Photo By Lori Stewart | Nellie Bly speaks with an officer of the Austrian Army in Poland, December 1914.... read more read more
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by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian
G-2 QUESTIONS NELLIE BLY
On 4 February 1919, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) intelligence officers in France interviewed journalist Nellie Bly about her time in Austria during World War I. While waiting for permission to return to the United States, Bly raised eyebrows with the G-2 because of her pro-German, anti-bolshevism sentiments.
Nellie Bly arrived in Austria in the spring of 1914. By that time, the 50-year-old Pennsylvanian, born Elizabeth Cochran, had established herself as a daring adventurer and a prominent investigative journalist. She was most well known for her 1889 round-the-world journey, completing in seventy-two days a trip rivaling that described in the 1872 Jules Verne book, Around the World in Eighty Days. In addition to writing nearly six hundred news articles, Bly also authored twelve serial novels and four non-fiction books. In the spring of 1914, however, beset with financial ruin from the mismanagement of her late husband’s steel factories, Bly fled to Vienna in the Austro-Hungarian Empire to visit an old friend.
She arrived shortly before the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, an event that sparked World War I. Not one to shy from danger, Bly visited the front lines, often while under fire, making her the first woman to report on the Eastern Front. She authored heart-wrenching articles about the plight of both Austrian and Russian soldiers in the trenches and in the hospitals. By February 1915, she had written twenty-one articles for newspapers across the United States. Once America joined the war effort, she was prevented from reporting. Instead, she became friendly with Austrian political and society leaders and helped organize assistance for indigent women and children.
On 25 January 1919, after nearly five years in Vienna, Bly left for Paris in a special train compartment furnished by the leaders of the new (but temporary) German Austria republic. The AEF G-2 in France did not fail to notice her arrival from a country allied with Germany during the war. By 4 February, when Bly applied for a passport to return to the United States, the G-2 had already begun compiling a file on her exploits in Austria.
Over the next two weeks, Bly reportedly met with General John Pershing, and later with Pershing’s G-2 Brig. Gen. Dennis Nolan, Nolan’s deputy Col. Alexander Coxe, and Brig. Gen. Ralph Van Deman. During these meetings, she explained her presence in Austria and espoused some anti-British, pro-German sentiments that triggered further investigation. She professed her true fear was about the rise of bolshevism in Russia and Europe. While awaiting her passport, she penned a letter to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in which she predicted that, if Central Europe fell to bolshevism, “nothing can save the rest of the world from the same dreadful fate.”
On 15 February 1919, General Nolan’s G-2 section reported to the Military Intelligence Division (MID) in Washington that it was their opinion Bly was “a perfectly loyal American woman” who had not been in contact with any of her American family and friends during her five years in Austria. They recommended approval for her travel back to the United States. She was granted her passport and departed for New York on 22 February. Upon her arrival, Capt. J. B. Trevor further interviewed the intrepid reporter. Trevor had similar concerns to those of his counterparts in France but believed in Bly’s love for the United States. He did report, however, her claim that several bolshevik agents were being dispatched to the United States to spread their propaganda. Ultimately, the MID disregarded Bly’s concerns and declared her no threat to the United States.
Soon after arriving in New York, Nellie Bly was again absorbed in the legal and financial woes that drove her to Austria in 1914. She returned to reporting for a short time but died of pneumonia in January 1922 at the age of fifty-eight. She was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1998.
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| Date Taken: | 02.02.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 02.02.2024 16:18 |
| Story ID: | 463075 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 272 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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