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French folding postcard map of Verdun and the Meuse River, number 9 from the series Les Cartes du Front. Montfaucon is in the upper left and St. Mihiel at the bottom.
Parted red curtains; in the center, in a trench, a German soldier, eyes closed, hands in overcoat pockets, leans against one side of a trench, smoking a pipe, his rifle resting on the other side of the trench. To the right, a Red soldier, red from red fur hat to red boots, holds two rifles. To the left, a Russian soldier casts away his his hat, backpack, and rifle. Across the bottom of the stage it reads, 1918. Operett: "Trockij", Operetta Trotsky. A watercolor postcard by Schima Martos.
Collage: beneath a ration ticket for bread for the week of March 25 to 31, 1918 is a 1915 five-Korona coin with two angels suspending a crown. On either side of the coin is written in HungarianA tejjel-mézzel folyó — kánaán — ból 1918 egy kenyér-czédula ára = öt koronaFrom Canann, the river of milk and honey, to rationing: in 1918 Czédula Bread cost her a crown. (Speculation: Kenyér-Czédula was a bakery. A web search shows at auction a menu for Étel Czédula, Czédula Food.)The ration ticket reads:kenyér — vagy kenyérliszt-utalványkg. 1.70 súlyú kenyérre vagy kg. 1.20 kenyér lisztre.Érvényes csak 1918 évi március hó 25-31 — igterjed? negyedik hétre.kenyér — vagy kenyérliszt-utalvány xxx való visszaélés kihágas!képez és rendörhatóságilag szigorúan büntettetik8Bread- or bread-flour-voucher1.70 kg. of bread or 1.20 kg. of bread-flourValid only in the year 1918, March 25 to 31 for up to four weeks.Bread- or bread-flour-voucher [. . .] abuse is an offense!and shall be severely punished by the police.The card is hand-made on watercolor paper by Schima Martos. Dated September 12, 1918.
Postcard of a German soldier guarding French POWs, most of them colonial troops, the colorful uniforms of a Zouave, Spahi, Senegalese, and metropolitan French soldier contrasting with the field gray German uniform. A 1915 postcard by Emil Huber.
Monument to the Third Australian Division on Route D1 in Sailly-le-Sec, France.
"Sunday, March 26, 1916.The frightful struggle at Verdun is still continuing.Notwithstanding the extreme cold and heavy snowfalls the Russians are trying to help us by attacks on the Dvina front. Yesterday they gained substantial successes in the Jacobstadt sector and west of Lake Narotch." ((1), more)
"Beuvry came next to Béthune in the men's favour as a billet. Besides being near Béthune it was large enough to have a choice of estaminets, from the quiet to 'cabaret.' At one of the latter the Battalion Conjuror used to bill himself at the window. He could do a few tricks, and he sang unprintable songs with indescribable pantomime. His worth as a draw was said to be rated by the owner at free drinks and 10 francs." ((2), more)
"One of them told us of something approaching a riot in Bremen where large crowds of women smashed shop-windows and stormed the shops. Mortensen from Skibelund met a man from Hamburg who left Hamburg four days before his leave was up because his wife no longer had any food to give him.. . .I've hardly heard the sound of gunfire in the week I've been back here. All the forces are gathering down at Verdun. There is talk here that a fort has fallen, but there are so many rumours flying around. What's the situation with Romania? Everything seems calm to me, but it is no doubt the calm before the storm." ((3), more)
"March 29th.—Back in Cambrin Left since last night. The sector is now known as ZI or Auchy Left: here the original names of sectors are kept. Larks sing in bright sunshine, and buds are opening. In the parapet of Old Boots Trench a German has been buried, it must have been in the autumn of 1914. The weather has exposed a pulpy arm; there was a wrist-watch on it. Some whimsical passer wound the watch, it went, it was a repeater; passers-by would give the winding a turn, but soon a souvenir-hunter took the watch." ((4), more)
"— Vast reinforcements of Australian soldiers on their way from Egypt. Laughing giants. But I picture their skeletons with grinning teeth. . . ." ((5), more)
(1) Entry for March 23, 1916, from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia. The German assault on and siege of Verdun had been underway for over a month. The Russian offensive at Lake Narotch, begun in unsuitable weather and at the French request for support, was foundering. The 'successes' were less than the Ambassador had been led to believe.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. II by Maurice Paléologue, page 220, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(2) Part of the entry from March 21-27, 1916 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 and dozens of his comrades. An estaminet is a tavern or small café.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, pp. 186, 187, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(3) Kresten Andresen was a Danish soldier fighting in the German army. 'Mortensen from Skibelund' would have been another Dane from a neighborhood in Vejen in southern Denmark. German troops had captured Fort Douaumont on February 25, 1916, four days after the beginning of the siege of Verdun. The village of Vaux, site of another primary fort, changed hands thirteen times during March, 1916, but the Fort itself held out until June. Like Denmark, Romania was neutral. It was actively courted by both the Entente Allies and the Central Powers.
The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War by Peter Englund, pp. 242, 243, copyright © 2009 by Peter England, publisher: Vintage Books, publication date: 2012
(4) Entry for March 29, 1916 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 and dozens of his comrades. Cambrin is west of La Bassée, France,in Artois. Bodies were buried, if at all, where they fell, beneath earth upended by explosions, into trench parapets. Because the Western Front moved very little during much of the war, bodies were exposed by weather, digging, and bombardment. The artist Otto Dix drew this horror. Many soldiers wrote of it, sometimes, as here, whimsically, touching a dead hand in passing or hanging a rifle on an exposed leg.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, pp. 187, 188, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(5) Entry from March 28, 29, or 30, 1916 from the diary of Michel Corday, a senior civil servant in the French government. In his diary, Corday expressed criticism of the war that he rarely expressed in public.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 154, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
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