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French soldier standing next to an unexploded 420mm shell that fell on Verdun. March, 1916. It weighed 2,100 pounds empty.
The Western Front, 1914 and 15. The Imperial German eagle is a crow feeding on carrion, perched on a cross bearing scenes of the destruction of its advance and retreat through France and Belgium: the shelled and burned cathedral of Reims, the ruination of the city of Arras, a destroyed town, deaths both military and civilian in Belgium. France held its territory along the border with Germany, and turned back the German advance in the Battle of the Marne, but Belgium and northern France remained occupied through the war.Accused of war crimes, Germany, labeled on the map by "Kulturland?", defended itself by speaking of its superior culture.Spain, Holland, and Switzerland remained neutral during the war, and are show in green. Italy joined the Allies in May, 1915, possibly shortly before the card was printed, which may explain the use of red for its name and border.
Austro-Hungarian soldiers marching through a city, their officers bawling orders. Women and a child watch and talk, possibly shouting to be heard over the marching feet. An original watercolor on blue paper, signed W. Rittermann or Pittermann, December 26, 1915.
The Russian Duma: priest deputies and officers. From White Nights and Other Russian Impressions by Arthur Ruhl. Ruhl reported from Russia in 1917 after the February Revolution.
A French soldier wearing the uniform of 1914/1915 stands by the side of a water-filled shell crater.
"Letter of an eyewitness: Verdun is impossible to describe. It is about 7 or 8 kilometers from here to Douaumont. Not a trench, not a communications trench, nothing but shell holes one inside another. There is not one piece of ground that is not turned up. To see what has been done here one could not imagine all the shells of all calibers that have been used. The holes made by the 300[-millimeter shells] could hold fifteen horses. There are no more woods. Shattered trees resemble telegraph poles. It is complete devastation. Not one square of land has been spared. One would have to come here to understand it. One cannot imagine such a thing.Everything has been brought together on this part of the front. The cannon are mouth to mouth and never cease firing there is not one second when the cannon cease. There are no attacks right now but still there are losses. Shells fall and mow down everyone and everything without pity.One can only go out at night to work this land that has been churned up a hundred times. The cadavers of swollen horses infect this immense battlefield. We make a trench, a shell lands, everything has to start over again if one is among the survivors. Attacks become impossible. When a troops wants to go out the artillery aim at it. There are too many guns everywhere. For as long as they are here both advance and retreat are impossible.You can be sure that Verdun will not be taken. Here it is extermination on the ground without seeing the enemy. Soon we will be relieved. I wonder how I am still standing after all of this one is completely numb.Men look at one another with wild eyes. It takes a real effort to hold a conversation." ((1), more)
"There was naturally a cascade of Croix de Guerre distributed, as always, according to the whims of the officers, who began by giving them to each other.For these, the company commanders had to present a list of those most deserving. Lieutenant Cordier responded with these noble words: 'All my men did their duty. To reward a few would be to do an injury to the others. That's an injustice to which I will not subscribe.' . . ." ((2), more)
"From 20th May [1916], a series of appeals from Italy reached Stavka, 'each more peremptory in tone than the last'. Joffre, through Laguiche at Stavka; the Italian representative there; the Italian embassy in Petrograd; finally the King of Italy in a personal telegram to the Tsar prevailed on Alexeyev. It seemed that only an immediate Russian offensive could help Italy; and if Italy dropped out of the war, then large numbers of Austrian divisions would be free to take up the battle against Russia." ((3), more)
"This morning P——— brought me somewhat alarming reports of revolutionary propaganda in factories and barracks.. . .At the club this evening I casually overheard the remark: 'If the Duma is not suppressed we are lost!' followed by a long rigmarole proving the necessity of an immediate return of tsarism to the pure traditions of Muscovite orthodoxy.. . . I think it will not be forty years, or even forty months, before the Russian State collapses." ((4), more)
"What's really annoying is that when you have to go you really don't know where to go everywhere is dangerous and so you hold it as long as you can but at some point you just have to go. I am telling you this because this morning at one thirty I wanted to go and I got myself into a shell hole that was two meters deep. I just got there and right away there was a shell whistling by me I lay flat out and right away three more followed one of which exploded in a hole just 30 meters in front of me I grabbed my pants in both hands and ran for the dugout I laughed about it when I got to the shelter but if you could see the poor guys here running like that you would feel sorry for them." ((5), more)
(1) Letter from French Artilleryman Paul Pireaud to his wife Marie, May 23, 1916. Pireaud's unit, the 112th Heavy Artillery Regiment, moved into the Verdun sector in early April. French commander Pétain rotated infantry units roughly weekly, but it was much more difficult to do so with the artillery.
Your Death Would Be Mine; Paul and Marie Pireaud in the Great War by Martha Hanna, page 78, copyright © 2006 by Martha Hanna, publisher: Harvard University Press, publication date: 2006
(2) French Infantry Corporal Louis Barthas rotated into the Verdun sector on May 6, 1916, moved to the front line on the 11th, and moved out the night of May 18-19. Due to French commander Henri Philippe Pétain's policy of short rotations, some 80% of the French army rotated through Verdun during the Battle. Barthas records that his reserve regiment suffered as many as 1,050 killed, wounded, and missing. When the losses were replaced with young men, the regiment was made an active duty, regular regiment. Barthas, who had previously been broken in rank, was made a corporal again.
Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918 by Louis Barthas, page 218, copyright © 2014 by Yale University, publisher: Yale University Press, publication date: 2014
(3) After five Battles of the Isonzo River along the Italian-Austro-Hungarian border in northeast Italy, battles in which Austria-Hungary stood on the defensive, the Austrians struck in northern Italy from Trentino on May 15, 1916 in the Asiago Offensive, and made great advances that threatened to break through from the mountains to Italy's northern plain, isolating the Italian armies. French Commander in Chief Joffre, preparing an Anglo-French offensive on the Somme River, and desperately battling at Verdun, was not yet ready for an offensive. Alexeyev was Chief of Staff to Commander in Chief of Tsar Nicholas II. Stavka was the Russian general staff. General Brusilov was preparing an offensive, and was both ready and willing to strike sooner rather than later.
The Eastern Front, 1914-1917 by Norman Stone, page 246, copyright © 1975 Norman Stone, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1975
(4) Excerpts from the entry for May 26, 1916,from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Imperial Russia. Tsar Nicholas and the royal family were increasingly isolated from Russia's elites, the Duma, Russia's legislative assembly, large segments of workers and the military. An autocrat, the Tsar accommodated representative government and the Duma only under duress. He remain in power little more than 40 weeks from the date on which Paléologue wrote.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. II by Maurice Paléologue, page 265, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(5) Extract from a letter of French Artilleryman Paul Pireaud to his wife Marie on May 27, 1916. Pireaud's unit, the 112th Heavy Artillery Regiment, moved into the Verdun sector in early April. Although French commander Pétain rotated infantry units after seven or eight days, but it was much more difficult to do so with the artillery.
Your Death Would Be Mine; Paul and Marie Pireaud in the Great War by Martha Hanna, page 108, copyright © 2006 by Martha Hanna, publisher: Harvard University Press, publication date: 2006
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