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Y Ravine Cemetery, Beaumont-Hamel, France. © 2013 John M. Shea
Italian troops marching into the mountains where Italy fought much of its war against Austria-Hungary. A poster postcard encouraging the purchase of war bonds yielding 5.55%.
An artillery crew dragging and pushing a field howitzer forward. From a painting by Anton Hoffmann. On the back is a message dated January 6, 1916. The card was postmarked the next day.
Back of a hand-drawn postcard from Austro-Hungarian Landsturm Battalion 171, bearing a K.u.K. field postmark of October 16, 1916,
Copy of 'Vieux Charles,' the 1916 Spad VII of French ace Georges Guynemer, landing at Olde Rhinebeck Aereodrome, Rhinebeck, New York, September 15, 2013. © 2013 John M. Shea
"October 14th.—Rossignol Wood is off. Things are not going well farther south. At a divisional lecture on 'Tanks and their October 16th.—Tactical Use,' we were told that the Rossignol Wood affair was just to have been a feint: as things are Fritz is having to shorten his line." ((1), more)
"'The food problem,' [Trepov] said, 'has certainly become very worrying; but the opposition parties misuse it to attack the government. I'll tell you frankly what the position is. In the first place, the crisis is far from being general; it attains serious proportions only in the towns and certain rural areas. But it is true that the public is nervous in certain cities, Moscow for example. On the other hand, there is no shortage of food, except certain products which we used to import from abroad. But the means of transport are inadequate and the method of distribution is defective. . . .''There is now a deadlock on the Russian front, from one end to the other,' [Wrangel] said. 'You must not expect any further offensive on our side. In any case we're helpless against the Germans; we shall never beat them.'" ((2), more)
"On October 18 [1916], the bombardment reached a hitherto unseen degree of violence. The order came down, to be ready to leave camp at any moment. A cold shower fell, and we shuddered at the thought of leaving camp in such weather. But it wasn't until the next day that we went up to the front lines, to the place of sacrifice for those who would spill their blood and end their lives so miserably." ((3), more)
"The sky is overcast, grey and low. Mist is rising from the valley and cutting off the two peaks, ours and the one we are to attack. If we are going to die, we shall die cut off from the world and with a sense that no one is really interested. Once one is resigned to the thought of sacrificing oneself, one would like to think that it might happen in front of an audience. To die in the sun, in full view, on the open stage that is the world—that is how one imagines dying for one's country: but the way it is here is more like a condemned man being strangled secretly." ((4), more)
"During the days between October 20th and October 23rd, our artillery and our aviation established superiority on the battle field, against enemy batteries which were still present in great numbers but which were doubtless forced to exercise severe economy of munitions." ((5), more)
(1) Entries for October 14 and 16, 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 fellow soldiers who served with him. The Battalion was then serving in the Somme sector. Rossignol Wood is north of Thiepval where the fighting was very heavy in September and October.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, pp. 263–264, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(2) Excerpts from the diary entry for October 17, 1916 of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, host of a farewell dinner for Japanese Ambassador Viscount Motono who had been appointed Japan's Minister of Foreign Affairs earlier in the month. The first speaker is Russian Minister of Communications Trepov; the second General Wrangel, aide-de-camp to Grand Duke Michael, the brother of Tsar Nicholas II. Throughout the war Russian forces were frequently successful against both Austria-Hungary and Turkey, but not against Germany.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. III by Maurice Paléologue, pp. 59, 60, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(3) Excerpt from the notebooks of French Infantry Corporal Louis Barthas, writing on October 18, 1916, when his 296th Infantry Regiment was in the Battle of the Somme. Barthas describes the fate of the regiment in the immediately preceding days as three acts. In Act I, the men learn the regiment, which had been slotted for a role in the coming action, will not be going into battle after all. Act II: 'humiliated' young officers ask their commanding general for the honor of fighting alongside other divisional regiments. In Act III, the commanding general approves the officers' request, granting the regiment 'the favor of going to gather up the laurels of victory.' Barthas had fought in the battles in Artois in 1915 and at Verdun, and had no delusions of what honor, glory, or laurels meant.
Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918 by Louis Barthas, page 258, copyright © 2014 by Yale University, publisher: Yale University Press, publication date: 2014
(4) Excerpt from the journal of Paolo Monelli, a soldier in an Italian Alpine regiment, northeast of Trento, on the Italian-Austrian Trentino front. Monelli was writing on October 19, 1916.
The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War by Peter Englund, page 310, copyright © 2009 by Peter England, publisher: Vintage Books, publication date: 2012
(5) Excerpt from French General Henri Philippe Pétain's account of the preparations for the retaking of Fort Douaumont, which had fallen to the Germans on February 25, 1916, in the first days of the Battle of Verdun. Its garrison had been unaware the fort was at risk, and lost it with virtually no struggle. On October 20, 1916, it was about to be retaken by the French. The French Spad and German Albatros fighter planes had recently reached the front, both formidable improvements on the air arms of the two armies.
Verdun by Henri Philippe Pétain, page 201, copyright © 1930, publisher: The Dial Press, publication date: 1930
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