The History of Riley and the Roaring Twenties: Suggested Reading

Work with schools after a book talk, showing boys gathered from New York Public Library

Adler, Polly. A House is Not a Home. New York, Rinehart & Company, Inc., 1953.

Berg, A. Scott. Lindbergh. New York: Berkley Books, 1999.

Breslin, Jimmy. Damon Runyon, A Life. New York: Laurel Trade Paperback, 1991.

Bryson, Bill. One Summer: America, 1927. New York: Doubleday, 2013.

Chernow, Ron.  The House of Morgan. New York: Grove Press, 2001.

Cook, Kevin.  The True Story of Titanic Thompson, The Man Who Bet on Everything. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2011.

DiMatteo, Frank. Mob Candy: Brooklyn Gangsters. Brooklyn, NY: Mob Candy, Inc., 2013.

Downey, Patrick. Gangster City: The History of the New York Underworld, 1900-1935. Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books, 2004.

Hayde, Frank R. The Mafia and the Machine: The Story of the Kansas City Mob. Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books, 2010.

Immerso, Michael. Coney Island, The People’s Playground. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002.

Newark, Tim. Boardwalk Gangster, The Real Lucky Luciano. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2010.

Norris, William.  The Man Who Fell From the Sky. Haines City, FL: SynergEbooks, 2000.

Parker, Dorothy. Complete Stories. New York: Penguin Books, 2003.

Pietrusza, David. Rothstein. New York: Basic Books, 2011.

Thurber, James. The Years With Roth. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1959.

The History of Riley and the Roaring Twenties: The Death of Arnold Rothstein

Arnold Rothstein

The Pendergast machine kept Kansas City a wide-open town, all through Prohibition. The first boss of the machine was Big Jim Pendergast, a hard-living, brawling Irishman who owned a saloon in the West Bottoms neighborhood. He died in 1911 and his more business-like brother Tom took over the organization, which made sure that only Democrats who towed the Pendergast line could be elected. The Pendergasts achieved their power by doing favors for the grass roots, making sure to feed the needy and care for the poor, in exchange for their votes. Harry Truman became a county judge and then a U.S. Senator (the so-called “Senator from Pendergast”) because he was supported by the machine. The Pendergasts maintained cozy relations with organized crime in Kansas City, led by the DiGiovanni brothers and represented politically by Johnny Lazia.

Kansas City is known for jazz, barbecue and baseball. Today, the American Jazz Museum is located in the 18th and Vine neighborhood, in the same complex as the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. While 18th and Vine is the traditional hub of black commerce in Kansas City, the center of the jazz scene in the twenties and thirties was at 12th and Vine, as immortalized in the song “Kansas City.” The clubs mentioned by Riley all existed and in the twenties they featured jazz by a wide variety of players, including the “Big, Black & Dirty” ensemble favored by Jack O’Neal. The scene exploded into a major home of American jazz in the thirties, with musicians like Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Lester Young and Jay McShann. Riley was fortunate to have heard the beginnings of Kansas City jazz.

 Alfred Loewenstein was a mysterious man. It was not entirely clear where his money came from, but it must be said that no clear evidence exists that he participated in the narcotics trade, as claimed by Cornelius. Speculation on this front has arisen mainly because of his meeting with Arnold Rothstein in May of 1928, and his mysterious death the following July. No theory that has been advanced to explain Loewenstein’s alleged fall from his private plane is remotely credible. At least the explanation by Cornelius has the virtue of simplicity. The entire story of Rothstein competing with Frankie Yale for a narcotics connection with Alfred Loewenstein, and then murdering both Yale and Loewenstein to acquire that connection, is supported only by the account of Riley and Cornelius.

Rothstein was truly hurting for money in the summer of 1928, because of failed investments and large gambling losses. He then lost big in a poker match with, among others, Titanic Thompson and Nate Raymond, in September. Thompson was initially partnering with Rothstein, but canceled the partnership during the game and instead partnered with Raymond. As the man who set up the game, Hump McManus was obliged to see that Rothstein paid his markers, but Rothstein kept putting it off, saying he would pay them after the upcoming elections on which he had made major bets.

On November 4, 1928, Rothstein took a call at Lindy’s, which he regularly used as his office. He then handed his gun to Jimmy Meehan, saying he had to go see Hump McManus, who was staying in Room 349 at the Park Central. Sometime later, Rothstein came lurching down the steps of the hotel, shot in the groin. He died two days later. A panicked search was undertaken for Rothstein’s records of his crimes, only some of which were ever found. With public pressure mounting for a prosecution, Hump McManus was finally put on trial for the murder almost a year after Rothstein’s death. The participants in the September poker game gave conflicting and confusing testimony. McManus was acquitted. Many years later, he claimed that he had indeed shot Rothstein. Nowhere in the historical record have I found any suggestion that Rothstein was actually shot by the person blamed in the reports of Riley and Cornelius.

Damon Runyon died of lung cancer in 1946. As Cornelius reports, his ashes were scattered over Broadway from a plane flown by World War I ace Eddie Rickenbacker. In his honor, Walter Lippmann and others formed the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation.

The History of Riley and the Roaring Twenties: Cornelius on Broadway

Daisy Buchanan by Azur Cosplay Photography on Flickr at https://flic.kr/p/spBWY3

The Jimmy Breslin biography of Damon Runyon that is mentioned by Cornelius is an excellent and entertaining account of Runyon’s life, although it is not annotated and one suspects that Breslin did not let excessive devotion to historical accuracy get in the way of a good story. Runyon was born in 1880 in Manhattan, Kansas, allowing many a writer to comment on how he was born in one Manhattan and became the inimitable voice of another one. At least he had the good sense to be born in the one in Kansas and to become the voice of the one in New York, rather than the other way around.

 Runyon had a brilliant career as a reporter for the Hearst organization, during which he developed a reputation on Broadway as someone who was always around and always kept his eyes open, but wouldn’t create problems for anyone. Thus, he was allowed access to a world of gamblers, hustlers and gangsters that normally had no use for outsiders. He turned what he saw and heard into a remarkably popular series of funny, sentimental and astonishingly well-written short stories that created the model for the good-hearted bad guy that has become a staple in books and movies. He always used the present tense and wrote in a slang language that has become known as Runyonese. Beyond the iconic Runyon musical Guys and Dolls, movies based on his stories include The Lemon Drop Kid with Bob Hope; A Pocketful of Miracles with Bette Davis and Glenn Ford; and Little Miss Marker with Shirley Temple.

Giuseppe “Joe the Boss” Masseria came to New York from Sicily and by 1922, he had fought his way to the leadership of a Mafia crime family in lower Manhattan. His chief lieutenant, as in the novel, was Charles Lucano, who became known as Lucky Luciano after newspapers got his name wrong. Others in Masseria’s crew included Vito Genovese, Albert Anastasia and Frank Costello, and his family was allied with Jewish gangsters Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel. In 1930, Masseria’s family became involved in a war with a rival gang led by Salvatore Maranzano. It was called the Castellammarese War because Maranzano had emigrated from Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily. The war ended when Luciano turned his coat and arranged for Masseria to be murdered at his favorite restaurant in Coney Island. Masseria is said to have had the honor of being executed by four of the modern Mafia’s fiercest killers: Vito Genovese, Albert Anastasia, Joe Adonis and Bugsy Siegel.

 Maranzano also proved unsatisfactory to Mr. Luciano, who had him killed five months after the murder of Masseria. Luciano then led the process of organizing the Mafia under the leadership of “the Commission”  or “the Syndicate,” which was to make decisions and resolve underworld disputes nationwide. The enforcement arm of the Commission was nicknamed Murder Incorporated and was headed by Albert Anastasia and Louis “Lepke” Buchalter.

 Polly Adler was born in Russia in 1900. On coming to New York, she worked as a showgirl and drifted into the world of prostitution. With an engaging personality and a shrewd head for business, she became the city’s leading madam and headed a brothel that attracted a clientele both from high society and from the mob. Patrons are said to have included Robert Benchley, George S. Kaufman, Dutch Schultz, Harold Ross, Desi Arnaz, Milton Berle and Peter Arno. There is a rumor that the vanished Judge Crater died at one of Polly’s brothels.

The story of the Algonquin Round Table is too well known to require much rehashing. As Cornelius describes, the Table began when Dorothy Parker was fired from Vanity Fair and her friends Robert Benchley and Robert Sherwood resigned in protest. The trio began lunching at the Rose Room in the Algonquin and came to be joined by a number of writers, artists and theatrical people, many of whom are named in the novel. Accusations abounded that the members of the Round Table shamelessly promoted each other and dished outsiders. Alexander Woollcott and Harpo Marx were great friends, although Harpo did not return the romantic passion Woollcott plainly felt for him.

The Marx Brothers opened at the Casino Theater on Broadway in the musical revue I’ll Say She Is on May 19, 1924. It was an immediate smash. Of the many highly favorable reviews, the one written by Alexander Woollcott was no doubt the most florid. The Marx Brothers later scored successes on Broadway in The Cocoanuts (1925) and Animal Crackers (1928), both musical comedies with books written by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind. The brothers then went on to success in the movies. Their first two films re-created the two Kaufman/Ryskind hits.

As Cornelius admits, he is hard on Dorothy Parker. This is perhaps not surprising, since Parker was an alcoholic who passed through a series of unhappy affairs and undoubtedly battled depression. She was also a wonderful writer and the wittiest of a very witty crowd. She later came to despise the Algonquin Round Table, claiming its members dealt in trivial wisecracks while the real writers of the day were people like Lardner, Fitzgerald, Faulkner and Hemingway. Parker eventually became a screenwriter in Hollywood, where her left-wing politics landed her on the Hollywood blacklist. She died in 1967 and left her estate to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ron Chernow’s terrific book The House of Morgan generally supports what Cornelius says about that august institution. While J. Pierpont Morgan built the House into the preeminent driver of American finance, it was his son Jack who presided after the First World War, when American bankers moved into first position in the world’s financial circles due to the decimation of Europe in the war. Tom Lamont was indeed the world’s foremost international banker, but in many ways Dwight Morrow has the more interesting story. He befriended classmate Calvin Coolidge at Amherst. Everyone in the class voted Morrow as the Most Likely to Succeed except Morrow, who voted for Coolidge. After an unsatisfying period practicing law, Morrow joined the House of Morgan and became a very successful partner. He chaired the U.S. Aviation Board, which later led him to meet Charles Lindbergh, the man his daughter Anne would marry. He became an expert on Mexico and left Morgan when President Coolidge appointed him Ambassador to Mexico, where he scored great successes in a country that had long been torn by revolution and then by a violently anti-clerical regime. In 1930, he was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Republican from the State of New Jersey. However, for all his success, Morrow suffered an addiction to alcohol. He died at his estate in Englewood, New Jersey in 1931.

Cornelius briefly mentions that the intermediary sent by J.P. Morgan to buy the desk of the Pope’s Usurer was named Ivy Lee, but he does not say anything about who that was. Ivy Lee, along with his younger contemporary Edward Bernays, is considered an important pioneer of the modern American art of public relations. He was best known for his work for the Rockefeller family. It is not surprising that Morgan would entrust a sensitive and confidential assignment to Lee, but it is quite surprising that a New York journalist like Cornelius seems not even to know who he was.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh became a famous author. Her book Gifts from the Sea remains a popular favorite. Her many flights with her husband Charles Lindbergh were closely followed in the international press and contributed significantly to the rapid development of aviation.

Frankie Yale ruled the Red Hook docks from his headquarters in Coney Island. He owned the Harvard Inn, which burned down in 1925 in one of Coney Island’s near-constant string of fires. The descriptions in the novel of his personality and appearance, his relationship with Al Capone, his alleged involvement in the murder of Dean O’Banion, his diamond-studded belt, his appearance at a ground-breaking ceremony at St. Rosalia’s and his murder on the streets of Brooklyn are all consistent with historical accounts.

 Willie “Two Knives” Altieri was Yale’s chief enforcer. He acquired his nickname because he carried two knives on his person and liked to use them in his murders. On one occasion, he gave Yale a plaque bearing the two knives he had used to murder one of Yale’s enemies. Willie Altieri seems to fade from history after Yale’s murder.  I have found no record of any connection between Altieri and Arnold Rothstein.

Al Capone was certainly present at the Adonis Club Massacre, but sources vary as to whether Yale himself was there. The Massacre happened largely as described by Cornelius. Paddy Maloney and Ragtime Howard survived it, but history does not support Maloney’s convenient bathroom visit or the fingering of Maloney as a rat.

Arnold Rothstein purchased Vantine’s, a well-established art house, in 1926. It is believed that he used Vantine’s art shipments to smuggle narcotics, although it is not clear to me how strong is the evidence of that. Certainly, Rothstein smuggled in the best liquor in New York during Prohibition, with his shipments protected by the likes of the Diamond brothers, Meyer Lansky and Waxey Gordon.

Sacco and Vanzetti, Italian anarchists, were executed in Boston in 1927. Their case enraged left-wing partisans, including Dorothy Parker.

I have found no record of house detective Christy Cole, nor of a speakeasy on the fourth floor, but the Park Central was and is an important Broadway hostelry. It was indeed the scene of the murders of both Arnold Rothstein and Albert Anastasia, giving it considerable prominence in gangland lore. It is located at 870 Seventh Avenue, across from Carnegie Hall. After passing through various hands and acquiring various names, it is once again called the Park Central.

Alvin Thomas, better known as Titanic Thompson, was one of the most fabled gamblers of all time. He is said to have mastered all games of chance, whether played honestly or crookedly. Such golfers as Lee Trevino and Raymond Floyd have said that Thompson could easily have been successful on the PGA Tour, but he made far more money hustling suckers at golf clubs. Thompson was the basis for the character of Sky Masterson in Runyon’s short story The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown, which became the principal basis for the musical Guys and Dolls. The other male lead in that musical, Nathan Detroit, was based loosely on Arnold Rothstein.

Franklin Pierce Adams (FPA) hosted a regular poker game at the Algonquin that he referred to as the Thanatopsis Literary and Inside Straight Club.

The History of Riley and the Roaring Twenties: Homecomings

Ain't we got fun

Independence, only about ten miles east of downtown Kansas City, remains a delightful place that could be the model for an American small town of sentimental legend. It is easy to imagine the O’Neal bookstore on Maple Street, near the court house and the old town jail that once housed men like Frank James and William C. Quantrill. A few blocks away is the long-time home of Harry and Bess Truman, which offers fascinating tours. The Harry S. Truman Library and Museum is nearby.

Cornelius plainly had a major crush on New York City, as do so many others. New York in the twenties must have been especially magical: the novel doesn’t nearly describe all that was going on in the city in that lively decade. Cornelius doesn’t even mention the Harlem Renaissance, or the explosion in Art Deco art and architecture, or the world of silent movies, dominated then by New York as Hollywood was just coming into its own. He barely touches on the theater scene, where Eugene O’Neill produced masterpieces while George Gershwin, Cole Porter and Irving Berlin plied their trade, or the sports scene, with Babe Ruth saving baseball after the Black Sox scandal and dashing heroes like Bill Tilden, Jack Dempsey and Red Grange dominating their sports and touring the nightclubs. When you add in the things that are described by Cornelius (the birth of the modern Mafia, Prohibition and bootlegging, the Algonquin Round Table, the newspaper scene, the rise to global prominence of Wall Street finance, the reaction to the Lindbergh flight, the speakeasies and nightclubs), the notion that all these people and activities were concentrated on one island, only twenty-four miles long, is dazzling.

 Irvin S. Cobb (1876-1944) was a journalist, writer and humorist, originally from Paducah, Kentucky. He wrote for Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World. One of Cobb’s better-known pieces is called Speaking of Operations.

 Arnold Rothstein’s history is well known and generally consistent with the summary provided by Cornelius. He was born into a respected Orthodox Jewish family in Manhattan on January 17, 1882. From early on, he rebelled against the strict morality of his parents and the demands of formal education. He preferred the streets, especially the world of gambling. He became well known in New York after winning a marathon session at John McGraw’s pool hall. He had a keen head for odds and excelled in games of chance. Over the years he owned a casino in Saratoga and real estate interests on Long Island, both of which failed and cost him great sums of money. As Cornelius describes, he was famous for flashing a big wad of cash, which earned him the nickname the Big Bankroll. He popularized the “floating crap game.” He was widely suspected to have been the mastermind behind fixing the 1919 World Series, although he always denied it and he may have been telling the truth.

 Lindy’s came to be called Mindy’s in Damon Runyon’s stories. The delicatessens in New York that currently call themselves Lindy’s are not related, other than in the desire to profit from the name.  The original Lindy’s was founded by Leo Lindermann in 1921. It was located at 1626 Broadway, between 49th and 50th Street, in the heart of the Times Square theater district. The original Lindy’s closed in 1957. While Cornelius shows little respect for the cuisine at Lindy’s, it must be said that the cheesecake there was legendary.

The History of Riley and the Great War: Suggested Reading

Biplanes WWI via The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2014/04/world-war-i-in-photos-introduction/507185/

·         Churchill, Winston S. Great Contemporaries. Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2012.

·         D’Este, Carlo. Patton: A Genius for War. New York: Harper Perennial, 1996.

·         Fischer, David Hackett. Albion’s Seed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

·         Frolich, Paul. Rosa Luxemburg. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2010.

·         Gilbert, Martin. The First World War. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1996.

·         McCullough, David. Truman. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1992.

·         McLynn, Frank. Villa and Zapata, A History of the Mexican Revolution. New York: Basic Books, 2000.

·         Salter, Anna C. Predators: Pedophiles, Rapists and Other Sex Offenders. New York: Basic Books, 2003.

·         Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1990.

·         Tuchman, Barbara W. The Guns of August. New York: Ballantine Books, 1994.

·         Warner, Philip. World War One, A Chronological Narrative. London: Arms and Armour Press, 1998.

·         Welsome, Eileen. The General & the Jaguar: Pershing’s Hunt for Pancho Villa. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2006.

·         Werner, Doug. Boxer’s Start-Up: A Beginner’s Guide to Boxing. San Diego, CA: Tracks Publishing, 1998.

The History of Riley and the Great War: Munich

German Howitzer WWI via Guns in the Great War http://www.worldwar1.com/pharc005.htm

Karl Eisner had actually lost an election shortly before Riley and Cornelius arrived in Munich, but he had not yet submitted his official resignation. He was assassinated on February 21, 1919, which must have been a very short time after the brawl at the Weissbräukeller.

Adolf Hitler was born in Linz, Austria on April 20, 1889. Following his service in the Great War, in which he was a soldier for the Kaiser, Hitler found many sympathetic ears in the charming Bavarian city of Munich for his racial hatreds, his authoritarian beliefs, and his fanatical embrace of Ludendorff’s “stab-in-the-back” theory. After service as a prison guard for a short time, he became fully immersed in fascist politics in Munich. He led the famous Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, at a Munich establishment called the Bürgerbräukeller. His plan was to put Ludendorff in charge of an armed force that would march on Berlin and seize the government. The failure of this plot caused Hitler to be sentenced to a term in Landsberg Prison, where he began to write Mein Kampf. It is noteworthy that Ludendorff and others of the Prussian old guard were willing to work with a ruffian from the lower class like Hitler. They thought they could control him. They were not the last to make that mistake.

The true identity of the mysterious Mr. Linz in the novel is, of course, unknown.

The History of Riley and the Great War: Berlin

German Soldiers at Christmas via The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2014/04/world-war-i-in-photos-introduction/507185/

By all accounts, Rosa Luxemburg was a warm, passionate, humorous woman with a lifelong dedication to the cause of Communism, the writings of Karl Marx, and the struggles of the working class. She inspired love and loyalty from her friends, intense hatred from her enemies. She loved children and animals. She was fearless in the face of the most extreme adversity. While her writings on economic theory appear dry to the modern reader, Rosa Luxemburg clearly had a vivid personality that long remained in the memories of her colleagues.

Luxemburg was born in 1871 in a small Polish town near the Russian border. Her family moved to Warsaw in 1873. At the age of five, Rosa suffered a hip ailment that left her with the permanent limp described in the novel. She came to liberal politics at a very young age, having helped organize a general strike at the age of fifteen. While at university in Zurich, Luxemburg met the fierce Russian ideologue Leo Jogiches, who became her lover for a time and her friend for life. With his help, Luxemburg spent her life mixing heavy intellectual labor with dangerous political activism. She did not hesitate to criticize Lenin when she disagreed with him, but she was a great admirer of his and, in turn, he respected her. Luxemburg, who moved to Germany in 1898, dreamed of creating a Marxist state there that would improve upon Lenin’s work in Russia.

Luxemburg and her fellow activists fiercely opposed Germany’s initiation of war in 1914. She, along with Karl Liebknecht and others, formed an organization to advocate for peace and for workers’ rights. It came to be called the Spartacist League, after the slave who rebelled against the Roman Empire. In 1916, Luxemburg and Liebnecht were imprisoned in “protective custody,” to keep them out of the way during the balance of the war. As the Armistice approached, Liebknecht was released on October 23, 1918 and Rosa on November 8.

The comic opera foolishness of the Spartacist Revolution described in the novel is supported by history. Following its surrender to the Allies, Germany was a chaotic mess. Kaiser Wilhelm skulked out of the country, as did the prominent general Erich Ludendorff, who later was the chief promulgator of the “stab-in-the-back” theory which claimed that Germany only lost the war because it was betrayed by Marxists and Jews at home. In the vacuum, leadership of the German nation nominally fell to a Socialist named Frederich Ebert. Disgruntled and impoverished ex-soldiers banded into groups called Freikorps (“Free Corps”), pillaging and bullying throughout the country. As the novel indicates, one of the Freikorps leaders was Waldemar Pabst, a right-winger with an abiding hatred of Communists and Jews. Street fighting among Freikorps, Communists, Socialists, and miscellaneous mobs became common.

In this toxic mix, the short-lived Spartacist Revolution was born. After being released from prison, Karl Liebknecht proclaimed the creation of a Free Socialist Republic from the window of the Kaiser’s palace, the Berliner Stadtschloss, the same day that a representative of the Socialist party proclaimed a rival republic from a window at the Reichstag. Once Rosa arrived on the scene, she urged caution, knowing the Communists were in no way ready to mount a revolution and sustain a government. She, Liebknecht and others founded the Red Flag, a journal that published articles promoting their cause. Luxemburg was the journal’s dominant writer.

Then, in December, a group of dissident sailors from the German Navy took over the central Berlin post office, protesting the government’s failure to provide back pay to the military. Ebert ordered his troops to attack on Christmas Eve, 1918, but the sailors drove them back. This event came to be known as Bloody Christmas and enflamed the passions of the Communists, who called the first Congress of the German Communist party. Luxemburg was one of the main speakers and reportedly drew a strong response. Shortly afterward, again against Rosa’s advice, the party announced a rebellion, which came to be called the Spartacist Revolution, or Spartacist Uprising, since many of the leaders were in the Spartacist League.

As Luxemburg feared, the rebellion played into the hands of the Freikorps and the right-wing Prussian officers who wished to distance themselves from the recent defeat and return to power in Germany. The Freikorps made quick work of the rebels. Luxemburg and Liebknecht went into hiding, but were arrested at a residence in the Berlin suburb of Wilmersdorf. They were taken to the Eden Hotel, where Waldemar Pabst interrogated them. He later admitted that he also ordered their execution. Soldiers took them (some accounts say separately) to the Tiergarten, where Liebknecht was killed and his body taken as an “unknown person” to a morgue. Luxemburg was shot and her body thrown from the Liechtenstein Bridge into the Landwehr Canal. Two months later, her great friend Leo Jogiches was also killed.

Otto von Kleist is not mentioned in any account of these events other than that of Riley and Cornelius. Nor is there any mention of the tiger’s fate, although it is true that the Zoologischer Garten Berlin is located in the Tiergarten, not far from the Landwehr Canal.

The History Behind Riley and the Great War: France

Vive La France

One Hundred Years Ago Today (allegedly)

The 28th Infantry Regiment took the village of Cantigny on May 28, 1918 and then held it against seven fierce counterattacks over 72 hours. As a result, the regiment proudly bears the nickname “The Black Lions of Cantigny.” While the strategic importance of the victory has been questioned, this first successful offensive battle by American soldiers on European soil was important to Allied morale. Colonel Hanson Ely commanded the regiment.

The depictions of Clemenceau’s background, temperament, and importance to the war effort are consistent with historical descriptions. Winston Churchill made several visits to France during 1918 in his capacity as Minister of Munitions. He had earlier lost the post of First Lord of the Admiralty, having fairly or unfairly taken most of the blame for the failed campaign at Gallipoli.

Paris was indeed threatened by Operation Blücher and came close to being lost, with Clemenceau raging at Pershing to put more of his men into action. Codebreaker Henri Painvin is credited with a herculean and successful effort to break the Germans’ codes after they changed their system, although the extent to which his work contributed to saving Paris has been a subject of dispute.

I find no mention in history of Le Colibri. In some respects, though, his character is reminiscent of the life and legend of the famous gourmet Maurice Edmond Sailland (1872–1956), who used the pen name Curnonsky.

History behind Riley and the Great War: Mexico

Mexico City by VV Nincic on Flickr https://flic.kr/p/FJaMuZ

The Mexican Revolution was as confusing as described by Riley and Cornelius. The roles of Villa, Zapata, Huerta, Carranza and Obregón were pretty much as stated. Patton was indeed Pershing’s brother-in-law and also his aide during the Punitive Expedition. Villa suffered a serious gunshot wound to his right leg at the battle of Guerrero on March 27, 1916.  Accounts of his whereabouts during his convalescence vary, but it is said that American soldiers led by Lieutenant Summer Williams almost captured him at the home of a supporter named Rodriguez. Williams became suspicious when he saw Yaquis near the home, as it was known that Villa’s men included Yaquis. There is also a legend that Villa recuperated from his wound in a desert cave.

Germany certainly plotted to start hostilities between the United States and Mexico, hoping to involve the United States in the Mexican Revolution and thereby delay its entry into World War I. This became known through the Zimmerman telegram, mentioned in passing in the novel, in which the German Foreign Secretary spoke of offering Mexico support for a war against the United States and promised the return to Mexico of land in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. British Intelligence obtained the telegram and its publication is said to have hastened America’s entry into the war.

I have found no mention in history of Otto von Kleist, which is perhaps not surprising given that he was a top-secret agent and a highly unsavory member of a distinguished family. Modern psychology would likely classify him as a sociopathic sexual sadist, but I expect Riley and Cornelius would have a different diagnosis: he was a monster.

Pershing never found Villa, but somebody finally did. He was cut down by rifle bullets from hidden assassins while riding in a car on July 20, 1923. The identities of his killers are unknown.

The History Behind Riley and the Great War: Independence

John Stark (Born in August 28th, 1728 – Died in May 8th, 1822) was a New Hampshire native who served as a major general in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. He became widely known as the "Hero of Bennington" for his exemplary service at the Battle of Bennington in 1777.

The events in the Independence section of the novel do not involve famous people or happenings, so history does not record them. Main and Maple Streets remain important thoroughfares in the bucolic town, while Blue Road long ago became Truman Road. In a reissue of an 1877 Illustrated Historical Atlas of Jackson County, Missouri, I found an eighty-acre parcel of land near the Little Blue River east of town that was registered to someone named J.G. Riley. The livestock in Kansas City’s West Bottoms area indeed burned to death in a major fire in 1917.