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A rainbow shimmers over an Allied advance, French, British, Belgian, Russian, Italian.
The Russo-Turkish frontier from Cram's 1896 Railway Map of the Turkish Empire. The Black Sea is in the northwest, Persia to the southeast. The area had a large Armenian and Christian population, and was a principal site of the Armenian Genocide and of Russian military successes.
Photograph of the Russian monk Grigory Rasputin from The War of the Nations Portfolio in Rotogravure Etchings Compiled from the Mid-Week Pictorial. Tsar Nicholas of Russia and his wife were introduced to Rasputin in 1907. According to Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, Rasputin, 'wheedled them, dazzled them, dominated them.'
Zeppelin Kommt! Children play a Zeppelin raid on London. Holding his bomb in the gondola is a doll of the airship's inventor, Count Zeppelin. The other children, playing the English, cower, and the British fleet — folded paper boats — remains in port. Prewar postcards celebrated the imposing airships and the excitement they generated with the same expression, 'Zeppelin Kommt!'. Postcard by P.O. Engelhard (P.O.E.). The message on the reverse is dated May 28, 1915.
A woman munitions worker carrying a shell apparently drops another one on the foot of a frightened man who clearly does not realize, as she does, that they are not in danger. No doubt his foot hurt.
"'The offensives,' continued Haig, 'must coincide on all fronts. This was the conclusion reached at the Chantilly conferences. The Russians will not be ready until July; the French will not act before that time. Being short of reserves, they can only undertake one or two important efforts.''The seriousness of the Allied situation,' I said, 'arises from the fact that the Russians have not come up to expectations. At the moment they appear to be in an irremediable muddle. . . .'" ((1), more)
"On the 17th and 20th of January [1916], Russian destroyers swept the coast of Lazistan destroying a large number of mostly small sailing craft assumed to be used by the Turks to supply their army. The weak naval force at Batum was strengthened by two torpedo boats and the gunboats Donetz and Kubanetz, the former salved after having been sunk at Odessa in the Turkish attack that began the war. They were joined by the old battleship Rotislav, escorted by two torpedo boats, for the attack on the strong Turkish position west of the Archave River that began on 5 February. The Rotislav and Kubanetz pounded the Turkish positions for three and a half hours and returned the following day to continue the barrage, which forced the Turks to abandon their position. The Turks fell back to new positions at Vice, which the Russians reached on the 8th." ((2), more)
". . . the mysterious happenings which recently led to the dismissal of the Minister of the Interior, Alexis Khvostov : they throw a melancholy light on the inner workings of the regime.When Alexis Khvostov received the portfolio of the Interior last October, his appointment was not only suggested to the Emperor but actually forced on him by Rasputin and Madame Vyrubova. . . .But before long there was a personal feud between the new minister and his assistant, the crafty Director of the Police Department, Bieletzky. . . . Khvostov thus gradually found himself at loggerheads with the whole gang which had raised him to power. . . .[The monk Heliodorus] had written a book full of scandalous revelations about his relations with the Court and Grishka [Rasputin]. . . .[Khvostov sent] one of his personal agents, Boris Rievsky, a doubtful journalist who had already served several sentences. While the latter was endeavouring to reach Norway through Finland, his wife, left behind in Petrograd and awaiting her revenge for his ill-treatment, denounced the whole plot to Rasputin, who immediately called in the help of his friend, Bieletzky. . . .[Detained at the Finnish border,] Rievsky confessed that he had been commissioned by Khvostov to arrange the murder of Rasputin with Helidorus. . . . Next morning Khvostov was no longer a minister." ((3), more)
"The General Confederation of Labour has split. The majority, led by Jouhaux, support the war. Opposed to it there is a minority led by Merrheim, an interesting man, of whom we shall hear more. . . .To sum up, there is considerable feeling which is kept within bound only by use of the Secret Service funds. One agitation, based on the high cost of living, petered out. But it would only need some incident, such as a Zeppelin raid involving many victims, to unloose disorder. Especially as, at the other end of the scale, the Action Française is trying hard to stir up public opinion with the bogy of German spies. Those two influences might easily meet under one flag: 'Treachery.'" ((4), more)
"Our women munition workers out to be proud! Mr Lloyd George has brought out a picture book about them! It is a large, handsome book, costing 1s, entirely of pictures of women workers and all the processes they can do. According to Mr Lloyd George, never was there such useful workers as women munition workers. He says they can do bronzing and soldering, they can make 8-pounder shells, and some of them are very successful in making high explosive shells.Well, it is very nice to be praised by so important a man, and it is even nicer that he should take the trouble to have a book filled with pictures of girls at work. We women, however, have always had a lurking suspicion that we were, after all, as clever as the men, and it is pleasant to hear Mr Lloyd George say so. But there is a conclusion to be drawn from all this. If girls are as important and as clever as the men, then they are as valuable to the employer. If this is so it becomes the duty of girls to see, now and always, whether on government work or not, that they receive the same pay as men." ((5), more)
(1) Excerpt from the entry for February 7, 1916, from the war diary of Albert, King of the Belgians, the 'I' in the second paragraph, who met that day with Lord Curzon and Britain's Commander in Chief of its forces in France (and Belgium) General Douglas Haig. At the December, 1915 Second Chantilly Conference representatives from France, Great Britain, Russia, Serbia, and Italy had attempted to shape a common Entente Ally strategy. French Commander in Chief Joseph Joffre presided over the conference. As Lord Privy of the Seal, Curzon was a cabinet member without portfolio.
The War Diaries of Albert I King of the Belgians by Albert I, page 87, copyright © 1954, publisher: William Kimber
(2) The Turkish Sanjak of Lazistan was on the southeastern shore of the Black Sea; its eastern edge bordered Russia. The Russian fleet was working its way westward along the coast. Turkey had entered the war on October 29, 1914, shelling Russian Black Sea ports and sinking Russian ships.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, page 239, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
(3) Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, in the entry for February 9, 1916 from his memoirs, recounts the rise and fall of Minister of the Interior Alexis Khvostov. Unmentioned in Paléologue's account is the Tsaritsa, Empress Alexandra, wife of Tsar Nicholas, a German by birth, who was suspected of German sympathies if not treachery. Madame Anna Vyrubova was her intimate friend. Rasputin recommended officials and officers for advancement, both directly to the Empress and through Vyrubova. The Empress in turn pressed these recommendations on her husband, following up in her correspondence if her the Tsar did not act expeditiously enough on the advice of 'our friend.' Nicholas and his wife isolated themselves from the public and from life in the capital. After assuming command of the Army in the summer of 1915 in the wake of Russia's Great Retreat, Nicholas became increasingly autocrat, a position again encouraged by his wife. The plots against Rasputin struck at the heart of the royal family.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. II by Maurice Paléologue, pp. 169-171, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(4) Michel Corday, a senior civil servant in the French government, visited Sûreté Générale, the French national police, on February 10, 1916 where he reviewed information on pacifist movements. Syndicalists called for peace and tended to emphasize that the war was not one of German aggression; Anarchists that workers were sacrificing their lives for a handful of people. Action Française, begun as an anti-Dreyfus movement, was the leading far right group that opposed the legacy of the French Revolution, was staunchly pro-Catholic, and included monarchists. The group supported Georges Clemenceau, who became French Prime Minister in November, 1917.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, pp. 144, 145, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(5) An excerpt From Women Worker, February 1916. David Lloyd George was appointed to the newly-created position of Minister of Munitions in May, 1915 in the political crisis of the shell shortage.
The Virago Book of Women and the Great War by Joyce Marlow, Editor, pp. 172, 173, copyright © Joyce Marlow 1998, publisher: Virago Press, publication date: 1999
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