1898 map of St. Petersburg, the Russian capital, from a German atlas. Central St Petersburg, or Petrograd, is on the Neva River. Key landmarks include the Peter and Paul Fortress, which served as a prison, Nevski Prospect, a primary boulevard south of the Fortress, the Finland Train Station, east of the Fortress, where Lenin made his triumphal return, the Tauride (Taurisches) Palace, which housed the Duma and later the Petrograd Soviet.
Image text: St Petersburg (Petrograd); Neva River, Peter and Paul Fortress; Nevski Prospect, Finland Bahnhof (Train Station); Taurisches (Tauride) Palace
A French trench grenade launcher with a team of four — an observer, one to man the catapult, and two managing the grenades. Photograph from 'Ambulance No. 10; Personal Letters from the Front,' by Leslie Buswell. Most of Buswell's book consists of his letters in June, July, and August, 1915. A volunteer corps, the American Ambulance Field Service had over 200 ambulances in the field in 1916.
Image text: Text:Grenade catapult, first line trenches
'December snow.' Hand-painted watercolor calendar for December 1917 by Schima Martos. Particulates from a smoking kerosene lamp overspread the days of December, and are labeled 'December höra,' 'December snow.' The first five days or nights of the month show a couple at, sitting down to, or rising from a lamp-lit table. The rest of the month the nights are dark, other than four in which the quarter of the moon shows through a window, or Christmas, when the couple stands in the light of a Christmas tree.
Image text: December höraDecember snow2½ liter petroleum.
Colonel T.E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, from With Lawrence in Arabia by Lowell Thomas
Image text:
Advertising postcard map of European Russia, with inset images of a mounted Cossack lancer, a troika, and St. Petersburg.
Image text: Text in French and Dutch:Il n'est pas de meilleur Amidon que l'Amidon REMY, Fabrique de Riz Pur.Er bestaat geenen beteren Stijfsel dan den Stijfsel REMY, Vervaardigd met Zuiveren Rijst.There is no better starch than Remy Starch, made of pure rice.Reverse:Demandez L'Amidon REMY en paquets de 1, 1/2 et 1/4 kg.Vraagt het stijfsel REMY in pakken van 1, 1/2 et 1/4 ko.Ask for REMY Starch in packages of 1, 1/2, and 1/4 kg.
"Count Czernin having given him to understand that the Austro-Hungarian Government would perhaps be compelled to search for the instigators of the crime of Serajevo on Servian territory, M. Sazonof interrupted him : "No country," he said, "has had to suffer more than Russia from crimes prepared on foreign territory. Have we ever claimed to employ in any country whatsoever the procedure from which your papers threaten Servia? Do not embark on such a course."May this warning not be in vain.Paléologue" ((1), more)
"Ever since Sunday, July 4th, there has been an attack and counter-attack, and life has been real hell for those poor fellows in the first line of trenches. Every imaginable kind of instrument of destruction has been hurled on them, mines (the narrow part fits into the gun which is a sort of mortar — radius about four hundred metres), torpedoes (radius about four hundred metres), '320's,' '250's,' '220's,' down to '77's,' burning petrol, chlorine — all this not in dozens, but in thousands and tons. No one can believe what it is like there; it is indescribable, and the Germans are getting the same thing too. I suppose the French have lost over twenty-five hundred this week in wounded and killed and many prisoners — and this over a line of seven kilometres! And the Germans? Many more!" ((2), more)
"Thursday, July 6, 1916.While the English are developing their offensive between the Somme and the Ancre, the French have advanced beyond the enemy's second line of defence, south of the Somme. In the two zones of attack the Germans have left about 13,000 prisoners.From the Stokhod to the sources of the Pruth, i.e., on a front of three hundred kilometres, the Russians are methodically advancing. In the north, in Volhynia, they are threatening Kovel. In the south, Galicia, they are in occupation of Delatyn, which commands one of the principal gates into the Carpathians, on the line between Stansilau and Marmaros-Sziget.There is equal activity in Armenia, where the Turks have been driven back simultaneously on the shores of the Black Sea and west of Erzerum." ((3), more)
"National ambitions were proving a serious impediment to the warmaking abilities of the Central Powers. Germany's troubles with the Poles were mirrored by Turkey's troubles with the Arabs. In the southernmost extremity of the Ottoman Empire, Arab hostility to their Ottoman masters was having its effect. On July 6th, T.E. Lawrence was present when 2,500 Arabs overwhelmed the three hundred Turkish soldiers defending the port of Akaba, at the head of the Red Sea. This brought the Arab forces to within 130 miles of the British front line in Sinai, where General Allenby was under instructions from London to reach Jerusalem by the end of the year, despite his predecessor's repeated failure to capture Gaza." ((4), more)
"The spring and summer of 1918 were unusually hard. All the aftermath of the war was then just beginning to make itself felt. At times, it seemed as if everything were slipping and crumbling, as if there were nothing to hold to, nothing to lean upon. One wondered if a country so despairing, so economically exhausted, so devastated, had enough sap left in it to support a new régime and preserve its independence. There was no food. There was no army. The railroads were completely disorganized. The machinery of state was just beginning to take shape. Conspiracies were being hatched everywhere." ((5), more)
(1) M. Paléologue, French Ambassador at St. Petersburg, writing to René Viviani, President of the Council, Minister for Foreign Affairs, from St. Petersburg, Russia on July 6, 1914.
Collected Diplomatic Documents Relating to the Outbreak of the European War, page 145, publisher: His Majesty's Stationery Office by Harrison and Sons, publication date: 1915
(2) Excerpt from a letter written July 11, 1915, by Leslie Buswell recounting events of the previous week. The Germans had attacked on Sunday, July 4, taking ground the French had retaken from the invaders in the previous six months. The French retook the lost ground on July 5, 6, and 7. A driver with the American Ambulance Field Service, a volunteer organization attached to the French Armies, Buswell was stationed at Pont-à-Mousson, France, north of Nancy. Each unit of the Service consisted of 20 to 30 ambulances, each of which could carry three wounded lying down, and three seated. The Ford trucks could deliver men to a doctor in under an hour, greatly increasing their chances of survival. In 1916 over 200 cars were in service.
Ambulance No. 10; Personal Letters from the Front by Leslie Buswell, pp. 53, 54, copyright © 1915, and 1915, by Houghton Mifflin Company, publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company, publication date: 1916
(3) Entry for Thursday, July 6, 1916, from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia. The Anglo-French Somme Offensive launched on July 1, the Russian Brusilov Offensive and Russia's success against the Turks in the Caucasus and along the Black Sea had relieved the French defending Verdun, and the Italians who had halted the Austro-Hungarian Asiago Offensive.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. II by Maurice Paléologue, pp. 293-294, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(4) T. E. Lawrence — Lawrence of Arabia — set out on June 5, 1917 to raid Turkish infrastructure and outposts in Syria. Many of the Arabs with him were loyal to Auda abu Tayi of the Huwaytat tribe, an outlaw to the Turks. For months Auda had been pressing the British to seize the port of Aqaba, shelled from the sea by the British, but well-defended against attacks from that direction. The port was lightly defended on the inland side, the desert being its primary defence. The Central Power empires, the German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman, all had restive national populations. The war would see the end of all three.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 344, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
(5) Leon Trotsky writing of Russia in the spring and summer 1918. The Russian Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917, the armistice that quickly followed in December, and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed between Russia and the Central Powers in March all occurred as ethnic groups within Russia and Europe's remaining empires increasingly called for independence. Trotsky continues: 'In the West, the Germans occupied Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, White Russia and a large section of Great Russia.' Ukraine had declared independence, French and British troops were in Murmansk and Archangel, the Czech Legion — former Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war — had crossed Russia and taken Vladivostok on the Pacific, and anti-revolutionary leaders were battling Russia's new government.
My Life: an Attempt at an Autobiography by Leon Trotsky, page 395, publisher: Dover Publications, Inc., publication date: 2007
