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German soldiers in a snow-covered trench, five of them in steel helmets. The men in the foreground may have just come out of a dugout. Those in the back wear heavy coats, look frozen, and may have been on guard duty. The photo postcard was sent from a soldier named Hermann Herold of the 16th reserve Jäger (mounted rifles) battalion, February 19, 1917.
1898 map of St. Petersburg, the Russian capital, from a German atlas. Central St Petersburg, or Petrograd, is on the Neva River. Key landmarks include the Peter and Paul Fortress, which served as a prison, Nevski Prospect, a primary boulevard south of the Fortress, the Finland Train Station, east of the Fortress, where Lenin made his triumphal return, the Tauride (Taurisches) Palace, which housed the Duma and later the Petrograd Soviet.
Chinese laborers working under the direction of German supervisors on a hill above the city of Tsingtau, China. The card was sent from Earl's Court in London, January 6, 1905, and cancelled in Teichel, Germany two days later. From a painting by K. Hei...
The Kasaba of Kut-el-Amara, Mesopotamia, where a British Indian army was surrounded and besieged by Turkish forces from the end of 1915 until the British surrender on April 29, 1915. Photograph from 'Four Years Beneath the Crescent' by Rafael De Nogales, Inspector-General of the Turkish Forces in Armenia and Military Governor of Egyptian Sinai during the World War.
Cover and first page from 'British Advance on the Somme,' Série 18 (2nd Part), a stapled booklet with cover of nineteen detachable postcards, most separated by tissue paper, showing some of the destruction wrought by German troops in Operation Alberich, the strategic retreat of 1917, including in Péronne, Nesle, Ham, Biaches, Feuillères, Combles, Hébuterne, Estrées, Fay, Assevillers, Frise, and Flaucourt.
"My brain is so pitifully confused by the war and my own single part in it. All those people I have left in England have talked me nearly to death. The people I have seen out here so far have made me feel that there is no hope for the race of men. All that is wise and tender in them is hidden by the obsession of war. They strut and shout and guzzle and try to forget their distress in dreary gabble about England (and the War!). It is all dull and hopeless and ugly and small.. . . But spring in this cursed year of victory will be but a green flag waving a signal for devilish slaughter to begin. The agony of armies will be on every breeze; their blood will stain the flowers. The foulness of battle will cut off all kindliness from the hearts of men." ((1), more)
"The Imperial Duma is to resume its labours on Tuesday next, the 27th February, and the fact is causing excitement in industrial quarters. To-day, various agitators have been visiting the Putilov works, the Baltic Yards and the Viborg quarter, preaching a general strike as a protest against the government, food-shortage and war.The agitation has been lively enough to induce General Kharbalov, Military Governor of the capital, to issue a notice prohibiting public meetings and informing the civil population that 'all resistance to authority will be immediately put down by force of arms.'" ((2), more)
"On February 24 [1917] a French liner, the Athos, was torpedoed in the Mediterranean.Among those drowned on the Athos were 543 Chinese labourers, recruited in China to work as part of a large labour force on the Western Front. When the news of the sinking reached China it acted as a deterrent to recruiting, but by the end of the war almost 100,000 Chinese were employed on menial tasks throughout the zone of the armies." ((3), more)
"The Turkish triumph over British arms in Mesopotamia, culminating in the surrender of Gen. Townshend's besieged army at Kut-el-Amara in April, 1916, had stirred the British nation into taking steps to retrieve their disgrace. A large British Army, composed principally of Indian troops, and commanded by Lieut.-Gen. Frederick Stanley Maude, moved up the Tigris Valley in January, 1917, pushing the Turks before them. Advancing on Kut-el-Amara, the British found a strong Turkish force occupying both banks of the Tigris and the peninsula in the center created by a 'hairpin loop' of the river. The expulsion of the Turks from their entrenched and fortified position occupied the British a full month. On February 25th, after a terrific artillery battle, the Turks evacuated the stronghold, retreating in the direction of Bagdad, 110 miles away." ((4), more)
"— The stale bread epoch began on the 25th [February, 1917]. Mild grumbles. People say they have to eat more of it than they used to eat of new.— The 26th. Every day brings its unexpected incident. To-day we have the German retreat before the British as far as the out-skirts of Bapaume. It is a novel and puzzling feature." ((5), more)
(1) Excerpt from the February 22, 1917 diary entry of Siegfried Sassoon, British poet, author, Second Lieutenant in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and recipient of the Military Cross for gallantry in action. Sassoon had just returned from an extended convalescent leave in Britain when he was sent to hospital in Rouen with German measles.
Siegfried Sassoon Diaries 1915-1918 by Siegfried Sassoon, pp. 133–134, copyright © George Sassoon, 1983; Introduction and Notes Rupert Hart-Davis, 1983, publisher: Faber and Faber, publication date: 1983
(2) Excerpt from the entry for February 23, 1917 from the memoir of Maurice Paléologue, French ambassador to Imperial Russia in the capital of Petrograd. The Putilov works was a leading weapons manufacturer; the Viborg quarter, north of central Petrograd, was the site of factories and worker housing. The bitter winter had made it impossible for the transport system to deliver adequate food supplies to major cities such as Petrograd. The Russian Duma had not met for two months.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. III by Maurice Paléologue, pp. 201–202, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(3) Germany resumed its campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare on February 1, 1917, with the Mediterranean Sea as a primary hunting ground.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 311, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
(4) The British army that surrendered to the Turks at Kut-al-Amara on April 29, 1916 was the largest surrender by a British army since the Battle of Yorktown that ended the American Revolution. After advancing quickly, in a premature attempt to seize Baghdad, that army had fallen back to Kut, and was invested by a Turkish army that defeated all relief attempts. General Maude, commanding the British and Indian army in Mesopotamia, was more methodical in his advance on Baghdad.
King's Complete History of the World War by W.C. King, page 357, copyright © 1922, by W.C. King, publisher: The History Associates, publication date: 1922
(5) Entries from February 25 and 26, 1917 from the diary of Michel Corday, French senior civil servant. On January 10 the French government had decreed that bread could only be sold 12 hours after baking in an attempt to cut consumption. Operation Alberich, the German strategic retreat of 1917 to a shorter, well-entrenched defensive system, began on February 24, but was only slowly recognized by the Allies. The 'Hindenburg Line' was the German 'Siegfried Zone' of four trench lines.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 233, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
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