E’er does your blogger comb the old newspapers for stories relevant to his interests. In so doing, I came across the story of a father arriving home carrying an old Springfield shotgun as he joined family members engaged in conversation with a newspaper reporter.
The reporter was there to interview the parents of Corporal Alvey C. Martz, recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross in 1918. The citation for the award reads as follows:
….for extraordinary heroism in action while serving with Company C, 110th Infantry Regiment, 28th Division, A.E.F., near Conde-en-Brie, France, 15 July 1918. Under violent shell and machine-gun fire, Sergeant Martz assisted in reorganizing the remnants of his shattered company which was surrounded by the enemy, and held the position until his group was again cut to pieces. With an officer and two other soldiers he then succeeded in fighting his way from within the enemy’s lines to his regiment, killing a large number of the enemy with his pistol.
War Department, General Orders 98
Specifically, Alvey killed 17 enemy soldiers, escaping to his own lines. He was only one of thirty-six members of Company C to return after they initiated a counterattack on the German crossing of the Marne in July of 1918. Forty-eight had been killed, the majority, some 200, became prisoners of war. I would encourage you to read this excellent write-up of Company C and this event at the Pennsylvania Heritage website, here.
With such background, we now get to the story published on August 15th, 1918, by The Republic, a regional newspaper of Meyersdale, Pennsylvania. The story is below, and I’ll have some thoughts at the end.
Of Pacifist Faith But Some Fighter
Alva C. Martz, Famous Hun-Killer Brought Up as a Non-Combatant
Alva C. Martz, tho hero of the Marne, is not a Hun-killer from choice, or because he loves war. He
was brought up in the “Dunkard” faith and loves peace so much that he is even willing to fight for it and
to slay, or be slain, in a righteous cause. The first news of his heroic exploit in battle was carried to his
good “Dunkard” parents in their mountain home, by Acting Editor E. H. Werner of the Somerset Democrat, who gives the following published account of how they received the news:
Down in Brush Creek Valley, in Somerset Northampton Township, Somerset County, 60 miles north of Glencoe, which is a way station on the main line to the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, is the home of Alva Curtis Martz, a farmer’s son, who, like Bugler Walter Jones of Somerset, has electrified his native county, and, in fact, his state and nation, by his wonderful prowess In fighting his way out of German captivity on the historic banks of the River Marne, in France.
It is a run of 25 miles, by automobile from Somerset to the mountain home of Abraham Lincoln Martz, father of Alva Curtis Martz, the new hero and idol of Somerset County home folks. The Martz home Is beyond the main range of Allegheny Mountain, at the end of a private road leading from the Brush Creek highway. Arriving at the Martz home, which nestles in a ravine that dents the eastern escarpment of the mountain, the reporter met Mrs. Martz, Alva’s doting mother, a comely matron of 50, a portly figure, at the front door, and, after saying “Good morning,” the reporter was ushered into the dining-room.
Mrs. Martz was entertaining relatives from the city. Gaiety was evidenced in the faces of the company; but Madam Martz, whose soldier son is in far-off France, and whose reception of the stranger had been most cordial, sensed bad news, and her face grew serious. How to break the suspense without a shock to the soldier’s mother became a problem for instant solution.
“Have you heard what Alva did?” inquired the reporter.
“Alva? My son? He’s in France. Why no, I haven’t heard a thing. What has he done?”
“Seventeen Germans! Oh, my. What wonderful news. I’m sorry for those poor Germans but if he killed them it was because he had to do it. Oh, what a grand boy Alva is! He never picked a quarrel with anybody. But he won’t be imposed on, either. He’s just right. I wouldn’t have him be anything but just what he is.”
“You say he fought his way out? That’s Alva every time. He had to do it. No German prison for Alva, if he can keep out. He’s a good shot, too. He substituted for another man in the West Virginia guard five years ago and he came home with a medal for his marksmanship, after only two weeks’ practice, and those West Virginians are some shots, too, I assure you. Oh, how glad I am that Alva hasn’t changed. He’s Just the same boy he always was. He is just right. And those poor Germans — why don’t they get a better government? This war is so horrible I try to keep from thinking about it; but I’m thinking about Alva always.
Yes. Alva enlisted; but he volunteered to keep out of the draft; he did not like the idea of getting drafted. He is in France because his country needed him. Do you think this country would draft Its men if they weren’t needed? Surely not. Yes, Alva wanted to go with the home boys, now of the 110th Regiment. He tells of Capt. Truxal’s good treatment of all the boys in all his letters to us —” but right here the fond mother’s conversation was interrupted by the appearance of the father, who came from a high hill with Alva’s Springfield shotgun poised on his shoulder.
“Yes,” said Mr. Martz, “my full name is Abraham Lincoln Martz. I was born in 1861 which makes me 57. Alva is 29.
“This is an anti-craft weapon; but I haven’t shot seventeen chicken hawks all this summer. Yes; I’m a good shot, too; but this gun is too short range for the big hawks that have been kidnapping our young turkeys on the hill. If the kaiser sends an army to North or South America I want to get some cracks at that army, old as I am. Don’t you think all the kings, emperors and czars are back numbers? Yes, my father served in the Civil War. My great-grandfather came from Germany. He never dreamed that his great-great-grandson would ever go over there and help shoot up the old kaiser system; but that is precisely what Alva is doing now, and I am mighty proud of his work. It’s time to fix the kings, and I believe President Wilson is after them. Can you think of a king or emperor, or czar, without feeling that they are out of date in this age of the world? I’m a Republican, but I’m strong on Wilson now. And there is George Creel; he was sure right in what he said. Had we been prepared before we got the evidence of the kaiser’s intentions I myself would have believed our leaders had joined England in a conspiracy to destroy Germany. But things have changed now; and as long as any king sits on the throne anywhere on the earth we must prepare to meet him and squelch when his time comes. We can’t stop this ware business without some war on our own account when it becomes necessary. I get hot when I think of the kings and princelings over there in Europe. President Wilson has the right cue on the court of public opinion. But how can a king come into court with clean hands, as Judge Ruppel so likes to tell the jury. That saying is as old as King David, but It holds the eternal truth about the rights of men and women. and nations as well. We could afford to be unprepared because we were strong, so really great and so mighty rich; and our example to the world was worth all it has cost us to go unprepared until the kaiser used the mailed
fist on us. Yes; I believe in Wilson and Creel, and I would not criticise any man connected with running this war while we are winning it.”
Then Mother Martz resumed. She was Miss Laura Berger of Donegal, Westmoreland County, Pa., before she became Mrs. Martz and the mother of Alva, one of the American “aces” of the world war.
“You know,” she resumed, “our family belonged to the Church of the Brethren. None of my ancestors went to war. It is he right view for professing Christians to hold; but you can carry any good system too far. I still believe the good old rule to injure neither any person nor anything except in self-defense. I taught Alva all this from his infancy almost; and he is as harmless as any Dunkard preacher if you don’t impose on him. He doesn’t mind what people say about him, or how much they threaten to do him bodily injury, but he will meet the blow with another if necessary for his own protection.”
All these things Mrs. Martz was telling to give the Democrat reporter the correct attitude of her son and of herself, and she told them with an air and manner as to imply — “I did not raise my boy to be a prisoner.”
Alva Martz is 5 feet and 10 Inches in height and weighs 180 pounds. He was born on March 21. 1890. He has a good Common school education, and he has worked at all kinds of labor since he was old enough to earn wages. He has been a lumber hand in the mountains of West Virginia, and he has built steel bridges. The last work he did was at the by-products coke works of the Koppers. near Pittsburgh. He enlisted in Co. C, 110th Regiment, on June 2, 1917. He was promoted to corporal last January.
Brush Creek Valley is a paradise of sylvan and pastoral beauty, but it is narrow valley that contracts its width as it approaches it’s mouth, where it empties into Wills’ Creek. It is plain that such a narrow defile could not for long hold a rover and world-war fighter like Alva Martz.
George Creel, You Say?
I rather lost interest at the conclusion of Abraham Martz telling us about using the Springfield Shotgun to shoot chicken hawks. Fully half of this article is almost certainly an instrument for rallying the public to support the war effort, which would go on for another three months. To today’s reader, it’s not hard to imagine George Creel virtually standing over the reporter’s shoulder helping him “recount” these lengthy pontifications of Mr. and Mrs. Martz. George Creel, if you’re not familiar, was the head of the “Committee on Public Information” – basically the propaganda office – selling the necessity of America’s involvement in WW1. If you thought the government controlling press content to “manufacture consent” was a new phenomenon, let this example dissuade you. The second half of this article reads more like a roadmap of moral rationalization to help any skeptical citizen overcome their questioning of American involvement in the European war. Little did Alva Martz’s parents know that they were laying out the Bush Doctrine for the proactive overthrow of foreign tyrants some eighty years in advance.
Be that as it may, there are many interesting elements to this article.
The Dunkards
First, do you know who the Dunkard’s are? They were an early anabaptist sect from Germany. The word “dunkard” comes from what we would recognize as the word “dunk”, reflecting their practice of believer’s baptism, an intentional public profession of faith in Jesus, the Resurrection, and dedication to his teachings by immersion in water. You can read more about them here. Incidentally, the church in the Antietam battlefield during the Civil War is a Dunkard church.
The Kaiser
I found it interesting that the newspaper’s article never capitalized the word “kaiser”, even though it is an honorific specifically referring to a specific individual in this case, the same as you would refer to “the President” when referring not to the office but to reference the individual. I’m sure this slight was en vogue at the time.
Trivia Moment: the title of kaiser, if you don’t know, like czar, derives from Caesar. In Latin, the ‘C’ is a hard sound like the letter ‘K’ in English. It’s pretty easy to see the connection to these other two titles when you pronounce Caesar “properly”.
“I’m a Republican but…”
Some things never change with the press. I got a chuckle out of the line from Pops Martz that, “I’m a Republican, but I’m strong on Wilson now.” And that George Creel, what a guy!
The Good Humor
I really appreciated the reporter’s sense of awkwardness when approaching the mother of Alva Martz to tell her – a religiously pacifist member of a hereditarily German family living deep in the valley – that her son was a war hero for shooting not just Germans, but 17 Germans in one go. How he must have imagined that conversation the whole ride over! His outburst of support and admiration and rationalization upon telling Mrs. Matz the news is something to behold. How relieved he must have been, if indeed we can rely on him recounting her disposition faithfully, that she received the news without throwing him out the front door, chickens a-squawking.
The Springfield Shotgun
Well, of course I’m inclined to think this is the Springfield Model 1881 Forager, the Springfield Armory’s only trapdoor shotgun and of which I’ve written about extensively here. In 1918, it has been retired from general military service for nearly 15 years. It’s not hard to imagine the gun making its way to Pennsylvania by way of a retirement auction at Springfield Armory, then through local hardware stores or private sales, or indeed even returning East from origins West of the Mississippi. Of course, this supposes the reporter even knows what he’s looking at. It could just as likely have been a shotgun made from Springfield parts by E.C. Meechum or similar. I was also interested that the reporter makes a point to note that this was Alva’s shotgun. Note to future reporters: tell us the serial number next time you’re talking about a war hero’s personally owned shotgun. Inquiring minds 100 years in the future will want to know. I jest, but not really.
Anyway, that’s it for now. Hopefully you enjoyed reading the newspaper article, and it inspires you to learn more about any of the elements therein.
