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Headstones at La Nécropole Nationale de Pontavert. The cemetery contains the remains of 6,815 soldiers, 67 of them British, 54 Russian, and the remainder French. Of the total, 1,364 are entombed in the ossuary. © 2014 by John M. Shea
'Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red' — the Tower of London poppies — each of the 888,246 ceramic poppies representing one serviceman of the British Empire killed in World War I. The installation was a collaboration of artist Paul Cummins and stage designer Tom Piper. Since November, 2014 the poppies have been installed in other sites in the United Kingdom. Photographed October 3, 2014. © 2014 by John M. Shea
A large German bomber, capable of bombing England. The plane is powered by two engines, and holds a crew of three with a pilot and front and rear gunners. The plane is likely a Gotha bomber, originally built by Gothaer Waggonfabrik, then built under license by Siemens-Schukert Werke and Luft-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft (LVG). Note the ground crew pushing on the lower wing and the men holding the tail up as the plane is moved backwards. Sanke postcard number 1040.
King Constantine of Greece in military uniform.
On guard against saboteurs and espionage, troops guard the Boston & Maine Railroad bridge and the Hoosac Tunnel, in Adams, Massachusetts.
"Pétain's pronunciamento to the officer corps was followed up in a message to the commanders of armies and groups of armies dated June 11. In it he discussed the need for forthright action in suppression and held up the actions of the commander of the XXXVIIth Army Corps as being exemplary in this regard. His message concluded with a threat, 'All officers, from the commander of a platoon to the commander of a corps, must have the same sense of duty. It is necessary that all realize that they must exercise their responsibilities or else they will themselves be brought before conseils de guerre.'" ((1), more)
"On 12 June [1917], I was told to take a troop of twenty men and invest an outpost on the company front. It was late when we left the trench and headed along a footpath winding through the hilly countryside, into the pleasant evening. Dusk was so far advanced that the poppies in the abandoned field seemed to merge with the bright-green grass. In the declining light, I saw more and more of my favorite colour, that red which shades into black that is at once somber and stimulating." ((2), more)
"Brandenburg and his crews were awed at the breath-taking expanse of London stretching out in all directions below them like a vast sea. The airmen could see Tower Bridge casting its shadow on the Thames, the gray-walled Tower, the majestic dome of St. Paul's—all 'sharply outlined in the flaring sunlight'. And on the Thames there were ships 'that looked like toys'. . . .Within a two-minute period, beginning at 11.40 A.M., seventy-two bombs fell within one mile of [Liverpool Street Station]." ((3), more)
"On June 9 [1917] Jonnart arrived off Salamis; on the following evening French troops landed near the Corinth Canal and a mixed division entered Thessaly, encountering some resistance. Late on June 11 Constantine announced his intention of abdicating in favor of his second son, Alexander. On June 14, with Athens in French hands, Constantine left the country, and on June 27 Venizelos was received by King Alexander and became constitutionally Prime Minister of united Greece, committed to the Allied cause. It was Sarrail's one victory that summer." ((4), more)
"Section three of the Espionage Act contained a clause which could be interpreted by the courts to prove an effective curb on free speech in wartime: '. . . and whosoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully cause or attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty in the military or naval forces of the United States, or shall willfully obstruct the recruiting of enlistment service of the United States, to the injury of the service of the United States, shall be punished with a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both.'" ((5), more)
(1) French general Henri Philippe Pétain was given command of the French Army on May 15, 1917 after the failure of Commander in Chief Robert Nivelle's spring offensive, and as mutinies spread in the army, ultimately affecting nearly half the army. Pétain's carrots were assurances to soldiers that he would not squander their lives, and that France would build the weapons of war—tanks, heavy artillery, aircraft—that could bring victory. His stick was the suppression of the mutinies by force, with trials, imprisonment, and executions. Earlier in the war, French commanders had abused cours martiales, in which soldiers had no appeal beyond the army itself. These were replaced by conseils de guerre, in which the convicted retained a right of appeal to a higher court, and death sentences had to be approved by the President. Pétain insisted on retaining courts martial, with his own approval being required and final, until the mutinies were controlled. French Prime Minister Paul Painlevé reasserted his authority on July 14, when the mutinies were clearly drawing to a close.
Dare Call it Treason by Richard M. Watt, page 232, copyright © 1963 by Richard M. Watt, publisher: Simon and Schuster, publication date: 1963
(2) German Lieutenant Ernst Jünger was in the front lines near Joncourt, France, in front of the St-Quentin Canal on June 12, 1917. After leading his men to their outpost, he joined a night patrol, an outing he found 'stimulating.' Resting after the patrol's return, he was alerted to a line of 70 British soldiers advancing from a wood on the German position. In the night, the soldiers are unsure of their opponent, and some think the seeming attackers may be speaking German. But they not respond to passwords, and a battle continues through the night. As morning broke on the 13th, Jünger and his men captured some wounded opponents, and find they are Indian troops.
Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger, page 144, copyright © 1920, 1961, Translation © Michael Hoffman, 2003, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 2003
(3) On June 13, 1916, twenty Gotha G IV bombers of the England Geschwader, the England Squadron, under the command of Captain Ernst Brandenburg, took off from Belgium to bomb London. Unlike the Zeppelin raiders who attacked at night, the bombers flew during the day. Fourteen Gothas reached London, flying at an altitude of three miles. After the attack on Liverpool St. Station, six bombed Southwark, then Poplar in the East End, where a bomb hit the Upper North Street Schools killing sixteen children, only two of them over five years old. The raiders killed 162 and wounded 432, the most casualties of any raid on Britain during the war, and far deadlier than any Zeppelin raid.
The Sky on Fire by Raymond H. Fredette by Raymond H. Fredette, pp. 55–56, copyright © 1966, 1976, 1991 by Raymond H. Fredette, publisher: Smithsonian Institution Press, publication date: 1991
(4) The French government sent diplomat Charles Jonnart to Athens, capitol of Greece, as the Allied High Commissioner tasked with informing Greek King Constantine he was violating the Greek Constitution in assuming absolute authority in the absence of a Prime Minister. The King was pro-German, the Prime Minister he had dismissed twenty months earlier, Eleftherios Venizelos, pro-Entente. Venizelos had helped create the Salonica Front across northern Greece when he supported the landing of French and British troops in October, 1915, a move opposed by Constantine. French General Maurice Sarrail commanded Allied forces in Greece, and had launched his spring offensive at the beginning of May. A costly failure, it was halted by the end of the month.
The Gardeners of Salonika by Alan Palmer, page 140, copyright © 1965 by A. W. Palmer, publisher: Simon and Schuster, publication date: 1965
(5) Slow to ask the Congress and the country to go to war, Woodrow Wilson would, once committed, do everything possible to win and to make opponents fall in line. The Espionage Act of 1917 was passed on June 15, 1917, the day after Wilson's address celebrating the second Flag Day, a commemoration he had proclaimed in 1916. On his 1917 speech he threatened, 'Woe be to the man or group of men that seeks to stand in our way in this day of high resolution when every principle we hold dearest is to be vindicated and made secure for the salvation of the nations.' (World War I and America, p. 372) Wilson's Espionage Act would be enforced by his Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer.
Mr. Wilson's War by John Dos Passos, pp. 218–219, copyright © 1962, 2013 by John Dos Passos, publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
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