World War I, billed as “the war to end all wars” which obviously it wasn’t, started for the U.S.100 years ago this week. Many folks don’t realize it was all over in 19 months. As wars go, it was quick and dirty, emphasis on dirty with new weapons like land mines and mustard gas.
In Hamilton County and much of America it has become almost a forgotten war. Locally, there were only 29 men who lost their lives, many fewer than in what we think of as “big” wars like the Civil War, World War II and Vietnam. The names of all are found on the Veterans Memorial on the Courthouse Square.
One Noblesville soldier, Adolph Mueller, kept a diary of his experiences during the war in Europe. His recollections and scrapbook were the subject of a program presented by local historian Nancy
Massey, at the Noblesville library on Thursday evening. Although from a German family, Mueller served in the U.S. Army.
Another Noblesville participant, Frank Huntzinger, was the first local man killed in the war. The Frank Huntzinger American Legion Post 45 was named in his honor. The Legion nationwide was founded in 1919 by returning veterans of the war.
There are a half-dozen posts in Hamilton County alone who have now included in their membership veterans of all U.S. wars. (The Veterans of Foreign Wars or VFW did not come out of World War I. It was started in 1899 by Spanish-American War vets.)
The after-effects of WW I were long-lasting and in the case of the great influenza epidemic, more deadly than the battlefield. Although never directly attributed to the war, the flu first show up in the U.S. at an army base in Kansas where soldiers were training. Hundreds of thousands nationwide died of the flu including many in Hamilton County. The epidemic lasted until 1920.
The war made the United States a world power and on the path to Super Power status. It also sowed the seeds for the Second World War, only 21 years later. And, many historians attribute today’s troubles in the Middle East to European nations’ demands to set new arbitrary borders especially for Iraq, Syria, Palestine and Trans Jordan So, even if the war is only a distant memory, it did change the world, and we still live with some of its effects today.