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Propaganda postcard of General Paul von Hindenburg as Colossus astride East Prussia and Russian Poland. Hindenburg commanded German forces in East Prussia.
Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and some of his troops.
Postcard of a German soldier guarding French POWs, most of them colonial troops, the colorful uniforms of a Zouave, Spahi, Senegalese, and metropolitan French soldier contrasting with the field gray German uniform. A 1915 postcard by Emil Huber.
Russian troops stopped by barbed wire.
Russian troops arriving in Marseilles, on France's Mediterranean coast, in April 1916. With the Dardanelles closed to them, they would have had a journey along the Atlantic coast of France, Spain, and Portugal before entering the Mediterranean at Gibraltar. Russian troops fought with the Allied forces on the Salonica and Western Fronts.
"[General Falkenhayn's] star, moreover, was now setting, for too many heavy responsibilities lay on his shoulders: the check at Verdun, the unfortunate Austrian undertaking against the Italian front, the disastrous revival of Russian activity, the appearance in line of the British beside the French along the Somme, the using up of German effectives, the resulting moral depression in the Central Empires, and, to crown it all, during these last days in August, the declaration of war against Germany by Italy and that against Austria-Hungary by Rumania. On August 28th, Marshal Hindenburg was appointed Chief of the General Staff with General Ludendorff as his Quartermaster General." ((1), more)
"The Emperor is judicious, moderate and hard-working. As a rule his ideas are very sensible. He has a lofty idea of his functions and the strongest sense of duty. But his education is inadequate and the scale of the problems it is his mission to solve only too frequently exceeds the measure of his intelligence. He does not know men, affairs or life itself. His distrust of himself and others means that he is always suspicious of superiority, and the result is that he can only tolerate nobodies around him. He is also very religious, in a narrow and superstitious way, and this makes him very jealous of his authority, as he receives it from God." ((2), more)
"Allied intelligence assessed German casualties in July as between 130,000 and 175,000. By the end of August, that figure had risen to 200,000, which was actually a significant underestimate: after the war the German official history acknowledged 243,129 casualties in the first two months. The heart seemed to be being torn out of the old army, while its material and human resources were also stretched. G.H.Q. analysts noted a dispiriting report from one soldier's home town: 'You should have seen the recruits who were mustered this week; it was like the boys coming out of school, but they have all become soldiers; it hardly seems possible.' Older untrained men, 'until now unfit for active service, and those who have become unfit during the war,' were also to be mustered, 'Germany's last hope.'" ((3), more)
"Around 6 p.m. the first wounded appeared; they had attacked only three hours earlier. We were all at work. Our orderlies were busily cutting away the stained garments. Only the heavily-wounded had been brought, and their injuries were indescribably terrible: heads, chests, stomachs, arms, legs, every kind of wound was there and we found body after body smashed, broken, lacerated. The operating hut became intolerably hot and the flies, too, gave us no peace. There were many deaths. . . ." ((4), more)
"There is great humiliation at General Headquarters and the War Ministry.The 2nd Russian brigade, which recently arrived in France and was about to embark for Salonica, has mutinied at Marseilles ; the colonel has been murdered and several officers were wounded. To restore order the vigourous intervention of French troops was required. Severe measures of repression have been taken and about twenty men shot.I cannot help remembering what Sazonov said to me last December when justifying his opposition to Doumer's request : 'When the Russian soldier is off his own soil he's worthless ; he goes to pieces at once.'" ((5), more)
(1) For all the reasons French General Pétain catalogs, German Chief of the General Staff Erich von Falkenhayn was replaced by Paul von Hindenburg on August 28, 1916. Hindenburg and his second Erich Ludendorff commanded the German army and increasingly large sectors of the German economy. Falkenhayn was immediately responsible for the siege of Verdun and its failure. He opposed both the Austro-Hungarian Asiago Offensive, which broke through the Italian front in Trentino but exposed the Austro-Hungarians to Russia's Brusilov Offensive, and the Italian counter-attack in the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo, Italy's most successful offensive to date. The British, French, and German forces suffered heavy losses in the Battle of the Somme, with a German toll of roughly 250,000 casualties by August 29. Germany had tried but failed to woo Romania to enter as its fourth ally or to remain neutral. The Russian and Italian military successes, and Germany's and Austria-Hungary's failures, helped lead Romania into war against the latter.
Verdun by Henri Philippe Pétain, pp. 197–198, copyright © 1930, publisher: The Dial Press, publication date: 1930
(2) Former President of Russia's Imperial Council of Ministers Count Vladimir Kokovtsov speaking to Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, on August 29, 1916. Kokovtsov had been Prime Minister from September 18, 1911 to January 30, 1914 and had also served as Finance Minister.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. III by Maurice Paléologue, pp. 14–15, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(3) German casualties in the first two months of the Battle of the Somme exceeded those of the first six months in the Battle of Verdun.
Three Armies on the Somme by William Philpott, page 272, copyright © 2009 by William Philpott, publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, publication date: 2009
(4) Florence Farmborough, an English nurse serving with the Russian Red Cross writing on August 31 (August 18 Old Style), 1916. Whatever success the Russians had enjoyed in the Brusilov Offensive of June and July had ended.
Nurse at the Russian Front, a Diary 1914-18 by Florence Farmborough, page 232, copyright © 1974 by Florence Farmborough, publisher: Constable and Company Limited, publication date: 1974
(5) Entry from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, for Friday, September 1, 1916. Russian troops were already in the Allied line on the Salonica Front, having been transported from Archangel, Russia to Marseilles. The French wanted Russian troops serving with the French both because of the need for more men and for reasons of morale. In his memoir Poilu, Louis Barthas writes of seeing Russian troops, and of French speakers of Russian rapidly promoted and assigned as interpreters. Sergei Sazonov was Russian Foreign Minister from 1910 until his replacement by Boris Sturmer in July, 1916. Doumer was likely Paul Doumer, French Senator in the Chamber of Deputies, a former Minister and Governor-General of French Indo-China, and later President of France, assassinated by a Russian emigré in 1931. Paléologue met with him on December 4, 1915 and told the Ambassador he would ask Russia for 400,000 men.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. III by Maurice Paléologue, pp. 16–17, publisher: George H. Doran Company
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