Search by or
Search: Quotation Context Tags
Help our glorious troops by subscribing to a war loan paying 5 1/2%. Imperial Russian Soldiers in a snow-covered trench, rifles at the ready. War Bond Postcard dated October 15, 1916.
An artillery crew dragging and pushing a field howitzer forward. From a painting by Anton Hoffmann. On the back is a message dated January 6, 1916. The card was postmarked the next day.
Map of the Trentino, part of "Italia Irredenta," unredeemed Italy: Venezia Tridentina (Trentino and Alto Adige)
Copy of 'Vieux Charles,' the 1916 Spad VII of French ace Georges Guynemer, landing at Olde Rhinebeck Aereodrome, Rhinebeck, New York, September 15, 2013. © 2013 John M. Shea
Headstone of an unknown soldier of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, Delville Wood Cemetery. Union of South Africa troops began the assault at Delville Wood on July 15, 1916. It was finally taken in September. On the headstone is superimposed the poem 'To My Daughter Betty, the Gift of God' by Lieutenant Tom Kettle of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, killed in action on September 9, 1916 at Guillemont, France, in the Battle of the Somme. He has no known grave. © 2013 John M. Shea
"'The food problem,' [Trepov] said, 'has certainly become very worrying; but the opposition parties misuse it to attack the government. I'll tell you frankly what the position is. In the first place, the crisis is far from being general; it attains serious proportions only in the towns and certain rural areas. But it is true that the public is nervous in certain cities, Moscow for example. On the other hand, there is no shortage of food, except certain products which we used to import from abroad. But the means of transport are inadequate and the method of distribution is defective. . . .''There is now a deadlock on the Russian front, from one end to the other,' [Wrangel] said. 'You must not expect any further offensive on our side. In any case we're helpless against the Germans; we shall never beat them.'" ((1), more)
"On October 18 [1916], the bombardment reached a hitherto unseen degree of violence. The order came down, to be ready to leave camp at any moment. A cold shower fell, and we shuddered at the thought of leaving camp in such weather. But it wasn't until the next day that we went up to the front lines, to the place of sacrifice for those who would spill their blood and end their lives so miserably." ((2), more)
"The sky is overcast, grey and low. Mist is rising from the valley and cutting off the two peaks, ours and the one we are to attack. If we are going to die, we shall die cut off from the world and with a sense that no one is really interested. Once one is resigned to the thought of sacrificing oneself, one would like to think that it might happen in front of an audience. To die in the sun, in full view, on the open stage that is the world—that is how one imagines dying for one's country: but the way it is here is more like a condemned man being strangled secretly." ((3), more)
"During the days between October 20th and October 23rd, our artillery and our aviation established superiority on the battle field, against enemy batteries which were still present in great numbers but which were doubtless forced to exercise severe economy of munitions." ((4), more)
"I went to see them on the morning of the attack, and I remember chiefly the voice of G. Salter, as he emerged from a rough shelter, stretching his stiff arms and trying to move his eyebrows like a man awake, cursing the frost; I remember the familiar song of my old companion Doogan, now for the last time. 'Everybody's doing the Charlie Chaplin walk.' He broke off, and without self-pity and almost casually he said, 'It's the third time, they've sent me over. This is the third time. They'll get me this time.' Nor would it have availed to use in reply one's familiar trench tags, or to speak out the admiring friendship which never fully found words; Doogan seemed to know, and he was tired." ((5), more)
(1) Excerpts from the diary entry for October 17, 1916 of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, host of a farewell dinner for Japanese Ambassador Viscount Motono who had been appointed Japan's Minister of Foreign Affairs earlier in the month. The first speaker is Russian Minister of Communications Trepov; the second General Wrangel, aide-de-camp to Grand Duke Michael, the brother of Tsar Nicholas II. Throughout the war Russian forces were frequently successful against both Austria-Hungary and Turkey, but not against Germany.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. III by Maurice Paléologue, pp. 59, 60, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(2) Excerpt from the notebooks of French Infantry Corporal Louis Barthas, writing on October 18, 1916, when his 296th Infantry Regiment was in the Battle of the Somme. Barthas describes the fate of the regiment in the immediately preceding days as three acts. In Act I, the men learn the regiment, which had been slotted for a role in the coming action, will not be going into battle after all. Act II: 'humiliated' young officers ask their commanding general for the honor of fighting alongside other divisional regiments. In Act III, the commanding general approves the officers' request, granting the regiment 'the favor of going to gather up the laurels of victory.' Barthas had fought in the battles in Artois in 1915 and at Verdun, and had no delusions of what honor, glory, or laurels meant.
Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918 by Louis Barthas, page 258, copyright © 2014 by Yale University, publisher: Yale University Press, publication date: 2014
(3) Excerpt from the journal of Paolo Monelli, a soldier in an Italian Alpine regiment, northeast of Trento, on the Italian-Austrian Trentino front. Monelli was writing on October 19, 1916.
The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War by Peter Englund, page 310, copyright © 2009 by Peter England, publisher: Vintage Books, publication date: 2012
(4) Excerpt from French General Henri Philippe Pétain's account of the preparations for the retaking of Fort Douaumont, which had fallen to the Germans on February 25, 1916, in the first days of the Battle of Verdun. Its garrison had been unaware the fort was at risk, and lost it with virtually no struggle. On October 20, 1916, it was about to be retaken by the French. The French Spad and German Albatros fighter planes had recently reached the front, both formidable improvements on the air arms of the two armies.
Verdun by Henri Philippe Pétain, page 201, copyright © 1930, publisher: The Dial Press, publication date: 1930
(5) Edmund Blunden, English writer, recipient of the Military Cross, second lieutenant and adjutant in the Royal Sussex Regiment, writing of the attack on Stuff Trench on October 21 and 22, 1916. The engagement between Thiepval and Pozières in the Battle of the Somme devastated Blunden's batallion. Of the location, Blunden wrote, 'Thiepval was vaguely gestured at on our left. Pozières had once been a village on our right.' On the 20th a German reconnaissance plane had flown 'thirty yards' over Blunden and his men while they prepared supplies for the attack. The 1915 song 'That Charlie Chaplin Walk' was written and composed by Wm. A. Downs.
Undertones of War by Edmund Blunden, page 122, copyright © the Estate of Edmund Blunden, 1928, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: November 1928
1 2 Next
