Search by or
Search: Quotation Context Tags
A Turkish funeral with Turkish and German soldiers and officers attending and praying. Is this a young Mustapha Kemal praying?
The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg, one of Aesop's fables updated for the war by F. Sancha. In Aesop, a farmer slaughters the goose that lays a daily golden egg in expectation of seizing all its wealth at once. Sancha holds Germany responsible for the war that has destroyed its international trade, the source of its prosperity.
Machine Gun Corps Memorial, Hyde Park, London, England. A statue of David is flanked on either side by a wreathed Vickers machine gun. © 2013 by John M. Shea
La Domenica del Corriere (The Sunday Courier) of March 25 to April 1, 1917, an illustrated weekly supplement to Corriere della Sera, published in Milan, Italy. The front and back covers are full-page illustrations by the great Italian illustrator Achille Beltrame. The front cover depicts Russian troops cheering the deputies entering the Duma after what the paper calls, 'the Russian revolt for freedom and the war.' The secondary story was on the fall of Baghdad to British troops.
Russian soldiers resting in the field. Card postmarked November 28, 1916.
"The British had to give up their attack from the north and east, and lost height 83 by a bayonet attack of the Turks. By 11 a.m. the relieving troops had established connection with the Gaza group.The British began to retreat to the west bank of Wadi Razze. They left a rear guard on the east bank, but withdrew it during the night so that by morning of the 28th the east bank of the Wadi was free from the enemy. . . .The Turks buried some 1,500 British dead. Twelve machine guns and twenty automatic rifles were captured by them. Among the Turkish troops the 125th Infantry had specially distinguished itself, and Major Tiller among the German officers." ((1), more)
"S——— also mentions the extreme exhaustion of the German soldiers, who were so weakened that a retreat of twenty miles in twenty-four hours tired them out. Their only food was coffee (made with roasted barley and maize) morning and night, with a vegetable soup in the middle of the day. They tried to steal from the local population the supplies furnished by the American Relief.The whole tract is a desert. Not a single animal left alive." ((2), more)
"On 30 March 1914 I was looking forward with acute anxiety to the Atherstone point-to-point meeting (to be held next day). All my world was centred in the desire to steer old Cockbird first past the post in some silly, jolly race over hedge and ditch.And I did it. And the world went on just the same! 30 March 1916 I was in the trenches at Fricourt-Mamets, hating the Germans for killing my friend, and wondering if they'd kill me. But they didn't! And to-night I've been guzzling at the Godbert restaurant with a captain of the Dublin Fusiliers, and a captain of the Caemeronians, and three other Welsh Fusiliers; and the bill was 230 francs; and we drank Veuve Clicquot; and the others have gone into the dark city to look for harlots; and I'm alone in my room; looking out of a balconied window at the town, with few lights, and the moon and silver drifts of cloud going eastward; and the railway station looming romantic as old Baghdad. And next week we march away 'to hazards whence no tears can win us'." ((3), more)
"Saturday, March 31, 1917Anarchist propaganda has already contaminated the larger part of the front.From all quarters I am receiving reports of scenes of mutiny, the murder of officers and wholesale desertion. Even in the front line bands of private soldiers are leaving their units to go and see what is happening in Petrograd or at home in their villages." ((4), more)
"The Extremists seem to hold the Moderates in their power. That is the way with revolutions. So far it is very difficult to estimate the morale of the Army, and what tendencies will manifest themselves as a result of the latest events, under the initiative of leaders who have brought about the fall of Tsarism." ((5), more)
(1) Excerpts from German General Otto Liman von Sanders' account of the First Battle of Gaza, fought from March 26 to 28, 1917, ending in a British defeat. British forces had constructed roads and supply lines along the Mediterranean coast from Egypt to support an advance on Palestine.
Five Years in Turkey by Liman von Sanders, page 165, publisher: The Battery Press with War and Peace Books, publication date: 1928 (originally)
(2) Entries from March 29 or 30, 1917 from the diary of Michel Corday, French senior civil servant, living and writing in Paris. The 'retreat' of the German soldiers was part of Operation Alberich, a withdrawal to a shorter line and stronger defensive position, the Siegfried Zone, or Hindenburg Line. The winter of 1916–1917 was bitter, with coal and food shortages across Europe. The American Relief Committee had been founded in October, 1914 for the relief of the citizens of occupied Belgium. Its establishment by the energetic Herbert Hoover under the patronage of the Ambassadors of neutral Spain and United States is related in Hugh Gibson's animated Journal from our Legation in Belgium.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 241, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(3) Siegfried Sassoon writing on March 30, 1917 of March 30ths three years and one year before. Sassoon's trilogy, The Memoirs of George Sherston are comprised of The Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, and Sherston's Progress. After an extended medical leave in England, Sassoon had returned to the front, and was turning against the war. A point-to-point meeting is a steeplechase, a horse race that includes fence-jumping, a 'jolly race over hedge and ditch,' as in a fox hunt.Thomas Hardy's poem 'The Men Who March Away' was published in The Times of London September 9, 1914, four days after Hardy wrote it with both Hardy and the paper foregoing copyright. Sassoon had referenced the poem on January 17, 1917. The lines (line 5, repeated as line 33) Sassoon quotes, 'To hazards whence no tears can win us' is from the original. Hardy later changed it to, 'Leaving all that here can win us.' The first stanza from Hardy's Complete Poems, page 538:What of the faith and fire within us Men who march away Ere the barn-cocks say Night is growing gray,Leaving all that here can win us;What of the faith and fire within us Men who march away?
Siegfried Sassoon Diaries 1915-1918 by Siegfried Sassoon, page 146, copyright © George Sassoon, 1983; Introduction and Notes Rupert Hart-Davis, 1983, publisher: Faber and Faber, publication date: 1983
(4) Excerpt from the entry for Saturday, March 31, 1917, from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia in Petrograd, the Russian capital. In the course and immediate aftermath of the February Revolution, some officers were murdered, and some soldiers left the front.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. III by Maurice Paléologue, page 277, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(5) Diary entry by Albert, King of the Belgians, for April 1, 1917, writing of the revolution in Russia where the state Duma and the Soviet contended for power. The latter was supported by much of the army and most workers.
The War Diaries of Albert I King of the Belgians by Albert I, page 162, copyright © 1954, publisher: William Kimber
1 2 Next
