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Entrenched German soldiers behind sniper plates at Slota Gora, September 26, 1916. Slota (or Zlota) Gora was in Polish Russia, west of a line running from Warsaw to Cracow. An original watercolor (over pencil) by O. Oettel, 12th company of Landwehr, IR 32 in the field. A sketch in pencil and red crayon is on the reverse.
Central detail from a 1898 map of St. Petersburg, the Russian capital, from a German atlas. Central St Petersburg, or Petrograd, is on the Neva River. Key landmarks include the Peter and Paul Fortress, which served as a prison, Nevski Prospect, a primary boulevard south of the Fortress, the Finland Train Station, east of the Fortress, where Lenin made his triumphal return, the Tauride (Taurisches) Palace, which housed the Duma and later the Petrograd Soviet.
A Russian Cossack and his mount jump the border into Germany, his lance aimed squarely at Berlin. This French fantasy of its Russian ally sharply contrasted with the slow advance into East Prussia of the Russian First Army and the disastrous offensive of the Russian Second Army that ended in its destruction at Tannenberg. Germany then turned back to the Russian First Army in the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes, and drove it from Russia. Illustration by Kunder (?).
Detail from a 1898 map of St. Petersburg, the Russian capital, from a German atlas. Central St Petersburg, or Petrograd, is on the Neva River. Key landmarks from top to bottom include the Peter and Paul Fortress, which served as a prison, Nevski Prospect, a primary boulevard south of the Fortress, and the Mariyinsky Theater.
1898 map of St. Petersburg, the Russian capital, from a German atlas. Central St Petersburg, or Petrograd, is on the Neva River. Key landmarks include the Peter and Paul Fortress, which served as a prison, Nevski Prospect, a primary boulevard south of the Fortress, the Finland Train Station, east of the Fortress, where Lenin made his triumphal return, the Tauride (Taurisches) Palace, which housed the Duma and later the Petrograd Soviet.
"Later that morning, I was strolling along my line when I saw Lieutenant Pfaffendorf at a sentry post, directing the fire of a trench mortar by means of a periscope. Stepping up beside him, I spotted a British soldier breaking cover behind the third enemy line, the khaki uniform clearly visible against the sky. I grabbed the nearest sentry's rifle, set the sights to six hundred, aimed quickly, just in front of the man's head, and fired. He took another three steps, then collapsed on to his back, as though his legs had been taken away from him, flapped his arms once or twice, and rolled into a shell-crater, where through the binoculars you could see his brown sleeves shining for a long time yet." ((1), more)
"Petrograd is short of bread and wood, and the public is suffering want.At a bakery on the Liteïny this morning I was struck by the sinister expression on the faces of the poor folk who were lined up in a queue, most of whom had spent the whole night there.Pokrovski, to whom I mentioned the matter, did not conceal his anxiety. But what can be done! The transport crisis is certainly worse. The extreme cold (43º) which has all Russia in its grip has put more than twelve hundred engines out of action, owing to boiler tubes bursting, and there is a shortage of spare tubes as a result of strikes. Moreover, the snowfall of the last few weeks has been exceptionally heavy and there is also a shortage of labour in the villages to clear the permanent way. The result is that at the present moment fifty-seven thousand railway wagons cannot be moved." ((2), more)
"They are shelling this place, but no-one takes any notice, being too fed up. Fires are forbidden in daylight, but it is better to die by a fire than live without one.And as for snipers, who cares for those. Why yesterday one of our heavies landed 6 shells about 30 yards on our left, just behind our own line. Cheerful Tommy Atkins takes not much notice. It is only a Bairnsfather incident: Your sincere friend Ivor Gurney" ((3), more)
"On Thursday, March 8, as Nicholas's train was carrying him away from the capital back to Headquarters, the silent, long-suffering breadlines suddenly erupted. Unwilling to wait any longer, people broke into the bakeries and helped themselves. Columns of protesting workers from the industrial Vyborg section marched across the Neva bridges toward the center of the city. A procession, composed mainly of women chanting 'Give us bread,' filled the Nevsky Prospect. The demonstration was peaceful; nevertheless, at dusk a squadron of Cossacks trotted down the Nevsky Prospect, the clatter of their hoofs sounding the government's warning." ((4), more)
"On Friday morning, March 9, the crowds poured into the streets in greater numbers. More bakeries were sacked and again the Cossack patrols appeared, although without their whips, the traditional instrument of mob control in Russia. The crowd, noting this absence, treated the Cossacks cheerfully and parted readily to let them pass. The Cossacks in turn, bantered with the crowd and assured them, 'Don't worry. We won't shoot.'" ((5), more)
(1) German Ensign Ernst Jünger on his killing of a British soldier the morning of March 6, 1917. The British has sent a raiding patrol early in the morning of March 5, and attacked the section next to Jünger's earlier in the morning of the 6th.
Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger, pp. 124–125, copyright © 1920, 1961, Translation © Michael Hoffman, 2003, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 2003
(2) Entry for Tuesday, March 6, 1917 from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia in the Russian capital Petrograd. Nikolai Pokrovsky was Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, succeeding Boris Stürmer. As 43º will not freeze water and burst pipes, we assume (43º) is minus 43º Fahrenheit. The extreme cold had plagued the continent for a fortnight, but had eased in France by March 6.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. III by Maurice Paléologue, page 213, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(3) Ivor Gurney, English poet and composer, writing to the composer Marion Margaret Scott, President of the Society of Women Musicians from 1915 to 1916, on March 7, 1916. Gurney was a private in the Gloucestershire Regiment then in the Fauquissart-Laventie sector. Captain Bruce Bairnsfather was a British cartoonist, creator of Old Bill and his friends Bert and Alf.
War Letters, Ivor Gurney, a selection edited by R.K.R. Thornton by Ivor Gurney, page 143, copyright © J. R. Haines, the Trustee of the Ivor Gurney Estate 1983, publisher: The Hogarth Press, publication date: 1984
(4) March 8 is, and was in 1917, International Women's Day, and women marched through the Russian capital of Petrograd demanding bread. Men joined the march, workers from the Vyborg section north of the Neva River, in the largest demonstration yet. The food shortages that had heightened the tension in the city had brought the demand for food to the fore, and the demand for Peace and Bread had been truncated to the one essential: Give us bread! Mounted Cossacks, used by Tsar Nicholas II and his predecessors to crush dissent, did not intervene on the 8th. Oblivious to the seriousness of the situation, the Tsar, commander of the Army, returned to his headquarters.
Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie by Robert K. Massie, page 399, copyright © 1967, renewed 1995 by Robert K. Massie, publisher: Random House, publication date: 2011
(5) On the previous day, International Women's Day, the Russian capital of Petrograd had seen a massive demonstration, many of the marchers women, chanting, 'Give us bread!' Mounted Cossacks, used by Tsar Nicholas II and his predecessors to crush dissent, did not intervene.
Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie by Robert K. Massie, pp. 399–400, copyright © 1967, renewed 1995 by Robert K. Massie, publisher: Random House, publication date: 2011
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