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The bunk of NCO Otto Riecke in Janovka, July 14, 1916. Riecke served with 2nd battalion, 5th company, reserve infantry regiment 227. There are two Janovkas in the current Czech Republic, one north of Prague, the other south. Both would have been well behind the front in July, 1916. Note the stick grenades under the fire step in the right foreground.
A Russian artillery crew at work. More than its adversaries, Russia suffered from munitions shortages. A card from Der Weltkrieg 1914-1918, a 1930s German history of the war illustrated (or not) with pasted-in cigarette cards.
Monument in Pozières, France to the officers, non-commissioned officers, and men of the First Australian Division who fought in France and Belgium 1916, 1917, and 1918. © 2013 John M. Shea
Drawing of buildings in a French village by Johann Hofbauer, I Company, 52 Battalion, 65th Regiment of German Landsturm. Hofbauer was from Rosenheim, Bavaria, and served first in Alsace, then other fronts through the war. One side is dated July 23 (?), 1916, the other April 21, 1916. The latter includes a stork in its chimney-top nest.
Wooden cigarette box carved by Г. САВИНСКИ (?; G. Savinskiy), a Russian POW. The Grim Reaper strides across a field of skulls on the cover. The base includes an intricate carving of the years of war years, '1914' and, turning it 90 degrees, '1918.'
"The kite-balloon, too, on the hill, began to sway huge and bulbous—upward—another was seen far off against the rosy east. All night the distant waves of gunfire had crashed and rumbled, soft and terrific with broad flashes, like waves of some immense tumult of waters, rolling along the horizon. As dawn broke, and I came down the hill again, I heard the clear skirl of the Second Gordons piping into their bivouac—a brave note, shrill as the lark, but the Jocks were a weary crowd as they hobbled in. Before dawn a horse neighed twice, high and shrill and scared. . . ." ((1), more)
"The past, gloomy year of 1915, with its hopeless defeats, culminating in the great Spring and Summer Retreat of the Russian Armies, was stamped with unspeakable tragedy, suffering and frustration. It was warfare at its cruellest and worst. Now the tables have been reversed. Instead of retreat, it is ADVANCE! We traversed the Austrian countryside — still showing signs of springtime's generous flowering — and we revelled in that knowledge that our Russian armies, and those of our brave Allies on the far-Western Front, were gaining success after success. But as we followed in the rear of our advancing troops, the trail of devastation left by war was painfully visible . . ." ((2), more)
"Sunday, 23 July [1916]: A general attack was made at 1.30 a.m. The 5th or Reserve Army on our left advanced well to the west of Pozières village with 48th Division, while the First Australian Division captured the village of Pozières itself as far as the Albert-Bapaume Road and reached within two hundred yards of the windmill on the hill north-east of the village. . . . The Fourth Army was not so fortunate." ((3), more)
"The class of fighting on the Somme is an eye-opener to all of our men. The intense artillery on both sides tend to unnerve the very best. Curtain or barrage fire was entirely new to oldest of our soldiers. The idea is to establish an impassable wall of steel and shrapnel either in front of our men advancing or behind the country attacked so as to prevent reinforcements coming up. We know from personal experience what German barrage is like. Our own must be terrible as I believe we fire three to the German one." ((4), more)
"Daytime was play in the Islands that summer; night was a perpetual tangle. Straight lines did not exist. If one went forward patrolling, it was almost inevitable that one would creep round some hole or suspect heap or stretch of wired stumps, and then, suddenly one no longer knew which was the German line, which our own. I almost joined a German working party 'in all good faith' after such a careless circuit. Puzzling dazzling lights flew up, fell in the grass beside and flared like bonfires; one heard movements, saw figures, conjectured distances, and all in that state of dilemma. Willow-trees seemed moving men. Compasses responded to old iron and failed us. At last by luck or some stroke of recognition one found oneself; but there was danger in not doing so; and the battalion which relieved us sent a patrol out, only to lose it that way. The patrol came against wire, and bombed with all its skill; the men behind the wire fired their Lewis gun with no less determination; and, when the killed and wounded amounted to a dozen or more, it was found the patrol and the defenders were of the same battalion. I knew the officer who led that patrol; he was by temperament suited for a quiet country parsonage, and would usually have mislaid his spectacles." ((5), more)
(1) Excerpt from the diary of Siegfried Sassoon, author and infantryman in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, writing on the morning of July 21, 1916, as soldiers returned from the front line of the Battle of the Somme.
Siegfried Sassoon Diaries 1915-1918 by Siegfried Sassoon, pp. 97–98, copyright © George Sassoon, 1983; Introduction and Notes Rupert Hart-Davis, 1983, publisher: Faber and Faber, publication date: 1983
(2) Florence Farmborough, an English nurse serving with the Russian Red Cross, writing on July 22 (July 9 Old Style), 1916, as the Russian advance of the Brusilov Offensive continued to drive back the Austro-Hungarians and again, as in 1914, threatened an advance through the Carpathian Mountains to Budapest. In 1915 the Russians had retreated as much as 300 miles before the German-Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive. In 1916, the French had held against the German siege of Verdun, French and British Empire forces we pushing back the Germans in the Battle of the Somme, and the Italians had lost ground but ultimately held in the face of the Austro-Hungarian Asiago Offensive.
Nurse at the Russian Front, a Diary 1914-18 by Florence Farmborough, page 209, copyright © 1974 by Florence Farmborough, publisher: Constable and Company Limited, publication date: 1974
(3) Entry from the diary of British Commander in Chief Douglas Haig on the assault on the village of Pozières on July 23, 1916.
Somme by Lyn Macdonald, page 172, copyright © 1983 by Lyn Macdonald, publisher: MacMillan, publication date: 1983
(4) Sapper J. Julin writing in December, 1916 about the July 23, 1916 assault on the village of Pozières, France by the First Australian Division, part of the months-long Battle of the Somme. The Australians had suffered heavily in the July 19 and 20 Battle of Fromelles, and British Commander-in-Chief Douglas Haig had hoped to follow that failed attack by giving the Australians, recently arrived on the Western Front, 'a simple task' (Somme, Lyn Macdonald, p. 166). The Australians took the village on July 23, then suffered through days of the German bombardment Julin describes.
Three Armies on the Somme by William Philpott, page 241, copyright © 2009 by William Philpott, publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, publication date: 2009
(5) Edmund Blunden, English writer and recipient of the Military Cross, was a second lieutenant and adjutant in the Royal Sussex Regiment, who fought at Ypres, in the Battle of the Somme, and in the Battle of Passchendaele. 'That summer' was the summer of 1916, and Blunden was east of Festubert, site of a British attack during the Second Battle of Artois in May, 1915. The 'islands' were isolated trenches, which Blunden reached during daylight, 'in spite of the accepted impossibility' of doing so.
Undertones of War by Edmund Blunden, pp. 74-75, copyright © the Estate of Edmund Blunden, 1928, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: November 1928
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