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Chosen Boy, a 1918 watercolor by Paul Klee. From Paul Klee: Early and Late Years: 1894-1940. © 2013 Moeller Fine Art
Re-elect President Woodrow Wilson! An October 18, 1916 cartoon from the British magazine Punch. The German sinking of ships that killed American citizens and sabotage such as the July 30, 1916 attack that destroyed the Black Tom munitions plant in Jersey City, New Jersey, were not enough to make Wilson call for a declaration of war on Germany, much to the distress of Great Britain and the other Entente allies. The date on Wilson's desk calendar is October 8, 1916, a day on which German submarine U-53 sank five vessels — three British, one Dutch, and one Norwegian — off Nantucket, Massachusetts. One of the British ships was a passenger liner traveling between New York and Newfoundland.
A Russian soldier standing guard on a moonlit winter night reflects on his youthful fun and friendships. A Russian postcard with a message from a German soldier to his sister dated March 28, 1915.
Headstone of Sapper E.M. Des Brisay, 2nd Canadian Signal Company, Attd. Royal Flying Corps, died August 3, 1916, age 23, at Cabaret Rouge British Cemetery, Souchez, France. © 2013 John M. Shea
Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his wife Tsaritsa Alexandra, a detail from a portrait of the Russian imperial family in 'An Ambassador's Memoirs' by Maurice Paléologue, the last French Ambassador to the Russian Court.
"— The long spell of bitter cold, the lack of coal, are compelling many people in the country to use wood for heating purposes. Thus the war is destroying our trees as well as our people. It is an irreparable loss both for the earth and for the human race.— The 2nd. The cold spell has lasted a fortnight. But not one word appears in the papers about the terrible hardship in the trenches, with twenty degrees of frost. Such hardships are passed over in silence by the more patriotic papers. Very convenient! They conceal their sufferings from the enemy so carefully that they even conceal them from themselves." ((1), more)
"Saturday, February third, the President announced to Congress the breaking of diplomatic relations with Germany. The news of this, of course, did not reach Berlin until the next day; and on this Saturday afternoon Mrs. Gerard and I had an engagement to go to the theatre with Zimmermann and Mrs. Friedlaender-Fuld-Mitford, a young lady whose father is considered the richest man in Berlin . . ." ((2), more)
"It has not been this cold since '93. We leave at night, everyone slipping on the frozen earth. On the plateau, the snow is powdery, like sugar. It crunches under our shoes without melting. When we get to Lavoye in the moonlight, there are no fresh supplies.At eight we move off again and the men's faces are contorted by the cold and exhaustion. Red-rimmed eyes, red noses, pail skin, blue ears, beards hung with icicles. Sweat freezes right away and looks like snow on the horses' backs and on the men's overcoats. Our shoes cannot grip on the frozen earth as we march. Finally, we arrive in Charmontois. The men have to sleep in barns with broken windows! The conditions are criminal. They drink in order to keep warm. I am surprised no one gets a cold." ((3), more)
"During this period the splendid fighting qualities of the infantry were well seconded by the bold support rendered by the artillery, and by the ceaseless work carried out by the Royal Flying Corps. These operations had again resulted in heavy losses to the enemy, as testified to by the dead found, and many prisoners—besides arms, ammunition, equipment, and stores—had been taken, while the Turks now only retained a fast vanishing hold on the right bank of the Tigris." ((4), more)
"The Emperor spent hours over these maps and his plan of a spring campaign, and when he left the billiard room he locked the door and put the key in his pocket. I have never seen him more completely the soldier, the commander in chief of a great army. All this time, from December, 1916 to February, 1917, the Russian front was comparatively quiet, furious snowstorms preventing the advance either of our own or the enemy's forces. Alas! The storms interfered also with railroad transport and Petrograd and Moscow were beginning to feel the pinch of hunger, a fact that gave their majesties constant concern." ((5), more)
(1) Entries for February 1 and 2, 1917 from the diary of Michel Corday, French senior civil servant. On January 24, Corday recorded that a coal crisis had broken out, that women were queuing outside stores, and that shops had no fuel for central heating. The winter of 1916–17 was Germany's 'turnip winter', but the cold bit across the continent. Russia's railway network fell victim to it, preventing deliveries of food to the cities and supplies to the army.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 229, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(2) Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare on February 1, 1917, having delivered notice to American Secretary of State Robert Lansing at 4:00 p.m. the previous day. President Woodrow Wilson broke relations with the German Empire on February 3, prompted by the sinking of the American steamer Housatonic 20 miles southwest of Bishop's Rock in the Isles of Scilly, United Kingdom, with no loss of life. Alfred Zimmerman was Germany's Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and had authored 'the Zimmerman Telegram' in January, inviting Mexico to ally with Germany and Japan, then allied with the Entente powers, against the United States. Mexico's lost territories in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico were to be its reward.
My Four Years in Germany by James W. Gerard, page 375, copyright © 1917, by George H. Doran Company, publisher: George H. Doran Company, publication date: 1917
(3) French Captain Paul Tuffrau returning to the trenches on February 4, 1917. Tuffrau had fought since the Battle of the Marne in 1914, and had been wounded twice. He was deployed to Verdun in September, 1916, and, on February 4, had just returned from two weeks leave.
Intimate Voices from the First World War by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, page 206, copyright © 2003 by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, publisher: Harper Collins Publishers, publication date: 2003
(4) Excerpt from the report by General Sir Stanley Maude, commanding British Empire forces in Mesopotamia, reporting on his advance up the Tigris and Euphrates rivers towards Baghdad.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. V, 1917, p. 51, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(5) Extract from the memoir of Anna Viroubova, confidant to the Empress Alexandra, and one of the few people the Empress associated with. From her description, Viroubova gives the impression Tsar Nicholas, autocrat and Commander of the Army, was planning his spring offensives in isolation. They would never happen. Their majesties, Nicholas and Alexandra, may have been constantly concerned about the state of the citizens of Petrograd, the capital, and Moscow, the two most important cities in the Russian Empire, but they had isolated themselves the rest of the government and the Russian people.
Memories of the Russian Court by Anna Viroubova, page 196, copyright © 1923 by The MacMillan Company, publisher: The MacMillan Company, publication date: 1923
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