Voices from the front

“We stood there together—a little group of women—and silently read it through—this command for the rising up of a Nation. No need for the men to read it. Each with his military papers in his pocket knew the moment he heard the drum what it meant, and knew equally well his place.”

— Mildred Aldrich, American writer and journalist living in the countryside near Crécy-en-Brie · letter · source ↗

“Soldiers!... You have been granted the immense honour of being the first to go into the Kingdom and cross the frontier of the Russian partition, as the leading column of the Polish army marching to fight for the liberation of the fatherland. […] I look upon you as the cadres from which the future Polish army is to grow, and I salute you as the first cadre company.”

— Józef Piłsudski, commander of the Riflemen's Associations and Rifle Squads · speech · source ↗

“Everywhere, in Flanders and in Wallonia, in the towns and in the countryside, one single feeling grips every heart: patriotism; one single vision fills every mind: our threatened independence; one single duty imposes itself on our will: stubborn resistance. […] I have faith in our destiny. A country that defends itself commands the respect of all: such a country does not perish.”

— Albert I, King of the Belgians · speech · source ↗

“6 VIII 1914, Thursday. Alarm at 2 a.m. Assembly before 3. The First Cadre Company of the Polish army marches out of Kraków at 4 a.m. 8:45 the Austrian customs post. 9:45 a.m. we cross the Russian frontier (an Austrian patrol behind us). Halt at Michałowice 12 to 3. Arrival in Słomniki. A welcome; “Poland Is Not Yet Lost” on the market square. Rain. Night in the commune office.”

— Kazimierz Luboń-Kamiński, private in the First Cadre Company · diary · source ↗

“With an open heart and a hand held out in brotherhood, Great Russia comes to meet you. She believes that the sword which routed the enemy at Grunwald has not rusted. From the shores of the Pacific Ocean to the Northern Seas the Russian hosts are on the march. The dawn of a new life is breaking for you.”

— wielki książę Mikołaj Mikołajewicz, commander-in-chief of the Russian army · proclamation · source ↗

“The glow of the sunset and the wind from the sea also reach us this evening from our enemies' side, from the East, from the Rhine. A gentle evening when one could still believe — at a pinch, the calculus of probabilities simply giving way to luck — that there would be no dead in the war.”

— Jean Giraudoux, French infantryman in Alsace · diary · source ↗

“Yesterday was probably the hardest day of my military life: retreat before the Russians. Strong forces are marching from the Narew against our rear and threaten to cut us off from the Vistula. We had to break off a battle that had begun well, and fall back. It is shameful, poor East Prussia! I did not want it, but I could not carry my point.”

— Max Hoffmann, lieutenant-colonel, operations officer of the German Eighth Army staff · diary · source ↗

“And slowly, step by step, we begin the march back with our wretched freight. Through the wet ditches we had leapt across in the assault. And now and then a foot strikes something soft: a dead man. Weary bones want to give out. No help for it, it has to be done.”

— Walter Bloem, reserve captain, company commander in the Brandenburg 12th Grenadier Regiment · memoir · source ↗

“Well do I remember the dead silence in the little room at Bertry when I was rapidly considering these points and the sigh of relief when, on my asking Allenby if he would accept orders from me, and he replied in the affirmative, I remarked: “Very well, gentlemen, we will fight, and I will ask General Snow to act under me as well.””

— Horace Smith-Dorrien, commander of the British II Corps · memoir · source ↗

“The houses on both sides were either partially destroyed or smouldering. Soldiers were systematically removing what was to be found in the way of valuables, food, and wine, and then setting fire to the furniture and hangings. It was all most businesslike.”

— Hugh Gibson, Secretary of the United States Legation in Brussels · diary · source ↗

““The papers, it is true, report nothing but victories,” my friend explained to me, “but those victories keep getting closer to Lwów. Yesterday my wife had a fit of hysterics when she read about yet another victory.””

— Jerzy Bandrowski, writer and journalist in Lwów · memoir · source ↗

““A great misfortune... But I have no right to speak to you of it. The Grand Duke Nicholas does not want the news to be known for a few days. […] Samsonov’s army is destroyed. That is all I know. […] We owed this sacrifice to France, who has shown herself so perfect an ally.””

— Maurice Paléologue, French ambassador in St Petersburg, recording the words of Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov · diary · source ↗

“Everything combines to give me the dismal impression of an official exodus, freed from all protocol but subject, on the other hand, to military discipline. The train whistles, timidly. We leave with heavy hearts. My eyes stay stubbornly fixed on the vague shapes of the sleeping city.”

— Raymond Poincaré, President of the French Republic · memoir · source ↗

“Not far from where Akademicka Street opens onto Halicki Square, an Austrian nurse went up to the dragoon and offered him a large glass of vodka on a tray. 'Strong?' asked the dragoon. The gentleman with the nurse assured the soldier that it was very strong. The soldier hesitated for a moment, then cried: 'Don't want it!' And, spurring his horse, he rode on.”

— Jerzy Bandrowski, writer and journalist in Lwów · memoir · source ↗

“Then a little smoke would rise from one hamlet, then from another; then a tiny flame—hardly more than a spark—would be visible; and by dark the whole plain was on fire, lighting up Mareuil in the foreground, silent and untouched. There were long lines of grain-stacks and mills stretching along the plain. One by one they took fire, until, by ten o'clock, they stood like a procession of huge torches across my beloved panorama.”

— Mildred Aldrich, American writer and journalist living in the countryside near Crécy-en-Brie · letter · source ↗

“What had happened, or why we were suddenly to turn against the enemy after ten days of retreat, we could not conceive; but the fact was there, and the difference in the spirits of the men was enormous. They marched twice as well, whistling and singing, back through Tournans and on to Villeneuve.”

— Edward Gleichen, brigadier-general commanding the British 15th Infantry Brigade (5th Division) · diary · source ↗

“Another car follows, then others and still others, hundreds of them, silent, endlessly. In the light of the risen moon we make out the faintly gleaming oilcloth caps of the taxi drivers. In the cars we glimpse the bowed heads of sleeping soldiers. Someone asks: 'Wounded?' They answer as they pass: 'No. It's the 7th Division. We've come from Paris. We're going up there!…'”

— Paul Lintier, gunner of the French 44th Artillery Regiment · diary · source ↗

“Things are going badly. The battles east of Paris will turn out against us. One of our armies must retreat, the others will have to follow. The beginning of the war, so full of hope, will turn into its opposite. I must bear what is happening, and I will stand or fall with my country.”

— Helmuth von Moltke, Chief of the German General Staff, in a letter to his wife from headquarters in Luxembourg · letter · source ↗

“From the morning of the thirtieth Russian shrapnel began bursting over our town. […] All night we few ladies — I, the doctor's wife, the justice of the peace's wife, the chemist's wife, a merchant's wife and our maid — dug a pit in our yard. Look, here are the calluses, they still haven't gone; our hands were oozing blood. […] By morning we had moved in there with the children, taking whatever we could to eat and drink.”

— Stiepan Kondruszkin, Russian writer and war correspondent, recording the account of a woman from Lublin province, a mother of three, whom he met on a train · account · source ↗

“At the five artillery wagons the horses are all lying there (the nearest is unhurt), three horses on the right, three on the left, holding their legs up and kicking. The crews crawl about on the ground, many are dead. A moment ago the column was still whole and cheerful. And now it looks as if someone had struck with a giant fly-swatter.”

— Hans Stegemann, sergeant bringing ammunition wagons up to the Jäger, student of the Eberswalde Forestry Academy · letter · source ↗

“Soon a sharp crack was heard: half of the Great Rose burst, and thick smoke poured in through the breach. And then, gently, a ray of sunlight, the only one seen on that day of mist and rain, filtered through the gaping wound, stretched slowly across the nave to the Sanctuary, caressed the altar, rested there a moment and vanished.”

— Maurice Landrieux, parish priest of Reims Cathedral · memoir · source ↗

“The battery moves off. A crackle of rifles and machine guns accompanies the thunder of the artillery. The enemy resists the envelopment and turns to face us. No doubt the movement must be pushed further still. We resume our march northwards, towards Roye. The success of the manoeuvre is a question of numbers: but do we have the numbers now?”

— Paul Lintier, gunner of the French 44th Artillery Regiment · diary · source ↗

“They are a nice-looking lot of men and boys, with rather handsome faces and clear eyes. Their absolute exhaustion is the most pathetic thing about them. They fall asleep even when their wounds are being dressed.”

— Sarah Macnaughtan, British writer, orderly in Mrs St Clair Stobart's field hospital at Antwerp · diary · source ↗

“It was very puzzling to make out what was happening, for we had not even the vaguest idea where the rest of our own Army was, let alone the French or Germans. Nobody seemed to know anything, except that we should probably soon be fighting again.”

— Edward Gleichen, brigadier-general commanding the British 15th Infantry Brigade (5th Division) · diary · source ↗

“This morning we took a wounded prisoner. As he passed, not one word of hatred, not one insult. Two sailors were helping him walk. He kept saying: “Good morning. War is terrible.” And the men answered him. Our men are more French than they think!”

— Gautier, ensign (enseigne de vaisseau) in the Fusiliers Marins brigade at Dixmude · letter · source ↗

“Behind Laski I inspected the reserve's positions. The units next to it, unable to stand the bombardment, had already left the field. Time after time the big 'trunks' crashed down on the village and the ground beyond it. Each one left a crater big enough to bury a horse in, or the cottages went up in flames like matches. Our replacement battalion lay in extended order, pressed to the ground.”

— Józef Piłsudski, commander of the 1st Regiment of the Polish Legions · memoir · source ↗

“What one goes through in such an assault! One ages by years. Death whistles past; a hail of machine-gun fire and a hail of bullets, every moment one thinks one is hit. […] Away with war, the most hideous abortion of human vice! Men slaughter one another in masses without knowing, hating or loving one another.”

— Kurt Peterson, philosophy student from Berlin, German soldier in the attack on Dixmude · letter · source ↗

“When someone called him from the card table to tell him the news, Djemal was much excited. “I know nothing about it,” he replied. “It has not been done by my orders.” […] “Why don’t you drop your mask as messenger boy of the Grand Vizier and talk to me as Talaat?” I asked. He laughed and said: “Well, Wangenheim, Enver, and I prefer that the war shall come now.””

— Henry Morgenthau, United States Ambassador in Constantinople, quoting Djemal, the Minister of Marine, and Talaat · memoir · source ↗

“Personally I felt as if the last barrier between the Germans and the Channel seaboard was broken down, and I viewed the situation with the utmost gravity. It was a dramatic half hour, the worst I ever spent in a life full of vicissitudes such as mine had been.”

— John French, Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force · memoir · source ↗

“I ask Sazonov what that last sentence means; it reads as if taken from the Sibylline Books. 'We shall be obliged,' he replies, 'to make Turkey pay dearly for today's folly... We shall have to take solid guarantees on the Bosphorus. As for Constantinople, I do not personally wish the Turks to be driven out of it. I would gladly leave them the old Byzantine city, with a large kitchen garden all round it. But nothing more!'”

— Maurice Paléologue, French ambassador in Petrograd, recording the words of Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov · diary · source ↗

“Almost in the middle of the village I see a woman surrounded by children who, the moment she saw us, covered her eyes with her hands, sank down on the bench by the cottage wall and dissolved in bitter tears. […] 'Is that Ulina Mała down there?' 'Ulina, sir, Ulina,' she answers, weeping. […] 'Have the Muscovites been here yet?' I ask the old man. 'Oh yes, sir, they have!' he answers. 'Yesterday afternoon the Cossacks were here.'”

— Józef Piłsudski, commander of the 1st Regiment of the Polish Legions · memoir · source ↗

“At the makeshift buffet a famous actor, […] now dressed for good in a Legion soldier's greatcoat, was tearing big chunks of sausage with his teeth and following them with hefty hunks of bread, with a truly wolfish appetite. […] Asked where he is coming back from, he answers through the sausage: 'From over by that Krzywopłoty.' […] 'The battle, that's child's play! Child's play! The march, that's the real misery. Your feet are finished, mud in your boots. The cold shakes you, it's wretched!...'”

— Stefan Żeromski, writer, describing the departure of the last evacuation train from Kraków · memoir · source ↗

“Our left wing has been beaten. How we are to put things right and save the situation I do not know yet, but perhaps something will still occur to me. It was on a knife-edge. We could have had a great victory, but the troops failed; the men could do no more; the officers are dead and the enemy are too many.”

— Max Hoffmann, lieutenant-colonel, first general staff officer of the Commander-in-Chief East (Ober Ost) · diary · source ↗

“That I am still alive, completely unharmed, is a miracle. We marched up the highway towards Ypres as far as the northern exit of Gheluwe. […] All the trees along the highway completely shredded by bullets, dead horses and men to the left and right, the houses along the road: rubble.”

— Fritz Philipps, agriculture student from Jena, German observer sent forward near Ypres · letter · source ↗

“I vote willingly for everything which may relieve the hard fate of our brothers on the battlefield as well as that of the wounded and sick, for whom I feel the deepest compassion. But as a protest against the war, […] against the violation of the neutrality of Belgium and Luxemburg, […] I vote against the war credits demanded.”

— Karl Liebknecht, Social Democratic member of the Reichstag · proclamation · source ↗

“A very young lad was walking along, leaning on his rifle, his face unusually radiant. […] 'Which battalion, my boy?' I asked. 'The Third, Citizen Commandant!' 'Where did you get hit?' 'In the heart!' he answered, and there was pride in his voice at so unusual a wound. 'Nonsense! How could you be strolling about with a wound like that?'”

— Józef Piłsudski, commander of a Polish Legions detachment · memoir · source ↗

“One of them bellowed across: 'You want come to Paris, you to Paris come not.' Our men over there sang carols in parts and our patriotic songs. When someone sang a solo, the other side applauded; the Frenchman listened as quiet as a mouse to our Christmas Eve carols, which you were probably singing at the same time too.”

— Gotthold von Rohden, theology student, German soldier on the front near Arras, in a letter to his parents · letter · source ↗