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A woman tramway worker operating a manual switch, changing the direction of her trolley. As men entered or were conscripted into the military, women took on unaccustomed roles.
A French officer charging into battle in a watercolor by Fernand Rigouts. The original watercolor on deckle-edged watercolor paper is signed F. R. 1917, and addressed to Mademoiselle Henriette Dangon.
Dive Copse British Cemetery in Sailly-le-Sec, France.
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.
A British encampment at Zeitelik on the Salonica Front. Colorized version of a black and white postcard.
". . . the introduction of meat and sugar rationing had failed to stem the rise in the cost of living. In Paris the purchasing power of the franc had fallen by about 10 per cent since the beginning of the war. Elsewhere in the country the rising cost of food was far outstripping any wage increases; for example, in the Loire-Inférieure, around Nantes and Saint-Nazaire, the cost of food had risen by 169 per cent since the start of the war, wages by only 119 per cent.In January 1917 some 400 women staged an anti-war protest in Limoges, while in May strikes in Paris reportedly involved about 100,000 workers." ((1), more)
"On May 19 Pétain published Directive No. 1 and provided the entire army a clear explanation of his operational concept. The directive repeated the idea of an 'equilibrium of opposing forces' that would prevent an attacker from rupturing an opponent's defenses and conducting a strategic exploitation. To function within this equilibrium, the French could not remain passive and yield the initiative completely to the enemy; they had to attack. Instead of seeking a breakthrough however, Pétain intended to launch limited offensives that would incur 'minimum losses' but attrit the enemy. To lessen casualties he planned on massing artillery on the enemy's forward positions and then sending infantry into the destroyed trenches. Rather than fire into the huge area between the enemy's front and rear lines and thereby dilute the artillery's effect, he preferred concentrating all French rounds on the enemy's forward positions and having the infantry advance only a short distance." ((2), more)
"May 20 [1917]When I woke early this morning to hear the bird-voices, so rich and shrill in the grey misty dawn, piping hoarse and sweet from the quiet fragrance of the wet garden and from the green dripping woods far off—lying in my clean white bed, drowsy and contented, I suddenly remembered 'At zero the infantry will attack'—Operation Orders! Men were attacking while I lay in bed and listened to the heavenly choruses of birds. Men were blundering about in a looming twilight of hell lit by livid flashes of guns and hideous with the malignant invective of machine-gun fire. Men were dying, fifty yards from their trench—failing to reach the objective—held up.And to-night the rain is hushing the darkness, steady, whispering rain—the voice of peace among summer foliage. And men are cursing the downpour that drenches and chills them, while the guns roar out their challenge." ((3), more)
"'Men and women citizens!' I heard my voice say. 'Our mother is perishing. Our mother is Russia. I want to help to save her. I want women whose hearts are loyal, whose souls are pure, whose aims are high. With such women setting an example of self-sacrifice, you men will realize your duty in this grave hour!'—Before I had time to realize it I was already in a photographer's studio, and there had my portrait taken. The following day this picture appeared at the head of big posters pasted all over the city, announcing my appearance at the Mariyinski Theatre for the purpose of organizing a Women's Battalion of Death—" ((4), more)
"The Army of the Orient had captured a few outposts at Doiran, on the Struma and at the foot of the Dobropolje. And for these pitiable acquisitions, 14,000 Allied soldiers—more men than Montgomery was to lose in the twelve victorious days of Alamein—had died, or been incapacitated, or taken prisoner. In any other war Sarrail's offensive would have been written off as a major failure and its author discredited for all time. But by the grim standards of 1917 these casualties were not exceptional. In that same month on the Western front eleven times as many died in front of Arras alone, with no gain of any strategic significant; and the French losses on the Aisne were even greater." ((5), more)
(1) With the failure of French commander in chief Robert Nivelle's 1917 spring offensive, the Second Battle of the Aisne, and as mutinies broke out in the French army, strikes spread among the civilian population. Among the strikers in Paris were the 'midinettes', Parisian shop girls or seamstresses.
They Shall Not Pass: The French Army on the Western Front 1914-1918 by Ian Sumner, page 166, copyright © Ian Sumner 2012, publisher: Pen and Sword, publication date: 2012
(2) With the failure of French commander in chief Robert Nivelle's 1917 spring offensive, the Second Battle of the Aisne, and as mutinies broke out in the French army, the government replaced Nivelle with General Henri Phillippe Pétain who aimed to end the mutinies and the failed military tactics that drove soldiers to their actions. His policy is sometimes summarized as 'Wait for the Americans and the tanks,' but his production plan initiatives called not only for tanks, but also for an increase in the production of aircraft to command the air, and of heavy artillery to reduce German defenses.
Pyrrhic Victory; French Strategy and Operations in the Great War by Robert A. Doughty, page 366, copyright © 2005 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, publisher: Harvard University Press, publication date: 2005
(3) Entry for May 20, 1917, from the diary of Siegfried Sassoon, British poet, author, Second Lieutenant in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and recipient of the Military Cross for gallantry in action. Sassoon had been wounded, shot through the shoulder by a sniper, in an April 16 attack on the village of Fontaine-lès-Croisilles in the Battle of Arras.
Siegfried Sassoon Diaries 1915-1918 by Siegfried Sassoon, pp. 170–171, copyright © George Sassoon, 1983; Introduction and Notes Rupert Hart-Davis, 1983, publisher: Faber and Faber, publication date: 1983
(4) Maria Bochkareva followed Alexander Kerensky, newly appointed Russia's Minister of War, and his wife, in speaking at Petrograd's Mariyinski Theater on May 21, 1917 to raise recruits for a Women's Battalion of Death. When she spoke, Bochkareva had already been serving in the Russian army since November, 1914. After winnowing 2,000 volunteers down to a fighting force of about 300, her battalion of women would fight in the Kerensky Offensive in July, 1917, a battle in which she would be wounded for the third time. By August, 1918, Bochkareva had traveled to the United States, where she dictated her memoir and met with President Woodrow Wilson, and to the United Kingdom, where she met with King George, before returning to Russia. In the Russian Civil War, she opposed the Bolsheviks, who captured and executed her on May 16, 1920.
The Virago Book of Women and the Great War by Joyce Marlow, Editor, page 276, copyright © Joyce Marlow 1998, publisher: Virago Press, publication date: 1999
(5) French General Maurice Sarrail commanded an Allied Army of French, British, Serbian, Russian, and Italian units opposing a Bulgarian army supported by German troops on the Salonica Front extending across northern Greece and into Serbia. Sarrail's spring 1917 offensive began May 8 with British troops attacking on the eastern end of the line, with the other national forces attacking on the 9th. The battle continued for 12 days with little success, and when the Serbs prepared an attack for May 22 they found Sarrail had already canceled the offensive. The attacks in France — the British in the Battle of Arras and the French in the Second Battle of the Aisne — were failures. The Struma River flows from Bulgaria through Greece to the Aegean Sea; Lake Doiran and the peak of Dobro Pole are both on the border of Greece and, in 1917, Serbia. During World War II British General Bernard Montgomery led Allied forces to victory in the Battle of El Alamein in North Africa against German and Italian forces at the end of October to the beginning of November, 1942.
The Gardeners of Salonika by Alan Palmer, page 131, copyright © 1965 by A. W. Palmer, publisher: Simon and Schuster, publication date: 1965
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