Battalion in France.  David was first wounded in action in 1917, then killed in action in May 1918.  He was buried at Meteren Military Cemetery in France; here is a WW1 studio portrait from the Australian War Memorial's collection.


Heyman WOLFSON was born in 1875 in Seda (his enlistment papers record this as 'Sade', in yiddish the town would be 'Siad'), left home at the age of 14 and spent 20 years in Ireland before arriving in Australia in 1910.  He resided briefly in Melbourne and Brisbane before settling in Adelaide where he was naturalised in 1914; he enlisted in August 1915 at the age of 39, his occupation was given as labourer.  Heyman served as a private in the 32nd Battalion, was wounded in action in 1916 but continued in active service until the end of the war.  He returned to Australia in April 1919.

100 years ago

What was happening in Europe?

By 1915 the Lithuanian lands had been under rigid Russian domination for 120 years, as a consequence of the final partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795. Despite some reforms in the early twentieth century, such as the lifting of the ban on the use of the Lithuanian language in education and on publications using the latin alphabet (1904), czarist rule continued to be repressive. It was only amidst the confusion of the First World War that the first high school with tuition in the Lithuanian language was allowed to be established in Vilnius (1915). The war facilitated the fall of the Russian empire, following which an independent Lithuanian state was established in 1918.    

Russian WWI propaganda poster

Despite initial Russian successes against the Central Powers early in the First World War, by late 1915 the German army had pushed the Russian forces out of Warsaw, Kaunas and Vilnius.  While the stalemate of trench warfare was avoided on the more fluid Eastern front, there were huge military losses and population displacements. In addition to the withdrawal of industry and business into 'mother Russia' ahead of the German advance, Russian military commanders often perceived the minorities living on the western fringes of the empire - such as the Lithuanians, Jews and Poles - as a threat and forcibly deported many to the Russian interior. There may have been 5 or 6 million such refugees; my father was born to such a family in Russia.  

What was happening in Australia?

The events of World War One also take centre stage in Australian history, in particular the Anzacs' landing at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. The aim of the Allied Powers was to seize Constantinople and establish direct contact with the Russian forces. Unfortunately the Turks were waiting at Gallipoli and the plan ended in tragedy, with a forced withdrawal in December 1915.

Australian WWI propaganda poster

By 1915 the Australian population had reached almost 5 million, having increased from 3 million in the late 1880s. Domestic support for immigration from the British Isles had been strong in the early part of the twentieth century, in keeping with the new federation's strong identification with the British Empire, but the war put a halt to further large migrant intakes. At the same time, domestic antagonism to non-British foreigners and aliens also increased; people of German heritage in particular became targets.  1915 also saw the introduction of a federal income tax proposed, at least initially, to support the war effort.

There were possibly a few hundred Lithuanians already living in most states of Australia in 1915. Some were single men, some had brought families with them from overseas, others had established families here:

• Antanas (Antoni) Alanskas originally from Suvalkija had settled in Western Australia with his wife Ieva/Eva and three young children who had been born in Glasgow during the family's 9 years in Scotland;
• Jonas Balaika, a single man from near Marijampolė, had settled in Sydney having previously lived for 5 years in England and 2 years in Canada;
• Joe Ipp, a Jew from Kaunas who had lived in South Africa for 3 years had arrived in Melbourne in 1914;
• Gerard Skugar, a Pole from Vilnius, arrived in Sydney in 1914 and worked at various locations in Queensland including Brisbane, Mt Morgan and Rockhampton before enlisting in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF);
• William Suscavage (?Šuškevičius) from Vilkaviškis arrived around 1914 and settled in Tasmania.   

Despite the war, some people were still able to reach Australia during 1915, for example:

• Adolfas Miškinis (known as Adolph Mishkinis) who had been born in 1889 near Zarasai, arrived in the USA from Libau (now Liepoja, Latvia) in 1910 and became a naturalised US citizen in 1914.  He reached Melbourne in September 1915 as a sailor on an American ship and decided to stay, enlisting in the AIF in November 1915.  He was sent to fight overseas in January 1916; 
• Isadore Solomon Cohen, born in Šakiai in 1890, arrived in Sydney in June 1915, married there in 1916 and settled in New South Wales. Before arriving in Australia he had lived in England from 1903 and in North America from 1909.