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Photograph of a German forest camp on Hill 310, Verdun. Hill 310 is near Hill 304 and Mort-Homme, northwest of Verdun and objectives of German assaults in April and May, 1916.
Zeppelin Kommt! Children play a Zeppelin raid on London. Holding his bomb in the gondola is a doll of the airship's inventor, Count Zeppelin. The other children, playing the English, cower, and the British fleet — folded paper boats — remains in port. Prewar postcards celebrated the imposing airships and the excitement they generated with the same expression, 'Zeppelin Kommt!'. Postcard by P.O. Engelhard (P.O.E.). The message on the reverse is dated May 28, 1915.
The Kasaba of Kut-el-Amara, Mesopotamia, where a British Indian army was surrounded and besieged by Turkish forces from the end of 1915 until the British surrender on April 29, 1915. Photograph from 'Four Years Beneath the Crescent' by Rafael De Nogales, Inspector-General of the Turkish Forces in Armenia and Military Governor of Egyptian Sinai during the World War.
Uniforms of the British Army, 1914, from a series of postcards of uniforms of the combatants in the 1914 European War.
Gun turrets of Fort Douaumont in the rain, September 22, 2015. © 2015 John M. Shea
"[The German Crown Prince] bombarded and attacked almost without intermission the observation posts on the Mort-Homme and on Hill 304, so that both heights were wreathed in smoke like volcanoes. On May 3rd our aviators flew over them and said, when they returned, that to a height of eight hundred meters above the ground the atmosphere was thick with dense columns of smoke rising from the explosions of the shells. On May 4th the Germans gained a foothold on the northern slope of Hill 304, thus endangering the security of the 'position of resistance' that I had defined in my orders of February 27th." ((1), more)
"Morale was higher [among the Allied troops in Greece]—partly because the hardship of winter was over, but also because the proximity of the Germans suggested a purpose for being in this odd corner of Europe. The destruction of a Zeppelin by naval gunners on May 5 in full view of the people of Salonika also raised the spirits of the troops, especially among the British contingent, for their families at home had already been subject to raids of this type and it was to be another four months before the first Zeppelin was shot down on English soil. Throughout the Salonika base, there was an air of expectancy." ((2), more)
"When the armistice was concluded it was found that of 2,680 British N.C.O.s and privates taken at Kut, 1,306 had died and 449 remained untraced: that is, over 65 per cent. perished. Of the 10,486 Indians, combatants and followers, 1,290 died and 1,773 were untraced. 'These figures,' says the report, 'give the exact measure of the meaning of captivity in Turkey.' Most of the Kut prisoners perished in the terrible crossing of the desert between Samarrah and Aleppo in June." ((3), more)
"A Highland sergeant-major stood magnificently before us, with the brass brutality called a Hales rifle-grenade in his hand. He explained the piece, fingering the wind-vane with easy assurance; then stooping to the fixed rifle, he prepared to shoot the grenade by way of demonstration. According to my unsoldierlike habit, I had let the other students press near the instructor, and was listlessly standing on the skirts of the meeting, thinking of something else, when the sergeant-major having just said 'I've been down here since 1914, and never had an accident,' there was a strange hideous clang. Several voices cried out; I found myself stretched on the floor, looking upwards in the delusion that the grenade had been fired straight above and was about to fall among us. It had indeed been fired, but by some error had burst at the muzzle of the rifle: the instructor was lying with mangled head, dead, and others lay near him, also blood-masked, dead and alive. So ended that morning's work on the Bull-Ring." ((4), more)
"On 8 May a series of explosions wracked the depths of the fort, spreading from a box of hand grenades to the petrol canisters used in flamethrowers and, finally, to a magazine of artillery shells. Some 650 German soldiers died—underground, in darkness, blown to pieces, seared by fire or choked by smoke—in the worst disaster of its type that either army suffered at Verdun." ((5), more)
(1) The German assault on Verdun began on February 21, 1916 with a bombardment by over 1,000 guns northeast and east of the city. On March 6 they struck at Mort-Homme, high ground northwest of Verdun on the left bank of the Meuse, with a preliminary bombardment as intense as that of February. On April 9, 1916, the attack resumed at Mort-Homme and Cote 304 (Hill 304), with their heaviest bombardment since beginning the assault.
Verdun by Henri Philippe Pétain, pp. 149, 150, copyright © 1930, publisher: The Dial Press, publication date: 1930
(2) From their base in the port of Salonica, Allied forces had expanded their footprint in Greece to the frontier, where they skirmished with Bulgarian and German troops. In spring, 1916, the Allied camp contained French and British troops originally transported from the failed Gallipoli front, the remains of Serbia's army, now recovered from its defeat and forced retreat to the Adriatic coast, and Russian troops that had sailed from Archangel on the White Sea.
The Gardeners of Salonika by Alan Palmer, page 62, copyright © 1965 by A. W. Palmer, publisher: Simon and Schuster, publication date: 1965
(3) Excerpt from an account of the investiture by Turkish forces of a British-Indian army under the command of General Townshend in Kut-el-Amara, Mesopotamia by Edmund Candler, an official British observer with the Relieving Force that was unable to break the Turkish siege. Attempting to seize Baghdad, the British had been defeated 22 miles short of their goal, and fell back to Kut to regroup and await reinforcements. They were instead surrounded by increasingly strong Turkish forces, and all attempts by the relieving force to break the siege failed. The armistice would not come for two and a half years.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. IV, 1916, pp. 143, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(4) Excerpt from Edmund Blunden's account of a session at the training ground, the Bull Ring, in Etaples, Blunden's first base in France after the crossing from England.
Undertones of War by Edmund Blunden, page 18, copyright © the Estate of Edmund Blunden, 1928, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: November 1928
(5) German troops captured Fort Douaumont, one of the principle forts protecting the fortress city of Verdun, on February 25, 1916, surprising a garrison that had no idea it was at risk. The Battle of Verdun at that date was only in its fourth day. The explosion on May 8 convinced General Mangin the time was ripe for the French to retake the fort. A plaque at Fout Douaumont puts the number of Germans killed in the explosion at 679. In a footnote our author Ian Ousby elaborates on 'the worst disaster of its type that either army suffered at Verdun': Between 400 and 500 French 'using the Tavannes railway tunnel as command post, emergency hospital, garrison and place of refuge' died in an explosion and fire on September 4, 1916.
The Road to Verdun by Ian Ousby, page 275, copyright © 2002 by The Estate of Ian Ousby, publisher: Anchor Books, publication date: 2003
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