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A Russian Cossack riding among refugees fleeing before a Central Power advance. The Russians adopted a scorched-earth policy in the months-long retreat before the German-Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive of the spring, summer, and fall 1915, with Cossacks accused of burning homes and crops to deny them to the advancing enemy, and to prevent civilians from remaining behind and providing intelligence to the invader.
I've killed many Germans, but never women or children. Original French watercolor by John on blank field postcard. In the background are indolent Russian soldiers and Vladimir Lenin, in the foreground stands what may be a Romanian soldier who is telling the Russians, 'You call me savage. I killed a lot of Boches [Germans], but never women or children!'
Christmas on the front, Vaucelles, France, 1916. A watercolor of the village gate. A separate photograph shows two German soldiers posing before the gate.
Mustapha Kemal Pasha, later Ataturk, from 'Four Years Beneath the Crescent' by Rafael De Nogales.
Italy's armed forces at the ready in a 1915 postcard. In the foreground the artillery, infantry, an Alpine soldier (in feathered hat), and a Bersaglieri (in plumed headgear). Behind them are a bugler and lancer; in the distance marines and colonial troops. The Italian navy is off shore, an airship and planes overhead. On the reverse are the lyrics of a patriotic Italian March by Angelo Balladori, lyrics by Enrico Mercatali. It ends with a call to the brothers of Trento and Trieste, Austro-Hungarian territory with large ethnic Italian populations.
"All day long we jolted along the plains or through woodlands, and wherever we looked we could see the moving figures of homeless people. It was said that the Cossacks had received orders to force all inhabitants of villages and hamlets to leave their homes, lest they be made to act as spies and, in order that the enemy should encounter widespread devastation in his progress, the homesteads were set on fire and crops destroyed.Thus a new word was added to our daily vocabulary — that of refugee, and from that day onward for many weeks to come the life of our Unit was closely interwoven with that of the refugees. Their plight was heart-rending." ((1), more)
"Suddenly the artillery fire died away. The front line became visible. But then we began firing again. Our artillery put the Russian trenches under heavy fire. I demanded that the reserves go in. We had a firing line, man against man. The Russians didn't advance and those who tried to retreat were blown away. We killed hundreds of them. It is irresponsible, how ruthlessly the Russians drive their men forward. My men were exemplary. An unshakeable wall. The night passed without incident. We left the Russians alone so that they could collect their wounded. Many were screaming all day in the wheatfield." ((2), more)
"A man is down! He was under the wheels of a gun-carriage! A flash of a white face — a cry above the confusion — that was all; we still clattered along and the gun-carriage pressed forward without heed. Here, indeed, was the law of the primitive world, the survival of the fittest! To fall was to be crushed, abandoned, and to die, while the swollen tide of wheels and feet swept on and on in fitful, passionate fury, engulfing horse or human which impeded its passage. And ever the lazy, threatening drone of enemy planes sounded in our ears silenced only the quick, sharp bark of enemy shells at our heels." ((3), more)
"The French losses on the 16th, 17th, and 18th June amount to 100,000 men; the result obtained — nil." ((4), more)
"Thirty-six hours after our June success, at midnight in the night of June 29th-30th [1915], the Turks made a counter-attack, not at Cape Helles, where their men were shaken, but at Anzac, where perhaps they felt our menace most acutely. A large army of Turks, about 30,000 strong, ordered by Enver Pasha 'to drive the foreigners into the sea or never to look upon his face again,' attacked the Anzac position under cover of the fire of a great artillery. They were utterly defeated, with the loss of about a quarter of their strength, some seven to eight thousand killed and wounded." ((5), more)
(1) Frances Farmborough, an English teacher in Moscow when war broke out, trained for and joined a Red Cross unit serving with the Russian Army. By late June, 1915, the joint German-Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive, launched on May 2, had broken the Russian front, splitting the northern and southern armies, and driving the Russians back hundreds of miles. For these months, Farmborough's account is of the ongoing, brutal retreat.
Nurse at the Russian Front, a Diary 1914-18 by Florence Farmborough, page 83, copyright © 1974 by Florence Farmborough, publisher: Constable and Company Limited, publication date: 1974
(2) Ernst Nopper, a German officer on the border of Austria-Hungary and Polish Russia, writing on June 27, 1915. The Russians had attacked two days earlier, suffering heavy losses with no gain. The Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive, a joint German-Austro-Hungarian assault, had driven the Russians back, but not yet broken their line. The Russian version of the shell shortage was the most extreme of the major powers, the army lacking guns, artillery shells, rifles, and ammunition to respond to the German attacks.
Intimate Voices from the First World War by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, page 105, copyright © 2003 by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, publisher: Harper Collins Publishers, publication date: 2003
(3) A late June 1915 excerpt from the diary of Frances Farmborough, and English nurse serving with the Russian Army. She and her unit were part of the great Russian retreat in 1915, driven back by the combined German and Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive. Farmborough's unit sets up intermittently, then is driven on again, amidst refugees and units of the Russian army.
Nurse at the Russian Front, a Diary 1914-18 by Florence Farmborough, page 85, copyright © 1974 by Florence Farmborough, publisher: Constable and Company Limited, publication date: 1974
(4) Diary entry by Albert, King of the Belgians on June 29, 1915. French Commander Joseph Joffre had called off the Second Battle of Artois, the greatest source of the casualties the King refers to, on June 25. The French wanted to incorporate the Belgian Army into their own. Albert, his men holding a small corner of Belgium behind fields the Belgians had inundated during the Battle of the Yser, kept his troops independent, and argued for the French to attack elsewhere along their front and farther from his country.
The War Diaries of Albert I King of the Belgians by Albert I, page 48, copyright © 1954, publisher: William Kimber
(5) In the Gallipoli campaign, British, Indian, and French forces faced the Turkish lines on the end of the Gallipoli Peninsula. Further north, the Turks contained the invaders at Anzac Cove, the beachhead held by the ANZACs, the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps, where as little as 30 yards separated the lines. The Turkish attack was in reponse to those the Allies mounted on June 28, the primary one by the British at Helles and a diversionary one at Anzac Cove. Enver Pasha was the Turkish War Minister.
Gallipoli by John Masefield by John Masefield, pp. 92, 93, publisher: William Heinemann, publication date: 1916
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