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Ossuary with the remains of 3,988 German soldiers who fell during World War I, 866 of them identified, and 3,122 unknown, in the German section of the Cerny-en-Laonnois Cemetery. © 2014 by John M. Shea
British infantry, artillery, cavalry, and a tank, likely on the Arras front, 1917. From The Nations at War by Willis J. Abbot 1918 Edition.
Soldiers of the Great War Known Unto God, Cabaret Rouge Cemetery, Souchez, France. © 2013 by John M. Shea
Headstones at La Nécropole Nationale de Pontavert. The cemetery contains the remains of 6,815 soldiers, 67 of them British, 54 Russian, and the remainder French. Of the total, 1,364 are entombed in the ossuary. © 2014 by John M. Shea
Having stopped unrestricted submarine warfare after sinking the Lusitania in 1915, Germany resumed the policy on January 31, 1917. The campaign peaked in April 1917, and helped bring the United States into the war.
"The troops of all the German tribes under your command, with steel-hard determination and strongly led, have brought to failure the great French attempt to break through on the Aisne and in Champagne. Also there the infantry again had to bear the brunt, and, thanks to the indefatigable assistance of the artillery and other arms, has accomplished great things in death-defying perseverance and irresistible attack. Convey my thanks and those of the Fatherland to the leaders and men. The battle on the Aisne and in Champagne is not yet over, but all who fight and bleed there shall know that the whole of Germany will remember their deeds, and is one with them to carry through the fight for existence to a victorious end. God grant it." ((1), more)
". . . as soon as we went over I kept well back from the creeping barrage. I was very frightened, you could see the shells bursting only fifty yards in front. Then we came to the barbed wire and it wasn't properly cut . . . It was sheer murder, that was. There were paths cut through the wire and, like animals, we crowded into the paths. That's where most of our casualties came from, machine guns were trained on the gaps, blokes just fell in heaps. Somehow I got through that OK and kept on going, but then I looked to my left and right and couldn't see another soul. To my utter dismay, I was on my own. I panicked and dived into the nearest shell hole and stopped there till it was dark. That was one of the longest days of my life. When I crawled back, a Scots Regiment had taken over our bit of the line and were going to shoot me as they thought I was a German. I never saw a single German that day, yet the whole battalion was wiped out." ((2), more)
"And when the lights are out, and the ward is half shadow and half glowing firelight, and the white beds are quiet with drowsy figures, huddled outstretched, then the horrors come creeping across the floor: the floor is littered with parcels of dead flesh and bones, faces glaring at the ceiling, faces turned to the floor, hands clutching neck or belly; a livid grinning face with bristly moustache peers at me over the edge of my bed, the hands clutching my sheets. Yet I found no bloodstains there this morning. These corpses are silent; they do not moan and bleat in the war-zone manner approved by the War Office. They are like dummy figures made to deceive snipers: one feels that there is no stuffing inside them. . . . I don't think they mean any harm to me. They are not here to scare me; they look at me reproachfully, because I am so lucky, with my safe wound, and the warm kindly immunity of the hospital is what they longed for when they shivered and waited for the attack to begin, or the brutal bombardment to cease. . . ." ((3), more)
"Except for bureaucratic scuffling, most of the fighting associated with the Nivelle offensive had ended by April 25, and a sense of failure swept over the army and the government. Between April 16 and 25 the French suffered—according to estimates by French historical services—134,000 casualties on the Aisne, including 30,000 killed, 100,000 wounded, and 4,000 captured. Though more soldiers had died in Joffre's offensives in 1915, the casualties in Nivelle's offensive occurred over a relatively brief period and exceeded those of any month since November 1914." ((4), more)
"I am getting impatient. The Mediterranean beckons with her transport steamers, so much the more inviting since now there are no more restrictions. And I want to arrive in good time for the final effort.Then I am asked 'affectionately' if my boat will be ready soon, especially by those who have been moored for years.But the work is actually delayed It is quite similar to Penelope's tapestry: mysterious forces impede the construction. The crew is suspicious.There are many Czechs in the arsenal known to be capable of sabotage. In the mess they sit together and speak Czech and every time a setback occurs on the front, their faces beam. At the American declaration of war, they supposedly really celebrated, but you can't pin anything on them." ((5), more)
(1) Telegram of April 22, 1917 from German Kaiser Wilhelm II to his son the Crown Prince,commanding in Champagne where German forces had halted the the attack in the Second Battle of the Aisne launched on April 17, and part of French commander Robert Nivelle's spring offensive. The Aisne River was south of the heights of Chemin des Dames, and had been held by the German's since their retreat to it in September, 1914 after the battles of the Marne and Aisne.
They Shall Not Pass: The French Army on the Western Front 1914-1918 by Ian Sumner, Vol. V, 1917, p. 163, copyright © Ian Sumner 2012, publisher: Pen and Sword, publication date: 2012
(2) Private Reg Eveling of the 7th Border Regiment describing his part in the attacks on Gavrelle on April 23, 1917 in the Battle of Arras. The Regiment lost 15 of 19 officers and 404 of 505 other ranks. The same day, the British suffered further heavy losses attacking the Chemical Works in the village of Roeux including 2,000 dead, wounded, or missing Seaforth Highlanders.
Cheerful Sacrifice: The Battle of Arras, 1917 by Jonathan Nicholls, page 188, copyright © Jonathan Nicholls [1990 repeatedly renewed through] 2011, publisher: Pen and Sword, publication date: 2010
(3) Excerpt labeled 'In the Ward (ii)' from the writings on April 24, 1917, of Siegfried Sassoon, British poet, author, Second Lieutenant in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and recipient of the Military Cross for gallantry in action. Sassoon had been wounded, shot through the shoulder by a sniper, in an April 16 attack on the village of Fontaine-lès-Croisilles in the Battle of Arras.
Siegfried Sassoon Diaries 1915-1918 by Siegfried Sassoon, pp. 161–162, copyright © George Sassoon, 1983; Introduction and Notes Rupert Hart-Davis, 1983, publisher: Faber and Faber, publication date: 1983
(4) French commander-in-chief Robert Nivelle rose to prominence at the end of 1916 when he retook much of the ground that had been lost to the Germans in the Battle of Verdun. He replaced Joseph Joffre as commander on December 27. Nivelle conveyed nothing but confidence in his plans to break the German line in his spring offensive, confidence his generals did not share, confidence that was unmoved by the German strategic retreat in March to a shortened, heavily fortified line. The British began his offensive on April 9, east of Arras. Canadian troops captured Vimy Ridge — high ground that had been a German stronghold since 1914 — but the British suffered some of their heaviest casualties of the war in gaining little else after the first day. The French attack on April 16 — the Second Battle of the Aisne — came to grief in its first hours. In days of fighting Nivelle's troops crossed the Aisne River and eventually captured the heights of Chemin des Dames. From there they could look across at the next German stronghold: the Ailette River and the plateau of Laon to which the Germans had retreated.
Pyrrhic Victory; French Strategy and Operations in the Great War by Robert A. Doughty, pp. 353–354, copyright © 2005 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, publisher: Harvard University Press, publication date: 2005
(5) Excerpt from the memoir of Austro-Hungarian Captain Georg von Trapp, whose U-boat was being repaired in Pola, one of Austria-Hungary's ports on the Adriatic Sea. In April, 1917, he had been awaiting a refurbished ship since late 1915. His boat, U-14, had been the French submarine Curie, captured in December, 1914 and already refurbished once. Earlier in his book, von Trapp had complained of a Czech crewman not following protocol: responding 'yes' to an order rather than repeating the order. On at least one occasion the result may have been the firing of an unarmed torpedo. The 'restrictions' he references had been lifted on February 1, 1917 when Germany (and Austria-Hungary) began its expansion of unrestricted submarine warfare which led to the United States' declaring war on Germany, but not on Austria-Hungary, on April 6, 1917. Von Trapp was Austria-Hungary's most successful submariner, later famous as the father of the Von Trapp Family Singers, portrayed on stage and screen in The Sound of Music. Penelope was the loyal and ingenious wife of Ulysses.
To the Last Salute: Memories of an Austrian U-Boat Commander by Georg von Trapp, pp. 92–93, copyright © 2007, publisher: University of Nebraska Press, publication date: 2007
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