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Detail from the Memorial to the French Moroccan Division at Vimy Ridge. The theaters and battles in which the division played a role are recorded on the sides of the monument. © 2013, John M. Shea
Portrait of British soldier Harry Mulvaney, son of Edith (Hughes) and Peter Mulvaney, who was killed in France aged about 19 years in the 1914-18 war.
'December snow.' Hand-painted watercolor calendar for December 1917 by Schima Martos. Particulates from a smoking kerosene lamp overspread the days of December, and are labeled 'December höra,' 'December snow.' The first five days or nights of the month show a couple at, sitting down to, or rising from a lamp-lit table. The rest of the month the nights are dark, other than four in which the quarter of the moon shows through a window, or Christmas, when the couple stands in the light of a Christmas tree.
Postcard from a series on the Armies of the European War of 1914. The French Army included units from its African colonies including Morocco and Senegal, and the Départment of Algeria.
German photograph of Russian soldiers at Baranovitchi (Baranawitschy), 'slaughtered by stick grenade.' Baranovitchi was the site of Stavka, the Russian High Command, until August 8, 1915, when it was relocated to Mogilev in the face of the continued German-Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow advance. Baranovitchi was also the site of Russia's July 1916 offensive, ostensibly coordinated with Brusilov's begun a month before, that lost 80,000 Russians between July 2 and 8, at a cost of 16,000 Germans. The stick grenade was introduced in 1915.
"Over the night of 3–4 July the defenders worked frantically on their third position, linking it through Barleux and Belloy-en-Santerre to the second position at Estrées. The French seized these last two villages on the afternoon of 4 July. Foreign legionnaires from the Moroccan Division assaulted Belloy after a three-hour bombardment. Their morale was excellent. Despite coming under withering close-range machine-gun fire from emplacements hidden until the moment of assault, the legionnaires pressed on into the village. As the bugler sounded the charge, the wounded men in no-man's land raised themselves up and cries of 'Vive la Légion! Vive la France!' could be heard above the gunfire. In the afternoon the legionnaires fought off the first of a series of counter-attacks from the woods to the north-east which 21 RIC had failed to take: the enemy could be seen dismounting from their lorries on the road a few hundred metres behind and immediately joining the attack. The fight went on throughout the night, often hand-to-hand; but the legionnaires kept the village." ((1), more)
"Dear Miss Scott: The parcel has arrived, and is being put to its proper use with the proper speed. The cake is excellent. Tray bong. J'en suis tres oblige. If you have not sent the other parcel by the time you get this do not trouble till you receive another F.P.C. The fact is, that in this last 6 days in the trenches, we had such a devil of a time that I felt that if parcels were to come at all — if tis to be done, then twere well it were done quickly. We were made a cock-shy of for the artillery, and so have really been a part of the advance. (One strafe lasted 2½ hours, and gave me a permanent distaste for such. We were under fire every day, and nowhere was safe. In the post where I was for half my time, there were twelve dugouts. Four have been smashed, the cookhouse a mere melancholy ruin of its former greatness, and the bombstore not what it was. Souvenirs are plentiful round there. . ." ((2), more)
"Thursday, July 6, 1916.While the English are developing their offensive between the Somme and the Ancre, the French have advanced beyond the enemy's second line of defence, south of the Somme. In the two zones of attack the Germans have left about 13,000 prisoners.From the Stokhod to the sources of the Pruth, i.e., on a front of three hundred kilometres, the Russians are methodically advancing. In the north, in Volhynia, they are threatening Kovel. In the south, Galicia, they are in occupation of Delatyn, which commands one of the principal gates into the Carpathians, on the line between Stansilau and Marmaros-Sziget.There is equal activity in Armenia, where the Turks have been driven back simultaneously on the shores of the Black Sea and west of Erzerum." ((3), more)
"— Out of 192 former students at the Teachers' Training College who were commissioned as second-lieutenants in the infantry, 110 have been killed.. . . — The communiqués are printed with all the devices of the compositor—bold type, underlining—which leaves our defeats inconspicuous, while throwing our successes into prominence. Anybody who reads them quickly, simply fails to notice the defeats. How convenient it is!" ((4), more)
". . . there was only marsh. There was no time to sap forward, no time for guns to register properly. A huge force of cavalry clogged the supply-lines. Twenty-one and a half infantry, five cavalry divisions were gathered. A thousand guns opened the bombardment, with a thousand rounds each. This was not effective. Two German divisions were brought in as reserves just before the attack began; the bombardment, though lasting for several days, achieved nothing in particular. A few initial tactical successes came—3,000 prisoners, a few guns. On 4th July one of the two Austrian divisions collapsed, and the line was held by reserve Germans. Then the attack stopped—resumed again with bombardment on the 7th July, and again stopped. By 8th July the Russians had lost 80,000 men, and the Germans 16,000. Yet this attack had used up more shell than the whole of Brusilov's front in the first week of his offensive." ((5), more)
(1) In the first days of the Battle of the Somme, begun July 1, 1916, the French had breached the German first defensive line and at some points the second. The Moroccan Division that was so successful at Belloy-en-Santerre had been the first unit to break the German line in the war, having done so in the May, 1915 Second Battle of Artois. '21 RIC' was the 21st Régiment d'infanterie colonial.
Three Armies on the Somme by William Philpott, pp. 216, 217, copyright © 2009 by William Philpott, publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, publication date: 2009
(2) Ivor Gurney, English poet and composer, writing to the composer Marion Margaret Scott, President of the Society of Women Musicians from 1915 to 1916, on July 5, 1916. Gurney was a private in the Gloucestershire Regiment in the Fauquissart-Laventie sector.
War Letters, Ivor Gurney, a selection edited by R.K.R. Thornton by Ivor Gurney, page 80, copyright © J. R. Haines, the Trustee of the Ivor Gurney Estate 1983, publisher: The Hogarth Press, publication date: 1984
(3) Entry for Thursday, July 6, 1916, from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia. The Anglo-French Somme Offensive launched on July 1, the Russian Brusilov Offensive and Russia's success against the Turks in the Caucasus and along the Black Sea had relieved the French defending Verdun, and the Italians who had halted the Austro-Hungarian Asiago Offensive.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. II by Maurice Paléologue, pp. 293-294, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(4) Entries from July 6 to 10, 1916 from the diary of Michel Corday, a French senior civil servant.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, pp. 181, 182, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(5) In his offensive launched on June 4, 1916, Russian General Alexsei Brusilov had demonstrated the results that could be achieved with careful preparation and adequate weapons. Generals Alexei Evert and Alexander Ragoza, like their fellow commanders, did not learn Brusilov's lessons, such as that of digging trenches (saps) toward the enemy front line to minimize the open ground over which soldiers needed to advance to reach the enemy trench. Brusilov preceded his infantry assault with a bombardment of hours, not days. He did not rely on cavalry to exploit a breakthrough, but on well-coordinated artillery and infantry. Brusilov also had the advantages of facing primarily Austro-Hungarian troops rather than German, and of having more time to prepare. The Russians were unable to exploit Brusilov's success.
The Eastern Front, 1914-1917 by Norman Stone, pp. 260-261, copyright © 1975 Norman Stone, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1975
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