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Mort-Homme signpost with distances to Butte de Vauquois, Cote 304, Montfaucon, Douaumont, and Bois des Caures. © 2015 John M. Shea
French folding postcard map of Verdun and the Meuse River, number 9 from the series Les Cartes du Front. Montfaucon is in the upper left and St. Mihiel at the bottom.
French soldier standing next to an unexploded 420mm shell that fell on Verdun. March, 1916. It weighed 2,100 pounds empty.
The Western Front, 1914 and 15. The Imperial German eagle is a crow feeding on carrion, perched on a cross bearing scenes of the destruction of its advance and retreat through France and Belgium: the shelled and burned cathedral of Reims, the ruination of the city of Arras, a destroyed town, deaths both military and civilian in Belgium. France held its territory along the border with Germany, and turned back the German advance in the Battle of the Marne, but Belgium and northern France remained occupied through the war.Accused of war crimes, Germany, labeled on the map by "Kulturland?", defended itself by speaking of its superior culture.Spain, Holland, and Switzerland remained neutral during the war, and are show in green. Italy joined the Allies in May, 1915, possibly shortly before the card was printed, which may explain the use of red for its name and border.
Austro-Hungarian soldiers marching through a city, their officers bawling orders. Women and a child watch and talk, possibly shouting to be heard over the marching feet. An original watercolor on blue paper, signed W. Rittermann or Pittermann, December 26, 1915.
"Insolently looking the commandant up and down, from head to toe, [the soldier] lashed him with a stream of scornful phrases: 'You little runt, you little ragamuffin. It's out there, on the front lines, that you should come visit us, and now on the first day of rest we have, you show up and bother us. On Cote 304, you didn't even dare come out of your hole. Now get out of my sight.'. . . 'I'm saying that on Cote 304 we never saw you. Here we don't salute anymore.'" ((1), more)
"How long is this going to last? Anguish makes me wonder when and how this gigantic, unprecedented struggle will end. There's no resolution in view. I wonder if it won't just finish for lack of men left to fight. It's no longer one nation fighting another. It's two great blocs fighting, two civilizations colliding. The peoples have been touched by the madness of death and destruction. Certainly humanity has gone mad! It must be mad to do what it's doing. Such slaughter! Such scenes of horror and carnage! I can't find the words to convey them. Hell could not be worse. Men are mad!" ((2), more)
"Letter of an eyewitness: Verdun is impossible to describe. It is about 7 or 8 kilometers from here to Douaumont. Not a trench, not a communications trench, nothing but shell holes one inside another. There is not one piece of ground that is not turned up. To see what has been done here one could not imagine all the shells of all calibers that have been used. The holes made by the 300[-millimeter shells] could hold fifteen horses. There are no more woods. Shattered trees resemble telegraph poles. It is complete devastation. Not one square of land has been spared. One would have to come here to understand it. One cannot imagine such a thing.Everything has been brought together on this part of the front. The cannon are mouth to mouth and never cease firing there is not one second when the cannon cease. There are no attacks right now but still there are losses. Shells fall and mow down everyone and everything without pity.One can only go out at night to work this land that has been churned up a hundred times. The cadavers of swollen horses infect this immense battlefield. We make a trench, a shell lands, everything has to start over again if one is among the survivors. Attacks become impossible. When a troops wants to go out the artillery aim at it. There are too many guns everywhere. For as long as they are here both advance and retreat are impossible.You can be sure that Verdun will not be taken. Here it is extermination on the ground without seeing the enemy. Soon we will be relieved. I wonder how I am still standing after all of this one is completely numb.Men look at one another with wild eyes. It takes a real effort to hold a conversation." ((3), more)
"There was naturally a cascade of Croix de Guerre distributed, as always, according to the whims of the officers, who began by giving them to each other.For these, the company commanders had to present a list of those most deserving. Lieutenant Cordier responded with these noble words: 'All my men did their duty. To reward a few would be to do an injury to the others. That's an injustice to which I will not subscribe.' . . ." ((4), more)
"From 20th May [1916], a series of appeals from Italy reached Stavka, 'each more peremptory in tone than the last'. Joffre, through Laguiche at Stavka; the Italian representative there; the Italian embassy in Petrograd; finally the King of Italy in a personal telegram to the Tsar prevailed on Alexeyev. It seemed that only an immediate Russian offensive could help Italy; and if Italy dropped out of the war, then large numbers of Austrian divisions would be free to take up the battle against Russia." ((5), more)
(1) Soldiers returned as changed men from the front lines of the Battle of Verdun and its fearsome bombardments. In the first paragraph a commandant is offended that a soldier continued shaving and showed no respect. In the second, a sentry continued smoking his pipe and failed to salute when his commanding officers passed. French Infantry Corporal Louis Barthas had also been on Cote 304, and further observes of his commanders, 'It was long ago that they had lost the esteem of their men. Now they had earned their scorn.'
Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918 by Louis Barthas, pp. 215, 216, copyright © 2014 by Yale University, publisher: Yale University Press, publication date: 2014
(2) Excerpt from the diary of French Second Lieutenant Alfred Joubaire writing on May 22, 1916, the first day of French General Mangin's attempt to retake Fort Douaumont, captured by the Germans on February 25, in the first days of the Battle of Verdun. Joubaire had arrived in the Verdun sector on May 17, having learned of his deployment the previous day: 'There's no longer any doubt of the position we're going to take up . . . It's Verdun, it's the big one, real carnage, real slaughter. Everybody is very calm and very happy.' Joubaire was killed on June 2 on his second rotation into the Verdun front lines.
The Road to Verdun by Ian Ousby, page 304, copyright © 2002 by The Estate of Ian Ousby, publisher: Anchor Books, publication date: 2003
(3) Letter from French Artilleryman Paul Pireaud to his wife Marie, May 23, 1916. Pireaud's unit, the 112th Heavy Artillery Regiment, moved into the Verdun sector in early April. French commander Pétain rotated infantry units roughly weekly, but it was much more difficult to do so with the artillery.
Your Death Would Be Mine; Paul and Marie Pireaud in the Great War by Martha Hanna, page 78, copyright © 2006 by Martha Hanna, publisher: Harvard University Press, publication date: 2006
(4) French Infantry Corporal Louis Barthas rotated into the Verdun sector on May 6, 1916, moved to the front line on the 11th, and moved out the night of May 18-19. Due to French commander Henri Philippe Pétain's policy of short rotations, some 80% of the French army rotated through Verdun during the Battle. Barthas records that his reserve regiment suffered as many as 1,050 killed, wounded, and missing. When the losses were replaced with young men, the regiment was made an active duty, regular regiment. Barthas, who had previously been broken in rank, was made a corporal again.
Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918 by Louis Barthas, page 218, copyright © 2014 by Yale University, publisher: Yale University Press, publication date: 2014
(5) After five Battles of the Isonzo River along the Italian-Austro-Hungarian border in northeast Italy, battles in which Austria-Hungary stood on the defensive, the Austrians struck in northern Italy from Trentino on May 15, 1916 in the Asiago Offensive, and made great advances that threatened to break through from the mountains to Italy's northern plain, isolating the Italian armies. French Commander in Chief Joffre, preparing an Anglo-French offensive on the Somme River, and desperately battling at Verdun, was not yet ready for an offensive. Alexeyev was Chief of Staff to Commander in Chief of Tsar Nicholas II. Stavka was the Russian general staff. General Brusilov was preparing an offensive, and was both ready and willing to strike sooner rather than later.
The Eastern Front, 1914-1917 by Norman Stone, page 246, copyright © 1975 Norman Stone, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1975
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