Zweibund — the Dual Alliance — Germany and Austria-Hungary united, were the core of the Central Powers, and here join hands. The bars of Germany's flag border the top left, and those of the Habsburg Austrian Empire and ruling house the bottom right.

Schulter an Schulter

Untrennbar vereint

in Freud und in Leid!'



Shoulder to shoulder

Inseparably united

in joy and in sorrow!

Other views: Larger, Back

Tuesday, October 26, 1915

"Yesterday's newspaper had an 'intriguing' article under the name of one of the troupe of journalists kept at G.H.Q. to tell the public at home what G.H.Q. thinks it may be told. . . . The first paragraph chides the public for entertaining extravagant expectations: as if expectations had not been inflated by the official pæans of victory, which, by the way, the journalists 'despatches' echoed. Then there is a dissertation on the use of reserves. One may guess that there has been a searching of the text-books at G.H.Q. The reference to the magnitude of the success attainable if calculations had been fulfilled is the lollipop. (The Medical Department had pegged sites for hospitals 30 miles east of here.) To-day's papers give the appointment of another Cavalry General to a high command in this war in earth burrows.

. . . The battle which was to have restored the war of movement failed completely of its purpose. It was just a vast upheaval in the deadlock. Here it is in epitome as quoted to me—'mismanagement at the top, inefficiency in the middle, want of training at the bottom.'"

Quotation Context

A bitter entry from October 26, 1915 from the writings — diaries, letters, and memoirs — of Captain J.C. Dunn, Medical Officer of the Second Battalion His Majesty's Twenty-Third Foot, The Royal Welch Fusiliers. The success of the first day — September 25, 1915 — of the Battle of Loos was celebrated even as the gains were being lost in renewed attacks and German counter-attacks. The Western Front Allies longed for a return to the war of movement, with infantry breaking the enemy front and the cavalry outflanking and getting behind the German lines.

Source

The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, pp. 162, 163, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994

Tags

1915-10-26, 1915, October