The headstone of Private R. Stewart, of the Black Watch, who died May 4, 1915, age 19, and is buried in Le Trou Aid Post Cemetery in Fleurbaix, Pas-de-Calais, France. It is inscribedTo memory ever dearFrom Father and MotherSisters and Brothers © 2015 John M. Shea
Image text: 2459 Private R. StewartThe Black Watch4th May 1915 Age 19To memory ever dearFrom Father and MotherSisters and Brothers
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
French General Robert Nivelle, from a pharmaceutical advertising card
Image text: Général NivelleReverse:Text in Indonesian and Dutch:Indonesian:Sakit pileg jang soedah lama dan jang baharoe, sakit tatoeq, sakit radang derri boeloeh-hoeloeh di-mengobati sampoerna dan sama sekal oleh: Antjoeran Pautauberge jang bekin koewat paroe-paroe dan menegahken sakit tombal (tuberculose).L. Pautauberge10, Rue de ConstantinopleParijs dan segalla roemah obat.Dutch:Oude en pas ontstane verkoudheid, hoest, ontsteking der luchtpijptakken worden afdoende genezen door de: Oplossing Pautauberge die de longen sterk maakt en de Tuberculose voorkomt.L. Pautauberge10, Rue de ConstantinopleParijs en in alle apothekenOld and newly arisen colds, cough, and inflammation of the bronchial tubes are effectively cured by:Pautauberge Solutionwhich strengthens the lungs and prevents Tuberculosis.L. Pautauberge10, Rue de ConstantinopleParis and in all pharmacies
What do you want here? Turkish and British child soldiers on the Suez Canal. After crossing the Sinai Peninsula during January, 1915, a Turkish army of approximately 12,000 soldiers reached the Suez Canal on February 2, and tried to cross after nightfall, but were driven back. On the 3rd, the British crossed the canal, and struck the Turkish left flank, driving them back. By February 10, the Turks had evacuated the Peninsula.
Image text: Was willst Du hier?What do you want here?Suez-KanalReverse:A.R. & C.i.B. No. 718/4
"I was one of thirteen men left behind as a rearguard and we were told exactly what we had to do. What we did was fire a shot — and of course at night you could see the flash of the rifle, the Germans could see it — then we would walk along the trench, maybe for about ten yards, and we could wait a few seconds and fire another shot, and then another chap would come along and do the same and I'd come back to another place and fire off again. That led his nibs across the road to figure the trench was still fully occupied." ((1), more)
"[The German Crown Prince] bombarded and attacked almost without intermission the observation posts on the Mort-Homme and on Hill 304, so that both heights were wreathed in smoke like volcanoes. On May 3rd our aviators flew over them and said, when they returned, that to a height of eight hundred meters above the ground the atmosphere was thick with dense columns of smoke rising from the explosions of the shells. On May 4th the Germans gained a foothold on the northern slope of Hill 304, thus endangering the security of the 'position of resistance' that I had defined in my orders of February 27th." ((2), more)
"The first signs of a serious morale crisis appeared in the Laffaux sector on 4 May: one company refused to fight. In some quarters tracts were found with the words: 'Down with the war! Death to those in charge!' In his thesis on the 1917 mutinies, Guy Pédroncini observes that most cases of rebellion were found in the 6e armée (formerly Mangin's) and among the divisions engaged in the May 1917 operations, which, as was shown, were the most useless." ((3), more)
"Outside, on the decks, one finds the haunted darkness and the sea. One stumbles over the sleeping soldiers, wrapped in their blankets. The sea is darker than the sky, but the escort of destroyers is dimly seen, long shadows, scarcely more than a blur on the water. Nothing is heard but the throbbing of the engines. The sentries loom in doorways, standing upright and silent above the recumbent sleepers, like men watching over a litter of dead bodies.Lights and drinking card-players and wireless operators and navigators within; chart-rooms, and kitchens and engine-rooms; all that is life, struggling to keep above water. And outside the mystery and unpitying hugeness of death and sleep, the terror that walks by night, and the impossibility of escape." ((4), more)
(1) The German success in breaking the Allied line on April 22, 1915 in the Second Battle of Ypres, left British forces defending a salient subject to artillery fire from three sides. After fruitless attempts to improve their position, they withdrew to a more compact, defensible line with Ypres at their back, the night of May 3-4. Private J. W. Vaughan of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry was among those left behind to feign an active line. When he and his mates finally withdrew, 'all hell broke loose because, as soon as they didn't hear any more firing from the front line, the Germans figured we were coming over.'
1915, The Death of Innocence by Lyn Macdonald, page 272, copyright © 1993 by Lyn Macdonald, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1993 (Great Britain); 199
(2) The German assault on Verdun began on February 21, 1916 with a bombardment by over 1,000 guns northeast and east of the city. On March 6 they struck at Mort-Homme, high ground northwest of Verdun on the left bank of the Meuse, with a preliminary bombardment as intense as that of February. On April 9, 1916, the attack resumed at Mort-Homme and Cote 304 (Hill 304), with their heaviest bombardment since beginning the assault.
Verdun by Henri Philippe Pétain, pp. 149, 150, copyright © 1930, publisher: The Dial Press, publication date: 1930
(3) French commander in chief Robert Nivelle had convinced many politicians and his soldiers that he had discovered the secret to breaking through the German front and bringing the war to a rapid conclusion. The failure of his offensive, the Second Battle of the Aisne, to do more than pushing the front forward at great cost to his men, broke many of the units under his command. The battle began on April 16, 1917. Within hours it was clear it would achieve no more than its initial objectives, the crossing of the Aisne River and capture of the high ground of Chemin des Dames. The French mutinies had begun by the 21st with soldiers calling for peace. Other incidents occurred on April 24 and 29, but they spread widely in May. Lauffaux is northeast of Soissons on the western end of Chemin des Dames. French General Charles Mangin's nickname was 'the Butcher.'
The 1917 Spring Offensives: Arras, Vimy, Chemin des Dames by Yves Buffetaut, page 184, publisher: Histoire et Collections, publication date: 1997
(4) Excerpt from the diary of Siegfried Sassoon, British poet, author, Second Lieutenant in the Royal Welch Fusiliers (R.W.F.), and recipient of the Military Cross for gallantry in action. Sassoon had been wounded in April, 1917, and by mid-June had concluded that the war begun 'as a war of defence and liberation, [had] become a war of aggression and conquest.' In October he was at Craiglockhart, a psychiatric facility in Scotland, and under the care of W. H. R. Rivers. Ready to return to the war in February, 1918, Sassoon was deployed to Palestine where British forces had been moving north until the shock and success of Germany's spring offensives Michael and Georgette, and British losses, required every available soldier be on the Western Front. Through the day and into the night Sassoon had been watching the officers and men on the convoyed ship bringing them from Egypt to France, and closer to death. Sassoon continues, 'This is rather portentous stuff. I have obviously been rereading Lord Jim; and the mixture of War and Peace and Howards End contributes to the mental hotch-potch.'
Siegfried Sassoon Diaries 1915-1918 by Siegfried Sassoon, page 244, copyright © George Sassoon, 1983; Introduction and Notes Rupert Hart-Davis, 1983, publisher: Faber and Faber, publication date: 1983
