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Monument to the Third Australian Division on Route D1 in Sailly-le-Sec, France.
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.
A Zeppelin April Fool, an April fish. The reverse contains a message dated March 29, 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 rulers of the Central Powers stumped by Verdun. Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, Mohammed V of Turkey, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, and Czar Ferdinand of Bulgaria puzzle over a map labeled "Verdun." The ink and watercolor drawing is dated March 4, 1916. By R. DLC?The German assault on Verdun began on February 21, 1916 and continued through August.
"— Vast reinforcements of Australian soldiers on their way from Egypt. Laughing giants. But I picture their skeletons with grinning teeth. . . ." ((1), more)
"— The 31st. The Press still mention 'French soldiers' as if they were a special caste. Do they forget that they are talking about ordinary peasants torn from the land, and that the young soldiers called up since the war were given only a few months' training? Thus, is any case, they are not regular soldiers. The French soldier is merely a peasant in a steel helmet." ((2), more)
"Breithaupt was in dire straits. His LZ.15 was damaged seriously; the amidships Cell 11 was empty, Cell 12 forward and Cell 9 aft were both leaking. Cell 16 in the bow was also empty, which made the ship nose-heavy. Breithaupt realized that his only sanctuary was Belgium. He had jettisoned all of his bombs and all but four hours of fuel. Next, the heavy machine guns, engine covers, and spare parts went over, but despite these emergency efforts it was obvious that LZ.15 was doomed to end in the sea. Breithaupt's secret documents were wired to the radio stool and dumped into the Thames, and finally after reporting, NEED IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE BETWEEN RIVER THAMES AND OSTEND, the wireless instruments were tossed overboard.At 12:15 A.M., wallowing along at 500 feet, LZ.15's framework buckled in two at Rings 7 and 11 and the airship nosed into the sea about a mile from the Kentish Knock Lightship." ((3), more)
"On April 2, an accidental explosion at a munitions factory at Faversham in Kent killed 106 munitions workers, many of them women. By April 1916 almost 200,000 women were being employed in war industries." ((4), more)
"Early on the morning of 3 April [French Captain Jean Tocaben] watched in amazement and horror as a unit from Mangin's 9th Brigade advanced, not just without artillery preparation but without any clear idea of where the enemy was—unsupported, headed in the wrong direction, exposed to the light of the rising sun. It went, he said, 'blindly to the slaughter':And on its polished helmets the morning sun broke in splashes of light and, clothing in splendour the men, the young men going to their deaths, covered them with a nimbus of glory and crowned them with a crest of fire. What a sublime, what a poignant sight"" ((5), more)
(1) Entry from March 28, 29, or 30, 1916 from the diary of Michel Corday, a senior civil servant in the French government. In his diary, Corday expressed criticism of the war that he rarely expressed in public.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 154, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(2) Entry from March 31, 1916 from the diary of Michel Corday, a senior civil servant in the French government critical, at least in his diary, of the war and its boosters in the government, the military, the press,and the public.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, pp. 154, 155, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(3) Zeppelin LZ.15 under the commander of Kapitänleutnant (Lieutenant Commander) Joachim Breithaupt, was one of seven Zeppelins that set out on March 31, 1916 to bomb London, which had improved defenses since the prior year. As he followed the Thames River to find the blacked out city, the airship was picked up by searchlights and hit by a shell. As Breithaupt turned from London, he was briefly chased and fired upon by a British flyer who soon lost the Zeppelin. Searchlights again picked up LZ.15, and scored another, more serious hit. A second British flyer in a B.E.2c with lights of its own found the Zeppelin and attacked three times with explosive darts, incendiary bombs, and machine gun. It's at this point that the quotation above picks up. LZ.15 went down on April 1. The Zeppelin was an airship with a rigid frame, the 'rings' being part of that, and multiple independent cells containing gas, to minimize the chances of a single blow bringing down the ship.
The Zeppelin Fighters by Arch Whitehouse, pp. 122, 123, copyright © 1966 by Arch Whitehouse, publisher: New English Library, publication date: 1978
(4) As the need for men at the front continued to grow, women filled positions formerly held only by men. The Virago Book of Women and the Great War includes contemporary newspaper accounts that marvel at women working as messengers, currency runners for banks, streetlamp lighters, transport workers, handy women, the stage manager, scene-shifters, and limelight workers for a new play, bridge builders, welders, and workers in munitions and ironwork factories. The work could be dangerous. In the United Kingdom, 41 women died of T.N.T. poisoning in six months of 1916, those under 18 being particularly susceptible.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 238, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
(5) French Generals Robert Nivelle and his subordinate Charles Mangin were posted to Verdun at the beginning of April, 1916, the former to replace General Pétain. Mangin, who was criticized for getting too many of his men killed, went immediately on the offensive, both on April 3 and 4. Captain Tocaben considered the attack from the German viewpoint: 'It's certainly a rare piece of luck to see troops coming at you deployed as if they were on maneuvers, and to shoot them at your leisure, without running the slightest risk.'
The Road to Verdun by Ian Ousby, page 271, copyright © 2002 by The Estate of Ian Ousby, publisher: Anchor Books, publication date: 2003
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