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Postcard view of the Kremlin in Moscow with the broken Tsar or Royal Bell on the left and the Savior's Tower and Kremlin wall to the right.
Allied soldiers fortifying shell craters after an advance. From The Nations at War by Willis J. Abbot, 1918 Edition.
Egypt and Sinai from Cram's 1896 Railway Map of the Turkish Empire.
Chosen Boy, a 1918 watercolor by Paul Klee. From Paul Klee: Early and Late Years: 1894-1940. © 2013 Moeller Fine Art
East Front, 1917; a pencil portrait sketch of a pipe-smoking German soldier, on a postcard with a printed border in the colors of the German flag. The message on the reverse is dated February 4, 1917. In the upper left the reverse is numbered '4)'.
"Now that food has grown scarce in Petrograd and Moscow, disorder takes the shape of riots and insurrections. We are told that mobs of the lower classes parade the streets shouting 'Peace and Bread!' They are aware that the war is at the root of their hardships. So it is: 'Peace and Bread!' But as the days pass, hunger gains primary place and the erstwhile docile rabble grow unruly and rampageous. They no longer bother about peace; their empty stomachs warrant no rival. So it is only 'Bread!' 'Give us Bread!'" ((1), more)
"This morning, every face is racked with exhaustion. As for me, I was seized by a strong urge to vomit while walking through the Caurettes forest. I survived thanks to a few drops of mint liqueur. I fell into a shell crater full of water and I got drenched up to my belt. I fell asleep at three in the hot humidity of this wretched sap. These night reliefs are the worst thing about this war." ((2), more)
"As the locomotive's front wheels passed over the mine, nothing happened.But, a split second later, as the heavier driving wheels flexed the track, they crushed the hidden trigger below. The searing yellow explosion tossed the engine from the track, followed a millisecond later by its deafening boom, which rocked the desert. Through the darkness came the 'clanking, whirling, rushing' noise of the stricken train, the shouts and screams of those inside as it corkscrewed off the stony embankment, and the lethal patter of debris returning to earth.. . . It was 20 February 1917, 'the first time that the Turks have had a train wrecked,' he reported later, and the first ever act of sabotage committed by the British army behind enemy lines." ((3), more)
"Until now, I always managed to still my hunger in the end. (The eternal theme of the German nation.) . . .A package arrived from Wiessee; it contained raw carrots and an enormous beet." ((4), more)
"Be quite [sic] and calm, my countrymen, for what is taking place is exactly what you came to do. You are going to die, but that is what you came to do. Brothers, we are drilling the death drill. I, a Xhosa, say you are my brothers. Zulus, Swazis, Pondos, Basothos, and all others, let us die like warriors. We are the sons of Africa. Raise your war cries my brothers, for though they made us leave our assegais back in the kraals, our voices are left with our bodies." ((5), more)
(1) Undated excerpt from the diary of Florence Farmborough, an English nurse serving with the Russian Red Cross, writing around early February (mid- to late-January Old Style), 1917. She had been taken very ill in September, 1916, and was only recently back near the front. The winter of 1916–17 was bitterly cold, affecting the Russian transport system and its supplies to the front and the cities. Hunger preyed on the soldiers and citizens in Moscow and Petrograd.
Nurse at the Russian Front, a Diary 1914-18 by Florence Farmborough, pp. 254–255, copyright © 1974 by Florence Farmborough, publisher: Constable and Company Limited, publication date: 1974
(2) French Captain Paul Tuffrau writing on February 19, 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 was in the sector in February, 1917. The bitter cold of which he wrote on February 4 had broken in the middle of the month.
Intimate Voices from the First World War by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, page 208, copyright © 2003 by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, publisher: Harper Collins Publishers, publication date: 2003
(3) British Officer Herbert Garland and his guide Abdel Kerim conducted the first successful raid on the Turkish railway in Hejaz on the Red Sea coast of Arabia. The railway was well-constructed, well-guarded, and had few bridges. The raids focused on destroying the locomotives, which were irreplaceable during the war.
Setting the Desert on Fire by James Barr, pp. 112–113, copyright © 2008, 2006 by James Barr, publisher: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., publication date: 2009
(4) Part of the diary entry of Paul Klee for February 20, 1917, during Germany's 'Turnip Winter.'
The Diaries of Paul Klee 1898-1918, Edited, with an Introduction by Felix Klee by Paul Klee, page 367, copyright © 1964 by the Regents of the University of California, publisher: University of California Press, publication date: 1968
(5) The address of Reverend I. W. Dyobha to his comrades aboard the SS Mendi, February 21, 1917. The Mendi was off the Isle of Wight when it was struck by the SS Darro, sinking in about 25 minutes. Many of those aboard we part of the South African Native Labour Corps. 633 South Africans and 30 sailors of the Mendi crew died in the disaster. About 207 men of the SANLC were rescued. The men did not panic, and oral tradition says some of the men performed the Death Drill Reverend Dyobha called for. The assegai was a spear or javelin with an iron of fire-hardened point. A kraal is an enclosure for livestock.
The Delville Wood South African National Memorial and Museum commemorates South Africa's partici, Wall plaque
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