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Wilhelm sends congratulations and a watercolor floral spray to his brother Karl on September 9, 1915. The drawing is signed FP.
Pencil sketch of a piece of French shrapnel by a German soldier1 drawn September 12, 1915. Shrapnel was an anti-personnel weapon, designed to kill and maim.
Postcard from a painting by W. Partke of a village in the Pripet Marshes in Russia dated February 14, 1916. An Hungarian officer wrote of the Marshes, 'almost half of the territory is covered by wet, impassable, and uncultivated forest, wooded territory, most of it useless, bushy, and impenetrable. The ground itself is divided into different kinds of marshy lands, impassable muddy districts, immense weedy and grassy territories, also regions covered by some kind of more solid grassy substance, and other thousands and thousands of acres of land perpetually under water.' The card is field postmarked on April 9, 1917 by Minenwerfer (trench mortar) Company 282.
Turkish Interior Minister Talaat Pasha from 'Four Years Beneath the Crescent' by Rafael De Nogales.
German and Austro-Hungarian forces under the command of generals von Hindenburg and Archduke Friedrich besieged Warsaw, and took it during the Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive. Austrians von Hötzendorf, Friedrich, and Pflanzer-Baltin form the bottom of the ring; the others are German. The flag and shield of Germany are on the bottom left; those of Austria and Hungary the bottom right.
"At that time the farmers were harvesting the hops. One day one of our bosses had the bright idea of issuing an order at roll call authorizing us to help harvest the hops that afternoon . . .To win the favor of the Flemish girls, the young poilus posted themselves alongside them and helped them to fill their sacks. And these young people, careless as they have always been and always will be, sang, laughed, flirted, and embraced, indifferent to the dull roar of cannon fire which sounded over toward Ypres." ((1), more)
"11th September [1915]General Joffre has just told me of the new big offensive which the French and the English are going to attempt, involving more than a million. They have plenty of ammunition and new big guns. The General is very hopeful. The main attack will take place in Champagne, with a subsidiary attack at Arras, next to that of the English.'Whether it succeeds or not,' said Joffre, 'we can do no more. The Italians will make a great effort towards the end of September; the Russians lack guns, but they have plenty of man power.'General Foch, who had come before the Generalissimo to announce the visit and tell me the latter's plans, was not very optimistic." ((2), more)
"We had 5 killed and 14 wounded during the day. Next day there were two outbursts of trench-mortar activity; and there was September 16th—a real hate by both sides the following afternoon.The wounds of this front are mostly multiple and often horrible, being nearly all caused by shell or mortar-bomb or grenade. One wonders how the Germans fare with their own bombs, so many of our wounded are the victims of our own bomb accidents." ((3), more)
"Every tree is a little islet standing out of the gloomy marshland, and shallow lakes which extend for mile after mile. The roads are inundated by the water, which has risen high owing to the floods of rain, and from the miserable cottages, which at intervals are to be seen partly submerged along the highways, strange looking men with long beards and thick, matted hair, mostly woodcutters and others earning a precarious living from the products of the surrounding wilderness, creep out and stare with amazement at the Austrian and German cavalrymen.According to the figures almost half of the territory is covered by wet, impassable, and uncultivated forest, wooded territory, most of it useless, bushy, and impenetrable. The ground itself is divided into different kinds of marshy lands, impassable muddy districts, immense weedy and grassy territories, also regions covered by some kind of more solid grassy substance, and other thousands and thousands of acres of land perpetually under water.. . . How an army of many hundred thousands of men could undertake an advance movement on this marshy ground covered with thick forest, mud, and water is almost unimaginable . . ." ((4), more)
"Yesterday I talked with a priest. He and most of his calling voluntarily accepted at the beginning of the war the fearful task of burying the dead. It sounds very simple, does n't it? Do you realize what it means? It means handling terrible objects covered with blood-soaked clothing, that once had the shape of human beings. It means taking from these forms all articles of apparel that might prove serviceable and searching through these red-stained clothes for any letter or identification. Some of these shapes are hardly of human outline, very stiff and cold. Some are mere fragments, no longer of any recognizable form. That is a little of what burying the dead means. I spare you more detail. And this is the work the priests of Peace are doing in France. Wonderful, you think? No, it is French temperament, French courage." ((5), more)
(1) Excerpt from the Notebooks of French Infantry Corporal Louis Barthas from around September 10, 1915. His unit had deployed to Flanders near the village of Oost-Cappel, on the Franco-Belgian border. Barthas, 'an old papa,' helped two old people with their harvest, 'a pretty meager one even counting the few sous which my help added to their earnings.'
Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918 by Louis Barthas, pp. 104, 105, copyright © 2014 by Yale University, publisher: Yale University Press, publication date: 2014
(2) Excerpt from the September 11, 1915 entry from the diary of Albert, King of the Belgians. With the industrial north of their country occupied, Italy's failures in its initial battles, and Russia's continuing retreat before the month's-long German-Austro-Hungarian advance, French Commander-in-Chief Joffre and other French leaders believed they had no alternative. General Foch, who would command the French 10th Army in Artois, was not alone in his skepticism, which was shared by General Castelnau, commander of the French attack in Champagne, British General Haig, and other senior officers.
The War Diaries of Albert I King of the Belgians by Albert I, page 61, copyright © 1954, publisher: William Kimber
(3) Excerpt from the period September 14 to 16, 1915 from the writings — diaries, letters, and memoirs — of Captain J.C. Dunn, Medical Officer of the Second Battalion His Majesty's Twenty-Third Foot, The Royal Welch Fusiliers. Approximately 70% of soldiers killed in World War I were killed by artillery fire, including shrapnel shells, high-explosive shells, and gas shells.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, page 148, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(4) Excerpt from a 1915 letter by an Hungarian officer on the Russian Front. The great German-Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive had achieved the aims of German Commander-in-Chief Erich von Falkenhayn who had called for a halt in early August. On the northern end of the front, German commanders Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff pushed on, claiming to misunderstand Falkenhayn. To the south, Austro-Hungarian Commander-in-Chief Conrad von Hötzendorf, chaffing under German command, but helpless without German aid, carried on his own 'Black and Gold' (the colors of the Hapsburg flag) offensive. The September advances into Russia brought the invaders well into the Pripet Marshes our Hungarian officer describes.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. III, 1915, pp. 318, 319, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(5) Excerpt from a letter of September 14, 1915, by Leslie Buswell, a driver with the American Ambulance Field Service, a volunteer organization attached to the French Armies. Buswell was stationed at Pont-à-Mousson, France, north of Nancy.
Ambulance No. 10; Personal Letters from the Front by Leslie Buswell, pp. 133, 134, copyright © 1915, and 1915, by Houghton Mifflin Company, publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company, publication date: 1916
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