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Memorial statue to Prime Minister David Lloyd George in Parliament Square, London, United Kingdom. © 2013 John M. Shea
The Royal Palace in Bucharest, Romania. A postcard altered to show the German flag flying over the palace.
Women workers in a German munitions factory. The man on the right is holding a cigarette.
A woman munitions worker carrying a shell apparently drops another one on the foot of a frightened man who clearly does not realize, as she does, that they are not in danger. No doubt his foot hurt.
Embossed postcard of the flag and coins of France, with fixed exchange rates for major currencies including Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Netherlands, Great Britain and Ireland, Austria, Russia, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and the United States of America. There were 100 centimes to the franc. The card was postmarked July 24, 1918 from Welkenraedt in occupied Belgium.
"As all delay is fatal in war, I place my office without further parley at your disposal. . . .As I am fully conscious of the importance of preserving national unity, I propose to give your Government complete support in the vigorous prosecution of the war; but unity without action is nothing but futile carnage, and I cannot be responsible for that. Vigour and vision are the supreme need at this hour." ((1), more)
"Before retreating, [the Romanians] destroyed the famous oil wells at Ploechti, and the wheat fields as well. In this ill-fated campaign of 100 days the Roumanians lost 200,000 men.Meanwhile, on December 6th, the civilian population had evacuated the capital, Bucharest, wishing to save their chief city from bombardment by Mackensen's heavy howitzers. The garrison had withdrawn to unite with the main army on the Sereth line.Mackensen's campaign had been wonderfully successful. Within four months after the declaration of war he had destroyed the Roumanian Army and conquered the provinces of Dobrudja and Wallachia. Early in January, 1917, the campaign in Roumania was renewed." ((2), more)
"A Wandsworth jury yesterday returned a verdict that a girl of 16, a worker in an explosives factory, died from T.N.T. poisoning. A Government contractor said that he had 2,000 employees, practically all girls, and this was the only death. no one under 18 or over 45 was engaged. The girl had said she was 18. They now had a new type of machinery, so that T.N.T. would be very little handled by the workers. The work would be done under glass screens, excluding dust. Dr. Legge said only a small class were susceptible to T.N.T. poisoning. This class were those under 18 and the Ministry of Munitions is taking steps to prevent the employment of anyone under 18. The jury suggested that girls should be required to provide their birth certificates." ((3), more)
"England is very proud of the pluck, endurance, and determination of her munition girls—The twenty-six women who were killed and the thirty wounded in that explosion in a North of England factory on Tuesday night had, like thousands of other munitions workers, faced the possibility of that fate hourly, and probably faced it with jest. Yet knowing that, and realising their kinship with the men who keep their souls unshaken in the trenches, we may marvel at the courage, and above all at the perfect discipline, which after the disaster kept the other girls in the factory imperturbably at their work." ((4), more)
". . . the Financial Secretary, introducing the annual estimates, declared, amid general approval, that France has spent seventy-two thousand millions—that she will have to pay three thousand millions a year in interest. The statement was perceived with bland unconcern. The figures, like those of deaths at the front, no longer have any meaning." ((5), more)
(1) Excerpts from the resignation letter of Secretary of State for War David Lloyd George to British Prime Minister H.H. Asquith the morning of December 5, 1916, quoted in John Grigg's Lloyd George: From Peace to War 1912–1916. With other resignations, that of Lloyd George brought down the Asquith Government. King George V asked Secretary of State for the Colonies Andrew Bonar Law to form a Government. Law tried to form one that included Asquith, but the latter refused to serve in a government he did not lead. After Law's failure, King George asked Lloyd George who successfully formed the new Government on December 6.
Lloyd George: From Peace to War 1912-1916 by John Grigg, pp. 462–463, copyright © John Grigg 1985, publisher: Harper Collins Publishers, publication date: 1997
(2) Romania entered the war on August 27, 1916 invading Transylvania, Austria-Hungary. German and Austro-Hungarian forces drove the invaders back into Romania, while a combined German, Bulgarian, and Turkish army under German General August von Mackensen pushed the Romanians from southern Dobruja, a coast region between the Danube River and the Black Sea. Mackensen's army crossed the Danube from Bulgaria into Romania within striking distance of the Romanian capital of Bucharest. With the seizure of Dubroja and most of Wallachia, the remnants of the Romanian army were pushed back to Moldavia where the Russians held the Allied line. British Lieutenant Colonel John Norton-Griffiths was responsible for much the destruction of the Romanian resources, sometimes acting over local objections.
King's Complete History of the World War by W.C. King, page 258, copyright © 1922, by W.C. King, publisher: The History Associates, publication date: 1922
(3) Excerpt from The Star, December 7, 1916. The Bulletin of the United Kingdom's National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies dated December 12 reported that 41 munitions workers died of T.N.T. poisoning in the six months ending October 31, 1916. Both publications were published immediately after the Barnslow Munitions Factory explosion of December 5 which killed 38, 35 of them women. Wandsworth is a borough in southwest London.
The Virago Book of Women and the Great War by Joyce Marlow, Editor, page 171, copyright © Joyce Marlow 1998, publisher: Virago Press, publication date: 1999
(4) Excerpt from the Manchester Guardian, December 8, 1916 referring to the explosion on the 5th at the Barnbow Munitions Factory near Leeds. As many as 35 women and 3 men were killed in the explosion. At its peak, the factory employed 16,000 women and 1,000 men. The women were sometimes called 'Barnbow Canaries,' because some of the chemicals they worked with turned skin and hair yellow.
The Virago Book of Women and the Great War by Joyce Marlow, Editor, pp. 171–172, copyright © Joyce Marlow 1998, publisher: Virago Press, publication date: 1999
(5) Extract from the entries for December 9, 1916 from the diary of Michel Corday, French senior civil servant. In his diary, Corday had previously written about the secrecy of the French government and military, the passion of those advocating pressing the war to victory, the callousness of much of the public and the press at the loss of life, and the incongruity of the luxury of Paris less than 100 miles from the front line trenches.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 215, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
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