Search by or
Search: Quotation Context Tags
Portrait of British soldier Harry Mulvaney, son of Edith (Hughes) and Peter Mulvaney, who was killed in France aged about 19 years in the 1914-18 war.
'December snow.' Hand-painted watercolor calendar for December 1917 by Schima Martos. Particulates from a smoking kerosene lamp overspread the days of December, and are labeled 'December höra,' 'December snow.' The first five days or nights of the month show a couple at, sitting down to, or rising from a lamp-lit table. The rest of the month the nights are dark, other than four in which the quarter of the moon shows through a window, or Christmas, when the couple stands in the light of a Christmas tree.
Postcard from a series on the Armies of the European War of 1914. The French Army included units from its African colonies including Morocco and Senegal, and the Départment of Algeria.
German photograph of Russian soldiers at Baranovitchi (Baranawitschy), 'slaughtered by stick grenade.' Baranovitchi was the site of Stavka, the Russian High Command, until August 8, 1915, when it was relocated to Mogilev in the face of the continued German-Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow advance. Baranovitchi was also the site of Russia's July 1916 offensive, ostensibly coordinated with Brusilov's begun a month before, that lost 80,000 Russians between July 2 and 8, at a cost of 16,000 Germans. The stick grenade was introduced in 1915.
A German Fokker Eindecker flying over the front in the Meuse/Verdun sector.
"Dear Miss Scott: The parcel has arrived, and is being put to its proper use with the proper speed. The cake is excellent. Tray bong. J'en suis tres oblige. If you have not sent the other parcel by the time you get this do not trouble till you receive another F.P.C. The fact is, that in this last 6 days in the trenches, we had such a devil of a time that I felt that if parcels were to come at all — if tis to be done, then twere well it were done quickly. We were made a cock-shy of for the artillery, and so have really been a part of the advance. (One strafe lasted 2½ hours, and gave me a permanent distaste for such. We were under fire every day, and nowhere was safe. In the post where I was for half my time, there were twelve dugouts. Four have been smashed, the cookhouse a mere melancholy ruin of its former greatness, and the bombstore not what it was. Souvenirs are plentiful round there. . ." ((1), more)
"Thursday, July 6, 1916.While the English are developing their offensive between the Somme and the Ancre, the French have advanced beyond the enemy's second line of defence, south of the Somme. In the two zones of attack the Germans have left about 13,000 prisoners.From the Stokhod to the sources of the Pruth, i.e., on a front of three hundred kilometres, the Russians are methodically advancing. In the north, in Volhynia, they are threatening Kovel. In the south, Galicia, they are in occupation of Delatyn, which commands one of the principal gates into the Carpathians, on the line between Stansilau and Marmaros-Sziget.There is equal activity in Armenia, where the Turks have been driven back simultaneously on the shores of the Black Sea and west of Erzerum." ((2), more)
"— Out of 192 former students at the Teachers' Training College who were commissioned as second-lieutenants in the infantry, 110 have been killed.. . . — The communiqués are printed with all the devices of the compositor—bold type, underlining—which leaves our defeats inconspicuous, while throwing our successes into prominence. Anybody who reads them quickly, simply fails to notice the defeats. How convenient it is!" ((3), more)
". . . there was only marsh. There was no time to sap forward, no time for guns to register properly. A huge force of cavalry clogged the supply-lines. Twenty-one and a half infantry, five cavalry divisions were gathered. A thousand guns opened the bombardment, with a thousand rounds each. This was not effective. Two German divisions were brought in as reserves just before the attack began; the bombardment, though lasting for several days, achieved nothing in particular. A few initial tactical successes came—3,000 prisoners, a few guns. On 4th July one of the two Austrian divisions collapsed, and the line was held by reserve Germans. Then the attack stopped—resumed again with bombardment on the 7th July, and again stopped. By 8th July the Russians had lost 80,000 men, and the Germans 16,000. Yet this attack had used up more shell than the whole of Brusilov's front in the first week of his offensive." ((4), more)
"In spite of the growing numbers and quality of their Allied opposition, July 9 was one of the Eindeckerflieger's best days. Leutnant Gustav Leffers of Abwehrkommando Nord shot down an F.E.2b of No. 11 Squadron that had just bombed a target southwest of Bapaume. . . .Elsewhere, Parschau demonstrated that balloon busting did more than just provide a spectacle for pyromaniacs. The French gasbag he destroyed north of Grévillers, killing Adjutant M. Mallet of the 55e Compagnie d'Aérostiers, had been directing artillery on the German trenches for some time. As he returned over the lines, Parschau was greeted by cheers from the soldiers and, since this was his eighth victory, he got two more tangible rewards: the Orden Pour le Mérite and command of Abwehrkommando-Nord. Walz of Kasta 2 scored his fourth victory on the 9th, while Leutnant Hans-Karl Müller of KEK Avillers got another balloon. Two other British planes were claimed by the Germans that day, although one Fokker E.III was brought down near Mariakerke aerodrome by Roderic Dallas, back in a Nieuport, for his fifth victory." ((5), more)
(1) Ivor Gurney, English poet and composer, writing to the composer Marion Margaret Scott, President of the Society of Women Musicians from 1915 to 1916, on July 5, 1916. Gurney was a private in the Gloucestershire Regiment in the Fauquissart-Laventie sector.
War Letters, Ivor Gurney, a selection edited by R.K.R. Thornton by Ivor Gurney, page 80, copyright © J. R. Haines, the Trustee of the Ivor Gurney Estate 1983, publisher: The Hogarth Press, publication date: 1984
(2) Entry for Thursday, July 6, 1916, from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia. The Anglo-French Somme Offensive launched on July 1, the Russian Brusilov Offensive and Russia's success against the Turks in the Caucasus and along the Black Sea had relieved the French defending Verdun, and the Italians who had halted the Austro-Hungarian Asiago Offensive.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. II by Maurice Paléologue, pp. 293-294, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(3) Entries from July 6 to 10, 1916 from the diary of Michel Corday, a French senior civil servant.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, pp. 181, 182, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(4) In his offensive launched on June 4, 1916, Russian General Alexsei Brusilov had demonstrated the results that could be achieved with careful preparation and adequate weapons. Generals Alexei Evert and Alexander Ragoza, like their fellow commanders, did not learn Brusilov's lessons, such as that of digging trenches (saps) toward the enemy front line to minimize the open ground over which soldiers needed to advance to reach the enemy trench. Brusilov preceded his infantry assault with a bombardment of hours, not days. He did not rely on cavalry to exploit a breakthrough, but on well-coordinated artillery and infantry. Brusilov also had the advantages of facing primarily Austro-Hungarian troops rather than German, and of having more time to prepare. The Russians were unable to exploit Brusilov's success.
The Eastern Front, 1914-1917 by Norman Stone, pp. 260-261, copyright © 1975 Norman Stone, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1975
(5) The introduction of the Fokker Eindekker (monoplane) — the first airplane to fire through the rotation of its propeller — allowed the Germans to dominate the battlefront sky. That dominance was broken by the French Nieuport and later the British D.H.2 pusher plane. Observation balloons observed ground troops and directed artillery, and were well-defended by anti-aircraft guns and fighter planes.
The Origin of the Fighter Aircraft by Jon Gutman, page 89, copyright © 2009 Jon Gutman, publisher: Westholme Publishing, publication date: 2009
1 2 Next
