Free Dog Diaries 07 - Stubby by Kate Klimo

against each other to build their own empires, were quick to choose sides. Russia came to the aid of Serbia. Germany allied with Austria-Hungary. When Germany invaded France through Belgium, France joined the war, and Britain soon followed. The Turks sidedwith Germany. The Italians joined France against Austria-Hungary. Soon it seemed like all of Europe had piled onto the bloody, multinational heap that would later be known as World War I. At the time it was fought, however, most everyone called it the Great War.
    What was so great about it? The sheer brutality of its weapons, for one: airplanes, U-boats (which we now call submarines), machine guns, and poison gas. Its range, for another: from the Atlantic Ocean in the west across Europe to the Russian Empire in the east and south as far as the Persian Gulf. Its consequences were certainly great, resulting in the destruction of old empires—Austria-Hungary’s Hapsburg, Russia’s Romanov, and Turkey’s Ottoman—and the formation of new countries, such as Czechoslovakia, Syria, and Yugoslavia. And certainly the casualties were great: over37 million dead, including civilians and military.
    American president Woodrow Wilson did everything he could to keep the United States out of the Great War. It was a European turf dispute, he said, and the U.S. had no stake in it. The war raged on for three years while the U.S. remained in isolation. But in April 1917, Wilson had had enough. He went before Congress to get their support for America’s entering the war. The reason he cited was that Germany had violated its pledge to suspend submarine warfare in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean. But it was Germany’s secret attempt to lure Mexico—America’s neighbor to the south—into the war that might have been the final straw. On April 4, 1917, the U.S. Senate voted to support Wilson’s declaration of war. Two days later, on April 6, 1917, the House supportedthe motion. The United States declared war on Germany.
    The 102nd Infantry Regiment, Twenty-sixth Yankee Division, with Stubby in tow, were the first to make up the American Expeditionary Forces. They were shipped to France in June 1917. There, on the battlegrounds of France, the Twenty-sixth fought the longest—210 days—and sustained the greatest number of gas casualties of any American unit. For a bunch of green boys from New England, they fought hard and bravely. In fact, the Germans considered them one of the four best assault divisions in the U.S. Army. Fighting alongside his master, Private John Robert Conroy, Stubby participated in all four major offenses—St. Mihiel, Meuse-Argonne, Aisne-Marne, and Champagne Marne—and in seventeen battles, including Chemindes Dames, Seicheprey, and Chateau-Thierry. He was wounded twice, first by gas and later by grenade. In Donremy, the birthplace of Joan of Arc, the grateful ladies of Chateau-Thierry presented Stubby with his own chamois army jacket, having lovingly sewn onto it medals and decals marking his career campaigns.
    Stubby had earned every one of those medals. He warned the men about gas and mortar attacks. He caught a German spy by the seat of his pants. He kept up morale in the trenches. And in every field station and Red Cross hospital he visited, he offered comfort and encouragement to the wounded and sick. By December 1918, when President Wilson came to Humes, France, to review the troops on his way to negotiating a peace settlement, Stubby’s exploits had made him as famous as he was beloved.
    Stubby returned stateside following the Armistice to a hero’s welcome. In a highly publicized ceremony, General “Black Jack” Pershing, Supreme Commander of the American Forces, presented Stubby with a gold medal minted by the Humane Education Society (a forerunner of the Humane Society). Naturally, Stubby saluted the general with his paw, just as Conroy had taught him to do at the start of the war. The YMCA granted Stubby lifelong membership, including three