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Profile of the Spad XIII in the collection of the National Air and Space Museum, Washington, D.C. © John M. Shea
Amputees at a hospital in Budapest, Austria-Hungary in the summer of 1915. Some had lost their feet to freezing in the Carpathian Mountains in the winter. From 'Antwerp to Gallipoli' by Arthur Ruhl.
US troops digging in pause to watch a Whippet tank.
King Albert of Belgium decorates Willy Coppens, Belgium's Ace of Aces. Coppens describes this June 30, 1918 ceremony, in which he was awarded the Ordre de la Couronne in his memoir Flying in Flanders.
Lieutenant General Erich Ludendorff, chief of staff to General Paul von Hindenburg. Together they commanded German forces on the Russian Front until Hindenburg replaced Erich von Falkenhayn as Commander of the German Army in 1916. Through the rest of the war Hindenburg and Ludendorff commanded the German Army.
"On 27 July, we were relieved by a company of the 164th. We were utterly exhausted. The commander of the relieving company was badly wounded on the way out; a few days later, my bunker was hit, and his successor buried. We all sighed with relief when we finally turned our backs on Puisieux and the storm of steel of the finale.Their advances showed how much the enemy's strength was increasing, supplemented by drafts from every corner of the earth. We had fewer men to set against them, many were little more than boys, and we were short of equipment and training. It was all we could do to plug gaps with our bodies as the tide flooded in. There wasn't the wherewithal for great counter-attacks like Cambrai any more." ((1), more)
"A boy from Idaho, a big broad boy, had his head all bound up and the tag around his neck, put on at a dressing station, said: 'Eyes shot away and both feet gone.' I talked to him and patted him on the shoulder, assuring him that everything would be all right now. He moaned through the bandages that his head was splitting with pain. I gave him morphine. Suddenly aware of the other wounds, he asked: 'Sa-ay! what's the matter with my legs?' Reaching down to feel his legs before I could stop him, he uttered a heartbreaking scream. I held his hands firmly until the drug I had given him took effect." ((2), more)
"The Central Workshops set to work in early June [1918] to prepare sledges for supply haulage, bridges upon which the Whippets could cross wide obstacles, and 'Cribs' for the heavy Tanks. These 'Cribs' were big hexagonal oaken crates, reinforced with steel, which were an improved and lighter version of the fascines which were improvised for the Battle of Cambrai. Training grounds and workshops hummed with the preparations, and when, in the last days of July, the call came, it was, as we shall see, found possible to launch 400 Tanks at little over a week's notice." ((3), more)
"I myself was at the centre of the pilots of the 9th Squadron, between Commandant Jacquet and Captain Gallez, and, [as] 10 A.M. struck, the Royal car advanced on to the aerodrome. Then, on the crisp morning air, there rose the trembling, stirring notes of 'La Brabançomme,' and, suddenly, something seized me by the throat; I had not, until that moment, realized that all this was for me.His Majesty stepped down, and slowly passed down the ranks of the Guard of Honour. He was followed by Prince Leopold, General Jungbluth, his aide-de-camp, and the Generals of the General Headquarters Staff.I took three paces forward, and felt that I was terribly thin, standing there in front of my comrades." ((4), more)
". . . Lossberg was now convinced that Ludendorff was no longer master of the situation, and had made a serious strategic mistake in refusing to withdraw.He was not alone in his assessment of Ludendorff. On 30 July Ludendorff discussed the military situation with Hintze and painted a ridiculously optimistic picture of the German position. On the following day Bartenwerffer complained to Merz about what he called 'this shocking state of affairs' and both men agreed that it was Ludendorff's overwhelming vanity which stopped him from putting the state secretary fully in the picture.Other officers at the OHL, although they were not yet openly critical of Ludendorff, were becoming highly alarmed about the military situation and could not share his nervous optimism or Hindenburg's confidence." ((5), more)
(1) Excerpt from German Lieutenant Ernst Jünger's memoir Storm of Steel. Jünger was wounded on the third day of Germany's Somme Offensive, Operation Michael, in March, 1918. He returned to his regiment on June 4. The last German offensive of the war, the Champagne-Marne Offensive, ended on July 17. The counter-offensive that would end with Allied victory, began the next day. In the summer of 1918, 250,000 American soldiers were arriving on the Western Front each month, and being put into French and British Armies. French and British production of weapons including tanks and aircraft supplied the Allied armies, and far outpaced German production. The Battle of Cambrai was the first significant tank victory, a British victory, the gains of which were lost to German counter-attacks.
Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger, pp. 272–273, copyright © 1920, 1961, Translation © Michael Hoffman, 2003, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 2003
(2) Excerpt from I Saw Them Die by Shirley Millard, quoted in World War I and America. Millard served as a Red Cross nurse in a French military hospital. The heartbreaking boy from Idaho was likely a casualty of the Franco-American Aisne-Marne Offensive.
World War I and America by A. Scott Berg, page 513, copyright © 2017 by Literary Classics of the United States, publisher: The Library of America, publication date: 2017
(3) The British Tank Corps first saw action on September 15, 1916 in the Battle of the Somme advancing in too-small numbers on wet, shell-torn ground. They were first effectively used — well-coordinated with infantry, fighting on dry ground, against an un-prepared enemy — in the Battle of Cambrai in November, 1917. The Mark IV and Mark V tanks were slow, but could move in pace with the foot-soldier. The Whippet was a lighter, faster tank. In the paragraph preceding today's excerpt our author wrote, 'All through May, Mark V. machines were arriving in France at the rate of about sixty a week. . . . All Tank Units were to be ready for action—re-armed, re-equipped and re-trained—by August 1.' The fascines used at Cambrai were great wire-bound bundles of logs that could be dumped into a trench to allow tanks to cross.
The Tank Corps by Clough Williams-Ellis & A. Williams-Ellis, page 177, publisher: The Offices of "Country Life," Ltd. and George Newnes, Ltd., publication date: 1919
(4) Willy Coppens, Belgium's greatest air ace of the war and the leading balloon-buster of World War I, describing the ceremony of July 30, 1918, in which Albert I, King of the Belgians, awarded him the Ordre de la Couronne. Coppens had achieved his 21st victory on June 24 after shooting down three observation balloons on the 22nd. Contrary to orders, Coppens had extended his hunting ground to the British sector. Expecting to be reprimanded for flying in the British zone, he was instead awarded the British Military Cross by General Herbert Plumer on June 26.
Flying in Flanders by Willy Coppens, page 191, publisher: Ace Books, publication date: 1971
(5) With Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, General, Erich Ludendorff commanded the German army. The last of their five 1918 offensives ended on July 17. The Allies counter-attacked in the Second Battle of the Marne, the Aisne-Marne Offensive. OHL, Oberste Heeresleitung, was German Supreme Army Command. Lossberg, Bartenwerffer, and Merz were German generals, Hintze an admiral.
The Silent Dictatorship by Martin Kitchen, pp. 247–248, copyright © 1976 by Martin Kitchen, publisher: Croom Helm, publication date: 1976
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