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Pencil sketch of a piece of French shrapnel by a German soldier1 drawn September 12, 1915. Shrapnel was an anti-personnel weapon, designed to kill and maim.
Postcard from a painting by W. Partke of a village in the Pripet Marshes in Russia dated February 14, 1916. An Hungarian officer wrote of the Marshes, 'almost half of the territory is covered by wet, impassable, and uncultivated forest, wooded territory, most of it useless, bushy, and impenetrable. The ground itself is divided into different kinds of marshy lands, impassable muddy districts, immense weedy and grassy territories, also regions covered by some kind of more solid grassy substance, and other thousands and thousands of acres of land perpetually under water.' The card is field postmarked on April 9, 1917 by Minenwerfer (trench mortar) Company 282.
Turkish Interior Minister Talaat Pasha from 'Four Years Beneath the Crescent' by Rafael De Nogales.
German and Austro-Hungarian forces under the command of generals von Hindenburg and Archduke Friedrich besieged Warsaw, and took it during the Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive. Austrians von Hötzendorf, Friedrich, and Pflanzer-Baltin form the bottom of the ring; the others are German. The flag and shield of Germany are on the bottom left; those of Austria and Hungary the bottom right.
I've killed many Germans, but never women or children. Original French watercolor by John on blank field postcard. In the background are indolent Russian soldiers and Vladimir Lenin, in the foreground stands what may be a Romanian soldier who is telling the Russians, 'You call me savage. I killed a lot of Boches [Germans], but never women or children!'
"We had 5 killed and 14 wounded during the day. Next day there were two outbursts of trench-mortar activity; and there was September 16th—a real hate by both sides the following afternoon.The wounds of this front are mostly multiple and often horrible, being nearly all caused by shell or mortar-bomb or grenade. One wonders how the Germans fare with their own bombs, so many of our wounded are the victims of our own bomb accidents." ((1), more)
"Every tree is a little islet standing out of the gloomy marshland, and shallow lakes which extend for mile after mile. The roads are inundated by the water, which has risen high owing to the floods of rain, and from the miserable cottages, which at intervals are to be seen partly submerged along the highways, strange looking men with long beards and thick, matted hair, mostly woodcutters and others earning a precarious living from the products of the surrounding wilderness, creep out and stare with amazement at the Austrian and German cavalrymen.According to the figures almost half of the territory is covered by wet, impassable, and uncultivated forest, wooded territory, most of it useless, bushy, and impenetrable. The ground itself is divided into different kinds of marshy lands, impassable muddy districts, immense weedy and grassy territories, also regions covered by some kind of more solid grassy substance, and other thousands and thousands of acres of land perpetually under water.. . . How an army of many hundred thousands of men could undertake an advance movement on this marshy ground covered with thick forest, mud, and water is almost unimaginable . . ." ((2), more)
"Yesterday I talked with a priest. He and most of his calling voluntarily accepted at the beginning of the war the fearful task of burying the dead. It sounds very simple, does n't it? Do you realize what it means? It means handling terrible objects covered with blood-soaked clothing, that once had the shape of human beings. It means taking from these forms all articles of apparel that might prove serviceable and searching through these red-stained clothes for any letter or identification. Some of these shapes are hardly of human outline, very stiff and cold. Some are mere fragments, no longer of any recognizable form. That is a little of what burying the dead means. I spare you more detail. And this is the work the priests of Peace are doing in France. Wonderful, you think? No, it is French temperament, French courage." ((3), more)
"You have already been informed that the Government has decided to exterminate entirely all the Armenians living in Turkey. No-one opposed to this order can any longer hold an administrative position. Without pity for women, children and invalids, however tragic the methods of extermination may be, without heeding any scruples of conscience, their existence must be terminated." ((4), more)
"Exertions, privations, very heavy knapsack, neck and shoulder pain from the rifle and long, difficult marches; extremely tired feet and body. Bad roads — either uneven asphalt or deep sand — and always the uneven fields, marching up and down deep furrows. Often in double time, and usually no water or at best stinking water, no bread for days on end. When we do get food, it is little or bad, hardly any meat at all. Nothing but freezing and freezing, and back pains." ((5), more)
(1) Excerpt from the period September 14 to 16, 1915 from the writings — diaries, letters, and memoirs — of Captain J.C. Dunn, Medical Officer of the Second Battalion His Majesty's Twenty-Third Foot, The Royal Welch Fusiliers. Approximately 70% of soldiers killed in World War I were killed by artillery fire, including shrapnel shells, high-explosive shells, and gas shells.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, page 148, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(2) Excerpt from a 1915 letter by an Hungarian officer on the Russian Front. The great German-Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive had achieved the aims of German Commander-in-Chief Erich von Falkenhayn who had called for a halt in early August. On the northern end of the front, German commanders Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff pushed on, claiming to misunderstand Falkenhayn. To the south, Austro-Hungarian Commander-in-Chief Conrad von Hötzendorf, chaffing under German command, but helpless without German aid, carried on his own 'Black and Gold' (the colors of the Hapsburg flag) offensive. The September advances into Russia brought the invaders well into the Pripet Marshes our Hungarian officer describes.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. III, 1915, pp. 318, 319, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(3) Excerpt from a letter of September 14, 1915, by Leslie Buswell, a driver with the American Ambulance Field Service, a volunteer organization attached to the French Armies. Buswell was stationed at Pont-à-Mousson, France, north of Nancy.
Ambulance No. 10; Personal Letters from the Front by Leslie Buswell, pp. 133, 134, copyright © 1915, and 1915, by Houghton Mifflin Company, publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company, publication date: 1916
(4) Telegram from Mehmed Talaat Pasha, Turkish Minister of the Interior and, with War Minister Ismail Enver Pasha and Naval Minister Ahmed Djemal Pasha, one of the triumvirate ruling Turkey, to the Governor of Aleppo, September 15, 1915. The national rulers replaced local Turkish officials who opposed their government's genocidal campaign against its Armenian citizens.
The Armenians: A People in Exile by David Marshall Lang, page 27, copyright © David Marshall Lang 1981, 1988, publisher: Unwin Paperbacks, publication date: 1989
(5) Private Wilhelm Schulin of the German 26th Infantry Division, just north of Brest-Litovsk, Russia, on the German advance in the Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive. German Commander Erich von Falkenhayn had instructed his generals to stop in August and again on September 2. Claiming he misunderstood Falkenhayn's directions, General Erich Ludendorff continued his offensive, at increasing cost. The Germans would capture Vilna on September 18, the last major prize in their advance.
The First World War: Germany and Austria Hungary 1914-1918 by Holger H. Herwig, page 145, copyright © 1997 Holger H. Herwig, publisher: Arnold, publication date: 1997
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