French infantry charging 'à la baionnette'. The soldiers were sometimes ordered to remove their ammunition to ensure they fought and killed with the bayonet.
Image text: Guerre 1914 - 1915 Infanterie française 'Charge a la baionnette'.A 'Charge à la baïonnette' of the French infantery. - LL.
Advertising postcard map of European Russia, with inset images of a mounted Cossack lancer, a troika, and St. Petersburg.
Image text: Text in French and Dutch:Il n'est pas de meilleur Amidon que l'Amidon REMY, Fabrique de Riz Pur.Er bestaat geenen beteren Stijfsel dan den Stijfsel REMY, Vervaardigd met Zuiveren Rijst.There is no better starch than Remy Starch, made of pure rice.Reverse:Demandez L'Amidon REMY en paquets de 1, 1/2 et 1/4 kg.Vraagt het stijfsel REMY in pakken van 1, 1/2 et 1/4 ko.Ask for REMY Starch in packages of 1, 1/2, and 1/4 kg.
Headstone of Private R. H. Stuckey, East Kent Regiment (the Buffs), died May 5, 1917 age 29 years. Buried at Cabaret Rouge British Cemetery. © 2013 by John M. Shea
Image text: The Buffs20820 PrivateR. H. StuckeyE. Kent Regt. (The Buffs)5th May 1917 Age 29A Beloved Life for Home and Country
Austro-Hungarian graves in the Dolomite Mountains.
Image text: Heldengräber in den DolomitenHeroes graves in the DolomitesReverse:Verlag Kapper TrientPublisher Kapper Trent
"Standing up in the car and looking back, we watched the river of war wind toward us. Cavalry, artillery, lancers, infantry, sappers and miners, trench-diggers, road-makers, stretcher-bearers, they swept on as smoothly as if in holiday order. Through the dust, the sun picked out the flash of lances and the gloss of chargers' flanks, flushed rows and rows of determined faces found the least touch of gold on faded uniforms, silvered the sad grey of mitrailleuses and munition waggons. Close as the men were, they seemed allegorically splendid: as if, under the arch of the sunset, we had been watching the whole French army ride straight into glory. . ." ((1), more)
"'. . . there is one question which is more urgent and important than all the others: the question of heavy artillery. General Alexeïev is begging me for some every day, and I haven't another gun or round to send him.''But you've had seventy heavy guns just landed at Archangel!''I know; but we haven't got the railway wagons. You know what a terrible shortage we're suffering from in this respect. The whole result of the offensive which has begun so brilliantly is in danger of being paralysed by it.'" ((2), more)
". . . Our peace-terms remain the same, 'the destruction of Kaiserism and Prussianism'. I don't know what aims this destruction represents.I only know, and declare from the depths of my agony, that these empty words (so often on the lips of the Jingos) mean the destruction of Youth. They mean the whole torment of waste and despair which people refuse to acknowledge or to face; from month to month they dupe themselves with hopes that 'the war will end this year'." ((3), more)
"Conrad's divisions were too hard pressed to transfer men to the Piave. In fact, the opposite happened: the Italians transferred forces from the mountains to the river. When these reinforcements arrived, on 19 June [1918], the Italians counter-attacked along the Piave. They failed to crack the bridgeheads, but the Austrian position was untenable. Pontoons that had survived the bombing were damaged by high water and debris. Blašković's regiment (the 3rd Bosnia & Herzegovina Infantry) ran out of shells and bullets; the men fought on with bayonets and hand-grenades until a Hungarian regiment managed to bring up a few crates of ammunition from the river." ((4), more)
(1) American author Edith Wharton visited the French battle fronts in 1915, and, after writing from Paris, Lorraine and the Vosges, and Argonne, was on her way to the north, behind the Belgian and British front, when her car inched through French troops moving west. Writing on June 19, 1915, she found the fields of Artois untouched. She was well west of where the French had been fighting the Second Battle of Artois since May 9.
Fighting France by Edith Wharton, pp. 139, 140, copyright © 1915, by Charles Scribner's Sons, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1915
(2) Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, in conversation with General Bielaïev, Chief of Staff of the Russian army, who was about to leave for France, discussing the Brusilov Offensive, begun June 4, 1916 against Austro-Hungarian armies. It had indeed begun brilliantly, although Bielaïev cautions that the Russians are not yet fighting the Germans. Paléologue's concern is that French ships have landed not only the heavy guns, but 50,000 rifles, 1.5 million rounds of ammunition, and 6 million grenades, all sitting in Archangel waiting for transport to the front. Much of still be there when the Russian Civil War began. General Mikhail Vasiliyevich Alekseyev was Chief of Staff of Stavka, the Russian High Command, from 1915 to 1917.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. II by Maurice Paléologue, page 277, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(3) Excerpt from the entry for June 19, 1917, from the diary of Siegfried Sassoon, British poet, author, Second Lieutenant in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and recipient of the Military Cross for gallantry in action. Sassoon had been wounded, shot through the shoulder by a sniper, in an April 16 attack on the village of Fontaine-lès-Croisilles in the Battle of Arras, and was on convalescent leave in England in June.
Siegfried Sassoon Diaries 1915-1918 by Siegfried Sassoon, page 175, copyright © George Sassoon, 1983; Introduction and Notes Rupert Hart-Davis, 1983, publisher: Faber and Faber, publication date: 1983
(4) The Second Battle of the Piave was launched by the Austro-Hungarians on June 15, 1918 along a front from the Asiago Plateau to the Adriatic Sea. General Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf commanded the northern mountainous sector. With support from French and British troops, particularly artillery, the Italians stopped Conrad's offensive in after two days, allowing them to transfer reinforcements the the southern Piave River sector where the battle still raged.
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson, page 346, copyright © 2008 Mark Thompson, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2009
