Storms Over Luxembourg

World War I (1914-1918), the war to end all wars, is both a continuation of an earlier conflict, the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), and a prelude to the greater horrors of World War II (1939-1945). A fact historians and scholars tend to ignore is that little Grand Duchy of Luxembourg was in various ways at the origin or at the heart of these conflicts. That detail is lost in the bigger picture of European and world history.

World War I (1914-1918), the war to end all wars, devastated much of Europe. A small, neutral country, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, was the first country invaded on the western front by Imperial Germany. For four years Luxembourgers were confined within their small territory. Local politicians, rather than uniting against a common foe, discovered their Grand Duchess Marie-Adelaide, as an easy target. The poignant Punch and Judy show [German: Kasperle Theater], funny at any other time, threatened to obliterate the small country from the face of the earth. Though the government of Luxembourg practiced a policy of strict neutrality towards all belligerents, that did not prevent thousands of Luxembourgers from fighting in Allied forces of France, Belgium and the United States of America. At the time, the largest contingent of Luxembourg natives, outside of the Grand Duchy, was found in the United States of America. Mostly farmers; Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin were the immigrants chosen states to settle in the New World. Whether recent immigrants or of second or even third generation, many Luxembourg-Americans served in the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) under General John Joseph 'Black Jack' Pershing (1860-1948).