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French infantry charge near Fort Vaux, one of the bastions of Verdun. In March 1916, the village of Vaux changed hands 13 times. The fort fell to German forces the morning of June 7.Illustration by Léon Taa. . . ., 1916.
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.
Uniforms of the British Army, 1914, from a series of postcards of uniforms of the combatants in the 1914 European War.
Relief map of Great Britain and Ireland, the North Sea, English Channel, and Atlantic Ocean, with northwestern Europe: France, Belgium, Holland, and Scandinavia. The war-zone outlined on the map was declared on February 4, 1915. On May 7, the Lusitania entered the war zone southwest of Ireland.
Embossed postcard of the flag and coins of Russia, with fixed exchange rates for major currencies including Germany, Austria-Hungary, England, the Latin Monetary Union, Netherlands, and the United States of America. The Russian Ruble equaled 100 Kopeks. Tsar Nicholas II is on the obverse of most of the gold and silver coins; Tsar Alexander III is on the 7 1/2 ruble gold piece.
"'. . . the English are arriving here every day.'. . . 'I can't wait to find out where you are going there are a great many from around here who write to say that they are going to Verdun you already know . . . but as for me when will I know too. H. hasn't written for more than a week and he usually writes every day Is it the change of location or has something happened to him everyone wants to know.' . . . 'B's son who belonged to the Twelfth at Notre-Dame-de-Lorette has been at Verdun for the past week.'" ((1), more)
"On 20th March 1916, German artillery suddenly triggered assaults against Hill 304 with a fury which had not been seen since 21st February. A massive assault was brooding. At 3.10 pm, an alarming report from the balloon of the 36th Compagnie d'Aérostiers read: 'Amazingly violent bombing above the trenches in the Bois de Malancourt. Three huge blasts with burst of flames rising at least 100 metres above ground have just taken place.' Twenty minutes later, another incoming message from the balloon said: 'The three huge black clouds first reported were not caused by blasts, but by attacks with inflamed liquid.' The flame-thrower attack was later confirmed by 'tongues of fire' seen on the Avocourt-Malancourt road." ((2), more)
"As he passed from one 1914 man to another he dug his elbow into the C.O.'s ribs and exclaimed, 'You're a lucky fellow.' When it was over he said to the G.O.C., 'That's been a treat. That's the sort we've known for thirty years.' Orderly Room estimated that the Battalion still had 250 originals, mostly in the Transport, Drums, and Signals, and among the N.C.Os. Of the other originals, some 500 had been killed or wounded; some were detached; the balance had gone home sick and become scattered. With comparatively few exceptions the men are Regulars, Reservists, and Special Reserves." ((3), more)
"The Germans lost only four U-boats in the waters around the British Isles in March and April [1916]. One of those losses, U.68 in the southwestern approaches on 22 March, was due to the depth charges of the Q-ship Farnborough. The Farnborough was under the command of Lieutenant Commander Gordon Campbell, considered the most famous of the Q-ship commanders, and the episode was a classic example of Q-ship tactics with the ship blowing off steam and the stokers and spare men pretending to abandon ship in a panic after the submarine had surfaced and fired a shot across the steamer's bow. Once the submarine had closed, Campbell opened fire and finished her off with a depth charge." ((4), more)
"'Take the Emperor, for example,' she continued. 'Isn't he patently predestined to ruin Russia? Aren't you struck by his ill-luck? Could any reign have been richer in miscalculations, failures and calamities? Everything he has undertaken, his best ideas and noblest inspirations, have gone wrong or actually reacted against him. As a matter of logic, what must his end be? As to the Empress, do you know any figure more baleful and accursed even in classical tragedy? And that other, the loathsome ruffian whose name I won't utter! Isn't the brand of Fate on him clearly enough? How can you explain the fact that at such a crisis in history these three incongruous and dull-witted beings hold the destinies of the world's largest empire in their hands? Don't you recognize the action of Fate in that? Come, tell me honestly!'" ((5), more)
(1) Excerpts from letters by Paul Pireaud and his wife Marie, the first paragraph from Paul, the second from his wife, both from March, 1916. Paul was with the 112th Heavy Artillery Regiment which was about to be transferred to Verdun where the battle for the sector had been in progress since February 21. Commanding the defense, French General Henri Philippe Pétain kept the sector supplied and reinforced, rotating men and units through in roughly eight days. To free French troops for service at Verdun, the British were extending their line. Notre-Dame-de-Lorette is in Artois, and had been the site of Battles of Artois in 1914 and 1915. Marie's punctuation is minimal.
Your Death Would Be Mine; Paul and Marie Pireaud in the Great War by Martha Hanna, pp. 95, 96, copyright © 2006 by Martha Hanna, publisher: Harvard University Press, publication date: 2006
(2) The German attacked west of Verdun, between the city and the Argonne Forest, on March 20, 1916. A French brigade of 2,800 men were surrounded and surrendered.
The Battle of Verdun by Yves Buffetaut, page 52, copyright © Ysec Éditions 2013, publisher: Ysec Editions, publication date: 2013
(3) Part of the entry for March 21, 1916 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 and dozens of his comrades. That day the Corps Commander, Lieut.-General Haking inspected the men, and found many of them had come out in August 1914 — they were part of the old British Army, one of 100,000 men, that had been destroyed in the battles of 1914: the Allied retreat, the Race to the Sea, the Battle of Ypres.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, page 185, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(4) The Q-ship was a decoy, typically a steamer with disguised weapons. The depth charge, set to detonate at a predetermined depth, was a new weapon. The submarine U.68 was sunk off the southwest coast of Ireland.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, page 309, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
(5) Excerpt from the entry for March 23, 1916, from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia who hosted, that night, a dinner at the embassy with 'a score or so of Russians, . . . a few Poles, . . . and a few English people.' The quotation is from the Ambassador's private conversation with Princess V——, whom he considered 'very high-minded, quick-witted and clever.' She is downhearted about Russia's prospects, and discusses Fate, which she describes as a mysterious power, intervening at random in the world's affairs, and taking 'a malicious delight in making us the instruments of its own caprices.' Ruling Russia are autocratic Tsar Nicholas II, also supreme commander of the Army, the Empress who encourages his autocracy and urges replacements for high officials upon him, and Rasputin, 'our friend' to the royal couple, who presses the Empress to appoint his favorites to positions in the church, the army, and the government.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. II by Maurice Paléologue, page 219, publisher: George H. Doran Company
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