Search by or
Search: Quotation Context Tags
Russian troops fleeing a solitary German soldier. The Russian First Army invaded Germany in August 1914, and defeated the Germans in the Battle of Gumbinnen on the 20th. In September the Germans drove them out of Russia in the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes. In September and October, a joint German, Austro-Hungarian offensive drove the Russians back almost to Warsaw. Illustration by E. H. Nunes.
In July 1915, British and German forces fought three engagements in Hooge, a village near Ypres with a destroyed chateau held by the Germans, and its stables held by the British. A British mine on July 19 opened a crater 120 feet across. On July 30, the Germans attacked with flamethrowers, the first time the British had faced the weapon. Map from Military Operations France and Belgium, 1915, Vol. II, by Brigadier-General J.E. Edmonds and Captain G.C. Wynne. Map by Major A.F. Becke R.A. (Retired) Hon. M.A. (Oxon.)
Lithograph postcard of the uniforms of the Belgian military including infantry, cavalry, and bicycle corps beneath a portrait of King Albert I.
An Italian soldier lying in the snow waving a handkerchief to a plane overhead. The logo is for Societa Italiana Aviazione, founded in 1916, which became part of Fiat Aviation in 1918.
A Russian Cossack riding among refugees fleeing before a Central Power advance. The Russians adopted a scorched-earth policy in the months-long retreat before the German-Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive of the spring, summer, and fall 1915, with Cossacks accused of burning homes and crops to deny them to the advancing enemy, and to prevent civilians from remaining behind and providing intelligence to the invader.
"Demoralization, surrender, and desertion are assuming huge proportions." ((1), more)
"Half an hour before dawn the trench garrison stood to arms and there was still complete quiet. Then at 3.15 A.M., with dramatic suddenness came the carefully planned German stroke. The site of the stables of the chateau was blown up, whilst a sudden hissing sound was heard by the two companies of the 8/Rifle Brigade on either side of the crater, and a bright crimson glare over the crater turned the whole scene red. Jets of flame as if from a line of powerful fire-hoses, spraying fire instead of water, shot across the front trenches of the Rifle Brigade and a thick black cloud formed. It was the first attack on the British with liquid fire." ((2), more)
"The country is resplendent with green. In the distance, through the mist on the horizon, lie outlined the houses and ruins of Dixmude, Caeskerke, the Troost Farm, the houses of Burg and Tanks. We could hear the gunfire; two aeroplanes were having a dog fight and using their machine-guns.. . .We left the line at Milestone 19 of the Yser, where the 2nd Division starts. Following a communication trench to begin with, we crossed the fields and reached Milestone 2, on the Dixmude-Alveringem road. It was a quiet day—an exchange of rifle shots and the drone of a few 210-cm. shells, which we heard pass overhead, destined for Caeskerke halt." ((3), more)
". . . Finally, on the morning of the 1st we make our way down. We have to walk slowly in single file along a dangerous ridge under enemy fire. I'll never forget this for as long as I live. It's about 10 p.m. when it gets to my turn to go. The path takes almost an hour. I'm on top of the ridge and I go on step by step ducking the shrapnel fire. Nothing. I continue. After two paces I'm still unscathed. At the third, Zani from Vicenza, ten metres in front of me, is hit in the head. He screams and falls down the precipice. The poor wretch's head smashed on the mountainside. I see his body tumbling down. He was a good lad. I keep going, constantly asking myself when my turn will come. Someone behind me is hurt, screams, but keeps going. At one point the bullets are coming thicker and faster. The ridge is interrupted by a crevasse. I throw myself in. Fandella, the corporal of the 15th is already down there. We're lying on the corpse of a poor Alpine soldier. The firing is constant. A rock above our heads is hit and covers us in rubble. Fandella's lip is cut. I'm still unscathed. We get to Spleca at about 5 p.m.I'm shattered." ((4), more)
". . . A peasant woman, old and wrinkled as a fairy-tale witch, stopped near us. Peering into our faces, she told us with breathless, excited mutterings that she had seen the villains who had lighted the fire; she had seen them, she avowed, in the act of igniting a straw thatch. 'Kazaki oni byli! Nashi ruskiye; svoi ruskiye! [Cossacks they were! Our Russians; our own Russians!]' and, she continued, 'What could the poor and helpless do when their own people turned against them?'. . . 'German spies!' denounced the soldiers; 'Kazaki!' moaned the peasants under their breath." ((5), more)
(1) Russian Minister of War, General Poplivanov, to his ministerial colleagues. The Russian front has collapsed before the German-Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive.Quoted in Gilbert, p. 176.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 176, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
(2) In July 1915, British and German forces fought three engagements in Hooge, a village near Ypres, with a destroyed chateau held by the Germans, and its stables held by the British. On July 19, the British initiated an attack by setting off a mine that opened a crater 120 feet across, gaining a small amount of ground. A second attack on the 22nd had no mine, no element of surprise, and failed. On the morning of July 30, the Germans attacked with 'liquid-fire', a weapon the French had already faced.
Military Operations France and Belgium, 1915, Vol. II, Battles of Aubers Ridge, Festubert, and Loos by J. E. Edmonds, page 104, copyright © asserted, publisher: Macmillan and Co., Limited, publication date: 1928
(3) Two paragraphs from Belgian King Albert's diary entry for July 31, 1915, a day on which he visited the sector held by the 5th Belgian Division, setting out about 4:30 in the morning. In a visit lasting 'exactly 1 hour and 25 minutes,' he met with the 2nd and 3rd Chausseurs, and the 1st Regiment of the Line, recording the names of officers he met. He was satisfied with the condition of the trenches and dugouts.
The War Diaries of Albert I King of the Belgians by Albert I, pp. 51-53, copyright © 1954, publisher: William Kimber
(4) Italian infantryman Virgilio Bonamore wrote of fighting the Austro-Hungarians in the Julian Alps. Most of his battalion suffered frostbite in the last days of July, 1915, a period during which it rained constantly. On the morning of August 1, his unit was relieved, and made its way along the ridge, vulnerable, in single file.
Intimate Voices from the First World War by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, page 159, copyright © 2003 by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, publisher: Harper Collins Publishers, publication date: 2003
(5) Frances Farmborough, an English teacher in Moscow when war broke out, trained for and joined a Red Cross unit serving with the Russian Army. The joint German-Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive, launched on May 2, had broken the Russian front, splitting the northern and southern armies, and driving the Russians back hundreds of miles. Trying to leave nothing for the advancing enemy, the Russians, in Farmborough's account chiefly Cossacks, set villages ablaze. The night of August 1, 1915 (July 19 Old Style), Farmborough's unit had turned in for the night after pitching its tents in the village of Rymachi when she was awakened to cries the village was burning. By the morning Rymachi was ruins, and still more refugees joined the estimated one million driven eastward.
Nurse at the Russian Front, a Diary 1914-18 by Florence Farmborough, pp. 104, 105, copyright © 1974 by Florence Farmborough, publisher: Constable and Company Limited, publication date: 1974
1 2 Next
