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WWI letter to Emily Gladys Bartlett

(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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Edward Wirt did not realize it when he wrote this letter, but he would soon be coming home. It was standard for units to be reviewed by the U.S. supreme commander, Gen. John Pershing, before they left France. By June, Wirt's division, the 6th, would return to the U.S. aboard the Leviathan, a converted luxury liner. Soon after, most of its soldiers, especially the draftees like Wirt, were discharged from the army. At the end of June, 1919, all the major powers signed the Versailles Treaty. It officially ended the World War. But although the treaty was intended, in the words of President Woodrow Wilson, to end "the war to end all wars," in fact its provisions created more problems. Only fourteen years later, Adolph Hitler was named Chancellor of Germany. <BR>There are ninety letters from Mr. Wirt to Miss Bartlett in the PVMA collection; twelve of them are reproduced here.

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