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Monument in Pozières, France to the officers, non-commissioned officers, and men of the First Australian Division who fought in France and Belgium 1916, 1917, and 1918. © 2013 John M. Shea
Drawing of buildings in a French village by Johann Hofbauer, I Company, 52 Battalion, 65th Regiment of German Landsturm. Hofbauer was from Rosenheim, Bavaria, and served first in Alsace, then other fronts through the war. One side is dated July 23 (?), 1916, the other April 21, 1916. The latter includes a stork in its chimney-top nest.
Wooden cigarette box carved by Г. САВИНСКИ (?; G. Savinskiy), a Russian POW. The Grim Reaper strides across a field of skulls on the cover. The base includes an intricate carving of the years of war years, '1914' and, turning it 90 degrees, '1918.'
Austro-Hungarian soldiers marching through a city, their officers bawling orders. Women and a child watch and talk, possibly shouting to be heard over the marching feet. An original watercolor on blue paper, signed W. Rittermann or Pittermann, December 26, 1915.
Neutral Sweden labeling barrels of grease and oil as neutral. The barrels form a line to ships on the Baltic Sea from which they could reach Germany and Russia. One of a series of postcards on neutral nations by Em. Dupuis.
"The class of fighting on the Somme is an eye-opener to all of our men. The intense artillery on both sides tend to unnerve the very best. Curtain or barrage fire was entirely new to oldest of our soldiers. The idea is to establish an impassable wall of steel and shrapnel either in front of our men advancing or behind the country attacked so as to prevent reinforcements coming up. We know from personal experience what German barrage is like. Our own must be terrible as I believe we fire three to the German one." ((1), more)
"Daytime was play in the Islands that summer; night was a perpetual tangle. Straight lines did not exist. If one went forward patrolling, it was almost inevitable that one would creep round some hole or suspect heap or stretch of wired stumps, and then, suddenly one no longer knew which was the German line, which our own. I almost joined a German working party 'in all good faith' after such a careless circuit. Puzzling dazzling lights flew up, fell in the grass beside and flared like bonfires; one heard movements, saw figures, conjectured distances, and all in that state of dilemma. Willow-trees seemed moving men. Compasses responded to old iron and failed us. At last by luck or some stroke of recognition one found oneself; but there was danger in not doing so; and the battalion which relieved us sent a patrol out, only to lose it that way. The patrol came against wire, and bombed with all its skill; the men behind the wire fired their Lewis gun with no less determination; and, when the killed and wounded amounted to a dozen or more, it was found the patrol and the defenders were of the same battalion. I knew the officer who led that patrol; he was by temperament suited for a quiet country parsonage, and would usually have mislaid his spectacles." ((2), more)
". . . Before Death came to release him, he became calmer — he was back at home, among those whom he loved. Suddenly he seized my arm and cried, 'I knew that you would come! Elena, little dove, I knew that you would come! Kiss me, Elena, kiss me!' I realized that in his delirium he had mistaken me for the girl he loved. I bent and kissed his damp, hot face, and he became more tranquil. Death claimed him while he was still in a state of tranquillity. How I longed to be able to tell that unknown Elena that her unseen presence had helped him to die in peace." ((3), more)
"On 27 July the Field Marshal [Hindenburg] was given supreme command over the northern part of the Eastern Front: Army Group Leopold of Bavaria, the mixed Austro-German Army Group Linsingen, and the Habsburg Second Army (Böhm-Ermolli). That same day, the Russians crushed Puhallo's First Army; 24 hours later they caved in Tersztyánsky's Fourth Army. The arrival of German units alone prompted Brusilov to call off his attack." ((4), more)
"A total of twenty-nine ships managed to escape from the Baltic by July 1916 before the Swedish government (under German pressure and as a result of friction with the British over the blockade) announced on 28 July that the Swedish navy had laid a new minefield in the Kogrund Channel at the entrance to the Sound and that only Swedish vessels would be taken by pilots through it. This had the effect of forcing vessels beyond the very shallowest draft out of Swedish waters into German minefields. The Allies protested hotly and the question became a matter of considerable discussion, but it was not until May 1917 that the Allies reached an agreement with the Swedes that permitted a total of 90,000 net tons of British and Allied shipping to leave the Baltic through the Kogrund passage in return for the release of a specific number of Swedish ships and cargoes detained by the British." ((5), more)
(1) Sapper J. Julin writing in December, 1916 about the July 23, 1916 assault on the village of Pozières, France by the First Australian Division, part of the months-long Battle of the Somme. The Australians had suffered heavily in the July 19 and 20 Battle of Fromelles, and British Commander-in-Chief Douglas Haig had hoped to follow that failed attack by giving the Australians, recently arrived on the Western Front, 'a simple task' (Somme, Lyn Macdonald, p. 166). The Australians took the village on July 23, then suffered through days of the German bombardment Julin describes.
Three Armies on the Somme by William Philpott, page 241, copyright © 2009 by William Philpott, publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, publication date: 2009
(2) Edmund Blunden, English writer and recipient of the Military Cross, was a second lieutenant and adjutant in the Royal Sussex Regiment, who fought at Ypres, in the Battle of the Somme, and in the Battle of Passchendaele. 'That summer' was the summer of 1916, and Blunden was east of Festubert, site of a British attack during the Second Battle of Artois in May, 1915. The 'islands' were isolated trenches, which Blunden reached during daylight, 'in spite of the accepted impossibility' of doing so.
Undertones of War by Edmund Blunden, pp. 74-75, copyright © the Estate of Edmund Blunden, 1928, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: November 1928
(3) Florence Farmborough, an English nurse serving with the Russian Red Cross, advancing through Austria-Hungary in the Brusilov Offensive, and writing on July 27 (July 14 Old Style), 1916, of the death the day before of an officer of the Vyatski Regiment who had been severely wounded in both legs. Although the surgeons had been able to amputate, gangrene had set in. In his delirium, the officer had first imagined himself on the battlefield leading his men, and he had to be restrained by two orderlies. He calmed as putrefaction advanced.
Nurse at the Russian Front, a Diary 1914-18 by Florence Farmborough, page 212, copyright © 1974 by Florence Farmborough, publisher: Constable and Company Limited, publication date: 1974
(4) Russia's Brusilov Offensive, begun June 4, 1916, overwhelmed the Austro-Hungarian armies attempting to stop it. Despite ending his Asiago Offensive against Italy and transferring troops from his Italian to his Russian front, Austro-Hungarian Commander in Chief Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf had to appeal, as he had before, to Germany for aid. Neither Vienna nor Berlin had faith in Conrad, 300 miles behind the front with his mistress. Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg was not yet Commander in Chief of the German Armies, a position he would soon hold. Russian General Alexsei Brusilov would continue his offensive at great cost to his troops. On September 6, Kaiser Wilhelm 'assumed leadership of an overall "United Supreme Command" in the east,' (Herwig, p. 215) entirely subordinating the Austro-Hungarian forces to German command.
The First World War: Germany and Austria Hungary 1914-1918 by Holger H. Herwig, page 215, copyright © 1997 Holger H. Herwig, publisher: Arnold, publication date: 1997
(5) Neutral Sweden was important to the Entente Allies as it allowed access to a Russia in need of arms and other supplies, and to Germany as an important source of iron ore and other raw materials. The Swedes implemented a convoy system that could guide ships safely through the dangerous waters — mined and patrolled by submarines on both sides — of the Baltic Sea. The Kalmar Sound lies between the east coast of Sweden and the island of Öland. The Kattegat and Skaggerak are the straits separating the Danish peninsula from Norway and Sweden. The British blockade very effectively denied Germany means of sailing out of the North Sea, and gave it a means to apply pressure to Sweden and other neutral nations.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, page 211, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
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