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Entrenched German soldiers behind sniper plates at Slota Gora, September 26, 1916. Slota (or Zlota) Gora was in Polish Russia, west of a line running from Warsaw to Cracow. An original watercolor (over pencil) by O. Oettel, 12th company of Landwehr, IR 32 in the field. A sketch in pencil and red crayon is on the reverse.
Central 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 include the Peter and Paul Fortress, which served as a prison, Nevski Prospect, a primary boulevard south of the Fortress, the Finland Train Station, east of the Fortress, where Lenin made his triumphal return, the Tauride (Taurisches) Palace, which housed the Duma and later the Petrograd Soviet.
A Russian Cossack and his mount jump the border into Germany, his lance aimed squarely at Berlin. This French fantasy of its Russian ally sharply contrasted with the slow advance into East Prussia of the Russian First Army and the disastrous offensive of the Russian Second Army that ended in its destruction at Tannenberg. Germany then turned back to the Russian First Army in the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes, and drove it from Russia. Illustration by Kunder (?).
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.
1898 map of St. Petersburg, the Russian capital, from a German atlas. Central St Petersburg, or Petrograd, is on the Neva River. Key landmarks include the Peter and Paul Fortress, which served as a prison, Nevski Prospect, a primary boulevard south of the Fortress, the Finland Train Station, east of the Fortress, where Lenin made his triumphal return, the Tauride (Taurisches) Palace, which housed the Duma and later the Petrograd Soviet.
"They are shelling this place, but no-one takes any notice, being too fed up. Fires are forbidden in daylight, but it is better to die by a fire than live without one.And as for snipers, who cares for those. Why yesterday one of our heavies landed 6 shells about 30 yards on our left, just behind our own line. Cheerful Tommy Atkins takes not much notice. It is only a Bairnsfather incident: Your sincere friend Ivor Gurney" ((1), more)
"On Thursday, March 8, as Nicholas's train was carrying him away from the capital back to Headquarters, the silent, long-suffering breadlines suddenly erupted. Unwilling to wait any longer, people broke into the bakeries and helped themselves. Columns of protesting workers from the industrial Vyborg section marched across the Neva bridges toward the center of the city. A procession, composed mainly of women chanting 'Give us bread,' filled the Nevsky Prospect. The demonstration was peaceful; nevertheless, at dusk a squadron of Cossacks trotted down the Nevsky Prospect, the clatter of their hoofs sounding the government's warning." ((2), more)
"On Friday morning, March 9, the crowds poured into the streets in greater numbers. More bakeries were sacked and again the Cossack patrols appeared, although without their whips, the traditional instrument of mob control in Russia. The crowd, noting this absence, treated the Cossacks cheerfully and parted readily to let them pass. The Cossacks in turn, bantered with the crowd and assured them, 'Don't worry. We won't shoot.'" ((3), more)
"By the afternoon of Saturday, 25 February the two mile length of the Nevsky from the Admiralty right along to Znamenskaya Square and the Moscow Station was a solid, black river of people. The trams were no longer running, and passengers arriving at the head of this grim procession at the Moscow Station suddenly found their way blocked; with no cabs or trams, they were going nowhere. Later that afternoon, a crowd of well-dressed shoppers had been forced off the Nevsky onto Mikhail Street, running for their lives to escape a hail of bullets from machine-gun nests which had been posted by the police on various rooftops. In the confusion a car ran over a woman and a sledge overturned, killing the driver. All around people were huddling in doorways and alleys to shelter from the constant deadly barrage. Some lay dead in the snow. Along the Nevsky the more dedicated police squads still saw it as their duty to select the more prominent demonstrators from the crowd and make arrests. Yet when they tried to hold prisoners temporarily in houses along the street, the crowds soon discovered where they were and broke in, releasing the captives." ((4), more)
"In spite of the warning of the Military Governor, the mob is becoming increasingly disorderly and aggressive; in the Nevsky Prospekt it is getting larger every hour. Four or five times the troops have been compelled to fire to escape being brushed aside. There are scores dead.Towards the end of the day, two of my secret informers whom I had sent into the industrial quarters returned with the report that the ruthless measures of repression adopted have taken the heart our of the workmen, who were saying that they had 'had enough of going to the Nevsky Prospekt to be killed!'But another informer tells me that the Volhynian Regiment of the Guard refused to fire. This is a fresh factor in the situation and reminds me of the sinister warning of October 31." ((5), more)
(1) Ivor Gurney, English poet and composer, writing to the composer Marion Margaret Scott, President of the Society of Women Musicians from 1915 to 1916, on March 7, 1916. Gurney was a private in the Gloucestershire Regiment then in the Fauquissart-Laventie sector. Captain Bruce Bairnsfather was a British cartoonist, creator of Old Bill and his friends Bert and Alf.
War Letters, Ivor Gurney, a selection edited by R.K.R. Thornton by Ivor Gurney, page 143, copyright © J. R. Haines, the Trustee of the Ivor Gurney Estate 1983, publisher: The Hogarth Press, publication date: 1984
(2) March 8 is, and was in 1917, International Women's Day, and women marched through the Russian capital of Petrograd demanding bread. Men joined the march, workers from the Vyborg section north of the Neva River, in the largest demonstration yet. The food shortages that had heightened the tension in the city had brought the demand for food to the fore, and the demand for Peace and Bread had been truncated to the one essential: Give us bread! Mounted Cossacks, used by Tsar Nicholas II and his predecessors to crush dissent, did not intervene on the 8th. Oblivious to the seriousness of the situation, the Tsar, commander of the Army, returned to his headquarters.
Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie by Robert K. Massie, page 399, copyright © 1967, renewed 1995 by Robert K. Massie, publisher: Random House, publication date: 2011
(3) On the previous day, International Women's Day, the Russian capital of Petrograd had seen a massive demonstration, many of the marchers women, chanting, 'Give us bread!' Mounted Cossacks, used by Tsar Nicholas II and his predecessors to crush dissent, did not intervene.
Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie by Robert K. Massie, pp. 399–400, copyright © 1967, renewed 1995 by Robert K. Massie, publisher: Random House, publication date: 2011
(4) February 25, 1917 (Old Style, March 10 New Style) marked the third consecutive day of increasingly large demonstrations in Petrograd, Russia's capital. In the previous two days Cossacks, traditional suppressors of protests and demonstrations, had both ridden peacefully among the demonstrators, and charged the protestors, killing some. On March 10, signs called for an end to the Government and the war.
1917: Russia's Year of Revolution by Roy Bainton, page 68, copyright © Roy Bainton 2005, publisher: Carroll and Graf Publishers, publication date: 2005
(5) Excerpt from the entry for Sunday, March 11, 1917, from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia. The demonstrations begun on March 8, International Women's Day, had grown each day, and become more threatening to the government, filling the Nevsky Prospect, a broad boulevard through the heart of the city. In attempting to suppress the demonstration, the Volhynian Regiment had fired on the demonstrators, then returned to their barracks where the soldiers debated through the night. On the following day they would come out for the demonstrators and revolution. October 31, 1916, was the second day of strikes in Petrograd when a skirmish between strikers and facotry foremen and engineers led to the police being called. The police, unable to handle the situation, called for two infantry regiments to assist. The infantry sided with the strikers and killed several policemen. Order was restored when four regiments of mounted Cossacks drove the infantry men back to their barracks. The Ambassador recorded on November 9 that 150 soldiers of the regiments that turned on the police had been shot. Workers went on strike on hearing the news.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. III by Maurice Paléologue, page 217, publisher: George H. Doran Company
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