| Notes |
- There are 2 Isidore Goldbergs listed in WWI in the US Army. The first one is not related to this tree: Isador Goldberg was a private in Co. M, 313 Inf. who died of wounds on 26 September 1919 having been returned to the U.S. His service number was 3109363. He is listed in Soldiers of the Great War, the Report of Casualties of the AEF by States, 1920 and History of the Seventy-ninth Division AEF During the World War, 1917-1919.
The second one has a service number of 256 677. Here is the information about him from Phil Krastman:
Isidore Goldberg was gassed by the Germans in WWI when they first used mustard gas on American Troops. Isidore was very strong and managed to keep fighting and pulling his comrades to safety during the attack. It took over a year for the Mustard Gas to eat out Isidore's lungs. My mother was with Isidore when he died. His last wishes were discussed with my mom and her mother. His military life insurance, he wanted to leave to his sister, my grandma. She told him that she did not need it and they agreed to have the government send the money to your grandfather and his siblings in Baisagola, Russia. I have the military record to confirm most of this. The photocopy that I hold is of poor quality so I will have to retype it to you.
Silver Star
Goldberg, Isidore
1032 S. Eutaw St., Baltimore
Beisagola, Russia; 25 yrs 10 mos
Ind. 11/5/17 pvt aside( he actually volunteered as he was not a citizen yet and did not have to go.)
Co L 313 Inf; 12 Co 3 Tng Bn 154 Dep Brig 12/18/17; 10 Co 154 Dep Brig 12/27/17; 10 Co Camp Meade Det Prov
Ret Bn 1/3/18; aside ( Camp Meade was the military intelligence training area, now the NSA is there)
6 Btry B 7 FA 2/18/18; Patient at Hosp 7/8/18
Overseas 1/12/18 to 8/14/18
Ansauville Sector; Cantigny Sector; Montdidier-Noyon; Cantigny Sector
Died tuberculosis 1/14/19 Otisville N.Y. aside ( he did not have TB, he died of his lungs being eaten out by Mustard Gas. He is interred in an old Jewish Cemetery in East Baltimore. I think that I have seen the large granite tombstone. Your dad is named for him. In case your Dad wants to visit the cemetery, he better be prepared for mountain climbing! The grave may not be reached by motorized vehicle and the cemetery is in poor upkeep as the congregations have long since dissolved. As for the death benefits that the military sent to your Grandfather, you should track down that money. If you need my Mom to corroborate the history to US Military, she will. My mom worked during WWII at Abardine US Army Proving Grounds as a secretary/ clerk.
1918
May 28
U.S. troops score victory at Cantigny In the first sustained American offensive of World War I, an Allied force including a full brigade of nearly 4,000 United States soldiers captures the village of Cantigny, on the Somme River in France, from their German enemy.
Though the United States formally entered World War I on the side of the Allies in April 1917, they
were not fully prepared to send significant numbers of troops into battle until a full year had
passed. By May 1918, however, large numbers of American soldiers had arrived in France, just in
time to face the onslaught of the great German spring offensive.
On May 28, a day after their French allies suffered a blistering defeat on the Aisne River, a two-hour
artillery barrage preceded the attack on Cantigny, located further north on the Western Front. The
French army provided air cover, artillery, heavy tanks and-in an especially effective tactic teams
of flamethrowers to aid the U.S. advance through the German-held village, which was quickly
overrun. The Americans took 100 German prisoners by the end of that day.
The commander in chief of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), General John J. Pershing, gave
the order that no inch of Cantigny was to be surrendered. Over the next 72 hours, the Americans in
Cantigny endured seven German counterattacks, maintaining control of the village despite high
casualties, with 200 soldiers killed and another 200 incapacitated by German gas attacks. By the
time relief finally came, total U.S. casualties at Cantigny had reached over 1,000, and the soldiers
were exhausted from the strain of continual shelling. As their commander, Colonel Hanson E. Ely,
remembered: They could only stagger back, hollow-eyed with sunken cheeks, and if one stopped
for a moment he would fall asleep.
As the first major U.S. victory, the capture of Cantigny had a threefold impact on the war eort
in the spring of 1918: first, it deprived the Germans of an important observation point for their troops
on the Western Front. It also lent weight to Pershing’s argument that an independent U.S.
command should be maintained apart from the joint Allied command. Finally, it provided a warning
to the Germans that the Americans, although recently arrived and relatively new to the battlefield,
were not a force to be taken lightly
Life in the Trenches of World War I
Trenches-long, deep ditches dug as protective defenses-are most often associated with World War I, and the results of trench warfare in that conflict were hellish indeed.
BRIAN DUNLEAVY
When Union Army general William Tecumseh Sherman famously said “War is hell,” he was referring to war in general, but he could have been describing trench warfare, a military tactic that’s been traced to the Civil War. Trenches-long, deep ditches dug as protective defenses-are most often associated with World War I, and the results of trench warfare in that conflict were hellish indeed.
Read a Harlem Hellghter's Searing Tale from the World War I
Trenches
Trenches were common throughout the Western Front. Trench warfare in World War I was employed primarily on the Western Front, an area of northern France and Belgium that saw combat between German troops and Allied forces from France, Great Britain and, later, the United States. Although trenches were hardly new to combat: Prior to the advent of rearms and artillery, they were used as defenses against attack, such as moats surrounding castles. But they became a fundamental part of strategy with the influx of modern weapons of war. Long, narrow trenches dug into the ground at the front, usually by the infantry soldiers who would occupy them for weeks at a time, were designed to protect World War I troops from machine-gun fire and artillery attack from the
6/3/2020 Life in the Trenches of World War I - HISTORY
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As the “Great War” also saw the wide use of chemical warfare and poison gas, the trenches were thought to offer some degree of protection against exposure. (While significant exposure to militarized chemicals such as mustard gas would result in almost certain death, many of the gases used in World War I were still relatively weak.)
Thus, trenches may have afforded some protection by allowing soldiers more time to take other defensive steps, such as putting on gas masks. Trench warfare caused enormous numbers of casualties.
At least initially in World War I, forces mounted attacks from the trenches, with bayonets fixed to their rifles, by climbing over the top edge into what was known as “no man’s land,” the area between opposing forces, usually in a single, straight line and under a barrage of gun fire. Not surprisingly, this approach was rarely effective, and often led to mass casualties. Later in the war, forces began mounting attacks from the trenches at night, usually with support of covering artillery fire.
The Germans soon became known for effectively mounting nighttime incursions behind enemy lines, by sending highly trained soldiers to attack the trenches of opposing forces at what they perceived as
weak points. If successful, these soldiers would breach enemy lines and circle around to attack
their opponents from the rear, while their comrades would mount a traditional offensive at the front.
The brutality of trench warfare is perhaps best typified by the 1916 Battle of the Somme in France. British troops suffered 60,000 casualties on the first day of fighting alone
READ MORE: Why Was the Battle of the Somme So Deadly?
Disease and ‘shell shock’ were rampant in the trenches. With soldiers fighting in close proximity in the trenches, usually in unsanitary conditions, infectious diseases such as dysentery, cholera and typhoid fever were common and spread rapidly. Constant exposure to wetness caused trench foot, a painful condition in which dead tissue spread across one or both feet, sometimes requiring amputation. Trench
mouth, a type of gum infection, was also problematic and is thought to be associated with the stress of nonstop bombardment. As they were often effectively trapped in the trenches for long periods of time, under nearly constant bombardment, many soldiers suffered from “shell shock,” the debilitating mental illness known today as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It’s likely all of these factors, which stemmed from the widespread use of trench warfare, made World War I the deadliest conflict in global history to that point. It’s believed that as many as one in 10 of all fighting forces in the conflict were killed. It was also the worst conflict in world history to have more deaths caused from combat, rather than from disease spread during fighting. Trench warfare was also employed in World War II and in the Korean War to some degree, but it has not been used regularly during conflict
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1893 - 1919 (~ 25 years)
