Search by or
Search: Quotation Context Tags
Postcard of a German soldier guarding French POWs, most of them colonial troops, the colorful uniforms of a Zouave, Spahi, Senegalese, and metropolitan French soldier contrasting with the field gray German uniform. A 1915 postcard by Emil Huber.
Russian troops stopped by barbed wire.
Russian troops arriving in Marseilles, on France's Mediterranean coast, in April 1916. With the Dardanelles closed to them, they would have had a journey along the Atlantic coast of France, Spain, and Portugal before entering the Mediterranean at Gibraltar. Russian troops fought with the Allied forces on the Salonica and Western Fronts.
Headstone of Corporal P. Cotter of the Royal Irish Regiment, died September 3, 1916 at the age of 32, and buried in Delville Wood Cemetery, France. © 2013 John M. Shea
Postcard image of London under an airship raid. In the distance, a fire burns near Tower Bridge, another to the east, south of the Thames. The Schütte-Lanz was a competitor to the Zeppelin, and used a wooden rather than metal frame. After an original painting, 'Schütte-Lanz' over London by Jo. Ruep.
"Allied intelligence assessed German casualties in July as between 130,000 and 175,000. By the end of August, that figure had risen to 200,000, which was actually a significant underestimate: after the war the German official history acknowledged 243,129 casualties in the first two months. The heart seemed to be being torn out of the old army, while its material and human resources were also stretched. G.H.Q. analysts noted a dispiriting report from one soldier's home town: 'You should have seen the recruits who were mustered this week; it was like the boys coming out of school, but they have all become soldiers; it hardly seems possible.' Older untrained men, 'until now unfit for active service, and those who have become unfit during the war,' were also to be mustered, 'Germany's last hope.'" ((1), more)
"Around 6 p.m. the first wounded appeared; they had attacked only three hours earlier. We were all at work. Our orderlies were busily cutting away the stained garments. Only the heavily-wounded had been brought, and their injuries were indescribably terrible: heads, chests, stomachs, arms, legs, every kind of wound was there and we found body after body smashed, broken, lacerated. The operating hut became intolerably hot and the flies, too, gave us no peace. There were many deaths. . . ." ((2), more)
"There is great humiliation at General Headquarters and the War Ministry.The 2nd Russian brigade, which recently arrived in France and was about to embark for Salonica, has mutinied at Marseilles ; the colonel has been murdered and several officers were wounded. To restore order the vigourous intervention of French troops was required. Severe measures of repression have been taken and about twenty men shot.I cannot help remembering what Sazonov said to me last December when justifying his opposition to Doumer's request : 'When the Russian soldier is off his own soil he's worthless ; he goes to pieces at once.'" ((3), more)
"On the evening of September 2[, 1916], the battalion moved cautiously from Mailly-Maillet by cross-battalion tracks, through pretty Englebelmer, with ghostly Angelus on the green and dewy light, over the downs to Mesnil, and assembled in the Hamel trenches to attack the Beaucourt ridge next morning. The night all round was drugged and quiet. I stood at the junction of four advanced trenches, directing the several companies into them as had been planned. Not one man in thirty had seen the line by daylight—and it was a maze even when seen so, map in hand. Even climbing out of the narrow steep trenches with weighty equipment, and crossing others by bridges placed 'near enough' in this dark last moment, threatened to disorder the assault." ((4), more)
". . . At about 1:50 A.M. I noticed a red glow in the northeast of London. Taking it to be an outbreak of fire I went in that direction. At about 2:05 A.M. a Zeppelin was picked up over N.N.E. London (as far as I could judge). Remembering my last failure, I sacrificed height (I was still at 12,100 feet) for speed and made nose-down for the Zeppelin. I saw shells bursting and night-tracer shells flying around it. When I drew closer I noticed that the anti-aircraft fire was too high or too low, also a good many rose 800 feet behind—a few tracers went right over. I could hear the burst about 3,000 feet from the Zeppelin.I flew to about 800 feet below it from bow to stern and distributed one drum along it (alternate new Brock and Pomeroy). It seemed to have no effect. I therefore moved to one side and gave it another drum along its side—without much apparent effect. I then got behind it (by this time I was very close—500 feet or less below—[)]and concentrated one drum on one part underneath. I was then at a height of 11,500 feet when attacking the Zeppelin. I had hardly finished the drum when I saw the part fired at glow. In a few seconds the whole rear part was blazing. When the third drum was fired there were no searchlights on the Zeppelin and no A.A. was firing. I quickly got out of the way of the falling Zeppelin and, being very excited, fired off a few red Very lights and dropped a parachute flare." ((5), more)
(1) German casualties in the first two months of the Battle of the Somme exceeded those of the first six months in the Battle of Verdun.
Three Armies on the Somme by William Philpott, page 272, copyright © 2009 by William Philpott, publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, publication date: 2009
(2) Florence Farmborough, an English nurse serving with the Russian Red Cross writing on August 31 (August 18 Old Style), 1916. Whatever success the Russians had enjoyed in the Brusilov Offensive of June and July had ended.
Nurse at the Russian Front, a Diary 1914-18 by Florence Farmborough, page 232, copyright © 1974 by Florence Farmborough, publisher: Constable and Company Limited, publication date: 1974
(3) Entry from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, for Friday, September 1, 1916. Russian troops were already in the Allied line on the Salonica Front, having been transported from Archangel, Russia to Marseilles. The French wanted Russian troops serving with the French both because of the need for more men and for reasons of morale. In his memoir Poilu, Louis Barthas writes of seeing Russian troops, and of French speakers of Russian rapidly promoted and assigned as interpreters. Sergei Sazonov was Russian Foreign Minister from 1910 until his replacement by Boris Sturmer in July, 1916. Doumer was likely Paul Doumer, French Senator in the Chamber of Deputies, a former Minister and Governor-General of French Indo-China, and later President of France, assassinated by a Russian emigré in 1931. Paléologue met with him on December 4, 1915 and told the Ambassador he would ask Russia for 400,000 men.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. III by Maurice Paléologue, pp. 16–17, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(4) Edmund Blunden, English writer, recipient of the Military Cross, second lieutenant and adjutant in the Royal Sussex Regiment, writing of preparations the night of September 2, 1916 for an attack the next morning, an action in Battle of the Somme. Hamel had seen the ruin of the Newfoundland Regiment on July 1, the first day of the Battle. Blunden was responsible for supplying the troops of his unit, and had spent the previous days stocking rations, ammunition, grenades, barbed wire, and other supplies in the trenches. Once the battle began, 'all was in ominous discommunication,' with reports of men reaching the first, second, and third German lines, messengers coming bearing too-late news from an hour before, wounded men staggering in, dead men being carried in, all while shells bombarded the trenches. By noon, 'the collapse of the attack was wearily obvious.' Blunden also fought at Ypres and in the Battle of the Passchendaele.
Undertones of War by Edmund Blunden, page 96, copyright © the Estate of Edmund Blunden, 1928, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: November 1928
(5) Excerpt from the account of Lieutenant William Leefe Robinson of Number 39 Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps of his bringing down SL.11 on the night of September 2–3, 1916 from Arch Whitehouse's The Zeppelin Fighters. This night London was the primary target of the greatest airship attack yet, one of 16 craft, primarily Zeppelins, carrying 32 tons of bombs. SL.11 was a Schütte-Lanz rather than a Zeppelin; the former had a wooden frame, the latter one of metal. Hauptmann Wilhelm Schramm piloted SL.11 which fell on the village of Cuffley, 25 north of London. Four civilians were killed in the raid, and twelve injured. 'Brock' and 'Pomeroy' were types of explosive machine gun bullets, sensitive enough to explode on striking fabric.
The Zeppelin Fighters by Arch Whitehouse, page 128, copyright © 1966 by Arch Whitehouse, publisher: New English Library, publication date: 1978
1 2 Next
