Today’s word of the day, courtesy of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary website, is redoubt. The noun is pronounced /rɪˈdaʊt/, with the emphasis on the second syllable and the first syllable containing what in elementary school we would call a short i sound. “Redoubt can refer specifically to a small building or area that provides soldiers with protection from attack, or more broadly to any safe or protected place, whether literal or figurative” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day). It means “an isolated work forming a complete enclosure of any form, used to defend a prominent point,” “an independent earthwork built within a permanent fortification to reinforce it,” or “any safe and secure place or situation” (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/redoubt).

Merriam-Webster goes onto say, “Based on its spelling, you might think that redoubt shares its origin with words such as doubt and redoubtable, both of which come from the Latin verb dubitare, meaning ‘to be in doubt.’ But that’s not the case. Redoubt actually comes to us (via the French word redoute and the Italian word ridotto) from a different Latin verb—reducere, meaning ‘to lead back,’ the same root that gives us reduce. How that b ended up in redoubt is a lingering question, but some etymologists have posited that the word might have been conflated with another redoubt—a now-archaic verb meaning ‘to regard with awe, dismay, or dread’ which, unlike its twin, does indubitably come from dubitare” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day).

Redoubt, which can also be spelled redout, entered the language “c. 1600, from French redoute (17c.), from Italian ridotto, earlier ridotta, ‘place of retreat,’ from Medieval Latin reductus ‘place of refuge, retreat,’ noun use of past participle of reducere ‘to lead or bring back’ (see reduce). The unetymological -b- was added by influence of unrelated and now obsolete English verb redoubt ‘to dread, fear’ (see redoubtable). As an adjective, Latin reductus meant ‘withdrawn, retired; remote, distant’” (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=redoubt).

The adjective redoubtable appears in English in the “late 14c., of persons, ‘worthy of honor, venerable’ (a sense now obsolete); late 15c., ‘that is to be dreaded or feared, formidable, terrible,’ also often ‘valiant,’ from Old French redoutable (12c.), from redouter ‘to dread,’ from re-, intensive prefix, + douter ‘be afraid of’ (see doubt (v.)).
“The verb also was in Middle English, redouten, ‘to fear, dread; stand in awe or apprehension of; honor’ (late 14c., from Old French) and was used through 19c., though OED marks it ‘now rhetorical’” (ibid.)

So we have two forms of a word that can mean “a place of retreat” or “something to be feared” or even “valiant.” And of course we can see the word doubt in redoubt, and doubt means “to be uncertain” or “an uncertainty.” Further, when we are in doubt about something, we sometimes use the idiom “I’m afraid….”

On this date in 1917, the United States Senate voted 82-6 to enter World War I on the side of England, France, and Russia.

There are a lot of reasons that the first World War began, most of them only tangentially related to the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie (who was killed in the same attack, though she is rarely mentioned). Kaiser Wilhelm once said of the war that had his grandmother, Queen Victoria, been alive, she would not have allowed the war to happen. Victoria was also the grandmother of Tsar Nicholas and King George. They were all her boys, in a sense. Although there were ideological reasons, such as nationalism and globalism, and there were tripwires, specifically the public and secret alliances and agreements among the various countries involved, to a certain extent the war was a personal one. What made this personal war a world war was the extent that the participants—England, Germany, France, Italy, Russia—had colonized, or wanted to colonize, the rest of the world. For instance, the Indian British army was larger in 1914 than the British army, and almost 50,000 Indian soldiers died in the war (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I).

All told, there were approximately nine million combatants killed, another 23 million wounded, and roughly eight million civilians killed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I). The war deaths were then capped by the spread of the Spanish flu, which killed, according to estimates, somewhere between 17 and 100 million people worldwide. By the way, the first recorded case was in March, 1918, in Kansas. At the time, newspapers around the world were suppressing bad news of any kind, but it was reported in Spain because Spain was not involved in the war. That gave people the impression that the flu began in Spain (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu).

So why did the United States involve itself in this very personal world war? What I learned in school was that the USA entered the war because of the sinking of the Lusitania. But that happened in 1915, and the USA didn’t enter the war for two more years. Furthermore, the Lusitania was carrying, along with its passengers, over 150 tons of munitions, destined for the allies. The USA used a passenger liner to supply Germany’s enemies with military equipment (a parallel would be how Hamas puts munitions caches and command centers in schools and hospitals, hoping that by doing so, the enemy will not attack them).

Despite his campaign slogan that “He kept us out of war” and “America first,” slogans designed to appeal to American citizens that did not want to be involved in a foreign conflict, Woodrow Wilson did not keep us out of the war. He was supplying the allies and violating the nation’s stated neutrality. Germany asked the USA to ignore the British sea blockade of Europe, but Wilson refused. In response, the Germans began unrestricted submarine activity in the North Atlantic, something they had agreed not to do earlier. And the vote for war was in response to that unrestricted submarine warfare.

Wilson lied about US involvement in WWI. Then he convinced Congress that the Germans were the bad guys in the war, and Congress declared war. And the result of that declaration of war was the deaths of almost 120,000 Americans. But more than that, the declaration of war also sent the so-called Spanish flu to Europe, and millions upon millions died from that. There is redoubt for a virus.

Today’s image is of the three cousins whose power and pride brought death to millions (https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-family-relationships-that-couldnt-stop-world-war-i/). Only one of them died during the war, and that was after the Russians had removed themselves from it. But kings and rulers are rarely killed in the wars that others fight for them.