1915

“At the close of last year, while I was away, you fought against superior enemy forces the bloodiest and hardest battle of all we have had so far. […] Second Lieutenant Ścieżyński with 8 men took 100 enemy soldiers prisoner in the trenches. […] NCO Świderski, at the head of a patrol of 9 men, brought in as prisoners a Russian colonel and with him 3 officers and 28 men, taking them from a village still held by the enemy.”

— Józef Piłsudski, commander of the First Brigade of the Polish Legions · order · source ↗

“Up the slope came endless crowds of weary, frozen and hungry people. Their road over the frozen mountainsides was hard: at night animals and people froze. Children froze in their mothers' arms; the mothers laid them in the snow and went on while their strength lasted. […] By noon on 23 December I was back in Igdyr. The news of the Turks' rout at Sarikamish had already arrived. Transcaucasia calmed down.”

— Stiepan Kondruszkin, Russian writer and war correspondent in Transcaucasia · account · source ↗

“Often we sank up to our knees in the mire. Some lost their boots. In their socks, even barefoot, some stood pressed against the trench wall to let everyone else pass first. We were dog-tired when we finally reached the trench of the 48th.”

— Walther Ambroselli, philosophy student from Leipzig, German infantryman at Soissons, in a letter to his parents · letter · source ↗

“Awful bobbery last night over the Yarmouth scare. We were standing by our machines until midnight. I think they [the Germans] are sure to pay us a visit soon. I hope it isn't at night, though.”

— Harold Rosher, Flight Lieutenant, Royal Naval Air Service, at Dover · letter · source ↗

“As a Sikh native officer said to me on the day preceding the battle, “Sahib, we shall have a chance of proving that the Indian Army can fight and not only do sentry-go in the khandak (trenches). We shall again be able to cry, Fateh (victory).””

— James Willcocks, commander of the Indian Corps in France, quoting a Sikh native officer · memoir · source ↗

“Just got your telegram, it came in 15 min; thank God Przmysl taken, congratulate you with all my loving heart — this is good — what joy for our beloved troops! They did have a long time of it, and honestly speaking I am glad for the poor garrison and people who must have almost been dying of hunger. Now we shall have those army corps free to throw over to more weak places.”

— Aleksandra Fiodorowna, Empress of Russia, writing to her husband, Emperor Nicholas II · letter · source ↗

“The men fall in. They are nothing but skin and bone now; their worn uniforms, grown too big, hang loose on them. Faces the colour of earth, eyes dead. They can barely stay on their feet. A cook goes by with a raw haunch of horse on his shoulder. The last horses, the adjutants' horses, have been slaughtered. The men are to eat their fill one more time.”

— Ilka von Michaelsburg (Ilka von Künigl-Ehrenburg), Austrian writer, wife of an officer of the Przemyśl garrison · diary · source ↗

“The danger of massacres has passed for the time being, though the Muslim instigators have not yet withdrawn their hand from the work. On 31 March they drew up a telegram to the central government that the inhabitants of Zeitun (some 10,000 souls) should be transplanted and the town razed to the ground.”

— Walter Rößler, German consul in Aleppo, after an official journey to Marash (28 March – 10 April) · account · source ↗

“As we sat on the road we began to see the French stragglers--men without arms, wounded men, teams, wagons, civilians, refugees--some by the roads, some across country, all talking, shouting--the very picture of debacle. […] Women, old men, little children, hopeless, tearful, quiet or excited, tired, dodging the traffic,--and the wounded in singles or in groups.”

— John McCrae, surgeon to the 1st Brigade of Canadian Artillery · diary · source ↗

“Watching these gallant souls from the safety of a battleship gave me a hateful feeling: Roger Keyes said to me he simply could not bear it. […] But, from the battleship, you are outside the frame of the picture. The thing becomes monstrous; too cold-blooded; like looking on at gladiators from the dress circle.”

— Ian Hamilton, commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, aboard the Queen Elizabeth · diary · source ↗

“On Sunday, the 25th, the first band of village refugees came to the city. At early dawn we heard them knocking, knocking, knocking at our gate. […] One woman said to Miss Silliman: “What would we do without this place? This is the third massacre during which I have taken refuge here.””

— Grace Higley Knapp, American missionary in Van · account · source ↗

“There were scores of casualties awaiting treatment, some of them horribly knocked about. It was my first experience of such a number of cases. In civil practice, if an accident took place in which three or four men were injured, the occurrence would be deemed out of the ordinary: but here there were almost as many hundreds, and all the flower of Australia.”

— Joseph Lievesley Beeston, officer commanding the 4th Field Ambulance, Australian Imperial Force, a surgeon · memoir · source ↗

“The Canadians and English who poured in from Ypres were terribly damaged, and the asphyxiating gas seems to have been simply diabolical. It was awful to see human beings so mangled, and I never get one bit accustomed to it. […] Many Canadians were there, and rows of British. God! how they were knocked about! The vast rooms echoed to the cries of pain.”

— Sarah Macnaughtan, writer, volunteer running a soup kitchen for the wounded in Flanders · diary · source ↗

“Heavy gunfire again this morning. Lieut. H---- was killed at the guns. His diary's last words were, "It has quieted a little and I shall try to get a good sleep." I said the Committal Service over him, as well as I could from memory. A soldier's death!”

— John McCrae, surgeon to the 1st Brigade of Canadian Artillery · diary · source ↗

“The whole line of the R's was being pounded with crash after crash, sometimes four black columns rising almost simultaneously at intervals along it; under each would break out little angry teeth of sparkling flame; the only thing that seemed not to be hit was the church tower, which, as each cloud died down, came out simple again in the bright sunshine.”

— Bernard Pares, official British observer with the Russian armies in the field · diary · source ↗

“We are right in the craziest corner, the first to have broken through the idle lying in position. But then again you see the long, long columns of wounded, you see the corpses on the battlefields, you see how the war works on people in spirit and morals, you see burning villages and all the rest. It is easier for you at home to stay cheerful.”

— Herbert Weißer, architecture student of the Technische Hochschule Charlottenburg, German soldier before Ypres · letter · source ↗

“A woman passenger beside me called out to Captain Turner in a perfectly clear and calm voice, “Captain, what do you wish us to do?” “Stay right where you are, Madam, she’s all right.” Then the woman asked him, “Where do you get your information?”--and he replied in rather a severe and commanding voice, “From the engine room, Madam.””

— Charles E. Lauriat Jr., passenger of the Lusitania, one of the survivors · memoir · source ↗

“The Przemyśl railway station was a sad sight. The square in front of it and all the waiting rooms were one caravanserai of fleeing Jews who have only a few days left to leave the town. People spend day and night here, with children and all their belongings. The few trains are so overcrowded that only a small part of the evacuated can ever get on.”

— Ilka von Michaelsburg (Ilka von Künigl-Ehrenburg), Austrian writer, wife of an officer of the Przemyśl garrison · diary · source ↗

“Too long, to the sorrow of the Italian peoples torn from Italy by the usurpations of force and the rending of nationalities (Very lively, enthusiastic applause — the Chamber, rising to its feet, shouts: Long live Trento and Trieste! Long live Italy! Long live Belgium!), […] too long have we answered with the word of hope: it is now time to answer with the promise of liberation.”

— Paolo Boselli, deputy, chairman and rapporteur of the Chamber of Deputies' committee on the war powers bill · speech · source ↗

“Oh this cruel mud! […] It clings and sucks at your boots; weighs you down; chills you and, drying in upper garments, makes them chafe. […] An unrelieved level of liquid mud seems to be the end of war.”

— Harold Chapin, lance-corporal, Royal Army Medical Corps, field ambulance · letter · source ↗

“In a day or two the soldiers may leave off twitching and shuddering as they breathe, and may be able to draw a breath fairly, but an hour or two after they have inhaled the deadly German gas is an awful time to see one's men. […] Sleep comes to these tired soldiers like a death. […] even in sleep they twitch and shudder, and their sides heave like those of spent horses.”

— Sarah Macnaughtan, writer, volunteer running a soup kitchen for the wounded at Adinkerke station · diary · source ↗

“The Muscovites, retreating for good on 22 June 1915, took with them all the men aged 15 to 50, and took horses and cows besides. From Dzików, Tarnobrzeg and Miechocin they took about 200 men. Of these only a few managed to slip away on the road and come home; the rest were driven all the way to the Urals.”

— Jan Słomka, former village head (wójt) of Dzików near Tarnobrzeg · memoir · source ↗

“Apparently the Russians really are playing 1812 and are falling back along the whole front. They are burning their own villages by the hundred, the inhabitants are being carted off, etc. It is a dreadful piece of nonsense that does the country billions' worth of damage and is militarily worthless.”

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

“The village burnt down utterly, barbarously, by the retreating Muscovites. The people, with their children and belongings, carried off by them. […] Of the houses only the sooty chimneys and stoves are left. On one of these stoves open to the sky we see as we ride past two pots standing on the hotplate, a fire burning under it; by the stove, on a heap of rubble, an old woman sits crouched, her head propped on her hand: she is cooking her supper.”

— Władysław Orkan, ensign (chorąży) of the 4th Infantry Regiment of the Polish Legions · diary · source ↗

“As I ride into Wólka Krasienińska, where the Legions Command was quartered, I am met at once by unusual bustle. A band is playing; people are crowding in front of the staff quarters; little white-and-red flags on the cottages. A holiday mood. 'What is the celebration?' I ask a staff officer I know. 'What? Don't you know?… Warsaw is taken!'”

— Władysław Orkan, ensign (chorąży) of the 4th Infantry Regiment of the Polish Legions · diary · source ↗

“Then someone came in, a citizen we knew, looked round, and said quietly: 'Warsaw was taken the day before yesterday.' Silence fell again. 'The fifth of August, a Thursday!' someone whispered. And someone else added: 'A hundred years she held out, always Polish. Warsaw will survive everything.' 'And we?' someone put in gloomily.”

— Maria Rodziewiczówna, writer and landowner in Polesie (Kobryń district), reporting a conversation among Poles in the district town · memoir · source ↗

“Long lines of stragglers were leaving the front and making their way to the beaches, each festooned with the water-bottles of his comrades. It was evident that water had not been found at the front, and had to be fetched from the beaches. […] One could not help feeling that the offensive had suddenly come to a standstill, that the “punch” had gone out of the attack.”

— Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, British war correspondent with the army at Gallipoli · diary · source ↗

“My visit to Anzac yesterday had infected me with the hopes of Godley and Birdwood and made me feel that we would recover what we had missed at Suvla, and more, if, working from the pivot of Chunuk Bair, we got hold of the rest of Sari Bair. […] Now—Chunuk Bair has gone!”

— Ian Hamilton, commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, at General Headquarters on Imbros · diary · source ↗

“There is great joy here, of course, all the more since things will probably go quickly with Novogeorgievsk too. The wireless officer, at any rate, has taken leave of his wife in an intercepted message, because he would soon be going into German captivity.”

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

“'Impregnable' Brest had ceased to exist, the country lay open; by evening the glow of fires was already reddening the horizon all around. […] But there was no authority left now, no police; the country was being flooded by ever wilder soldiery. Violent explosions announced the blowing up of the railway bridge and the station; the last link was cut.”

— Maria Rodziewiczówna, writer and landowner in Polesie (Kobryń district) · memoir · source ↗

“You have fought this great fight for your country & throne — alone & with bravery & decision. Never have they seen such firmness in you before & it cannot remain without good fruit. […] It will be a glorious page in yr. reign & Russian history the story of these weeks & days — & God, who is just & near you — will save your country & throne through your firmness.”

— Aleksandra Fiodorowna, Empress of Russia, writing to her husband, Emperor Nicholas II · letter · source ↗

“Warsaw was surrendered long ago. And Libau, and Kovno. The Germans are advancing along the whole front, all the fortresses have been surrendered, Vilna has been abandoned, people are fleeing from Minsk. The question of evacuating Petrograd is open. A crowd of refugees in their thousands is trailing towards the heart of Russia.”

— Zinaida Gippius, writer, keeping a diary in Petrograd · diary · source ↗

“My regiment attacks tomorrow and my company is in the front line. That is to say, my beloved ones, that I am approaching one of the most solemn hours of my life. […] He who searches hearts knows that I abhor blood. I go into the fight without hatred for our enemies, but to do my duty as a good Frenchman, a soldier of Liberty and a good Christian.”

— Louis Bieler, sergeant, 238th Colonial Infantry Regiment · letter · source ↗

“Everybody seems very high spirited out here and grumbling is a thing of the past. I suspect that the weather is reason. Day after day is glorious — though night after night is cold. […] Love to the dear — I wish I were going to see you both again soon.”

— Harold Chapin, lance-corporal, Royal Army Medical Corps, field ambulance · letter · source ↗

“I am very confident and sanguine about the result and expect to march right up to the Aisne, borne on in an irresistible élan. I have been waiting for this moment for more than a year. It will be the greatest moment in my life. I shall take good care to live up to it.”

— Alan Seeger, American volunteer in the Foreign Legion · diary · source ↗

“For four days we have unleashed on the German front a tremendous hurricane of iron. Never, even in the hardest hours, have we known anything like it. […] The men are determined, they want it. The prospect of another winter in the trenches frightens them far more than the assault, I believe.”

— René-Anselme Defarge, lieutenant, 107th Infantry Regiment · letter · source ↗

“But I did not fire at once, so as not to alert the other aircraft too early. Only when I had closed to a hundred metres did I start firing. Then the other one took fright and tried to bolt. But I hung on to him and again and again put well-aimed shots into him from behind.”

— Oswald Boelcke, German airman, Fokker pilot · letter · source ↗

“It is the eve of our crowning hour. I am bleached with chalk and grown hairy. […] To be able to prove oneself no coward to oneself, will be great, if it comes off: but suppose one finds oneself fail in the test? I dread my own censorious self in the coming conflict — I also have great physical dread of pain.”

— Charles Sorley, captain, 7th Battalion, Suffolk Regiment · letter · source ↗

“What a silence! Would it soon be broken by a murderous sound echoing through the valley? Were those men, those peasant soldiers in the plain below, already rushing to be destroyed, shattered into ugly fragments, by other men—other peasant soldiers—who would also be shattered into ugly fragments soon? Yes, soon, very soon, Hell would be let loose—in the name of Heaven.”

— Mabel St Clair Stobart, commandant of the First Serbian-English Field Hospital, in camp near Pirot facing the Bulgarian mountains · memoir · source ↗

“It was a bitter business leaving the place feeling that we had failed and that the little woman was to be led out before a firing squad within a few hours. But it was worse to go back to the Legation to the little group of English women who were waiting in my office to learn the result of our visit. […] There was no way of breaking the news to them gently, for they could read the answer in our faces when we came in.”

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

“The Bulgarian Telegraph Agency has [reports] of Serbian attacks around Tran, Bosilegrad, Kyustendil. Flat inventions. We remain incorrigible orientals. I gave my opinion that I am against such lies and pretexts, which will very soon be refuted, and we will only make fools of ourselves. […] The manifesto has been issued. Its language is more dignified. Only the phrase that the troops are ordered to clear our territory of Serbs is untrue. There are none.”

— Konstantin Żostow, chief of staff of the (Bulgarian) field army · diary · source ↗

“Mother, this letter, which will reach you only if I should fall in this battle, I am writing in a forward trench, where I have been since last night with my soldiers, awaiting the order to cross the river and go to the assault. […] Below this trench flows the Isonzo, which we see through the loopholes in all its enchanting beauty.”

— Giosuè Borsi, volunteer, officer commanding a platoon of the 125th Infantry Regiment, in a trench on the Isonzo facing Descla · letter · source ↗

“But our men were in sulky mood. Was it a wonder? For they were now face to face with the mountains of Montenegro, which would henceforth lie between them and all they loved on earth. […] my voice was drowned in a chorus of “Ja! Ja! Maika! […] It is hard, but we won't grumble.””

— Mabel St Clair Stobart, commandant of the First Serbian-English Field Hospital, at Peć before crossing the mountains · memoir · source ↗

“I intend to defend Kut-al-Amara and not to retire any further. Reinforcements are being sent at once from Basra to relieve us. The honour of our mother country and the Empire demands that we all work heart and soul in the defence of this place. We must dig in deep and dig in quickly, and then the enemy's shells will do little damage.”

— Charles Townshend, commander of the British-Indian 6th (Poona) Division, after the retreat from Ctesiphon · order · source ↗