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Regimental Command Post. A 1917 German pencil sketch of a farm house and barn in Flanders serving as a regimental command post. I cannot make out the name of the artist.
Headstone of Private A.C. Thomas of the Royal Welch Fusiliers in Delville Wood Cemetery, Longueval, France. Thomas died July 20, 1916, aged 23. © 2014 John M. Shea
Allied Commanders Henri Philippe Pétain, Douglas Haig, Ferdinand Foch, and John J. Pershing. Foch was Allied Commander in Chief, the other men commanders of the French Army, the British Expeditionary Force, and the American Expeditionary Force respectively. From The Memoirs of Marshall Foch by Marshall Foch.
Railroad and occupied territory map of western and central Europe, northern Africa, and Turkey. A German postcard map postdating the taking of Riga on the Baltic Sea on September 3, 1917 but before the German advance in February, 1918. The inset shows the Western Front and French-occupied territory in Alsace, then German Elsass.
What do you want here? Turkish and British child soldiers on the Suez Canal. After crossing the Sinai Peninsula during January, 1915, a Turkish army of approximately 12,000 soldiers reached the Suez Canal on February 2, and tried to cross after nightfall, but were driven back. On the 3rd, the British crossed the canal, and struck the Turkish left flank, driving them back. By February 10, the Turks had evacuated the Peninsula.
"February 28th [1918]—It was a blackbird, not yet in good voice: so Winter has gone though Gerry is coming.—I was immersed in arranging to-morrow's dinner when all preparations were thrown out of gear: there's a whisper of impending attack, so relief is uncertain; and the Mess Corporal has been arrested by the police in Estaires: Mills says he has no head, he had only one glass of 'red wine.'" ((1), more)
"March 1st, [1918] St. David's Day.—Friday. All quiet, and relief promised. Sergeants Horton and Mills, and Parry worked hard. . . . Parry, as ever, sent in first-class fare in the most adverse conditions. The menu, in the French of Kitchen cum Orderly Room: 'Consumme of Gallos; merlan Duglers; Escallops de Veau Vilainairese; Gigot de Mouton Roti, pommes Rissoles, Choux Bruxelles; Pudding au Chocolat; Scotch Woodcock; Dessert; Cafe: Veuve Cliquot, Benedictine, Kümmel. At Gris Pot.' Only port was wanting, even the Portuguese canteen had none—or said so. Of 31 at table 23 ate the Leek in the odour of the Goat and to the roll of the Drum. The toasts were proposed by the C.O.—'St. David,' 'The King,' 'Other Battalions' . . ." ((2), more)
"The usual statement on the position of the enemy was made by my Intelligence Officer (Cox). He gave reasons why we think the enemy is preparing to attack on the fronts of our Third and Fifth Armies. I emphasized the necessity for being ready as soon as possible to meet a big hostile offensive of prolonged duration. I also told Army Commanders that I was very pleased at all I had seen on the fronts of the three Armies which I had recently visited. Plans were sound and thorough, and much work had already been done. I was only afraid that the enemy would find our front so very strong that he will hesitate to commit his Army to the attack with the almost certainty of losing very heavily." ((3), more)
"This peace is no peace of understanding and agreement, but a peace which Russia, grinding its teeth, is forced to accept. This is a peace which, whilst pretending to free Russian border provinces, really transforms them into German States and deprives them of their right of self-determination. This is a peace which, whilst pretending to re-establish order, gives armed support in these regions to exploiting class warfare, putting the working class again beneath the yoke of oppression which was removed by the Russian Revolution. This is a peace which gives back the land to the land-lords and again drives the workers into the serfdom of the factory owners. . . . Under the present conditions the Soviet Government . . . is unable to withstand the armed offensive of German Imperialism and is compelled, for the save of saving Revolutionary Russia, to accept the conditions put before it. . . . We declare . . . that we are going to sign immediately the treaty presented to us as an ultimatum but at the same time we refuse to enter into any discussion of its terms." ((4), more)
"March 4 [1918] Posted to 25th R.W.F. to-day. Moved across to Yeomanry Base Camp. Another day of arid sunshine and utter blankness. This place is the absolute visible expression of time wasted at the war. The sand and the huts and the tents and the faces, all are meaningless. Just a crowd of people killing time. Time wasted in waste places. I wish I could see some meaning in it all. But it is soul-less. And it seems an intolerable burden—to everyone, as to me. People go 'up the line' almost gladly—for it means there's some purpose in life. People who remain here scheme to 'get leave'. And, having got it, go aimlessly off to Cairo, Port Said, or Ismailia, to spend their money on eating and drinking and being bored, and looking for lust." ((5), more)
(1) Entry for February 28, 1918 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 fellow soldiers who served with him. Even with the breakdown of peace negotiations at Brest-Litovsk between Russia and the Central Powers, the Allies expect a massive German offensive on the Western Front bolstered by soldiers redeployed from the east. Estaires, France, is about 80 km southeast of Calais, 30 km south-southwest of Ypres. 'Gerry' is, of course, the Germans.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, page 449, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(2) Excerpt from the entry for March 1, 1918 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 fellow soldiers who served with him. St. David, who died March 1, 589, is the patron saint of Wales who, before a battle against the English, advised the Welsh to wear leeks for ready identification. The tradition of wearing and eating the leek in commemoration continues to the present. Parry was 'a Paris-trained chef from a first-class London restaurant' who joined the unit in June 1916. Dunn was responsible for the feast which began near midnight and continued into the dawn of March 2. He was then stationed near Estaires, France, about 80 km southeast of Calais, 30 km south-southwest of Ypres. Portuguese troops were in the Allied line nearby.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, pp. 449–450, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(3) Excerpt from the diary of General Douglas Haig, commander of British forces on the Western Front. Although the peace negotiations at Brest-Litovsk between Russia and the Central Powers had broken down, and Germany had resumed the war and its advance into Russia, the Allies expected a massive German offensive in the west bolstered by soldiers redeployed from the east.
1918, the Last Act by Barrie Pitt, page 57, copyright © 1962 by Barrie Pitt, publisher: Ballantine Books, Inc., publication date: 1963
(4) Gregory Sokolnikov speaking on March 3, 1918 at the Brest-Litovsk peace conference between Russia and the Central Powers. Negotiations broke down over the status of Russia's occupied territories, the right of self-determination of those who lived there, and the refusal of Germany to evacuate territory it occupied. Leon Trotsky, then head of the Russian delegation, left the negotiations on February 10, saying Russia would not sign Germany's proposed peace treaty, but would withdraw from the war. Germany resumed the war against a Russia incapable of resisting. On the night of February 23–24 Vladimir Lenin persuaded the Petrograd Soviet and the Central Executive Committee of the Congress of Soviets to approve the treaty, arguing that the country had no means to resist, that Germany would otherwise continue its advance, and that the conqueror's future terms would be even harsher.
Brest-Litovsk: The Forgotten Peace; March 1918 by John W. Wheeler-Bennett by John W. Wheeler-Bennett, pp. 268–269, publisher: The Norton Library, publication date: 1971, first published 193
(5) Excerpt from the diary of Siegfried Sassoon, a British poet, author, Second Lieutenant in the Royal Welch Fusiliers (R.W.F.), and recipient of the Military Cross for gallantry in action. During February, 1918 Sassoon traveled from Limerick, Ireland to Southhampton, England, across the English Channel to Cherbourg, France, continuing across France through Lyon by train to and across Italy's Adriatic coast, following it south to Taranto before crossing the Mediterranean Sea to Alexandria, Egypt. Egypt was the base of operations for British operations in Palestine. Sassoon had been wounded in April, 1917, and by mid-June had concluded that the war begun 'as a war of defence and liberation, [had] become a war of aggression and conquest.' In October he was at Craiglockhart, a psychiatric facility in Scotland, and under the care of W. H. R. Rivers. There he met the poet Wilfred Owen and edited some of his poems, a relationship at the heart of Regeneration, the first book of Pat Barker's WWI trilogy of the same name.
Siegfried Sassoon Diaries 1915-1918 by Siegfried Sassoon, page 219, copyright © George Sassoon, 1983; Introduction and Notes Rupert Hart-Davis, 1983, publisher: Faber and Faber, publication date: 1983
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