The Zawada Family during WWI

Zawada Family History

The Great War: 1914 - 1918

After the copper miner strike ended on Easter Sunday, Frank Jr. went back to work at the mines a week later on April 15, 1914.

Two months later, on June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife of Austria-Hungary was assassinated by a Bosnian-Serb, thereby setting off The Great War (WWI).

Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia for the assassination and declared war on them. Being backed by Germany, Austria-Hungary thought they had the upper hand. However, Russia was bound by treaty to come to the aid of Serbia in the event of war, so Russia declared war on Austria-Hungary.
Germany reacted, being bound to Austria-Hungary, and declared war on Russia.

This spiraled things out of control;
France, who had an existing treaty with Russia, responded to Germany's declaration of war on Russia by declaring war on Germany and also on Austria-Hungary, Germany's ally.
Germany, now angry with France, invaded neutral Belgium to get to Paris in the shortest route possible.

Britain just so happened to have an existing treaty with Belgium, and declared war on Germany. Now much of Europe was in a tangled mess.

Franz Ferdinand and his family.

Caught in the middle of Germany and Russia was Poland; half of Poland was under the rulership of the German Empire and no longer called Poland, and that is where Frank Zawada emigrated from. The other half of Poland was under the rulership of Russia, and was still called Poland, although it was more like an Imperial City.

Poles ended up divided on the fighting line, some siding with Russia and some siding with Germany, and thusly Poles fought against Poles in the Great War.

How did our family and the Polish community they dwelled within react to the Great War? Did this divide the Polish community in Calumet and in the U.S.?

In the 1914 map above, Poland is divided in half between Germany and Russia, and still holds
the name "Poland" under Russia. Map courtesy of firstworldwar.com.
"The map above...shows the geographical location of the Eastern front stretching from Riga in the north to Czernowitz in the south. The orange line shows the position of the Eastern Front in 1915. Each coloured square represents 50,000 men. Red represents the Russian army, yellow, German soldiers and blue Austro-Hungarian." - historyonthenet.com

The U.S. Declares Itself Neutral
On August 19, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson made a public address to the nation declaring the U.S. as neutral. In his address, Wilson cautioned U.S. citizens against taking up sides in the war abroad:

"The effect of the war upon the United States will depend upon what American citizens say and do. Every man who really loves America will act and speak in the true spirit of neutrality, which is the spirit of impartiality and fairness and friendliness to all concerned.

The spirit of the nation in this critical matter will be determined largely by what individuals and society and those gathered in public meetings do and say, upon what newspapers and magazines contain, upon what ministers utter in their pulpits, and men proclaim as their opinions upon the street.

The people of the United States are drawn from many nations, and chiefly from the nations now at war. It is natural and inevitable that there should be the utmost variety of sympathy and desire among them with regard to the issues and circumstances of the conflict.

Some will wish one nation, others another, to succeed in the momentous struggle. It will be easy to excite passion and difficult to allay it. Those responsible for exciting it will assume a heavy responsibility, responsibility for no less a thing than that the people of the United States, whose love of their country and whose loyalty to its government should unite them as Americans all, bound in honour and affection to think first of her and her interests, may be divided in camps of hostile opinion, hot against each other, involved in the war itself in impulse and opinion if not in action.

Such divisions amongst us would be fatal to our peace of mind and might seriously stand in the way of the proper performance of our duty as the one great nation at peace, the one people holding itself ready to play a part of impartial mediation and speak the counsels of peace and accommodation, not as a partisan, but as a friend.

I venture, therefore, my fellow countrymen, to speak a solemn word of warning to you against that deepest, most subtle, most essential breach of neutrality which may spring out of partisanship, out of passionately taking sides.

The United States must be neutral in fact, as well as in name, during these days that are to try men's souls. We must be impartial in thought, as well as action, must put a curb upon our sentiments, as well as upon every transaction that might be construed as a preference of one party to the struggle before another." - President Woodrow Wilson, August 19, 1914

Frank Zawada had filed his intent to become a U.S. citizen in 1912, but on September 1, 1914, just thirteen days after Wilson's speech, Frank made good on his intent and filed his petition for naturalization, stating

"I am attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and it is my intention to become a citizen of the United States and to renounce absolutely and forever all allegiances and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, and particularly to William II, German Emperor of whom at this time I am a subject, and it is my intention to reside permanently in the United States."

Frank Zawada's Petition for Naturalization

Frank Zawada's Petition for Naturalization, signed on September 1, 1914

The Great War Begins To Affect U.S. Commerce Abroad
Early on in the war, Britain, with the largest naval fleet in the world, set up a naval blockade to prevent Germany from receiving imported goods. The blockade was so strict that even food was considered to be wartime contraband.

This ended up profoundly affecting the exports of the United States, including the copper industry, and the U.S. complained loudly:

"America turns out over half of all the copper produced in the world but consumes only a third of the world's output. Over half our product has been exported in recent years. This means that of the growing number of our citizens employed in copper mining and smelting, about 70,000 in all, over half are normally working to supply foreign markets.
The principal foreign taker of our copper is Germany. This is due to the development of the German industry in manufactured copper, ranking second only to our own.
...While the actual monetary loss which befell copper interests (and they suffered heavy losses in the first six months of the war) was not so great as in the case of cotton, such losses as did occur were traceable to violations of international law and the rights of neutral trade, of a character especially flagrant." Economic Aspects of the War Neutral Rights, Belligerent Claims and American Commerce in the Years 1914 - 1915, by Edwin J. Clapp, Professor of Economics at New York University.

William Jennings Bryan, U.S. Secretary of State, had corresponded with Britain about the trouble with the British naval blockade:

"The Government of the United States does not intend at this time to discuss the propriety of including certain articles in the lists of absolute and conditional contraband, which have been proclaimed by His Majesty. Open to objection as some of these seem to this Government, the chief ground of present complaint is the treatment of cargoes of both classes of articles when bound to neutral ports.
Articles listed as absolute contraband, shipped from the United States and consigned to neutral countries, have been seized and detained on the ground that the countries to which they were destined have not prohibited the exportation of such articles. Unwarranted as such detentions are, in the opinion of this Government, American exporters are further perplexed by the apparent indecision of the British authorities in applying their own rules to neutral cargoes. For example, a shipment of copper from this country to a specified consignee in Sweden was detained because, as was stated by Great Britain, Sweden had placed no embargo on copper. On the other hand, Italy not only prohibited the export of copper, but, as this Government is informed, put in force a decree that shipments to Italian consignees or "to order," which arrive in ports of Italy, can not be exported or transshipped. The only exception Italy makes is of copper which passes through that country in transit to another country. In spite of these decrees, however, the British Foreign Office has thus far declined to affirm that copper shipments consigned to Italy will not be molested on the high seas. Seizures are so numerous and delays so prolonged that exporters are afraid to send their copper to Italy, steamship lines decline to accept it, and insurers refuse to issue policies upon it. In a word, a legitimate trade is being greatly impaired through uncertainty as to the treatment which it may expect at the hands of the British authorities." - Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan to Walter Hines Page, U.S. Ambassador in Great Britain.

However, Bryan was met with the following reply:

"I can not believe that, with such figures before them and in such cases as those just mentioned, the Government of the United States would question the propriety of the action of His Majesty's Government in taking suspected cargoes to a prize court, and we are convinced that it can not be in accord with the wish either of the Government or of the people of the United States to strain the international code in favor of private interests so as to prevent Great Britain from taking such legitimate means for this purpose as are in her power." - Sir Edward Grey to William Jennings Bryan.

How did these economic sanctions affect Frank Zawada's family?
Frank Zawada was back to work at the mines, as was his son Frank Jr., but his other son Joe seems to have dropped from the employment rolls. By now, Joe was a young man of seventeen. What happened to Joe? Had he left home?

Germany Develops the U-Boat
In the theatre of war, the Germans, who had a sizable navy of their own, responded to the British blockade with the introduction of submarine warfare. "On February 4, 1915, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany declared the seas around the British Isles a war zone. Effective 18 February, Allied ships in the area would be sunk without warning. British ships hiding behind neutral flags would not be spared, though some effort would be made to avoid sinking clearly neutral vessels." - encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com

Germany made good on its word, and even sunk some American ships. This angered the United States, who gave Germany a warning.

Then, on May 7, 1915 - German submarines struck again, sinking The Lusitania, which was known to be carrying arms along with its civilian passengers. A total of 1,198 perished, including 128 U.S. citizens.

The United States issued another warning but did not go to war, which angered the Allied nations and many U.S. citizens.

U-boat: the SM U-86, which sank 32 ships in 2 years, killing multitudes.
Courtesy of uboat.net

The sinking of the Lusitania, as depicted in the New York Times, Saturday, May 8, 1915.
Courtesy of wreckhunter.net

In Calumet, Frank and his son continued to work to support the family. In 1916, Frank Zawada was awarded a bronze medal by Calumet & Hecla for his continued years of service despite losing a leg in the mine.
Also by 1916, Joe resurfaces and we find him, now 19 years old, downstate Michigan. He worked for the Aluminum Castings Company in Detroit as a Bonus Clerk and then a Timekeeper for one year.
Frank Jr. stayed in Calumet, still living at home to help support his parents and siblings. Sisters Marian and Clarice were 17 and 15 respectively, and may have been working at this point to further help out the family, since there were still five more siblings under the age of 13 in the household to feed and clothe.

Early in 1917, as the Great War raged on, the U.S. severed diplomatic relations with Germany, who failed to cease unrestricted submarine warfare, sinking even more U.S. commercial ships. There was also the issue of the Zimmerman Telegram:

"We intend to begin unrestricted submarine warfare on the first of February. We shall endeavor in spite of this to keep the United States neutral. In the event of this not succeeding, we make Mexico a proposal of an alliance on the following basis: Make war together, make peace together, generous financial support, and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The settlement detail is left to you." - sent by German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmerman in January 1917 to Count von Bernstorff, the German ambassador in the United States, to relay to the Imperial Minister in Mexico.

Woodrow Wilson, outraged by this, shared the telegram with the general U.S. public, garnering their outrage, and then the U.S. severed diplomatic ties with Germany.

The Selective Service Act Draws The Zawada Family Into the War
On May 18, 1917, the U.S. instituted the draft through the creation of the Selective Service Act, and a month later, U.S. president Woodrow Wilson declared war on Germany after losing 5 more U.S. ships to German submarines.

Less than a month later, on June 5, 1917, the order came to U.S. citizens that all men born between June 6, 1886 and June 5, 1896 had to register for the draft. This meant that Frank Jr. had to register. How nervous the family must have been! (Frank Jr. can be found on: World War I Draft Registration Cards, Microfilm Roll List, M1509: Michigan MI94).

Meanwhile, downstate, Joe quit the Aluminum Castings Company in Detroit on June 30, 1917 and traveled to Hibbing, Minnesota. There, he began work for the Oliver Mining Company as a Machine Helper in August, 1917.

The town is named after Frank Hibbing, a German immigrant and iron ore prospector who discovered surface indications of extensive ore deposits in the area the year before the town was founded in 1893. (Ore is found in a rock called taconite.)
As the town grew, so did the mines. Beginning in 1919, about 200 structures in Hibbing were moved two miles south to the hamlet of Alice to make way for the expanding pits. At one time, there were more than 20 different mining companies and mines near Hibbing and as the mines expanded, they connected, creating Hull Rust, the largest open pit iron mine in the world. At 2,291 acres, the pit is more than 3 miles long, up to 2 miles wide, and 600 feet deep. Since ore shipping began in 1895, more than 1.4 billion tons of rock have been removed from the pit. Over the years, the ore has been used to build Americas furnaces and factories, ships and skyscrapers, bridges and automobiles. The mine is likely to supply the nation for years to come. - americanprofile.com.

That December, the U.S. involvement in The Great War increased as the U.S. declared war on Austria.

Joe stayed in Hibbing, MN for a total of 8 months before he received word to come back to Calumet...his brother Frank had been drafted.
Joe quit the Oliver Mining Company on April 18, 1918 and made his way back home.

Frank Jr. meanwhile had quit his job at the mines and withdrew his miner benefit pay.

Frank Jr., age 21, Frank's brother Ray, about age 1 1/2,
and their mother Victoria, age 37. The picture is dated 1918.

Closeup of Frank Jr., Victoria and Ray Zawada.

On April 27, Frank Jr. was shipped off to Camp Morrison, Virginia to serve in the U.S. military. Camp Morrison was a military Air Service Depot for the newly formed balloon and aero squadrons to be deployed overseas.

Joe resumed work in the copper mines on May 17, 1918, presumably in place of his brother.

During Frank Jr.'s stay in the service, he either worked for or attended school at the University of Texas A&M and the College of Texas, as these are noted on his mining application for Calumet & Hecla in 1918. "School, Chicago" is also noted on Frank's mining application.
Four months after Frank Jr. left for the service, he was granted a short leave and returned home to his family. On August 23, 1918, Frank Jr. married Marie Judnich, daughter of John and Mary (Girdisich) Judnich. They wed at St. Joseph's Church in Calumet (now known as St. Paul's). Then, before he could settle back in, Frank had to return to Camp Morrison for further military training.

The Flu Epidemic of 1918
While Frank Jr. was away, the "Spanish Flu" became a global pandemic, killing up to ten times as many people in the U.S. as it killed U.S. soldiers overseas.

Often the symptoms of a brief fever of short duration was followed abruptly by death. So quickly did the strain overwhelm the body's natural defences that the usual cause of death in influenza patients - a secondary infection of lethal pneumonia - was often not present. Instead, the virus caused an uncontrollable haemorrhaging that filled the lungs, and patients would drown in their own body fluids. - firstworldwar.com.

By October 12, 1918, over 250,000 U.S. soldiers were stricken with the flu in military camps throughout the United States.
"Eighty percent of the deaths of the U.S. armed forces personnel during World War I were attributed to influenza." - When the flu ravaged the world, by Vivian M. Baulch at detnews.com.

In Michigan, by mid-October, 8,000 cases of flu had been reported. This, out of a total population of 2.8 million people state-wide.
In Detroit, they wrestled with 1,059 flu cases by mid-October, out of a total population of 466,000 people.

Michigan Governor Albert E. Sleeper ordered that "all conventions and public gatherings of every description be abandoned until such time as the State Board of Health considers that they may be held with safety." Sleeper warned "So serious has the epidemic of Spanish influenza become in Michigan that drastic action may be necessary to prevent a further spread of the disease."
And he was right - the very next day, 503 new cases of the flu were reported, "double the number expected. The day after brought 775 new cases. The Board of Health banned all gatherings of crowds. Churches, schools and theaters were ordered closed." - When the flu ravaged the world, by Vivian M. Baulch at detnews.com.

Soldiers march in a send-off parade down Woodward in 1918
wearing gauze masks in an attempt to protect themselves
from the flu. Courtesy Detroit News.

Red Cross workers, making daily rounds through
neighborhoods to pick up the dead.
Courtesy Detroit News.

The Keweenaw Peninsula was not immune from the flu pandemic, as indicated by the letter below, sent to a soldier from the Keweenaw:

" ...Spanish Influenza has the good old Copper Country in its clutches all right. Every body's got it, pretty nearly, even unto the man and his dog. Thank goodness, the state wide ban will be lifted Sunday. Every thing's been closed for three weeks, churches, schools, theaters, and every thing else. And when I went home from work every night, I was afraid the order would include Houses, too, and I'd politely find myself locked out of house and home. There hasn't been a public funeral inside of three weeks, and we don't know any more what it is to stand inside of three feet of any one else when talking to him. Such is life when Influenza is around. Taking all in all, though it has poor chances of sticking around in little, old Hubbell. It's too dead for a live germ like a flu one..." - Anna Ressman, a member of a church correspondence committee in Hubbell, MI (about 7 miles from Calumet), writing to soldier Russel John Messner. As seen on the MIHOUGHT email list on rootsweb.com.

The Great War Comes To An End
On November 9, 1918, likely to the relief of Frank Zawada and many others, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated. Two days later, the armistice was signed, ending the Great War.

During the Great War, "2 million Polish troops fought with the armies of the three occupying powers (Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary), and 450,000 died. Several hundred thousand Polish civilians were moved to labor camps in Germany." - encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com.
In terms of U.S. casualties, over 116,000 soldiers lost their lives to WWI both at home and abroad.

With the war finally over, Frank Jr., having never seen actual combat, returned to his wife in Calumet on December 27, 1918. He applied immediately to resume work at the mines.

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