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A company of German soldiers with two young natives by a stream in the Auas Mountains of German Southwest Africa. The mountains are southeast of Windhoek.
French soldier standing next to an unexploded 420mm shell that fell on Verdun. March, 1916. It weighed 2,100 pounds empty.
A Swiss postcard of 'The European War' in 1914. The Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary face enemies to the east, west, and south. Germany is fighting the war it tried to avoid, battling Russia to the east and France to the west. Germany had also hoped to avoid fighting England which came to the aid of neutral (and prostrate) Belgium, and straddles the Channel. Austria-Hungary also fights on two fronts, against Russia to the east and Serbia and Montenegro to the south. Italy, the third member of the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary, declared neutrality, and looks on. Other neutral nations include Spain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania. Japan enters from the east to battle Germany. The German Fleet stays close to port in the North and Baltic Seas while a German Zeppelin targets England. The Austro-Hungarian Fleet keeps watch in the Adriatic. Turkey is not represented, and entered the war at the end of October, 1914; Italy in late May, 1915.
Postcard of early German aviators including Wintgens, Boelcke, Immelmann, Mulzer, Buddecke, von. Althaus, Höhndorf, Berthold, Parschau, Frankl, von Cossel, and Windisch. Sanke card #408. The men are Kurt Wintgens — KIA, September 25, 1916, 19 victories; Oswald Bölcke (Boelcke) — killed in collision, October 26, 1916, 40 victories; Max Immelmann — KIA (accident collision), June 18, 1916, 15 victories; Max Ritter von Mulzer — accidentally killed, September 26, 1916, 10 victories; Hans-Joachim Buddecke — KIA, March 10, 1918, 13 victories; Ernst Freiherr von Althaus — died November 29, 1946, 9 victories; Walter Höhndorf — killed in flying accident, September 5, 1917, 12 victories; Rudolf Berthold — killed in political street fighting in Hamburg, March 15, 1920, 44 victories; Otto Parschau — died of wounds, July 21, 1916, 8 victories; Wilhelm Frankl — KIA April 8, 1917, 20 victories; Maximilian von Cossel — POW, August 1917; and Rudolf Windisch — MIA, May 27, 1918, 22 victories. Sanke card #408.
"Our Church Spires To Maurice BarrèsSharp bell-spires, you alone have power to giveIts intonation to our countryside Attuned to life.Through gradual centuries by hedge and grove,Blue sky and river and the careful pride Of human love.If you were once destroyed — the flame gone cold! —Then it would be for forest, ford, and field Death of the soul.Jean-Marc Bernard, translated by Graham Dunstan Martin" ((1), more)
"The rounding up of the straggling bands of Germans throughout the colony occupied the Union forces during the next two months. Finally, on July 9th [1915], at a place called Kilometre 500, the Germans surrendered German Southwest Africa, with 5,000 prisoners of war, to the British. The conquest of this empire cost the Allies 1612 men in killed and wounded, while the Germans and rebel Boers lost 800." ((2), more)
"On Friday I again took down a German wounded — this time a German of the Kaiser's or Crown Prince's Bodyguard (the German Crown Prince is against us here). He was dying. . . . I asked in German if he wanted anything. He just looked at me and then chokingly murmured, 'Catholic.' I asked a soldier to fetch the priest and then two brancardiers (stretcher-bearers) and the doctor — the priest and I knelt down as he was given extreme unction. That is a little picture I shall never forget — all race hatred was forgotten. Romanist and Anglican, we were in that hour just all Catholics and a French priest was officiating for a dying German . . ." ((3), more)
"July 8th.—There was a harmless shelling of the billets in the afternoon.July 9th.—Back in the line. Tampering with the fuse of an July 11th—unexploded shell caused the death of 3 men and the wounding of 2. A salient in the German line opposite was July 12th—apparently a tender spot, because shelling it was generally followed by a cessation of German activity." ((4), more)
"June 4: Allied attack in the centre. Gain 250—500 yards on a one-mile front. Allies' casualties 6,500, Turkish 9,000.June 21 and following days: French attack on the right. Gain of about 200 yards. French casualties 2,500, Turkish 6,000.June 28: British attack on the left. Gain of half of mile. British casualties 3,800, Turkish unknown.July 5: Turkish attack along the whole line. Nothing gained. Casualties, Turks 16,0000, Allies negligible.July 12/13: Allied attack on a one-mile front. Gain of 400 yards. Casualties, Allies 4,000, Turks 10,000." ((5), more)
(1) 'Our Church Spires' by French writer Jean-Marc Bernard. He was killed by a shell on July 9, 1915 while carrying rations to the front line at Souchez.
The Lost Voices of World War I, An International Anthology of Writers, Poets and Playwrights by Tim Cross, page 245, copyright © 1989 by The University of Iowa, publisher: University of Iowa Press, publication date: 1989
(2) The 'Union forces' were those of the Union of South Africa under the command of Prime Minister Louis Botha. Despite the opposition of many Boers who supported Germany in the World War, and subsequently fought for it, Botha supported Great Britain, and acted on its request to seize Germany's colony of Southwest Africa. The Germans surrendered Windhoek, the colony's capital, on May 12, but continued to fight for the following two months.
King's Complete History of the World War by W.C. King, page 167, copyright © 1922, by W.C. King, publisher: The History Associates, publication date: 1922
(3) Excerpt from a letter written July 11, 1915, by Leslie Buswell recounting events of the previous week, including this of a German soldier with holes in both lungs dying on Friday, July 9. Earlier in the week, on July 6, Buswell had been impressed that the French had sent a more-seriously wounded German in his truck rather than less-seriously wounded French soldiers. A German attack on Sunday, July 4, recaptured in a day French territory the French had spent the previous six months regaining. The French retook their lost ground on July 5, 6, and 7. Buswell, a driver with the American Ambulance Field Service, volunteers attached to the French Armies, was stationed at Pont-à-Mousson, France, north of Nancy. Each unit consisted of 20 to 30 ambulances capable of carrying three wounded lying down, and three seated. The Ford trucks could deliver men to a doctor in under an hour, greatly increasing their chances of survival.
Ambulance No. 10; Personal Letters from the Front by Leslie Buswell, pp. 55, 56, copyright © 1915, and 1915, by Houghton Mifflin Company, publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company, publication date: 1916
(4) Entry covering July 8 through 12, 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. Troops rotated in and out of the front-line trenches, and Dunn was back in the frontline trenches on July 9. 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 136, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(5) A footnote from Alan Moorehead's classic account of the Dardanelles and Gallipoli campaign summarizing the engagements of June and July, 1915 at Cape Helles at the tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula. Totals of his casualty numbers for the two months are 16,800 Allied, 41,000 Turkish, and a net Allied gain of possibly one mile on a one mile front. The Turkish defenders continued to hold the high ground.
Gallipoli by Alan Moorehead, page 208, copyright © 1956 by Alan Moorehead, publisher: Perennial Classics 2002 (HarperCollins Publications 1956), publication date: 2002 (1956)
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