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Russian soldiers resting in the field. Card postmarked November 28, 1916.
A photo postcard of a German trench view of barbed wire and a dead patrol. Dated February 22, 1916, and field postmarked the next day, the message is from a soldier to his uncle, and reads in part, 'yesterday we heard that 4 fortresses of Verdun were taken. This have been a lot of shooting . . . Maybe this is the end of Verdun and peace will come soon . . . the barbed wire on the other side of the card is French. You can see dead patrols . . .' (Translation from the German courtesy Thomas Faust.) Evidently the author safely reached the French trench line.
Watercolor self-portrait by Lance Corporal Hugh F. Ward showing himself bathing, washing, and delousing his uniform. Ward served in the 97th Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC), 30th Division, B.E.F.
'Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red' — the Tower of London poppies — each of the 888,246 ceramic poppies representing one serviceman of the British Empire killed in World War I. The installation was a collaboration of artist Paul Cummins and stage designer Tom Piper. Since November, 2014 the poppies have been installed in other sites in the United Kingdom. Photographed October 3, 2014. © 2014 by John M. Shea
An advertising card of the Romanian Army from the series Armées des États Balcaniques, published in 1910.Shown, from left to right, a non-commissioned officer and artillery gunners, a staff officer, a rosiori (a red hussar), a mounted policeman (dismounted), a kalarachi (territorial reserve cavalry), a chasseur (venatori or rifleman), and an infantryman.
"We drove quickly over the hill, for we saw enemy foot-soldiers on the neighbouring hills. Just before Khatna, we met many Russians soldiers. I was sitting by the driver. One soldier looked at me and shouted to his companions: 'Kakoy tam zvyer sidiyt? [What kind of wild beast is sitting there?]' And a chorus of derisive mirth greeted his words. I willed myself not to think of those offensive words but I was deeply hurt. I had thought that the bands of unruly soldiers would somehow have contrived to remain in Russia; but here they were at large in Roumania too. Would they infect the Roumanian Infantry? What would happen then?" ((1), more)
"We crawled towards a gap in the enemy wires, which Kloppman had cut the night before. We were unpleasantly surprised, then, to find it had been patched up; therefore we cut it again, rather noisily, and climbed down into the trench. After looking around for a long time behind the nearest traverse, we crept on, following a telephone wire to its end in a bayonet stuck in the ground. We found the position blocked off several times by wire, and once by a heavy gate, but all of it unoccupied. After taking a good look at it all, we went back the same way, and patched the wire to conceal the fact that we'd been." ((2), more)
"Things look pretty hopeful now, don't they? The Italians seem to have remembered Caesar and his far wars and glory. What the Austrians remember I cannot say (Austerlitz?) And the French dont seem exhausted, and as for the English . . . . Our guns would frighten imps in the lowest concrete dugout of Hell, so they shake me up pretty considerably." ((3), more)
"During my leave, I remember principally observing the large decay of lively bright love of country, the crystallization of dull civilian hatred on the basis of 'the last drop of blood'; the fact that the German air raids had almost persuaded my London friends that London was the sole battle front; the illusion that the British Army beyond Ypres was going from success to success; the ration system. Perhaps the ration system weighed most upon us. This was not the ancient reward of the warrior! He had never had a sugar-card in Marlborough's wars, or even 1916. Meanwhile Hampton Court, and even the Palladium, seemed to be standing where they did." ((4), more)
"Grigorescu's counteroffensive began on 1 September [1917]. The VIII Corps did hold its positions, but things did not go well for the Romanian attack group commanded by General Popescu. Artillery preparation was insufficient, and coordination with the infantry during the battle was poor. The Alpine Corps was entrenched in rough, wooded terrain, well supported by artillery, machine guns, and mortars. Its infantry resisted the Romanian assault step by step. From the perspective of the Alpine Corps, it was a repetition of the slaughter of the Russians two day before, only now it was Romanian soldiers who were being mowed down. The attack was suspended at noon but resumed in the evening. Only a quarter of the lost ground was reconquered. Continuation of the Romanian advance was postponed until 3 September in order to rest and reorganize the troops." ((5), more)
(1) Entry for August 28 (August 15, Old Style), 1917 from the diary of Florence Farmborough, an English nurse serving with the Russian Red Cross. She had first encountered rude, and sometimes threatening, Russian soldiers in the retreat following the collapse of Russia's Kerensky Offensive in July. Her unit then accompanied Russian troops moving into Moldavia to support the Romanian Mărăşti offensive. The German counter-attack, the Battle of Mărăşeşti, began on August 6, the Austro-German Battle of Oituz two days later.
Nurse at the Russian Front, a Diary 1914-18 by Florence Farmborough, pp. 305–306, copyright © 1974 by Florence Farmborough, publisher: Constable and Company Limited, publication date: 1974
(2) German Lieutenant Ernst Jünger had fought in the first days of the Third Battle of Ypres, begun on July 31, 1917, but on August 10 was redeployed to the front southeast of Verdun, on the hills above Regniéville, a Village Détruit, a village destroyed in the war and never rebuilt. Kloppmann was 'an NCO, an older, married man who distinguished himself by his great zest for battle.' The two men planned the raid described above, and carried if off on August 29. Kloppman went again the following night and was met by rifle fire and hand grenades. Both Jünger and Kloppman went again on August 31, returning safely after being fired upon.
Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger, page 183, copyright © 1920, 1961, Translation © Michael Hoffman, 2003, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 2003
(3) Ivor Gurney, English poet, composer, and private in the Gloucestershire Regiment, writing to the composer Marion Margaret Scott, on August 29 or 30, 1917. In the Battle of Austerlitz, fought on December 3, 1805, Napoleon triumphed over an allied Austrian and Russian army. As Gurney wrote, the Italians were making progress against the Austro-Hungarian forces in the Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo. Days earlier, French forces had retaken ground lost to the Germans in 1916's siege of Verdun.
War Letters, Ivor Gurney, a selection edited by R.K.R. Thornton by Ivor Gurney, page 192, copyright © J. R. Haines, the Trustee of the Ivor Gurney Estate 1983, publisher: The Hogarth Press, publication date: 1984
(4) Edmund Blunden, English writer, recipient of the Military Cross, second lieutenant and adjutant in the Royal Sussex Regiment, left the front of the Third Battle of Ypres to go on leave in London which had suffered bombing attacks from both Zeppelins and Gotha bombers. Hampton Court Palace is on the river Thames, about 12 miles southwest of London. The London Palladium is a theater in central London, opened in 1910, that seats over 2,200.
Undertones of War by Edmund Blunden, pp. 206–207, copyright © the Estate of Edmund Blunden, 1928, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: November 1928
(5) On August 28, 1917, the German Alpine Corps attacked two Russian divisions holding the Romanian-Russian front at the village of Muncelu, driving the Russians back as much as four kilometers. Allied troops counterattacked on August 29 with the Russians suffering heavily in repeated and determined attacks. On September 1, the Romanians took the lead, with similar results.
The Romanian Battlefront in World War I by Glenn E. Torrey, page 233, copyright © 2011 by the University Press of Kansas, publisher: University Press of Kansas, publication date: 2011
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