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A map of the Russian-Turkish front from Der Weltkrieg 1914-1918, a 1930s German history of the war illustrated with hand-pasted cigarette cards, showing the Turkish Empire in Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian Seas and the Persian Gulf. To the west is Egypt, a British dominion; to the east Persia. Erzerum in Turkey and Kars in Russia were the great fortresses on the frontier.
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.
View of the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme 1914–1918 from Mouquet Farm, commemorating the 72,246 British and Empire missing of that sector. It is a monument both to the British Empire and French missing from the Battle of the Somme and other battles in Picardy. © 2013 John M. Shea
Battle on the Somme, by Oskar Martin Amorbach, showing the blue Hessen (Infantry Regiment Lieb, 'Grand Duchess') in combat against British troops.
The Polish children are coming for lunch. German soldiers with Polish children in Lomza, Polish Russia, June, 1915. The photo postcard from Adolf Herzell was sent July 7, 1915. Herzell wrote that 'the Polish children are coming for lunch.' Translation courtesy of Thomas Faust, ebay's Urfaust.
". . . the situation deadlocked on all three fronts, and the early onset of winter — it snowed for the first time on 26 September — translated standoff into impasses, leaving the Turks with very little to show for a six-or-more-week campaign which had cost them at least 30,000 killed and wounded out of a total strength which had probably never exceeded a hundred thousand. By any standard, this was a disaster; not quite the catastrophe which had befallen Vehip's Third Army, perhaps, but nonetheless a calamity, and one which effectively spelled the end of Turkish offensive campaigning in the Caucasus. The final blow to Turkish morale fell before September's end, when Kemal ordered his 8th Division to pull back from Muş, and the Russians retook the city as easily as they had given it up." ((1), more)
"Slota Gora26.9.16O.Oettel 12L.32.I. Felde" ((2), more)
"The French did not co-operate in the battle [of Flers-Courcelette], and continued to delay entering the heavy fighting which followed. They took little part until the 25th, when another attack was launched. It was the anniversary of the British reverse at Loos, and Charteris, Haig's intelligence chief, wrote in his diary '. . . a great difference between this year and last'. He was not attempting irony. On 27 September the Thiepval spur was at last taken, having held out since 1 July. A battalion of the Bedfordshires were the ones who finally took possession. The land surrounding this stronghold was carpeted with British corpses from the numerous previous attacks which had failed." ((3), more)
"Prince Rupprecht's Statement of September 28thThis Somme offensive brings an attack of unusual violence every six days on average. I know this country well from the fighting of 1914. At that time we had moving warfare, while we are now in a position of siege.In his attacks, beginning in July, the enemy has gained some ground, but a decision of the situation is not to be thought of. One cannot prophesy how things will go here, but one thing is certain: Everything has now been so well provided for by us that one can quietly await coming events, be they what they may.The offensive will certainly not be at an end very soon. . . . I am of the opinion that the enemy is seeking a decision here and this years, and in this he has failed." ((4), more)
"Friday, September 29, 1916.The economic situation has become much worse in the last few weeks. The increased cost of living is causing hardship all round. The price of the most elementary necessaries is three times what it was at the beginning of the war; in the case of wood and eggs it is four times, and in that of butter and soap five times. The main causes of this situation are unfortunately as fundamental as obvious—the closing of foreign markets, congestion on the railways and confusion and dishonesty in the public services.What will it be in few weeks time when we have to cope with the rigours of winter and the tortures of the cold, which are even more cruel than those of hunger?" ((5), more)
(1) Since the Battle of Sarikamish in January, 1915, the Russians had steadily advanced into eastern Turkey, territory with a large Christian population, much of it Armenian until the the Turkish government's genocidal attacks on that people. In September, 1916 Russia was reaching the limits of its advance in the Caucasus Mountains and eastern Turkey, but had also moving into Persia, an independent but weak country on which the Turks also had designs. Even as the situation in the Caucasus deteriorated, Turkish War Minister Enver Pasha sent troops to support the invasion of Romania. Turkish General Mustafa Kemal had been a hero in the defense of the Gallipoli peninsula in 1915.
Eden to Armageddon: World War I in the Middle East by Roger Ford, page 178, copyright © Roger Ford 2010, publisher: Pegasus Books, publication date: 2010
(2)
Slota Gora, September 26, 1916 by O. Oettel, Front, publication date: 1916
(3) The Thiepval spur is the site of the Thiepval Memorial to the 72,246 British and Empire missing of the Somme. The Battle of Loos was Britain's 'Big Push' in the autumn of 1915, a time when the British had not had the resources — of men, artillery, and aircraft — that they mustered in 1916. British General Douglas Haig had been promoted commander in chief after the failures of 1915. The September 15, 1916 Battle of Flers-Courcelette, an engagement in the Battle of the Somme, saw the first use tanks.
The Big Push, A Portrait of the Battle of the Somme by Brian Gardner, page 130, copyright © 1961 by Brian Gardner, publisher: William Morrow and Company, publication date: 1963
(4) Beginning and end of a statement by Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, September 28, 1916 writing of the British offensive on the Somme. He notes that the attacks will be very violent with a 'colossal expenditure of ammuntion', but that the Germans are well-prepared, their artillery strengthened, and their flyers 'getting the upper hand.' At the beginning of the war Rupprecht commanded the German Sixth Army. In August, 1916 he took command of Army Group Rupprecht of Bavaria, combining the 1st, 2nd, 6th, and 7th German Armies.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. IV, 1916, pp. 252–353, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(5) September 29, 1916 entry from the diary of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia. Imperial Russia's last great offensive had ground to an end, but casualties continued to climb. The hope that Romania's entry into the war would turn the tide was proving to be unfounded.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. III by Maurice Paléologue, page 44, publisher: George H. Doran Company
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