100 Years Ago - Newfoundland

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/praise-for-newfoundland-regiment-nzqfkhdxj?CMP=TNLEmail_118918_2100145&MN=26.07.2017%20Newfoundland%20(1)

Praise for Newfoundland Regiment

A very violent rainfall, which flooded the trenches more than waist deep, was followed up by three days of northerly blizzard with intense frost

April 12, 1916

We have received from Sir Walter Davidson, Governor of Newfoundland, a copy of a letter written to him by Brigadier-General Cayley, commanding the 88th brigade, of which the Newfoundland Regiment formed one of the units. This officer pays a high tribute to the gallantry, efficiency, and adaptability of the Newfoundland soldiers: I feel sure that you and the people of Newfoundland will be anxious to hear of the doings of their contingent since they have been on active service. As you doubtless know, the regiment landed at Suvla in the Gallipoli Peninsula in September, and were attached to the 88th Brigade of the 29th Division. which brigade I have the honour to command. The brigade was holding trenches very close to the Turks on the left centre of our line.
The Newfoundland Regiment was at first in reserve. Whilst in reserve all officers and the different companies were sent up to the trenches and attached to regiments in warfare. All ranks were remarkably quick in picking up all there was to be learnt, and their keenness was very noticeable. The result was that after a very short time they took over part of the firing line as a separate unit. There was no big operation, but small enterprises were frequently on foot, and in all they had to do the regiment continually showed a splendid spirit of readiness and resource.
I especially recall incidents of the nights of November 4 and 6, when we advanced a part of our line. I detailed them for this work, and it was admirably carried out, all who took part showing the highest courage and determination in face of very severe opposition. The results of the operations were entirely successful.
Another occasion I should wish to recall is the storm of November 26 and following days. A very violent rainfall, which flooded the trenches more than waist deep, was followed up by three days of northerly blizzard with intense frost. The conditions were such that the most veteran troops might have been excused for losing heart, but in spite of very heavy casualties from exposure, the regiment never for a moment gave in, but maintained their spirit and cheerfulness in a most wonderful manner. Then again, in the evacuation of Suvla and Helles operations, of which the success depended entirely upon the steadiness and discipline of the troops taking part, their share in these extremely anxious movements was most admirably performed.
It has been the greatest honour and pleasure to me to have these gallant fellows in my brigade, whose traditions they have most worthily upheld. Their fellow-countrymen have every reason to be proud of them on their doings. Their casualties have been many from bullets and sickness.

Charles Saatchi's Great Masterpieces: why Velázquez's Las Meninas turned the hierarchy on its head

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/art/what-to-see/charles-saatchis-great-masterpieces-velazquezs-las-meninas-turned/

Las Meninas is one of the most puzzled over works in the Western canon of art history. It is a universe on a canvas, a vertiginous and dizzying display of artistic bravura that leaves many questions hanging in the courtly air it evokes, its enigmas perplexing generations of viewers.
Its enormous scale helps defeat the boundaries between reality and fantasy, artwork and real space. You feel almost able to step into this strange multi-layered scene, to become part of the court of King Felipe IV. Indeed, on closer inspection, you sense that you are actually standing in the place of the king and queen, who are dimly reflected in the mirror at the back of the room. The pair are supposedly the subject of Velázquez’s metapainting being made in front of our very eyes, in a neat piece of conceptual play.

100 Years Ago - Russia

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/the-russian-breakdown-cdkxmg2bk

July 24, 1917

The Russian breakdown

The Executive Committee of the South-Western front, that of the Second Army, and the Commissary of the Provisional Government with this Army, have sent to M Kerensky, to the Provisional Government, and to the Council of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates the following telegram:
The German offensive which began on July 19 on the front of the Second Army is assuming the character of a disaster, which threatens a catastrophe to Revolutionary Russia. A fatal crisis has occurred in the moral of the troops recently sent forward against the enemy by the heroic efforts of the conscientious minority. Most of the military units are in a state of complete disorganization, their spirit for an offensive has utterly disappeared, and they no longer listen to the orders of their leaders, and neglect all the exhortations of their comrades, even replying to them by threats and shots. Some elements voluntarily evacuate their positions without even waiting for the approach of the enemy.
Cases are on record in which an order given to proceed with all haste to such-and-such a spot to assist comrades in distress has been discussed for several hours at meetings, and the reinforcements consequently delayed. These elements, at the first shots fired by the enemy, abandon their positions. Long files of deserters, men who are in good health and robust, who have lost all shame and feel that they can act altogether with impunity, are proceeding to the rear of the Army. Frequently entire units desert in this manner.
The members of the aforesaid committees and the Commissary of the Government unanimously recognize that the situation demands extreme measures and extreme efforts, for everything must be risked to save the Revolution from a catastrophe. The Commander-in-Chief on the Western front and the Commander of the Second Army have today given orders to fire on deserters and runaways. Let the country know the truth, let it act without mercy, and let it find enough courage to strike those who, by their cowardice, are destroying and selling Russia and the Revolution.

100 Years Ago - Navy, Russia

THE "GLOUCESTER CASTLE" SINKING, SHOWING THE RED CROSS AT THE BOW

GERMAN SUBMARINE WRECKED ON THE COAST OF JUTLAND

ONE OF "IVERNIA'S" OVERLOADED BOATS SINKING

DESTROYERS RACING TO THE HELP OF THE "DOVER CASTLE,"
Which is seen in the centre of the photograph

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/lessons-of-petrograd-trouble-f6hgmklj8

july 21, 1917

Lessons of Petrograd trouble

The crisis arose with the suddenness of a South Sea storm. The extremists had been preparing for the rising, but though possessed of ample means, they have little or no organizing ability. The Pravda threatened an armed demonstration against the Provisional Government with the object of forcing the Petrograd Committee to take over. The date was fixed for June 30, but this move did not mature owing to the All-Russia Conference of the Council of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates deciding to hold a demonstration on July 1, ostensibly in honour of the victims of the Revolution. This was a triumph for the extremists. All the banners bore their mottoes, whilst the few which supported the Provisional Government were torn down.
Two weeks passed in extraordinary calm. The advance on the front aroused patriotic elements of the population to enthusiasm, but this was almost exclusively among the bourgeois. From the working-class quarters came rumours of preparations for terrible events, and unrest became apparent among the masses. The events of the last two days amount to this. Troops and workers came out into the streets to make armed demonstrations. The Provisional Government was forced to allow this. Then the extremists launched the cumbersome vessel of popular passions, but were unable to control the crowds. The rioters fought each other blindly on Monday. Then followed encounters between the Government troops and the rioters. By yesterday morning the extremists were a disorganized and dispersed mob.
The chief difficulty now lies in the ignorance of the masses, who are fed with the terminology of Western Socialism. The financial, economic, social, and political base of the Russian State was badly injured by the old regime and cannot be repaired in a moment by the new revolutionary Government. The masses do not comprehend the ideal for which all are striving. What is required is steady constructive work, the slowness of which does not appeal to the hungering crowds.
This morning Government troops closed on the market near the Narodny Dom, in Petrograd, in an attempt to clear out the extremists. There are hopes that all will be well by Saturday morning.

100 Years Ago - July crisis in Russia

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/conditions-under-the-revolution-wlmtg2f9b

july 20, 1917

Conditions under the revolution

Odessa, July 13: I have returned from a tour in the districts of Poltava, Ekateringrad and Nicolaieff. The harvest has begun and haymaking is in progress. The cutting of other crops will begin in the next few days. Most of the cultivated land presents an excellent appearance but, owing to the abnormal duration of cold weather in the spring, followed by a long period of drought, the growth of the crops has been retarded, and the supply of straw will be deficient. A considerable portion of the landlords’ estates has been appropriated by the peasants, who will doubtless cut the crops on their own account. In some instances trifling compensation was offered. This was not paid to the landlords, but handed over to a fund for the widows and families of soldiers.
Whether the landlords who have retained possession of their properties will be allowed to cut their crops seems doubtful. The peasants in the Poltava district have forbidden labourers from other districts to work there, insisting upon the employment of local labour, but this will be scarce, as most of the local workers will be employed on their own lands. The Workmen’s Deputies at Nicolaieff propose to solve the labour difficulty by sending the whole male and female population of the town between the ages of 15 and 50 to work as harvesters. The proposal excites dismay among many parents of the upper classes, who object to allowing their daughters to work in the fields in company with roughs and hooligans from the town.
In general the position of the landlords is being rendered untenable. The Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Committees have usurped authority, and the Government officials are powerless to protect them. In the Kieff and Poltava governments pogroms have taken place on the estates of unpopular landlords. The social disruption in Bessarabia appears to be far greater.
The Cossacks are the only considerable population imbued with conservative sentiments, and they may yet prove an important factor, should the increasing disorder lead to a reactionary movement. They declare that they will resist any attempt to compel them to yield a portion of their lands to others, and any effort in this direction might be productive of serious consequences.

Charles Saatchi's Great Masterpieces: how Vincent Van Gogh's The Starry Night was the product of obsession

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/art/artists/charles-saatchis-great-masterpieces-vincent-van-goghs-starry/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturepicturegalleries/9961346/150-years-since-Vincent-van-Goghs-birth-15-of-his-best-paintings.html

When Van Gogh hospitalised himself at Saint Paul de Mausole, an asylum and clinic for the mentally ill, he was allocated a studio and was also allowed to paint in his bedroom. This provided an extensive view of the mountain range of the Alpilles: it was here that Van Gogh painted The Starry Night in June 1889. He saw the night as “even more coloured than the day” and obsessively waited for the perfect night sky. Interestingly, Van Gogh had originally planned this work as a pendant piece.

Paul Gauguin was in charge of organising an art exhibit for the 1890 World’s Fair shortly after Starry Night was completed, and Van Gogh wanted it to be displayed alongside its daylight companion, his Wheatfield with Cypresses – a representation of the landscape of Starry Night at midday. Even though the sun is not visibly included, the brightly painted and shadowless wheat field suggests the overhead light of noon.
The paintings weren’t included in the show in the end.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/the-house-and-family-of-windsor-9nfkslmmp

July 18, 1917

The house and family of Windsor

The step formally taken yesterday by the King in Council will give unqualified satisfaction throughout the British Dominions. He has abolished all German titles and dignities in the Royal Family and assumed the family name of Windsor. This is a more democratic step than is apparent on the surface. It means that the male descendants of the Sovereign will be commoners in the third generation, with a courtesy title as the sons of Dukes, and plain Mr Windsor in the fourth generation. The assumption of a family name is a necessary corollary of the recent abolition of princely titles for the younger generations in descent from the Sovereign, and no better choice could have been made than that of Windsor. It connects the old with the new. The fame of Windsor goes back to Saxon times, and the Castle has been closely associated with the successive Royal Houses of England. Plantagenets were born there; Tudors and Stuarts were buried there; Hanoverians died there; Queen Victoria, King Edward VII, and King George’s brother, who would have been King had he lived, are buried there. Windsor is a loadstar for the descendants of those who have gone forth from these islands and made the British Empire. Visitors who “come home” from the Dominions want to see Windsor, and make their pilgrimage there.
Cynics may regard the change as a matter of no importance, but they are mistaken. It is not wisdom, but folly, to ignore the influence of sentiment in the populace. It binds the Empire together, and the war has demonstrated the strength of the bond by proofs which no man can gainsay or belittle. The King has known well how to gratify the patriotic sentiment of all the British peoples which centres in the Crown, in this as in other things. During the earlier part of Queen Victoria’s reign, after her marriage, the German element at Court was a standing cause of irritation among the mass of the people in this country. Later the feeling, once acute, abated, and during King Edward’s reign it died down. It was not a personal feeling against members of the Royal Family, who were, and are, popular, but due to an instinctive dislike of Teutonism; and who shall say now that it was not justified? By this act King George has expunged the memory of it, and has done wisely.



100 Years Ago

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/white-bread-and-war-bread-rhbgzqhk0

july 17, 1917

“White” bread and war bread

To the Editor of The Times. Sir, It has been recently reported in the Press that the Food Controller has decided to allow the purchase of “white” bread to those who find bread of the official standard indigestible or harmful to health, and who can furnish a medical certificate in corroboration of their view. May I call attention to the difficulties which must arise from this decision — difficulties which appear to me to make the situation impossible? The first result has been, to judge from my experience, that medical men are being inundated with requests for certificates. How is the unfortunate doctor to deal with these, often peremptory, requests? Is he to refuse them all and offend his patients, or to grant them all and offend his conscience? For there is no possible middle course. Either “war” bread is difficult of digestion and harmful to health, or it is not. If it is in some degree harmful I cannot take the responsibility of refusing in the case of one sick person while acceding in that of another. And as for the sick, so for the delicate, and so for the children whose anxious parents fear that their future health may be jeopardized. In so far as I have been able to judge, the ill-effects are trifling and utterly insufficient to justify the wholesale upset of a Regulation which has been made, we are told, on grounds of stern necessity as an alternative to a possible national shortage of food. But a section of the public appears to be developing the view that most of its ailments arise from its altered dietary. I have recently been assured that cases of the epidemic diarrhoea so common at this season, and others of spots evidently caused by mosquito bites, were certainly the result of war bread! Unless the whole matter of the imposition of a standard is an unnecessary farce, the civilian population must surely bear such inconvenience as results from it. And it would seem wiser for the authorities to devote their energies to appease unnecessary anxiety while ensuring that the flour milled is uniformly of proper standard and that the bread is skilfully prepared. They appear rather, by their recent action, to be sheltering from baseless clamour by shifting responsibility to the medical profession, a body which has neither time nor the authority to carry out war regulations.
Yours faithfully, MD.

100 Years Ago

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/british-airmans-brave-attack-lf027xqmv

july 13, 1917

British airman’s brave attack

The death of another officer of the Royal Flying Corps during the fight with German raiders on Saturday is revealed by letters published in the Streatham News today. The officer was Second Lieutenant J E R Young, whose gallantry in attacking the raiders is described by his Major in a letter to his father, Mr W S Young, of Mitcham Lane, Streatham. The Major’s letter is as follows: “It is with the deepest regret and sympathy that I have to inform you of your son’s death, which took place on Saturday during the enemy aircraft attack on this country. Your son, as you know, had only been in my squadron for a short time, but quite long enough for me to realize what a very efficient and gallant officer he was, and what a tremendous loss he is to me. He had absolutely the heart of a lion and was a very good pilot. He has been up on every raid of late, and has always managed to get in contact with the enemy machines. The last raid, which unfortunately resulted in his death, shows what a very gallant officer we have lost.
Almost single-handed he flew straight into the middle of the 22 machines, and both himself and his observer at once opened fire. All the enemy machines opened fire also, so he was horribly outnumbered. The volume of fire to which he was subjected was too awful for words. To give you a rough idea — there were 22 machines, each machine had four guns, and each gun was firing about 400 rounds per minute. Your son never hesitated. He flew straight on until, as I should imagine, he must have been riddled with bullets. The machine then put its nose right up in the air and fell over, and went spinning down into the sea from 14,000ft. I unfortunately had to witness the whole ghastly affair. The machine sank so quickly that it was, I regret, impossible to save your son’s body, he was so badly entangled in the wires, &c. HMS --- rushed to the spot, but only arrived in time to pick up your son’s observer, who, I regret to state, is also dead. He was wounded six times, and had a double fracture in the skull.”
In forwarding the letter Mr W S Young states that it “will serve to assure us all that our splendid boys who, from their point of view, had the privilege had also the will and the pluck to put up noble efforts for our protection and for the defeat of the vilest enemy in all history.”

100 Years Ago - China

YUAN SHIH-K'AI PERFORMS THE IMPERIAL SACRIFICE AT THE TEMPLE OF HEAVEN: The president (marked with a X) on his way to the Altar

THE MAILED FIST IN CHINA: Count Waldersee at the march of the Allied Forces through the palace at Peking in 1900

YUAN SHIH-K'AI (IN CENTRE) AND HIS SUPPORTERS: Taken at the Wai-wu-pu after the ceremony of the inauguration of ¥uan Shih-k'ai as president

CHINESE OFFICERS STUDYING EUROPEAN WARFARE WITH THE FRENCH ARMY, 1917


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-germans-in-china-xs285pxfj?CMP=TNLEmail_118918_2054865&MN=12.07.2017%20China%20(1)

The Germans in China

There is no doubt that much trouble of a minor kind on the Russian railways in the Far East has been caused by the expenditure of German money

April 10, 1917

In the following article our Peking Correspondent discusses the propaganda of the Germans in China. Since it was written the Chinese Government has severed diplomatic relations with Germany, and has decided not to make her any further payment on account of the Boxer indemnity.
It is a matter of course that the Germans are doing their best to damage the Allies and to forward their own interests in China. Some damage they are doing, and they are certainly preparing for fierce commercial competition in the future. It is difficult to say whether all their scheming has serious results. The people who count in China where foreign relations are concerned are extremely limited in number. They comprise the officials who control and execute Government policy; the merchant classes at the Treaty Ports, through whom passes the foreign commerce of the country; Young China representatives, who sit in Parliament in Peking, or in the Provincial Assemblies, and who are demanding development on Western lines. Outside these elements German intrigues would seem to be wasted. So far as the Government of the day is concerned, the Germans have had considerable success. The controlling power in Peking is military, and German military prestige stands as high here as elsewhere. There are several Chinese officers who have been educated in Germany, and German methods are constantly before the Army. The German diplomatic mission at the capital has little to do except to work on the imagination of the military men. The Premier is a soldier with a limited knowledge of world affairs, and there is no gainsaying the effect upon him of the occupation of Belgium, of parts of France and Russia, of the conquest of Serbia and of Rumania. All these points are pressed upon his attention, and nothing is said of the occupation of German colonies, of the destruction of German trade, of the exhausting efforts made by Germany to maintain a front in face of the ever-growing power of the Allies.
PROPAGANDA MAPS
Two maps relating to the war have recently appeared in the Chinese newspapers. They were given by the German Legation to the Premier, and have since been reproduced in the subsidized organs of the Cabinet. One represented the Western front, 400 miles long, with a tiny dent to illustrate the Allied progress on the Somme. The map is correct in detail. The information by which it was accompanied gave no indication of the gigantic nature of the conflict, of the damage done in this small area to the German Army as a whole. The other map depicted the North Sea as a naval sphere continually swept by the German fleets, all but a strip at the Straits of Dover being under German domination. Germans in China have a useful weapon at their disposal. Their share of the Boxer indemnity, their part of the interest in tho two big Anglo-German loans (£16,000,000 each), and various other receipts are estimated to equal over £3,000,000 a year, all of which is paid by the Chinese Government to the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank in China. With this money Germans who are stranded in China in consequence of the war are supported, propaganda is maintained, various devious methods of damaging the Allies are financed, and the ground is prepared for future commercial cultivation. The bases of these operations are the German Legation in Peking, the German Concessions in Tientsin and Hankow, and every German Consulate in the country. Press propaganda is limited to the publication of a few newspapers in English, which have a very small circulation, and to small subsidies to many Chinese sheets, the whole limited in effect.
DANGEROUS AGENTS
German enterprise sometimes takes a more dangerous form. At the beginning of the war it will be remembered that Major Pappenheim, the German Military Attache in Peking, left here to shoot in Mongolia, and was discovered by the Russians to be marching north with a caravan of explosives designed to wreck tunnels on the Siberian Railway. A band of Mongols, apprised of his character, destroyed the whole party.
There is no doubt that much trouble of a minor kind on the Russian railways in the Far East has been caused by the expenditure of German money. Another interesting case is that of Major Dinkelman, once of the Legation Guard, and a military adviser to the Chinese Government until his dismissal was secured on the ground that his anti-Ally activities constituted a breach of neutrality. The enterprising Major disappeared from Peking last May, and his whereabouts was a subject of curiosity for some time. In December he was discovered in Kashgar preparing to cross the frontier into Afghanistan, where, doubtless, he intended to add his blandishments to those of Von Hentig. From Kashgar, under the interested observation of the Indian Government, he proceeded along the well-known Pamir route, via Tashkurgan, into Taghdumbash, where “three Empires meet”. Here instead of swinging west into Wakhan, Afghan territory, he continued south, and put his foot into the lion’s mouth at Hunza-Nagar. When arrested 9,000 golden sovereigns were found on him.
When Von Hentig, after a fruitless effort to get the Ameer to declare himself against the Allies, was politely put over the Afghan border into Chinese Turkestan, he proceeded to Yarkand, and there began an anti-Russian propaganda in aid of a Mahomedan rebellion under promotion by German agents. In due course an outbreak took place in Ili, the local Sarts and Kirghiz deluded by vast promises, infinite lying and much money, suddenly rising and murdering many Russian settlers - men, women, and children. A handful of troops easily suppressed the movement. Thousands of the rebels were killed, including some hundreds of Chinese subjects.
Von Hentig, accompanied by an Indian soldier captured on the Western front, and by Hamsa Effendi, a relative of the Emir of Bokhara, afterwards comfortably marched across China, nominally escorted by Chinese soldiers, and is now believed to be safe in the German Consulate at Hankow. British and Russian representations to the Chinese Government as to the desirability of interning this firebrand have hitherto met with no response.

Charles Saatchi's Great Masterpieces: Frida Kahlo's The Two Fridas and the tragic story that lies behind it

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/art/what-to-see/charles-saatchis-great-masterpieces-frida-kahlosthe-two-fridas/


It is little wonder that Hollywood turned its lenses on to the turbulent melodrama of Frida Kahlo’s life.
Had she been the invention of a screenwriter, a film studio would have considered it too overwrought a tale for the audience to suspend disbelief.
But as she herself once explained: “They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn’t. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.”
The Two Fridas was completed shortly after her divorce from the acclaimed Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. He passionately encouraged her to paint autobiographically, with works inspired by events in her life.
Diego was convinced that “she is the first woman in the history of art to treat, with absolute and uncompromising honesty, one might even say with impassive cruelty, those general and specific themes which exclusively affect women”.



The Two Fridas, 1939, Oil on canvas by Frida Kahlo Credit:  Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City

100 Years Ago - Aisne-2

SOME OF THE GERMAN PRISONERS

FRENCH AFRICANS

ON THE HEIGHTS OF MORONVILLIERS

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/french-battle-tactics-ljqqtj3b9?CMP=TNLEmail_118918_2030180&MN=05.07.2017%20Aisne2%20(1)

French battle tactics

The war has proved again and again the difficulty of piercing a front like this. But it has its points of weakness

April 20, 1917

The French make excellent progress. They are attacking, it must be remembered, a long and very difficult front, which the enemy has held almost intact since the morrow of the Battle of the Marne. It is based throughout on commanding positions. Its right rests on the plateau of Vregny; its centre on the plateau of Craonne. Farther east it is strengthened by four rocky fortresses - Brimont, Fresnes, Witry, and Nogent I’Abbesse - from which the German guns have hardly ceased to throw their shells into Reims. Its left holds - or held till Wednesday night - the heights that surround Moronvilliers and look down on Auberive in Champagne.
The war has proved again and again the difficulty of piercing a front like this. But it has its points of weakness. It is almost too dependent on strong, positions. Between them there must be vulnerable spots. So long as the Germans were superior in weight of metal they could command such possible avenues for assaulting columns and could make them little more than death-traps. It remained to be seen whether, when the weight of metal passed to the Allies, the line could not be pierced at these joints in its armour of defence.
It is well to speak with caution of a gigantic operation like this battle. But the moral of the four days of fighting that have passed since Monday morning would seem to be that the German line along the Aisne Heights, north and east of Reims and into Champagne, can be broken, or it the least be roughly bent back, at the main angles of connexion between its points of greatest strength. The tactics of the French have been to seek out these angles and to throw the mass of their assault against them. Thus between the plateaux of Vregny and of Craonne there runs upwards from the Aisne a dividing road that passes some two miles east of the village of Soupir. The French attack has pressed up this road, has taken the village of Braye-en-Laonnais, and has spread west beyond Ostel and east to the outskirts of Courtecon. The wedge is being driven in between the two plateaux, and the attack flows up their slopes fan-wise to left and right from Braye.
The German hold on the Vregny plateau is very seriously threatened, for the French are attacking it also from the vest and south. Yesterday they had gone as far as Jouy and Aizy, and north-west of these villages were in Laffaux. It looks as though the Germans were evacuating what has become a very pronounced saliont in their lines. If so, the French will have gained a most valuable advantage.
South-east of Craonne the French have found another weak spot. Here runs the great national road from Reims to Laon, consecrated in French memories by Napoleon’s last characteristic stroke against Blucher in March, 1814. It was here that the French on Monday overran both the first and the second German lines. Here, on Wednesday, they surrounded and took “an important unit” of the enemy - 1,300 prisoners and 180 machine- guns. And here the Germans have made in vain their heaviest counter-attacks.
In Champagne, again, the French have made the most of the early success which gave thern the strong point of Auberive. Their troops had taken by Tuesday night the heights of Moronvilliers. Yesterday they told us that their attacks in this region were “everywhere successful.” it is clear that they were, for the French now hold the “High Mount,” as the commanding Hill 257, south-west of Moronvilliers, is called, and several other heights to the east of it, including Hill 227. These are the dominant positions in this region. North of them the ground falls sharply away. Reims itself is lcss than 12 miles to the west of them, and their capture should put in jeopardy the rock-fortresses that have tyrannized over it so long.
In the neighbourhood of the most northern of these forts the Russian contingent with the French Armies is flghting most gallantly. The German communique about the battle are still phrased in a peculiar way. The first issued yesterday said solemnly that the French troops “only approximately attained their tactical aims, to say nothing of their strategic objects.” Whatever this may mean, it is a poor concealment of ill success. Nor is the second German communique, issued last night, much happier in its assertion that German counter-attacks in Champagne, north-west of’ Auberive, were conmpensation for the French gains in that region.
We need not be unduly exhilarated by palpable German evasions of this kind. But they deepen our satisfaction at the most promising achievements of the French arms.

Три з половиною роки

Що думалося тоді...


19 березня 2014


http://chestnut-ah.livejournal.com/910214.html


День Ганьби


Передмова

Перш за все хочу сказати, що я цілком усвідомлюю, що я ніхто, "офісний хом'ячок", автор блоґа, якого ніхто не читає. Я не можу козиряти якимось авторитетом, знаністю чи ще чимось. Я просто людина, що спостерігає за історичними подіями за вікном. Але навіть у такої людини є думки з приводу цих подій. Ось в мене вони такі. Непричесані й пафосні, але які є. Інші пишуть краще. Просто мені читане вже стало в горлі

а тепер мова. Многабукаф

100 Years Ago

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/forward-in-the-west-8kjxst7md

july 3, 1917

Forward in the west

Long-awaited news of a great British offensive reached London on Saturday morning in a terse report from Headquarters. An attack had been launched north of the River Somme at 7.30 that morning; British troops had broken into the German forward system of defences on a front of 16 miles, and a French attack on our right was proceeding equally satisfactorily. The British attack was on a front of 20 miles in the country of chalk downs and woods on either side of the Ancre and to the north of the Somme. The French helped our troops immediately north of the Somme and also attacked over five miles of the enemy’s line to the south of the river. Thus the combined attacks were directed towards Bapaume in the north and Peronne in the south.
The battle line east of Albert curved sharply into the Somme valley, making a great German salient — with its point at Fricourt. It was in this salient that we won our greatest successes on Saturday. Late in the evening Headquarters reported that we had captured the German labyrinth of trenches here on a front of seven miles and that the strongly fortified villages of Montauban and Mametz are in our possession. Everywhere the battle was intense. In the centre, where earlier in the day unofficial news had come through that our troops had taken Serre and La Boisselle, Headquarters said the struggle was still severe and that we had gained many strong points. In the north, to beyond Gommecourt, the day had not gone quite so well, and we had been unable to retain portions of ground gained in our first attacks. Sir Douglas Haig telegraphed last night that the general situation was favourable. Beyond the capture of Fricourt, where the fighting was very heavy, our troops were making effective progress near La Boisselle.
Our aerial work during the battle was especially successful in damaging railway communications with the enemy’s front. German Headquarters, to judge from the report of the first day’s battle, take the offensive calmly, suggesting that they have long expected and prepared for it. They admit the loss of ground near the Somme, but maintain that to the north, between Gommecourt and La Boisselle, we obtained no advantage worthy of mention and suffered heavy losses.

100 Years ago - Battle on the Aisne

FRENCH TANK

Micheler. Petain. Montdesir: FRENCH GENERALS IN CONSULTATION

EMPTY SHELLS OF 7Smm. GUNS FIRED BY RUSSIAN ARTILLERYMEN AT THE BATTLE OF COURCY

FRENCH TROOPS LEAVING THE TRENCHES FOR AN ATTACK


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/france-strikes-home-n76crjjcs?CMP=TNLEmail_118918_2003531

France strikes home

We are not disposed to rate too high the rumours of discontent that escape from beleaguered Germany. But the German High Command must know that continued retreat in the West cannot fail to have its reactions at home

April 18, 1917

Since Monday the Armies of France have been attacking the enemy in a battle that is set on a vast scale. With them go the deep affection, the proud confidence, the high hopes of the peoples of the Empire. A year ago it was the Germans who were on the offensive. They spared nothing to beat down the barrier raised against their advance by the French lines around Verdun. They failed because France too spared nothing. The Verdun defensive demanded of her great sacrifices, prolonged endurance, and, above all, determination like a rock. She rose above all these demands. Great Britain does not forget Verdun today.
But there is more than Verdun that is enshrined in our memories. There are the long, weary months of holding on, when France bore all but the whole weight of the land war in the West. There is the great record that she has of proud loyalty to Great Britain; of the lion’s share of an almost crushing burden; of a high and unshaken resolve never to falter till tyranny should be overpast. The memory of all that is warm in the hearts of the British peoples now, as they watch the French go forward once more against.the German hosts. The British offensive they are following with pride and a stubborn confidence. The French awakes in them almost more poignant emotions. They wait with an ache of longing for the day when the deliverance of France shall be accomplished. They believe - now that the German ranks thin under the blows of a great French offensive, added to the British - that that day has dawned.
Yet they know that the French have before them an immense labour. The German line that is attacked stretches first along the northern bank of the Aisne from Conde to Craonne - looking down through its whole length from the heights of the two great plateaux of Vregny and of Craonne upon the French, who hold the lower ground. At Craonne it turns south and crosses the Aisne near Berry-au-Bac, going thence just north of Reims and east to the uplands of Champagne. It is a line long set in these positions, bristling with posts as strong as years of German elaboration can make them, favoured by nature for defence and rich in means of lateral communication. Upon it the Germans have concentrated a great mass of troops for its defence. They knew well, too, what they had to expect, for ten days of a withering French artillery preparation had warned them.
The British offensive had opened a week before and had opened inauspiciously for them. We are not disposed to rate too high the rumours of discontent that escape from beleaguered Germany. But the German High Command must know that continued retreat in the West cannot fail to have its reactions at home. Germany cannot afford such reactions just now. The Austrian peace overtures to Russia may not mean much. It may be a small thing to Von Hindenburg that on Sunday prayers for peace were offered in the churches of Vienna. But these things, if no trustworthy indications of what is at the moment in Germany and Austria Hungary, can hardly be less than sinister signs of what may be.
The Germans themselves seem to labour, in the report which they issued yesterday, to impress upon their people the importance of the battle. They call it “one of the greatest battles of the mighty war, and therefore also in the history of the world.” They repeat again their phrase of the day before about the “far-reaching object” of the French attack. Their meaning is not very clear, and we notice some disposition here to make the most of the phrase. Probably the German original would better be rendered as “with an ambitious aim”. Its use may only be designed to din into German ears the now familiar formula about the Allies’ failure to “break through”.
Far more significant is the reference of the German communique to the “object” of their High Command. This, the world is told, was, “even if war material was lost, to spare the lives of our forces and to inflict heavy losses on the enemy.” The Germans were not in the habit of holding language like that about pitched battles. But it is wise to remember that German communiques nowadays are drafted with a keen eye to the possibilities of the future and under the constant strain of a necessity to be prepared at any moment to explain away defeat.
The French communiques about the offensive are a great contrast. They show that our Allies have made an excellent start: From Soupir, on the Aisne, to Craonne they have taken all the first German position. From Craonne to south of Juvincourt they hold the second line as well. Yesterday’s fighting gave them the whole of the German first line on a front of 10 miles east of Prunay. On part of this front they pushed farther and captured a strong line of heights between Mont Cornillet and Vaudesincourt. East again, Auberive has fallen to them and the strong German salient that covered it.
These successes have cost the enemy more than 2,500 prisoners. On Monday he lost over 11,000. Between Soissons and Reims the French batteries have again opened on the enemy, and many isolated detachments that were still holding fragments of his broken lines have been reduced. So great an offensive, against so wide a front so strongly held and buttressed by such a mass of troops in reserve, must develop slowly.
No sound conclusions can be drawn from the fortunes of the first days, but they are hopeful and give no excuse for doleful predictions. This is a battle of position. It ranges the resolute might of France against the desperate might of Germany. It is for people at home to recognize this; to remember that the initiative is with the Allies, and that the French offensive is of the substance of the strategic plan as certainly as the British.