100 Years Ago - 23 Feb 1918: "The Russian soldiers are offering little or no resistance"

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/bolshevist-counsels-of-despair-nz7zbzj7g


february 23, 1918

Bolshevist counsels of despair

The news today indicates that the Germans continue to advance along the line to Reval, Pskoff, and Minsk, while the Austrians and Ukrainians are verging on Kieff. The Russian soldiers are offering little or no resistance. According to one of tonight’s papers, no less than 27 trains have been seized by them, and are conveying some 40,000 demobilized men back to Moscow. The Germans are not taking any prisoners; they only disarm the Russians and set them free. German proclamations are being distributed by aeroplanes calling upon the inhabitants to remain calm and to preserve order as the Germans are coming to suppress anarchy and will even introduce food supplies as soon as possible.
Great perturbation and pessimism reign in Bolshevist circles. Meetings of the Council of Commissioners and Bolshevist partisans, together with members of the Left wing of the Revolutionary Socialist Party, are taking place at Smolny and in the Tauris Palace day and night. M Trotsky is reported to be ill and unable to attend, owing to the effect upon his health of the German renewal of hostilities.

The People’s Commissioners have decided to order a general mobilization of the whole male population. The appeal orders the formation of a Red National Army, with iron discipline and free from hooligans and marauders, for the purpose of defending the Revolution with the last drop of Russian blood.
The conviction that Petrograd is the ultimate objective of the German advance has produced considerable commotion and no little anxiety among the remaining members of the British colony here. The British Consulate is crowded with agitated inquirers desirous of getting away as soon as possible. A certain number will, of course, be obliged to stay in any case owing to family or business ties, old age, or illness. It is hoped that the Germans will not repeat the atrocities practised at the beginning of the war. A British military order has been issued for all British subjects of military age in Petrograd who hitherto have enjoyed exemption on various grounds to hold themselves ready to start home at six hours’ notice. Other British subjects who are able to go, especially women and children, are advised to leave without delay.

Hungarian Military Museum (4) - WWI

100 Years Ago - Medical Services

A "BAG" OF RATS FROM THE FRENCH TRENCHES

VOLUNTEERS FOR EXPERIMENTAL INFECTION WITH TRENCH FEVER, AND

THEIR NURSES.

CLEAN SHIRTS FOR BRITISH SOLDIERS


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/soldiers-heart-2c50jpwm7?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=newsletter_118&utm_medium=email&utm_content=118_21.02.2018%20Health%20(1)&CMP=TNLEmail_118918_2955537_118

Soldier’s heart

Of the cases of so-called “soldier’s heart” - which is not true heart disease but is often treated as such - about 60 per cent returned to duty as the result of a system of physical training

April 2, 1917

Some remarkable views are expressed in the “Report Upon Soldiers returned as Cases of Disordered Action of the Heart or Valvular Disease of the Heart” just issued by the Medical Research Committee. The report is the result of the work carried out at the Hampstead Military Hospital at the instance of Sir Alfred Keogh, who appointed Sir Clifford Allbutt, Sir James Mackenzie, and Sir William Osler consultants to the hospital. Dr Thomas Lewis, the head of the clinical staff of the Medical Research Committee, was placed in control of the research work. A number of officers specially selected by the War Office, and including two officers of the Canadian Army Medical Service, composed the staff, and a vast amount of highly specialized scientific work was carried out.

The report makes a protest against medical examinations in these cases founded on the detection of so-called abnormalities while the patient “is at rest”. The test of a hearts capacity, certain forms of gross disease having been eliminated, is its power to do work. Of the cases of so-called “soldier’s heart” - which is not true heart disease at all but is often treated as such - about 60 per cent returned to duty as the result of a system of physical training. The usual stay in hospital,too, was cut down by about half. This was an immense saving of time and money and it proved that the test of capacity is the true test in these cases, for nearly half of the men who returned to duty had “systolic murmurs” which, by older standards, might have gained for them the diagnosis of “heart disease”.
The fact was that the men with these supposed disability signs did just as well as the men without them. “Rest in bed”, says the report, “is harmful, and should be avoided at all stages of treatment except in instances of severe praecordial pain, severe headache, or severe giddiness”.
The ordinary symptoms of “soldier’s heart” are breathlessness, pain, exhaustion, giddiness and fainting, with palpitation, lassitude, and irritability. Having established the test value of capacity to do work as against sounds heard with a stethoscope and the value of physical training as against rest in bed, the report goes the length of stating that “auscultation” (ie, the use of the stethoscope) “is the least valuable method employed in sorting soldiers suffering from cardiovascular derangements the sorting can almost always be effected without its aid.”
This again is a very striking view, for the use of the stethoscope is universal and the respect paid to its findings often reverent. The report appeals to common sense against exaggerated fears “of overlooking early heart disease” by the dictum: “It may be taken as an axiom that no soldier who is free from symptoms on duty has an affection of the heart which incapacitates him, and this axiom may be adopted irrespective of any unusual sign found in the heart. Now actual heart disease in young soldiers, in the absence of a history of rheumatic fever or of syphilis, is a comparative rarity.”

It is recommended that attention should not be called to “heart trouble” in these cases at all, as thereby undue fears are aroused. A further recommendation which is of value at present is that men from sedentary occupations should be very carefully scrutinized and trained “by tenderer methods in the initial stages than those in vogue for conscripts as a whole.”
The choice of the Hampstead Hospital for this work was a very happy one. The fine air and good surroundings have certainly played an important part in helping soldiers towards recovery and so in promoting the success of treatment. The hospital has from the beginning been under the able command of Colonel T More Reid, who recently conducted the King and Queen over it.

100 Years Ago - Moscow, Finland

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/germans-reported-in-finland-dhd7jxjxk

February 22,1918

Germans reported in Finland

For the last week Russia has been cut off from Western Europe by revolution and civil war in Finland. Outgoing passenger traffic has been suspended or greatly inconvenienced by damage to the railways. British and other travellers anxious to leave Russia are deterred by accounts of the spread of Russian revolutionary methods and hooliganism in Finland. Armed men enter trains to examine luggage and help themselves to anything that pleases them. An officer here in hospital tells me that he was wounded at Viborg while rescuing a lady from a party of armed ruffians who were robbing her of her money and her overcoat. The officer shot two of them with his revolver, but received a bayonet wound in the breast, and was dragged insensible by the lady into a yard. Efforts are being made to provide steamer accommodation from the southern Finnish coast, but it is only safe for neutrals.

There is great uncertainty as to the contending forces in Finland. According to one version, the White Guards are being driven northwards, and pushed back to the Bothnian Gulf by the Red Guards. Another version represents the Red Guards as being pressed on all sides by White Guards.
A large proportion of the working proletariat in the urban and industrial centres of Southern Finland is thoroughly leavened by germs of Russian Bolshevism. These are the Red Guards. The White Guards in the north and west represent bourgeois classes, and the latter are aided by the return of Finns through Riga, who have served and been trained in German Finnish battalions. It is said that there are German officers amongst the White Guards, and that they receive instructions from Germany.
An alarming rumour circulated here this evening that German troops have landed on the Finnish coast. Dvinsk was occupied by the Germans yesterday afternoon. This places them 330 miles from Petrograd on the main line railway. The burning question is: will they come here or not?
Detachments of partisans are to be formed for the purpose of harassing the invaders. The Russian troops in retreat have been ordered to destroy everything, so that more frightful devastation will be committed in this already ruined country.

100 Years Ago

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2018-02-19/register/german-attack-imminent-0ms6r99rn

FEBRUARY 19, 1918

German attack “imminent”

War correspondents’ headquarters. The German offensive is now undoubtedly very near. Evidence accumulates daily, especially convincing being the statements of prisoners taken recently. The German army firmly believes the event to be immediately impending.
An immense amount of training for the attack has been going on. Of that we have been assured by our airmen. To escape observation, much of the training is being done in remoter areas. Troops must be brought up at the last moment and largely during the night before. So they are being trained to make long marches of perhaps 20 miles to the hypothetical scene of action.
So far as our front is concerned, especial attention is being given to sectors between Arras and St Quentin. The training is largely in the nature of open fighting, for the Germans seem to count on breaking our lines and getting the warfare into the open country behind, in which they are going to be aided by the use of gas, tanks and trench mortars. There will probably be no obliterating bombardment such as has preceded most of our great attacks, but in the days before the assaultcounter-battery shooting, both with gas and high-explosive shells, and long spells of destructive fire on trenches, communications, billets, and so forth. Immediately before the attack there will be only a short burst of fire, behind which men are to come over in one grand rush, while immense numbers of mobile guns and trench mortars will push up behind the supporting troops.

Having just returned to the front, I would like to mention that people, especially women, at home seem to be writing to their men out here absurdly exaggerated stories of the hardships of queueing, and of the inadequate supplies of butter and margarine. Of course, it is nice to make interesting letters, and women are not exempt from the human love of exaggeration. But it is very unkind to the men. I am sure that if the women were really suffering they would conceal it from their men. It is only because it is the first inconvenience from the war that people at home make too much of it. But it is neither kind nor wise, for telling men depressing things cannot make them better soldiers, and the men out here are entitled to all the cheery news they can get.

A TELEGRAPHIC NOTE To M. GEORGES CLEMENCEAU, PRESIDENT OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE FROM VLADIMIR TEMNITSKY, MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE UKRAINIAN REPUBLIC. 1919

July 29, 1919

The Supreme Council of the Peace Conference, by its

resolution of the 25th of June, 1919, has authorized the Government

of the Polish Republic to occupy a great portion

of the Western Territory of the Ukrainian Democratic Republic;

that is to say, East Galicia up to the Zbruch River.

The purpose of this resolution was, after its own terms, "to

safeguard the lives and property of the peaceful population

of East Galicia against the dangers and threats of Bolshevist

bands." The Supreme Council of the Allied and Associated

Powers has decided to authorize the forces of the Polish

Republic to extend their operations up to the Zbruch

River.

The undersigned, plenipotentiary representatives of the

lawfully and duly elected Government of the Ukrainian

people, solemnly protest against this decision which abolishes

the principle of the self-determination of peoples, violates

in a most iniquitous manner the sovereignty of the Ukrainian

Democratic Republic over its own territory, and delivers

the Ukrainian people of East Galicia, liberated after

a long period of slavery, to the mercies' of an unbridled Polish

imperialism, to the horrors of a regime by Polish authorities,

and to the brutalities of the Polish soldiery. In alleging

the motives which actuated the decision of the 25th of

June, the Supreme Council is in evident contradiction with

the principles of self-determination of peoples, and the principles

of democracy embodied in the well-known Fourteen

Points of President Wilson and accepted by all the Allied

Powers as a basis for peace.

East Galicia, that is to say the country situated between

the San and Visloka Rivers on the west and the Zbruch on

the east, is ethnographically and historically a Ukrainian

territory, in which the Poles, as confirmed by Polish statisticians, scientists, and geographers (Prof. Buzek, Prof. Romer, Prof. Pilat), form, together with the Jews, an altogether

insignificant minority. This country was up to the

middle of the sixteenth century an independent Ukrainian

state, first a principality and then a kingdom, with successive capitals in Peremishl, Halich, and Lviv. Even after

its conquest by the Polish king, Casimir, it formed in the

Kingdom of Poland a separate unit under the name of the

Ruthenian Palatinate.

This Week in History - The Franco Prussian War

https://ospreypublishing.com/thisweekhistory/

The events of the Franco-Prussian War fell into three main phases. Beginning in July 1870, it opened with a short campaign lasting until September, in which the major battles took place, after which it was largely considered to be over. The war continued until January 1871 because both sides could not agree peace terms. Finally, with peace declared and the war officially over, there was an attempted revolution and civil war in Paris known as the Commune. This was suppressed by the French in May, just as the Treaty of Frankfurt formally ending the war came into force.

Further reading
Essential Histories 51: The Franco-Prussian War 1870-1871 (extract below) places the hostilities and the warring nations in their historical context and describes the great battles, the sieges of Metz and Paris, and the establishment and obliteration of the Paris Commune. It also includes portraits of a soldier and a civilian caught up in the conflict and reviews its immediate and subsequent impact on politics and society. Men-at-Arms 233: French Army 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War (1) (extract below) and Men-at-Arms 237: French Army 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War (2) are studies of the uniforms, equipment and organisation of the losing side, and also document the inadequate reforms that were put in place to counter the Prussian threat. Volumes on the Prussian army will be published in 2004. Campaign 21: Gravelotte-St-Privat 1870 (extract below) is a detailed account of the bloody turning point in the invasion of France. With better generalship and organisation, their strong defensive positions and the superior firepower of their Chassepot rifles, the French could have won this battle. But when the Prussians finally abandoned frontal infantry attacks and fully exploited the superiority of their Krupp artillery, this ceased to be a possibility. German casualties of more than 20,000, twice the number sustained by the French, and the manner in which they were sustained were a foretaste of the butchery of the First World War, that far greater conflict easily traced back to the events of 1870-1871.

An Extract from Essential Histories 51: The Franco-Prussian War 1870-1871
The Context of the War

The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 was the largest and most important war fought in Europe between the age of Napoleon and the First World War. Since it ended in the establishment of a new German Empire, contemporaries often called it the ‘Franco-German War’, although neither name fits it perfectly. In 1870–71, ‘Prussian’ forces included those from an alliance of other German states, but Prussia and its interests dominated, just as in the Second World War German armies often included forces from other Axis members. The creation and continued existence of this new united Germany set the agenda for European international politics and war for the next century. The war also marked the end of the French Second Empire under Napoleon III, and with it the end of France’s dominant position in Europe. This was something that was never recovered, although in the longer term the war also established France as the most important and enduring republic on the continent. In a wider sense, both sides were conscious of a rivalry for dominance in western Europe between the French and German peoples that went back for centuries, chiefly for control of the lands that lie on either side of the Rhine and its tributaries from the North Sea to the Alps.

Despite its apparently ancient origins, the Franco-Prussian War also marked the beginning of the creation of modern Europe in every sense. It featured a mixture of aristocratic and conservative behaviour based on old ideas of personal rule and the Concert of Europe, together with the new realities of power politics and national bureaucracies. It was the first experience of what the Prussians called Millionenkrieg, ‘the war of the millions’, but both sides argued the formalities of international law, and treated the frontiers of neutral countries as if the laws that protected them were unbreakable barriers. Both King Wilhelm I of Prussia and Emperor Napoleon III of France made critical distinctions between their behaviour in the private sphere and as public heads of state. In its conduct also, the war mixed the weapons, tactics and methods of an earlier era with new military science and new political attitudes. Personalities decided this war, but so did armaments factories, public opinion, military staffwork and mass revolution.