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Allied soldiers fortifying shell craters after an advance. From The Nations at War by Willis J. Abbot, 1918 Edition.
View of the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme 1914–1918 from Mouquet Farm, commemorating the 72,246 British and Empire missing of that sector. It is a monument both to the British Empire and French missing from the Battle of the Somme and other battles in Picardy. © 2013 John M. Shea
Entrenched German soldiers behind sniper plates at Slota Gora, September 26, 1916. Slota (or Zlota) Gora was in Polish Russia, west of a line running from Warsaw to Cracow. An original watercolor (over pencil) by O. Oettel, 12th company of Landwehr, IR 32 in the field. A sketch in pencil and red crayon is on the reverse.
The Russian Duma: priest deputies and officers. From White Nights and Other Russian Impressions by Arthur Ruhl. Ruhl reported from Russia in 1917 after the February Revolution.
Entrenched German soldiers preparing their rifles for duty, November 15, 1916 in Lajoryery(?). The message on the reverse is in Hungarian. 'Nov 15 1916 — Lajoryery(?) — 377 . . . preparing rifle for sentry in the trenches' — translation courtesy of Thomas Faust, eBay's Urfaust.
"On 12 November [1916], hoping for better luck, I undertook my second mission, which was to test the communications between units in our crater positions. A chain of relays concealed in foxholes led me to my destination.The term 'crater positions' was accurate. On a ridge outside the village of Rancourt, there were numerous craters scattered, some occupied by a few soldiers here and there. The dark plain, criss-crossed by shells, was barren and intimidating. . . .By the time I emerged from the woods, it was day. The cratered field stretched out ahead of me, apparently endlessly, with no sign of life. I paused, because unoccupied terrain is always a sinister thing in a war." ((1), more)
". . . the main blow was to be struck northward towards Grandcourt and Beaumont Hamel. Struck it was in the shabby clammy morning of November 13.That was a feat of arms vieing with any recorded. The enemy was surprised and beaten. From Thiepval Wood battalions of our own division sprang out, passed our old dead, mud craters and wire and took the tiny village of St. Pierre Divion with its enormous labyrinth, and almost 2,000 Germans in the galleries there. Beyond the curving Ancre, the Highlanders and the Royal Naval Division overran Beaucourt and Beaumont, strongholds of the finest . . ." ((2), more)
"Put that bloody cigarette out." ((3), more)
"To gain a better understanding of the atmosphere of the final session of the Duma, which lasted from November 1, 1916 to February 26, 1917, it must be realized that the expectation of a palace revolution was uppermost in everyone's mind. Rank-and-file members of the political parties, of course, had no precise knowledge of the coming coup, but there were veiled allusions to it in the speeches of those who did know of it and who could see where the policy of the Tsar's cabinet, in which Protopopov played no mean part, was leading the country." ((4), more)
"The reality was not described in the newspapers, and usually only glimpsed in letters home. One diarist, Lieutenant Guy Chapman, caught that reality in his curt entry on the night of November 16: 'No. I Coy is badly knocked out. Lauder and Young both badly wounded, Sergeant-Major Dell wounded. Farrington killed. Sgt Brown not expected to live. Sgt Baker wounded. Westle, poor fellow, killed. Foley — the last of his family — killed, a lot of other good men, too many to speak of.'" ((5), more)
(1) German Ensign Ernst Jünger was wounded by shrapnel in September, 1916. During the month he was either in hospital or recuperating, his unit was wiped out in fighting at Guillemont in the Battle of the Somme. After his return in November, he was stationed by the woods of St-Pierre-Vaast, ten kilometers north of Péronne and the Somme River. In 'hoping for better luck' Jünger refers to the night (a few before) he stumbled into the woods and a British phosgene gas attack. The night of November 12, immediately after our extract, he was hit by a sniper's bullet that went through one calf and grazed the other, and spent another two weeks recuperating.
Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger, pp. 114–115, copyright © 1920, 1961, Translation © Michael Hoffman, 2003, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 2003
(2) Excerpt from Edmund Blunden, English writer, recipient of the Military Cross, second lieutenant and adjutant in the Royal Sussex Regiment, writing of an attack on November 13, 1916, during the Battle of the Somme. Of one month earlier, October 13, Blunden had referred to his battalion's position as being 'at the edge of the Thiepval inferno.' The November 13 attack began in thick fog against the villages of Beaumont Hamel, Beaucourt, and St. Pierre Divion on the Ancre River. Hamel had seen the ruin of the Newfoundland Regiment on July 1, the first day of the Battle.
Undertones of War by Edmund Blunden, pp. 136–137, copyright © the Estate of Edmund Blunden, 1928, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: November 1928
(3) Last words of H.H. Munro, the author Saki, killed November 14, 1916 in the attack begun the previous day, one of the last in the Battle of the Somme, against the villages of Beaumont Hamel, Beaucourt, and St. Pierre Divion on the Ancre River.
The Lost Voices of World War I, An International Anthology of Writers, Poets and Playwrights by Tim Cross, page 13, copyright © 1989 by The University of Iowa, publisher: University of Iowa Press, publication date: 1989
(4) Alexander Kerensky on what would be the last session of the Russian Duma for decades. It began November 14, 1916 (November 1 Old Style). Alexander Protopopov had been appointed Russian Minister of the Interior in September. Kerensky reports that he was aware of the plot to replace Tsar Nicholas II with his son, under a regency headed by Grand Duke Michael.
Russia and History's Turning Point by Alexander Kerensky, page 151, copyright © 1965 by Alexander Kerensky, publisher: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, publication date: 1965
(5) From Martin Gilbert's account of the last days of the Battle of the Somme in his The First World War, a Complete History. 'No. I Coy' is a the 1st Company.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 298, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
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