The Men behind the Girl behind the Man behind the Gun: Sex and Motivation in the American Morale Campaigns of the First World War

Abstract

I n h I s m e m o I r a b o u t b e I n g a low-ranking American soldier during World War I, Joseph N. Rizzi repeatedly stated that his participation in the war—from enlistment to training to battlefield engagement—was motivated by women. The first-generation son of Italian immigrants initially enlisted because his sweetheart explicitly told him that she would not marry him unless he went and fought, and throughout training and his brief deployment in France (where he took part in the decisive Meuse-Argonne offensive), Rizzi derived meaning and motivation from his connection to his sweetheart, as well as to his mother. He testified to the encouraging influences of their letters and confessed that the thought of their opprobrium prevented him from deserting his unit or committing any other offense that could lead to court-martial or dishonor. One night in France, he recalled, he had a strong desire to “enjoy the comradeship of the opposite sex and to indulge in the physical emotion of love” but was prevented from doing so partially by the knowledge that the military police guarded the entrances to the brothels in the town in which he was stationed, stopping American soldiers from entering. In his frustration, he recalled, “I took out my mother’s and sweetheart’s pictures to look at.” Upon looking at their faces, he explained, “the will to conquer became strong.”1