Taking A Walk In History

I have the great fortune of having some pretty great relatives, and the even better fortune of having one heck of a kid brother. He's the kind of modest guy who lights up a room without thinking about it. He's just so darn cool! So, anyway, I stayed with Steven, his lovely and extremely intelligent wife Vanessa and my new (5-months old) nephew Xander for a couple of days in Lawrence. Steven took a couple of days off to hang out, and we ended up at the WWI memorial and museum in Kansas City.

The Memorial Tower

This was an amazing place! If you want the scoop on any aspect of WWI from the life of the soldiers to what the front lines looked like, to the strategies of the opposing sides, this is the THE place to visit. The people who put this museum together spent a great deal of time and energy to compile artifacts, weaponry, uniforms, and put the whole thing together with a great deal of care and attention to detail. However, they did so in a way that is fascinating and makes the viewer really want to remember.

Closeup of the tower

Museum adjunct and sphinx covering it's face to the horrors of war.

 I found it fascinating that even at this museum, I could find references to Moldova (then still a part of Romania) and how much loss the people of this area suffered in The Great War.

Eastern Europe today -- Moldova is the small lavender country tucked between Romania and Ukraine.

Here are two maps to compare the area today versus the area in 1914:

The various factions at war during WWI

You can see where Moldova is today -- the small country East of Romania and wrapped by the Ukraine to the North, East and South. Back in 1914 it was still a part of Romania -- hence limba română (literally the Romanian tongue).

Romania entered the war in an attempt to seize Transylvania, a historical province with a majority-Romanian population. Despite initial successes, the combined Russo-Romanian forces suffered several setbacks and by the end of 1916 -- only Moldavia remained under Allied (Great Britain, France, Romania, Russia, Italy, several other countries, and eventually the United States) control. After several defensive victories in 1917, the Allied front collapsed when the Bolsheviks took Russia out of the war and Romania, left surrounded by the Central Powers, signed an armistice at Focşani. On November 10, 1918, just one day before the German armistice and when all the other Central Powers had already capitulated, Romania belatedly re-entered the war. By then, about 220,000 Romanian soldiers were killed. This was about 6% of the total millitary deaths of the Allied forces.

It wasn't until 1940 that the Soviet Union assumed control of Moldova and called it the Soviet Republic of Moldavia... but, that's a story for another day.

A huge thanks to Steven for taking me to this great museum and just for being a terrific brother!

This is the glass bridge that visitors have to cross to get into the WWI Museum. Beneath the bridge is a field of poppies (lest we forget) and the Memorial Tower reflects down onto the field from above.



Spring was in full swing when I visited on this cloudy day I loved the juxtaposition of the bird's nest with the Memorial tower -- the circle of life.