Search by or
Search: Quotation Context Tags
His reach exceeds his grasp. A German fox eyes grapes — the cities of Calais, Paris, Verdun, and Petrograd — he hadn't conquered, and wouldn't in the war. The twining vines labeled Belgium, Italy, England, Russia, France, Japan, Serbia, Portugal, Montenegro, and Romania, the last of which joined the Allies in October 1916. In the distance is a rolling battlefield of smoking cannon and barbed wire. A postcard by F. Sancha.
Chosen Boy, a 1918 watercolor by Paul Klee. From Paul Klee: Early and Late Years: 1894-1940. © 2013 Moeller Fine Art
A mass of German troops bear an enormous egg striped in the black, white, and red of the german flag. Atop the egg, a cannon is fired by troops with a Hungarian flag. The target, diminutive in the distance, is Paris, Eiffel Tower gray against the brown city.The watercolor is labeled,Husvét . Páris piros tojása . 1918Easter . Red eggs for Paris . 1918The front of the card is postmarked 1918-04-05 from Melököveso.The card is a Feldpostkarte, a field postcard, from Asbach Uralt, old German cognac. Above the brand name, two German soldiers wheel a field stove past a crate containing a bottle of the brandy under the title Gute Verpflegung, Good Food. Above the addressee is written Einschreiben, enroll, and Nach Ungarn, to Hungary. The card is addressed to Franz Moritos, and is postmarked Hamburg, 1918-03-30. A Hamburg stamp also decorates the card.A hand-painted postcard by Schima Martos. , Germany on registered fieldpost card, 1918, message: Red Egg for Paris, Easter, 1918.The German advance in Operation Michael in the March, 1918 nearly broke the Allied line, and threatened Paris, putting it once again in range of a new German supergun capable of hitting the city from 70 miles away.
Soldiers of the Great War Known Unto God, Cabaret Rouge Cemetery, Souchez, France. © 2013 by John M. Shea
The American cruiser Brooklyn in Vladivostok harbor, Russia in a 1919 Czech Legion photograph. The Legion consisted of Austro-Hungarian Czechs taken prisoner by the Russians, then organized to fight for Czech independence. With peace on the Russian front, they went east to leave Russia from Vladivostok, sometimes fighting their way through the Red Guard defending the Revolution. The Americans, British, and Japanese had forces in the city.
"The Secretary of State has received from Ambassador Sharp in Paris a graphic report of his visit to the scene of the horrible tragedy which occurred on the afternoon of Good Friday in a church by the explosion of a German shell projected from far back of the enemy lines a distance of more than seventy miles. The appalling destruction wrought by this shell is, as the Ambassador remarked, probably not equaled by any single discharge of any hostile gun in the cruelty and horrors of its result.In no other one spot in Paris, even where poverty had gathered on that holy day to worship, could destruction of life have been so great. Nearly a hundred mangled corpses lying in the morgues, with almost as many seriously wounded, attested to the measure of the toll exacted. Far up to the high, vaulted arches, between the flying buttresses well to the front of the church is a great gap in the wall, from which fell upon the heads of the devoted worshipers many tons of solid masonry. It was this that caused such a great loss of life." ((1), more)
"The enemy has had the incalculable advantage of fighting as one army. To meet this the Allies have, since the battle began, taken a most important decision.With the cordial coöperation of the British and French Commanders-in-Chief, General Foch has been charged by the British, French, and American Governments to coördinate the action of the Allied Armies on the Western front. . . .It is clear that, whatever may happen in this battle, the country must be prepared for further sacrifices to insure final victory. I am certain that the nation will shrink from no sacrifice which is required to secure this result, and the necessary plans are being carefully prepared by the Government and will be announced when Parliament meets." ((2), more)
"March 31st [1918].—Easter Day: blue sky and sunshine, grand black and white cloud effects. A morning mist seemed to rest on the Forest of Nieppe; the reality was the charming effect of sunlight on opening buds. Civilians filled the parish church to the door for morning service. In the afternoon they sat out of doors in groups, gossiping and drinking beer. Our voluntary services did not draw one worshipper among them all, to the padres' unholy indignation.—We are adjured to practise rapid loading. Such is G.H.Q.'s woeful discovery of our Army's training.—At long, long last the French reserve has moved and recovered a little ground." ((3), more)
"From FranceThe spirit drank the Café lights;All the hot life that glittered there,And heard men say to women gay,'Life is just so in France'.The spirit dreams of Café lights,And golden faces and soft tones,And hears men groan to broken men,'This is not Life in France'.Heaped stones and a charred signboard showsWith grass between and dead folk under,And some birds sing, while the spirit takes wing.And this is life in France.— Isaac Rosenberg" ((4), more)
"We are in Vladivostok! We arrived early this morning. It is 2nd April 1918, and exactly 27 days since we boarded our goods-train in Moscow. It is wonderful that we are really here — at last! But what makes it all the more wonderful is that when we steamed slowly into the station, Vladivostok's magnificent harbour was spread before our eyes. In that harbour four large cruisers were anchored, and one of them was flying the UNION JACK! Oh! The joy! The relief! The comfort! The security! Who will ever know all that this glorious flag symbolised for us travel-stained, weary refugees? It was as though we had heard a dear, familiar voice bidding us 'Welcome home!'" ((5), more)
(1) Beginning of the April 3, 1918 report of William Sharp, United State Ambassador to France, to the Secretary of State concerning the March 29, 1918 German bombardment of Paris. The German advance in Operation Michael put Paris within the range of a new German gun. Among the 91 killed at the Church of St. Gervais were the Secretary of the Swiss Legation and Rose-Marie Ormond, niece and muse of American painter John Singer Sargent. Sixty-eight more were wounded. In a letter of October 20, 1914, Henry James wrote to Edith Wharton of the death of Ormond's husband Robert André-Michel, a French art historian and author of Avignon: the Frescoes of the Palace of the Popes: 'Mrs. C., who had been lunching with Emily Sargent, further brought me in the dismal news of the death of the so distinguished little French husband of her niece, Violet Ormond's daughter, the Rose-Marie whom Sargent so exquisitely painted a year ago; the said André Michel having been killed in one of these last engagements.' (Henry James Letters, Vol. IV: 1895–1916, pp. 722–723.)
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. VI, 1918, p. 93, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(2) Excerpt from a March 30, 1918 statement by British Prime Minister Lloyd George. On March 26, in response to the success of Germany's Somme Offensive, Operation Michael, the French and British had agreed to subordinate their commanders, Henri Philippe Pétain and Douglas Haig, to the coordination of Ferdinand Foch. On March 28, American commander John Pershing had told Foch, 'all that I have I put at your disposal.'
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. VI, 1918, p. 102, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(3) Entry for, Easter Sunday, March 31, 1918 from the writings — diaries, letters, and memoirs — of Captain J. C. Dunn, Medical Officer of the Second Battalion His Majesty's Twenty-Third Foot, the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and fellow soldiers who served with him. The French reserve Dunn writes of had come to the aid of the British, staggering back from the German Somme Offensive, Operation Michael, which had been launched on March 21, and was still in progress.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, page 460, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(4) 'From France', by Isaac Rosenberg, killed in action during a night patrol on April 1, 1918 in Fampoux, 8 km east of Arras. Rosenberg was in the King's Own Royal Regiment, sent as reinforcements near the end of the German Somme Offensive, Operation Michael.
Poetry of the First World War, an Anthology by Tim Kendall, page 139, publisher: Oxford University Press, publication date: 2013
(5) Florence Farmborough, an English nurse serving with the Russian Red Cross, on her arrival in Vladivostok, on Russia's Pacific coast, after a 27-day journey by train from Moscow. It would be over three weeks before Farmborough and other refugees would board the Sheridan, a United States transport. Among her fellow passengers was Yasha Bachkarova, former leader of the Russian Women's Death Battalion. Farmborough's unit had been with the Russian Army in Romania when the Bolshevik Revolution brought Vladimir Lenin to power. He had consistently called for an immediate end to the war, and Russia had agreed an armistice on December 15 with the Central Powers. On December 26, Farmborough's unit received orders to make their way to Moscow as best they could. She traveled first to Odessa on the Black Sea before going on to Moscow, finally reaching it after a journey of 13 days.
Nurse at the Russian Front, a Diary 1914-18 by Florence Farmborough, page 402, copyright © 1974 by Florence Farmborough, publisher: Constable and Company Limited, publication date: 1974
1 2 Next
