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General Joffre, Commander in Chief of the French Army, visits the Verdun front. The card is from the summer of 1916 when the Battle of Verdun was in its fifth month. The caption on the reverse says Joffre then knew the Allies had victory in their hands, a victory that would not come for more than two years.
Battle on the Somme, by Oskar Martin Amorbach, showing the blue Hessen (Infantry Regiment Lieb, 'Grand Duchess') in combat against British troops.
Headstone of an unknown soldier of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, Delville Wood Cemetery. Union of South Africa troops began the assault at Delville Wood on July 15, 1916. It was finally taken in September. On the headstone is superimposed the poem 'To My Daughter Betty, the Gift of God' by Lieutenant Tom Kettle of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, killed in action on September 9, 1916 at Guillemont, France, in the Battle of the Somme. He has no known grave. © 2013 John M. Shea
A Turkish funeral with Turkish and German soldiers and officers attending and praying. Is this a young Mustapha Kemal praying?
French General Maurice Sarrail decorating officers near the frame of German Zeppelin shot down on May 5, 1916 by naval gunners in view of the citizens of Salonica, Greece. General Sarrail commanded the Allied troops at the front that included French, British, Serbian, Russian, and Italian troops, as well as a battalion of Montenegrin soldiers. The Zeppelin's frame is in the background, and civilians are among the observers of the ceremony.
"The French were preparing to counter-attack at Verdun. The disaster in the Tavannes Tunnel could not deter them from that. On the Somme, the battle seemed to be coming to a close. 'It is nice to think that our heavy fighting is coming to an end,' Noel Chavasse wrote home on September 7. 'The Huns are beaten to a frazzle in front of us. We are feeling top dogs. There is nothing like the losses we had at first.'" ((1), more)
"The offensive on the Somme began again on the 3rd September. Henceforth that part of me which is 'sensitive to victory' will scarcely find any satisfaction in such progress. At every fresh capture of a village, what dominates me is the crushing consciousness of loss, death, and sorrow." ((2), more)
"To My Daughter Betty, the Gift of GodIn wiser days, my darling rosebud, blownTo beauty proud as was your mother's prime,In that desired, delayed, incredible time,You'll ask why I abandoned you, my own,And the dear heart that was your baby throne,To dice with death. And oh! they'll give you rhymeAnd reason: some will call the thing sublime,And some decry it in a knowing tone.So here, while the mad guns curse overhead,And tired men sigh with mud and couch and floor,Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead,Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor,But for a dream, born in a herdsman's shed,And for the secret Scripture of the poor.— Tom KettleIn the field, before Guillemont, Somme, 4 September 1916" ((3), more)
"Conflicting versions began to reach us. It was said that large forces of Turkish soldiers had broken through our right flank and were swarming across the countryside, killing everything in their way. We heard alas! too, that it was our 103rd Regiment which had been forced out of their trenches and driven backwards. We had received no orders, so were obliged to remain where we were. In about three hours' time we noted that the great wave of movement on the road had dwindled into small, fitful groups. Soon news was brought that the Turkestanski Division had swept up in the nick of time, suppressed the enemy encroachment and reoccupied our trenches. A feeling of great thankfulness spread among us; we smiled and chatted cheerfully again. The Retreat was at an end!" ((4), more)
"The Franco-Serbian counter-offensive started on September 11th and met with very satisfactory success. The Serbs had in line the whole of their Third and First Armies under General Vassitch and Voivode Misitch respectively. Their Second Army remained where it had been since before the Ostrovo battle, further round on the right, facing the Bulgars among the steep, scrub-covered mountains of the Moglena. And in coöperation with the Serbs, at the northern end of Lake Ostrovo, was practically the whole French force in the Balkans, with a contingent of Russians. The Serbs were also supported by French heavy artillery, having no guns of their own bigger than 120 mm." ((5), more)
(1) The Tavannes railway tunnel had been used to house French troops. Over 500 of them were killed on September 4, 1916 when an ammunition depot was accidentally ignited. The Germans had begun the Battle of Verdun on February 21, 1916, and suspended it on September 2 as the French prepared to retake the territory they had lost in the battle, particularly Forts Douaumont and Vaux. The British launched the Battle of the Somme on July 1, 1916, and did not end it until November 13. There were still nine weeks of fighting to go when Noel Chavasse, a medical officer and double recipient of the Victoria Cross, wrote.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 285, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
(2) Entry from September 8, 9, or 10, 1916 from the diary of Michel Corday, a French senior civil servant who frequently wrote against those who pressed for peace only through victory. The Battle of the Somme was over two months old when he wrote. Eight British and four French divisions fought in the September 3 attack.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 196, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(3) Tom Kettle, Member of Parliament from 1906 to 1910 as a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party, joined the Irish Volunteers in 1913, and was in Belgium on a gun-running mission when the war began. Appalled at the actions of the occupying army, he volunteered, and was first a recruiting officer, but later, after the apparent government acceptance of Irish Home Rule, became a Lieutenant in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. He returned to Dublin on sick leave after the the Easter Rising (in which his brother-in-law the pacifist Frank Sheehy-Skeffington was murdered), and, although he disagreed with what the rebels had done, believed they would be remembered as heroes. He was killed on September 9, 1916 leading his men at Ginchy in the Battle of the Somme. He has no known grave. He wrote the sonnet to his daughter five days before his death.
The Lost Voices of World War I, An International Anthology of Writers, Poets and Playwrights by Tim Cross, page 43, copyright © 1989 by The University of Iowa, publisher: University of Iowa Press, publication date: 1989
(4) Excerpt from the diary of Florence Farmborough, an English nurse serving with the Russian Red Cross, writing on September 10 (August 28 Old Style), 1916. The advance of Russia's Brusilov Offensive was nearly at its limit, with intermittent advances at its southern end. At this time, Turkish troops were deployed to Europe both against Russia and as part of Mackensen's army invading Romania. German General Liman von Sanders had advised Turkish War Minister Enver Pasha against sending any of his troops to fight in Europe when they were needed in the Caucasus Mountains, where the Turks were fighting the Russians, and in Mesopotamia and Palestine, where they were battling the British.
Nurse at the Russian Front, a Diary 1914-18 by Florence Farmborough, page 236, copyright © 1974 by Florence Farmborough, publisher: Constable and Company Limited, publication date: 1974
(5) Excerpt from an account of the Battle of Monastir by G. Ward Price, official correspondent with the Allied forces in the Balkans. Anticipating an offensive against Bulgaria by the Allied forces in Greece, and aware Romania was about to join the Allies in the war against Austria-Hungary, the Bulgarians had struck first, on August 17, 1916. Under the command of French General Maurice Sarrail, the Allied line included French, British, Russian, and Serbian troops. The Bulgarians had struck along the Serbian sector of the Allied line on the Greco/Serbian frontier in the Salonica Front. On September 11, Sarrail struck back. Voivode is a Serbian Field Marshal.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. IV, 1916, pp. 379–380, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
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