Photograph of the Russian monk Grigory Rasputin from The War of the Nations Portfolio in Rotogravure Etchings Compiled from the Mid-Week Pictorial. Tsar Nicholas of Russia and his wife were introduced to Rasputin in 1907. According to Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, Rasputin, 'wheedled them, dazzled them, dominated them.'
Image text: Gregory Rasputin, the charlatan who was the evil genius of the Russian Court and was assassinated in December, 1916.
Periscope view of the Russian trenches, February, 1916. The message dated February 24, 1916 notes that the hash marks from the central point are measured in meters.
Image text: A short translated part of the writing on the reverse side:'... a picture showing Russian trenches through periscope, the signs + - mean 10 meters ...'Translation courtesy Thomas Faust, Ebay's Urfaust.
Chinese laborers working under the direction of German supervisors on a hill above the city of Tsingtau, China. The card was sent from Earl's Court in London, January 6, 1905, and cancelled in Teichel, Germany two days later. From a painting by K. Hei...
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French folding postcard map of Verdun and the Meuse River, number 9 from the series Les Cartes du Front. Montfaucon is in the upper left and St. Mihiel at the bottom.
Image text: Les Cartes du FrontVerdun et Côtes de MeuseEchelle 1:32,000RoutesChemin de ferCanauxMaps of the FrontVerdun and the Hills of the MeuseScale: 1:32,000RoadsRailwaysCanals1. - Les Flandres2. - Artois, Picardie3. - Aisne, Champagne4. - Argonne et Meuse5. - Lorraine6. - Vosges et Alsace7. - Route des Dame et Plateau de Craonne8. - Région de Perthes9. - Verdun10. - Somme et Santerre11. - Plateau d'Artois12. - Belgique - FlandresA. Hatier. Editeur.8.Rue d'Assas, Paris.Outer front:Correspondence of the ArmiesMilitary Franchise
"'There are too many dead and wounded, too many widows and orphans, nothing but ruin and tears! Think of all the poor fellows who'll never come back, and remember that each of them has left behind him five, six, . . . ten persons who can only weep! I know of villages where everybody's in mourning. . . . And what about those who do come back! What are they like! Legless, armless, blind! . . . It's terrible! For more than twenty years we shall harvest nothing but sorrow on Russian soil!''Yes, we shall be the victors. But I don't know when. . . . God chooses the hour that seems good to Him for His miracles. We are not at the end of our trials; much more blood and many more tears must flow.'" ((1), more)
"On 24th February [1916]—three days after the Germans launched their attack on Verdun—there was a conference in Stavka. The Russian superiority of numbers was now considerable—on the northern front, 300,000 to 180,000; on the western, 700,000 to 360,000 (917 battalions to 382) with 526 cavalry squadrons to 144; and on the south-western front, about half a million men on either side (684 Russian battalions to 592, and 492 squadrons to 239)." ((2), more)
"a picture showing Russian trenches through periscope, the signs + – mean 10 meters" ((3), more)
"On February 24 [1917] a French liner, the Athos, was torpedoed in the Mediterranean.Among those drowned on the Athos were 543 Chinese labourers, recruited in China to work as part of a large labour force on the Western Front. When the news of the sinking reached China it acted as a deterrent to recruiting, but by the end of the war almost 100,000 Chinese were employed on menial tasks throughout the zone of the armies." ((4), more)
"This place is called Le Chalet. There was a real little village: dugouts, cabins, hangers, little chalets, supply dumps, and a tacot train station. Night and day there was an intense level of activity, and this just a few hundred meters from the German listening posts! But the sharp declivities of the valley's terrain didn't permit the German gunners, clever as they were, to drop a shell on us.But one detail was hardly reassuring: all the trees were dead. A hideous yellow coating covered their trunks, clearly indicating that a deadly cloud of poison gas had passed by here." ((5), more)
(1) Excerpts from the entry for Wednesday, February 24, 1915, from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia. Paléologue was visiting 'Madame O____', who was active with the Red Cross, when Rasputin walked in on them. The two men had not met before. Madame O____ translated for the two. The ambassador found the monk's gaze 'at once penetrating and caressing, naive and cunning, direct and yet remote. When he was excited it seemed as if his pupils became magnetic.' Rasputin agreed with Paléologue's argument that Russia must fight on, and then requested money from France to help the suffering Russian people who 'may become dangerous.' Before departing, Rasputin asked if Russia would receive Constantinople in a victory over Turkey. Paléologue confirms it will. 'Then the Russian people won't regret having suffered so much,' Rasputin replied, 'and will be willing to suffer more.'
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. I by Maurice Paléologue, pp. 291-294, publisher: George H. Doran Company, publication date: 1925
(2) The Germans launched the Battle of Verdun on February 21, 1916 with a bombardment of over 1,000 guns along the Verdun salient, continuing the attack the next day with artillery and infantry assaults. The French immediately requested a Russian offensive to relieve the pressure. Stavka was the Russian General Headquarters, under the command, since the summer of 1915, of Tsar Nicholas.
The Eastern Front, 1914-1917 by Norman Stone, page 227, copyright © 1975 Norman Stone, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1975
(3) Extract from a photo postcard of a periscope view of the Russian trenches, February, 1916. The message is dated February 24, 1916 and notes that the hash marks from the periscope measure meters from the central point. Hashmarks are at 5 meter increments, labels at 10. The translation is courtesy Thomas Faust, an Ebay seller 'Urfaust': A short translated part of the writing on the reverse side: '... a picture showing Russian trenches through periscope, the signs + – mean 10 meters ...'
Periscope view of the Russian trenches, February, 1916, postcard back, publication date: 1916
(4) Germany resumed its campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare on February 1, 1917, with the Mediterranean Sea as a primary hunting ground.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 311, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
(5) Excerpt from the notebooks of French Infantry Corporal Louis Barthas writing of the end of February, 1918. Barthas served much of the war in the 296th Regiment, one implicated in the army mutinies of the spring and early summer 1917. The regiment had been dissolved and its men assigned to other units, Barthas to a regiment from Breton. Since the beginning of the year he had been in the Argonne, moving into the relative protection of the Meurissons ravine on February 21.
Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918 by Louis Barthas, page 362, copyright © 2014 by Yale University, publisher: Yale University Press, publication date: 2014
