1916

“What do you say about Montenegro? I don't trust that old King & fear he may be up to mischief as he is most untrustworthy & above all ungrateful. What have the poor Servian troops done wh. had gone there? Italy is disgusting to my mind & so cowardly, she easily might have saved Montenegro.”

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

“To General Vukovitch, commanding the Montenegrin Army:—I order you anew to resist the enemy in the most energetic way possible. In the event of a retreat, follow the direction of the Serbian army towards Durazzo. […] Prince Mirko and all the other Ministers who have remained cannot in any case open negotiations with any one whatever.”

— Mikołaj I, King of Montenegro, in an order sent from Brindisi to the commander of the Montenegrin army · order · source ↗

“Personally I have an instinctive abhorrence to making a man fight when he does not want to. But that is merely a personal matter. I do think that in passing this Bill—it is compulsion, no matter how little—we are diminishing the glory of this country. Our glory throughout this war, to my mind, has been the fact that there was no compulsion, that the country arose almost united, almost as one man practically.”

— Frank Russell, 2. hrabia Russell, member of the House of Lords, opponent of the Military Service Bill · speech · source ↗

“With all my heart I congratulate you that Erzerum has fallen. Splendid fighting it must have been, & how quick it went. Such a comfort — & to the others a good moral crush. May it only remain in our hands now. […] if, when we advance at last, they come from behind through Roumania — who covers the back of our army?”

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

“A little while ago came the news that the attack had been put off for another 24 hours, and soon afterwards the word that it is now fixed for the 20th. That seems to be final, although there is no prospect of the weather improving. We are to go with packs, by the way, leaving behind everything we can do without. I take leave of you, my beloved Parents and Brother, from the depths of an overflowing heart; thanks, heartfelt thanks for all you have done for me.”

— Otto Hainebach, philosophy student from Berlin, German soldier before Verdun · letter · source ↗

“On the morning of the 27th one of our old men went to the Demi-Lune and watched for a military car coming in from Meaux. After hours of waiting, one finally appeared. He ran into the road and hailed it, and as the chauffeur put on his brakes, he called: "Et Verdun?" "Elle tient," was the reply, and the auto rushed on. That was all the news we had in those days.”

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

“The Russians have attacked very strongly at several points and so far have everywhere been thrown back with heavy losses. In front of the XXI Corps alone, 9,270 Russian dead lying before the front have been counted from our positions. We have not yet had to use any of our reserves, and our own losses are strikingly low — so far about 560 men.”

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

“This has taken everyone by surprise. It is possible, that, with the exception of their Staff, it has taken the Volunteers themselves by surprise; but, to-day, our peaceful city is no longer peaceful; guns are sounding, or rolling and crackling from different directions, and, although rarely, the rattle of machine guns can be heard also.”

— James Stephens, Irish writer living in Dublin · diary · source ↗

“We were close to the General Post Office when two or three shots were fired, followed by a volley, and the crowd began rushing down towards the bridge, the people calling out "Go back, go back; the Sinn Feiners are firing." N. said, "You'd better go back, Mother; there's going to be a row; I'll go on to the club and find Dad"; so I turned and fled with the crowd and got back safely to the hotel.”

— Mary Louisa Norway (Mrs. Hamilton Norway), wife of the Secretary for the Post Office in Ireland, staying at a Dublin hotel · letter · source ↗

“Nothing happens and nothing seems likely to happen at Kut—it's a desperate business, Heaven knows how it will end. […] But when people talk of our muddling through it throws me into a passion. Muddle through! why yes so we do—wading through blood and tears that need never have been shed.”

— Gertrude Bell, British woman working at the General Headquarters (G.H.Q.) of the British forces in Basra · letter · source ↗

“Finally, on 29th April, I destroyed my guns and all material, ammunition, etc., including the wireless installation. A Turkish battalion marched into the town and took over the guards. Khalil Pacha came to see me, and I offered him my sabre and pistols. He refused to take them, saying, "They are as much yours as ever they were."”

— Charles Townshend, commander of the British-Indian 6th (Poona) Division, besieged in Kut · memoir · source ↗

“It is half-past three o'clock, and from my window the Republican flag can still be seen flying over Jacob's factory. There is occasional shooting, but the city as a whole is quiet. At a quarter to five o'clock a heavy gun boomed once. Ten minutes later there was heavy machine gun firing and much rifle shooting. In another ten minutes the flag at Jacob's was hauled down.”

— James Stephens, Irish writer living in Dublin · diary · source ↗

“My first and natural impulse was to form on the starboard wing column in order to bring the Fleet into action at the earliest possible moment, but it became increasingly apparent, both from the sound of gunfire and the reports from the Lion and the Barham, that the High Sea Fleet was in such close proximity and on such a bearing as to create obvious disadvantages in such a movement.”

— John Jellicoe, admiral, Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet · memoir · source ↗

“This morning I find myself faced with a situation which has changed in the most remarkable way. One of Sherif Ali Bey's men brought me some letters. […] I immediately sent a detachment to the place occupied by the volunteers yesterday. It was deserted. […] It seems to me certain that the railway will be attacked to-night or to-morrow morning at the latest […]. Please don't leave us without reinforcements!”

— Fahreddin Pasza (Fahri Pasza), general commanding the Ottoman troops at Medina, in a telephone report to Djemal Pasha quoted in Djemal's memoirs · account · source ↗

“I must admit that our artillery attack was everywhere crowned with complete success. In most cases enough gaps were cut, and thoroughly, and the first fortified belt was swept away entirely and, together with its defenders, turned into a heap of rubble and mangled bodies. Here the other side of the coin showed clearly: many shelters were not destroyed, but the parts of the garrison sitting in them had to lay down their arms and surrender…”

— Aleksiej Brusiłow, general, commander of the South-Western Front · memoir · source ↗

“A few weeks after the Polish Club had taken its stand, the Austrian army suffered an enormous catastrophe at Lutsk on 4 June. […] Had it not been for the Germans and the Legionaries (the Second Brigade of the Legions lost up to 30 per cent!), who held back the Russian drive westward, the whole Eastern Front would have been shaken. After the Lutsk catastrophe I raised in the N.K.N. a heated criticism of Biliński's policy towards Austria, which was content entirely with the non-binding words of Minister Burián.”

— Ignacy Daszyński, member of the Austrian Reichsrat in Vienna and of the Supreme National Committee (NKN) · memoir · source ↗

“During lunch he discussed with me his forthcoming trip, and said once or twice that he was looking forward to it as a real holiday. The strain of the last two years, he confessed, had been very great, adding that he had felt that he could not have gone on without this break, which he welcomed very much. He was not, however, very sanguine that he could achieve much in Russia.”

— John Jellicoe, admiral, Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet; reporting his lunch conversation with Kitchener on board the Iron Duke · memoir · source ↗

“And what happened? The English fleet was beaten! The first mighty hammer blow has been struck, the nimbus of English world dominion has vanished. Like an electric spark the news has sped through the world and, wherever German hearts beat, and in the ranks of our brave allies too, it has set off unprecedented rejoicing.”

— Wilhelm II, German Emperor; address to the crews at Wilhelmshaven as given in the official summary ("approximately as follows") · speech · source ↗

“7 June! Day is breaking and we can barely tell: for us it is still night, a night in which all hope has gone out. Help from outside, if it comes, will come too late! I send the last message, the fort's and its defenders' final salute to the fatherland. I go back to my men: "It is over, my friends! You have done your duty, all your duty: thank you!"”

— Sylvain-Eugène Raynal, major, commandant of Fort Vaux · memoir · source ↗

“I congratulate you with all my heart for our successes and the taking of Czernovitzy — thanks be to God Almighty. Only that we don’t rush too wildly foreward — are we laying small railway lines to bring provisions and amunitions nearer to the front? I made Tatiana at once telephone the news to the hospital — the joy was immense.”

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

“The news this week has been of Mecca, deeply interesting, and one up to Egypt and my beloved chiefs there, from whom I am now entirely detached for the moment. I expect the immediate results will not be very great—we must beat the Turkish army before anything very striking can happen—but the revolt of the Holy Places is an immense moral and political asset.”

— Gertrude Bell, British woman working at the General Headquarters (G.H.Q.) of the British forces in Basra · letter · source ↗

“The covering of the Kaaba was set in a blaze. Thousands of Moslems rushed up with shouts of alarm and despair to extinguish the flames. To reach the fire they were compelled to open the door of the building and climb on to the roof. […] Every day three or four people in the building itself were killed, and at last it became difficult for the Moslems to approach the Kaaba at all.”

— Husajn ibn Ali, Sherif and Emir of Mecca, in his proclamation to all Muslims · proclamation · source ↗

“We go up to the attack tomorrow. This will probably be the biggest thing yet. We are to have the honor of marching in the first wave. […] I am glad to be going in first wave. If you are in this thing at all it is best to be in to the limit. And this is the supreme experience.”

— Alan Seeger, American poet, volunteer in the French Foreign Legion · letter · source ↗

“Looking west from the ridge by Fl., down between Fort T. and Fort S., one sees a valley whose mouth, turning to the right, gives a view of Verdun, or rather its suburbs. Oh Verdun, what rapture! We shake hands with shining eyes.”

— Hans Förster, mathematics student from Munich, German soldier before Verdun · letter · source ↗

“So the day wore on and night came. Without—a night of glorious July summer, with palest saffron, flamingo and purple lights, and one gem-like star, a night of ineffable beauty and peace, and within—a vision of Hell, cruel flesh-agony, hideous writhings, broken moanings, a boy-child sitting up in bed gibbering and pulling off his head bandages, a young Colonial coughing up his last life-blood.”

— Olive Dent, VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) nurse in a British tented hospital in France · memoir · source ↗

“With us everything is in perfect order. The Russians are attacking at a few points and wasting ammunition like madmen. The result with us very slight, with them insane losses. […] Yesterday, for example, 4,600 shells fell on one divisional sector; result: 1 man wounded. The problem child of the last few days, Army Detachment Woyrsch to the south of us, also seems to be over the worst, thanks to the reinforcements we sent there.”

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

“We have just come through the hardest of all our battles so far. Artillery fire raging on our trenches with a power we had never known before, massed enemy attacks, bayoneting our way through the enemy infantry, massed charges of Russian cavalry as well, and finally a retreat in extraordinarily hard conditions: that is what we went through in a few days.”

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

“In the summer of 1916, after the fierce, glory-crowned battles at Kostiuchnówka, the Legions were exhausted and disheartened, and we politicians were in despair and complete uncertainty because of the double-dealing of Austrian diplomacy. Mr Biliński sat on holiday, close by the imperial summer residence at Ischl.”

— Ignacy Daszyński, member of the Austrian Reichsrat in Vienna and of the Supreme National Committee (NKN) · memoir · source ↗

“The last impression is the morning of the 17th. […] We got to our position, in a sort of little hollow, and the ordered confusion of getting into action was at its height when with a shriek and a crash a shell burst some 20 yards behind us. […] I remember looking down the battery. The driver standing beside me was lying killed. […] There is no hope of taking cover in a case like that, you just have to stand by your horses.”

— Christian Creswell Carver, lieutenant, Royal Field Artillery · letter · source ↗

“Dear Mother, The time is near at hand for a great offensive and, should I fall, I will be proud to know I did so in the cause of Righteousness and Justice […]. Owen! give every assistance to Mother as a last request. […] Dad! I have kept your wishes; neither smoked nor taken liquor.”

— Henry E. Williams, private, Australian 15th Brigade · letter · source ↗

“You know what a wood looks like when the trees are in bloom - well, that is what it was like when we first drove them out. Since then they have continually bombarded it with hundreds and hundreds of guns, until now it is just like one or two poles stuck in the ground. Yesterday they gave us ten solid hours bombardment with guns of all sizes and kinds […]. How I'm alive, mother, I can't say.”

— Frederick Charles Lee, lance corporal, 3rd South African Infantry Regiment · letter · source ↗

“We reckoned when we came here the night before last we were going straight into it - we were all schooled right up to the point physically and mentally - now we are held here; it is disappointing. I feel as one who, having stripped himself of his clothes, has posed his body ready to leap into the swift icy current - and is then held back.”

— Robert Goldthorpe Raws, lieutenant, Australian 23rd Battalion · letter · source ↗

“Sturmer spoke with me about the Polish question — one must inded be very prudent — you know, I like Zamoisky, but know he is an intriguer, so one must well weigh over this serious question.”

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

“In the bandas which we built under the trees of the wood our own single ambulance had sometimes as many as three hundred sick men lying. […] In the end it amounted to this: that the enemy lay on three sides of us; that we were sick and tired; and that we could not move.”

— Francis Brett Young, doctor with a British field ambulance in Smuts's army · memoir · source ↗

“One feels on a battlefield such as this that one can never survive, or that if the body lives the brain must go forever. […] We are lousy, stinking, ragged, unshaven, sleepless. Even when we're back a bit we can't sleep for our own guns. I have one puttee, a dead man's helmet, another dead man's gas protector, a dead man's bayonet.”

— John Alexander Raws, second lieutenant, Australian 23rd Battalion · letter · source ↗

“When I led you out of the walls of Kraków, which had no faith in your strength, when I entered the towns and townships of the Kingdom with you, I always saw before me a ghastly spectre rising from the graves of our fathers and grandfathers: the spectre of a soldier without a fatherland.”

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

“A door opens a crack, and a boy of seven or eight, pale but calm, leans out, looks, hesitates a little, then asks: Are these Austrian shells? — Yes, my boy, they are Austrian shells. — With a gesture of resignation he sits down on the doorstep, among the fragments of roof tiles thrown down by the shelling.”

— Luigi Barzini, Italian war correspondent · account · source ↗

“One of the reasons we could not take Kovel, besides the strong reinforcements the Germans brought up, was that they had an enormous number of aircraft, which flew in squadrons of twenty machines or more and made it quite impossible for our aircraft either to reconnoitre or to correct the fire of the heavy artillery, while raising tethered observation balloons was not even to be thought of.”

— Aleksiej Brusiłow, general, commander of the South-Western Front · memoir · source ↗

“What a beautiful morning, how silent and peaceful it is, yet I know that it is going to be war! War! For two years it has been kept off, for two long years and now it is to be—war! […] And we are a small country with enemies on both sides, yet it is to be war!”

— Maria Rumuńska, Queen of Romania, in her diary · diary · source ↗

“Today it is given to us to complete their work, binding together for ever what Michael the Brave achieved only for a moment: the union of the Romanians on both sides of the Carpathians. It depends on us today to free from foreign rule our brothers beyond the mountains and from the uplands of Bukovina, where Stephen the Great sleeps his eternal sleep.”

— Ferdynand I, King of Romania, in his proclamation to the nation · proclamation · source ↗

“The situation on the Western Front was not without its anxieties. Verdun had not fallen into our hands, and the hope of grinding down French military strength in the mighty arc of fire that had formed round the northern and north-eastern front of the fortress had not been realised. Success for our attack there had grown ever more hopeless, but the undertaking had not yet been given up. On the Somme the struggle had now been raging for almost two months. There we went from one crisis to the next.”

— Paul von Hindenburg, field marshal, newly appointed Chief of the General Staff of the Field Army · memoir · source ↗

“What I have seen and lived through here since then far surpasses all the horrors of the previous, second year of the war. […] Recently a whole gun crew, a corporal and three men, fell to a direct hit during the barrage fire. Since no one would fire the gun covered with the dead any more, I did it myself together with our ensign.”

— Walter Schmidt, natural sciences student from Tübingen, German artilleryman · letter · source ↗

“Suddenly the firing ceased, and there was a lot of clapping, hurrahs, and shouts; we knew something good must have happened: and it was a Zeppelin had been brought down! Bourne and Hollingsworth's girls had all gathered on the roof of their huge “living-in” house just opposite our flat, and actually saw it come down, and the clappings and hurrahs were from them. There was an awful flare that lit up all the sky—then it descended as a flaming mass.”

— Hallie Eustace Miles, writer, wife of Eustace Miles, running a restaurant with him in London; she lived in a block of flats opposite the Bourne & Hollingsworth staff house · diary · source ↗

“I am calm and happy but desperately anxious to live. . . . The big guns are coughing and smacking their shells, which sound for all the world like overhead express trains, at anything from 10 to 100 per minute on this sector; the men are grubbing and an odd one is writing home. Somewhere the Choosers of the Slain are touching, as in our Norse story they used to touch, with invisible wands those who are to die.”

— Thomas Kettle, lieutenant, 9th Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers, former MP and professor, in his last letter to his brother · letter · source ↗

“They are not an enemy one can afford to despise, for they are courageous, ambitious, false, they are led by Germans, have German artillery and are also fighting for their existence. […] We were quite ready to leave the Bulgarians alone and even ready to give them back a bit of the ground we had taken from them in 1913.”

— Maria Rumuńska, Queen of Romania, in a letter to King George V · letter · source ↗

“This time the infantry were to be assisted by Tanks, faint rumours of which had already reached us, only to be dismissed with incredulity. However, at Fricourt we were convinced by the evidence of our senses. In a flat near Braye were Tanks by the dozen huddled together like monstrous, horrible tortoises; they were still more uncanny when they moved, with a slow, ungainly gait suggestive of Nemesis.”

— Claude Horace Weston, commander of the Taranaki Company of the Wellington Regiment, New Zealand Division · memoir · source ↗

“Thus we went on, and they took up their position between two of these huge steel tanks on the near side of the ridge. […] it was an unpleasant journey of about half a mile over nothing but shell-holes full of dead and dying […]. Darling Moth', I am so thankful to be alive; I suppose you have heard who are dead? Guy Baring, Raymond Asquith, Sloper Mackenzie, and many others. It is a terrible list.”

— Edward Wyndham Tennant, lieutenant, Grenadier Guards, in a letter to his mother · letter · source ↗

“On the 26th of September I spent the night in a dressing station in the sunken road near Courcelette. […] It had three openings to the road. One of them had had a direct hit that night, and mid the debris which blocked it were the fragments of a human body. The Germans gave the place no rest, and all along the road shells were falling, and bits would clatter upon the corrugated iron which roofed the shelter by the wayside.”

— Frederick George Scott, canon, senior chaplain of the 1st Canadian Division · memoir · source ↗

“As dawn broke I looked around me: a picture of misery! No trace of trenches, only shell craters as far as the eye can reach, filled in by shells, churned up again, filled in again. […] That is the battle of the Somme, the bloody struggle for Germany's victory — these eight days are the utmost that a man can bear; it was hell.”

— Karl Gorzel, law student from Breslau, German soldier in the Thiepval position · letter · source ↗

“We shall probably be fighting before you get this, but one has a far better chance of getting through now than in July. I shall be very glad if we do have a scrap, as we have been resting quite long enough. Of course one always has to face possibilities on such occasions; but we have faced them in advance, haven't we? I believe with all my soul that whatever will be will be the best.”

— Donald Hankey, officer, 1st Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment, author of A Student in Arms, in his last letter · letter · source ↗

“News came through on this day of heavy rain and wind of our losses in the attack. Very heavy. B....., L....., and Bl....., all killed; B....., a good blighty; G....., dangerously wounded. I never felt more utterly sick and miserable than to-day. […] They were very glorious when they came, but arrived at the sand-pits near M..... a very tired crowd.”

— Arthur Graeme West, junior British infantry officer on the Somme · diary · source ↗

“Lord Grey said to me: 'I do not know whether that be true or not, but, if it is true, let me put this question to you: Suppose a British cruiser had gone into Newport and got similar information and had gone out and stopped neutral ships and searched them for contraband in these same waters, would we not have received a protest immediately?'”

— Walter H. Page, United States Ambassador in London, in a telegram to Secretary of State Lansing (reporting the words of Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey) · letter · source ↗

“A dozen or so minutes later I walked past that restaurant on my way to Biliński, who was waiting for me in the rooms of the Polish Club. […] “My dear colleague, that bullet was long his due. Whoever stokes the fire under a boiler and shuts the boiler's valve must live to see an explosion... And the ‘old man’ (the Emperor) is not without blame either, for every Sunday they talked over at Schönbrunn what they were to do the whole of the coming week...””

— Ignacy Daszyński, member of the Austrian Reichsrat in Vienna, vice-president of the Polish Club; quoting the Club's president, Leon Biliński · memoir · source ↗

“He led me to an inner court, on whose further side, framed between the uprights of a black doorway, stood a white figure waiting tensely for me. I felt at first glance that this was the man I had come to Arabia to seek—the leader who would bring the Arab Revolt to full glory.”

— Thomas Edward Lawrence, British intelligence officer from Cairo, at his first meeting with Emir Feisal in Wadi Safra · memoir · source ↗

“At the end of October the Frenchman broke out on the east bank of the Meuse in a large-scale, boldly executed counter-thrust and overran our lines. We lost Douaumont and no longer had the strength to retake this point of honour of German heroism. […] On the whole the enemy this time beat us with our own former method of attack.”

— Paul von Hindenburg, Chief of the General Staff of the Field Army · memoir · source ↗

“On 24 October excellent news reaches us from Verdun. An attack mounted by General Nivelle with three divisions on the Douaumont side has fully succeeded. We no longer merely repel the attackers. It is the enemy who is besieged. It is a splendid success. But the next day, the 25th, the Germans take their revenge on Reims, which they bombard violently.”

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

“Four weeks to-morrow since we reached Medgidia, and began our hospital. We evacuated it in three weeks, and here we are all back on the frontier. […] You cannot imagine what war is just behind the lines, and in a retreat!—our second retreat, and almost to the same day.”

— Elsie Inglis, doctor, head of the Scottish Women's Hospitals unit with the Serbian division in the Dobruja, in a letter to her sister from Reni · letter · source ↗

“The immense pall of smoke of the great bombardments, thick and grey, has spread once more over the Carso Plateau. […] Today, under a dazzling clear sky, the execution has begun again, full, terrifying, infernal. More than in the past the houses of Trieste must shudder at the blasts.”

— Luigi Barzini, Italian war correspondent · account · source ↗

“For the first time in this world war, today, in our cities, from the mouths of the representatives of great nations in arms, the words forgotten outside Poland are spoken in public: Independence of Poland, Polish Government, Polish Army. […] In my opinion your resignations should now be withdrawn, and from this moment the iron laws of military service should be upheld by you in their full extent.”

— Józef Piłsudski, former commander of the First Brigade of the Polish Legions, after his resignation from the Legions, in a letter to Colonel Edward Rydz-Śmigły · letter · source ↗

“In this war Poland has had the misfortune that her soldier came into the world before her government did. […] I gave drastic examples of this, saying that if in wartime my government ordered me to clean boots, I would do it, with all my lack of skill; if it ordered me to join the army of the Sinhalese or the Botocudos, I would do that too without hesitation.”

— Józef Piłsudski, brigadier, former commander of the First Brigade of the Polish Legions, in a letter to Józef Brudziński, rector of Warsaw University · letter · source ↗

“Then came the deluge. By seven o'clock it was certain New York had gone heavily against us. Later Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana seemed lost. […] The campaign managers had prepared an elaborate banquet at the Biltmore Hotel […] and they tell me there was never such a morgue-like entertainment in the annals of time.”

— Edward House, President Wilson's personal adviser, at campaign headquarters in New York · diary · source ↗

“I tried once again, and after he had dug a little while he came upon something white. It was my son's left hand, with his signet ring upon it. […] There lay Regina Trench, and far beyond it, standing out against the morning light, I saw the villages of Pys and Miraumont which were our objective. It was a strange scene of desolation, for the November rains had made the battle fields a dreary, sodden waste.”

— Frederick George Scott, canon, senior chaplain of the 1st Canadian Division, searching for his son's grave · memoir · source ↗

“In the battle area on the Somme it only grew quieter when the onset of the wet season began to make the fighting ground bottomless. The millions of shell craters filled with water or became graveyards. There was no talk of the joy of victory on either of the two warring sides. Over all lay the terrible weight of this battlefield, which in its desolation and its horror seemed to surpass even that before Verdun.”

— Paul von Hindenburg, Chief of the General Staff of the Field Army · memoir · source ↗

““Crisis!” replied Ortner. “It's the end. Hardly an hour now!” At five minutes past nine the Emperor Francis Joseph was dead. […] Awed by the majesty of death, I let fall the sheet which covered the Emperor's face, and went out through the cabinet in which the new Emperor Charles was talking to several Archdukes and Archduchesses. He was now wearing the uniform of an admiral of the fleet. Only two hours before I had seen him in that of a full general.”

— Albert von Margutti, officer attached to the Aides-de-Camp's Department of Emperor Francis Joseph (1900–1917) · memoir · source ↗

“Into town with O., out of curiosity. A few black flags; on the Graben they are selling his pictures; a few fashion-shop windows are black or dark. The mood barely touched; certainly not shaken, as it would have been in peacetime, despite his great age. Nothing that happens today 'works' any more. No victory, no defeat, no death of an emperor.”

— Arthur Schnitzler, writer, Vienna · diary · source ↗

“So it has come to this—I am to run away! […] The next agony was the parting from Cotroceni, the house which had been mine for twenty-three years, the house I had improved and decorated, been proud of and loved. And yet all had to be done unemotionally as we were not supposed to say that we were there for the last time.”

— Maria Rumuńska, Queen of Romania, in her diary, written in the train · diary · source ↗

“In fighting this fight we wish to wipe out the stain which has been placed upon the Greek Nation by the disregard of our treaty obligations to Serbia; we wish to play our part in the freeing of our territories invaded by the Bulgarians; we wish to emphasize […] our absolute conviction that Greece can never progress, nor even exist, as a free and independent State, except by continued maintenance of the closest contact with those powers who […] rule the Mediterranean.”

— Elefterios Wenizelos, member of the triumvirate of the Provisional Government in Salonika, in an address after the declaration of war · proclamation · source ↗

“The day after tomorrow I have invited the commander of the Polish Legion and his staff to dinner. Since yesterday the Legion has been brought back from Baranovichi to Warsaw and its surroundings. The new Polish army is then to be formed from it. […] In the Polish question [the Prince] achieved nothing. For the sake of prestige the Austrians will not give up the administration of the Government-General of Lublin. I therefore take a gloomy view of the Legion question.”

— Max Hoffmann, chief of staff to the Commander-in-Chief East (Ober Ost) · diary · source ↗

“So far: Stürmer has gone, Trepov appointed (another fine specimen!). The Bloc people, as usual, are at a loss (no sittings until the 19th). Protopopov is supposedly going too (I don't believe it). We have no Foreign Minister (and now of all times!). We have landed the Romanians in a mess: the Germans have already crossed the Danube.”

— Zinaida Gippius, poet and writer, in her Petrograd diary · diary · source ↗

“The Legions, or rather only their third regiment under Colonel Galica, were to enter Warsaw in the first days of December. […] The march of the 3rd Regiment moved Warsaw, but one could see that the public was divided and would not let itself be carried away by a phenomenon it did not understand..! This was not how, in our thoughts, the entry of the Polish soldier into the liberated capital of his nation had looked!”

— Ignacy Daszyński, member of the Austrian Reichsrat in Vienna, vice-president of the Polish Club · memoir · source ↗

“I stopped one and questioned him. He shrugged his shoulders. "This is an idiotic business," he said. "Why should we be fighting the Greeks?" […] From the height one could see people going through the streets of Athens as if nothing were occurring: women carrying market-baskets; boys standing on the corners looking up at the fighting, open-mouthed.”

— Paxton Hibben, American Associated Press correspondent in Athens, sympathetic to King Constantine · memoir · source ↗

“This afternoon, driving along the Moika past the Court stables, I catch sight of him on foot, struggling against the wind and the snow, his back bent, his eyes fixed on the ground, his face grim and ravaged. He does not see me; he sees nothing. Stepping off the pavement to cross the embankment, he almost falls!”

— Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia · diary · source ↗

“Madame P... says to me this evening: 'The government's declaration is absurd. Nobody thinks about Constantinople any more. It was a beautiful folly, but a folly. And when one is cured of a folly, one does not begin it again; one takes up another... […] When it is over, it is over.'”

— Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia (recording the words of a Madame P.) · diary · source ↗

“This morning the news came of the resignation of Asquith. It will probably be a new Cabinet with Carson, Bonar Law and Lloyd George. All very active men who want to go ahead. We can only welcome their intention as the War will be sooner over. The amount of stuff of all sorts, especially food-stuffs, we have found intact in Rumania, is tremendous, and will help in a great way.”

— Hans Heinrich XV von Pless, Prince of Pless, in a letter to his wife Daisy, written at Pless · letter · source ↗

“L. G. arrived an hour late. He looked tired and worn. […] As he left I wished him good luck. He replied, "I shall do my best. The belief of these fellows that I shall fail will be an additional incentive!" He would eat no dinner beyond a plate of soup.”

— George Riddell, Lloyd George's friend, recording his words at dinner on the day the King asked him to form a government · diary · source ↗

“The mayor signed the capitulation with tears in his eyes and handed it to the Germans. […] The German troops who were then arriving appeared to range from sixteen to sixty years in age; their uniforms were ragged and dirty, and they looked weary and haggard. But as they marched, they sang "Deutschland ueber Alles" and "Heimat."”

— Charles J. Vopicka, United States Minister to Romania, who stayed in Bucharest · memoir · source ↗

“I found him lying in bed wide-awake, and his room was dark. I went to the window and read out loud the first German Peace Proposal. When I had finished, he sat up and said: "How I wish I could believe that someone would have the wits to keep this door ajar."”

— Margot Asquith, wife of the outgoing Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, at Walmer Castle · memoir · source ↗

“Soldiers! In the feeling of the victory which you have won by your bravery, I and the rulers of the faithfully allied states have made the enemy an offer of peace. Whether the aim connected with it will be achieved remains open. You are, with God's help, to go on standing firm against the enemy and beating him.”

— Wilhelm II, German Emperor, in an order to the army and navy · order · source ↗

“Once more I was part of the long, slow, sleepy, rhythmic wave of men which oozed out over the land like a dark flood that has found a breach in an embankment. We ran against no outposts in the dark, but I remembered Dujaila and wondered what the morning would bring forth.”

— Edmund Candler, British war correspondent with the army in Mesopotamia, marching with the 40th Brigade · memoir · source ↗

“Any man or set of men who wantonly, or without sufficient cause, prolonged a terrible conflict like this would have on his soul a crime that oceans could not cleanse. Upon the other hand it is equally true that any man or set of men who out of a sense of weariness or despair abandoned the struggle without achieving the high purpose for which we had entered into it […] would have been guilty of the costliest act of poltroonery ever perpetrated by any statesman.”

— David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, in the House of Commons · speech · source ↗

“I deprecate one sentence, which will give further impetus to the belief that he does not yet understand what the Allies are fighting for. That one sentence will enrage them. I talked to him for ten minutes when I was there and got him to eliminate from the original draft a much more pronounced offence of the same character, but he has put it back in a modified form. […] It is all so unnecessary.”

— Edward House, President Wilson's personal adviser, after receiving the draft of the note from him · diary · source ↗

“Why, then, this solemn invocation of a project whose vanity he knows better than anyone? […] Or else, feeling himself lost, “forsaken by God”, did he wish to sum up, in a supreme act, in a kind of political testament, the reasons of national greatness and dignity which justify him for having imposed on the Russian people the ordeal of this war? I lean strongly towards this last hypothesis.”

— Maurice Paléologue, French ambassador in Petrograd · diary · source ↗

“Rasputin is no more. He has been killed. Fate willed that I, and no one else, should rid the Tsar and Russia of him, that he should fall by my hand. Thank God, I say, thank God that the hand of Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich is not stained with this filthy blood: he was only a spectator, nothing more.”

— Władimir Puriszkiewicz, member of the State Duma, one of Rasputin's killers · diary · source ↗